Whiteman's Immutable Laws of Firearm Interaction

The marches for increased gun control -- and against Trump and other scary things -- took place as scheduled yesterday. The usual suspects turned out in their 1000s, putting the innocent children up front to hide the antifa and BLM placards. Now that the demonstrators have gone home, it's time to clean up the trash -- wish there were tougher litter control laws -- and reflect on America's gun culture.

Here are my Immutable Law of Firearm Interaction.

For the purposes of this discussion, let us divide Americans into three groups: (A) ordinary citizens -- folks like you and me (or at least me; I'm not so sure about you). (B) criminals -- the kind of people who disregard gun control laws, the people who will still have firearms even after the police state has taken them away from the rest of us. (C) the gestapo ["police", shurely! Ed.]... OK, police, including customs officers, park rangers, security guards and all the others who wear badges and are allowed to carry guns.

The laws are these.

In any intereaction between A and A, where one or both As are armed, anyone who survives will be charged. If a gunshot victim is a "person of colour" and the shooter is white, the shooter will be branded a racist Nazi. (Cf. Trayvon Martin case.) If there are three or more victims, the shooter will be called an insane monster and a product of our sick society.

In any interaction between A and B, where A is armed and B is not, A will be charged. (I speak from personal experience.) If B is armed, and especially if B is so a "person of colour" (see above), both will be charged and A will be told that instead of defending himself he should have called C.

In any interaction between A and C, if A is armed he will be deemed a B. If A is unarmed and is shot by C, and somehow survives, he will be charged. If A does not survive, C will be placed on administrative leave (Cf. Stephon Clark case, a few days ago), then possibly tried and acquitted of any wrongdoing, especially if A is a "person of colour" and C is white.

In any interaction between B and B, it doesn't matter who's armed and who's not. C will conduct a cursory investigation of any gunplay but will be unable to get anyone to talk, so no charges will be laid. Civil authorities will tut-tut about guns and gangs and build another basketball court in the project.

In any interaction between B and C, it will be assumed that B was armed, even if he wasn't, or if B's "suspected firearm" turns out to be a cellphone or a pocket knife, especially if B is (as is often the case) a "person of colour". If B survives, he will be charged. If B doesn't survive, no-one will be charged, and C will get a citation for heroism. If C doesn't survive, B will be charged and C will get a police funeral attended by 1000s of Cs from all over North America, at taxpayers' expense.

In any interaction between C and C, the parties will be excused on the grounds that they were just horsing around in the station house. The police will investigate themselves and punish any wrongdoing by docking the offender a few hours' pay.

Corollary: Tighter gun control laws will have no effect except to make life harder for A.

Walt's action recommendation: When they come for your guns and ammunition, give `em the ammo first!

Hurry on down to the PRE-HILLARY SALE!

Agent 34 sent us a photo of an ad which a reputable news source says appeared in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

UPDATED: Here's what Trump said that voters will remember

The following is taken, without edit or comment, from "Trump lost the debate by every normal standard. But these aren't normal times" by Michael den Tandt -- no Trumpie he -- in Canada's Postmedia papers.

Here’s a bet: In a week, most of Twitter will have forgotten the details of Trump’s numerous falsehoods Monday, because he’ll have uttered new ones, perhaps more outrageous.

But viewers will remember he said this: On trade, bring back our jobs and stop the dastardly foreigners from stealing them away. On gun violence, crime and race, impose law and order in the inner city. On national security, smash ISIL and force the feckless Europeans (and Canadians, surely) in NATO to do some of the work, for once in their worthless lives.

Further reading, added 28/9/16: "Why Hillary won the first round on points, why it probably won't do her any good, and why she can be sure Trump will come out swinging harder next time", by Piers Morgan in the Daily Mail (UK), 27/9/16.

Attention Walmart shoppers! Please check your guns at the door!

This just in from beautiful downtown Hayden ID -- a town of about 9000 souls up in the Idaho panhandle, about 40 miles north of Coeur d’Alene.

Errr, better make that 8999 souls. A spokesthingy for the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department has confirmed that an unidentified woman was shot dead by a 2-year-old boy at the local Walmart yesterday.

It was an accident, you understand. The kid was one of several children with whom the woman was shopping. He reached into her purse in search of who-knows-what and put his little hand on a pistol she had concealed there. It discharged, as the cops say, killing her instantly.

There's a lesson there somewhere, something to do with parenting skills, the American gun culture and possibly karma. Walt invites his reader to explain the lesson in 25 words or less. The prize and the name of the winner will be announced next year.

Screw up my burger order and I'll kill you!

How wonderful to live in a country where the Constitution guarantees every idiot the right to bear arms. Agent 17 has alerted Walt to an AP story which originated with WOOD-TV in Michigan.

Grand Rapids MI police say that around 3 AM on Monday, a woman fired a shot into a local Mickey D's drive-through window after workers got her burger order wrong a second time. Shaneka Torres, age 29, was arraigned Monday on charges of carrying a concealed weapon, discharging a firearm and another gun charge.

Police say two women became angry when workers got their order wrong Sunday evening. They were told their next meal would be free. So they returned a couple of hours later, and workers screwed up their order again! Whereupon the passenger got out of the car, yelled at the workers, pulled a gun and fired into the window. No-one was hurt.

Employing what Chief Wiggum of the Grand Rapids PD called "good police work", the coppers tracked the miscreants down through a phone number they left after the argument over the first order.

Innocent question from Walt: The race of the offender is not reported. How many of you think she was probably white?

Agent 17 says the comments following the online version of the story are funny, but Ed. couldn't get the page to load. Here's the link if you want to give it a try.

American women! Get your Flashbang Bra Holster today!

The holster has three different length straps to accommodate your bra. It hooks to the middle of the bra between the cups. The muzzle of the holster tucks up into the bottom of the bra cup. They don't work with sports bras. If you are right handed the muzzle tucks into the left cup. Left hand versions are available on special order. You don't have to leave the shirt untucked but that method is obviously much faster to deploy the pistol.

Hope you enjoyed the demo. Thanks to Agent 6 for this tempest in a D-cup.

It could happen anywhere

I have hesitated for two days to write about the Newtown massacre. I wanted to be sure my brain was engaged before opening my mouth, so to speak. Now that the hysteria has died down [Has it really? Ed.] and the stores are sold out of flowers, candles and teddy bears, perhaps we can begin a rational discussion.

Yesterday I saw a video clip of "streeters" -- interviews with men (and women) on the street -- around the world. Someone from Moscow said it could happen anywhere. Someone from Brazil said it could happen in his country because lots of Brazilians have guns, as do lots of Americans.

But the random killing of innocent people doesn't happen just anywhere, at least not with the alarming frequency with which it occurs in the USA. For the record -- and not blaming the Prez of course -- this is the fourth senseless massacre on his watch. Four years, four groups of grieving families, four sets of wounded survivors, four terrorized communities.

Not quite five months ago, a deranged man used a cinema in Aurora CO as a shooting gallery, leaving 12 corpses on the floor. Last year shootings in Tucson left six dead and 13 wounded, including Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who is slowly (but not completely) recovering. In November of 2009, 13 service members who were killed at Fort Hood by another soldier. And now this.

Some smug Canadians rushed to the on-line fora and speak-your-mouth shows to say such things could happen only in the sick society that is today's America. Apparently they forgot or ignored a couple of events in the Great Not-so-white North.

On 6 December 1989, Marc Lépine, a deranged misogynist, singled out and killed 14 women l'École Polytechnique in Montréal. In 2006, again in Montréal, and again for reasons only he knew, a young man named Kimveer Singh Gill killed a business student and wounded 19 other people before turning his gun on himself.

Canada has much stricter gun control laws than most of the United States. Assault and other military-type weapons may not be owned, except by the military, police and other champions of justice. Few people are allowed to own hand guns -- legally -- and fewer still can get permits to carry such. Canada's laws did not stop Lépine and Gill.

Is the answer tighter gun control laws? After the Colorado shooting in July, the White House made clear that Obama would not propose new gun restrictions. There was an election going on, you see, and millions of Americans still believe the Second Amendment is to be taken literally. About the most anyone with a hope of getting elected can say in an election year is that existing laws should be better enforced, more must be done to help the disturbed and deranged, yada yada yada.

Now that he's safely back in the White House, Obama said (at last night's vigil in Newtown) that the killing must stop. And, he said, America must change. He only talks about change, now, not hope. But, when the nation cries out for leadership on this issue -- an issue of life and death, literally -- the Great Partly-white Hope offers... well... Nothing.

It is with some reluctance that Walt puts his toe into the murky waters of the gun control debate, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the more people have guns, the greater are the chances of another Newtown.

Statistical analysis has never been my long suit, but here is a little experiment you can try at home. Take a deck of playing cards. Remove three cards. Put in one joker. You now have 50 cards, including one joker and 49 "normal" cards.

Let the joker represent someone who is emotionally or mentally disturbed. Shuffle the deck. Now assume that 20% of your cohort (the entire 50 cards) has access to a gun. Deal out 10 cards. Is the joker in the first ten? No? That's good luck then, as the odds were (roughly) 5 to 1 on the crazy person being one of the 10 gun owners. Increase the percentage of gun owners to 30%, or the number of jokers to two. What are the odds now?

Lesson: You've got next to no chance of reducing the number of crazy people in today's America (or any other country). So if you want to increase the odds against a lunatic shooting someone, your best bet is to reduce the number of guns in circulation. Lifetime pct .983.

Walt can think of two arguments that might be raised against this proposition. Someone is bound to say that some of my 50 "cards" must be children. Answer: a loaded gun in the hands of a 5-year-old is about the same as a loaded gun in the hands of someone with a mental capacity of 5. Especially if you're looking at the wrong end of the gun.

The second argument is that if you completely ban handguns or all guns, the criminals will still have guns and the law-abiding citizens won't. Yesterday, Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) told Fox News that the tragedy could have been prevented if only the school principal had herself been armed. "I wish to God," Gohmert said, "she had had an M-4 in her office...so when she heard gunfire she pulls it out and...she takes him out, takes his head off, before he can kill those precious kids."

Louie... Listen, Louie... We're not talking about criminals here. The gangstas with the long rap sheets [Is that what we mean by "aspiring rapper" nowadays? Ed.] will always have guns, sure. But we're talking not about diamonds or spades [That's enough innuendo. Ed.] but about the joker in the deck -- the sicko beset by feelings of inadequacy or rage who goes to his mother's bedroom, takes the Glock out of night table and goes out to blow away the next nine (or nine dozen) people he sees.

Walt's argument for stricter gun control is not perfect. I think a man should be able to have a long gun -- a rifle or shotgun, not an assault weapon -- with which to go out and kill a couple of squirrels for the stew pot. And I don't much like the idea of the police -- the Bullies in Blue -- being the only ones who have guns. But reducing the number of firearms in the hands of ordinary citizens is about the only solution I can think of. If you have a better idea, don't write to me. Send it to the Prez, c/o the White House, Washington DC.

Gunless Kalamazoo Kop felt "threatened" by Canucks

You probably saw this story earlier this week, but Walt feels it bears retelling, since it's a perfect example of the ignorance and paranoia Americans experience when confronted by anything or anyone "foreign". Even when the non-American country or culture or person is somewhat familiar, friendly, peaceful and polite. Like Canada and Canadians.

What follows is a true story, from beautiful Calgary, Alberta, which every year hosts a large cowboy festival -- a glorified rodeo, actually -- called the Stampede. Walt (no relation) Wawra, a Kalamazoo MI policeman, decided to pay a visit this year. No doubt he was dismayed when he passed through Canadian customs and immigration [You mean you have to do that?! Ed.] and was told he couldn't bring his gun(s) with him.

He must have been more dismayed still when he was accosted in a Calgary park by a couple of Canuck hosers -- perhaps resembling those pictured -- who demanded (twice) to know if he'd been to the Stampede yet! But let's not speculate. Here's part of Walt's account of his close encounter with hosers of the northern kind, as published in his letter to the editor of the Calgary Herald.

Two young men approached my wife and me in Nose Hill Park, in broad daylight on a paved trail. The men stepped in front of us, then said in a very aggressive tone: "Been to the Stampede yet?"

We ignored them. They moved closer, repeating: "Hey, you been to the Stampede yet?"
I quickly moved between these two and my wife, replying, "Gentlemen, I have no need to talk with you, goodbye." They looked bewildered, and we then walked past them.

I speculate they did not have good intentions when they approached in such an aggressive, disrespectful and menacing manner. I thank the Lord Jesus Christ they did not pull a weapon of some sort, but rather concluded it was in their best interest to leave us alone.

Walt (Whiteman) speculates that if only Officer Walt (Wawra) had been allowed to have his trusty sidearm with him, Canada would today be down a couple of hosers. Which would be a shame, because the “very aggressive” strangers he encountered may have just been representatives from an oil company giving out free passes to the Stampede.

Wawra’s response to the seemingly mundane, daylight encounter has sparked scorn across the Internet. And it is very tempting to have a good laugh about the stereotypical Ugly American. But seriously... as Herald columnist Naomi Lakritz points out, the whole farcical story -- especially Wawra's perception of the threat and what his reaction could have been if only he'd had a gun -- "speaks volumes about the cultural differences between Canadians and Americans. It gives the lie to those who say that Canadians are no different than Americans."

Ms Lakritz sums up: Wawra’s mindset is what America’s gun mania has produced. How paranoid and how very sad.

Walt adds: That's how wars -- more accurately, invasions of small, weak countries -- get started. Remember Iraq? The American and British governments lied to their citizens that Saddam Hussein possessed great stores of Weapons of Mass Destructions, which made the mighty USA and the not-so-mighty not-so-Great Britain feel threatened. Unlike Walt Wawra, the USA and the UK still had their guns.

Further comment: "It’s Kalamazoo vs. Calgary in clash of civilizations", by Heather Mallick, in the Toronto Star.

Footnote: Walt is well aware that the eponymous Ugly American was the good guy in the novel. Don't write to me to point that out.