Only in America, what were they thinking?

The Saint Helens Girls Softball League needed to raise money, so they brainstormed on ideas, and came up with the idea of  a raffle of an AR-15 assault rifle to raise money for the girls, aged 8 to 16.  The assault rifle was donated by a good samaritan.  On their website, the Amateur Softball Association of America lists the sales of magazine, cookie dough, jerky and lollipops as ways to raise money for teams.  Assault rifles are not a preferred fund raising product.

Absurd School simulated gunfire

Well the drill isn't the issue, but they want to have someone shooting blanks in the hallway "in an effort to provide our teachers and students some familiarity with the sound of gunfire."  One parent said "They run fire drills all the time, but they don't run up and down the hallway with a flamethrower.".

Oregon guns, we have nuts too

Today Steve Duin of the Oregonian roasted some of our lunatic Oregon sheriffs (Tim Mueller in Linn County and Jim Hensley in Crook County) in the Oregonian for proclaiming that they "aren't allowed to enforce federal laws." and they would "intercept "federal officers" at the county line" rather than endure any changes in gun legislation.

Our guys in Oregon can be just as nuts as anybody else, so take that Texas.

Texas, We Love Guns

The Attorney General of Texas has a message for New Yorkers, "Y'all come to Texas and bring your guns".  This nut wants to be the next Governor and he is running ads and a Facebook page.  One ad says in classic Western script: "WANTED: Law abiding New York gun owners seeking lower taxes and greater opportunities." and since Texas has no income tax "You’ll also get to keep more of what you earn and use some of that extra money to buy more ammo,”.

Lunatics and guns don't mix well

It's Portland and we usually think we're mostly peaceful and safe, but the US can be a violent place with shootings every day, and they can happen anywhere.  We've had some close calls like the 2010 would-be bomber who tried to blow up a van full of explosives at the Portland downtown tree-lighting celebration (intercepted by the FBI and still pending trial).  We had a disturbed young man with a pistol who shot and killed 2 young women (and wounded another 7) at an under-21 night club in 2009, and 14 years ago the really tragic shooting at a Eugene-area high school, where a very disturbed 15 year old Kip Kinkel killed his parents and 2 other students in a shooting spree at Thurston high.

Tuesday December 11, 2012 at about 3:30 PM a shooter armed with a rifle went into a large mall in Portland and started shooting at random, killing two, shooting another, and apparently then killing himself.  This happened less than 12 hours ago so a lot of details aren't known, but I imagine his story will be similar to the other disturbed shooters.  I was at a grocery store a mile away from the mall a half-hour before the shooting and was probably putting away groceries at home when it happened.  You never know when you might be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Christmas shopping at the mall on a Tuesday afternoon is not where you'd expect to see a shooting.  It was a very sad day for Portland.