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GUNCRANKDIARIES TM
eXcUses, ALIBIs, PItHy oBservAtIoNs & GeNerAL ePHUs JoHN coNNor
Artfully reveAling the
Blindingly OBviOus
Amonth before national elections —
with enormous implications for gun
owners — and three before SHOT
Show 2013 — what’s a hack gunwriter
to do? The ugliness will be over by the
time you read this, but right now, I’d be
guessing. So, it’s magic tricks! But first,
this story:
Long ago and far away in a tiny
remote village, an entertainer, a magician
of sorts, rolled in with his bullockdrawn
cart, accompanied by an enormous
oafish-looking assistant. The local
kids were delighted and flocked to greet
him — me too! After setting his “stage,”
the ancient wizard gracefully draped a
crimson scarf over his docile bullock’s
massive horns and plopped a little
yellow hanky on his assistant’s bushy
head. The bullock and the assistant
froze stock-still. Stalking dramatically
about, peeking and peering, the wizard
challenged the kiddies to guess what
was under those cloths. What could possibly
be hidden there?
The older kids had seen the act
before, and laughing, shushed the
younger ones, telling them “Watch!
Watch!” The wizard leaped up, yanked
the scarf off the bullock and recoiled in
shock: A bullock! Amazing! The bullock
snorted and waved its horns. Then he
crept up on his assistant, leaped in the
air and plucked off the hanky. Sha-zam!
A MAN! The wizard, astonished, fainted
dead away as the oaf grinned and did a
nimble dust-shuffling dance. The little
kids got it and they all shrieked in glee.
His whole act was like that. His “find
the pea” trick employed three tiny cups
and a baseball-sized “pea,” and he made
his cart “disappear” behind an open
rainbow-hued umbrella. The kiddies
howled. What the old guy lacked in
prestidigitation he made up in style and
slapstick. No “magic;” he just artfully
revealed the blindingly obvious. Let me
give that a try, okay?
Bullock Under The Scarf
With sincere sympathy for the victims
of the Aurora theater massacre, I must
ask if anyone else noted this: Dozens of
unsuspecting people gathered
at midnight to see theatricallycostumed
fictional characters
portray intense gratuitous violence
and imminent slaughter. They were
then subjected to intense gratuitous
violence and slaughter by a theatricallycostumed
self-fictionalized character.
Could anyone have predicted this?
Not with any certainty, no. But on the
other hand, who would be shocked if, at
the midnight debut of a new Friday the
13th movie, a hockey-masked psycho
brandishing meathooks leaped from
behind the curtains and clawed his way
through the crowd? Anybody want to
attend an L.A. midnight resurrection
showing of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
in a “Gun-Free Zone” theater?
John Lott, author of “More Guns,
Less Crime” notes seven theaters
within 20 minutes’ drive of killer James
Holmes’s apartment were showing The
Dark Knight Rises the night of July 20th .
Did Holmes pick the closest theater,
the furthest, or the one with the largest
audience? Nope. He selected the only
one prohibiting guns, including licensed
concealed carry. Coincidence? Duhh …
Wait! You mean that big sign banning
guns didn’t stop Holmes? Shocking!
Now consider this: After the massacre,
the management of one of those theaters
changed its policy and is now a posted
“gun-free zone.” Some people really
can’t see the bullock under the scarf.
The Oaf’s Hanky
On September 11th , a date with a
certain significance in American history,
violent anti-American riots “spontaneously”
broke out in numerous centers
of “peace and tolerance” around the
world. In Benghazi, our ambassador and
three other Americans were murdered
in a virtually unopposed terrorist attack.
We were told the Benghazi attack was
just another “spontaneous” reaction to a
video trailer — which virtually no one
had seen — for a nonexistent movie said
to be “disrespectful” to a certain “revered
personage.” Now we know that just prior
to the Benghazi attack, American secu-
Wait!
if you hit a
cookie with a
hammer —
the cookie crumbles?
rity forces were apparently withdrawn.
Wow, triple-shock! Attacks on a
day celebrated by terrorists, marked
by numerous past attempts and completed
terrorist acts on the same day
could not possibly have been foreseen!
Duh, could they? And another shocker!
The suspected organizer of the Benghazi
attack was Sufyan Ben Qumu, an
al-Qaida terror attack planner. He had
been transferred from Gitmo to Libyan
custody on condition he be locked up
forever-and-a-day. He was released?
Astonishing! Yup; just like Abdel Baset
al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, who
was also supposed to be under lock and
key forever. And Ben Qumu returned
to terrorism? You mean, like so many
other released Gitmo Charm School
alumni have? Hooda thunkitt? Quick,
more scarves and hankies!
I know this is gonna sound crazy, but
first, I think smart people might want to
avoid places which have been proven to
be magnets for mass murderers, especially
when events there may be additionally
attractive to whacko sociopaths.
Second, I suspect if certain people and
groups have murdered thousands of
your peers, promise to kill as many
more as possible — including you —
and swear eternal war against you, well,
gee … they might mean it. Third, I’m
afraid this will sound completely nuts,
but — I think if you remove security
from a tempting target, then bad guys
— if there’s such a thing as bad guys
— they might, umm … make mischief.
They might even do it on anniversaries
of days they’ve killed lots of you. Even
if we say we wanta play nice.
I’d like to take my own bullock-cart
magic act on the road, but my village
only has one idiot, so I have
to stay here. Connor OUT.
*
40 WWW.AMERICANHANDGUNNER.COM • MARCH/APRIL 2013