Jon Swift Memorial Round-up Link and, Surprise Gun Links

Why save the best for last? The Vagabond Scholar gives us a late Christmas present in compiling a list of wonderful blog posts from a wonderful collection of talented bloggers whom I am so in awe of. If I manage a good post this year, who knows?

A little pressed for time, but I should pass along some great news for the gun fetishists. Yes, you folks can take your perversion out in the open now. The shame and the need for concealed carry is no more. Whip it out proudly. 

As of Jan. 1, it’s a new world in Texas. Or a throwback to the past, depending on how you look at it.

For the first time in more than a century, licensed Texans will be free to walk the streets, or travel the state, openly wearing their holstered handguns.

It's a happy day for Scott Graves, I can assure you of that. 

Oh my beloved Adirondacks,

How I miss thee, 

Ne'er again will I,

Gaze upon your verdant hills.

Then again, maybe I'll stick to prose. 

This is a link to an article on this notion of "we'll just spend some money on mental health and that'll take care of the gun problems." Hoping to get back to this. Until then a letter to the Post Star about that very thing.

I'm just going to add this on to the end of this post. It's too sad to get one of its own.

Claude Campbell, Jr. placed a breathless 911 call late Tuesday evening as his step-daughter lay unconscious in his 10th Street home.

He tells the dispatcher that 27-year-old Ashley Doby has "passed out. She has a pacemaker. She has a heart problem," in a recording released by police.

But not once during the five-minute 911 call does Campbell, a veteran member of the St. Cloud Police Department, mention why Doby was struggling to breathe: a gunshot wound to the chest.

Campbell omitted that fact because he was asleep when his wife shot Doby, mistaking her for an intruder, police said on Wednesday. He didn't realize what happened until his wife — a 911 dispatcher with the Osceola County Sheriff's Office – explained it to him, according to authorities.

It was too late. Doby was taken to a local hospital, where she later died. Her death is being characterized by St. Cloud Police as an "accidental shooting," according to Sgt. Denise Roberts. Sherry Campbell, 45, fired one fatal shot. She has not been arrested on any criminal charges. 

May the New Year be a better one.