Into the mouths of babes

RtO has had harsh things to say about gun nuts -- who are, after all, all gun owners, so far as outsiders can tell -- and all of them were deserved. But nothing I can say is as damning as what the gun nuts themselves say, when the deal goes down, as it does once an hour or more.

It begins with a very nice man that you would want living next door, Jon Holzworth. He did this:

 
Jon Holzworth, of Lake Stevens, said he is not a big advocate of open carry. “I’d rather people not know I carry, because I don’t want people to judge me based on the fact that I own a firearm,” he said.
But he showed up Wednesday with a gun on his hip, “because we’re here at this meeting to protest the protesters for not supporting Starbucks.”

Curiously, for someone who doesn't want people to judge him because he owns a firearm, he has this notice on his door:

Notice the image of a pistol hanging from the sign

 And this on his car:

And, soon to be ironic, this:

According to Flock the NRA, Holzworth had this to say about tots and guns:

Teach your children young I say, and you will have a child that RESPECTS and is SAFE with a firearm

How young? He doesn't say, but sheriff's investigators say he left his 3-year-old son and a 4-year-old alone in a locked room with a firearm. What could possibly go wrong?

The 4-year-old shot Holzworth's son in the mouth. The loudmouth daddy seems not to have been available to reporters, but the family that shoots together shoots off its mouth together.

Brother-in-law PJ Thayer, also a professional gun nut, drags a (probably reluctant) God into it:

"We believe it was point blank shooting in the mouth, straight back into his face, that bullet stopped before it went to his brain," Uncle PJ Thayer said. "I have no question God's hand was on my nephew. A handgun at point blank range on a three year's old skull, there's gotta' be something at work there and we're confident there was."

And all the other thousands of toddlers shot to death in this country, God didn't give a hoot for them.

Uncle PJ has more confidence in gun owners than RtO does:

"I'm a concealed gun owner myself, but it's either on my person or it's in a safe. There's no way a child can get a hold of it," Thayer said. "I just would like to tell people that if you have a weapon in your house, if it's not on your person, it needs to be locked up."

Thayer said his sister, Michael's mom, wasn't around at the time of the shooting.

"She wasn't home, she left her son in the care of his dad," Thayer said. "This would have never happened if she was home."

I will bet money that a search of Uncle PJ's house will turn up a loaded firearm, probably on the nightstand, and probably another close to the front door, and another close to the back door.

Because gun nuts are frightened. Not that they might shoot a neighbor after mistaking him for a prowler (see "We don't call 911" sign), or that someone might get shot inside their home. They are frightened of "others," froghtened to go unarmed into a coffee shop.

Because, as Jon Holzworth says, "Everyone shoots." He apparently blames "our cowardly Congress," although what Congress has done so cravenly, other than quiver anytime anyone mentions reasonable regulation of guns, is hard to say. I'm guessing failing to enact firearms regulation is not what Holzworth had in mind.

Anyway, Holzworth is right about one thing: everybody shoots somebody And you can't start 'em too young.