Arizona Assholes with Guns

by Pa Rock
Cultural Observer

At least twelve morons with inadequate penis issues showed up in downtown Phoenix today to protest the appearance of President Obama at the VFW convention. Each of the twelve was exercising his Constitutional "right" to bear arms. Each was also basking in memories of his glory days as a school yard bully. One particularly oafish individual was packing a holstered pistol and carrying a semi-automatic assault rifle. When a newsman asked him why, his response was, "Because I can."

And yes, in Arizona, he can. Our legislators have been going at it for months trying to pass a budget, and the state is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy - but when legislators can come up with any way to arm more people, they never hesitate. It is now legal to carry a concealed weapon into a bar in Arizona! How's that for stupid?

Last week there was a Children's March in downtown Phoenix to call attention to all of the families that our local sheriff has broken up through his gleeful enforcement of immigration laws - often catching legal residents who happen to be brown in his roundups. The kids marched from one of the local jails to the high rise building where the sheriff has his offices. It was a peaceful exercise of their First Amendment Rights, and not a threat to anyone. The only hitch in the whole program was a group of armed thugs showed up to harass the children - undoubtedly many of the same butt wipes that were strutting their stuff today outside of the VFW convention.

Remember what happened after John Kennedy was gunned down? America was shocked and ashamed - and Lyndon Johnson, an old political arm-twister, was able to play on the popular President's death and his own political abilities do something that Kennedy could have never accomplished. It was called The Great Society and contained such goodies as Medicare, Medicaid, and Head Start - not to mention the Civil Rights of 1964. I wonder what President Biden, also an old political arm-twister, could accomplish under similar circumstances?

Hey, boneheads, be careful what you wish for!

Queen of the Nitwits

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned an Arizona state legislator who was sponsoring legislation that would do away with need for people carrying concealed weapons to have a special permit to do so. This legislator, whom I diplomatically did not name, felt that carrying weapons was a "God-given right." Seriously. She also prattled on about it was a duty of the legislature to remove restrictions on the ownership and use of firearms.

That legislator was State Senator Sylvia Allen, a flake from Snowflake, Arizona. That piece of buffoonery did not bring her enough ridicule, so this week she upped the ante. Yesterday Senator Allen was all over the internets and the cable news shows with her taped testimony on a bill regarding the mining of uranium. This piece of silliness is the real reason that Arizonans wear big straw hats and shades - it isn't the sun, we are just so darned embarrassed by our political leaders!

Senator Allen had this to say about the importance of mining uranium:

"I can't say enough how it's time that we get beyond and start focusing on this technology we have and move forward into the future so that our grandchildren can have the same lifestyle we have.

"The Earth's been here 6,000 years - and I know I'm going on and on and I'll shut up - it's been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws, and somehow it hasn't been done away with.

"We need to get the uranium here in Arizona so this state can get the money from it and the revenues from it. It can be done safely and you'll never even know the mine was there when they're done.

"So I am for this."

So, Senator Allen is neither a great orator nor very bright.

Praise Allah for term limits! Our legislators have to leave office after eight years, regardless of how stupid they have been. But not to worry, Sylvia's days in the legislature may be numbered, but all will be well because an equally incompetent yahoo is out there somewhere spinning on a bar stool and waiting to take her place.

Death by Gun

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I heard a statistic on the radio this evening: thirty-two people are killed with guns every day in the United States. That's it. Thirty-two. It's only a number, and not a very big one, unless, of course, one of those thirty-two is you or someone you love. Thirty-two people's lives come to a sudden end in America each day as bullets rip through their bodies. But generally they are other people's bullets and other people's bodies, and those shootings basically don't register on our collective consciousness.

So let's make it somewhat more personal. I want to talk about two murders by gun that occurred in a small town in Arizona last Wednesday evening. It was in the community of St. Johns, AZ, and the murdered men were Vincent Romero, 29, and his friend, Timothy Romans, 39. I don't know much about these guys, only what has been in the news. I know that Romero was a divorced man who had custody of his eight-year-old son. I also suspect that he probably wasn't a very good parent.

You see, Romero and Romans were murdered by the eight-year-old Romero boy, apparently with malice aforethought. Mr. Romero had a gun in the house, either unsecured or poorly secured, and the young boy, who possessed knowledge of how to fire it, took that gun and deliberately killed his father and his father's friend.

Before I get to speculating too freely, you need to understand something about Arizona. This state is gun crazy. The citizens of Arizona have been gun crazy since the days when the Clantons and the Earps went at it in Tombstone. These people love their firearms. They flaunt them, they conceal them, and they use them as props in their lovemaking and masturbatory rituals.

I'm not a fan of guns - never owned one and never will. As far as I'm concerned, the lack of guns in my home makes me somewhat safer than those who maintain personal arsenals. If someone breaks into my house, they had better be after books. Chances are when those guys break in, we'll all sit down and have a literary discussion. A house full of guns, on the other hand, attracts criminals. If some old codger of a homeowner pulls a gun on home intruders, he needs to be ready and capable of using it. More often than not, that isn't the case.

The elderly and guns are a bad combination, and an even worse pairing is kids and guns. I write to several people in prison. One of my correspondents gained notoriety as a "school shooter" more than a decade ago. This young man was fourteen when he went to school one morning and killed several of his fellow high school students. He is now in his mid-twenties and has lived in a cage every day since his awful crime. He is a man rotting in prison over a crime committed by a boy. He had easy access to guns in his upper-middle class home, and he made a fateful decision that ruined the lives of several families, including his own, and made an emotional imprint on hundreds of his friends and classmates that will be with them for life.

The little Romero boy is currently in jail. He probably won't face a life in prison, but his crime will be with him for the remainder of his life. Even with sustained therapy, it will have a significant impact who he becomes and how he lives. His crime will be with him to some degree until the day of his death. A crime committed by an eight-year-old will cast a shadow across his lifetime and the lifetimes of those who knew and loved his victims.

We will learn more over the next few months about the things that drove this little boy to kill his father and another man. He was troubled, of that we can be certain. Kids aren't born troubled, they become that way through their experiences in life - and some of his experiences were obviously very bad ones.

Bad experiences and easy access to guns can be a recipe for death, regardless of age. And yes, you Arizona macaroons, guns do kill people!

Cockpit Cowboys

Last week I travelled by US Airways to and from Washington, DC. Today the news services have been reporting that a pilot somehow discharged a pistol in the cockpit of a US Airways flight that was enroute from Denver to Charlotte. Apparently airlines and the government are now allowing pilots and co-pilots to fly armed as a deterrent to armed takeovers while in flight.

Arizona is gun crazy - and, coincidentally, US Airways is an Arizona company. Recently there has been a bill being argued in the state legislature that would allow anyone with a concealed weapons permit to carry weapons in schools - any individual - any school - teachers, administrators, bus drivers, kids. The thought is that some crazy with a grudge against the school bullies would think twice about carrying a weapon to school and opening fire - because everyone would fire back. Never mind that most of these crazies wind up committing suicide anyway. Never mind that when the police arrive everyone would be firing at each other, and the poor police would have no way of knowing the good crazies from the bad crazies.

So, being a good Arizonan, let me put forth this idea. If school cooks, and teachers, and students can arm themselves for protection, shouldn't the same right be available to airline passengers? A plane full of flying lead would teach those suicidal hijackers a thing or two!

The next time I go to Washington, DC, I think I'll take the bus!