Backlog: Saturday.

[napoleonherself]

Yesterday mechamom and Quentin came down to take me grocery shopping and bring me some stuff that was up at their place in Indy. Turns out that there was a gun show in town, though, and since Quentin was driving, that means we wound up driving around a little until we found the fairgrounds where said gun show was being held. It was a fascinating experience to follow Quentin around and listen as he extolled the virtues of various firearms, many of which I had no idea how he could ever tell them apart. For a while I followed mechamom around too but she just looked at some crocheted baby clothes and stuff that were over to one side, which was boring. I bought genuine gun show beef jerky! It is branded "Boone's Choice" and the inkjet-printed label has a picture of some guy presumably pretending to be Boone. Yum beef jerky.

I only saw one guy with Confederate flag merchandise. That was something, anyway. There was one vendor who apparently felt the need to warn me and mechamom to be careful around his politically incorrect merchandise, I guess because our delicate female sensibilities might be overwhelmed by the sight of bumper stickers reading "I LOVE My Country / I FEAR My Government", but eh.

At another table there were little stickers reading "PROTECT YOUR COUNTRY -- BUY A GUN". I, uh. I don't think purchasing a firearm actually increases the protection level of this country in any way, fellas. By your logic, every time someone buys a pistol with the sole intention of armed robbery, he is still somehow making the country safer because, hey, he bought a small machine that was designed expressly to kill. What a patriot!

I have nothing against gun ownership. But you're not providing a public service by owning them, and you need to reexamine your priorities if an instrument of death seems the best way to "protect" your family. Guns are kind of neat; it is fun to take them to a shooting range or an isolated bit of land and blast at a target (or in my case the ground). Just please stop worshipping them, k? K.

As the three of us were driving back to town proper from the fairgrounds, Quentin joked that we should go to the Army/Navy store and then a strip club, thus completing the trifecta of turning me into the son he never had. Oddly enough mechamom was not interested in such a plan! Man what is with chicks anyway, they don't know how to have fun. Or something.

Eventually we were done grocery-getting, and the mechaparentals bid me good day and left. Then I took my new gloves that I mentioned in passing a few days back, and the needle and thread that mechamom provided me with since I can't find my own needles anywhere, and I stitched off the fingers that Quentin cut off for me. I don't think they were going to unravel any more than the little bit they already had -- certainly the pair he did up for himself some time ago is holding up -- but I was paranoid. So now I have Army-style wool gloves, with the thumb and first two fingers cut off at the tips, and the raw ends stitched up neatly. Hooray for dexterity.

That more or less was Saturday.

Comments

[ryl.livejournal.com]

At another table there were little stickers reading "PROTECT YOUR COUNTRY -- BUY A GUN". I, uh. I don't think purchasing a firearm actually increases the protection level of this country in any way, fellas. By your logic, every time someone buys a pistol with the sole intention of armed robbery, he is still somehow making the country safer because, hey, he bought a small machine that was designed expressly to kill. What a patriot!

It's all about the control. People like to think they can gain control over their lives if they have a gun to shoot The Bad Guys^TM with, but they don't think it through logically. If you have a gun and keep it in a gun cabinet, you won't be able to grab it at a moment's notice if someone breaks into your house. If you keep it loaded and ready in your bedside drawer, someone else can easily get it to shoot you with, most likely the guy who broke in.

I find loudmouth dogs to be a better criminal deterrent.

[napoleonherself.livejournal.com]

> If you keep it loaded and ready in your bedside drawer, someone else can easily get it to shoot you with, most likely the guy who broke in.

And, of course, if you do that because you want to protect your sweet little children from the Bad Guys^TM, then you are officially the Worst Parent Ever.

I actually thought about examining the "gun == safety" logic in the original post, but got lazy.