My view of the world

According to the AP, Up in Reno, only police officers can bring firearms into court under an order signed by Washoe District Chief Judge Jerry Polaha.
Thursday’s order clamping down on guns in the courthouse was approved after Family Court Judge Chuck Weller was shot in the chest while standing in his third-floor office June 12.
Too many guns in the courtroom is one of the biggest concerns at the courthouse, said Ron Longtin, district court administrator.
The judge was shot from outside, at a range of about 300 meters, through his office window.
While I think limiting guns in the courthouse is a good idea, just how, could not having guns in the courthouse have prevented this?

Even more interesting, is the fuss and bother about a judge getting shot, and how little attention is paid to Weller’s administrative assistant, Annie Allison, who was hit by bullet fragments in her arm and hip, and if you’ve listened to the news, the fact that he stabbed his wife to death seems to be of secondary importance.

I know people who have known the alleged shooter, Darren Mack for years and everyone says that apart from his being a swinger, he seems like a nice, normal guy and all they tell me about his wife, was that she was a vegetarian and measured his food in grams.
I guess the divorce was just too messy and rumor has it, that the judge was going to take away Mack’s parental rights, and give his soon to be ex $10k per month plus child support.

Several sites say that Judge Chuck Weller took the word of the woman as gospel and ignored anything presented by the father, these writings were of course done by angry fathers, but even if they are the absolute truth, it should remain illegal to murder anyone, even a judge.
However, until we have some sort of enforcable ethics rules, I can fully understand Daren Mack’s frustration with a system where judges can do whatever they please, with no oversight.

This case also generated a number of interesting comments.
“This is an interesting case because of the apparent disorganized, highly charged emotion, yet there is what appears to be a strong sense of organization and planning, too,” former FBI profiler Clint Van Zant said.
Van Zandt was one of the profilers that worked on the unibomber case.
It doesn’t look all that complicated to me, I figure the wife was a crime of passion and the judge was planned, but then again, I’m not a highly paid consultant, so what would I know.

As to the bomb making materials that they found, I love the official discription:
The materials, when mixed together and attached to a blasting cap or shot at, will explode, said Washoe County sheriff’s Sgt. Lou Gazes, head of the Consolidated Bomb Squad for Washoe County, Reno and Sparks and who was at Mack’s apartment.
“There were materials that could have made a bomb,” Gazes said Monday.
B.F.D. I can do that from almost any house, between the kitchen, the bathroom and the laundry room, anyone can make an explosive device.
Unless they can show a detonator or some other evidence of actual intent, they’re doing what they always do, they’re playing to the press and trying to make it seem like more than it is.

In the mean time, Mack got tired of running up and down the west coast of Mexico, from resort town to resort town and contacted the Reno authorities, resulting in his turning himself in.
The US ambassador to Mexico said this case proves that you can’t hide in Mexico, excuse me, he contacted the authorities and arranged to surrender, they didn’t catch him.