You’ve got to wonder if the number football star Plaxico Burress wears on his jersey (17) doesn’t represent his IQ. I was going to agree with Saturday’s NY Daily News and NY Post and call Plaxico Burress an idiot. But I’ve reconsidered. Calling him an idiot is not really a very nice thing to say about idiots.
I know if I made $7 million a year for playing a child’s game, I’d keep my nose clean long enough for doing so to boost my net worth and my pension.
You can get a perfectly good holster for a Glock .40 caliber pistol for under $100. I make nowhere near $7 million a year and I can afford both a .40 caliber Glock, and a holster for it. I don’t have either, but I can afford both. You may wish to buy them: I want a camera that costs more than that. I know you can buy pistol and holster together as a combo, and I presume someone who makes $7 million who has the weapon can also afford a holster even if purchased separately.
I know about the gun laws in New York. They’re very strict about concealed weapons in New York City and carrying a pistol there that isn’t licensed there puts him in more trouble than a less-than-fatal gunshot wound does; 5 to 15 years more trouble. Mr. Burress knows about them too because the NFL tells all its players about these.
I’ve never fired the model of pistol in question, but I am very familiar with the old fashioned Army Colt 45. Here’s what you have to do to fire one of those on purpose. You have to chamber a round, cock the weapon, release the safety, hold the pistol properly by the grip and pull the trigger. Depending on circumstances, you might need to release the safety first instead of third. I was told that if you chamber a round, cock the pistol and drop it on its hammer, it may also go off. I never tried this because doing so would greatly increase the likelihood of shooting myself, or someone or something else I had no desire to shoot.
I believe you have to deliberately chamber a round to fire any automatic pistol. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. When I learned about these things, the good sergeant told us to close the slide and then load the weapon. That leaves all the bullets in the magazine and makes the pistol much safer to carry. Then, if you want to fire the weapon, pull the slide back, and let it go forward again, the way they do in all those movies. That both chambers a round and cocks the weapon.
So, Mr. Burress let a loaded and cocked automatic pistol slide down inside his pants to his leg. This is supposed to be a guy with good hands, and it had to be in a particular state of readiness to go off when it started sliding. You will never, under any circumstances, catch me carrying a loaded and cocked firearm tucked in my waistband. I am crazy, but I’m not stupid!
It seems to me he is pretty damned stupid, and awfully lucky he didn’t shoot someone else, or his femoral artery, or something else both nearby and very dear to him. Everyone who was around him at the time is equally lucky to escape unharmed.
And laying aside proper licensing and proper safety with a deadly weapon, if you’re going someplace where you feel you need a gun because of the jewelry you’re wearing and the money you’re carrying, get a credit card, leave the jewelry in the bank vault, and consider going someplace else. All three, not just one or two.
So, without resorting to obscenities, and without denigrating the world’s population of idiots, I suppose I have to rely on what Bugs Bunny once said: “What a maroon!”
