Meet Tricia… She’s a Little… “Touched.” (UPDATED… Again)

In the head, we mean.

It’s inevitable when my husband and I visit family these days that the subject of violence in Baltimore comes up. Often, I’m the one who raises it.

The bloody light of every party, she is.

But when it came up last week on a trip to see my parents in Georgia, I got my back up. I thought of the 11-hour drive south and the billboards we passed along I-81 boasting guns for sale (“A Glock for Christmas”!), and of the story my brother-in-law, who lives in Florida, told of a neighbor stopping by to shoot the breeze in his suburban driveway, a handgun holstered at the man’s waist as their kids played nearby.

Oh… My… G-D!!! There were kids! NEARBY???

I’m less afraid of the criminals wielding guns in Baltimore, I declared as we discussed the issue, than I am by those permitted gun owners. I know how to stay out of the line of Baltimore’s illegal gunfire; I have the luxury of being white and middle class in a largely segregated city that reserves most of its shootings for poor, black neighborhoods overtaken by “the game.” The closest I typically get to the action is feeling the chest-thumping vibrations of the Foxtrot police helicopter flying overhead in pursuit of someone who might be a few streets over, but might as well be a world away.

Why thank Gaia that you don’t have to rub shoulders with those filthy peasants! Not to mention that we all know that crime never happens in nice neighborhoods, so you’re obviously perfectly safe, dear. And that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?

But I don’t know where the legal gun owners are or how to ensure that their children, no matter how well versed in respecting firearms, won’t one day introduce that weapon to my daughter.

You could try to, we don’t know, ask, maybe? We do speak English, you know, hopelessly primitive and troglodytic as we are. And you can rest assured that we love to talk about our guns. Endlessly.

And so, as President Barack Obama announced plans this week to tighten background checks for gun buyers and increase gun tracking and research, I thought, that’s all well and good, but how about adding something immediately useful: a gun owner registry available to the public online — something like those for sex offenders.

Because, seriously: Child rapists and gun owners. Same thing, amirite?

It’s funny, Tricia. All of my life I’ve firmly believed and lived by the creed that, should it ever happen (heaven forbid) that I find myself in a situation where idiots are endangered by a gun-toting madman, I WILL risk my own life to protect them, no matter how odiously stupid their Prozi selves are.

For you, I’m willing to make an exception.

I’m not equating gun owners with predatory perverts,

Yes, you are. Or at the very least insisting that law abiding gun owners should be treated the exact same as we treat animals who sexually molest children and other animals.

but the model is helpful here; I want a searchable database I can consult to find out whether my kid can have a play date at your house.

You already have that. It’s called a “phone book”, you daft cow. You pick up your phone, punch in the number of the person living at that house and ask them. Actually, if you know them well enough that you’d even consider sending your kid over to begin with, that oughtn’t be necessary, really, but you’re obviously not overburdened by common sense.

Before the 33 percent of U.S. households containing a gun (half of which don’t secure them) gets too worked up, they should know that it would likely include many of my relatives and their friends.

And we’re beginning to understand why they don’t like you very much. As if your endless preaching at the dinner table wasn’t bad enough.

My parents grew up in small town Minnesota, and hunting was a regular part of their lives before they left for other states, and it still is for many they know. My folks were taught how to handle guns and use them safely. But that doesn’t do much to allay my fears; it’s the simple presence of the weapon in the home and the possibilities it presents that terrify me.

Ever crossed your mind that maybe some of the rest of us were taught to handle guns and use them safely, too? Even though we obviously weren’t as enlightened as you and your “folks.” And if the mere presence of an inert chunk of metal “terrifies” you, then we don’t think any number of busybody databases will help. You need serious psychiatric help with that, Trissy.

We’ll skip her usual ritual recital of irrelevant statistics since that particular Prozi mantra is getting extremely boring. It’s not like we haven’t heard them all already.

My only exposure to guns has been to legal ones. I remember as a teen-ager spending an afternoon with a couple of boys who were showing off after school, firing a family gun in the backyard and play aiming at one another. And I fired a .22 caliber pistol several years ago as a reporter covering handgun-carry regulations in Maryland; I still have the paper target practice sheet taped to my cubicle to flaunt my bullseye. There was a definite rush to handling the weapon, and I could see the attraction of target practice as a hobby. But the risk to owning the gun isn’t worth it to me.

Well, that about shuts down all of our counterarguments right there, doesn’t it? After all, Wild Tricia Hickok here has personally fired, wait for it, a .22 caliber pistol several years ago! Not to mention her extensive experience from her “folks” and their safe handling of guns. What do mere mortals like ourself hope to gain by arguing against such authority?

Guns in the home are far more likely to be used accidentally, in suicides or family disputes than in self defense, according to studies based on anecdotal evidence.

Our favorite kind of “studies”: “studies” based on anecdotal evidence. You have to be a very particular kind of Prozi stupid to be able to even type that with a straight face.

(Perhaps Mr. Obama’s improved research will show for sure.)

He is a world renowned Constitutional scholar, after all! Personally, though, we very much doubt that Mr. Obumblefuck could improve much of anything, if the past 7 years is anything to go by.

And I’m pretty certain that if I’d had a gun the one time I was the victim of a violent crime (in upstate New York), the outcome would have been a lot worse than it was, with the firearm turned against me in short order. Instead, I was able to scream and break away from a mugger with a dull knife trying to force me into a vacant lot between rowhouses.

If the idiot couldn’t successfully detain a frail little wisp like you while armed with a knife, no matter how dull, then we much doubt that you had anything to fear from him in the first place, much less him disarming you and turning your own weapon on you.

But what if you hadn’t been able to break away from him? What then, Trissy darling? Do you think that maybe a gun might have come in handy then? Or would you prefer having said dull knife pushed into your rib cage while you cried big, heroic tears of Prozi martyrdom?

If so, have at it. We’d much rather shoot the animal in the face. And the groin. And the kneecaps. Not to mention a couple of times in the gut, just for good measure.

Three years ago, a New York newspaper published a map online showing who owned guns in two counties outside of New York City. The backlash was swift and wide, with the most legitimate complaints being a fear of theft, which the paper said never materialized,

Well if the perpetrators stated that their own crime never had any consequences, what can we possibly do other than believe them? It’s not like they could have any possible interest in lying about it, right?

and concerns about identifying where law enforcement lived. (I’m willing to compromise by including the officer’s name, but not address, in my database.)

How very white of you. I, on the other hand, am willing to compromise by not complaining too loudly about having to share precious oxygen with a terminally tarded nitwit like you.

You DO realize that such a database, should you get what you wish for (which you won’t, but that’s beside the point), would work equally well as a nice pointer towards “gun free houses”. Do you think that maybe criminals would like to have such a thing? Careful what you wish for.

Much of the response, though, was made up of comments like this one: “so, should we start wearing yellow Stars of David so the general public can be aware of we are??”

Gun owners may feel picked on, but they are not a persecuted class. They are individuals who have chosen to keep in their homes an object whose chief purpose is to injure or kill, whether in self defense or otherwise. The rest of us should have a right to know it’s there before we — or our children — enter.

But you don’t have such a “right”, nor will you ever, as it cannot be a “right” if it entails somebody else giving something up for it, such as privacy and personal safety in this particular case.

Once again, Trissy, you silly bint, you can just ask before you enter the home.

Or, better still, stay the fuck out.

Thatisall.

UPDATE: Turns out Tricia allegedly has some experience with “lists” as well (unless it’s a different Tricia, of course, with the same last name):

Name: Bishop, Tricia Clare
Race: Caucasian
Sex: FHeight:5’4″Weight:108DOB:–/–/–

Charge No: 2CJIS Code:Statute Code:TA.21.902.a2
Charge Description: (Driving Attempting To Drive) Vehicle While Under The Influence P
Offense Date From: 10/23/2003To:
Arrest Tracking No: Citation:CH94295
Charge Amend No: 0Sentence Version:0Charge Class:A
Disposition
Plea: GuiltyPlea Date:08/19/2004
Disposition: GuiltyDisposition Date:08/19/2004
Jail
Life/Death:
Jail Term: Yrs:1Mos:0Days:0Hours:0
Suspended Term: Yrs:0Mos:11Days:27Hours:0
UnSuspended Term: Yrs:0Mos:0Days:3Hours:0
Probation
Probation: Yrs: Mos : Days : Hours:
Supervised : Yrs:1Mos:0Days:0Hours:0
UnSupervised : Yrs:0Mos:0Days:0Hours:0

You might be interested to know, Tricia, that children are several times less likely to be killed by a gun than, say, run over by a shitfaced drunk “journalist” driving around in her mommy tank. Just saying, is all.

UPDATE to the UPDATE: We should have known that our dear sestrichka had a few things to say about this twunt too. Highly recommended, though we should add that she’s less… “kind” than we were. Much less 🙂