Joseph Stravinskas' Very Bad Day



Joseph Stravinskas



A lot of people don't like Mondays.  Heck, even the now-former Pope gave his two-week notice on a Monday.  Things weren't exactly all rainbows and roses for Joseph Stravinskas BEFORE Monday.  He was homeless and living in the woods in Connecticut, a state with the 4th highest per capita income in America. 

Then things got worse.

Joseph decided to take a little target practice.  All he had was a BB gun, but just maybe he could get good enough with it to shoot a squirrel or a rabbit.  Hey, when you're homeless, meat for the table is meat for the table.


Unbeknownst to Joseph, a motorcade carrying President Obama to a gun control speech was passing nearby.


When it rains, it pours.
 

An alert Hartford detective heard a suspicious noise and discovered Joseph, BB gun at the ready, plinking a row of tin cans he had set up in the woods.  He ordered Joseph to drop his weapon.  The bad news is that, when Joseph didn't immediately comply with a request from some guy in plain clothes, he was thrown to the ground, arrested, and charged with "breach of peace, threatening, and interfering with police".   I imagine homeless people ARE pretty protective of what few possessions they own so I can understand Joseph's reluctance to immediately throw down his BB gun.  The good news is that he doesn't have to worry about where his next meal is coming from.  Since, like the majority of homeless people, Joseph was unable to post $15,000 bail, he is now incarcerated in the Hartford jail.

While I would never downplay the dangers faced daily by law enforcement personnel, I suspect Joseph's arrest was a serious over-reaction on the part of the detective that discovered him plinking cans in the woods.  Perhaps he sincerely thought President Obama was in danger.  (YOU'LL SHOOT PRESIDENT OBAMA'S EYE OUT!) I doubt it.  More likely he saw it as a chance to, say, maybe get invited to have a beer in the White House.   Speaking as a former BB gun owner, I don't see how anyone the least bit familiar with weapons could witness someone shooting cans with a BB gun in the woods, even an OFFICIAL RED RYDER CARBINE-ACTION TWO-HUNDRED SHOT RANGE MODEL AIR RIFLE (with a compass in the stock) and perceive it as a danger to anything but a bird or a rabbit or a squirrel (from close range). 

Guess you can't be too careful.  Those things DO a have high-capacity BB magazines.

Meanwhile, in Cypress, Texas yesterday, a student STABBED 14 people before being subdued and arrested.  Which brings two questions to mind:

1.  Do we need more stringent knife control laws? and

2.  How the heck do you manage to stab 14 people in Texas without getting shot?