PSH Alert
A drill team member was suspended from school for having a replica rifle in her car. You know, those replica rifles that drill teams march with. Yeah, those.
Meanwhile, college laundry room shut down, dorm swept, and bomb-sniffing dogs called because a loose 45 round was found. The original article contains this bit of reporting:
According to Sgt. Dennett, a student found the bullet in the washing machine while doing his laundry. 45-caliber bullets are used in assault weapons such as handguns, not larger weapons like hunting rifles.
Ok, then.
February 11th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Waiiit a minute. I thought “assault weapons” were pistol gripped, fully automatic evil black rifles that are designed to be spray fired from the hip available for any child to purchase at Walmart?
February 11th, 2009 at 11:02 am
assault weapons such as… handguns.
FAIL
February 11th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Hey, you are missing the potential for constructive mischief here! After noting that the approved anti-gun response to finding a loose round or two here or there is to go completely overboard in determining if any of those dangerous gun-things are within a mile or two of any human, how about pro-gunners start to use this to our advantage.
First, a series of posters showing a cartridge (preferably photographed by Oleg Volk, but any photocopied 22LR round would work)with the words: “Bullets alone can’t kill you. They need a criminal to be used against you.” After this has generated enough “Buzz” we start seeding loose dud rounds in random locations, say, around ACORN offices, political offices, or even randomly selected hangouts of local drug dealers, like the street corners in downtown Baltimore. Let the police over-reactions commence!
February 11th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Of course, now that I have suggested this in this public place, I can’t ever have anything to do with such a disruptive and annoying activity, as I’d be identified as an instigator of such mischief right away. Glad I got the idea out of my system with a blog comment rather than a public campaign of mischief. Maybe I have learned a bit of self control since my teen years, after all….
February 11th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
I flew from Houston to NYC last year and a couple days after arriving felt something uncomfortable in my back pocket while sitting (same pants I wore on the plane). Pulled a loose 45 round out of my back pocket, a remnant from a range trip. My family was horrified at what the Dept. of Homeland Security would have done to me if they found it. I laughed a bit because true, they would have made a big freakin’ deal out of it, but it’s still just a round with no gun. Worse, even if I had had my 45-cal gun with me, still no one would be in danger.
February 11th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
A student conduct handbook states a dangerous weapon includes “a firearm, whether loaded or unloaded, or a firearm facsimile that could reasonably be mistaken for an actual firearm; or a chocolate brownie, wallet, ping pong ball, or anything else that we feel like defining as a dangerous weapon, even if it’s not dangerous, or a weapon.”
February 11th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Has anyone told Barney that his bullet has been found?
February 11th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Only the essential goodness and charity that lives in the hearts of true Americans keeps them from shutting down the entire culture with a few dropped handgun rounds here and there.
When I was a kid we got enamored of drawing chalk outlines and scattering handfuls of brass around various town parking lots. We had the whole downtown looking like a crime scene, but nobody ever noticed and finally we got bored and cut it out.
February 11th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
I saw the pictures of the drill pieces from the initial story from David H’s site and did a double take. Obviously this school has never had a JROTC program! In my NJROTC unit we used deactivated M-1 Garands (firing pin removed and bolts welded shut), pretty much the real deal in outward appearance. The 1903 Springfields we used before that did look fake up close (brown, tough plastic “furniture”,i.e. stocks), but not from a distance, and the bolts could be opened and cycled (no firing pin and totally plugged barrels, however).
So how does Colorado State law handle JROTC Drill Pieces? Are all Colorado JROTC cadets now under danger of arrest/suspension if they check out a Drill piece to practice with at home?
I used to put mine in my car’s trunk, but my first car was a hatchback Rabbit and you could see into the trunk, while the last car I drove in High School (a Hyundai) you could not.
In my unit’s early days sometimes the County Sheriff’s Dept would stop cadets walking home wearing civilian clothes and carrying pieces, but after confirming they were non-operational, they’d be sent on their merry way without further questions.
Our NSI/ANSI drilled into our heads to treat the Drill pieces exactly as if they were real weapons and to NEVER horse around with a checked out Drill piece or they’d kick us out of JROTC and suspend check-out privileges for the rest of the team. We never had any incidents…but that was Texas in the mid-to-late 1980s.
February 11th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Like a funeral march toward oblivion, the pussification of America marches forward.
February 12th, 2009 at 8:12 am
I remember reading last year, probably on a site much like this one, about a couple of Brits finding a loose .22lr round just inside the door of a shop somewhere. Just one. As I very roughly recall, Her Majesty’s finest were contacted, and completely taped off the area until the *ordnance* could be *disposed of*.
I wanted SO much to believe the Britification of America was an overblown falsehood, but now there’s evidence to the contrary dry-humping me in the face like so much Superbowl Springsteen.