Two men got into an argument over a $25 fee in a gun shop, and what do you know, they all decided to resolve it with — you guessed it — guns. End result: two dead, two in the hospital with critical injuries.
What struck me, though, is where it occurred: Picayune, Mississippi. It seems to me unwise to be selling deadly firearms in a place where you just know petty squabbles are going to flare up all the time.
Well, I’m neither surprised or shocked. Too many gun fetishists out there. Toss in a heaping of testosterone, and this is what you get. Sad, for sure, but totally NOT surprising.
So all the good guys with guns are taking each other out now?
only thing I can say without getting nasty is the way I phoetically hear the name of that town:
pikky une [phonetic spelling]
usually used to refer to items of minutia
not that this incident is, just seems pradoxical that such an event could occure in a town with such a name.
I’ll see myself out. Don;t forget to tip your waiter…
So people selling death and despair killed by people who fetishize death and despair?
I wished those were the only victims of “responsible gunownership” ever.
They were afraid the government was going to oppress them.
$25 is worth violence, let alone killing for?
There is more wrong than just guns in this case. I have no idea whether this is just a fatal cocktail of violent people and weapons, or whether guns attract violent people, or even whether gun fetishism causes violence. I do know that having the easy means to kill in a dispute over a relatively small sum has left one family devastated, and might see another torn apart before the end of it.
What a senseless waste of life and freedom.
What does this mean?
Gen@7, as Google is my Guide:
pic·a·yune
ˌpikəˈyo͞on/
NORTH AMERICAN
adjectiveinformal
1.
petty; worthless.
“the picayune squabbling of party politicians”
Ooooh. Okay, thanks. I guess I must have misspelled it when I tried to Google it.
This is a mistake by the Miami Herald editors. The incident occurred in Henleyfield, the reporter filed the story from Picayune. Sorry to spoil the joke.
A shootout over $25 with two dead and two with life threatening injuries? Isn’t armed society supposed to be polite society or somesuch? Aren’t weapons deterrent of violence? And that bastad Obama wants to steal the weapons of all those responsible patriotic Americans…
I m apalled, horrified and amused at the same time by human stupidity once more. I bet that there are in discussions (I am not going to look) about it already people who say “well, weapons don’t kill people, people kill people, second ammendment! freedum! liberty! it is too soon to misuse this tragedy to talk about regulations!!!!111!1 you hippie commie authoritarian anarchists”
All four involved were responsible gun owners. Until today.
Robert A. Heinlein
Right.
And here’s yet another recent example:
“Good Samaritan fatally shot by man he was trying to help in Catawba County”
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article56234845.html
The good Samaritans were trying to help a driver who had spun out and become stuck in the snow when he became violent.
He may have been drunk or doped. Yet another reason that no one should have such easy access to a firearm.
1) A society that can’t be polite without the implicit threat of violence is a very sick society.
2) A society where the accepted social penalty for impoliteness is summary execution is a freaking INSANE society.
3) Apparently Heinlein never visited Canada…
An armed society
had better bea polite society.umm
– “Please may I shoot you?”
– “Thanks for shooting me”
– refusal to say ‘please’ will get you shot.
yeah,
Heinlein, supposedly being a good writer, failed to fully annotate the qualifications behind his proposed aphorism.
only applicable to cartoons, where armaments are just *bang*, with no other consequences…
Heinlein also appeared to have thought that benevolent dictatorship was a superior form of government to democracy, yet his supporters rarely seem to bring this up.
Video at six, right? Gotta have been CCTV cameras there. Not sure if my schadenfreude levels will be high enough to get me to watch them.
Only until some yahoo thinks that he can draw faster. Consequences aren’t effective deterrents if people think they can avoid them. That’s the whole reason why criminals exist.
True.
I hear your average street gang is the very epitome of etiquette.
Gun-folks love quoting this, until you ask them to provide examples.
I remember reading that Heinlein book when I was thirteen and thinking that was pretty dumb.
I’m inclinced to agree with that. I just also realise the impossibility of finding a dictator who actually is, and will remain, benevolent. And the one after them, and the one after them. After all, “if you want to test a
man’sperson’s character, give them power” — Lincoln.An armed society could be a polite society if it didn’t also fetishize violence and machismo like ours does.
Which one was the good guy? I need some help here…
And the one after them, and the one after them.
Ah there’s the rub
uncle frogy
As I understand it, teh gummint can’t restrict ownership because something, something, second amendment. And all gun owners are responsible and careful. Until they do something stupid and dangerous. Then they never were in the first place, and are ‘lone nuts’ that somehow don’t count. At least that’s what the NRA line seems to be.
karellen @21:
Exactly. The people who run to Heinlein quotes forget that he wrote fiction.
(Cross-posted from Discuss: Art)
Now this is the type of pistol that could reduce violence, if issued in sufficient quantities:
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Re: “picayune”, I always wondered about that word when I encountered it in American media, it never occurred to me that it was from a town’s name.
Me @28: Oh, my mistake, it’s actually a small Spanish coin of little value, apparently. That’s two new things I learned today.
JohnnieCanuck @ 17:
…
I don’t have any shadenfreude when it comes to deaths happening for no reason, no reason at all. Every story like this seems to rip out a part of me, which fills up with a depth of sadness, and despair that this is the society I’m living in. These deaths are so numerous, they have become an every day event, and that’s not terrifying enough for people in the States to wake the fuck up, and start screaming for change.
*Source.
@14 Trickster Goddess FTW all three points.
Han shot first.