The Legacy

The Legacy
I'm going to omit names here, to protect the guilty, innocent, and indifferent.

We've got the makings of a new horror movie brewing in the local area. On Halloween, a 25 year old photographer goes to an auto salvage yard out in the country to take pictures for a car magazine. Said salvage yard is run by a recently exhonerated rapist (who also has convictions for theft and throwing a gasoline soaked cat in a fire) , and a very "Devil's Rejects" clan including his two brothers, who both have records of spousal abuse, child molestation, skipping bail, and not paying their bills. Photographer goes missing. Several days later, the photographer's car is found in the salvage yard. As of the 12th of November, the owner of the junkyard (Mr. Recently Exhonerated) was charged with her murder - the evidence being his and her DNA inside her car and scattered all over the property, a burned camera and dismembered burned female remains in a "burn can," and her car keys and license plates, covered in his DNA (?) hidden in his room. Mr. Recently Exhonerated was arrested several days before the murder charge because of a .22 rifle and a muzzleloader also found in his bedroom.

The "Devil's Rejects" are claiming it's a setup by the county, as Mr. Recently Exhonerated was suing the county for $26 million due to 18 years wrongfully imprisoned. While I have no doubt the investigating parties want this guy to be "the one," Ockham's Razor suggests it's not a setup - and even I was convinced it was until I heard the list of evidence.

If this isn't a book/movie in the next five years, I'll eat my keyboard.

And then it struck me, as I was discussing this a few days ago with my family - this is the legacy of gun control. Helpless, forcibly disarmed young woman brutally killed by feral loser, who manages to get guns despite an outright prohibition due to his being a felon. Whoops. How did that happen? I thought there was a law against felons owning guns. This is what you get when you follow gun control - victim disarmament - through to its logical conclusion: Innocent, defenseless people being killed by those who have broken the law before and have no compunction about breaking it again.

It just so happens that our good Governer Doyle vetoed (last year) a bill that would've allowed this young photographer to carry a concealed weapon when she went into this situation. The same bill has come up again this year, and Doyle's vowing to veto it again. Some reason about the streets running red with blood, and not wanting to send a message that Wisconsin is a state that loves violence. Given the amount of the killer's blood that was found mixed in with the photographer's, it appears this young woman didn't give up easily. It would be interesting to see what she would've done with a Glock 27. I suspect that yes, in an alternate reality, there would be at least one death resulting from the carrying of a concealed weapon - the death of the man, that in this reality, killed an innocent person.

My Own Experience
A few nights ago, I'm standing in the parking lot of the mall where I work, and a car pulls up a few yards away. Mid 20s male gets out, notices me standing off to one side, and advances towards me, growling the cliched "What're you lookin' at?" I hang my head and say "nothing." He heads over to the entrance, also a few yards away, spends a few minutes with friends, after which they all head to their cars, stopping to verbally harrass several women passing through the parking lot. I wonder what state of health I'd be in now if I hadn't acted meek and scared before this punk. As is my habit, I was carrying the best defense allowed to me by the state - a folding utility knife. Stopping by a self-defense store a few days later, I inquired about better defensive weapons that I can carry. Collapsible batons? Illegal. Pepper spray? Illegal. Taser? Illegal. Here I am, attempting to find safer, less-lethal weapons than my utility knife, and my efforts to keep myself and those around me and preserve the life of my attacker are thwarted by our governer, who has obviously never heard of the concept of human rights, and who has definitely never been approached in a dark parking lot by a hostile punk. It's almost like they want me, or someone else, to wind up bleeding to death on a sidewalk someday.

How my own experience ties in
Both of us were forcibly disarmed. If anyone in this state (outside of the police and military) they are a criminal, whether they need it for defense or not. The law and governer decreed I am to be disarmed, and I was put in a situation where I could've been beaten up while waiting for a ride. The law and governer decreed that a woman with an interest in photography, a woman with her whole life ahead of her, be disarmed, and she was put in a situation where she was killed, dismembered, and burned beyond recognition.

Any member of the public who would convict me of illegally carrying a weapon, who would vote to restrict my right to carry a weapon - I wish they'd been standing in that parkinglot instead of me. I WANT THEM to know what it feels like to fear for your wellbeing as some belligerent jerk stalks toward you and you wish you had something more to defend yourself with than fists and a glorified razorblade. Above and beyond that, I wish there was a video tape of that young photographer's final, terror-filled hours - because I'd make the people who'd disarmed her, and the people who merely wished for her disarmament watch it and listen to her screams, every night before they went to bed. I'd make them watch the legacy of gun control.

And as for the governer, the police forces, lawyers, and "public servants" that uphold his decree that young women should die so our state "won't send the message that it loves violence," any official who would use force to disarm innocent people - they should all be tried as accomplices to her murder. They aided the man who killed her. Their actions took the gun from her hand that could've saved her life. They're as guilty as her killer.

I'm hearing
Marc Broussard's "Home," specifically the first verse, running through my head on infinite repeat. Excellent song. Catchy, well written (love some of the rhymes in it), great beat...it's an all around excellent song.

School & Work
I've looked over my class schedule for next year, and I'm liking it. 9 "core" credits, lots of free time. Enough free time that if I make it through the Christmas season, I'll think about throwing my hat into the ring for 3rd key manager where I work. As it is, the head manager wants me to take on the added responsibility of looking after our customer orders.

I spotted, while walking through the mall to my place of work, the manager who'd turned me down for a job at the last place I interviewed (well, she didn't actually turn me down, she just refused to call after promising to do so, I had to go in on my own after what I was told was the deadline and ask) before I got my current job. I almost, almost stopped and told her that in 5 months I'd jumped up the totem pole to become 3rd in experience, 3rd in "command" at my place of work. I didn't though. That would've been rude. Probably fun, but definitely rude.