Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People - And Some People Deserve To Be Killed

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Strong headline? Probably so.

As I write this post I am sitting here at my desk with my laptop and a toasted bagel with a little Philadelphia cheese topped with some black olives (well, I like them) plus of course the inevitable cup of coffee.

Not for the first time, what you are about to read bears no resemblance to the post I had in my head to write when I sat down here, because as I was enjoying my breakfast the thought came into my head that James Holmes may well be enjoying his breakfast too – and that annoyed me.

For those readers who have been in a coma for the past few days, James Holmes is the piece of excrement who opened fire in a movie theater in Colorado, murdering twelve innocent people, including a six year old child, who were there to enjoy a screening of the new Batman movie.

What also annoyed me is the knowledge that for months into the future we are going to be subjected to the publicity given to this evil man as he is needlessly paraded through the courts and analyzed by newspapers and tv stations eager to gain a cheap headline or two. Demented scumbags like Holmes will relish that publicity too. It will even be an encouragement to other equally demented morons to plan more of the same. 

Even now I can see forming a queue of bleeding heart liberals who never miss an opportunity for jumping on the misery of others for a bit of easy publicity for themselves. They will try to ‘understand and excuse’ and will also try to shift the focus of the debate from where it should be to gun control and other spurious issues that are not the cause of the problem.

It may be a bit of a cliché these days, but guns really don’t kill people, people kill people. I have had guns and been around guns practically all of my life. A lot of my friends are likewise. Some carry them with them all the time. And in all those years not one of us has used them to kill a six year old child, nor for any illegal purpose whatsoever.

Due process and all the safeguards built into the justice system are obviously a good thing. But they are only necessary where there is, or may be, a reasonable doubt as to the guilt or innocent of the person concerned. In cases like this Colorado tragedy there is no doubt. Holmes is guilty. He was caught with the literal smoking gun in his possession and as far as I know he has made no attempt to deny his guilt.

Like the headline of this post says, some people deserve to be killed, and Holmes is one of them. The policemen on duty that night did the country a great disservice when they chose not to end the life of this mass murderer at the scene of his crime.

I really do not care to share this planet with, or breathe the same air, as people like Holmes. I don’t want to understand him. I don’t want to have to pay for his trial or incarceration. I just don’t want him around – period.

I deserve to be able to enjoy my breakfast without thoughts of people like that in my head. So do you. 

Hard Luck Mr Scott, The Romance May Dead But Your Wife Isn’t!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Yesterday the subject of my blog post was a rather nice story about a farmer in England who had put a lot of thought, time and effort into creating a memorial tribute to his late wife. I called it “Well done Winston Howes, Who Says Romance Is Dead?”.

A bit out of character for this blog perhaps, but I admire people who do things that are just that little bit above and beyond the call of duty.

Today, however, you could say that “normal service” has been resumed. You could probably tell from the title, “Hard Luck Mr Scott, The Romance May Dead But Your Wife Isn’t!“.

This is a story about another Englishman. This time a Mr Peter Scott from Southsea who has gone down in history as the least successful husband at trying to murder his wife!

All in all Mr Scott made seven attempts to kill his wife.

And the strangest thing of all was that she never once noticed that anything was wrong.

It all started in 1980 when he took out an insurance policy on his good lady that would pay out a quarter of a million British pounds in the event of her accidental death.

Shortly afterward, he made his first attempt to cash in when he placed a lethal dose of mercury in her strawberry flan. Unfortunately for Mr Scott the heavy mercury all rolled out.

Strike attempt # 1.

However, not wishing to waste this deadly substance, he next stuffed a mackerel with the entire contents of the bottle. This time, to his delight, his wife ate it, but, to his dismay, with no side effects whatsoever.

Strike attempt # 2.

Warming to the task, he then took his better half on holiday to Yugoslavia. Recommending the panoramic views, he invited her to sit on the edge of a cliff, but she declined to do so, prompted by what she later described as some "sixth sense."  

Strike attempt # 3.

He tried the same type of thing a few weeks later when he urged her to enjoy the view from Beachy Head, the famous 500 feet high chalk headland in the south of England.

Strike attempt # 4.

Then, when his spouse was in bed with chicken-pox he started a fire outside her bedroom door, but some interfering busybody put it out.

Strike attempt # 5.

Undeterred, Mr Scott started another fire but only succeeded in burning down the entire apartment. The target of his arsonist adventures escaped uninjured.

Strike attempt # 6.

On yet another occasion he asked her to stand in the middle of the road so that he could drive toward her and check if his brakes were working.

Strike attempt # 7.

Unbelievably, at no time did Mrs. Scott feel that the magic had gone out of their marriage. She must have been sooooo dumb!

Finally, since it appeared that nothing short of a small nuclear bomb would have alerted this good woman to her husband's intentions, he eventually gave up and confessed everything to the police.

After the case, a detective said Mrs. Scott had been "absolutely shattered" when told of her husband's plot to kill her.

The Missouri Mass Murderer

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

I'm sure not many of you will have heard of the Missouri Mass Murderer, but that’s probably because I just made it up to get a catchy title for this blog post.

Nevertheless there was such a person and she could even be described as a serial killer such was the number of her victims.

Born in Joplin, Missouri, her name was Elva Ruby Connes Miller and she murdered some of the best songs ever written. In fact she tortured some of them to death in the most horrific manner.

Despite having studied music, voice, and composition at Pomona College, the woman could not sing. She had not a note in her body. Tone deaf does not even begin to describe it. Shrill, out of key, horrendous vibrato when completely uncalled for. You name a wrong way of doing it and she did it. It was carnage.

Curiously, sometimes when someone does something particularly badly it turns out to be something you have to look at, or in this case listen to. And when you hear one song, you need to hear another just to make sure she was as bad as you thought.

Mrs Miller self financed her first recordings and was eventually featured by KMPC disc jockey (and later Laugh-In announcer) Gary Owens on his radio program. Around the same time, 1960, she also appeared on a limited-run album of his comedy routines. Owens can therefore be blamed - sorry, credited - as the person who first discovered her.

Astonishingly Miller was signed to Capitol Records by Lex de Azevedo, a young up-and-coming producer at the label, although nowadays he apparently does not care to discuss his involvement with Miller!

Equally astonishingly, her first LP, ironically titled “Mrs. Miller's Greatest Hits”, appeared in 1966 and sold over 250,000 copies in its first three weeks! She sang for US servicemen in Vietnam (they should probably have got her to sing to the Viet Cong), performed at the Hollywood Bowl, guest starred on numerous television shows, and appeared in Roddy McDowall's film The Cool Ones.

But her fame was short-lived. Interest in Miller soon waned. She was dropped by Capitol and, in 1968, and released her final album, “Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing”, on the Amaret label. She later issued several singles on her own Vibrato Records label, then retired from singing in the early 1970s. She died in 1997 in Garden Terrace Retirement Center, in Vista, California.

A friend of mine introduced me to Mrs Miller's noise (I won't dignify it by calling it music) a few years ago when he gave me a CD of her greatest hits. 

But bad as it certainly is, I have put it to good use over the years. I like to take it to other people's houses, or when we are in the car. I "big" up this great singer I have discovered, pop the CD into the player and then watch the utter confusion and dismay on their faces as they listen to what Mrs Miller has to offer.

Below are a few examples of her crimes. Tunes you may be familiar with "A Groovy Kind Of Love”, The Girl From Ipanema", "Let’s Hang On”, Strangers In The Night", "A Hard Days Night", "Downtown", and "These Boots Are Made For Walkin". There are others on youtube.com if you get hooked, just do a search for Mrs Miller.

I usually say "Enjoy" at this point in my posts. However, today I do not think it is appropriate. Although I should perhaps add the disclaimer that, if you are of a sensitive nature you may find the following upsetting.

A Groovy Kind Of Love

The Girl From Ipanema

Let’s Hang On

Strangers In The Night

A Hard Days Night

Downtown

These Boots Are Made For Walkin

The Curious Case Of The Coroner's Conundrum

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

In 1994, at the annual awards dinner given by the American Association for Forensic Science, their then president, Don Harper Mills, astounded his audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death.

Needless to say it featured an idiot, in fact several idiots, which is why it is being recounted on the fasab blog.

This is the unlikely story.

On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. 

The deceased had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide. He had left behind a note indicating his depression.

As he fell past the ninth floor, his attempt to kill himself was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him instantly. 

Neither the shooter nor the jumper were aware that a safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide because of this.

Ordinarily, if a person sets out with the intention of killing himself and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he originally intended, the death would be deemed a suicide. 

Thus, in normal circumstances, the fact that Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide.

However, in this case, the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful, because of the safety nets, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. 

The room on the ninth floor where the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by and elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with the shotgun. But he was so upset that when he pulled trigger he completely missed his wife and the shotgun pellets went through window striking Opus as he fell and killing him. 

The Coroner held that, “When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B.”

However, when confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. 

The old man said it was his long standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her - therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident in that the gun had been accidentally loaded by someone else.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.

The case now became one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus. 

But even that would not be enough to feature in this blog. 

Further investigation revealed that the son, was none other than one Ronald Opus, who had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder.

This had led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23, only to be killed by a blast from the shotgun he had loaded himself some six weeks previously as he fell past the ninth story window of his parents’ apartment.

The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.