When the instructor stepped out of his gun safety class in Roanoke, Virginia, a man took that moment to shoot himself through the hand with a .45 calibre pistol. The bullet continued on and hit his wife in the leg. Click on the title for the full story. . . .
Gun safety class backfires: Man shoots self and wife
And the gun was loaded in the classroom why, exactly? . . . . It’s idiots like this who give the rest of us 2nd Amendment practitioners a bad name.
Blogs and Articles in No Particular Order
Writing Legend Les Edgerton visits best selling author Kristen Lamb’s blog. Writing Legend Les Edgerton Teaches us How to Create a Remarkable Writing Voice
My favorite ex-patriot, Emily Cannell, tells us the proper way to view cherry blossoms. Cherry Blossom Viewing–A “How To” Guide for the Novice
Lonny Dunn of ProNetworkBuild has written a book about How to Use Twitter for Local Business. I’ve watched Lonny in action, and he knows what he’s talking about.
From Jenny Hansen, Ten Computer Phrases that Sound Dirty But Aren’t.
Help Jillian Dodd score a MANday appearance from Sin and Vengeance author CJ West. See MANday: Author CJ West Challenge for the details.
CJ West
Ellie Ann makes some great, and funny, observations about Action Movie Romances over at Jennifer Joseph’s place, Slacker Heroes.
A beloved family member of mine is a kidney transplant patient so this one definitely caught my eye. Vitals–Hand-Me-Down Kidney Transplanted Twice in Two Weeks
Gene Lempp once again fascinates with his stellar series, Designing from Bones. Troglodyte Housing
From outstanding indie-by-choice author Kait Nolan, Say What You Want About Amazon’s Business Practices, But They Treat Customers Right.
Fantastic humor blogger Leanne Shirtliffe steered me to this one. Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss Triggers Political Dispute in B.C. Classroom. What’s wrong with this picture, folks? More importantly, what are we going to do about it?
This Double Dutch Dog could teach a few lessons on the playground.
Have you ever had a pet with an unusual talent?
All the best to all of you for knowing which end of your weapon means business.
Piper Bayard–The Pale Writer of the Apocalypse
Is there any way to ban that guy from ever operating anything more dangerous than a potato peeler?
I guess if you want to look on the bright side, though, at least he knew he needed the gun safety class…
Lol. Good point, Diane. And he was very lucky that he only shot himself and his wife. I still wouldn’t give him a potato peeler, tough.
Random thought: Does anyone else only know how to spell “potato” because of Dan Quayle?
That Yertle the Turtle. What a liberal.
I LOVED the cherry blossom post. How beautiful! I’ve never seen anything like that, though I’ve been to Japan (it was the wrong season for cherry blossoms)
Thanks SO much for including my post on action movie romances.
Aren’t those gorgeous? The only time I’ve been to D.C., it just happened to be when all of the cherry trees were blooming. One of the highlights. I’ll go to Japan to see cherry blossoms before I will ever go to D.C. again. Actually, I would go to Hades to see cherry blossoms before I ever go to D.C. again. Except as president, that is.
I can see the school district being sensitive about kids being pulled into a dispute between teachers and their employers. Believe me, it’s not good for the kids to be yanked into a spat like that. It isn’t entirely the same situation I found myself in back in middle school, but it was similar. Back then the town was in an uproar because the school was asking for another levy on property taxes, due to funding troubles (mind you, using property taxes to fund schools is unconstitutional in Ohio, but that’s an entirely separate issue, haha). The teachers had us kids all paranoid that our schools were going to shut down and we were all going to be bussed to surrounding districts. It wasn’t a fun time.
Still, the whole bit about Yertle the Turtle was a bit heavy handed. The teachers of course shouldn’t be wearing their political affiliations on their sleeve (literally or figuratively) because when you walk into that classroom you are neutral, politically and religiously, whether you like it or not. At least, that’s how it ought to be. But that doesn’t mean students shouldn’t read works that contain political content. Besides, sounds like the kids are too young to know what politics even is, haha.
I certainly understand your point. Teachers have no business dragging kids into their personal problems or their politics. Perhaps they should have focused more on the teachers and less on the turtles. Thank you for sharing your experience, Andrew.
Perhaps they should have, but that’s about what you’d expect from schools these days. I’d call it knee jerk but that’s not quite extreme enough…it’s more like a full body spaz out, haha.
Also, Yertle the Turtle was converted into a song by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on their Freaky Styley album. It’s very entertaining, haha
Oh, cool. I’ll have to check out that song. And as far as the schools go, full body spaz out is a great description. With stuff like this and the other ridiculous spaz outs they pull with other topics, it’s no wonder they get so little respect any more. I really feel for the good teachers out there, and I know there are many.
I always LOVE your mashups, Piper! Nobody does it better.
I mean, seriously. Talk about an idiot walking. Good grief. Thanks for the mash-up, Piper. I missed a lot of these!
Good to see you, Stacy.
One of my cats would use the toilet on special occasions. She only did it twice, so I don’t know if that qualifies as a special talent.
The gun-control crowd takes stories like that one as evidence that people are just too stupid to own guns. I, on the other hand, think it’s further evidence of evolution.
Lol. Natural selection is alive and well.
2nd amendment has no provision for stupidity. Reasonsible gun owners suffer at the hands of over-zealous anti-gun groups while they should be working to keep weapons out of the hands of people who think carrying a loaded handgun to a safety class.
I’m with you, Tom. The anti-gun groups have bad aim with their agenda. Personally, I believe every citizen should be educated from grade school on about the responsibilities that come with every right we possess as Americans. Every child should know gun safety practices, whether they ever own a gun or not. Just as they should understand the responsible use of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. As American citizens we must understand the responsibilities we bear to exercise rights, or we will see what we’re seeing now. The eroding of those rights. And the last time I checked, ignorance and stupidity are not Constitutional rights.
Hi Piper.
I guess that’s one safety lesson the guy won’t forget – or his wife (assuming they’re still married). And that dog’s awesome.
Have a good weekend.
Cheers!
What a conversation those two must have had when they got out of the hospital! Good weekend to you, as well, Nigel.
I had to click through to the story to figure out how the man accidentally shot both himself AND his wife. One bullet. OK, that makes more sense than what I was thinking.
In a related story…you don’t want to know what I *was* thinking – though I think it proves that writing mystery does warp you in serious ways.
As far as pets with special talents: my first cat learned to flush the toilet. She didn’t USE the toilet, but she liked to watch the water swirl so she figured out how to climb on the back and push the lever with her paw.
This was hilarious, because she didn’t always wait for you to finish USING the toilet before she’d flush it. The family got used to this, and just shut her out of the bathroom, but one time my mother in law was visiting and didn’t know about the cat…and got “flushed on” and started screaming.
Kitty for the win.
What a hoot! I’m wondering if I could teach a cat to do that. Thanks so much for sharing your experience.
Personally I think the guy aimed too low – hand shots are for wussies, and he should have used a .357 armor-piercing round so he could pick off the children in the neighborhood nearby. Joking aside, this is a good example of why IQ testing for licensing could save the world.
Awesome mash, Piper, thanks for the linkage
We define intelligence in our house as the ability to learn from our mistakes. Unfortunately, that usually has no relationship to IQ so I’m not sure how helpful that test would be. However, some gun safety training for all kids at an early age could prevent this sort of thing, I think. But any way you slice it, this guy was lucky it was only his hand. It’s a good thing it was his own wife, too.
OMG – Gene, John, Susan…they all had me on the floor. Your commenters are witty little scamps today!
Aren’t they a hoot?
Just the headline alone is hilarious. Thanks for including CJ’s MANday challenge in your mashup!!
You bet, Jillian. Glad I could help out.
Love the double-dutch dog, Piper! He’s WAY more coordinated than I am, LOL.
Lol. Me, too, Kathy.
Fab links, as always! Love the dog! And you are right … that idiot would be dangerous even with a potato peeler!
Rule number one of gun safety class: All of the guns in the classroom are unloaded. This is a total no-brainer. …. And that dog rocks, doesn’t it? Good to see you, Patricia.
Thanks so much for including my Piper! Even if I wasn`t included, I would find this one particularly interesting. Our last dog, a Giant Schnauzer- 100 pounds of fiesty- smelled the house across the street on fire. I was putting her in the kennel for the night, she stopped, sniffed the air, and went wild- refusing to go in-barking, jumping, running around the house sniffing- generally acting nuts. We thought someone was in the house. Spouse got the baseball bat hoping for some action while I looked out the window hoping to see an intruder retreating across the lawn and instead saw flames coming out of the neighbor`s garbage cans going up the side of the garage doors to the roof. We called 911. Oh wait- you invited us to highlight a talent not brag on our dogs. Sorry. No time to erase.
Lol. What a great story, Emily! Thanks so much for sharing. I’ll bet the neighbors fed your sweet schnauzer steak for a month.