Nobody had told the elderly resident, though.
See if you can guess paw-paw's chosen course of action:
A) Hunker down inside and mutter about kids these days.
B) Go outside and engage the trio in conversation to ascertain what they were doing in his yard.
C) Call the cops.
D) Step out on his porch, brandish a gun, and fire a warning shot to hasten their departure.
Exactly.
Maybe he was sitting around in his house and thinking "You know, life sure is dull. I think I'll get myself locked up on misdemeanor charges, maybe get my gun taken away, and get written up in the paper as a dangerous kook."
Not only that, but now he's going to have to wait a month of Sundays before they'll even consider sending out another insurance dude.
ReplyDeleteWord verification: palogre!
I praise god nightly that I'm not an adjuster. That being said, as an agent I still will sometimes show up at people's houses with a camera. When we're writing a new policy, we have to take pictures of the property to send them to underwriting.
ReplyDeleteSo far, I haven't had anyone throw down on me, but I did have one person call the Lawrence PD on my ass. That was sporty.
Criminy, pops... Rule Freakin' Four. I guess we could toss in Rule Freakin' Three, in that his sights obviously were not on any sort of target (no, "up there somewhere" is not a valid target).
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell happened to "Darn you kids, stay off my lawn!"
Or would it be more apt to say "I would have gotten away with it, too, it it hadn't been for those meddling kids!"
At least Clint AIMED the rifle when he told them to get off his lawn....
ReplyDeleteNote to self: Yell "Get off my lawn!" before shooting...
ReplyDeleteThe local Ace Hardware owes me a commission. I've been shilling for their $2.99 vinyl "No Trespassing" signs for years. Put them up every 100 feet along your property line. Hell, make it every 95 feet, to be sure. Then, when the idjits come uninvited, test your manual dexterity by dialing Nine. One. One. Cackle yourself into a curmudeonly coughing fit as the local gendarme cart their happy asses off to the pokey.
ReplyDeleteI'm with the old guy up until the warning shot. Insurance guys who don't call ahead deserve what they get.
ReplyDeleteTam, Would you say gun owners who act like that are in such a minority we don't need to worry about them?
ReplyDeleteI say the percentage of irresponsible, reckless and dangerous gun ownwers is high enough to worry about, indeed. My reasons are here.
Is there a more happily self-critical community these days than the shooter community?
ReplyDeleteHow hard would it have been for the insurance guy to knock on the door and announce his presence? I'm thinking not terribly difficult.
ReplyDeleteGranted, popping caps on him might have been extreme, but it sure livened up the afternoon.
Well, Mike (and I'm only preempting Tam's snark temporarily, until she shows up), if your "statistics" weren't a SWAG, or to be less polite, if you weren't pulling your numbers completely out of your ass, as is being pointed out in the comments section of your link, then I might concede that you might have a case, immediately after you compare violent crime stats with, oh, say, vehicular fatalities.
ReplyDeleteBased on similar logic(heh), you'd probably have to conclude that about 266% of all car owners should have their driver's licenses suspended.
Let me know how your own curious blend of syllogisms, guesses, and leaps of faith stack that one up in your mental calculator, kthx.
KsR
MikeB, MikeB, MikeB... no matter how many times you reference, link to, bring up, or reiterate your cute little statistics, they will still be nothing more than complete fabrications. You made up numbers to fit your talking points, and even admitted it in the very post you linked to.
ReplyDeleteThose concocted numbers are nothing more than a specious shield for you to hide your pointless and irrational bigotry behind... and, I hate to break it to you, but that shield is failing fast.
For a long time I had this mat laying on my front step.
ReplyDelete"If you are unexpected or uninvited, you are also unwelcome. Git!"
I think I still have it somewhere.
Are you all from the bank? Pappy says I can shoot whoever's from the bank.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190590/
I, too, will question Mike's numbers, but I will agree wholeheartedly with his statement that "the percentage of irresponsible, reckless and dangerous gun ownwers is high enough to worry about, indeed" simply on the grounds that with the media in the tank for the antis, even a single bad actor--not one percent, mind you, but one person--will be held up in the media as representative of the lot of us.
ReplyDeleteWe all know that's BS, but then, you can't spell "CBS" without "BS."
Dave, Nobody who's the least reasonable would think one bad actor is "representative of the lot" of you. That's your exaggerating the situation to make it sound ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteWhat I say is about 10% of you are dangerous, and far from "pulling the numbers out of my ass" or "making them up out of whole cloth," I laid out fairly briefly how I arrived at that. And far from manipulating the numbers to fit my theory, I lowered them in every category to be more conservative with the estimate.
What is your point, all you who so vehemently object to my ideas, that none of you have problems with anger or alcohol and drugs, that none of you are sloppy and irresponsible, that none of you suffer from depression and other mental illnesses?
Mike,
ReplyDeleteI am not going to bother answering any comments you make here. If you want to piss in the wind, that's your account.
I have been in and around the business of selling, repairing, and manufacturing firearms most of my adult life. That's fifteen years of trade journals, legal bulletins, interactions with manufacturers, distributors, customers.
During this time, they have also been my hobby and my passion; after work I would be shooting or reading (I have a rather extensive library of literature on the sociopolitics of guns both pro and con) or debating on internet forums.
Frankly Mike, you're simply unqualified to discuss the subject. You're going to get as much interaction from me as you'd get from a neurologist were you to walk into his office and propound your theories of Why Nerves Are Bad.
In closing, I will take the time to note that you obviously have no head for statistics: Let us make the (frankly hilarious) supposition that your percentages in your childish little screed are remotely tied to reality: Can you not see the major glaring flaw?
(Hint: If 1% of the population has anger issues, 1% is depressed, 1% is alcoholic, and 1% uses cocaine, that probably only adds up to about 2.1% of the population. I'll leave you to go ponder why that is.)
In short, piss off.
Have a nice day! (Elsewhere.)
-T.
Tam--
ReplyDeleteYou are, as usual, magnificent. There is no doubt that you are truly the Queen of Snark!!
Um, does your monarchy accept immigrants? Can I move there?? ;).
Old Squid.
Tam, Thanks for taking the time to make your attitude towards me so clear. I would never presume to be in your class as far as experience and knowledge of the gun issues, but what I have to say is not exactly "childlike" or "hilarious." Some other pro-gun folks who are more in your league have spent much time engaging me in spite of my limitations.
ReplyDeleteYour final paragraph flattered me greatly. It indicated that you actually looked at what I wrote and noticed something about it. I think I mentioned in there somewhere myself that there's significant overlap, which is why I downplayed all the numbers.
In any case, thanks for taking the time to respond.