Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Stay strong, because they are weak.

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Stand up, dammit!

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

In my day, never was longer.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

It’s possible to be a liberal firebrand without crapping on the party.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / Missouri Woman! Never Let The Muzzle (Of Your Gun) Cover Anything You Aren’t Willing to Destroy Edition

Missouri Woman! Never Let The Muzzle (Of Your Gun) Cover Anything You Aren’t Willing to Destroy Edition

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Don’t do this!

Woman found with gun during strip search pleads guilty

(Image 1: The Four Rules of Firearm Safety)

From the Pantagraph:

BLOOMINGTON — A Missouri woman accused of having a handgun concealed in her vaginal cavity during her booking at the McLean County jail pleaded guilty Friday to weapon and drug charges.

Anika Witt, 20, of Ozark, pleaded guilty to possession of a weapon by a felon and unlawful possession of a controlled substance. According to a prosecutor’s statement read in court in September, Witt was stopped Sept. 7 for speeding on Interstate 55 near Chenoa.

A search of the vehicle turned up heroin in her bra and ecstasy, said the statement.

 After Witt was taken to the jail, a female correctional officer found a loaded Kimber .380-caliber handgun inside Witt’s body, said the prosecutor.

This is way to far inside the waistband carry!

It also gives all new meaning to the user manual admonition to: “AVOID OVER-LUBRICATION OF (your firearm’s) COMPONENTS”.

Stay alert!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

155Comments

  5. 5.

    danielx

    Sweet tidy bowl Jeebus skipping across the blue water…..I cannot begin to imagine how uncomfortable – at best – that particular carry location would be.

  6. 6.

    Jerzy Russian

    The gun was completely inside her cooter? Is that comfortable? Can you walk when an object like that is inside your cooter? Do the guards routinely look inside cooters in these situations? My inner 12 year old boy has more questions along these lines, but I will stop there.

  7. 7.

    danielx

    Awwwww….that is the first time I’ve seen that picture of Tunch the Mighty with wings and a halo.

  9. 9.

    Quinerly

    This story sounded familiar. A quick Google search told me of at least two other heat packing vagina cases dating back a few years. ?

  10. 10.

    Brachiator

    I know that happiness is a warm gun, but this is taking it too far.

    The American dream, cruising along the highway, she’s got heroin in her bra, and a gun in her coochie.

  16. 16.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    More evidence for my opinion that Missouri is just a mix of Kansas and Arkansas.

    Related: If Memphis wasn’t depopulated by the yellow fever outbreaks in the 1870s, would its subsequent development look like St. Louis’, or would they have stabilized each other during the downswing of river transport in the late 20th century?

  23. 23.

    Brachiator

    @Uncle Omar:

    Missouah woman and Floridah man need to get together. Imagine the offspring.

    Might not have any offspring. That woman was packing a hell of an IUD.

  26. 26.

    M. Bouffant

    @Jerzy Russian: I was popped for reefer possession in 1973 & before I was put in the cell the arresting ossifer asked me to drop my pants & spread my cheeks so he could be sure I hadn’t concealed something up there.

  27. 27.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Quinerly: Yep, this seems to become a public issue every few years. Makes you wonder how many more women have opted for internal carry, but aren’t caught.

  31. 31.

    wuzzat

    I know sex ed’s not great in Misery, but that’s not what “use protection” means…

  34. 34.

    Brachiator

    O/T. The British Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, resigned over an immigrant scandal. This is a big fucking deal. From news reports.

    The home secretary had faced mounting pressure in recent days over her role in setting the culture and policies that led to long-term residents of Britain from Caribbean countries being denied healthcare, pensions and benefits – and in some cases the threat of deportation.

    Rudd was a key ally of Prime Minister Theresa May, and one of the more capable people in her cabinet. Rudd was also, I believe, anti-BREXIT, and possibly a future candidate for prime minister herself.

    This seriously wobbles May’s government. She is expected to announce Rudd’s replacement tomorrow.

  36. 36.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    So I’ve mentioned that I’ve been writing this story I’ve mentioned before that has gone through several conceptual iterations.

    How plausible is it that a white supremacist paramilitary group (formed from a global cabal of corporate and some government factions) could take over (and maintain control of) significant portions of South America (perhaps Argentina, Brazil, or Venezula [for the oil and other nat resources] following 20 years after a global 1980s nuclear war? Australia and New Zealand could qualify but I’ve read that they import a lot of their things and aren’t very self-suficient. Also, the main villain leading them is an American and I don’t think the Australians (certainly not the NZers (Nuclear Free NZ, anyone) who survive would appreciate being ruled by an American.

    And how could they have kept that a secret in the years preceding said war?

  42. 42.

    Wag

    @Timurid:

    Micro slides are made to the tightest allowable tolerances, with barrels machined from stainless steel for superior resistance to moisture

    I’m just going to let your linked advertisement speak for itself.

  45. 45.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman: As you might know, I live in St. Louis. A bunch of people have been gigging over Missouri woman for several days. All over the Book of Faces. I thought I was having some sort of weird flashback. That prompted me to Google. I guess I’m a bit of an expert on this now… And, yes, there is Florida woman: m.huffpost.com/us/entry/857626?ref=fb&src=sp

    My work is done. Good night!

  46. 46.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Wag: Kimber’s are so notoriously tight that they take between 500 and 1,000 rounds of ammo to be shot through the before they’ll function properly without malfunctioning. Failure to feed, failure to return to battery, failure to eject, failure to extract.

  50. 50.

    Brachiator

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    How plausible is it…

    There’s a wrters’ thread that sometimes pops up on Sundays and some authors who post here. Have you brought this up with them?

    I don’t know nothing about writing fiction, but as a reader, I’m impressed whenever a writer makes an imagined world vividly real. I would think that even if you don’t include every detail in the final story, you have to work out how this world works and how it got from point A to point XYZ.

    Good luck.

  52. 52.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I am not a kook!!!

    I know some Nazi war criminals fled to Argentina. That’s probably what made you think of that (alternate) History Channel show. At least back when they were the Hitler Channel it was real history.

    That still doesn’t speak to the plausibility of my premise.

  53. 53.

    Gin & Tonic

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: In the late 1970’s and early to mid 1980’s there was a lot of speculative fiction, both books and TV, contemplating a third world war. It may be worth your time to peruse some of that. And then, as a sort of antidote, read Herman Kahn’s On thermonuclear War. There’s a lot of practical details you’re overlooking. But it’s late (for me) so I’ll leave it at that.

  55. 55.

    Brachiator

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Anti-immigrant and anti-Brexit seems odd.

    Yep. PM May and her ministers are trying to juggle contradictory and nonsensical positions. And Nigel Farage has climbed out of the sewer to make the following statement.

    And UKIP’s former leader Nigel Farage tweeted: “Now that Amber Rudd has resigned we need a Home Secretary that supports Brexit.”

  56. 56.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SFBayAreaGal: I did. I have an exhaustively researched print copy of a book published in the mid 90s on the Der Spinner network. It’s in storage with 99% of the rest of my stuff (thus is the life of your over credentialed mercenary) or I’d give you the title and author. Baer’s reputation is legendary. Nada Bakos is one of the best network based analysts and targeteers there is. And I say this as someone who has taught network based analysis and targeting to military and civilian intelligence officers. I don’t know the actual ARSOF guys involved in the show.

    I find what they’ve uncovered highly plausible. My understanding is that the genetic testing done on the recovered remains from the Fuhrer Bunker were not Hitler’s. They weren’t even male. And we know that the Der Spinner network existed and that it did move large numbers of NAZIs out of Europe. We also know, because it is well documented that the founder of German Foreign Intelligence, the BND, who was Hitler’s head of foreign intelligence that we decided to rehabilitate, used his assets to facilitate some of this using the early BND as cover. So I think it is certainly plausible.

  60. 60.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Brachiator:

    would think that even if you don’t include every detail in the final story, you have to work out how this world works and how it got from point A to point XYZ.

    That’s the hard part. I’m worried that I won’t be able to write the world in a convincing and realistic manner.

    I tried asking what the effects of 1983 nuclear war would have on the world on AH.com and I got 20 different answers. Didn’t help at all.

    Truth be told, while the nuclear winter predictions were probably more dire than what reality would have been, popular depictions of post-apocalyptic settings are a little too rosy (probably more for plot convenience)

  67. 67.

    Brachiator

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    That’s the hard part. I’m worried that I won’t be able to write the world in a convincing and realistic manner.

    Maybe it sounds to glib, but maybe it would help if you just start writing. Maybe a short story set in your world. Then take a look at what you have.

  71. 71.

    M. Bouffant

    @Adam L Silverman: The planting was all for show, but not to worry:

    In fact, the tree, from Belleau Wood in France where almost 2,000 American soldiers died in a World War One battle, had been dug up not long after it was planted. It was put in quarantine, according to U.S. and French officials. The problem: Parasites on the tree could spread to others on the White House property.

    “It was actually a special favor from Trump to France to be able to plant the tree the day of the president’s visit,” an official from Macron’s office said.

    “Since then, it has returned to quarantine and will soon be replanted in the White House gardens,” the official said, adding: “Don’t worry, the tree is doing very well.”

  73. 73.

    Brachiator

    I recently went to see the new Avengers movie. The only trailer was for the new Han Solo film. It looks pretty good, but one scene made me wish that the studio had done a stand-alone film centering on Lando, without Han or Chewie, and new characters and world’s that we had not seen before.

  79. 79.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @M. Bouffant: A competent White House staff would have issued a press release prior to the planting to explain all this.

    But we don’t have a competent White House staff.

  85. 85.

    M. Bouffant

    @Adam L Silverman: When I saw the first reports I assumed there was a legit reason, as not even Trump & his flunkies could be that tone deaf, so I looked for an explanation, figuring maybe they had to put in a pot for a while for the roots to grow or …

    The idea of a quarantine for dirty furrin trees seems somehow appropriate for Trump & his lumps.

  86. 86.

    J R in WV

    @Adam L Silverman:

    My Kimber Ultra-Carry .45 has about 300 rounds through it, and hasn’t ever misfired, stove-piped, or otherwise failed, so far. It is tight, though. A tiny drop of oil before shooting may be helping.

    The tiny manual tells me I could expect mis-adventures until I put 500 rounds through it, hasn’t happened yet.

  90. 90.

    Adam L Silverman

    @M. Bouffant: They had a real problem with the first batch of cherry trees that Japan gifted to the US for DC back in the 19th Century. So I understand the quarantine thing. Would’ve been nice if, as @Villago Delenda Est: said they made an announcement.

  91. 91.

    Adam L Silverman

    @J R in WV: You appear to have been blessed. Of course only the people that have the break in issues ever post about them online in the forums.

  93. 93.

    danielx

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Didn’t remember the details, although confusing Mengele with Wiesenthal is kind of a major oversight. I just remember Gregory Peck chewing the scenery in one scene.

  96. 96.

    Brachiator

    @M. Bouffant:

    The idea of a quarantine for dirty furrin trees seems somehow appropriate for Trump & his lumps.

    The first cherry blossom trees brought to the US from Japan had all kinds of problems.

    Japan gave 3,020 cherry blossom trees as a gift to the United States in 1912 to celebrate the nations’ then-growing friendship, replacing an earlier gift of 2,000 trees which had to be destroyed due to disease in 1910.

    But yeah, Trump is a dope who should have had people handle this better.

  98. 98.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Mnemosyne:
    I know what you’re saying and the takeover isn’t part of the plot. Time travel to 1983 from an alternate 2005 is involved, so the backstory will probably come up (along with the pre-war world still being within living memory)

    I’ve always been interested in the “lore” of fictional worlds and I like details that add flavor and make a setting come alive.

  99. 99.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Outlined, sure, but you usually don’t have to work out every single detail. Conquests and wars are inherently chaotic and “implausible” things happen all the time. How plausible was it that Hitler would survive so many assassination attempts during the war?

  103. 103.

    J R in WV

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Yeh, I noticed that when I looked up F-350 diesel truck forums. Everyone posting had done “upgrades” to their chip, or exhaust, or turbo, and then the head bolts shattered and the cylinder head flew out the hood. Or something.

    Guys who left their engines stock, not so much. Wonder why?

    I once asked about a sound from the power steering pump, they replaced it, and they found a couple leaky cooling devices as they penetrated into the pump, all under the warranty. Put 90K on it without any issues. Well, brakes, oil changes, that kind of thing.

    They lift the cab off for major repairs, like a semi-tractor…

  107. 107.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: When the people trying to do it were line and staff officers, the odds of it not working were high. I was a line officer and a staff officer. That was never something we could be good at.

  111. 111.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I was also thinking of Richard Ross, who survived the Peninsular Wars to defeat Napoleon the first time around in 1814, only to be killed by an American sniper after burning Washington DC. War is weird and unpredictable.

  112. 112.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Mnemosyne:
    I’ve been meaning to read Handmaid’s Tale.

    Anyway, my story, while being a pretty serious adventure will just be a fanfiction. Do you remember G1 MLP?

  113. 113.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: Reynolds on the morning of the first full day at Gettysburg…

    As my ASO used to remark to me often: “There’s a bullet out there with everyone’s name on it. I don’t worry about that one. I worry about the ones marked ‘to whom it may concern'”.

  114. 114.

    J R in WV

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I don’t carry it around all that much. I use it for target shooting here on the farm, have put down injured animals, etc. Not in my pocket all the time, for crying out loud! Or other less comfortable places!

  118. 118.

    Adam L Silverman

    @J R in WV: Given what you’ve told me about where you live – middle of nowhere in a holler – I figured that’s what it was for.

  121. 121.

    efgoldman

    @Mnemosyne:

    Not at all — it’s by Ira Levin

    Crap. That’s what I get for relying on 60 year old memory.
    I probably conflated it with Topaz.

  122. 122.

    Bill Arnold

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    following 20 years after a global 1980s nuclear war

    How big of an exchange? All-out between the USSR and the US, with maybe 50 percent of the arsenals being used and the rest destroyed or duds or never launched, with China, UK, France, Israel not involved?
    Here’s a Pollyanna-ish version:
    Approximately, maybe 500M prompt and fallout-related deaths mostly in destruction zones. Some (early 1980s, no internet) tech infrastructure survives (I don’t know about power grids of 1983; probably they mostly survive (with some exceptions) or are repairable outside destruction zones) or is easily repaired, oil continues to flow and coal continues to be mined, albeit at maybe 1/4 then-current levels. Nuclear winter and supply chain collapses cause massive crop failures / distribution failures for a year and lesser failures for a few more, a billion or two (of 5) starve to death. Massive improvised fixing and other improvisation (because people like to fix things especially if they’re highly motivated by fear of collapse of civilization, e.g. T1D people.) brings things back to maybe 50 percent outside destruction zones within 15 years. Lots of attempted migration to the southern hemisphere to escape lingering fallout, and lots of other migration, hard to predict. I’ve not seen it done convincingly in fiction, but may have missed an example. I have a survivalist manual from that era somewhere, but it focused on the US. (e.g. medical care reverts to a mix of early 20th and mid-20 century levels in many places.)
    As Braciator says, you need to write down the alt-history, and edit it until it seems plausible to you, then run it by somebody else. Even if the details don’t escape into the fiction. And you probably want to understand economics and tech of the era in detail.

  123. 123.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Mnemosyne:
    This is it

    I was thinking of doing a crossover of that and current G4 MLP. Megan would be a high-functioning alcoholic 20 years later. Having grown up in a post-nuclear hellscape has caused her to become a cynical mercenary that has to be convinced to once again come to the rescue of the ponies to face down an old enemy. Only this time more humans (the white supremacists I was talking about) than just her cross over and plot to squire reality altering powers to take over what remains of the Earth.

  124. 124.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    A Missouri woman accused of having a handgun concealed in her vaginal cavity

    My brain stopped working right there. Is this real life and no some slash fiction thing?

  128. 128.

    Mart

    Stories like this woman’s and those on the cable TV shows like COPS and LIVE PD make me sad. Instead of being repeat offenders, theses poor folks should be getting some proper help. This woman could well be on the dead from opioids list 6 months after she gets out of jail. Her home town of Ozark, MO is a prime example of the rural white opioid and meth crisis here.

  130. 130.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I have always hated that term. It defeats the whole idea of breaking down barriers and enjoying something for it’s own sake regardless of what the target audience is. To me, it’s always been a sign insecurity in your masculinity that you have use “bro” to describe your fandom. It’s also very gendered for no reason.

  132. 132.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I know you were. I’ve always associated it with bad stories that have no plot and only exist to provide fanservice. They don’t depict same-sex romance in a very sensitive and respectful light.

    Man, you people probably think I’m a freak now lol

  133. 133.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    Whoops, thought my edit didn’t go through. Disregard this comment!

  139. 139.

    normal liberal

    I am exceedingly grateful that 1-this lunatic decided to avoid a trial for which I might have been called for jury duty (I’m imagining voir dire…) and 2-that the jury I was on two weeks ago featured a defendant who apparently steered clear of weapons in his home-based controlled substance business. Unexpected, given the drug trafficking, wads of cash, etc.
    As to our visitor from Missouri, well, yikes. What a shame there was no quote from the officer who located the extremely concealed weapon.

  142. 142.

    Suzanne

    Um…..how, uh, BIG is her, uh….holster?

    Trying NOT to make any hot-dog-down-a-hallway jokes…..

  143. 143.

    Suzanne

    @Brachiator:

    The American dream, cruising along the highway, she’s got heroin in her bra, and a gun in her coochie.

    God, it’s so painful, when something is so close and still so far up your snatch…

  145. 145.

    AxelFoley

    @Brachiator:

    I know that happiness is a warm gun, but this is taking it too far.

    The American dream, cruising along the highway, she’s got heroin in her bra, and a gun in her coochie.

    LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

  147. 147.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
    Answering as a writer: Totally plausible. The world is weird and things much weirder than this can happen. It is not an extreme setting in terms of what people are used to swallowing. However, you’re setting yourself up for tons of research so that you know which issues to at least brush off with hinted answers, and to present issues and cultures of the countries involved.

    If it helps, and I’m sure it will, remember nothing in your backstory has to happen the likely way, including the results of a nuclear war. You only have to know the issues well enough to imply why it didn’t.

    The conspiracy part of hiding who controls South America is the hardest part, because readers have a higher threshold for conspiracy swallowing. Not much harder, and you have the advantage in a post-Internet age of blaming pre-internet information lag as rhetorical sleight-of-hand.

    EDIT – And as a writer I also advise: Don’t go out of your way to give the explanations to your reader. Have them there in the backstory so they can leak out when relevant, and at the minimal levels a character would feel like describing. It’s the ‘nobody describes how the engine of their car works’ argument.

  148. 148.

    J R in WVone of them were ever attacked

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @J R in WV: Why is it needed?

    We live on over 200 acres with 3 households, probably a minimum of 45 minutes or an hour from nearest LEO support if something happens, from a sneak thief looking for tools in the shop, a timber rustler trying to cut valuable cherry or walnut trees, someone trying to break into the house for tools or money. EMTs with a county ambulance is a little closer, maybe 15 or 20 minutes if they aren’t on a call when you call them for help.

    One day early one morning an old gray truck with a brushed on paint job drove right up to the shop , expecting to steal some expensive power tools. At the time we had a 95 pound brown dog with a big bark, we called him Boomer from his bass voice. I let Boomer out to run over to the strange truck 200 hards away at the shop, tucked a gun into my hip pocket and walked down to the shop road where it hit the main farm road and waited for the two guys to come out from the shop. They got right back in their truck the minute big old Boomer got up there barking.

    When they came down to me, I asked “What are you boys up to out here?” and the driver, a dumbass looking fat boy with a beer between his legs said “We’re stone cutters from Marmet and we’re looking for country rock to cut for a job.” There are boulders lying around the place, but these boys didn’t have any stone mason tools, hell their little old truck wouldn’t have held much in the way of stone workers tools.

    So I told them there was no country rock hard and tight enough to use for building stone any where around this neighborhood, so they were wasting their time looking. I went on to say that they should get out of the community quickly, and stay away, as some people were touchier about strangers than I was, They left without further incident. which was good.I will take

    I had a gun in my hip pocket which I didn’t even need to brandish to get rid of those sneak thieves. I could have held them and had my wife call the cops, who could have found out what was in the truck bed of those boys from the day of driving around to see what they could find that wasn’t locked up or fastened down. In those cases the gun is a combination of personal security tool and farm or remote living security tool.

    We have had livestock with fatal injuries, that I was able to put down and bury. We have had feral dogs coming contact with livestock aiming to take down a $2500 cow to eat, when I needed to shoot leader dogs to protect our herds! So in those cases the pistol is a farm tool.

    Sometimes when I go out to our little place I built in Arizona I feel the need to take a large pistol, as there are mountain lions commonly around the ranch at 5500 feet in the Dragoon Mountains. I’ve seen them within spitting distance down at my cousin’s little farm house in the valley since the fire in the Mountains along the east of the Valley, which drove all the wildlife out of the national monument down into the valley fields and woods.

    There the pistol is purely for personal protection against an apex predator perfectly willing to attack a person for lunch. And I will confess that driving cross country from WV to AZ, a 2050 mile trip from house to house, I feel more secure having a Kimber .45 with us on remote roads in the middle of seriously no where. We usually also have a Taurus .40 pistol too, not quite as big a gun for a lion, but perfectly adequate for people with evil intent.

    My grandmother lived on a farm in the country, and kept a tiny general store, with 50 pound sacks of flour and cornmean, kerosene and gas and oil, fan belts and canned beans and tomatoes. She carried a pistol in her apron pocket, with the reciepts, all day every day, and everyone knew about it. She was never robbed in her store. She did hold a guy at gunpoint who had broken into her enclosed back porch and was working to open the back door when she opened it, holding her .32Colt on him, They stood there waiting the half hour it took the sheriff to get there. She was probably 75 or 80 at that time, and had been raised on a farm in Louisa KY and taught to shoot by her parents as a girl in about 1895. when Louisa was a river boat town with a mill and warehouses for mining equipment, farming tools, and mill tools.

    I did an oral history project while in an Antioch University history class, I interviewed elderly high status women who had grown up in New River Gorge when the mining of the area was getting started. They had all been taught how to shoot, and to carry a pistol in their purse at all times in the late 1890s. At night they hung their gun from their bedpost, and in the morning they wore it to school, or to work or church. None of them were ever attacked, but others were, and they all believed that having a gun made then both safer and freer.

    Most of them who still drove still carried a small pistol, all the time. My Grandma quit carrying one as a daily practice after she sold her store, in about 1955-57 or so. I remember staying at the store with Grandma when my Mom was beginning to go back to work as a reporter for the family business – the small town newspaper.

  151. 151.

    Miss Bianca

    @J R in WVone of them were ever attacked: damn, J R…have you got the stories! Yeah, rural CO has all the same conditions you described…livestock, livestock predators, the occasional shady character, long distances between one’s house and the ER or the vet…i don’t carry, myself, but everything you’ve dsecribed is why I think about it from time to time.

  152. 152.

    J R in WV

    @Miss Bianca:

    Well, as I say, I don’t often actually carry one around, except when I do. Mostly they lay where I keep them. The old guns I inherited which are no longer functional are on a shelf with other knicknacks.

    Anybody my age that hasn’t got some stories didn’t do anything with all those years. You actually used to be able to travel just by going out to a road and showing people your thumb! There were some stories!!

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