A Geek With Guns

Wow some people are fucking idiots. I present exhibit one here. I’m not going to say anything until you read this:

Timothy William Pollard, 37, and friend Robert Knorr, 28, were playing with the gun Sunday night after a full day of drinking. Pollard had about six beers, a couple shots at a bar and then another beer at home.

I bet you can guess where this is going:

Pollard had taken the handgun and pointed it at Knorr. Pollard told police he thought the safety was on as he pulled the trigger once and it just clicked, the Greeley Tribune reported. So he pulled the trigger again, shooting Knorr.

This should bring a couple points to bear. First booze and guns are not good bed fellows. If you want to drink leave the gun, if you want to carry the gun don’t drink (and before somebody says something this has nothing to do with being able to carry guns in places that serve booze, you should be allowed to do that so long as you don’t drink). The second point is you never, EVER, point a firearm at another individual unless it’s in self defense. The gun is always loaded, plain and simple (somebody is going to quote Gabe Suarez’s remark about two people verifying it’s empty, I don’t care the only safe bet is not to cover another person with your barrel ever).

And to top it all off these clowns are from my state.

One of the rules of firearm safety is to be sure of your target. Well apparently that rule applies to piracy as well. A group of Somali pirates screwed up big time when they attacked a French naval vessel thinking it was a cargo ship. From the article:

“Once they realised they were facing a ship that was responding and was heading towards them, they stopped shooting and attempted to flee,” he said.

“The Somme gave chase and intercepted one of the pirates’ boats. All the weapons had apparently been tossed into the sea and the suspected pirates are now being held on board the Somme.”

So yeah if you plan on plundering ships on the high seas of Somalia you may want to make sure your targets are unarmed merchant ships. This story exemplify arming ships and their crews though. It seems the Somali pirates aren’t as inclined to board a ship when they are being shot at. Who would have guessed?

I found a story involving bad advice on John C. Dvorak’s blog. Apparently Aspen, Colorado has a bear problem. The bears are moving in and feeding off of the trash of the local human population. Of course this means they are getting used to humans which is what the local officials don’t want. Here is their advice:

They are now actively telling residents to be, literally, mean to the bears. Yell at them, throw rocks and if they charge you, stand up to them. “You want to be as big, as large as possible, and you always want to fight back with a black bear,” said Hampton. Black bears tend to be timid and are generally not aggressive.

Yeah that’s right piss off a bear. Sure black bears will normally run but I certainly don’t want to be on the business end of those claws and teeth should they decide to call my bluff. If I’m going to stand my ground against a bear of any sort I will do it holding a gun in my hand. So if it’s OK to shoot the bear I’ll stand up to it, otherwise my route of action will involve going inside and placing a call to the local animal control center.

Advising people to throw rocks at a charging bear is idiotic and irresponsible. Chances are if it’s charging you it’s pissed off enough where getting pelted by rocks isn’t going to ward it off.

Found this one via the Smallest Minority. Some moron proved once again why you never handle firearms while under the influence of drugs, even alcohol:

Sheriff Glenn Boyer said that on Friday, deputies responded to 4307 Rock Valley Court in Imperial for a shooting. Investigators found 40-year-old James Looney with a gunshot wound to the head.

Wait for it:

Deputies believe alcohol was involved.

Seriously any time your drinking Darwin’s ghost is going to be hovering over your shoulder just waiting for the proper time to strike. The second you decide to drink while driving or wielding a firearm he’s most likely going to make his presence known to you in the only manner he knows how, natural selection.

A funny story from Says Uncle. A moron in Jacksonville, Florida entered a bar waiving around a nail gun. The bar tender took this act as a robbery attempt and responded in kind. The nail gun wielding individual received rounds from a real gun and died on the spot.

Remember when it’s a battle between a nail gun and a real gun the real gun will always win unless there is some fluke.

OK this man gives new definition to the word multitasking. Nicholas Sparks, while driving his tow truck, was not only talking on his cell phone but was also texting on a second cell phone. That’s two for the price of one baby! Of course because driving wasn’t on his list of tasks he crashed into one car and drove his truck into a swimming pool. Darwin has spoken and he doesn’t like people on their cell phones while they are driving.

Of course now the issue will be brought up about the proposed federal law banning texting while driving. I can sum up the reason that such a law is unnecessary:

Sparks was charged with reckless driving, talking on a cell phone and following too closely. It couldn’t be determined Thursday whether he has a lawyer.

Notice he’s being charged with three violation. But there really is only one that needs to be used and that’s reckless driving. We can throw out the law on talking on a cell phone while driving since that leads to reckless driving and if it doesn’t who cares. Following too closely is stupid but rear ending somebody is a crime and hence there is already a law on the books that covers it.

This concept is going to sound foreign to many but bear with me. Why do we need all these new laws? Why not use the laws on the books already? Better yet why not get rid of all the laws that end up being redundant by other laws? Let’s face it using a cell phone while driving is stupid but it’s stupid because it makes drivers far worse at driving. Hence somebody on their cell phone is going to violate a law called reckless driving. And people not worried about violating that law certainly aren’t going to give a flying fuck about violating a law that bans texting while driving.

The biggest issue I have with a texting while driving ban is the fact cell phones do so much now that they are a legitimate tool while driving. I’ve stated before I use my phone with Google Maps to navigate where I’m going. If I look at the map on the phone it would appear no different than if I were texting to a passer by hence I’d be pulled over and ticketed for trying to find where the fuck I’m going. I could correct this by getting a GPS but why would I want to buy a device that serves the same purpose a device I already own servers?

Either way Darwin did his duty and busted this guy up a bit.

In the realm of no shit Sherlock we have this study…

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10296992-94.html?tag=nl.e703

Apparently texting while driving increases your chances of crashing 23 fold. Who knew? I mean come on how can doing something that makes you take your eyes off the road increase your chances of having an accident? Man I’m glad this study was done to finally put this argument to rest.

If you couldn’t tell that last sentence was sarcasm.

Although I’m more late to posting this than any other gun blogger at least I’m posting it (yeah this was a failure to bring breaking news). The people at Tactical Response shot a video that showed a cameraman down range while students were shooting.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqboR6gjOi8&e]

This is such a bad idea I don’t know where to begin. Let’s face it you don’t put a man down range when people are shooting. This is just asking for trouble. All it would take is a slight miss and you’d have on injured or dead cameraman. And anybody could make such a slip up no matter who good they are.

Source: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2009/06/17/highly-controversial-training-video/

But James Yeager posted a video response on YouTube as well. Here is the video…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R3t0wuLDWQ&e]

Personally all he makes are excuses trying to justify a bad idea. The statement that really irks me is where he says nobody can be completely safe. I’ll give him the truth in that but there are easy and common sense things you can do to make something safe. For instance not placing somebody down range while people are actively shooting. This isn’t hard to do and it greatly increases safety. It’s akin to ensuring your gun is unloaded before you start cleaning it.

Seriously this guy is an idiot. When you fuck up don’t try to justify it just admit you’re only human and you made a mistake.

Source: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2009/06/19/james-yeager-responds-to-the-controversial-training-video/

From John C. Dvorak’s blog a perfect example of saying too much on Twitter…

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10260183-83.html

A man sent Twitter notifications about being out of town. Of course this is a stupid idea for the reason that follows. After this information appeared on Twitter somebody robbed his house.

Point to the wise ladies and gentlemen, don’t let people know you’re out of town unless they need to know. It’s just asking for somebody to break in and take your stuff.

Source: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2009/06/10/man-tweets-im-out-of-town-house-gets-immediately-robbed/

Another interesting story from dvorak.org…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8064867.stm

A man who was threatening to jump off of a bridge in China got pushed off by a passer by. When asked why he pushed the man off the passer by said he was fed up with the jumper’s “selfish activity.”

As they say be careful what you wish for because you may just get it.

Source: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2009/05/23/bridge-jumper-in-china-gets-a-“helping-hand”/