CCW Story Part 28: Cleared by the State

Next Todd went to the phone and dialed, my signed yellow sheet in his hand. I could hear him feed my name, driver's license and social security numbers to the person on the other end of the line. About a minute went by and Todd hung up.

"No priors on you, or any that the State knows about". Todd said.

The .45 auto was mine, but for one last thing, Todd showed me the safety features, and I signed the white sheet while my debit card ran. I signed my receipt and I became a firearm owner, one of the estimated 150 million in this country. My pistol (re)joined America's arsenal of 200 million firearms, the estimated current domestic stock of firearms. My chances of dying of handgun homicide jumped 2.5%. My chances of dying of suicide increased as well. I also brought on the additional risk of dying or being wounded by a Negligent Discharge (ND) from my new pistol.

I bought 50 rounds of 230 grain .45 ACP reloads, some targets and donned my eye and ear protection to enjoy some quality range time with the source of the blip in my personal statistics.

Traslated Islamic TV

My wife and I just recently discovered a webpage that offers Islamic TV excerpts with English subtitles. The address is:

http://www.memritv.org

Facinating stuff. The clips make Fox News look truly "fair and balanced".

Danny Harold Rolling Executed

I see that Danny Harold Rolling was executed today at Starke. I was in Gainsville the weekend that Rolling went on his killing spree in 1990. We were staying in a hotel about a mile from some of the victims houses. My father and I were at the tour of Gainsville, after we got home to Bradenton, we saw that the bodies had been discovered. I remember the next year at the tour of Gainsville, I stayed with a friend in the neighborhood the murders occured in. One year to the day. I was nervous.

I remember riding my bike back to my friends home from the road race and passing a concrete wall with the names of the Gainsville victims painted on it. I was also in Milwaukee racing Superweek while Jeffery Dhamer was about his murder spree. I stayed about 2 miles from his house. Got home to Bradenton and read the headlines, and felt that chill up my spine.

1990 - 2006 Sixteen years that Rolling lived after the murders, the bulk of it on death row. Sixteen years that the victims familes have suffered every day.

Interestingly, I was also in Belgium during the Marc Dutroux crimes, and trained in Tournai a lot on one of the roads where he picked up a victim.

What is it about bike races and serial killers?

Strange.