Sometimes I get in a mood and think we should pass anti-stupidity laws. One of the main intents of these laws would be to punish people not for actually being stupid but for using stupidity as a defense. So, for example, if you shoot and kill someone and then argue that you thought you were holding a spatula, remote control, or taser, then you would be automatically found guilty and given a lengthy mandatory sentence. If you committed this crime and offered this kind of defense while serving or pretending to serve in a law enforcement capacity, your sentence would be doubled as if you sold drugs to a minor in a school zone.
As Dean Vernon Wormer said, “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” Whatever his other faults, he was right about that. If you are paid to carry a gun, you shouldn’t be able to fire it and then claim that you thought you were shotgunning a beer.
Robert Bates, the reserve Tulsa County deputy who fatally shot a man who was in a physical altercation with another deputy last week, has donated thousands of dollars worth of items to the Sheriff’s Office since becoming a reserve deputy in 2008.
Bates, 73, accidentally shot Eric Harris on Thursday, according to Maj. Shannon Clark, after Harris — the subject of an undercover gun and ammunition buy by the Sheriff’s Office’s Violent Crimes Task Force — fled from arrest and then fought with a deputy who tackled him. Bates, Clark said, thought he was holding a stun gun when he pulled the trigger.
Bates is not an active member of the task force but donates his hours there as a highly regarded member of the Reserve Deputy Program, Clark said.
This guy was part of the “Reserve Deputy Program”?
In Dukes of Hazzard-speak, this puts him below Enos Strate and far beneath Roscoe P. Coltrane, may he rest in peace.
I joke, but this isn’t funny.
