WEAVE SAVES THE DAY

Story o' the day, courtesy of The Associated Press and KSHB-TV:

Kansas City police say a woman's tightly-woven hair weave probably saved her life. KSHB-TV reports that the woman's boyfriend fired a shot through the back window of a car late last night. Police say the woman's hair weave stopped the bullet, and she wasn't hurt.

Yet another reason to salute the weave.

DESTROYED, NOT DEFEATED

Forty-seven years Wednesday since Ernest Hemingway went pop in search of his lost generation. Proof that all men do die equally, and that electroconvulsive therapy is probably not a good thing. There is also the truth that a double-barreled shotgun to the face is an effective way to check out, though it may leave the well-lighted room a little less than clean.

"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them," the man once said. We aim to take that advice.

HUNTER HATER

Fourth-grade kid in Vermont goes to school, talks turkey with classmate during the break known as snack time. Teacher overhears conversation, goes all freaky.

Jared Harrington is now being home-schooled. His parents are on the hunt for a teacher trophy. As the Times Argus report:

Jared Harrington's mother, Wendy Bordwell, and his father, Martin Harrington, removed their son from school with 10 days left in the school year and home-schooled the 10-year-old boy.

"We are aggressively pursuing Jared's right to free speech," Bordwell said. ...

Bordwell said in a telephone interview that she believed her son was "singled out" by Kathleen Backus, Jared's teacher, while talking about hunting with a schoolmate.

Bordwell said that, during snack time, Jared was discussing the recent spring turkey hunting season with a classmate when Backus interrupted the conversation, insisting that there be no talk of "killing" in her classroom. ...

"Jared's teacher covered her ears, trying to block the conversation, and singing 'la la la la.' When asked by another school employee about her odd behavior, the teacher claimed she did not want to hear about the boys and their 'killing.' The boys were left feeling that they were not legitimate hunters, but 'killers' in the eyes of an important authority figure in their lives," Bordwell said.

After Jared's parents decided to take up the matter with the school board, Backus assigned 137 pages of homework for the boy.

"That led us to believe he was being singled out," Bordwell said.

Does Kathleen Backus enjoy her Thanksgiving bird?

MOM, BEER AND A BB GUN

Angelique Vandeberg is this month's Top Mom -- and just in time for Mother's Day. Police say the Wisconsin woman (mugshot here) shot her daughter in the leg with a BB gun. Reason? To win a $1 bet.

The Sheboygan Press reports:

Police began looking into the incident Wednesday after a school counselor reported it to police. The girl was shot three or four days earlier, but a circular bruise with a white-colored point in the middle remained visible on her thigh, the counselor said.

The girl said the shooting occurred in her mother's bedroom, where Vandeberg was with her boyfriend after she had consumed 10 to 12 beers.

The boyfriend bet Vandeberg $1 she wouldn't shoot the child, then handed her the BB pistol. Vandeberg took it and shot the girl. The bullet, which did not break the skin, bounced off her leg and struck her 7-year-old brother, who was not injured.

Wonder what she'd do for five bucks?

SNOWBALLS MUST BE BANNED

Tavin Rutledge Wilson celebrated his 16th birthday with a snowball fight. And then someone brought a gun.

CBS 3 in Philadelphia reports:

A friend of Tavin's, who was also involved in the playful snowball fight, said the shooting happened after a wayward snowball accidentally struck a nearby neighbor.

Police said the adult male became enraged and left the scene, returning moments later with a gun.

Witnesses say Tavin's effort to apologize to the man went unnoticed and the man pulled out a gun and began firing.

Family and friends celebrating Tavin's birthday heard gunshots and found him bleeding on the front porch.

"We ran outside and saw Tavin laying on the step," said the victim's friend Mercedes Lebron. "When I picked him up, smoke stared coming out of his head … He still was breathing and we told him keep breathing, calm down."

Tavin was rushed to Temple University hospital where he was taken off life-support. At 11:30 a.m. Monday, with his family by his side, Tavin passed away.

The shooter wasn't immediately found.

DOG 1, MAN 0

Dog bites man, only worse. Let the Houston Chronicle do the telling:

In a freak hunting accident, a Baytown man was killed over the weekend when his dog stepped on his loaded shotgun, triggering a discharge that penetrated his truck's tailgate and then struck him, officials said.

Perry Alvin Price III was hunting on a lease near Stowell in Chambers County Saturday and had shot down a goose but had not seen where it landed, sheriff's investigators said.

The 46-year-old math teacher from Baytown's Robert E. Lee High School then put his shotgun in the back of his truck and was about to open the tailgate to release his tracking dog when the shotgun fired, investigators said. The blast struck Price in the thigh.

Price died from severe blood loss from his femoral artery shortly after arriving about 6:20 p.m. at Winnie Medical Center. Price's hunting companion and a former student, Daniel Groberg, said he tried to stop the bleeding with clothing before taking him from the hunting lease off FM 1941.

Paw prints from Price's beloved chocolate Labrador retriever, Arthur, were found on the muddy shotgun, said Chambers County Sheriff Joe LaRive. ...

Price's sister speculated that the dog was anxious to begin the pursuit.

"His dog was so excited," said Patricia Payne. "He was jumping all around, because he was about to get out and go get that goose.

"That gun had to be knocked around just right to fire. I believe the dog knocked the safety off and hit the trigger, too," she said. "Price was always so careful."

Man's best friend. Just keep him away from shotguns.

DOG SHOOTS MAN

Man shoots dog: not news. Dog shoots man: Betcha. The BBC reports:

A man out hunting in Iowa was shot in the leg after a hunting dog stepped on his gun, authorities said.

The accident happened after James Harris, 37, put his gun on the ground to retrieve a fallen pheasant.

One of a pack of hunting dogs following behind stepped on the trigger, and up to 120 birdshot pellets hit Mr Harris in the left calf at short range.

A local official told a news agency the injury was "not life-threatening, but will give him trouble for a long time".

As will his hunting buds.

GIULIANI: 9/11 CHANGED GUN VIEWS

Nobody serves up a deeper dish of pander than Rudy Giuliani. He spoke Friday before the National Rifle Association and did plenty of puckering. Newsday reports:

Facing a group that he once likened to "extremists," Giuliani sought to temper his past strong support for national gun control laws by saying he could no longer support a lawsuit he filed as New York mayor in 2000, which was designed to hold gun-makers liable for gun violence.

Giuliani said "there have been subsequent intervening events -- Sept. 11 -- which casts somewhat of a different light on the Second Amendment and Second Amendment rights. It doesn't change the fundamental rights, but maybe it highlights the necessity for them more."

Giuliani has built his presidential campaign on convincing Republicans that his performance after the Sept. 11 attacks shows he is the strong leader America needs -- but it was the first time he had linked his personal views on gun control to the terror attacks.

Don't you know he served in 9/11?

PAROLE FOR WALLACE GUNMAN

Arthur Bremer was not quite 22 when he shot George Wallace in 1972.

Wallace was running for president. Bremer's bullets paralyzed Wallace, ended his political career, and created a bizarre life-imitates-art-imitates-life circle.

Bremer is scheduled to be paroled this year. The New York Times notes a special condition of Bremer's release:

“He can’t be around political candidates or any elected official,” said Ruth A. Ogle, a program manager at the Maryland Parole Commission. “He can’t go to a rally, a public appearance, a political dinner, anything like that.”

In 1996, the commission denied Mr. Bremer’s application for parole, saying early release would mean “open hunting season” on politicians.

Bremer became the inspiration for the character Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. Bickle, in turn, inspired John Hinckley, Jr. to shoot Ronald Reagan.

All for the love of Jodie Foster.

GUN IGNORANCE

Know your weapons. Every newsroom in the United States should post the order; every reporter should be required to learn about firearms before covering any story involving a gun.

Monday's shooting spree at Virginia Tech exposed several unpleasant truths about the media, especially the 24-hour cable networks:

•When facts are in short supply, fill time with speculation.

•A one-source story is all right, even when it's all wrong.

•Guns are mysterious and scary.

Many bloggers, including Tony Messenger and Fat Jack, criticize reporters for jumping to conclusions without certain knowledge. We can buy that argument, but only to a point. First reports from spot-news situations are often wrong -- at Columbine, several eyewitnesses swore they saw more than two gunmen; at Oklahoma City, Middle Eastern men were the first suspects. Reporters should do all they can to verify facts before running with them, but history's first rough draft will never be perfect.

There is no excuse, however, for the national media's lack of knowledge about guns. For much of Monday, we heard reporters wonder aloud how one man with two guns could kill so many people. A camera-phone video captured the sound of more than two dozen gunshots; reporters from all three cable-news outfits expressed amazement at how quickly the shooter was able to squeeze off so many rounds in such a short period of time.

On Fox News, Geraldo Rivera said a "guy with automatic and semi-automatic weapons is a weapon of mass destruction." No one was claiming the shooter had an automatic weapon. On CNN, a reporter spoke of the gunman's "22-millimeter" handgun.

Newsrooms are shot through with a lack of gun knowledge. People killed with rifles are the victims of "shotgun slayings." It sounds good, you see.

Cheese and rice, as a friend's kid used to curse. Cheese and rice.

Because too many reporters know too little about guns, we believe they're more inclined to take simplistic approaches to stories involving guns. They're too easily lassoed into stories like this one about the country's "gun culture."

When 32 people are shot dead by a man who then turns the gun on himself, the story isn't about questioning the legal way the shooter got his weapons. The story isn't about blaming guns (or video games, or foul language, or societal decay).

The story is about men like this Holocaust survivor who helped save several students by giving up his own life.

The blame doesn't rest with the guns. It rests with this guy.