May 18, 2013
I get some version of this fairly inane comment pretty regularly, so in an effort to forestall this kind of comment in the future, two points in response:
1. This is my blog. I use it to explore ideas and attitudes from my point of view. If you want to explore the fantasy that anywhere near as many people are helped/saved by ready access to guns as are hurt by such access, feel free to explore it on your own blog. If — and it’s a mighty big “IF” — your evidence holds up over time, we’ll perhaps engage in a debate. But it’s not my job to support your point of view to you.
2. The answer to your question has been demonstrated time and time again: damn few. Very, very few. Extremely few. To argue that their remarkably few number of stories outweighs the carnage across society wrought by guns is quite absurd.
I realize these comments won’t stop such silly questions coming across my blog, but I had to try.

I get some version of this fairly inane comment pretty regularly, so in an effort to forestall this kind of comment in the future, two points in response:

1. This is my blog. I use it to explore ideas and attitudes from my point of view. If you want to explore the fantasy that anywhere near as many people are helped/saved by ready access to guns as are hurt by such access, feel free to explore it on your own blog. If — and it’s a mighty big “IF” — your evidence holds up over time, we’ll perhaps engage in a debate. But it’s not my job to support your point of view to you.

2. The answer to your question has been demonstrated time and time again: damn few. Very, very few. Extremely few. To argue that their remarkably few number of stories outweighs the carnage across society wrought by guns is quite absurd.

I realize these comments won’t stop such silly questions coming across my blog, but I had to try.

May 18, 2013
You can only imagine how ashamed I am to have become a “nuisance” for you given the more than 4000 Americans killed with guns since the Newtown Massacre last December, and the tens of thousands more wounded or terrorized by people wielding guns. 
Really: I’m heartbroken.

You can only imagine how ashamed I am to have become a “nuisance” for you given the more than 4000 Americans killed with guns since the Newtown Massacre last December, and the tens of thousands more wounded or terrorized by people wielding guns. 

Really: I’m heartbroken.

May 18, 2013
And yet another day in Gunmerica: May 17, 2013

From Joe Nocera, New York Times

Bonnita Todd, 64, who neighbors and friends called “Granny,” was shot to death while she slept as more than a dozen bullets ripped through her apartment in Richmond, Calif., Wednesday night. Investigators said the shooting was not random, that the home was targeted, but Todd was not who the shooter was after. “Granny was our joy,” neighbor Cymande Russell said. “Granny was like the mother of this building.”

KGO-TV

A woman was killed by a bullet from her recently purchased assault-style rifle in Federal Heights, Colo., Tuesday night. 22-year-old Anastasia Adair and her husband, Dana “Shane” Adair, 40, were drinking beer in their garage with three other people when Anastasia went inside the house to get her rifle to show it off. She was coming downstairs and was handing the rifle to her husband when she stumbled. The rifle discharged and she was hit in the head. Her husband was close enough that he caught her as she fell.

Denver Post

Two police officers were shot and injured Thursday afternoon in Visalia, Calif., while chasing a suspect. One officer was in serious condition after being shot in the upper torso; the other officer was hit in the shoulder. The shooting occurred after the officers chased a man who might have been breaking into cars through several homes. Inside one home, the suspect turned and fired at the officers, who returned fire, hitting him. He is also hospitalized.

The Sacramento Bee

Four people were wounded when gunfire erupted Wednesday night in the Elmwood section of Southwest Philadelphia, Pa., including a 26-year-old woman a block from the shooting who suffered a graze wound to her head. At about 9:20 p.m., one or more gunmen fired at least 28 shots in the area of Daggett Street and Dicks Avenue, hitting a 41-year-old man, who is in stable condition after being shot in the left shoulder; a man in his 20s, who is in critical condition with bullet wounds in his groin and right leg; and a 21-year-old man, who is stable after being shot in the back. Five men fled the scene.

Philly.com

Former NASCAR driver Dick Trickle, 71, is dead after apparently having taken his own life with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Cops in North Carolina say Trickle shot himself at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Lincoln County at noon on Thursday. Officials say they received a phone call before the shooting in which the caller said there would be a dead body at the cemetery and it would be his. Trickle’s body was found near his pickup truck.

TMZ

Police say 28-year-old Jennifer Rose Silva was shot and killed by her former domestic partner in Yuma, Ariz., Tuesday morning. Despite being identified as the shooter by police, Dorothy Martin, 34, was released pending further investigation.

YumaSun.com

A midday shooting in West Savannah, Ga., on Thursday injured three people. A gunman opened fire at a residential intersection at about 12:45 p.m., injuring a man and two women. The victims were speaking and breathing before they were transported to the hospital. Police have not identified any suspects.

SavannahNow.com

A woman was shot and killed in Shively, Ky., Thursday night. Police were called to a home on a report of a domestic dispute and found the woman dead. The shooter left the home in a vehicle.

WAVE 3 News

Dashamone McCarty, 19, was shot and killed in Maywood, Ill., one week after returning home for the summer from Dakota College, where he played basketball and football. The 19-year-old was shot while driving with friends on Wednesday night. He died Thursday. Police say they’re not sure if the victim or his friends were the intended target. McCarty had been a three-sport stand-out athlete while at Proviso East High School.

WLS-TV.com

Two teenage boys, ages 13 and 15, were injured in a gang-related shooting in Vallejo, Calif., on Wednesday night. Two other boys, ages 12 and 13, were shot at but were not hit. The suspects, a 13- and a 16-year-old boy, were found walking on the railroad tracks around the corner from where the shooting happened. Police believe the shooting is gang-related.

KTVU.com

A shooting left two dead and shut down all lanes on northbound Interstate 880 in Oakland, Calif., Thursday night. The incident occurred just as thousands were leaving the Oracle Arena after the Golden State Warriors’ loss to the San Antonio Spurs. It is unclear if the shooting happened on the freeway.

MercuryNews.com

A member of the Warlocks motorcycle club shot his girlfriend in the head Tuesday night in Upper Darby, Pa., after snorting meth and smoking marijuana. Neighbors heard 31-year-old Michael DeLuca say to his 19-year-old girlfriend after the shooting, “Get up. You know I love you.” The victim remains hospitalized in critical condition with a gunshot wound from a bullet that entered behind her left ear and exited through her left eyebrow. Police believe the shooting was not an accident.

Philly.com

A man and a woman were shot multiple times in Jersey City, N.J., Wednesday afternoon. The woman, 42, was shot once in each foot, and the man, 37, was shot once in the chest. The woman told police she was standing in the neighborhood when someone yelled “Run.” Police do not believe the shooting victims were the intended targets.

NJ.com

Two teenagers riding in a jitney were wounded Thursday afternoon when gunfire erupted in Pittsburgh’s Marshall-Shadeland neighborhood. Five teens, classmates at Perry Traditional Academy, were sitting in a cab when two men began firing at them from different directions. They ran into the nearby woods.

CBS Philadelphia

A person found shot in Stockton, Calif., just after midnight Thursday has died. Officers responded to the location following a report of a person shot, and upon arrival the victim was found with at least one gunshot wound. Police are soliciting tips.

News 10 ABC

A man remains in critical condition after an early morning shooting outside a mini-mart near Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Thursday. Images from surveillance cameras show two men in front of Champion Food Store pull a gun on two men playing craps at about 1 a.m. One man was hit as they ran away.

CBS Miami

A man found suffering from gunshot wounds in a yard in Fort Wayne, Ind., Thursday afternoon died of his injuries. Two suspects were seen running from the scene, but a police spokesman said they have little to go on, adding that it’s too early to tell if this shooting is connected to an overnight shooting where a home was hit with at least 30 bullets.

wane.com

20-year-old Buford Demarcus Johnson died of a single gunshot wound to the chest in the Cedar Grove area of Shreveport, La., Thursday afternoon. Johnson was shot at around 5:30 p.m. and pronounced dead at the hospital. Shreveport Police are searching for a man in a white pickup truck seen leaving the scene. It was the second shooting in Shreveport Thursday afternoon. The first happened shortly after 3 p.m. in the parking lot of the Break-N-Run bar, where a woman was shot by a man she was sitting in a pickup truck with. She was hospitalized.

KSLA 12

Cyrus Jones, 33, was shot and killed in Spokane, Wash., early Thursday by a man who fled the scene and was eventually killed by police. It appears the two men knew each other.

The Spokesman-Review

May 18, 2013
I go away for five days and Tumblr is on the verge of being acquired by Yahoo??

My apologies, everyone. I had no idea.

May 17, 2013
Sometimes I get depressed …

And then I remember that the trillion dollars and the lives we’ve spent in Afghanistan will likely be used to secure that country on behalf of whatever Chinese companies are able to develop whatever natural resources Afghanistan might have. Which doesn’t so much alleviate my depression as explain it.

May 16, 2013
Stop trolling liberal fuck, you obviously like every other Obama zombie can’t do mathematics!!!!

I don’t think trolling means what you think it means.

May 16, 2013
This seems to about sum it up.
ht: Bartcop

This seems to about sum it up.

ht: Bartcop

May 15, 2013
First world problems …

After 72 holes of golf over two days the outside of my right upper thigh is sore from pressing against the side handle of a golf cart.

It’s a hard life after all ;-)

May 14, 2013
In which Politicalprof has a (second) hole in one …

So, yeah: I had a pretty good day.

May 13, 2013
Checking out for a little while …

You may hear off and on from me for the next week, but I’ll be out of town whacking little white balls and generally proving that I have poor athletic abilities while spending money doing it … after all, they had to call it “golf” because all the other four-letter words were taken.

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