Jean Cocteau

There is no Combat! blog today, as you have probably gathered by the lateness of the hour. I am in my ancestral homeland, helping my grandmother in the last days of her life. “Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk,” Jean Cocteau wrote. “It is walking toward me without hurrying.” The day of my grandmother’s birth was a long time ago, and perhaps the arrival of the ponderous walker remains days off. Grandma dying is not the important part; Grandma’s living is the important part, and I am glad I could be here for that good and ongoing project. But man, I am sad. Probably, you should take the time that you might have spent reading Combat! blog today to hang out with someone you love, or at least like a little. The internet is ageless, if paradoxically ephemeral; it will be here when you get back. I’ll be here, too, perhaps in some different state of sadness or maybe just as I am now. Both would be okay, I think. The important thing is to be together a little while. Let’s be together again Monday.

An Arkansas teacher carries a practice handgun in a school shooter drill.

The first proposed ballot initiative of the 2016 election has been submitted by Whitefish High School student Chet Billi, who wants to let teachers with concealed weapons permits carry guns in school. Obviously, I support this idea. If Billi’s proposal becomes law, we can stop mourning school shootings and start mourning school shootouts. You can read all about it in my most recent column for the Missoula Independent, currently the subject of a raging debate on the Indy’s Facebook page re: satire. Don’t worry: the word “idiot” has already appeared. While we’re shifting argument from ideas to people, you might enjoy this letter to the editor from Missoula defense attorney Lisa Kauffman, who takes issue with my treatment of her client Timothy Schwartz. Her opinion is valid, but I take exception to her claim that it was a “fiction” to report that she cried at the end of the trial. I saw it. It’s in my notes. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links and a less sanctimonious attitude toward the truth.

The man executing the unnecessary combat roll at the beginning of this video is Corporal Eric Casebolt, lately of the McKinney, TX police department but now resigned. Casebolt was under investigation for what his chief called “indefensible” actions in the course of breaking up a disturbance at a local pool. From putting his knee on the back of a teenage girl to pulling his gun on teenage boys to attempting a wrist lock without control of the forearm, Casebolt is a recognizable kind of guy with a recognizable mindset. Unfortunately writing for Talking Points Memo, former cop Seth Stoughton argues that he represents one of two broad ways police officers can think about themselves: as guardians or as warriors.

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