Helping Hand

I know how I feel about the man in this story:  I have complete and utter empathy.

Tender love letters have emerged that show the devotion of a British pensioner to the wife he is accused of murdering.
David Hunter, 74, is due to stand trial in Cyprus today after the alleged mercy killing of his terminally-ill wife of 56 years, Janice, 75, last year.
UK lawyers have written to the island’s attorney general asking prosecutors to reduce the charge to assisting suicide amid family pleas to ‘show some compassion’ but have received no reply.
Mr Hunter will die in prison if found guilty of murder.

As to Janice Hunter’s condition:

Mrs Hunter had been suffering from leukaemia since 2016 and her health deteriorated rapidly in the months before her death.
She was losing her sight, couldn’t eat or drink and had constant diarrhoea that meant she needed nappies – but was only given paracetamol by doctors.
Mr Hunter allegedly suffocated her before trying to take his own life by overdosing on sleeping medication in an apparent suicide pact.

And she was quite clear about her feelings:

He has since told his daughter, Lesley, 49, that his wife made her wishes to die clear and talked about it every day in the last six weeks of her life.
‘To begin with, he tried to dissuade her, then he said he would go with her,’ she said. ‘He loved her so much… I’m horrified they were so desperate they thought that dying together was the only way out.’

As you all know, I was in a similar situation when Connie was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and her condition worsened almost daily.  We had so many drugs in the house that it would have been easy for her to overdose;  and because she was in a drug-induced fog most of the time, she was quite capable of OD’ing through pure confusion — which is why I took over the job of giving her the drugs  — and therefore I could have deliberately given her an overdose which would have ended her life.

And I want to be perfectly clear about this:  had she asked me to, I would have, even though my conscience would have scourged me every day for the rest of my life.

As it happened, that fortunately never became an issue.

However, New Wife is a cancer survivor, which means the bastard can always return and cause her massive suffering.  We’ve talked about this often, as her late husband suffered and died from throat cancer — his last months of life having had as much suffering as Connie had from hers — and so both New Wife and I have had the most intimate experience with this situation.

And we want no part of it.

Fortunately, we’re both in decent health (for our age), so the immediate future so far does not look that dire;  but as everyone at our end of the age spectrum knows, that’s a precarious situation.  Both of us have a “Do Not Resuscitate” (DNR) document should it be needed, and we also have a (very private) agreement to cover the “Hunter” situation.  Neither of us wants to go through a painful and irreversible illness, both for ourselves and for the strain it puts on the other spouse, and that’s all I’m going to say on the topic.

Stop It, You’re Killing Me

…and if you live in upscale areas in Los Angeles, that might be “literally“:

Crime has risen dramatically in Los Angeles, as well as in many other major cities, since the start of the pandemic and last summer’s protests against police violence resulted in the slashing of many law enforcement budgets. News stories document rising fear across LA and crime has become the major issue in both the upcoming mayor’s election and a possible recall of the district attorney. It may not be surprising that issues of race and class are driving this concern, though they have a new twist.

Wealthy and predominantly white neighborhoods have experienced the sharpest upticks in a wide array of crimes.

It shows that the richer and whiter the area, the greater the increase in both raw crime totals and percentages of total city crime. This includes a wide range of felonies, from robbery, burglary, shoplifting and car theft to aggravated assault and rape.

California voters have moved the needle on crime in recent years. Proposition 47 decriminalized a number of theft and drug charges, making them misdemeanors, as it did several “non-violent” felonies. Voters also approved Proposition 57, which allows for early release of non-violent offenders.

Imagine that:  you vote to decriminalize all sorts of crime, and those types of crime increase and the goblins goes to where da money izz (/Willie Sutton).  Read the article for the breakdowns.

Who could have seen that coming?

Well, nobody except the 70-odd million people who voted for Trump last time around.

And stop giggling like little girls, you lot;  it’s unbecoming.

No More Gilbert

Gilbert Gottfried, one of my all-time favorite comedians, has died aged 67 (my age ATOW), from complications caused by muscular dystrophy.

There was and is nobody more cruel and nastier than Gilbert.  Here’s one example (and is VVNSFW).

And my favorite line of his, conducting an imaginary interview of Jackie Onassis:

“So… do remember what you were doing on the day..?”

I am SO going to miss him.  R.I.P.

Recalibration Necessary

Good grief.  In talking about some shady assholes who have been bribing SecServ agents, we find this laughable part:

Second, they were heavily armed:

[F]irearms and ammunition were seized. Specifically, a Glock 19 9mm handgun loaded with 17 rounds of ammunition, including one in the chamber, seven rounds of .308 caliber ammunition, and an ammunition box with over 35 rounds of handgun ammunition…
***
Law enforcement also seized firearm components typically used with long guns or assault rifles including, among other things: (1) a firearm barrel of an unknown caliber; (2) weapon stock attachments1; (3) foregrips2; (4) pistol grips; (5) a magazine cartridge; and (5) scope(s). In addition, law enforcement recovered a spotting scope, which can be used in a sniper/spotter team.
***
law enforcement seized a Sig Sauer P229 with five fully loaded magazines, containing a total of 61 rounds.

Heavily armed?

Lemme see… in my immediate reach as I sit here in my armchair, I have a 1911 with one loaded mag in the gun, one round in the pipe and another three mags next to it  (33 rounds), and a S&W 637 with a loaded cylinder and two speedloaders (15 rounds).

Five steps away in one direction will get me to a pump shotgun (5 rounds) and an AK-47 (60 rounds in three mags), as well as to a loaded Browning High Power and four spare mags (46 rounds).  Don’t ask what happens if I manage to open Safe #1.

Five steps in the other direction (I live in a small apartment) is a little less promising, with only a loaded S&W .357 Mag revolver (Ye Olde Beddesyde Gunne) with four speedloaders (30 rounds total).

And by the way:  seven whole rounds of .308 Win, and three dozen handgun rounds in an ammo can?  My God, it’s… an arsenal!

Which leads me to the contents of Ye Olde Ammoe Locquere, which are nunya, but I can assure you that it contains a little bit more than three dozen rounds.  (Even after Doc Russia and Mr. Free Market tried manfully to deplete my supplies a couple weeks back…)

Finally, I have more gun-related stuff in any one of my “Gun Junk” trunks than these mopes have.  Including spotter scopes, bipods, grips, stocks and rifle scopes.  And bayonets, too.

I don’t own any brass knuckles, because I prefer sap gloves.

Good thing I’m not working for Iran and bribing Secret Service agents, then.

And Here’s Another Thing

As though we haven’t had enough of our beloved English language (words like “gay”) being appropriated (and not in a good way) by the forces of Communism, Greens and the LGBTOSTFU movement* (some overlap;  quite a lot, actually), now we have to deal with the degeneration of the word “grooming”  — an excellent description of what we do to make our appearance pleasing to the eye, and ditto to dogs, horses and such.  Now we have to use the word to describe the disgusting, perverted way in which pedophiles and the Education Establishment (also, some overlap) set about corrupting young people so that these sick individuals can play out their depraved sexual fantasies on children’s bodies.

It’s only been a couple of days since I was at the range, and already I can feel my trigger-finger twitching.

My suggestion:  make child molestation a capital offense, and shoot / hang / [your suggestion here]  these bastards whenever they’re caught.

(stolen from Kenny, thankee)

And people in league with child molesters (the “groomers”) should face life sentences in prison, without parole.

We’d be doing it For The Children©, literally.

Argue the point with me, I dare you.