Tag Archives: Gun control

June 11, 2012 · 0:00

Birthday Party Blasts!

Sigh.  The guilt.  The knot in my stomach.  The heartache of knowing that I am an inadequate mother.

No, I didn’t forget my child on the roof of the car.  I did not sell him into child pornography or child slavery.  I did not force him to converse with me only in Pig-Latin so that his classmates would laugh at him when he started school.

Nope.  I failed in a much more important way.

Birthday parties.

Maybe it is just that I became a parent too soon.  Maybe there is still time to discover a spacial anomaly that will allow us to remedy the situation.  So that we could once again hold our heads high with the other parents who hosted birthday parties for their equally indulged children. Sigh.

We had fun.  Or so I thought.

When Jacob was young, we had a swimming pool.  And so we had lovely gatherings for dozens of friends with everybody in the pool.  I was young enough then to even appear in front of my friends in a bathing suit.

As he aged, we progressed to other types of parties.  We had one at an indoor playground with tunnels and ball pits and slides and pizza.  We did bowling and laser tag.  All with pizza.

It’s true that unlike a classmate of Jacob’s in 1st grade we did not hold his 7th birthday party in one of the fanciest hotels in Geneva, Switzerland, as did one of his classmates.  It was quite a doo, actually, with waitresses in little French maid outfits carrying silver trays full of, yeah, pizza.  (I’ve always wondered where they’ll hold her wedding.)  But Jacob is a boy, and didn’t care a hoot about fancy-schmancy.

Once we had Jacob’s birthday party at a skateboard rink; helmets and pads were required.  We indulgent parents want to keep everybody safe, and bubble wrap tends to be somewhat suffocating.  We served Pizza, natch.

We only had one real disaster.  And that was when the day before Jacob’s 13th birthday party, which had been postponed, John was called out of the country for an emergency meeting.  Jacob has never recovered.  “Dad missed my 13th Birthday Party,” he sniffed, just this evening.

I thought that was the worst possible child’s birthday fiasco imaginable in an age where parties aren’t done at home, and really all parents need to do is write a check.  It’s hard to go too wrong unless the check bounces.

I thought that until today, anyway.

That’s when I learned that there is a whole new type of kids birthday party that will, well, blow away the competition!  And we missed it.  Sigh.  We were simply born too soon.

And, of course, as in so very many things, Texas is leading the way.  You see, a Texas gun range will be hosting birthday parties for children as young as 8 years old!

“I don’t know whether anyone has ever tried this before,” said David Prince, who is building the indoor gun range.

Personally, I myself, cannot imagine why no one has ever thought of arming children with lethal weapons, filling them with soda and candy and pizza and letting them go at it.  What could be more fun?

Mr. Prince did mention that lots of staff will be around to “help parents supervise.”  Boy, that’s a relief.

Because supervising kids parties isn’t really as easy as it sounds.  That bowling party Jacob had when he was 8?  There were heavy balls falling too close to kids feet, there were shoe rentals (and the fact 8 year olds never know their size) the drinks and snacks to be ordered and kept off the special floor.  It’s complicated.

“We’re not just going to have kids running around waving loaded guns and shooting at piñatas,” said Prince, an accountant and gun enthusiast.

Yup, staff assistance will be available.  This is handy, natch, when lethal weapons are involved; I’d say it’s worth at least an extra $5, easy.  Perhaps an extra $20 if no one dies. 

But you know, I imagine that the release form will be a bit intimidating for the parents who actually like their kids:

Yes, I agree to hold Bubba’s Bullet and Billet harmless, in the event that someone blows my 8-year-old child’s head off.

Nevertheless, I think that it’s good to know that entrepreneurs are developing better ways for parents to get a bang for their birthday bucks.

I just hope the staff is good at distinguishing between pizza stains and blood.

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Filed under Conspicuous consumption, Gun control, Health and Medicine, Humor, Hypocrisy, Law, Stupidity

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May 30, 2012 · 0:00

FiftyFourAndAHalf.Com’s Secret to Increasing Your Stats

I hope by now you have all come down from your virtual sugar high after celebrating my Blirthday yesterday, because serious work is at hand.

In a comment on that post, Frank of A Frank Angle asked me to divulge my secret for having reached 24k hits during my first year of blogging.   Naturally, I ignored him.  I planned to take my secret to the grave.  Or to the crematorium.  Or into space with Scotty from Star Trek.  There are some things you just don’t want made public.

And then I got an email here at my office that made me shout “Curses, foiled again!”  That is a phrase not heard happily by medical researchers, as even those working in offices expect to hear a loud noise next.

No colleagues were injured in the copying of this Google Image

Yes, my nephew, Clinton, had sent me this article:  Avoid these words to prevent Homeland Security from spying on your social networks.

Now, I should tell you that I have known about this for years.  I figured it out, in fact, before I even started my blog, that all I had to get attention was to include some special terms.  And I do!  That way, hundreds of thousands of government workers click on my blog every day leading to, umm, 24K hits in a year.

Wait.  Does the math work here?  Shouldn’t I have millions of hits by now?  Billions?  Centrillions?  Pishaw!  Word Press is probably lying to me about my stats.  Just like when it tells me that today I have ZERO links to my blog using search terms.

You would have thought that at least my post on Butt Burn would have alerted the authorities and resulted in multiple fear-ridden G-3s trying to figure out the terror angle in car seat warmers.

But apparently not everyone in the government clicks on my blog.  So I guess I’m going to have to expand my list.  Up the ante.  You can too — I believe in sharing.  Well, this time, anyway.  I want company when I get sent up the river because my blog “breached” “homeland security,” “threatened” a “standoff” with a “SWAT” team, causing the “lockdown” of my office and its “evacuation” because of folks who cannot distinguish between someone who is “a riot” and a real riot.  You know, one with “shots fired.”

 

Plenty of room for all of us! (Thanks, Google!)

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Filed under Gun control, Health and Medicine, Humor, Hypocrisy, Law, Science, Stupidity, Word Press

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May 14, 2012 · 0:00

Fashion Maverick

Did you know that I am a fashion maverick?  It’s true.  I have been for years.  Or am I a fashion maven?  I forget.  But I’m one of the two.

Actually, I was truly a young fashion trailblazer.  In 6th grade, I became the very first 10-year-old girl to wear nylons to school.  Yup.  I did.  I was very grown up.  And I wore them with a garter belt the boys found irresistible.  No, I was a good girl.  I didn’t try to show it to them.  But it was the sixties, the mini-skirt era.  And I was, at that time, really good in math.  The teacher, clearly a perv, often had me write the correct answers to homework problems on the blackboard.  High up on the blackboard.  There certainly was a lot of noise when I had my back turned.  Boys were so stupid.

I’m pretty sure I first wore nylons on one of those days when my mother went to work early and didn’t see me.  But still, I did it first.  The popular girls just couldn’t believe it was me – that I got there before they did.

Now you guys reading this are nodding off.  Stop it.  Just wait.  Skim.

Throughout junior high and high school, my fashion firsts continued.  I was also the first person to wear torn up blue jeans to school, and to go braless.  (See guys, I told you it would improve.)

Anyway, now that I am an adult, I am a wee bit more self-conscious in my fashion trail-blazing.  So I need some advice.

I’ve just gotten this new pair of jeans and, well, I just can’t decide where to wear them first.  I was so excited when I first saw these pants.   They’re just so me.

A special pocket for my concealed weapon!

They’re made by a Texas textile company, American Tactical Apparel.   The idea belongs to Brian Hoffner, a long-time Houston police officer who describes himself as “kind of a renaissance man,” according to this article.  Interestingly, the idea to make special pants to conceal his gun, came to him (ahem) while he was visiting a prostitute with a gun strapped to his thigh.  (I don’t know why, but I have few commercially successful ideas when I am visiting hookers.  And even fewer when I am afraid that I might shoot myself.)

Anyway, these jeans, along with a line of khakis and other apparel, are designed for the fashion-conscious gun-toter.  And it’s none too soon if you ask me.  It has been such an inconvenience sticking my handgun in my bra.

What do you think?  Where should I wear these jeans – and should I wear my Susan G. Komen Pink Hope 22 or go semi-automatic?

Who could forget Susan G. Komen's "Shooting for the Cure"Please, help me out here.

The only problem is there is only one holder.  And it is pretty small.  Where can I put my M-16?

56 Comments

Filed under Childhood Traumas, Elections, Fashion, Gun control, Humor, Hypocrisy, Law, Stupidity

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February 7, 2012 · 0:00

In the Pink

Sometimes, I find it nearly impossible to shine, and so I just can’t help myself.  At those time I feel the need to do something a little odd, a little nutty and a lot stupid.

Apparently, that is just how the Republican-led government of my adopted state, Virginia, feels.  Because yesterday they decided that one handgun is, well, just not enough for one person, so they repealed that terrible limit, and now, we Virginians can get all the handguns we deserve.  After all, we Virginians have more than one hand, so we need more than one gun.

The limit on guns had been on the law books for 19 years.  It was repealed by a group of state senators who got elected by vowing to increase the number of jobs in the state.  Silly me, I didn’t realize they meant jobs in hospital emergency rooms and morgues.  But hey, jobs is jobs.

But the worst thing about it is I found this out the very day I found my own personal dream firearm:

The Pink Hope 22

Yes, today I learned that the Susan G. Koman foundation was selling “The Pink Hope 22.”  They were “Shooting for the Cure.”  Well, that news, combined with the news that I could now get a matched pair, well, it really made my day.

But then all hope shattered.  Crumbled.  Was blown away.  You see, apparently the Susan G. Koman foundation was all fired up about guns for quite a while.  But not now.  These days, they’ve become so damn politically correct, over this whole decision to let poor women get breast cancer, that they are no longer selling what I personally think is the perfect symbol of an organization devoted to protecting health – a pink hand gun.

I’m so bummed, I need a hug.

*****

Apparently, two of my blogging buddies knew this day would be coming.  The Island Traveler and Arindam of Being Arindam nominated me for the Hope Unites Globally or HUG Award.  Thanks Guys!

I’m not sure that I really qualify for this award, because it is for people (not necessarily blogs) that promote hope, love, peace, equality and unity for all people.  Me, I’m mostly in it for the snark.

Nevertheless, I have it proudly on my blog and am passing it on to three folks who have been wonderfully supporting of my writing, even before my days as an Award Winning Blogger …

Delajus at Higher and Higher

Jamie at Sleep Deprived and Insane

Lisa at Eat Plants, said the Cow

72 Comments

Filed under Awards, Driving, Family, Gun control, Humor, Hypocrisy, Stupidity, Susan G. Komen

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November 14, 2011 · 0:00

Gunsmoke

I’m not really big on guns.  I don’t carry one.  I don’t feel safe around folks who do.   And I am baffled by U.S. gun laws (see https://fiftyfourandahalf.com/2011/07/11/dont-tread-on-me/).

And it’s probably just as well that I don’t do guns.  You see, I tend to be a bit clumsy, and I like my body parts just where they are.  And while losing some flesh wouldn’t be such a bad thing, I don’t want to lose a love handle and have to live with one lonely “apparently nobody loves me” handle.  A married woman like me needs both.

Besides, I do have a wee bit of a temper.  Just try leaving a shopping cart outside of the cart return at the grocery store within drifting range of my car.  You’ll see why there are folks who just shouldn’t “carry.”

Actually,  it always astonishes me that folks around here are allowed to pack heat.  Carry hand guns.  Concealed weapons.  To me, it’s a recipe for disaster.  And personally, I prefer recipes that aren’t lethal.  Recipes that result in baked goods are good.

So today when I learned that a man drove himself, his wife and their four children to the grocery store here in Virginia where he accidentally shot himself in the femoral artery while taking off his seatbelt, well, I got pretty angry.  And since it doesn’t pay to get mad at him (well, not any more it doesn’t), I’ll direct my anger where it belongs:  at the idiots who passed a law allowing that man to put a loaded gun into his pocket.  And get into a car that contained four children under twelve.

Those four kids had an outing they won’t soon forget.  They heard a bang when their father tried to undo his seatbelt.  Only it was louder than the usual click that the buckle makes.  Whoa!  Instead, Dad shot himself in his femoral artery – the I-95 of blood vessels.  When that artery is severed, it generally takes 2 minutes for shock to set in, and 4 minutes to die.  I bet his last conscious thought was: “I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!”  I’m sure that’s exactly what the EMTs did.

Now I can just see the NRA logic behind this tragedy.  You know, he was trying to take off his seat belt when he accidentally hit the trigger.  So guns don’t kill people, and bullets don’t kill people.  Seat belts kill people.

And this totally avoidable tragedy led me to look up some information to see just how pissed off I should be at the folks in Virginia and 34 other states who have passed similar laws allowing just about any idiot to carry a loaded weapon wherever he or she decides to take it.  Bars.  Restaurants.  Sporting events.  Church.  Doctor’s offices.  Schools.  Grocery stores.  Yup, all good places to carry a gun.  Hey, relax!  What could possibly go wrong?

As I was saying, I looked up some stats, because that’s what I do when I am pissed off.  It is a healthier reaction to anger than murder, and much harder to prosecute.  And I learned that our priorities as a nation have changed. We used to try to save people’s lives. 

For example, beginning in the 1980s, here in the U.S. we started requiring people to wear seat belts to reduce fatalities.  (In case you didn’t know it, fatalities are BAD.)

The results from seat belt laws have been fabulously successful.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s latest statistics state that 15,147 Americans survived accidents in 2007 that would have been fatal without seat belts.  That’s a lot of people saved by a law that doesn’t really inconvenience us all that much.

By contrast, that same year, the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control reported 12,608 homicides where a gun was the weapon of choice.   Guns were the No. 2 cause of violent death (homicides) in the U.S. that year.  But guns did win the “overall cause of violent death in America” reality TV contest that year.  Because homicides by gunfire was trumped by the 17,350 suicides using a firearm, the number one cause of violent death in the U.S.  Way to go guns!  Nobody can kill more people than you!  When there are guns around, the Grim Reaper can just sneak up on a person, when they least expect it.

Silly me, I like to think that a significant portion of those 20,000 people killed by guns in that year, along with the other thousands in other years, might be alive today if there were reasonable gun laws.  But I’m just a progressive talking.  Why should we care if folks kill each other off with guns?  Or if they kill themselves off with guns?  Or if they kill themselves accidentally in front of four children and in a parking lot full of other folks who won’t forget today either?

So buckle up, my friends.  And think about whether you’re safer with or without that handgun.

Me, I’m going to get off my soapbox now, very carefully.  I’ll  unbuckle first.

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