Fun With Guns

No matter how you feel about gun control, you have to admit the arguments can be lots of fun.

After all, it takes hard work and research -- or creativity and a straight face -- to come with all those hypothetical scenarios demonstrating how much safer you'd be in a given situation with or without a firearm.

You can have hours and hours of fun with this -- along the lines of: "Yeah, but what if the burglar was a bear and your dog fired a warning shot and the chandelier came down on your head?"

It could happen.

And then there's real life stuff that happens. This is from an Arkansas Court of Appeals ruling called Parker v. Southern Farm:

"On the morning of August 24, 2005, Mr. Graves was on his land shooting dogs that had been attacking his sheep. Graves believed that the aggressive dogs belonged to the Parkers....

"Although Mr. Graves remained on his land, at some point he was near the fence line, whereupon the Parkers emerged from their house. Mr. Parker fired a pistol shot, while Mrs. Parker attempted to return inside the Parker residence. Graves intentionally returned fire toward Mr. Parker, which shot killed Mr. Parker. The bullet passed through Mr. Parker and struck Mrs. Parker, which seriously and permanently injured her."

OK, discuss. Which of these people should have had the right to bear arms?

But that isn't the best part of this tale. The best part is that Mr. Graves then filed a claim under his homeowner's insurance policy.

You've got Arkansas farmers with guns - this is reasonably foreseeable damage.

DOLL TROUBLE. Will the real Sasha please stand up?

I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one who scoffed when the people at Ty, Inc. claimed that the naming of the Sweet Sasha doll, who happened to be paired with a Marvelous Malia doll, had absolutely nothing to do with the president's daughter. It was just a coincidence.

But there actually might have been another inspiration. Ty, the maker of Beanie Babies, has now been sued by MGA Entertainment, Inc., the maker of Bratz dolls, for allegedly stealing Sasha from MGA.

It seems, according to the suit filed in federal court in Los Angeles, that MGA has sold a Sasha "fashion doll toy" for eight years.

Hmm.

Sasha Obama is seven years old and the doll is eight....

Coincidence?

MADLAWS. We take our amusements where we can find them.

One of our Chicago-area Courthouse News reports recently contained a summary by our reporter Ryan Fitz that included a series of "redacted" items listed in a complaint.

My immediate reaction was: "It's a Mad Lib!"

Here's the summary - but instead of "redacted" I've inserted the type of word to fill in to make the description complete. Enjoy:

Complaint for ERISA benefits pursuant to a plan for employees of [famous person]. Doe has been diagnosed with [noun] and is taking a combination of the drugs [adverb], as recommended by his physician, the chief operating officer and professor of medicine at [name of institution]. Despite the fact that Doe has had [irritation] due to treatment with [noun], Guardian has denied benefits for the drugs, claiming that Doe's use of [something you can eat] for his [body part] diagnosis is experimental and medically unnecessary.

Now wasn't that fun?

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit