Thursday, November 27, 2008

Alienating Gunnies

H-S Precision's recent faux pas has been covered throughout the gun-blogosphere. I held off, not having time to call them up, but it's been confirmed: they really did publish an endorsement letter from Lon Horiuchi on the back cover of their latest catalog. 'Cos, you know, long-distance shooting at civilian mothers and children is, like, admirable. Especially when you have them surrounded and outnumbered a bajillion to one and all you really have to do is wait for the food to run out.

     The MOVE firebombing is not as well-known but similar to Ruby Ridge in many ways: disliked oddballs (much odder and less-liked, IMO, and way worse neighbors) run afoul of the law, massive overreaction by LEO, a great deal of denial, hindsight-driven justification and retconning afterwards. Pretty much S.O.P.
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 27, 2008 at 1:23 PM

    Good one, Roberta. I'd forgotten about that incident.

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  2. AnonymousNovember 27, 2008 at 4:50 PM

    I remember hearing about it, quite some time ago...the police dropped some type of bomb to drive some people out of an area, and it got way out of control.

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  3. AnonymousNovember 27, 2008 at 10:23 PM

    That's when Philly PD adopted the motto "Tora, Tora, Tora"

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  4. bmayerNovember 28, 2008 at 12:25 AM

    Should that be "3 shot 1/2 MOM (minute of Mom) at 100 yards"?

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  5. AnonymousNovember 28, 2008 at 1:28 PM

    This isn't a Waco or Ruby Ridge situation, the MOVE folks were radicalized Back to Africa types and had a history of shooting first.

    I used to live in Philly and we heard all about MOVE. They had a habit of shooting firemen who responded to a house fire at a different house (in West Philly near Drexel U). They eventually moved over to the house that is the subject of this post.

    The firebombed house had been converted to a fortress with reinforced walls and firing holes *between* rooms. The bomb dropped from the helo ignited gasoline they were storing on the top floor...

    As I recall from watching the debacle the PD kept the FD out (or the FD refused to go in to be shot) until the MOVE house was fully engulfed. By the time they started fighting the fire the whole row of houses was a total loss.

    I had moved to SoCal and was job hunting and watched the whole thing on TV that day....

    The only reason you don't hear about the MOVE bombing more often is that the Mayor and the Chief of Police were both black.

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