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Bad News

!SCIENCE!


...yeah, this is going to end well.


...see above.

Darwin Award contenders:


...betcha never saw that one coming now, did ya?


...cops probably pushed him off, just to save on paperwork.

Doctors… what would we do without them?


...cause of death not pneumonia or smallpox, then?  [/surprised look]

The Right Stuff

Law and Order

Here’s an interesting situation:


...gives a whole new meaning to the term “jury duty”, dunnit?  Oh, wait:  “only open to law enforcement officers”?

…and for the curious:

The state has purchased five Daniel Defense DD5-P rifles chambered in .308 Winchester, fitted with scopes, suppressors and bipods, at a cost of more than $24,000.

Bipods and scopes… at 10 yards?  WTF?  I mean:

Seems like an awfully-complicated and expensive way just to whack a convicted murdering scumbag, but that’s Gummint all over, right?  I’m more of a traditionalist, in that I think the old “single bullet in the back of the neck” method would be just as effective, not to say much cheaper.

But no doubt someone’s going to have a problem with this.

Okay, all jokes aside:  I happen to be a supporter of the death penalty and execution of the worst of scumbags, as any Reader of this website will know full well.  The method of execution is irrelevant.

We’ve tried making it a kinder, gentler way of seeing off a scumbag by using the oh-so gentle lethal injection — following all sorts of issues with hanging, decapitation, electrocution and the gas chamber (itself an attempt to make killing someone less brutal).

Well, the injection thing has been cocked up so many times, and is so beset with difficulties in terms of lethal drug supply and so on, that Idaho has decided to go with what is surely the most effective method of execution:  gunfire.

Let’s not get squeamish about all this.  If you’re going to execute someone, it’s best to make it quick, simple and effective — something that the murderers probably didn’t afford their victims, by the way — and death by three .308 bullets to the heart is about as effective as any, short of another old way of using gunfire as punishment:

Effective, but loud and very messy (“Cleanup in lane 2!”).

Yeah, this is all very ghoulish and brutal and stuff, but just remember who’s on the chopping block here, being the worst of the worst:  child murderers, people who killed someone for a few dollars at a 7-11, men who raped and tortured women before murdering them, etc. etc.

These people do not deserve to live, so fuck ’em.  A .308 bullet to the heart is all they deserve.

Let’s Hear It For Convenience

The Gun Thing

Here’s a fine tale of woe:

When I bought the safe, I chose a Sargent & Greenleaf electronic lock because it was much faster to open than a dial lock, and I was in and out of the safe a lot, so I appreciated the convenience. This time, however, I hit the combination, and the numbers beeped when I keyed them, but I didn’t hear the “wearnt-wearnt” of the locking bolt moving. Just a “wearnt” sound, and no movement.

No worries. Probably just needed to change the batteries. Swapped them out with brand-new Duracells, and the keypad beeps sounded fine, but I still heard just a single “wearnt” sound after the combination. And the handle wouldn’t turn. Hmm.

So in comes the Larry The Locksmith, who gives it a going-over, and:

“The lock mechanism is dead. Happens with the electronics. Sometimes they just quit. And we can’t get replacements these days because the boards are sourced out of China.” There weren’t any in the U.S., and there was no prospect of any becoming available for years.

End result?

     
…plus a locksmith’s bill for drilling and installing a new lock:  $1,100.

Not so convenient in the end, was it?

Here’s my problem with all this electronic shit.  Occasionally, it acts like a sheep.  It just says, “Ah, fuck it,” and dies.

My various safes all have keys, whether ordinary-looking keys (a.k.a. “pin-tumbler lock”) for the cabinets (ammo etc.) or for Ye Olde Gunne Sayffe, cam locks.

Here’s the secret about all this.  All safes are inconvenient and time-consuming to get into:  that’s just the function and nature of the beast.

But I’ll take fumbling with keys and their operation — cam locks are a royal PITA — over random entombment — via electronic locks — any day of the week.

My real choice would be an old-fashioned combination lock with a fallback key mechanism, but they’re finicky to work — almost as bad as one of the above — not to mention beastly expensive because they are, after all, precision machines.  Here’s the ultimate compromise, also from the abovementioned company:

Never forget:  if someone really, really wants to get into your safe, they will.  What you want to do is make it as time-consuming and difficult as you possibly can.

If you’re consumed by some fear that you might be attacked and have to go for the guns, then don’t lock all of them away.  Have at least one gun close to hand — bed, office, workshop, wherever you feel the most vulnerable — and deal with whatever problems this may cause.  (Small, inquisitive kids?  Teach them about gun safety, and either hide the guns or put them out of reach.  Whatever works.)

And finally:  don’t trust electronic technology to work faultlessly all the time.  Sometimes, old-fashioned mechanical just can’t be beaten.