May 08, 2004

• Yeah, always pays to triple-check that sort of thing, especially when it's actually your job. Had a friend who went to a national law enforcement academy. One of his class-mates was a nice guy who pulled the trigger on a supposedly un-loaded weapon in the dormitory. Bullet went right through the bedroom wall. No one hurt, thankfully. Six months of hard course work and one career...down...the...drain.
• And he ...a federal drug agent..., no less. Could be an excerpt from A Long, Strange Day in the Monkeyhouse by the Great Banana??
• Look down the barrel for me, willya kid?
• You think he's gonna get a Darwin Award?
• Nope, he still breaths.
• He still breathes because the gun was pointed at the floor, as it should be - in fact, as all guns should be, all of the time. The world would be a safer place if people just did that.
• Somebody does something stupid...details at 11. Seriously, I don't mean to be ill-tempered but what is this news item meant to demonstrate? Do we need stricter laws to keep guns out of the hands of law enforcement officials?
• I posted it because I've had a really crap week at work. Somehow all the BS I've been through this week just didn't seem as bad as shooting yourself in the leg when you're (supposedly) demonstrating gun safety (with children present too). If it puts things in perspective for me, then maybe it can help someone else too. Besides, it makes a change from reading about a guy wearing a wedding dress riding a motorcycle across a ghost town so he could dig a hole and bury his bananas.
• One of the reasons I always feel safe with a bolt action rifle is that it's a damn sight easier to check the breech than anything with a semi automatic. In fact, when I used to go hunting, I'd hold the rifle such that the breech was open when I wasn't aiming at something, mostly to reduce the risk of whoopsies like this. And my daddy always taught me not to point the damn things at anything I didn't want to kill.
• Now he is suing.