They Have “Gun Shows” in Idaho, Y’all.
Well, they call them “Gun Shows” but it appears to be more of a shoot-out than a gun show.
For the second time at the Expo Idaho Gun Show, innocent bystanders got shot. They guy who did the shooting last October finally got indicted this week.
Turner was working as a gun show vendor at Expo Idaho when the shooting happened the morning of Oct. 31. According to the Ada County Sheriff’s Office, Turner told deputies he was attaching a zip tie to the trigger assembly of a bolt-action rifle when the gun went off.
The bullet hit a 51-year-old man and a 64-year-old man in the leg. The 64-year-old went to the hospital, but was not seriously injured, the sheriff’s office said.
Most old farts around the beauty salon here just get together and play dominoes. In Idaho, they shoot each other “accidentally.”
You know, Idaho is a pretty big place with very few people. It seems to me that the odds of firing a gun and hitting somebody are pretty slim. Mostly you’d just hit empty space. Unless you’re at a gun show, then it’s katy-bar-the-door.
The accidental shooting came just two years after two people were hurt when a gun discharged at a 2013 gun show at Expo Idaho. One man injured in the 2013 shooting lost his vision in one eye.
So it’s a biannual thing, huh?
Now Susan, as a native Idahoan, I have to protest.
First of all, us geezer Idahoans don’t go around shooting each other. We spend our time running the BLM off of federal lands, poaching elk and moose when our cousin, the IDF&G ranger is over in the next county, and complaining about overpriced BLM grazing allotments. If somebody gets shot in the process, ain’t our fault, it’s them damn overreaching feds tryin’ to do their jobs, scaring people into gettin’ in our aim. Damn ’em!
Second, the chances of firing a gun in Idaho and not hitting somethin’ isn’t all that great. What you hit depends on where you fire the gun. Fire it in Boise and you’re liable to hit two recent California move-ins, a second generation Mexican American just trying to make a living, and two or three backpackers who haven’t figured out yet that all the damn trees and mountains are up north.
If you fire that gun anywhere else, you’re liable to hit two jackrabbits, blow the smithereens out of three clumps of sagebrush and scare the living daylights out of at least one mule deer doe. No bucks. All the bucks got killed last fall.
Target practice in Idaho means going out in the sticks and plunking at beer bottles with the .22 rifle your dad gave you for your 18th birthday. Unless you live among the Mormons in eastern Idaho, in which case you’re blasting away with your granddad’s old 30-30 at Postum jars. None of this should be construed as meaning that Idaho gunman have acquired any particular marksmanship over the years. That’s probably hoping for too much.
So give us our due. Just because Idaho was about the last state settled, on account of everything else was already taken, doesn’t mean Idaho doesn’t deserve respect. It does, and dammit, we Idahoans want it! Or go eat your rice!
1Repeating myself: Cleaning up the gene pool one bullet at a time.
2As the Brits say, wait a tick.
3Doancha just know that Darwin and Einstein are right now arguing and knocking back a couple at the nearby celestial pub. Einstein is saying Darwin and his evolution theory are easy compared to the physics of time. “Hell if ya get it wrong, it sorts itself out in a couple of generations.”
or as our Paul said above “one bullet at a time”.
4Scott Bidstrup, when I first read your comment, I understood that you Idahoans were intent on running the Black Lives Matter people off of federal lands, obviously, but I was confused as to what, exactly, they had to do with taking grazing allotments. But then I pondered for a moment, and well, you know those Black People …
Are there actually any Black People in Idaho?
5Mark J, there are days I really despise acronyms, and due to military time, I am a bad offender of the usage.
Black Lives Matter is a good cause as is the other BLM, Bureau of Land Management. But, Jane and I are small ranchers. I work 2.3 jobs. The .3 is our ranch. We are ultra rural and appreciate sharing science with federal agencies and sharing our ranch with the First Nations. The First Nations are most welcome to hunt here in exchange for sharing their preservation knowledge. We trust them not to shoot our cattle, unlike Cheney style hunt from their SUV morons. We’re ‘mixed’ on the bird watchers. We don’t want the liability of entranced watchers wandering into areas that they don’t belong for their own safety, like off a cliff. We don’t have a major rattler or coyote problem, but it’s not part of my day to add a job 3.3 to babysit dufii.
Appreciate that Scott Bidstrup was poking a little honest humor with the reality of rural life. And, please forgive us if we are more than a little tired of the Cheney types; they’re not good neighbors. I felt for Iowa, when T-Rump threatened to return and buy a farm there. Just what any rural area needs is T-Rump and his affluenza brats turning good land into a shooting gallery for morons.
Mark J, props for your “Are there actually any Black People in Idaho?” comment and humor. Lost members of the Tribe (Jewish, not First nation) like that little Bang ’em Young punter Chaffetz went full MO. There are Blacks involved with the MOs and Sovereign Citizens. Some women marry nacilbupeR men and vote for them, too. Go figure.
6If we could limit the “accidental” (i.e. stupid negligent) shootings to gun shows, the rest of us would be a lot better off.
7PKM, when I read the first sentence of Scott’s post with BLM I really did think Black Lives Matter. It took a nanosecond for my brain to shift gears and register Bureau of Land Management. Which just goes to show the importance of place and presence when trying to understand others.
And I think that both BLMs are important.
And I hope my attempt at humor didn’t offend. I tend to sarcasm.
8For the edification of you easterners, “BLM” in Idahospeak does NOT mean Black Lives Matter. It means Bureau of Land Management. It’s one of those evil government agencies that is intent on enforcing federal law on the public lands. Which places it somewhere to the left of Karl Marx himself on the political scale in the mind of a lot of Idahoans.
As regards black folks, yeah, there are a few black folks in Idaho, but they’re more rare than a herd of jackalope. I actually knew one once. But he was imported from a far away place. Like a jug of fine wine.
9PKM, I will never understand why the POG women (I don’t have the energy to figure out and type snacibuperR every time, so I just use POG) vote to support old white men and policies that make them less than. But it is what it is. If my family has taught me nothing else it is that people are effing idiots.
10As a westerner I knew what the BLM is, but got real confused at IDF&G, until I just figured out as I am typing it means Idaho Field and Game.
11I thought it was ID Fish n Game, m’self. We have TPWD here!
12I’m still trying to figure out why the bolt was still in the rifle when the Wile-E-Coyote Sooooper Genius wanna-be tried to put an Acme zip tie on the trigger (thus pulling it).
13And off topic for AggielandLiz Super Bowl MVP and Head Coach both Aggies! Whoop!
14Right on, Repubanon. Locked, loaded and zip tied for criminal negligence.
15Scott B, you knew a jackilope?! Wow! I thought they were as mythical as Big Foot, though I have seen taxidermyed jackilopes. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent futilly hunting jackilopes on the rolling prairies of western South Dakota. Never even saw one. I’m so honored to know you, my hero.
[Scott said, “more rare than a herd of jackalope. I actually knew one once.”]
16Hi Paul! Yes indeed, Gary K was quarterbacking the Ags when I entered (long long ago, long long ago!) SOOO happy for him! WHOOP! He is a damned hardworking man! And Von Miller is one of those quiet leaders who DO more than they talk; so very glad for both of them!
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