For many of us, the Near Year is a time of celebration or at least a hangover from all the celebrations. But not for all.
A family in the US is in mourning. An as-yet unnamed woman was accidentally shot. By her two-year-old. In a supermarket. And this was an accident…but one waiting to happen.
The woman was shopping in Walmart with her children. The two-year-old was seated in the shopping trolley and did what infants generally tend to do, reaching for something that caught its attention. That something proved to be the butt of firearm, legally concealed in the woman’s handbag. And the infant’s finger found the trigger. Blamo! No more Mummy. And this was a legal firearm that the woman was licensed to carry around. And as I find it hard to believe the little one worked out how to take off the safety and cock the bloody thing before firing, the concealed weapon must have been loaded up, ready to be firing the moment Mummy pulled it out of her handbag. Presumably carrying it that way was a matter of ‘just in case.’
So we have a young woman, shot dead in a supermarket by her two-year-old infant, with a loaded, cocked and safety-less concealed weapon being carried ‘just in case’.
Senator David Leyonhjelm aka Senator Dickwad
Now let us jump back a few days. As I previously ranted, immediately after the tragedy of the Lindt cafe hostage taking, Senator David Leyonhjelm, aka Dickwad, declared this was a reason to loosen Australian gun controls. He wants people carrying concealed weapons. That way the next time a homicidal sociopath psychopath decides to take some hostages, there is a good chance one of them shall be carrying a concealed weapon all ready to blow the nutter’s head off. I am guessing Senator Dickwad, like me, was a Boy Scout and this is his idea of being prepared (but sure as shit, not my idea).
Presumably Senator Dickwad would see a few accidental deaths along the way such as the one in Walmart as just a bit of necessary collateral damage. Because we need those concealed weapons, don’t we Senator. We need them – just in case!
With my history of depression, nobody is going to allow me to have any firearms again, whether concealed, open or even just hanging around the neck of a convenient donkey. But that’s OK. Like I said, I was a Boy Scout. I can Be Prepared by carrying around a nice lump of wood instead. Equipped with a few rusty six inch nails. And if I suspect someone of possibly being a psycho gunman, I can just beat his brains out. And if they turn out not to be a psycho gunman, then that’s OK, it’s just a bit more collateral damage arising from my equipping myself – just in case.
Nothing wrong with it at all, is there Senator Dickwad?
Ross's Rant 