Thursday, November 15, 2007


"Mr. Gunwrench"

A friend tore a story out of the local paper and gave it to me, and of course Phil over at Perils of Caffeine in the Evening beat me to posting it.
This article will satisfy neither camp in the culture wars. While it seems to indicate that Darwin is losing influence (the guy lived), it also resoundingly refutes the concept of Intelligent Design. From today’s P-I:

SOUTHWORTH — A man trying to loosen a stubborn lug nut blasted the wheel with a 12-gauge shotgun, injuring himself badly in both legs, Kitsap County sheriff’s deputies said.

The 66-year-old man had been repairing the car for two weeks at his home northwest of Southworth and east of Port Orchard and had gotten all but one lug nut off the right rear wheel before getting frustrated Saturday, Deputy Scott Wilson said.

From about arm’s length the man fired the shotgun at the wheel and was “peppered” in both legs with 00 buckshot and other debris.

Wilson described the injuries as “severe but not life-threatening.”

Now, the big mistake here was using buckshot in the Gunwrench. He might've thought his gun was loaded with a slug, which, from the proper distance and angle (point-blank, 90 degrees to side), would’ve worked on your standard Lincoln Continental frozen lug nut by fracturing the top off so you could then drill out the threads. Skating on thin Darwinian ice? Sure, but buckshot guarantees disaster from any angle. And wouldn't work. Of course, by relating this bit of trivia, I realize what it discloses about my socioeconomic and geographic origins...in the Land o' Gun Racks.

At my high school, the principal came on the loudspeaker one morning during deer season and told us boys we were to never, ever, ever leave our rifles and shotguns in our cars; as someone might be tempted to steal them, to do so was irresponsible and unsafe. We were henceforth only allowed to store them in our lockers while at school.

7 comments:

Daniel said...

Is it any wonder that America's gun crime rate is so high!

We live in a world of cavemen! Only difference is that some of them carry arms: big arms, little arms, whole arsenals of arms.

I guess that's why America sees armed force as the solution to all problems! Those who live by the sword...

Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Those who live by the wrench die by the ricochet! Thanks for the link, Marc.

Wow. Our high school teachers took away our yo-yos, relentlessly. I don't think guns were part of the landscape.

Bruce said...

One of my favorite jokes:

What is the last thing you will hear a redneck say?

"Hey, ya'll, watch this!"

--

So Marc, which one is you in the picture?

isabelita said...

Dang, great photo of the Land of a Million Mullets!
That anecdote about the high school principal leaves one both breathless and speechless...

MarcLord said...

All,

The truly dangerous part was letting kids hunt with each other. Leatherstocking High is a world away now, in the town with the oldest continuously serving court-house in the US. They would let us out of school at 11:45 to go deer hunting, and we didn't imagine, say, shooting up the school with a Browning semi-auto 16-guage. Not part of the mythos yet. And few if any things would make a boy prouder than to put venison on his family's table.

I was near-missed once while climbing through pine boughs, and our quarterback shot the tips of his middle and ring fingers off when his shotgun discharged. Could just as easily have been his head, close enough to get powder burns, or one of ours.

All the same, I'm glad I wasn't there when they stopped letting us take guns to school, or let us take off to go hunting. Can you imagine that kind of freedom, and trust? We had it once.

Bruce, my hair-style and face would most resemble the young chappie on the far right. ;-)

Unknown said...

EDead God in Heaven, Why did you never tell me all of this!!xxoxxMom

MarcLord said...

ha!!!

why do you think?