Probably Homicide, The Edward Morrissey Story, Part 2

 One of the hardest parts of solving a 99-year-old murder is trying to stay focused. The murder of Frank Little wasn't a robbery. It wasn't an angry husband or spouse. It was a very deliberate killing. It was meant to send a message. Let this be a message to anyone who comes to Butte and talks about mineworker's rights and strikes. You are going to be killed just like Frank was. So, a thorough examination of Frank Little was where I started back in 2016.

I knew the history. I knew that Frank was a union organizer. I knew that his employer sent him from a mine in Bisbee, Az to Butte. I knew that the United Workers of the World or the Wobblies, were commonly viewed as socialists although I think that is inaccurate. I couldn't grasp the threat level. What did Frank do that was so bad that persons unknown would kidnap him in the middle of the night and brutally murder him?

This is where we need context. We need to paint that picture to fully understand why Frank Little was murdered. 

The Miners

People from all over the world came to America. They came for freedom. They came for opportunity. There was no greater example of this than Butte, Montana. The miners came from everywhere but mostly, eastern and western Europe and Scandinavia. Most were uneducated in the formal sense. Many could not speak English. But the Irish could. The Irish, of all the nationalities in Butte, were vastly overrepresented. This was due mostly to the efforts of the great copper king and Irish immigrant, Marcus Daly. Marcus Daly came to Butte, bought the Alice mine property in Walkerville, and discovered copper in it. The ore body was enormous. Daly sold the Alice and moved his operations to the absolute center of the ore body. The Anaconda mine on the Anaconda Road. Underground mining required huge amounts of physical labor. Soon there were claims and mines all over the hill. Hundreds of them.

Thousands upon thousands of miners came to Butte looking for the American dream. They slapped tiny little houses together all over the hill and walked to work at the mines. They worked 12-hour days, 6 days a week. It was horrible, dangerous work, with little oxygen a mile underground. Safety concerns were routinely ignored. Miners died by the hundreds and soon, by the thousands. They died in cave-ins, accidents, and falls. They died in fires. They died of black lung. Butte cemeteries are vast.

So miners had to fight. They had to fight for safety. They had to fight for reduced hours and increasing wages. They shared great adversity and they fought back. They fought the Company with unions. They fought with strikes. 

By the time the Copper Kings sold out, the miners found themselves with a whole new adversary. The Anaconda Company was vicious and ruthless. They were capitalists and robber barons of the first order. Killing miners simply meant hiring new ones. If Marcus Daly was loved, the Anaconda Company was feared and hated.

By the time World War I had started in 1914, Butte miners were up in arms. Not only were they angry with the Company over a litany of issues but they detested the war in Europe. The Irish had fled Ireland to escape British rule. Many immigrants had fled for similar issues. They weren't about to support a war among countries they disliked and cared little about. Many were angry when the United States chose to enter the war in March of 1917. The miners were already pissed.

And then something really bad happened.

The Granite Mountain/Speculator Mine Disaster

On Jun 8th, 1917, a fire broke out in the Granite Mountain Mine after a cable had been dropped in the shaft. Workers were sent to retrieve the cable some 2500 feet underground. The cable was encased in  flammable grease and when they found it, it was all tangled up. As Ernest Sullau attempted to wrestle the damaged cable free, his carbide lamp lit the cable grease which touched the timbers in the mine. 

The Granite Mountain mine was connected to the Speculator Mine. Their shafts were parallel to each other. Both mine shafts began filling with smoke. Miners were quite literally choking to death, scrambling for clean air in various tunnels, and building bulkheads in dead end drifts. They could not get out.

Horns sounded all over the hill. The citizens of Butte knew something horrible had happened. By the time it was all over, 168 miners had been killed in the worst hard rock mining disaster the world had ever known.

If killing 168 miners at once were not bad enough, the Company bore no responsibility. They didn't help with the cost of funerals. They didn't reach out to widows and children. They offered no financial support to the families that found themselves without husbands and fathers, without money or support, without groceries and rent. This while the Anaconda Company made a million dollars a day.

It was a callous, horrible response. Butte miners had become combustible. Into this sweeping anger and hatred for the Company, amidst union fights and strikes, all hell was breaking loose. Frank Little, labor organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, was about to step into purgatory. It was July 12th, 1917. Frank Little was about to take his eternal walk. He had less than 3 weeks to live.

(I have read two fantastic books on the Granite Mountain/Speculator disaster. The latest is called "A Darkness Lit By Heroes." It is a fantastic body of work, very well written. I could not put it down. The other book is called Fire and Brimstone, also very good)

Frank Little

In the summer of 2016, I wanted to capture the emotions that Frank Little would encounter when he stepped off that train in July, some 99 years ago. Clearly that would be impossible, but I had to understand the context that existed back then. What kind of charged atmosphere leads to such a cruel and desperate act? 

The Butte papers painted that picture for me. They had the microfiche and the readers in the Butte Library and I am grateful for that. I spent a few days in the library reading old newspapers and a few days up in the Butte Archives. 

It is worth remembering that virtually all newspapers were owned by the Anaconda Company at the time except for William Dunn's, "Strike Bulletin."  Therefore, you are reading somewhat filtered propaganda, just the way the Company wanted you to read it. I was highly dismissive of the suspect names and theories they espoused. Completely untrustworthy and meant to confuse readers.

This is what I can tell you about Frank Little. He arrived in Butte with a broken leg. He rented a room in a boarding house on N Wyoming, just south of the Anaconda Road. He gave passionate speeches to the miners. He did this every day and hobbled home. He was gaining serious traction among the miners, most of whom were all doing a slow burn over the way the Company was treating them. They hated the war. Frank hated the war too. 

The Company goons tried to paint Frank Little as a communist sympathizer. They tried to chip away at the credibility he was gaining. And they were losing.

The more Frank spoke, the more the miners liked him. People began to worry about Frank. A local barber, Con Lowney, warned Frank that he was going to be killed. Frank shrugged it off. He had heard this all before.

It was about 3 a.m. on the morning of August 1, that a black Cadillac chugged up the steep grade of Wyoming Street. It had seating for six people. The car stopped in front of Frank's boarding house. Five men in masks went into the boarding house, one stayed with the car. After kicking one door open, they were confronted by the boarding house owner and her son. They demanded to know where Frank Little was sleeping. They said they had a warrant for him. The man doing all the talking was short and stocky. He was waving a police revolver. They rousted Frank Little, beat him up and dragged him out of the boarding house and into the waiting car. The seven of them proceeded up the hill to the intersection of the Anaconda Road, about 300 feet away. They tied Frank to the back bumper with a length of rope. They dragged him away.

This was witnessed by two men standing outside O'Briens Bar across the street from the boarding house. O'Briens is long gone. 

Frank Little was found about 3 hours later. He had been hanged from a train trestle west of Montana Street, a little over a mile away. He had a cryptic note attached to his body with a numeric reference attributed to the Montana Vigilantes.  His body was discovered by a man walking to work. 

Frank's body was taken down.  His kneecaps had been nearly scraped off as he was being dragged through the streets. 

Norah Byrne, the owner of the boarding house, did not immediately report the crime believing the men to be police officers. It was only after discussing the masks they wore (with her son) that she decided to report the incident to police. As it turns out, in the days and weeks that followed, the Butte cops didn't seem too concerned about it.

This was the note found on Little's body. The reference to 3-7-77 is a number the Montana Vigilantes used. The Montana Highway Patrol have those numbers on their patch. The exact meaning of those numbers has been debated over the years. I was not that concerned about what the numbers meant. What was important to me was why they were used. There had to be a connection and there was. I stumbled onto it years later. The bottom line on the note represents the last initials of other union organizers. The "L" for Little has been circled. Next up, "D" for William Dunn.

Little's funeral was the biggest in Montana history. Some say there were 7,000 people in attendance.

The grave is several miles away. Note the street surface. Granite Street.

Frank Little was killed because he threatened the Anaconda Company. They were making a million dollars a day. Frank Little was gaining traction and credibility with miners. The Company had already weathered the Granite Mountain disaster, they had weathered a partial strike which was continuing, and they certainly weren't going to tolerate a full scale, citywide strike instigated by Little. You couldn't reason with or intimidate Frank. He wasn't going to stop. So the only thing you could do was kill him and use his death to intimidate anyone else thinking of stepping up and taking his place. 

It became pretty clear to me that the Company had him killed. They had tremendous motive. So if you wanted someone killed, who would order that and who would carry it out? 

 

 

Probably Homicide, The Edward Morrissey Story, Part 1

This is the story of three murders. None of these murders were really solved although it would have been rather easy. Instead, with a healthy dose of indifference, they were all lost to time.

It is a fascinating story on so many levels. It is a story worth dredging up.

I was 8 years old when we arrived in Butte, Montana. It was the summer of 1969. Coming from a little sleepy farming town on flat earth in eastern Montana, Butte looked absolutely cosmopolitan. There were storefronts of almost every variety. Famous stores like Hennessey's. Bakeries like Gamer's and Town Talk. Bars and taverns were everywhere. The Board of Trade, M and M, the Terminal Bar. People were out and about, walking everywhere at all hours of the day and night. It was a two-block stroll from the bars on Park St to the whorehouses on Mercury St. Butte miners did a lot of strolling. The booze poured 24 hours a day. Gambling, which was allegedly illegal in Montana, was done out in the open in Butte bars. I watched poker games and even punched a few punchboards as a child. Law enforcement was nowhere to be found. This was all part of the tapestry. It was by design.

The Anaconda Company owned everything. They owned the hill, all the mines, the railways and smelter, they owned virtually every Montana newspaper, they owned the politicians, they owned the judges, they owned the Butte cops, and they even owned the miners. In the old days, the Company used "rustling cards" to identify union sympathizers and to prevent them from being employed.

Two other items of note before we move on. 

Virtually all of the newspapers in Montana were owned by the Anaconda Copper Company. This monopolistic effect had a huge impact on everything. People obtained their news through only one source. There was no other way of influencing people. No radio, no television, no cellphones, no computers. No public discourse. In 1917, you were fed the propaganda that the Company and Percy Rockefeller wanted you to hear. The Company, which we called it, ruled everything. If you didn't carry their water, they'd crush you. 

The antagonist in this story were the unions. The only way to fight the Company was to unionize. The Company hated the unions. They even planted spies amongst the union members at union halls and meetings to identify the biggest antagonists. It was the Company v the miners. It was an epic David v Goliath story only David wasn't going to win this battle.

Thus, the story of Edward Morrissey begins here. The year is 1917. World War One has begun. Copper is in huge demand. The price had never been higher. The Company was virtually in control of world copper supply with a huge, dominant share of the market.

The Company exploited miners. Miner's unions were largely responsible for reducing a workday from 12 hours to 8.  Mining was all done underground in 1917. The Company is making one million dollars a day which is an absolutely unheard of amount of money in those days. While the Company and it's officers are becoming obscenely rich, they are also attempting to cut the wages of thousands of miners from 3.50 a day to 3.00. It is a powder keg waiting to explode.

Edward Morrissey

Edward Morrissey was born in Ireland on Christmas Day, 1874. He immigrated to America. It is known that Edward Morrissey fought for America in the Spanish American War. It is also believed that he shot himself in the arm to escape the conflict. He was 24 in 1898. Like many Irish American immigrants, he landed in Butte at the turn of the century or slightly thereafter.

Morrissey went to work for the Company in the early 1900's. It is unknown where and what he did for the Company but it is very likely that during this time, he formed all of the contacts and business associates he needed to eventually become employed by the Butte Police Department. This probably occurred around 1907-1908. 

Morrissey was a short, compact man. He was quick tempered and violent. He was also an alcoholic. By all accounts he was just a mean, angry man who enjoyed fighting. The accounts of Morrissey that I've read don't use the term "asshole", but I think you get the gist of it.

Morrissey was a fixture in the Crown Bar on West Park.

The Butte Police Chief was also an immigrant from Ireland. He had worked for Marcus Daly and the Company. Jeremiah Murphy, or "Jere the Wise" bounced back and forth amongst Butte Mayors but finally landed a permanent role as Chief in 1909. He enjoyed a strong reputation and was credible. It was probably Murphy's reputation and credibility that enabled Edward Morrissey not only to survive but to become Chief of Detectives for the Butte Police Department.

Murphy worked for the Butte Police Department for 40 years. He died in the line of duty while wrestling with a suspect in 1935. He fell and cracked his skull on a marble floor. I have stood on that floor. Like so many Butte stories, Jeremiah Murphy left more questions than answers. How good of friends were Murphy and Morrissey? Who was Murphy wrestling with in 1935? What happened to that guy? His name is never mentioned. He was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and sentenced to 30 days in jail according to the Montana Peace Officer Memorial. Still, why the mystery?

Here is a delightful link that will give you an idea of how fondly Butte thought of Murphy. You'd think Murphy was some sort of super hero with secret powers. Realistically, I think a lot of these column inches are pure nonsense. But in those days, you didn't speak ill of the dead. (please ignore the obvious mistakes in the title) http://mtgenweb.com/silverbow/jere_murphy.htm

These were the answers I was searching for in 2016. I had two weeks. I was back in Butte, my childhood home, to solve a murder. It had been 99 years since Frank Little was dragged behind a car, strung up on a train trestle west of town, and strangled. The killers left a cryptic note, a murderous warning, pinned to his body. 

A lot of bizarre and horrible events happened in Butte during the summer of 1917. The death of Frank Little might have been the last of them. It was the outcome the Company needed. 

This is a picture of N. Wyoming (316) and Norah Byrne's boardinghouse. Frank Little would be kidnapped and ultimately killed from here at 3 a.m., August 1, 1917. Across the street and just a little north is O'Briens Tavern. (two story brick, no longer standing) This is where two men watched the  whole event. They were in a great position, less than 100 feet away. Their statements regarding the Cadillac, the number of men, the direction of travel, and dragging Frank Little away- were absolutely key to solving this crime. Thanks to Jane Little Botkin, back cover photo, Frank Little and the IWW.

 

 

Three More Great Gambling Stories

 In October I published my first installment of great gambling stories. Today I am going to tell you about three more. 

I have gambled for over 40 years, from Foxwoods near Mystic, Ct. to the Bicycle in Los Angeles. I have seen a lot of crazy things in my time. I am going to start with a bizarre story that didn't net us any money. I am including it here because it was so strange. It happened at the Desert Diamond in Tucson, Az.

Virtual Roulette

My wife and I had been playing blackjack and we were waiting for seats in the poker room. We stumbled on to one of those video roulette wheels. You insert your money, the machine credits it, and about every 15 seconds some cartoonish, virtual dealer with big boobs spins the wheel. Just before she spins the roulette wheel, she says "No more bets." Then she puts the pea in the roulette rail and spins the wheel. The key to this story is that as the pea is spinning in the rail before it drops, it makes a noise. The wheel also makes a clackety noise as it spins. These simultaneous sounds last about 15 seconds.

I think we may have each put a twenty in this thing and we are just killing time. No sooner had we made a couple bets than this kid at the end of the game, calls the number out and then the pea lands in that number. He does this a couple times before I start paying attention. Spin after spin, this kid calls out what number the pea is going to land in before it leaves the rail and drops onto the wheel. So now I am more interested in how the hell he is able to do this, spin after spin. He is never wrong.

I cannot tell you how many hours and days this kid must have sat there- listening to the sounds of the wheel, memorizing them, and calling out the correct number every time. Somehow, he had memorized the sounds of all 36 numbers and also the 0 and 00. Unfortunately, because the game shut all bets off just before the spin- there was no way to capitalize on this. That made it even more weird. I simply could not imagine how anyone could memorize the slight auditory distinctions each spin of the wheel made and how long this kid had been obsessed with that. I also did not understand why. There was no profit potential. Autistic I suppose.

The College Football Bet

For many years, I played poker every weekend. Maybe 15 years. In the fall, on Saturdays, I never missed a weekend. I loved to bet college and pro football. I would bet the games, tune to the proper channels, and watch the game while we played poker in the poker room. Very often, a crew from Montana would show up on higher limit weekends when we would play 10-20 limit.

So there was this guy, Jim, from Deer Lodge, Mt.  He and his friends from Deer Lodge and Anaconda would show up and play 10-20 limit Hold 'em. On this particular day, Jim decided to bet a college football game for 1500 bucks. The spread was -1.5 which meant Jim had to win by two points. (I made decent money back then and I always wondered where these guys found 1500 to piss off on a football game, my biggest bet is usually 500)

I wished I remembered who the two teams were who played that day but I don't. I do remember the score was 29-3 at the half. Jim's team was getting it's ass kicked so he quit watching the game and since 1500 is a lot of money, nobody teased him about it. One of the crazy aspects of this game is that the opposing team blocked a chip shot field goal and ran it back for a touchdown. They had missed two other extra points.

So when the game started after the half, I kept watching. Jim's team rallied. About the time they made 3 second half touchdowns, the score was 29-24. Everyone at the table was excited. Jim, who had written off the bet earlier, was glued to the television. Just as time expired, Jim's team scored a touchdown. The score was 30-29. We were all excited, slapping Jim on the back- whooping it up and hollering. All they had to do was kick the extra point and Jim would cash his ticket. Except that didn't happen. The coach decided to kneel the ball down instead rather than risk another blocked kick. We were all incredulous. That was the worst beat I ever saw- down for most of the game, came roaring back and gave Jim hope, and then crushed him with that kneel down. I can remember how sick I felt for Jim. I kind of get sick just re-telling this story.

The Good Karma, Bad Beat Jackpot

In 2016 I had bought a new house in Twin Falls and sold my house in Boise. I was homeless as I waited for the family to move out of the house in Twin Falls. I had a week to kill. I decided to go to Tucson. Tucson is one of my favorite places.

I had a crazy thing happen to me a few months before selling my house in Boise. I was in the alley pulling weeds. When the sun went down, I took my sunglasses off. Right after I did that, I pulled a weed out of the ground and one of the stalks in this weed stuck me right in the eye. I tore the macula in the right eye, it went dark, and eventually I had surgery. So, I was blind in that eye for about 6 weeks. During that time, I had a serious problem with depth perception and driving. I backed into my truck, I backed into the trash cans, I even ripped the passenger mirror off the car backing it out of the garage.

The rear bumper of my Elantra was pretty scuffed up and scarred. A new bumper cover was only a couple hundred bucks on E Bay.

So off to Tucson I went.

The second day I was there I decided to go play poker at Casino Del Sol. On the way there, I get struck from behind at a traffic signal. Not too hard, maybe 5 MPH or so. Mexican gal, 50s, gets out of her car. She looks at my beat-up bumper and starts crying. She had gouged a hole in the bumper cover, but I was going to get a new one anyway. I looked at her and said, "no damage."  It is fine. She is very apologetic and nice. She says thank you. We go about our separate ways.

At the casino, I landed a seat in a 4-8 game. They have a bad beat jackpot which is maxxed out at 50k. To win the bad beat jackpot, 20 dollars must be in the pot. Four of a kind must get beaten by four of a kind or better.

The game is full of solid players. There is a little old lady sitting two seats to my right. There is an old, grizzled player in the number one seat, on the left of the dealer. I am on the dealer's right, bullshitting with a guy next to me. After about 2 hours or so, the old, grizzled guy and grandma get in a raising war. I hadn't been paying attention and I look out at the board. There are two kings and two nines on the board. And neither one of these two will stop raising. I thought initially that each had a king full house but ol' grizzly won't stop raising. Grandma keeps raising back despite the fact she can see the two nines on board. They probably each put in 10 raises. I asked the guy next to me if he thought they had hit the jackpot. The guy "shushes" me. Grandma finally quits raising. She rolls over 4 kings. Ol grizzly rolls over 4 nines.

Ol grizzly wins 25,000. Grandma wins 12,500. The rest of us win about 1600 apiece. It takes the casino nearly 3 hours to pay us. We can't play while we wait, so everyone is bullshitting and grandma, hitting the white zin, is pretty much wasted and happy. She keeps drinking wine and kissing on me. It was kind of strange, but everybody seemed happy. I don't think her hubby cared too much for her kissing other players, but the 12 grand softened him up, I suppose.

While we were waiting to be paid, I won another 200 when the poker room calls my seat number in a random lottery.

It was a good karma day. I love Bob Seger and the casino had a band that played nothing but Bob Seger. I wish all days were like that but then I guess they wouldn't be so special.

 

Money, Money, Money

I'm so fucking sick of advertising. It's an absolute bombardment. An intrusion into every conceivable space. I think of advertisers much like I think of cockroaches. Infiltrating my life through every conceivable crack. 

Monetize this, monetize that. Subscribe to this channel. We've detected you are using an adblocker, please disable your adblocker to continue. Spam blockers. Spam filters. The pricks even have my cellphone number and call that two or three times a day.

Tip jars, GoFundMe, GiveSendGo, Patreon, Google Adsense. Ads on my homepage, ads following my queries. Even ZeroHedge got into the act.

Pleas from blog producers. Please support this blog. Ads on social media.  

Some places make you subscribe to comment. Marketwatch does that. Naked capitalism. Like I can't live without their proprietary genius, therefore I must pay them to comment. 

Even the casino kiosk asks me to donate my change to charity. 

Television advertising. I pay 70 bucks a month to watch YouTube TV. You'd think my 70 bucks would entitle me to watch something ad free. Oh no. They take your 70 bucks and then force feed you ad after ad after ad. I swear to gawd they must invent diseases to give us the cure. Never ending ads about medications that you should tell your doctor about. In fact, I've often thought covid 19 might be a marketing tool. A disease that was invented and leaked to scare people into taking some over priced, untested, and experimental drug that doesn't work. 

Does Pfizer issue refunds?

Last week, I was binge watching "Murder in the Heartland." They embed advertising. You can't fast forward through. Instead, you are forced to watch the same 8 ads, over and over and over. All you can do is hit the mute button. 

Soon, I will see this on my TV. We have sensed that you have deployed your mute button, please unmute your TV to continue watching.

Ads on benches, ads on shuttles, ads on hockey team uniforms, ads on billboards, ads on stadiums. Ads on soccer players. Bicycle racers and auto racers. Stadiums named after corporations.

Next month, I'm gonna say fuck it. I am going to kill my TV. I am going to cancel YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. Not only am I going to save 100 bucks a month, but I am going to exterminate these TV cockroaches.

Many years ago when I started this blog, I decided that under no uncertain terms would I ever allow an ad on here. It's all about scale anyway. You don't make shit unless you become some highly relevant piece of writing that people can't live without. Then you have pricing power.

Well, the good news is, I ain't that good. 

Frankenstein Government. Still lousy, still free, and worth every penny.

Banksy, the original advertising hater. I loved him right from the beginning.

What Are the Limits of Your Obedience?

Maybe it's time to think about the limits of your obedience.

Please Carry Your Guns With You

 Many years ago, in a restaurant called Black Bear Diner, there was a group of older gentlemen that would come in each day and drink coffee. Each of them was carrying a firearm in full view or what we commonly call, "open carry."

In those days, Idaho still required concealed carry permits issued by the local Sheriff.

Most of the men in Idaho, native born that is, know a lot about firearms. So, what the concealed weapon permit law actually accomplished was that law abiding and knowledgeable citizens were deterred from carrying guns. This left Idahoans at a severe disadvantage because criminals don't care about concealed carry permits. The law actually kept criminals armed while disarming good citizens. 

So one day while having breakfast with a liberal gal at that particular restaurant, a bunch of those gun toting guys came in. My liberal friend asked me, "doesn't that bother you?"

I looked at her and said, "absolutely not. You are sitting in the safest restaurant in all of Boise." 

As an epilogue to that story, Idaho finally rid itself of the concealed carry weapon permit a few years later. No longer were citizens required to get a note from their government mommy to protect themselves. Before we continue, can we agree on two things?

1. Beyond the armed services and law enforcement, only mentally ill people intentionally kill other people. 2. You should know how to properly handle a gun safely, how to clear jams, and shoot straight. Practice and learn tactical advantages.

We Have a Mental Health Problem in America, Recognizing That Will Save Lives

I don't ever want to shoot or kill anyone. But right now we have two enemies. We have a serious mental health crisis wherein depressed and mentally ill people fantasize about killing others. That's not to say, I am not sympathetic to mental illness. I am a former N.A.M.I. board member. 

So that is our first potential enemy. Our second enemy is a government that ignores the actual illness and attempts to treat the symptoms. This is what some bad physicians do. They don't take the time to actually diagnose what is wrong with a patient, they just write a prescription for some drug that treats our symptoms.

We all know the difference between a good physician and a bad one. We get that. Why then is the public distracted from the real issue, mental illness, and focused on the idea that guns are bad? Because vilifying guns is easy and it gets podium pounding votes. Let's face it. Many people are stupid and buy into that rhetoric. Fixing mental illness is hard. Passing worthless gun legislation is always easy.

One last item that is not insignificant. Those same governments, state and federal, are the same governments who let these mentally ill assassins fall through the cracks. Give them early releases. Fail to provide mental health support and monthly checkups. Killers walk amongst us.

Poorly run government and the often untreated, mentally ill are the issue. But I can't solve that. Those are external issues, long ignored. But I do have dominion over my own life and the lives close to me. Unfortunately, I must practice civil disobedience to be a good citizen.

Guns Are Simply Tools, Like Tow Chains and Jumper Cables

In my car and truck, I carry all three items. The truth is, I don't want to have to use any of them. I have crawled under two vehicles and pulled them out of a snowbank and a muddy ditch. I have jump started a few cars with jumper cables. 

Nobody calls me a tow chain nut. Or a jumper cable fanatic. But they do say, thank you, after I provide the tools to help them. I have never shot a human being in my life. I hope I never do. But if I have to, I can and I will. That's the promise I make to myself, my family, and anyone nearby. That is part of the cost of being a good citizen.

A Few Examples of Items That Changed My Mind About Carrying Guns

In the small town I used to police in, we had a very angry and large human being named Howard. Howard was plagued with mental illness. Howard always carried a giant ax which he would sling over his shoulder. He carried that thing everywhere. Into banks, stores, and as he walked down the street. He scared the hell out of people. But carrying a giant ax is not illegal. Nor could I take it from him. All I could do was be nice to Howard and hope he did not cleave someone's head with that thing. I invited Howard into my office every week. Howard and I became good friends. He was funny as all hell. But I didn't let my guard down. Emotions can turn on a dime and I knew that.

Originally, I never made a big point of carrying a gun off-duty. I can think of one time that a .223 ranch rifle on my front seat stopped an entire car full of drunken idiots from beating me with a tire iron...but beyond that...all I had ever used a gun for was the killing of deer and elk struck by cars.

In 2007, after I retired, I was in New Orleans. The state of Louisiana had released a man who had killed two people. Once as a juvenile, the second as a young adult in what he described as a drug deal gone bad which was probably nothing more than a drug rip off. He had done 10 years for that manslaughter. At any rate, I was forced to co-exist in a situation with this man for a while and during that time- I would catch him staring at me. He knew I was retired police. The guy gave me the creeps. I began to start carrying guns with me, concealed and in my car. I didn't even bother to check what the law was- because it didn't matter to me. I was going to protect myself and quite honestly, I could care less about the law beyond 2A. 

From that point on, I began to carry guns. Usually concealed. I didn't want to attract attention.

By the way, New Orleans is a shooting gallery. I have never been to a scarier place.

I also carry guns in businesses that prohibit concealed carry. When I see a sign with a handgun and a slash through it- what the translation means to me is- "Hey if you want to come in here and kill a bunch of people, please go ahead. We have disarmed our customers."

The Hits Just Keep Coming 

Over the weekend, a deranged man killed 10 people and wounded many more in California. When caught, this 72 year old shot himself. A few months ago, a guy in Las Vegas stabbed 8 women, killing 2 on the strip. 

Could an armed bystander have intervened and stopped either of these two events? Yes. 

Have armed individuals stopped attacks? Yes. There are many instances of this. One of them occurred just north of me in the Salt Lake area when an armed gunman was shot and killed in a mall.

There are exceptions. The barricaded sniper in Las Vegas who shot concert goers. That was a horrible, savage, well planned attack. Pure evil. I doubt any intervention, save a few potshots from the ground, would have accomplished anything except given away your position with muzzle flash. No SWAT team could have been assembled in time. I doubt anyone in the initial attack had any idea where the shots were coming from. That shooter lived 60 miles from me. I undoubtedly crossed paths with him in a casino which has a handgun sign with a slash through it which reads, "No Firearms."

I could go on and on. But I want to leave you with this. The Luby's shooting in Killeen, Texas. Oct. of 1991. There was a woman who testified in front of Congress that she had left her gun in her pickup truck that day because she did not have a permit to carry it. Subsequent to that, she watched the suspect kill both of her parents. This first link recaps that day. The second vid is her testimony. Schumer has hair- that's how old this is.

 25 Years Later: Memories of Luby's shooting fade but don't die | Local News | kdhnews.com

Perhaps the most powerful, compelling, 5 minutes of video that I have ever seen. I watched today via You Tube- I had not seen it back in the 90's. It sent chills up my spine just watching it.

Please Carry Your Guns With You

It's been 31 years since the Luby's murders in Killeen, Texas. That should be enough time for anyone to realize this murderous rage in our culture is not getting better and it's not going away any time soon.

In a place not too far away, I carry my gun into one of those places that says no firearms. The employees know that I carry guns. They do not tell anyone. They are glad that I do.

I want responsible, trained, people to carry guns. I want caring people to remain in our society and culture. I want law abiding citizens to obey local laws if you can. Being well trained and responsible helps send the message that we aren't going to stand idly by and watch people get killed or be killed- begging for mercy that will not come. When bad guys start to worry about whether they will get killed, then we have a chance of slowing this down. A deterrent effect. 

I have to accept the reality. The mentally ill are growing in number. Bad laws, designed to disarm law abiding people are growing in number. We cannot rid ourselves of the mentally ill or the misguided politicians that abuse our emotions and intelligence while banging the anti-gun drum looking for campaign or party donations.

We have to rely on something that has always worked. A decent, well informed, and polite society. 

Please carry your guns. 

Making the Universe Right

Thank God for you Jack.

I have reached that age where I cannot always tell the true from the false. I tend to think my younger years were kinder and gentler. But that is a lie. The world has always been a harsh place where one poor decision might spell disaster. Many of us escape a lot of bad decisions intact. We learn and we live. Mostly though, we remember what happened to us along the way. 

I had always been an explorer. Always going somewhere, always trying new things, some good and some bad. I think in the beginning, I wasn't fully aware of all of the judgement and evil in the world until I experienced it in those explorations. These are the things we don't talk about. The things that impact us and change us for the better and sometimes for the worse.

I felt the sting of many bad decisions, some my fault, some not. 

And during those explorations we call our lives, we have bastions or pillars of sanity we meet along the way. Guideposts. People who "get us" when most do not. Jack was one of the ones. One of the few.

Mrs. Webb in the 5th grade. Mr Winchell in the 11th. Doug D when I was 17. Jack S when I was 30. Jim A when I was 43. Des C when I was 47. My 2nd wife when I was 56. That's it.

The list of people who didn't "get me" is much longer. These are the people who judge us harshly. They can't believe we act the way we do. The proper way to act is a secret, discoverable only when you violate some script these judgers carry about in their heads. At their best, they keep their opinions to themselves. At their worst, they seek to actually damage us. The conflict is really about who they are- sometimes our mere presence is something they cannot tolerate.

I understood that at an early age. It took me a lot longer to accept it.

So when Jack S came to me by way of Mayoral edict, I was wary of him and he was wary of me. After a few months of long hours working together, I discovered that Jack was a tolerant, kind person with a large dose of patience. I think Jack discovered that I was a head strong but loyal person. I didn't quit until the job was over. I was always willing to fight for what I thought was right and it landed me in some trouble. Jack bailed me out a few times. I like to think I bailed him out a few times as well.

Many times in the eleven years we were together, I very often looked at Jack like he was a father of sorts. He was caring and tolerant. He was empathetic. He had all the skills he needed to deal with me. Skills my own father never had. Some call these people role models. I call them blessings, perhaps miracles.

For eleven years or so, Jack and I worked hard to make the universe right. We locked up murderers, pedophiles, thieves, and drunks. We suffered through refusals to prosecute, plea bargaining, chicken shit dismissals, and ridiculous sentences. We dodged a few scandals, attended meetings ad infinitum and then one day, Jack up and quit. He never really gave me the reason, but I suspected what it was. For me, the timing could not have been worse. 

So it was, I had another seven years left on my sentence. When you take hard stands or tell people truths they don't want to hear, you don't last very long in the upper echelons of small-town politics. The very best chiefs and city administrators master the art of ass kissing. They survive long stretches, through some combination of convincing folks they are irreplaceable coupled with a large dose of ass smoochery. I have a different script in my head that they don't get. That I made it seven years after Jack, was a miracle all by itself.   

I quit trying to make the universe right in 2007. By then Jack was out enjoying his life. I was certainly the better for having known him. 

So, when I heard Jack had cancer a while back, we talked on the phone after all those years. Same nice guy I had always known, offering hope and encouragement for his future and mine. Some thirty years had gone by, and I still remembered his phone number.

Jack fell ill and died January 5. The new Chief gave me the news. I felt sick to my stomach. The truth is, it has taken me nearly two weeks to come to terms with it. I tried to write a note on his chapel obituary but for some strange reason, it wouldn't publish. 

I loved Jack like a father. He was one of the good ones. I owe him a lot. Thank you for being such a decent, kind man. Jack Stoneback, 1941-2023.