Category: Boneheads

Read this letter from a DC mom who is fighting charges that she neglected her child because the girl and a friend were safely walking just a few minutes from a home – the same home they could give a phone number for where their parents available to pick them up if someone was truly concerned. But some man decided that the best decision was the call the police so that the parents would be arrested for the “crime” of allowing children to play unsupervised.

If you need to bring your blood pressure back down, there’s also this story about a group of parents who decided to stand up to the extremely anti-fun and anti-kid staff at what one parent called “Worst First Play Centre of Gloom” and encouraged their kids to violate all the rules against running and having fun. The parent report says that the staff hid away in the corners when they realized they were outnumbered by people who wouldn’t be strict rule enforcers. When these most obnoxious nannies are ignored and marginalized, they back down. We need to teach more people to stand up to them.

I realize these aren’t directly “gun rights” stories, and they both come out of areas (DC & Montreal) where the parents themselves might be horribly anti-gun, but these are issues related to freedom to live your life as you choose when you aren’t infringing on anyone else’s rights.

A grown man called 911, apparently unashamed he is unable to deal with his angry house cat. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that we are a house divided in regards to pets. I am a cat person, whereas Bitter is a dog person. But despite my affection for our feline friends, if I had a cat that scratched my 7 month old kid, and then couldn’t begin to understand who’s the apex predator in this equation, kitty is going to be in for quite an education. I’m definitely not calling 911 to have someone else come deal with the cat, because that’s just pathetic.

You’re the superior species dude, a hell of a lot bigger, and a hell of a lot smarter, and kitty knows it. If you act like it you’re the boss, kitty is going to back down, trust me. It won’t have to come to either him or you. I mean, hell, a blanket is a fantastic weapon in such a situation if you really want to turn the tables here. How about a laundry basket?

The mind boggles. Really. I hope this is a hoax.

This guy will be a candidate for a Darwin Award:

The victim reportedly held three handguns to his head and pulled the trigger, explaining that firearms are safe when they’re not loaded. A fatal bullet was discharged from the third gun.

I’m pretty sure the lesson here is don’t take gun safety advice from this guy.

The principal and teachers in a Goldsboro, NC middle school thought it would be a great idea to tell kids that there was an armed robber roaming the school and then have a staff member dressed up in a ski mask armed with a fake handgun break into the room.

The school claims that they were teaching situational awareness. However, I’m not sure how it is you’re teaching them to be anything other than frightened sitting ducks when the teacher indicates that they know there’s a threat lurking, but the class is just expected to sit there and let it happen. Follow that up with a fake gunman entering the room, and it’s just so hard to see why this went over about as well as a lead balloon. At least the district spokesman admits that the staff involved lacked judgement, and the staffer who pretended to be the gunman may face disciplinary action.

I saw this link from Free Range Kids, and she made a great point with these types of exercises:

Kids are NOT in constant danger, so can we please stop dreaming up ever more dramatic ways to “protect” them as if they were?

Of course, the sad part is that it could be argued that at least the North Carolina incident was based on a general threat in life, that while extremely unlikely, isn’t completely insane. Ventura County, California schools thought the families of their students needed to spend their time developing plans for how to deal with their children in school if the get nuked. Yup, this is where your money to the public school system goes these days, folks.

A few weeks ago we highlighted the American Rifle and Pistol Association, touting itself as an alternative to the NRA, but with leadership that seemed to have some sympathies toward gun control. A reader tipped me off to a new group called the Sporting Rifle Association of America, also touting itself as a “The Sensible, Modern Alternative to the NRA,” which raises alarm bells straight away. Also raising alarm bells? The site has a private registration, and is hosted off HostGator. Nowhere can you find a mailing address for this “company.” Even ARPA was pretty open about who its leadership were.

I’m not sure this is a false flag group, in the mold of American Hunters and Shooters Association. I think this may very well be an outright scam; an attempt to gather up credit card information. I’d never give out information to a site not really willing to identify itself. To be honest, I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often in this issue. I think the first place I’d start, if I were any of those gun companies who’s logos were presumably jacked, would be to contact the ISPs, unmask them, and send a cease and desist in regards to use of their logos. Actually, just contacting the ISPs may be sufficient to get them to do a takedown.

UPDATE: Seems they’ve taken down the gun company logos, set up a secure web site. I still wouldn’t give money to people who aren’t up front about who they are. I’d note they only have “Domain Control Validated” certification from GoDaddy. They don’t appear to have obtained any kind of extensive organizational validation, only demonstrated control the domain. I have gone through organization verification for an SSL cert before, and it’s fairly thorough. Not something you could set up in a few hours. Domain control, however, is easy.

UPDATE: Clicks from this site are being redirected to a placeholder page. I’d note this is very strange behavior.

UPDATE: I have received an e-mail from this group:

Sorry, I’m pulled away from the screen (and reading comments in my controversial post of the day) for a bit to make up a menu for the next week and get the shopping list uploaded for Sebastian. (He has the best grocery store with significantly lower prices near his office, so he gets the big trips while I do the little fill-in trips to the stores closer to home.) I’m also doing a little local pro-rights activism. Yay!

In the meantime, here’s a funny column addressing parents who not only overreact emotionally when something less than perfect happens to their little snowflake, but who also look to make a buck by taking the responsible party for the unpleasantness to court for the “crime” of being less-than-perfect.

… can get your license to carry suspended.

I put aside my fairly amiable, detached nature, and just let someone have it who deserves it. Sometimes, I think you really do need to get “Who the hell do you think you are?” with some of these fascist interlopers who pretend to be good Americans. I’m fairly sorry to say this particular person hails from Concord, New Hampshire, the land of “Live Free and I’ll Fine and/or Imprison You,” apparently.

Of course, maybe I’ve just been trolled, which if that is the case, bravo.