Apologies for not blogging during the past week.  Between teaching an advanced course Monday through Friday and reviewing proof copies of a forthcoming publication, there has been precious little time to sit in front of a keyboard.  The MAG-80 is done (you were a great class, gang: my hat is off to both students and staff.)

It was my last class of the year. The murder trial scheduled for next week has postponed into first quarter of 2013, and that means (except for routine writing deadlines) I’m free like a normal human being for the rest of the month. Yee-haw!  Lights going up on Christmas tree today…

It’s been an interesting few days in the Outside World.  An employee of the auto parts chain Auto Zone was fired because he saved his boss from an armed robber. The good guy slipped out of the store to the parking lot, retrieved his gun from his vehicle, and captured the armed robber without bloodshed. The boss publicly thanked the employee for saving his life.  Apparently, however, “corporate” saw it as a violation of their no-guns policy and took the hero’s job away. I guess none of their corporate counsel remembered law school and “the doctrine of competing harms,” which allows one to break a rule in an exigent circumstance where following the rule causes more danger than judiciously breaking it.  A boycott from outraged gun owners is under way, and I’m told Auto Zone’s FaceBook page has “lit up” over the matter.  I’ve been an Auto Zone customer for a while if only because it’s the nearest auto parts shop to my home, but I’ll be driving through town to NAPA unless and until this is squared away.  A Google search for “Auto Zone / Fake Beard Bandit” should get you more info.

A professional ballplayer murders his wife in the presence of his family, then kills himself, and a commentator cluelessly cites an even more clueless pundit in an anti-gun screed on national television. Disingenuous butt-covering and ass-hattery ensues. My old friend Dave Workman covers it well here:  http://www.examiner.com/article/costas-demonizes-gun-culture-and-digs-deeper-hole?cid=db_articles

And at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, an anti-gun politician is caught at security with a .25 caliber pistol in his carry-on. It looks like another Anti-Gun Hypocrite Alert, until Illinois gun owners’ civil rights activists point out that the politician in question had changed his tune prior to the arrest. An intelligent discussion of the matter can be found at one of my favorite Internet firearms forums, here: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=688255

1 COMMENT

  3. Glad to hear you get a little personal time finally Mas. You’ve got me a bit worried now, however, as I’m down as a refresher student for the MAG-40 class in February. Please tell me that your murder case won’t interfere with this class?

    I’ll admit that I put in my two cents on the Auto Zone page a few days back. I don’t know that it will do much good, however, as I’m sure we’ll all be written off as wackos by the big wigs.

    Thanks to you also for your book recommendations in your last post. I picked up a copy of the home defense title. It’s a pretty short book but does have good information.

  4. Oh dear. I don’t know about Auto-Works gun-free zone policy, but it certainly seems to be operating a common-sense free zone policy!

  5. Thanks, folks. Jeff, don’t worry, I don’t think the dates are going to conflict. Doc, like you I find myself thinking, “If only those good people had been equipped to fight back.”

  6. I completely agree with Mas. Boycott all businesses; large or small that don’t allow employees to protect themselves. I’m sure Auto Zone would rather have possibly had a dead employee then a responsibly armed one. Someday, these poor, sad assholes will figure it out…

  7. Your Night of the living zombies article in GUNS magazine caught my eye when you described unarmed zombies. Reminded me of Military “Train as you will fight” thinking.
    Then I heard Homeland Security did a recent scenario of Zombie Apocalypse. Shooting unarmed Men,Women and Children in civilian clothes who appear wounded. (as Zombies don’t exist) Looks to me like They are training for someone’s idea of typical governmental mass genocide. Either that or HLS needs some serious help.