If you are a regular reader, you may be wondering if you’re at the right place.
After hitting the publish button, I realized Wednesday’s effort was the 450th posting on Brome Hill. That’s a bit of a milestone, I guess. So, I celebrated by giving the place a facelift.
So far, I like it, but the jury is still out. As always, your thoughts would be welcome and appreciated. One of these days, I’d really like this blog to become interactive — I post something, readers comment and interact with me and other readers.
Wouldn’t that be fun?
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Guns do kill people
Since Wednesday was a milestone day, let’s try some opinion today …
Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. So says the NRA and other advocates for arming the entire country.
But I wonder if Curtis J. Reeves Jr. is the kind of killer those gun advocates have in mind when they make this argument.
Reeves is the 71-year old retired police captain and Navy veteran in Florida who is accused of shooting and killing Chad W. Oulson, 43, a Desert Storm veteran who was on a movie date with his wife. The shooting happened on Jan. 13 in a movie theater where Reeves reportedly became angered by Oulson’s refusal to stop sending text messages in the moments before the movie began.
I don’t own a gun, but I’ve never really objected to how many guns someone else owns.
And I’m not a huge fan of passing laws just for the sake of passing laws. In fact, bad people will do bad things regardless of what laws are passed to stop them. I get that.
But I’m unconvinced that Reeves is an inherently bad guy. He’s just a guy who did a bad thing — something he might not have done if it wasn’t so acceptable and legal for almost everyone in this country to walk around with a gun.
And that makes me question the real need in Florida and elsewhere for so-called Stand Your Ground laws. When, as a nation, we’ve reached the point where a veteran pulls out a gun and kills another veteran in a movie theater, that’s enough to make me say I’ll never live in states that have created that kind of environment.
I hope the NRA is proud. If corporations, associations and labor unions have First Amendment rights to political free speech as the Supreme Court ruled in 2010, then they should suffer the consequences when they abuse their privileges. Someone in Florida ought to file criminal charges against the NRA for being an accomplice in Oulson’s death.
Yes, Reeves pulled the trigger. But he couldn’t have done so if it weren’t legal for so many people to carry guns everywhere they go. And that might not have happened without the influence of the NRA.
Who really needs to take a gun to the movies?
Brome Hill 
Looks great, but cold!
Thanks, Frank. It was cold the day that photo was shot — almost as bad as today. But the eagles don’t seem to mind. There are thousands of them around the lock and dam and along the river.
The picture doesn’t go with the words “Brome Hill”, which is a hill that is mostly grass and weeds now. Maybe it is because I know what the real Brome Hill looks like
I think it’s probably because you know what the real thing looked like. I have several pictures I’ll use in the header — I assume you’re talking about the picture of the eagles at the river. I plan to change that photo regularly, depending on where I am and what I’ve been doing, what the weather is like, etc.
Beautiful picture and does look cold. I think JoAnn must be your mother that I have heard so much about.