Where else but Florida, where a man named “Jock” pulled out his concealed carry handgun to shoot another customer while they both waited in line for pizza at a Little Caesar’s restaurant:
Police said the incident unfolded about 4 p.m. inside the Little Caesars, 3463 Fourth St. N, after Randall White, 49, got mad about his service.
Another man in line, Michael Jock, 52, of St. Petersburg admonished White.
That “prompted them to exchange words and it became a shoving match,” said police spokesman Mike Puetz.
White raised a fist. Jock, a concealed-weapons permit holder, pulled out a .38 Taurus Ultralight Special Revolver.
He fired one round, hitting White in the lower torso. The men grappled and the gun fired again, hitting White in roughly the same spot, police said.
Fortunately for Mr. White (sounds like a Reservoir Dogs reference, doesn’t it?) his wounds were not life threatening. Also, luckily, Mr. Jock’s bullets didn’t hit anyone else in the pizza place. Jock claimed he thought he saw an object in White’s hand, but then backed off that statement under police interrogation. He also claimed he was entitled to use his handgun against White under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. Police disagreed and arrested him for aggravated battery and shooting inside a building.
I’m sure before this incident, Mr. Jock was a responsible, law abiding citizen and gun owner. I’ll bet he still thinks he is one even after he brought a gun to a “potential” fist fight. I’m sure that he thinks that way even though firing his gun at Mr. White under those circumstances might have resulted in the injury or death of a bystander.
Word to the wise for Floridians and others who live in states with “Stand Your Ground” laws. Order pizza for delivery and shop online as much as you can. Because you never know when someone who feels “threatened” will pull out his or her weapon and shoot up a place where you happen to be. After all, the law says they can defend themselves, right? It would be just too bad if someone else became “collateral damage.”
Ps. Angry, irritable people who believe they are entitled to use their firearms in public are not mentally ill. They are, however, armed and dangerous.
Here’s a video of the handgun Mr. Jock used to stand his ground:
” Angry, irritable people who believe they are entitled to use their forearms in public are not mentally ill. They are, however, armed and dangerous.”
OMFG: I use my forearms in public ALL the time, whether I’m feeling angry or happy!
I’m armed (got two) but not so dangerous, I think.
Except around a keyboard, then the typos fly like winged monkeys from Malin’s butt.
Yeah, that’s changed now. Happy to start your day off with a laugh.
So, this guy bought a girl’s gun to a fist fight…
Damn, Steven D is really hostile to the right to bear arms.
I’m hostile to dumb laws that make people believe they can use guns in situations that do not warrant their use.
It’s a forearm joke, Steve.
Forearmed is forewarned…
Sorry – mucho mea culpa Joe
My bad.
I just assumed the wrist of my meaning would be obvious.
I’ve lived in Florida now going on about six years. Thank God I’m an agoraphobic.
I’m sending a LTTE of the Miami Herald, asking if the state tourism department is running the “stand your ground” incidents. People are not stupid. They see these reports, they read about the lunatics in Florida, the Gunshine State, and they ask, “SO, let’s see, I could go to FL or I could go to CA”.
“Stand your ground” is not going to be good for the tourism industry.
I was just thinking about the Stand Your Ground and how that would translate if the nuts got their way and armed the teachers, principals and likely the custodians. Picturing high energy teenage students ‘intimidating’ a teacher who reaches in his desk and takes aim. I’m sure teachers don’t envision being trained to be killers is what they are thinking when they start their careers.
Two things:
First one to shoot and yells “stand my ground”,wins. Kinda of like the “wild west” all over again.
Gun nuts are the most tedious jackasses in existence I have to believe.
Gosh, how shocking and unexpected that a militant dick should, in a moment of ill temper, threaten and assault another with his concealed piece. Indeed he has every reason to expect that everyone else is packing.
Basically, the republicans openly advocate a social fabric of mutually assured personal destruction. In other words, their attitude is the rightness of permanent gangland paranoia and drivebys. Except they are confident, as all gangs are, that they will have the final say of arms.
These fanatical clowns look around at our public life and see an area that is insufficiently militarized. Yes, that’s there solution: more guns.
My life is not your goddamned paintpall fantasy you sub-moronic freak. No I don’t give a shit about your precious expert distinctions among species of sub and sub-sub machine gun. A society where everyone is constantly on the point of armed conflict is NOT A GOOD SOCIETY. It doesn’t work out so well, as we constantly see. And yet you have paid industry monsters insisting on cable news that the vastly lower murder rates in other advanced countries is illusory.
THESE MEN ARE ASSHOLES.
It’s all “me me me” and “fuck you I DO NOT need to listen to you”. When guns talk, people do not listen. The gun IS the cause of the shit, and not the other way around. When you carry a gun, the gun becomes the excuse, and you no longer are a reasoned being – you are just a gun. And, yes, everyone who carries a gun is liable to go off at the least possible trigger…
Nothing whatever to do with stand your ground.
Does have to do with fatheads carrying guns, though.
Full disclosue: I have a snub-nose Ruger chambered for .357 magnum and used to have a license to carry.
Never bothered to carry it and last time around let the license lapse.
Now if I can get the state to stop charging me for the automatically renewed motocycle endorsement on my driver’s license, we’ll be great.
Point to remember: half the people in the country are of below average intelligence.
And they qualify to carry in any state that only denies licenses to criminals, children, people under court order, and officially diagnosed madmen.
“Ps. Angry, irritable people who believe they are entitled to use their firearms in public are not mentally ill.”
Unless this is snark, I beg to differ. People who feel they are entitled to use their weapons in public are a menace to society.
Why? Because THEY always assume that they will have ultimate control of their weapon, and the data shows they do not, as weapons are often turned against THEM, or stolen from THEM.
There is a place in society for public use of weaponry: law enforcement, and perhaps even the military on occasion. We can have a discussion about whether the military should be taking the role of civilian peacekeeping another time, but these are positions of authority and they are trained for it.
Those who feel entitled to use their weapons in public seek to be a part of that authority and are not trained or prepared to be a part of that authority.
This guy felt he needed a gun to stand in line for pizza. That fits the bill for mentally ill as far as I’m concerned.
being mentally ill and just being stupid are totally completely different things
the thing at the pizza hut was definitely stupid
Just how fucking stupid does one have to be for you to consider them mentally ill? What if he was a homeless man with TB, coughing on everyone? Is that stupid or mentally ill?
They are not completely different things. I deal with shit that kills people in my day job. I think about shit that kills people, like Dengue fever and Malaria. I am employed to do this in order to save lives.
Gun nuts think about shit that kills people too, and call it a constitutional right.