Just another day in a land where everyone has a gun and nobody has a chance...

God bless America...

At some level you have to ask yourself, what the hell is wrong with those people?

The second amendment is a beautiful thing. At the same time, there's something to be said for having some checks in the system that would prevent the mentally ill from buying assault weapons. Whatever excuses will be proffered up over the next few days, there's no getting around the fact that one would have to be profoundly disturbed to take a gun into Walmart and shoot people down.

No doubt we'll soon hear the argument that if only more folks in Dayton or in that El Paso Walmart had been carrying, the shooters would have been stopped sooner. Is that the answer?


Probably not. Mass shootings are a symptom of a deeply dysfunctional society. The symptoms won't go away until the underlying root causes are addressed, and as far as I can see, that's not even on the agenda.

Recipe for survival in a USA awash with weapons; when you're being shot at, just run really fast!

Yup, that's the thought du jour from David Ferguson blogging at The Guardian. And he should know; he's been shot at!

It's quite the compelling yarn, is it not? There he is at age 18, helping a young hottie up sticks to get away from her abusive boyfriend, no doubt angling for a shag in the big-picture scheme of things. At 18 I certainly would have been.

So they're stuffing all her worldly belongings in a battered old Subaru sedan... all good. I'm totally with the narrative so far.

Then the drunken and angry meth or cocaine addled boyfriend shows up... hey pal; that's happened to me too!

Could I tell you a few stories! (And as a matter of fact, I have had to run for my life on a couple of occasions, and I'm still here, so your advice is not completely without merit.)

But I gotta say you lost me when that baffed out old Subaru sedan left a trail of burned rubber on the road.


No way did that ever happen. I've owned and driven old Subarus for many years. They have many virtues (none of which would be apparent in a Georgia winter) but they're so under-powered they could hardly get out of their own way.

Ya, the WRX era opened a new chapter, but those were not battered and old when you were 18.

Impossible!

Multi-culti crowd exchanges fisticuffs in multi-culti capital of Canada - over parking space

I've only been to Costco once or twice in my life, and as a "guest," not as a member. Like what the hell is that, some sort of cult of consumerism?

Anyway, you'd think all those cult members would share some basic values, beyond knowing how to fill a shopping cart with crap they don't need, at the best price. But apparently those shared values don't extend to passing up the very last parking slot in a thousand acre parking lot.

At some level I think this is also a good case in support of gun control. If any of those folks had been packing when the red descended on them, somebody'd be dead!

Then again, knowing the other guy probably has a Glock in the glovebox might incline one to shut-up and just look for another parking space.

Mass stabbings ignite knife-control debate

Everybody got something in a kitchen drawer that, when used incorrectly, can sever an artery, or even a head.

Thus far, knife owners have escaped the general opprobrium directed at gun owners.

That's about to change.

In recent weeks mentally unstable folks who were most likely heavily prescribed very legal psychotropic drugs have succeeded in killing dozens in places as far afield as Kunming China, Murrysville Pennsylvania, Regina Saskatchewan, and Calgary Alberta.

With a knife!

Oh-oh!

It's just a matter of time before the do-gooders notice that any mentally unstable idiot can walk into Walmart and walk out with a sharp pointy object that can kill innocent people.

Look for a politician near you starting a debate about a knife registry. Maybe screening for potential knife purchasers. A criminal background check?...

Might as well get used to cutting that T-bone with a butter knife... or not. A butter knife could be modified into a rapid-fire steak knife by anyone with a file or a bench grinder...

Mark my words; in a year or two we'll all be forced to pick up that T-bone and eat it with our hands!

Unless the National Knife Association comes out and impresses upon the public imagination that it's not knives that kill people; it's people that kill people.

How do you know you can trust your armed guard?

You'll need a gun to protect yourself from your armed guard.

That's the verdict of the Farm Manager.

But she may have a point.

Once you're on the ladder of paranoia, where do you stop?

As much as I like guns and loathe gun control I have to admit that, as a guy with more than one ex-wife, I am grateful that guns are not too easy to access in Canada.

That's why I live here!

Hell, that's why I'm living anywhere!

And I truly believe that there must be a way of keeping mentally unstable folks away from guns that even Ted Nugent can agree with.

Kenny's sniper rifles

Back when I worked at the Harjim Machinery Works out in Victoria, one of my mates was a guy named Kenny.

Kenny was a machinist. An absolutely top-drawer machinist. Kenny's hobby was making guns.

Most of the guys at Harjim were first class. There's been many times when I puzzled over how I ever got hired in with that lot. I must have been a pretty decent welder.

Kenny was a short wiry guy. Showed me how to cook the books a bit to put a little extra cash in my pocket. Now and then you'd be working on afternoon shift, repairing some big piece of equipment for MacMillan Bloedel or one of the big mill operators. Joe Shmuck would show up at the door wondering if you could weld a trailer hitch to the underside of his station wagon.

So I'd weld up the trailer hitch, pocket the fifty bucks, and charge the time to Mac Blo. No wonder they went bankrupt.

Kenny was in every way a mild-mannered even-tempered guy. Except in one way. Once in awhile his wife would call. You'd hear him on the phone. It was painful. Fuck this and bitch that for five solid minutes. I figured Kenny had a dark side. Wife abuser.

Kenney built target rifles in his spare time. His guns were held in such high repute that he supplied members of the Canadian olympic target shooting team right till the day he got a letter from the Government of Canada advising him to cease and desist. From now on only registered and approved firearms manufacturers could make guns. I saw the letter.

Kenny invited me out on a fishing trip. Had a boat tied up in Saanich. It was with some trepidation that I knocked on the door of his little cottage in Esquilmalt. The missus answered the door. She's sporting a bathrobe and she's got curlers in her hair. She's easily twice the size of Kenny.

Didn't open the door though. "KENNY, ONE A YER ARSEHOLE BUDDIES IS HERE YA FUCKIN TWAT GET THE DOOR!"

Whoa! A minute later Kenny's at the door. Apologies. The old woman's got a crazy on if you know what I mean.

Sure Kenny. Walks me through the two rooms before the kitchen. Laundry piled knee-high everywhere.

We sit at the kitchen table. There's weeks worth of dishes piled on the countertops. I try to make small talk over a beer. How long you had the boat? Get out much?

Kenny bids the missus farewell.

KIN I FIX YOUS ARSEHOLES A GRILLED CHEEZ BEFORE YA GO?

I stay an extra half hour. Mrs. Kenny whips up a couple of very tasty grilled cheese sandwiches. I come to the realization that maybe Kenny doesn't have a dark side after all. Funny how you can be so wrong about people.

Got a nine pound salmon that day. Biggest fish I ever caught.