So this happened:
Actual superhero Serena Williams stops a thief in his tracks
The tennis champ regaled her Facebook followers with a story about a suspicious man who stood a little too close to her while she was having dinner at a Chinese restaurant with sister Venus…The tennis superstar posted a photo of herself as Supergirl on her Facebook and Instagram, along with a gripping story about how she stopped a thief from stealing her phone at a Chinese restaurant.
Summary: A guy snatched Serena Williams’ iPhone and took off, and she sprinted after him, leaping over chairs in a single bound, etc., to corner the sniveling little weasel and retrieve her phone. Good for her!
In gun insanity news, more details are emerging about the Colorado Springs shooting a few days back — specifically, what role Colorado’s public gun-fondling statute played in delaying police response to the mass shooting. A neighbor had called 911 to report an armed man on the street, but the dispatcher told the caller that “Colorado allows public handling of firearms.”
Shortly thereafter, the man opened fire, killing three people at random before the cops shot him dead. From the Denver Post:
Police agencies statewide say the statute poses a difficult question of how to react when citizens call — frequently — to report an armed person in public. Is it an emergency or not?
[snip]“Is this person exercising their rights or about to start a very serious situation in which someone is going to be killed?” said Jacki Kelley, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. “We just don’t know the difference.”
Let me break it down for you, Deputy Kelley: A person who isn’t a police officer who is parading around a commercial or residential area with a firearm is either a mortal threat to public safety or a massive douchebag. (And so are some police officers, obvs, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic.) I’d be okay with civilians and/or cops taking whatever measures are necessary to neutralize that threat. We can’t wait for Serena Williams to swoop in and save us every time.
Flippancy aside, the law needs to be changed. But I have no doubt that our fellow citizens will once again weigh asshole gun nuts’ irresistible compulsion to fondle instruments of death in public places against the imperatives of public safety and common sense and find that the former supersedes the latter because shut up, that’s why.
Open thread!
Superheroes, Gun Nuts, Etc. (Open Thread)Post + Comments (327)