Guntards remain in a rage about Washington State’s low gun-murder rate, and its latest state supreme court decision will really have them coughing up blood. Like Hawaii, Washington significantly trails the rest of the country in mass shootings. Both states can expect continued pressure to give child-slaughterers more firepower.

… monolingual Americans thing.

He speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese, and … can read German and Latin.

… Bonnie and Clyde vibes.

 On Saturday evening, deputies got a 911 call about someone shooting [an AR-15] from the window of a black Mustang at a deer …

The same car was reported to be recklessly driving in the area, doing burnouts in the middle of the road and racing through the streets …

Deputies … observed the Mustang pass them doing 117 MPH …

As deputies searched for the car, dispatch got another 911 call about the black Mustang’s involvement in a hit-and-run, where it side swiped a 2018 Mercedes and left the area.

 … William Franklin, 19, from Oklahoma, surrendered to deputies. The second passenger Mason Guidry, 20, of Louisiana and driver Justin Franklin, 36, of Oklahoma, and father of William Franklin, were found in a nearby field where they were trying to hide.

Mason surrendered, while Justin refused to cooperate, according to the sheriff. Justin Franklin was taken into custody after being bit by the K9.

Father/son massacrists were on the FBI’s radar, but they just let it happen. They just watched as the son enrolled in a new killing field and let it rip, with the AR-15 style rifle his father gave this 14-year-old as a gift.

You don’t get these outcomes unless your country wants massacres.

Christopher Edward Jones, 34, may not be able to afford much house, but when it comes to his gun the sky’s the limit.

And what’s he supposed to do, having shot that wad on a gun he turns out to have virtually no opportunity to use? Any one of us would have done what he did: Get plastered and start shooting it off in the community.

I told Mr UD about Mr Jones and he said “I’d like to know what kind of car he has.”

“Easy,” said UD. “A $50,000 Ford F-150. I’d like to know how many other thousand dollar guns he has.”

Like Myrtle Beach and Panama City Beach, Ocean City (where, devoted readers know, UD‘s family has deep roots) has long put its fiscal faith in any and all forms of scummy behavior. This commitment to pandering to the worst has worked out beautifully at all of these resorts for decades; but a problem has lately arisen related to the ownership of guns by increasing numbers of the people who go to these places. They’re shooting them off on the major thoroughfares, and they’re scaring away a lot of vacationers who don’t want to die.

What to do when large stretches of your resort are designed to appeal to people who get in fights that turn into public gun battles? Where do you start changing that?

Point One: You don’t. There are tons of shooting ranges within an easy drive of Ocean City, and they’re expressly designed for visiting gunnies looking for a place to go bangbangbang. Carrying and shooting guns is in the DNA of places like Ocean City.

Not to mention all the cheesy hotels, bars, and restaurants whose livelihood depends on lowlifes. Much of the place depends on encouraging gross noisy dangerous behavior.

Point Two: One modest place to start shifting from gang- to family-friendly, if you do want to try that, would be the tee shirts for sale along the boardwalk, catching the eye not only of gross people, but also of non-gross people. And indeed OC is looking into this right now:

 Ocean City Council plans to pass a new ordinance that … would limit the display of obscene material and language on merchandise on the boardwalk.

Gross porny shirt merchants are understandably upset: One of them points out that Brass Balls saloon and many other porny establishments abound, but they’re not getting shut down.

This is a good argument: Lots of commercial OC is explicitly violent/smutty in one way or another; and even when the city has tried to shut down America’s most disgusting events, they’ve failed to do so. They’re kind of locked in to being the host city for H20i, for instance.

OC has chickened out of going after obscene merchandise this year. They’ll chicken out next year too. Place has gotta make a living.

Some resident was simply repeatedly shooting his gun into the ground when obnoxious anti-Second Amendment neighbors called the police. The police told him to stop but he didn’t so they shot him and he’s in the hospital.

What has happened to this country when a man can’t take his weapon in a heavily populated suburb and repeatedly shoot it into the ground?

… they’re misspelling my uncle’s last name. It’s Mario Loiederman.

And how proud he’d be to know his namesake school has achieved all-American status!

… rides the wave of the state’s future:

According to quarterly crime data provided by Fayetteville police, homicides in the city are up 366% so far this year compared to the previous one, with 14 incidents reported so far this year.

For comparison, Raleigh has reported 11 incidents this period, up 22% from 2024 over the same time period.

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At the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival on April 26, attendees were shocked as they heard gunfire nearby and were swiftly evacuated by police, who discovered a car just yards from the festival grounds with gunshots through it. 

The only thing shocking is the shock.

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With Fayetteville their role model, Raleigh and the rest of the state will find their own gun footing, and can expect similar, if not superior, carnage.

More than 31,000 Americans died by firearms in 2024. Among the victims, 250 were children younger than 11. More than 1,000 were between 12 and 17.

Seventy-five were police officers.

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The guy citing these numbers points out – uncontroversially, obviously – that almost no one in this country gives a shit. But UD has been proposing something else: Americans like it. They like watching it. They like doing it. As a country, we say: This is how we do it.

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And if you don’t let us do it – the way Hawaii isn’t letting us do it – we are gonna gang up on you and fucking FORCE you to let us do it. We’re gonna put you in legal HELL and make you pay to try to defend your low murder rate until you are fucking bankrupt.

For Show Kindness week at her elementary school, he gave her this hat to wear —

— and when the school told her to take it off (gun massacre at a nearby school not long ago) he filed free speech court cases all over the place! His appeals keep getting unanimously rejected, but I’m sure he’s planning to take it to the Supreme Court. What a dad!

… time, the Herculaneum scroll haltingly gives up its words. And we get to sit back and be amazed at the technology that finds them.

… where blogging continues.

Zippity doo dah
Zippity day
My oh my 
What a fine Houston day
Sixteen are injured, one passed away
Zippity doo dah
Zippity day

Guns represent many things. In the first quarter of the twenty-first century they are emerging as emblematic of the end of public events.

Festive parades and civic gatherings die when there’s always a respectable chance someone will shoot at the people gathered, or (just as demoralizing) a group of people nearby will be shooting at each other. The headlines are reserved for American parades where happy families are mowed down by nuts with guns, but you’re no doubt missing the smaller, quite frequent, stories of gatherings suddenly reduced to panicked stampedes by multiple gunshots. Something along these lines happens many weekend nights all over the country, the most recent last Friday in Tallahassee.

A large crowd gathered in the FAMU Way Playground near Railroad Square became a scene of chaos and gunfire the night of May 2.

It happened less than an hour after the conclusion of the Square’s monthly “First Friday” event, which celebrates the arts at the opening of each month.

Lt. Robin Abney, a watch commander for the Tallahassee Police Department, told the Democrat that the department was called to the area at about 9:50 p.m. with reports of shots fired. 

… One video of the scene circulating on social media shows a large crowd running after the sound of five rapid-fire gunshots. Another video shows a large fight in the crowd spilling into the street before the shooting, when people start screaming and running for cover.

The gunfire came after the close of the First Friday celebration that draws crowds to the arts district between 6 and 9 p.m.… [T]he incident took place in [a] city playground …

Yes, where kiddies play…

The shooting is at least the 22nd serious shooting this year in the capital city and county. 

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At least the 22nd… serious shooting… The number is much higher, but shooting is so common a lot of it isn’t called in. And how serious is serious these days? Does serious mean at least three people hit? More? Does someone have to be in at least critical condition, though not all the way to dead?

And consider the thinking some local arts enthusiast experiences now.

OOH the arts, the arts… What a fucking loser I am to get all excited about THE ARTS when all I get for showing up for THE ARTS is a barrage of bullets. Fuck the arts.