Aro/ace/demiboy:D This blog is a compilation of some funny stuff, some serious stuff, some not so serious stuff, some cool stuff, and some news stuff. If you need me to tag anything, just say so
More than a year before he was arrested in the Colorado Springs gay nightclub shooting that left five people dead, the suspect allegedly thr
A year and a half before he was arrested in the Colorado Springs gay nightclub shooting that left five people dead, Anderson Lee Aldrich allegedly threatened his mother with a homemade bomb, forcing neighbors in surrounding homes to evacuate while the bomb squad and crisis negotiators talked him into surrendering.
Yet despite that scare, there's no public record that prosecutors moved forward with felony kidnapping and menacing charges against Aldrich, or that police or relatives tried to trigger Colorado's "red flag" law that would have allowed authorities to seize the weapons and ammo the man's mother says he had with him.
Gun control advocates say Aldrich's June 2021 threat is an example of a red flag law ignored, with potentially deadly consequences. While it's not clear the law could have prevented Saturday night's attack — such gun seizures can be in effect for as little as 14 days and be extended by a judge in six-month increments — they say it could have at least slowed Aldrich and raised his profile with law enforcement.
"We need heroes beforehand — parents, co-workers, friends who are seeing someone go down this path," said Colorado state Rep. Tom Sullivan, whose son was killed in the Aurora theater shooting and sponsored the state's red flag law passed in 2019. "This should have alerted them, put him on their radar."
But the law that allows guns to be removed from people deemed dangerous to themselves or others has seldom been used in the state, particularly in El Paso County, home to Colorado Springs, where the 22-year-old Aldrich allegedly went into Club Q with a long gun at just before midnight and opened fire before he was subdued by patrons.
An Associated Press analysis found Colorado has one of the lowest rates of red flag usage despite widespread gun ownership and several high-profile mass shootings.
Courts issued 151 gun surrender orders from when the law took effect in April 2019 through 2021, three surrender orders for every 100,000 adults in the state. That's a third of the ratio of orders issued for the 19 states and District of Columbia with surrender laws on their books.
El Paso County appears especially hostile to the law. It joined nearly 2,000 counties nationwide in declaring themselves "Second Amendment Sanctuaries" that protect the constitutional right to bear arms, passing a 2019 resolution that says the red flag law "infringes upon the inalienable rights of law-abiding citizens" by ordering police to "forcibly enter premises and seize a citizen's property with no evidence of a crime."
County Sheriff Bill Elder has said his office would wait for family members to ask a court for surrender orders and not petition for them on its own accord, unless there were "exigent circumstances" and "probable cause" of a crime.
El Paso County, with a population of 730,000, had 13 temporary firearm removals through the end of last year, four of which turned into longer ones of at least six months.
The county sheriff's office declined to answer what happened after Aldrich's arrest last year, including whether anyone asked to have his weapons removed. The press release issued by the sheriff's office at the time said no explosives were found but did not mention anything about whether any weapons were recovered.
Spokesperson Lt. Deborah Mynatt referred further questions about the case to the district attorney's office.
An online court records search did not turn up any formal charges filed against Aldrich in last year's case. And in an update on a story on the bomb threat, The Gazette newspaper of Colorado Springs reported that prosecutors did not pursue any charges in the case and that records were sealed.
The Gazette also reported Sunday that it got a call from Aldrich in August asking that it remove a story about the incident.
"There is absolutely nothing there, the case was dropped, and I'm asking you either remove or update the story," Aldrich said in a voice message to an editor. "The entire case was dismissed."
A spokesperson for the district attorney's office, Howard Black, declined to comment on whether any charges were pursued. He said the shooting investigation will also include a study of the bomb threat.
"There will be no additional information released at this time," Black said. "These are still investigative questions."
AP's study of 19 states and the District of Columbia with red flag laws on their books found they have been used about 15,000 times since 2020, less than 10 times for every 100,000 adults in each state. Experts called that woefully low and hardly enough to make a dent in gun killings.
Just this year, authorities in Highland Park, Illinois, were criticized for not trying to take guns away from the 21-year-old accused of a Fourth of July parade shooting that left seven dead. Police had been alerted about him in 2019 after he threatened to "kill everyone" in his home.
Duke University sociologist Jeffrey Swanson, an expert in red flag laws, said the Colorado Springs case could be yet another missed warning sign.
"This seems like a no brainer, if the mom knew he had guns," he said. "If you removed firearms from the situation, you could have had a different ending to the story."
when i was a kid my Getting To Sleep technique was visualizing a child-sized shriveled up mummy with big piercing eyes that would stand silhouetted in the doorway & stare at me & probably attack if i so much as opened my eyes after getting into bed & this technique caused me to develop a lifelong nighttime-induced paranoia & it still takes me 2 hours to fall asleep. so i wouldnt recommend that
Chidi Anagonye, the man who was literally killed by his indecisiveness, knew without any debate or advice that he was ready to move on, and was the first of the main cast to walk through the gate.
Jason Mendoza, the loud-mouthed dimwit whose idea of hell was a world where he was forced to be quiet and wise, spent thousands of cycles alone in contemplation of the universe, and sat patiently until he could provide his final act of kindness to the Not-Girl he loved.
Tahani Al-Jamil, the woman who needed constant validation for her achievements and talents, decided to spend the rest of (the foreseeable) eternity by sitting in the shadows and creating the simulations that would help others become their best selves.
Michael, a demon who by nature despised all of humanity, found his happiness in becoming a human, and in learning to grow and change for the better.
Janet, the AI who had no purpose other than to fein happiness and provide for anyone’s desires without question, learned to not only love but to think and feel for herself.
And of course, Eleanor Shellstrop, the woman who needed no one, who owed nobody anything, did not ever spend her time in the good place alone, and refused to walk through the gate until she made sure that everyone else she knew was happy first.
Each of them ended their stories with their original faults/sins resolving to become their greatest virtues, and these virtues became the things that gave them the peace to move on and be one with the universe. This show was absolutely beautiful and there won’t be anything quite like it.
You place the piece of wood that you want to bend in a chamber (usually just a long pipe with lots of room) and once it has completely heated up to temperature of the steam you take it out and bend it into a jig that holds the shape while it cools. Usually this requires “over-bending” by about 10% because it will spring back some even after it has completely cooled.
There is quite a bit of skill in getting the wood hot enough (without cooking it) and (without burning yourself) bending it to a shape that will spring back into the shape you really wanted.
there is something so cool about the prefix dis- in words. dispassionate. disillusioned. disuse. dis- doesnt just mean an absence, it means the essence of the word has been leeched out. your passion has been sucked dry. your blissful ignorance has been torn away. the object is forgotten somewhere knowing the joy of being loved and used and the shame of becoming unneeded even more so.
Op are you disconcerted by these turn of events? Dissatisfied? Perhaps a distant disquiet has fallen over you. Perhaps you are dismayed and distrustful of us all… disenchanted, one could say? Or maybe you feel no discomfort at all. Maybe you are disinterested in this matter, though I’d consider that a dishonest assessment. But for now to dissent, disagree or dispute that on this topic would only distract from the fact that I ran out of words that use the prefix dis and I’m too sleepy to go on the google
dr who is kind of existentially terrifying in the sense of "what if you could get taken basically anywhere in spacetime, but you keep getting taken to britain"
I help you move, I bake you a pie, I sit next to you on purpose. How are you not getting the message yet? What do you want? A love poem? I don't know how to write those. Here, take this rock. It's your favorite color.
One of my dad's close friends reads online newspapers constantly and he always texts my dad articles that he thinks that he would enjoy. Where's the romanticization of that kind of behavior?
this should be a tweet but I don’t want to deal with people on Twitter. everyone stop having every character in your fiction talk like their goal is to get an A in therapy.
I love cathartic conversations too and that is why I am begging you: stop hunting them to extinction by making them constant, characterless, and corny as hell
thinking about how good friendship is…..like two people just like each other….and choose over and over to spend time with each other……quite special how diverse human relationships are..every friendship is special and u cant be close friends with everybody…..for some unknown reason certain people just enjoy each other..and i think we take for granted how fantastic that is
Communication goes a long way. If you’re busy, say it. If you’re upset, express it. If you’re late, let people know. If you’re unsure, ask. It’s so simple but so important.
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