Hopefully there are enough llamas reading their emails to justify the effort.

I was spoiled early on by Country Boy Bakery, a local concern with two locations that had amazing cake and blueberry-filled doughnuts. I also discovered in college that they made the best-ever steamed roast beef sandwiches on fresh croissant buns. Unfortunately the owner retired and sold the building/land rather than the business when she felt it got to be to much for her. But I suppose that's better than someone else taking over and the business declining.

I'm trying very hard not to get into a fight with my brother. The grocery store in Boulder where the shooting took place is basically next door to the center where he's a therapist, and he said that he goes to that grocery store like 3 times a week. And then he added "That's why I'm always armed when I shop there."

I know he's a libertarian gun nut. I know he pretty much always is armed wherever it's legal for him to be armed. I've even gone to the shooting range with him and seen that he's a really good shot *under the controlled circumstances at a shooting range.*

But I do not buy into the Good Guy With A Gun theory, not even when it's my own brother. Because it's proven not to be true. And I'm trying very hard not to fight with him about it, because he will not back down from his libertarian gun nut beliefs, and I will not back down from my belief that we need exceedingly strict gun control.

(Am I freaked out that a mass shooting happened where my brother shops 3 times a week? I mean, yeah, but the thing is, it could have happened — and *has* happened — at literally any grocery store, literally any PLACE, in the United States. So we are all pretty much fucked. So I'm less freaked out than you would think. I'm mostly like, WELP, at least the pandemic led to fewer mass shootings for a year, so that was nice.)

Goddamn crazy motherfucking libertarian gun nut.

He will not back down. You will not back down. Don’t argue about it.

Yeah, I do know that. I just feel really fight-y today.

I mean, presumably the police officer who was killed was armed also.

It's just so very deeply stupid to think having a gun is somehow a good way to protect yourself. As someone who has loved ones who also shop at that store, I'd appreciate any way you can dissuade your brother from making it a more dangerous place, Steph.

You were raised in Alabama, right? Yikes, that would be a shocker (and rather large disappointment, I imagine).

Yep, and it was a huge disappointment indeed.

But I do not buy into the Good Guy With A Gun theory, not even when it's my own brother.

In our active shooter training at work (and how fucked up is it that campus police routinely gives such trainings and will walk through your extremely open-plan office advising you on where best to hide if you can't make it to the stairwell, which would be the file room and the wellness/lactation room, neither of which is very big for a floor with ~100 employees), the officer giving the training stressed that if we ended up in a situation where we had to fight and successfully tackled the active shooter and seized the gun, we should put the gun down out of the shooter's reach and be sure no one was touching it because of course if the police come around the corner and see someone holding a gun they WILL think you're the shooter and they WILL act accordingly and this is the one situation where their being trigger-happy makes SENSE. (OK, they didn't say that last part, but still.)

As someone who has loved ones who also shop at that store, I'd appreciate any way you can dissuade your brother from making it a more dangerous place, Steph.

I desperately wish I could.

Good guy with a gun theory is total bullshit. The few law enforcement people in my life find open carry a complete horror which makes knowing the good guys from the bad guys that much more complex.

I appreciate your efforts, Steph.