Tag: Good Guys

Dept. Of Righteous Shootings: International Division

Righteous Shootings

Well, here’s one to cheer you up.  Seems as though these three Italian mopes decided to rob a jewellery store in Grinzane Cavour, a little town about thirty miles outside Turin.  All went well, for a while:  they waved a (fake) gun around and tied up the owner’s daughter.

Then the 67-year-old owner said “Fuck this shit!” in Italian, pulled his own gun, shot two of the assholes dead and wounded the third.

Some background:

The same jewellery shop in had already suffered a robbery a few years ago on May 22, 2015 when two thieves, one of whom was disguised as a woman, entered the shop and tied up the owner with plastic ties after beating him violently.

No wonder he’d had enough.

Sadly, the tale has not ended well for our hero, because Italy:

Immediately after the events, Roggero was accused of culpable excess of self-defense, but now he will have to answer for murder.  According to the public prosecutor’s office, Roggero would have chased the three robbers who, having already left the jewelry store with the stolen goods, were fleeing outside the store and from close range would have shot ‘with the intention of causing their death, thereby voluntarily exceeding the limits of legitimate patrimonial defence’. 

Yeah… so?

In any sane society, a jury would pat the guy on the back and say, “Good shooting, Tex!”  (once again, in Italian).  But this is Italy, which means he’s probably going to jail for doing what I believe 100% of my Readers would have done under the same circumstances.

Love Story

Good Stuff, Men & Women

In an age when marriage is ignored in favor of “hook-ups”, “partnerships” and “friends-with-benefits”, it’s heartening to see how one couple, at least, started young and over fifty years later, are still making it work:

Devoted couple Harry and Sandra Redknapp admit they love each no less than they did after exchanging vows more than half-a-century ago. 

Redknapp was a promising young footballer with West Ham United when he met apprentice hairdresser Sandra Young on a rowdy dancefloor above Stratford’s legendary Two Puddings pub in 1968.  

Months later they were married, with Sandra supporting her husband as he finished his football career with defunct north American club Seattle Sounders before establishing himself as a much-loved coach and manager.

My Murkin Readers will probably be going “Harry who?”  but the fact of the matter is that Harry is as famous Over There as Bill Parcells, Phil Jackson or Tom Landry ever were Over Here.

I know that to people of his generation, such loyalty, devotion and fidelity might seem nothing special, but here’s the difference:  his and Sandra’s marriage has been a celebrity one, subject to all the scrutiny and limelight that only the awful British press can bring.

Stories of his devotion to Sandra are legion (some of which are contained in the above article), but it should be known that Harry would have been a juicy target for all the fame groupies (step forward, Ulrika Jonsson) for whom his notch on their much-chiseled bedposts would have been a noteworthy one.

But he never strayed, and as he’s got older, that loyalty has made Harry Redknapp all the more beloved to the people of Britain since his retirement from football management.

Well played, mate.

Dept. of Righteous Shootings

Righteous Shootings

Here’s the full story, but the executive summary runs as follows:

Shithead with an unknown grievance storms into an Amazon warehouse parking lot and shoots some other guy several times.

Unfortunately for him, this was not Amazon Warehouse (UK) nor even Amazon Warehouse (OR):  no, this was Amazon Warehouse (AZ).

We know this because another Amazon employee happened upon the scene, drew his own gun and shot the Aggrieved One stone dead.


Also good news: the first guy has apparently survived the shooting.

But wait! there’s more:

An Amazon spokesman, Richard Rocha, said the company is working with law enforcement as it investigates the shooting.

He said: “We are deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence in our parking lot.

“We’re working closely with law enforcement as they investigate and are focused on supporting our team during this difficult time.”

The way to “support your team”, Mr. Amazon Spokesman, is NOT TO FIRE Our Hero, who probably saved many lives by his action.

I’ll be watching this closely, because Amazon.

A Limey In San Antonio

The Gun Thing

I’ve watched the lanky Jonny Carter on many an occasion, but this, his first trip to the U.S., was all kinds of fun to watch.

For those who don’t know the tall Englishman’s background, Jonny is a first-class shotgunner and a man who not only loves his craft, but knows his guns — and his obvious enjoyment of the Gun Thing makes for lovely entertainment.  (I first talked about him earlier this year.)

He lands in New York (!), and heads to the Beretta store in Manhattan.  (I don’t know why he would, when he’s already toured the factory in Brescia, but clearly the man can’t resist a shotgun.)

Then, after a little fun time with a Garand and M1 Carbine, it’s off to the main event in San Antonio.  Enjoy Part 1, and then the Nationals.  (What I found really interesting was his reaction to American shotgun ammo — way too much recoil for his taste.)

And then he makes the haj to Gordy’s in Houston, where even he’s impressed by the fine shotgun collection.

Watch, and enjoy.  He certainly did.

There’s about four hours of viewing for y’all, just in these links — and there would be far worse ways to spend a morning.

And just for the record, I absolutely hate the way Jonny’s bespoke shotgun looks;  that pistol grip?  Ugh.

“Less Jus’ Defun’ Da Po-Po”

Crime, The Gun Thing

In the face of rampant crime and such, one gas station owner has had enough:

“They are forcing us to hire the security, high-level security, state level. We are tired of this nonsense: robbery, drug trafficking, hanging around, gangs,” Patel said.

The guards he hired wear Kevlar vests and train regularly, maintaining firearm proficiency.

Prior to hiring the guards, Patel’s car was vandalized and an ATM was stolen from his gas station.

Best part:

But FOX News notes Patel’s observation that crimes – including loitering – ended once he hired security.

I bet they did.

If the cops can’t or won’t enforce the law, then it’s up to us ordinary folk to push them aside and take law enforcement back into our own hands.

The only people who would object to this action (other than the criminals) are government flunkies and hoplophobes.

I Like This

Business, Lifestyle

I remember back when Wal-Mart and their ilk were building stores everywhere, and small-town businesses everywhere were being put out of business by their erstwhile customers falling prey to the fallacy that Price Is King, and lured into the soulless caverns that were Wal-Mart, Home Depot and so on, all for the chance to save a couple bucks on nails and screwdrivers.

I was heartened when I visited Britishland for the first time, back in 1997, and found that there were still plenty of ironmongers (hardware stores) dotted in the main streets of British towns.  Invariably, I’d drift into one, and wish that I lived somewhere nearby because of all the cool stuff they sold, stuff which I hadn’t seen in over decade of walking through Lowes or Home Depot, let alone Wal-Mart.

Let me be clear here:  to men of my generation, hardware stores are to us like drugstores are to women.  Yet while you can find a CVS, Walgreens or Osco drugstore within spitting distance of your house in any town, you will not find a hardware store which caters to men.  Oh sure, drive a few miles and get drawn into a Wal-Mart, only to find that if you want a couple of #2 self-tapping screws for that project on the honey-do list, sorry but they’re only available in the 50-pack, $5.99 instead of a buck for the two you needed.  (And yes, I know all about economies of scale and bulk savings — but at the end of the day, you end up spending six bucks instead of two, and are saddled with four dozen screws that you may or may not need in the future.)

It doesn’t have to be that way.  Here’s a story from, of all places, Wales, where the local ironmongery was about to close its doors after years of serving the town, but the locals, realizing what they might miss if the place disappeared, did something about it.

Note how carefully they structured the financing, so that GlobalMegaCorp Inc. couldn’t sink their ravenous fangs into the place and turn it into something other than what they wanted to keep.

I wish we’d done something like this in small towns Over Here, but that bullet’s gone through the church and we’re stuck with megastores, damn it.

There are about three or four posts that burst the banks of this stream of consciousness, but they can wait for another time.