Thanks to cgeye for the update on the fashion-conscious shooter. But as long as he’s not shooting at people, the behavior of shooting into the air or at inanimate targets in the distance is in keeping with places where guns are an accepted part of everyday life. I’ve been in places where people shoot guns at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and in some cultures people shoot guns at weddings. This “celebratory gunfire” takes place in other countries but also in the US. I saw a “white wedding” on the local news in the Midwest some years ago. Members of the KKK were getting married and they shot a gun in the air to celebrate.

The latest figures are that there are between 250-300 million guns in the US and, as your blog post shows, people love their guns. We have half the Congress (I’m guessing) as card-carrying members of the NRA, which is being described as the most successful “grass-roots organization” in the country. So yes, it’s all the fashion.

He didn’t get on the Supreme Court, and through deviousness, opacity and other right-wing shenanigans, we’ve been paying for it ever since.

One must only speak good of the dead.
So, he’s dead. Good.

What a nightmare.

An ex-security guard. Living in his car. Maintaining an automatic weapon instead of selling it for rent. Hmmm….

The explanation’s a bit more formal here, but I remember that casualness of phrase, as if that’s what most officers dream of doing after drinkin’ a couple o’ brewskis.

This is the kicker: He’s a serial shooter, and no one gave a fuck until now.

“The unemployed security guard was also charged with 10 felony counts of negligent discharge of a firearm for a similar shooting at Fashion Island last November.

“Very similar location, Fashion Island mall, pulls up in his car, discharges a handgun 10 times out the window in the direction of the mall, but kind of in the air. No one was hit. Several people reported it to police,” said OC Senior Deputy District Attorney, Robert Mestman.

In addition, Gurrola allegedly admitted to shootings in at least 11 other locations in Orange County, including near Disneyland, in the past nine months.

In a court declaration, he said he would fire the handgun when he was angry and was careful not to shoot anyone.”

Now, when gang-bangers shoot in the air during holidays or Super Bowl wins, they’re a menace to society and should be put down — but when an ex-security officer does it, he’s *understood*.

So here’s some good news, or at least evidence that even gun-crazy Colorado might be ready to have a serious conversation about guns, our mental health system, and controlling gun access for the mentally ill.

A shooter turned up in the parking lot of our nearby high-end mall, Fashion Island, last Saturday. He shot fifty rounds in the parking lot in front of Macy’s. My son was working at a movie theater across the street and had to hustle into the theater people waiting in line to buy tickets. They went into “lockdown,” a word which seems to have become part of the lingo these days. Luckily this guy didn’t shoot at any person, instead firing into the air and the ground. The latest news is that he was an out-of-work security guard “letting off steam.”

The metaphor of fashion island works only because guns have become as acceptable to buy as watches. Not far from the Macy’s there is a Dick’s sporting goods, which sells guns, although I saw on the news that they are suspending the sale of some rifles in the wake of Sandy Hook. There are some things people just can’t walk into a store and buy — bombs, bazookas, nuclear waste. So part of the problem is that our consumer culture has normalized the sale of items made to kill, including semiautomatic weapons and their cartridges.