A convicted felon who was almost certainly not eligible to own a firearm shot and killed his 28-year-old daughter and her six children (ages ranging from three months to 11-years-old) in Bell, Florida yesterday before eating a gun himself. The convicted felon had spent time in jail more than a decade ago for killing his eight-year-old son in a “hunting accident.”
I found it mildly surprising that the latest mass-murdering lunatic spent time in jail for that “hunting accident.” Usually parents who accidentally blow their children away or enable kids to get their hands on guns and kill themselves or others are deemed to have suffered enough.
But this guy was already a felon when he killed his boy, so he went to jail on illegal gun possession charges. How was he able to obtain the guns and ammo necessary to slaughter three generations of his family yesterday? Easy. He lived in Florida. Here’s a roadside sign in Bell:
I know the area well because I have relatives nearby, and I happen to have that crappy picture (sorry) of the sign on my phone because my sister and I make a game of texting photos of signs with incongruous product groupings (“Bible & Tire,” “Real Estate & Lawnmower Repair,” etc.) for our amusement. Gun dealing seems to be a popular sideline.
Anyway, if this sad incident proves anything, it’s that gun laws are ineffective and should therefore be abolished. Or else only the ones currently on the books should be enforced. Or more good guys should have guns — even baby good guys. A crib-mounted rifle could have stopped this monster.
Mustang Bobby
I thought about posting about this being Florida and how I’m so effing proud to live here, but I’m just worn out by it all. Every damn day there’s something like this.
kindness
Good try but it’s too soon to make a good mocking of a terrible thing.
c u n d gulag
The NRA will be looking to arm a fetus before its arms even develop!
PROFITS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
KG
so, where’d he get the gun? honest question, was it his or his daughter’s or did it belong to someone else?
as to bigger issue: this
AndoChronic
‘Oh good, our mass shooting of the week, there it is. I was starting to get worried for a minute about our childish id driven country, thought we lost our “independence”.
shelley
Heard this horrific story this morning. Could not believe it. A three month old? Christ Almighty!
As to where he got the gun? Betty posted a photo of what’s probably many outlets.
Amir Khalid
Just when did America get this gun-crazy? I don’t remember it being like that during the Clinton years.
scav
Eternal Cycles of Guns and Guns Front and Center, with the possibily of lessons –past or future– pushed off to the side and cut off. Have to give serendipity its due.
Warren Terra
A crib-mounted rifle is just silly and obviously will never work. No, I think the answer is obvious: hand grenades! Give that baby’s rattle some real oomph!
Anoniminous
@Amir Khalid:
America has always had a gun fetish. So that’s nothing new. The recent silliness resulted when the GOP learned they can increase their vote if they whip-up the ammosexuals into a fear based frenzy by shouting, “OBAMA IS COMING TO TAKE YOUR GUNZ!”
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: I think the percentage of Americans who own guns is actually declining; it’s just that the remaining core of gun owners is more radicalized and heavily armed. The NRA got into politics in a big way in the Reagan era. Really, a lot went to shit during the Reagan era.
mb
The original felony was for marijuana (no one should ever have a felony conviction for marijuana). And the first killing that sent him to jail really does sound like it was an accident. It kind of looks like the jail time did something really bad to him.
I can’t help but wonder if he and his family are not just 8 more victims of the drug war. Had he never been busted for marijuana, the hunting accident would not have resulted in him going to jail and perhaps 8 people would still be alive.
Mike in NC
We’re driving to Florida for Thanksgiving. Maybe I should look into renting one of those surplus military MRAP vehicles.
elmo
When I lived in Tennessee, I had plenty of room for target shooting around the property, and an AR-15 looked like a fun plinking gun. So I bought one. Not a real Bushmaster, but a knockoff. I had fun with it for a while.
Then Obama was elected. There were literally lines out the door of my local gun shop. I went in there one day and saw that they sell used guns. I also saw that they were sold out and had a waiting list for every kind of AR-15 “scary black rifle” they sold. So I asked, How much will you give me for a slightly used AR?
I doubled my money on that damn gun. Thanks, Obama!
Tommy
That is just so freaking sad.
I live in a rural area where hunting and guns are everywhere. I might come here for enjoyment. Most people I know fire guns. You talk to them, and I have in detail, and they find some restrictions on guns is acceptable. A wife beater. A felon. Heck just somebody that isn’t trained in the usage of a gun shouldn’t have one. I asked a friend to take me hunting a few years ago and he flat out refused. Said I didn’t know how to use a gun and he wouldn’t hand me one until I took to a range and got some training.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
Let’s not sugar coat things, Betty.
Belafon
We’ve got an air conditioning & gun sale company here.
Anoniminous
@Tommy:
There’s an abyss of difference between gun owners and ammosexuals.
Tenar Darell
This sounds like what this very short pdf article calls “anomic suicide.” A familicide (yep, there is a word for killing your whole family and then yourself; ouch) driven by overall changes to the “rules of the game, things like your work, your life, your 401k etc.
I think I’m going for a long walk now.
piratedan
@Betty Cracker: well also during the Clinton years there was more focus on hummers than Humvees, perhaps it’s time for a new oral sex initiative to drive down gun deaths…. I’m sure that the family first people will be on board…. :-)
Tommy
@Belafon: Wow. My state is pretty anal about guns sales and not so sure that could happen. You can get a gun if you want one. As I mentioned in another comment everybody I know has a gun or two, or three, or more. You just can’t get one where you get a window unit to cool your house.
chopper
man, that is one hungry fuckin tree.
Belafon
@chopper: Have you seen Cabin in the Woods?
Roger Moore
The real oddball store I remember is a Bible and Wig place. I guess it would make more sense if it were a Torah and Wig store.
burnspbesq
My parents live in Lake Wales. I feel pretty safe as long as I’m within their upscale gated community, but going to Publix scares the bejeebers out of me.
Mnemosyne
@mb:
Unless the drug war somehow forced him to be charged with child neglect, yeah, no:
catclub
So if you only kill your five kids, that does not qualify for interest?
http://www.wltx.com/story/news/crime/2014/09/17/warrant-shows-jones-feared-five-kids-would-kill-him/15775931/
El Tiburon
@Amir Khalid:
My guess is it was just as crazy, but a few factors are at play.
1. Internet not what it was back then as it is today, so were not as aware.
2. Clinton is and was what we call a “white dude”
3. Barack Obama, conversely, is most definitely not a “white dude”
Convo I had a few years back with a conservative regarding the Clinton years: he believed so strongly that Clinton was going to take away all assault weapons he went out and purchased a lot of expensive guns as investments. The Great Clinton Gun Purge never happened so his investment went bust. Although, maybe now the investment is paying off for the renewed fears of the Great Obama Gun Purge.
jl
Dayum. Next time I am in the South I will look for a trauma clinic / fireworks / gunshop for one stop service.
BC gotta pic of something like that?
Edit: crappy pic is fine, since BC is operating in journalism mode for this post. But she best not get any ideas of sending fuzzy pics of her damn chicken coop.
Belafon
@El Tiburon: So, a great investment opportunity is to buy guns during Republican administrations and sell them during Democratic ones.
Mike J
@Belafon: When we finally get a merman attack, it will happen in Florida.
boatboy_srq
Betty, did you ever get to Birmingham, AL, in the late 80s / early 90s? There were two bars you would have loved: Miss Maybelle’s Beauty Salon and Chainsaw Repair, and Eunice Crabtree’s Cut-Rate Delicatessen and Bait Shop.
catclub
@Belafon: I wonder how many NRA types (the gun manufacturers) were cheering for an Obama win, just for this.
Tommy
@El Tiburon: Years ago I had a co-worker. I liked the guy but he was to the far, far right. His wife divorced him over what he did. He spent their lives savings buying guns because he felt Obama was going to take them away. He could arm a small army. I’ve asked him why, why and he can’t really explain.
PhoenixRising
@Mnemosyne: Wow, the more you learn, the more you ask yourself whether the hunting accident was a hunting accident, or just part of a larger pattern in which this man was indifferent to his children’s welfare to an extent that a) was even unacceptable to the public in Florida and b) caused his 8yo’s death.
Long story short, let’s not waste a bunch of time trying to fit this into a narrative about drug war or anomie–he killed 7 people at once yesterday, after decades of depraved indifference to whether they lived or died.
But without a gun, he’d maybe have drowned himself or something good for the world.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
I think that story isn’t getting as much attention because (A) it doesn’t seem that the guy used an illegal gun and (B) the guy was clearly batshit crazy and who the fuck thought it was a good idea to let him supervise 5 small children by himself?!
Davis X. Machina
How about a co-located gun shop and Montessori school?
http://goo.gl/PbyFHe
PhoenixRising
@jl: My sister lived in the part of Kentucky for which directions to the house include ‘turn downhill on the gravel at the second break in the guardrail after you leave the city limits, then left at the fork where the appliances pile up, but don’t try to cross if the water is above your tire rims’.
The shop that was located just outside the city limits? Christian bookstore, ammo & tanning.
No pic, because our intervention to get my niece out of that hellhole before the preschool where the teachers smoked at work, inside, was successful; back then we didn’t all have cameras all the time.
Chris T.
@jl:
Yes, I was going to ask what would be appropriate combinations. Bob’s Guns N’ Headstones, and so on.
El Tiburon
@Belafon: No, he purchased the guns during the Clinton Presidency assuming they would skyrocket in value as soon as all the guns disappeared. This never happened, so the guns never went up in value.
But I think gun sales are going through the roof, no? And mostly predicated on Obama taking whitey’s guns away? So my guess is these guns purchased back in the Clinton era may have more value, but what do I know.
Roger Moore
@Tommy:
An excellent description of the general problem. They feel some kind of generalized dread that makes them want to stock up on guns and ammo, but they can’t articulate exactly what it is they’re afraid of.
Mike in NC
@El Tiburon: During the Clinton era I used to attend gun shows in Maryland and Virginia with friends who hunted. Invariably there would be at least one vendor whose entire table was nothing but anti-Clinton t-shirts, posters, and bumper stickers (including a lot of Hillary hate). Cannot image what I’d see at a gun show today.
Bobby B.
Southern gun culture is best described by Monty Python in the “squires hunting in the countryside” sketch, except it didn’t include any morbid obesity or tattoos.
Redshift
@Betty Cracker: The number of gun owners is steadily declining, and the number of guns is steadily rising. This gives me some hope that eventually the number of ammosexuals will decline enough to offset their fervor, and this issue will lose its electoral punch, at least on the national level. What can I say; I’ve always been an optimist.
Redshift
@boatboy_srq: My favorite one in my area is “Indian Spices and Appliances.”
Cacti
O/T, but in more news from those hired to “protect and serve”:
The Houston City Prosecutor has dismissed more than 6,000 traffic tickets issued by four HPD officers, who falsely listed each other as witnesses, so that they could collect overtime pay from going to Court (and testifying falsely).
Just a few more bad apples and isolated incidents. ;-)
Trollhattan
A tiny glimmer of hope for our society: Ray Rice jersey exchange day.
Have nothing to add re. this latest gun blasting. It’s all been said. And said and said.
boatboy_srq
SO: convicted felon, who gets firearms, takes his boy out huntin’ after his conviction which should have barred him from owning firearms and “has an accident.” He then spends time in jail, not for the “accident”, but for the weapons violations. AFTER ALL THIS, he obtains more firearms, and turns them on the rest of his family before turning (at least) one on himself. Do I have it right here? Just askin’.
@Amir Khalid: Nope, FL’s been this gun-crazy at least since I was a young’un. Back in the old days the guns were for the gators, snakes and door-to-door salesmen; now it seems they’re for any biped the shooter doesn’t like. There’s been all manner of gun-crazy business there, right down to the incident in 1993 when some genius in the Panhandle, apparently pissed at all Teh Others (presumably all ILLEEEEEGULS) went out to a rest stop on I-10 and shot up some nice European tourists on holiday; after this fiasco, FL’s response was – you guessed it – armed guards at all the Interstate rest stops. Turns out it hasn’t worked all that well, either immediately or over time; whodathunk.
Tommy
@El Tiburon: I want to use the word rube. I noted my co-worker bought a ton of guns before Obama took office. I was like dude we are not going to take away your guns. Literally the least of my action items. Just want to ensure you are not a criminal. Maybe track said guns. And if the government came for your guns I as a non-gun owner would stand right with you.
boatboy_srq
Someone un-moderate me please? FYWP for tying me up just because I linked references to my snarks.
boatboy_srq
@Redshift: That sounds like one FUN watering hole.
boatboy_srq
@mb: It does scream “prison-industrial complex” doesn’t it? Although jail time for weed, and then more jail time not for the killing but for the flipping weapons possession doesn’t sound especially sane.
scav
@Cacti: They were just trying to get home to their familes (albeit with the illgotten gains) and we frightened for their liv(lihoods they so clearly deserve). It’s not like they we sexually abusing the women they pulled over like the OK(?) cops seemed to be.
Amir Khalid
@boatboy_srq:
They never mixed up the two kinds of merchandise, did they? Tell me they never did!
El Caganer
We need to look on the bright side – at least Mr. Spirit didn’t try to vote without proper ID.
beth
When I lived in Mempis, there was a place in Olive Branch, MS called the Oasis Grill and Shoeshine Parlor. I always wondered what came first, were they shining shoes and folks got hungry or did they figure as long as people were sitting for a meal they might as well shine their shoes?
ruemara
@Tommy: “I’m a bigot, Tommy and a black man winning the White House sets off massive feelings of both inadequacy due to my inborn assumptions of natural superiority over black males and the correlated fear that black people achieving not just basic parity but actual power would signify an attempt to usurp power of all white people. After all, in modern history, when haven’t white folks done just this sort of thing. So there you have it, pantswetting cowardice and bigotry have pretty much emptied my wallet of cash I could have used for a massage, which would be more useful.”
I channeled him for you.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: That shrimp salad had to be leftover bait! I’ve always thought a “Beauty Saloon” would be a good idea — a haircut and a shot of whisky! You wouldn’t even be that upset if they messed your ‘do up!
Violet
@Redshift: Like most kinds of change, it’s going to be slow, have some setbacks and at some point we’ll look back and realize things have changed.
It takes various kinds of pressure to get things to change. I wonder if cultural pressure would have an effect. Like if in popular culture ammosexuals were depicted as terrified cowards. Movies with a dumb character hiding behind his guns. SNL skits. Punchlines in late night monologues. Music videos where ammosexuals are depicted as the least desirable kind of person–this would be especially effective with country music. Make it undesirable to be that person. I don’t know if it would work but most people don’t like being seen as cowards.
rikyrah
HE KILLED HIS SON…
and someone actually left him around their children..
sigh…
Trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: We have a couple of (IMHO) brilliant pairings–laundromat-bar (well, duh) and barbershop-bar (anybody sense a theme here?). The barbershop thing is an effort to get dudebros and hipsters to embrace the concept in the wake of them being abandoned for a generation of by hippies, disco Steves and punkers.
Once had an annual “gun and doll” show here but now it’s “guns and guns”–I suppose on accounta Hello Kitty Bushmasters.
elmo
@Belafon: See my story in Comment 14 above.
Violet
@burnspbesq:
You and your parents must not be black. Trayvon Martin was walking in a gated community in Florida.
different-church-lady
Two to offer, long before the age of the camera phone:
1) Hand painted sign on Rt 7 in Vermont:
BUNNIES $6
WORMS 4¢
2) Supermarket aisle sign:
BABY FOOD
BABY NEEDS
DISPOSABLE DIAPERS
POTATO CHIPS
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
When I was a kid, my mother regularly went to a “Beauty Saloon”. In those days, of course, it was a common spelling mistake around these parts.
Mustang Bobby
@Amir Khalid: When I was a kid in Perrysburg, Ohio, the doctors’ offices were next door to the funeral parlor. They saved a lot of money on shipping.
Stella B.
From time to time the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of middle-schoolers.
Scamp Dog
@Bobby B.: you can see that sketch here.
PhoenixRising
@rikyrah: Well, in fairness, that ‘someone’ was his daughter.
Yeah, he killed her brother when she was a young teen, but hey, by that time she thought his ways were normal (see prosecution for various forms of abuse & neglect from back before the brother was born).
It’s hard to understand why no intervention in that girl’s circumstances seems to have helped. She was living with her daddy and her 6 kids. One assumes both facts reflect a dearth of options for her life. All around a tragedy and a complete failure from every social system.
Shakezula
And the fact that he killed himself will allow the usual shitbirds to wring their talons and change the subject to “Let’s demonize the mentally ill!”
Mnemosyne
@PhoenixRising:
Note that the horror story that catclub linked to at #27 above also took place in the rural South where social services are few and far between.
CaseyL
@Mustang Bobby: Near where I live is a major hospital complex that overlooks a… funeral home and cemetery. The hospital might as well have a big sign by the entrance saying See What Happens When You Don’t Do As We Say.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: Forgot to ask, how are you doing?
glocksman
A little late to the thread, but I’ll toss in my $0.02.
I doubt that he bought the gun at a shop because as a convicted felon he would have been denied the sale when the shop ran the mandatory NICS check.
Unless Florida doesn’t share records with the FBI, he couldn’t have bought the gun at a shop unless the shop sold the gun without running a check.
Which is illegal itself.
My guess is he got it through a private sale (no checks of any kind required) or it was someone else’s gun.
Violet
@Amir Khalid: I’m not sure it’s “wrong” so much as just how it’s used in certain parts of the world. According to Wikipedia “Saloon” is “A South Asian term for a barber’s shop”. I’ve seen it used in Southeast Asia and even in some African countries. Also in Asian areas in the UK.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Perfectly fine, thanks! Got the all-clear from the “export” side (as Bill called it) and they’re testing the samples from the “import” side (stomach endoscopy) to see if I have that H. Pylori bacteria that can cause ulcers. Even the prep wasn’t as bad as people said, but I’m pretty used to tummy troubles at this point, so it was nothing new.
I will probably have to go onto a FODMAPs elimination diet for a while to try and figure out what I’m reacting to, which will be no fun, but it’s better than thinking there was something physically wrong.
jl
@ruemara: “I’m a bigot, Tommy…”
Yes, that was my thought. I would add, generalized and widespread butt ignorance with insufficient self-awareness to attempt to remedy their situation. As for example, some of my Rocky Mountain and Southern kin visiting wild and crazy liberal places in Califironia (like, say Central Effing Valley purportedly lily-white podunkville) and freaking out about all the ‘Ay-rabs’ and ‘muslins’ (actually almost all of the scary people they mistake of Muslim Arabs are Palestinian Christians, Hindus, and most especially, Sikhs).
If I was plunked down into King Kong style Lost Island or a alien planet, I would develop generalized dread too, and probably not much I could do about it other than hope for the best. But, I do wonder why people settle for that in dealing in more accessible and easy to understand environments, like, say, planet Earth, and human socieity, just to throw out two random examples.
I have a a couple of relatives who have flirted with the crazy right wing, but were self aware enough to draw back. One of them was hanging out at survivalist fleamarket confabs, and was starting to talk crazy ignorant bigot talk. Then he was at one when an accident and iinury happened, and he noticed that none of these self-proclaimed survivalists had the slightest idea of how to respond or how to do first aid. Except he knew a little.
He had a sudden insight. It occurred to him that a survivalist who did not know the first thing about how to respond to an accident or anything about first aid was a piss poor survivalist who would not survive very long under their own very favorite cherished scenarios. His insight led to other insights, such as, he had never seen a first aid clinic at a survivalist-fest, and maybe a lot of these people are ignorant bigoted loons. Then he started taking first aid, first responder, emergency preparedness courses. Now he is a very conserva-Dem, but he talks sane.
But a lot of people have zero, or perhaps on some measurement scale, negative, levels of self-awareness.
glocksman
@Chris T.:
“ATF should be a convenience store, not a government agency” is a popular bumper sticker among gun nuts.
srv
Talking about tree of liberty…
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
If the word is used by itself, I would agree. But “Beauty Saloon” tells me the business owner was aiming for “Beauty Salon” and missed.
Mustang Bobby
@CaseyL: For a short while Childrens’ Hospital here in Miami had billboards with cute little cartoon angel children telling us how wonderful the care was at the hospital… until it dawned on someone that children don’t become angels until they’re dead.
SatanicPanic
@Amir Khalid: Clinton era was Ruby Ridge, Waco and the OK City bombing, so I don’t know, it’s kind of the same.
glocksman
What about water, Captain Clueless?
Corner Stone
@glocksman: What about it?
Violet
@Amir Khalid: No, what I’m saying is I’ve seen “Beauty Saloon” and “Hair Saloon” used all over the place in those areas. I initially thought it was the wrong spelling but eventually realized it was cultural. That’s just the word they used. In those places I did not see “Beauty Salon” or “Hair Salon”. It was “Saloon.” There were too many of them to be just a misspelling.
FlipYrWhig
@srv: All the wingnuttiest of wingnuts are on federal disability. And their resentments are all entirely selfish and arise from the notion that their woes are serious and that they worked hard their whole lives until that disability thing, but if lazy undeserving people get their snouts into the trough there’ll be less for them. They don’t see it as a contradiction. They see it as a raison d’etre.
NonyNony
@glocksman:
Unless, of course, he was a convicted felon who successfully petitioned to have his right to own a gun restored. Which many of them have. And he was an old white guy so from what I’ve read it’s almost a pro-forma stamp to get your gun rights back if you petition in most states.
Corner Stone
@ruemara: That was actually pretty funny.
I was talking with a wingnut friend of mine somewhere around the first 18 months of the Obama presidency. He was mumbling some talking point about guns and I said, “Listen, friend. The topic of gun ownership is over. It’s done. It’s not even a thing people even bring up anymore. It’s over.”
I didn’t at that time realize exactly how true that was.
boatboy_srq
@Amir Khalid: @Betty Cracker: Well, it was a bar, so neither were sold there. And I’ve always had to be cautious about the taste some drag queens exhibit, but I’m told the cocktails there were flawless.
Amir Khalid
@glocksman:
Texas has a coastline and thus access to all the water it could want, if it builds itself some nice big desalination plants.
jl
@SatanicPanic: And remember, Clinton was the ‘first’ blah president. The stalking horse for our current blah overlords oppressing all the decent productive white people, the disguised nose (and I guess you can interpret that as a euphemism in this context) of the camel, poking its nose into the tent.
At least, Clinton was the first blah president when he wasn’t murderous rapacious meth addled and dealing white trash.
Paleo liberal Carter was object of comfortable and smug contempt (even thought Carter was not paleo liberal at all, but we are talking ignorant bigots here). Clinton said outloud he was not paleo liberal in way ignorant bigots could understand (real folksy like). So maybe Clinton was beginning of the age of ‘generalized dread’ about things that ignorant bigots were skeered o’ lettin’ into their pretty little heads.
glocksman
If her insurance went from $160/month to $600/month, she either got a much better plan than the old one or her employer is using Obamacare as an excuse to make the employees pay a higher percentage of the total cost.
ruemara
@srv: BYE! Moochers.
glocksman
@Amir Khalid:
They could, but we’re talking about a state that elected Governor Goodhair to multiple terms.
IOW, he’d let private enterprise build the plants and charge through the nose for the water.
Because you know that government can’t do it.
Corner Stone
Goodell making a statement now.
Mustang Bobby
@glocksman: Reminds me of a guy I knew in grad school. His idea was to go out to eastern Utah and buy up a whole lot of desert land that was on sale really cheap. He was going to irrigate it and grow stuff and make a fortune. Turns out the land was mostly akaline flats and when he got around to watering it, he had 4,000 acres of Bromo-Seltzer.
jl
@ruemara: “BYE! Moochers.”
When you think about, if the South and other pockets of ignorant bigot dread and resentment seceded, since most of them get way more from feds than they give, that would be a real problem for the new Union federal budget. Since not enough surplus deep read states to make up the difference, our foreign aid budget might balloon up to what ignorant bigots imagine it to be now. Just to keep things under control on our new borders.
glocksman
Best comment in the Reuter’s article on secession thread.
Corner Stone
@glocksman: Aren’t you in Indiana?
SatanicPanic
@jl: I wonder if the Reagan era didn’t permanently break the right wing. They were on top, but all their worst fears were validated at the very top. Plus the end of the Cold War left them free to go after all their domestic enemies.
Mike in NC
@srv: I’m all in favor of rounding up these malcontent wingnuts and shipping them to Somalia where they can flourish under the benign dictatorship of Ted Cruz.
sparrow
@Betty Cracker: I wish so hard there was a “like” button for this comment!
jl
@sparrow: But writing your own thank you note means so much more.
Maybe BC could have a post or two on her pics of unique one-stop-shopping experiences, Southern style.
edit: MAYBE THE DISTINGUISHED MS. BETTY CRACKER COULD MAKE A POST OF UNIQUE ONE-STOP-SHOPPING EXPERIENCES IN THE SOUTH.
glocksman
@Corner Stone:
I am, and I know you’re going to mention Mike
DuncePence and Mitch Daniels.That said, AFAIK secession talk isn’t common around here outside of the total whackjob survivalist types.
low-tech cyclist
@srv:
If I were king for a day, I’d insert a ‘put up or shut up’ amendment into the Constitution. States would have the right to secede by popular referendum, but they’d have to do it within the next 7 years, or shut the hell up already.
Schlemazel
35 years ago or so we were driving through Arizona & stopped at a QuickyMart of some kind to get gas. I went in to pay & behind the counter the shelving was divided into halves. On the customers right was a fine selection of handguns of every sort, to the left pint bottles of all your favorite distilled beverages. The glass counter was stocked to the brim with ammunition.
I thought “Well, if this is not the finest of one-stop shopping experiences in North America!”. I can get fueled up, liquored up and armed up all in one brief visit. What more could a reeeel Murican want?”
Schlemazel
@low-tech cyclist:
7 years hell! Within 7 days all Federal offices would be closed & removed. All military installations would be locked down & emptied of everyone not needed to pack and ship equipment out. Uniformed military would stand guard at all exits from the new nation and examine every vehicle going into or out of said nation. Resident of said nation would have 90 days to file a request for immigration. After that they would get in line with everyone else.
Trollhattan
@Schlemazel:
Would be even better if it had a drive-through and fireworks.
Betty Cracker
@SatanicPanic: I wonder if the Reagan era didn’t permanently break the country. Sometimes I think we’ll survive to flourish in the wake of the Great Stupid ushered in by the Amiable Dunce. But other times I fear it has doomed us.
Schlemazel
@Mnemosyne:
I hope they figure it out soon & you can adjust to whatever the hell it is easily.
As many things as I have wrong it was always harder to deal with the not knowing than the knowing. Also, I thank his noodle appendages that the one part of me He has left unmolested has been my digestive system. That stuff sucks. I have a niece with IBS and she has to check what she eats, if the wrong stuff slips through she is in bad shape. No fun. Hope you can come out of this solid.
jl
@Betty Cracker: You do not clap, therefore I being to think you do not believe. Perhaps I do not wish to see your baitshp-sushi-gun-tombstone-pizza-welding shop-fertlizer storage-fireworks store pics. Perhaps they are of the devil.
Corner Stone
@glocksman: It’s not common here in TX either. I live in Tom DeLay’s old CD, aka, the wingnuttiest of LoTR areas.
No one ever says anything like this.
It’s just some random nut, or some random Governor pandering to those nuts and his outsized ambition.
Nobody in TX wants to do anything like that. I get tired of this, really fucking fast.
cckids
@beth: Here in Vegas we have a Discount Tire and Liquor store. Seems like a time-saver to me.
Although to truly be in the spirit of this place they should add some video p0ker machines.
Schlemazel
@jl:
BUILD THE DANG FENCE!!
cckids
@Betty Cracker:
A new place here trying to get licensed is called Buzzcut – men’s barber & beer joint.
Although, in the smallish NV town my mom lives in, they have a topless shoeshine parlor. Their motto is “We’ll put a shine on your shoes and a smile on your face”. Not kidding.
boatboy_srq
@low-tech cyclist: I still say that while secession is dead as a political topic, expulsion should still be up for discussion. Sending Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on their merry way would be just deserts, and would go a long way toward shutting up the states’ rights shouters in the remaining 46.
boatboy_srq
@cckids: There was a similar place in San Francisco: brewpub, performance space, and laundromat. Went by “Brain Wash.”
Betty Cracker
@jl: Not even the pet grooming / pawn shop?
Kathleen
There used to be a place on Rt. 29 headed toward Charlottesville, VA, that advertised “Guns, Fireworks, Taxidermy,” my all-time personal favorite.
jl
@Betty Cracker: OK, you got some good stuff, I am interested.
Would like like to see welding shop / fireworks store / fertlizer self-store / fast-food deep fry joint, if you got one.
Edit: Actually, I will just assume that fireworks and guns will go along with whatever else.
jl
@Kathleen: OK, this is something i have to ask. WTF is with the fireworks down there? I’ve never stayed long enough to know what they do with all those fireworks, long times away from New Year and July 4.
Been long time since I thought about it much. But WTH is with all the fireworks all the time? Bad TV reception, run out of booze, or don’t run out of it enough, or what?
Burnspbesq
@Violet:
Class, not race. Dad’s a bit of an outlier in this community, because he was never the CEO of a public company (the stock lost over $5 billion of market value the day the board picked the other guy). And Lake Wales is cracker country, Amare Stoudemire notwithstanding.
Calouste
@mb:
The problem is not that the guy went to jail after that “hunting accident” because he had a conviction for pot. The problem is that many people don’t go to jail when they have a clean sheet because killing someone with a gun is considered an “accident” rather than negligent homicide or manslaughter.
Violet
@Burnspbesq: But no one is going to look at him suspiciously because of his skin color, even if he were to walk around wearing a hoodie, right?
Suzanne
@glocksman: If Texas wants to secede, I’m happy to let them go. At this point, they’re like an ex-boyfriend who can’t take the hint.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: If you don’t love me anymore, just say so!
Lois Uptigrove
Never forget seeing a sign in Arizona 25 years ago Drive Thru Beer/AMO
randomworker
@Tenar Darell: From your link
Note: access to guns is a significant risk factor. That’s why doctors cant ask you if there are guns in the home.
Dog On Porch
The good people of Florida must at times feel themselves trapped, as behind an Iron Curtain.
Glidwrith
My favorite sign (now gone) in Kentucky just outside of Louisville: “Tattoo Parlor – tattoos while you wait”
Uh, how can you get a tattoo if you aren’t there?
Juju
@SatanicPanic: Actually Ruby Ridge happened while the first President Bush was in charge.