[UPDATED 6/8]
If you know me, you know I’m not one for conspiracy theories; in fact, I’m usually vigorously opposed to them. But even I find it hard not to connect the dots when just days after Moms Demand Action announced they were attempting to get Target to ban guns, an employee at a Myrtle Beach, SC Target store found a loaded 9mm handgun just laying in the open in the toy department. It’s just too convenient. A man was seen repeatedly walking around that area, but it was unknown if he was the one that left the gun. His strange behavior prompted suspicions of shoplifting, though, bringing an employee to investigate . . .
and that employee found the gun. Security footage is being reviewed to try to determine what happened. In the meantime, just thank the deity of your choice that it wasn’t found by a child, because false flag or not, that could have been a horrible thing. (Unless it was one of your children, of course, because they’ve all been trained to Eddie Eagle standards, right?)
UPDATE: Predictably, Shannon Watts and her ilk have wasted no time jumping all over this one. Partial text of an email blast received this morning follows:
This is horrifying: According to multiple news outlets, a Target employee found a loaded handgun in the toy aisle of a store in South Carolina. When you’re shopping at Target, you shouldn’t have to worry about someone parading around with a semiautomatic rifle, or whether your kid is going to find a loaded handgun while looking at toys.
Because a criminal carrying and dumping a gun (if that’s what it turns out to be) has anything whatsoever to do with legal open carry, of a semiautomatic rifle or anything else.
Guns aren’t meant to be fun. That’s the title of an opinion piece in USA Today this week. The author notes that it’s rare that he agrees with the NRA about anything, but of course he agrees with their recent comments re: Open Carry Texas. He’s not a very imaginative person, though, because he “can only think of two reasons why someone would want to openly carry a firearm… The first is in order to intimidate people around you. The second is simply to show off.” He goes on to draw a distinction between “responsible gun owners” and those that own guns for the “alleged purpose of self defense.” The archetype of the responsible gun owner “is the hunter who keeps a hunting rifle locked in a safe,” but the author acknowledges that that wouldn’t be terribly effective for self defense, so it would need to be out. If a locked up gun makes you responsible, then an unlocked, more accessible gun must by definition make you irresponsible, right?
The TSA set a new record Thursday for number of guns detected at checkpoints in a single day. Eighteen guns were found at airports across the country, with virtually all of them being found in carryons as the bags went through security. The crises that were averted are nearly unimaginable, of course, mainly because if those guns hadn’t been found, there’s an astonishingly large chance that they would have all made it to their destination without event. If people legitimately forget they have them (which I believe is virtually always the case), then it’s not like they’ll suddenly remember the gun is in the bag just because they get annoyed at the kid kicking their seat, right? Blood in the skies is no more a concern of mine than blood in the streets.
Some sanity from a school district in Pennsylvania, after a 7-year-old boy turned himself in for having a toy gun at school. He was sent home from Martin Elementary School on Wednesday, and told he could be expelled, but it turns out he’s only going to get a two day suspension, and will return to class on Monday. In reality, the kid did the “right” thing, and the kid’s mom should get the suspension. The boy forgot his regular book bag at a friend’s house, so that day she packed another one for him, not realizing the toy gun was inside it. Whoops.
It’s the weekend, so there’s time for a longer video. Hickok45 shoots and discusses SIG’s new striker-fired offering, the P320.
Sigh. Add another gun to the wishlist.