Today there is so much killing that we have create names for the different killings. Today we have serial killers, spree killers, family annihilators, honor killers, passion killers, but today’s song is about another class of killer. It’s called a thrill killer. This is a person who kills just to see how much fun and how much of a thrill he can get from killing someone. When you listen to the words of this song that Sting wrote and recorded in 1996 you may say that he was just making it all up. Someone doesn’t kill a person they don’t know and have never even seen this person before that just can’t happen. But the sad fact is what Sting describes in this song happens all the time.
Johnny Cash was so touched by Sting’s song that he also recorded the song in 2002. Johnny Cash wasn’t stealing Sting’s song Johnny was taking the song and spreading to a wider audience of his fans and country music at large. This wasn’t Johnny’s first song about a thrill killer, my favorite and one of his first hit song , Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny sings but I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, I heard that whistle blowing, I Hang my head and cried. Johnny recorded Folsom Prison Blues in 1955 41 years before Sting’s song but both are talking about a thrill kill it’s just that in 1955 we didn’t have a name for it.
In 2014 Sting was one of the honorees at the Kennedy Honors. Of the many songs Sting wrote Bruce Springsteen sung I Hung My Head as his tribute to Sting. I usually only place one version of a song on my post but today’s song has had so much impact that I believe it deserves all three versions of the song.
I believe a thrill kill once again happened in Johnson County Arkansas but unlike today’s song the thrill killer did not spend one hour in jail he was free to go live his life however he pleased. How was it that this man was able to kill a 72 year old woman without being charged with anything? The man was a deer hunter and after he killed the woman he used the decades old excuse “I thought it was a deer” yes he said the magic words that was his get out of jail free card. Every since man has entered the deer woods with guns this excuse has been used and it worked then and as you can see it still works today. After all people don’t kill people they don’t even know for no reason at all people don’t kill other people just for the “fun” of it. “I thought it was a deer” explains it and besides the hunter was crying when he said “I thought it was a deer” so since he cried he must be telling the truth and we feel so sorry for him. the killer. I was a juror in a murder trail and the defendant took the stand and he cried and carried on the entire time that he was on the stand saying though his tears that the sawed off shotgun he put against the other man’s chest just “when off” and it was an accident . We still convicted him of murder it didn’t matter to us how much he cried and how sorry he said he was. So you see this whole “I thought it was a deer” excuse and the hunter crying doesn’t cut it with me. Should we release everyone on death row if they now claim “I thought it was a deer”? But to be fair to the deer hunter we should look at his story. The 72 year old woman was taking pictures of a old church and the fall colors of the trees when she was shot by the deer hunter. So you see how easy it was for this hunter to mistake this woman for a deer, for instance this woman happened to got out of the same model of car that most deer ride in! And the brand of camera she was taking pictures with well it turns out that’s the same kind of camera most deer use to take pictures of the leaves! And who would believe this silly story? Well for one the Johnson County Sheriff. You can find his interview online that he gave to KHBS channel 40/29 the local ABC affiliate. The Sheriff made a big deal over the fact that the woman was not wearing a hunter orange hat and vest and basically blamed her for her death. But the Sheriff didn’t have a clue that what he saying was giving the hunter another motive. Instead of a thrill killer the hunter was a “Stand your ground Killer”. Maybe that hunter did see a deer in the woods it might had been the biggest buck he ever saw and was about to pull the trigger when the biggest buck he ever saw bolted, and then the hunter looked up and saw that woman taking pictures who spooked the biggest buck he ever seen. No deer hunter would say he didn’t have the right to pull the trigger after all the hunter saw an invasion to his border he was with in his rights to kill her. Imagine how it would be if the Johnson County Sheriff interviewed the man in today’s song. He would ask him what happened and the man who pulled the trigger would say “I saw this horse and riding the horse I thought it was a deer so I shot what I thought was a deer riding a horse. The Johnson County Sheriff who then say “well it wasn’t your fault the man riding the horse wasn’t wearing a hunter orange cowboy hat and vest you didn’t do anything wrong he should had orange on where you would know he wasn’t a deer. Is there any way that the Johnson County Sheriff would had done things differently? Well imagine is the hunter was black. Things would be very different if a black man killed a white woman in the woods, you bet that Sheriff would have the black hunter on the ground and slapped the cuffs on him taking him to the Johnson County Jail. You may say Jeff black men don’t hunt deer. Do you know why black men don’t go deer hunting in Arkansas? Because if you take a photo of a black man dressed as a hunter in hunter orange and another photo of a 10 point buck and ask white deer hunters what do you see in these photos? They would all say” well that’s an easy question I see a picture of a white tail deer and a picture of a black tail deer! So we don’t have to worry about that , black men know not go into the woods in Arkansas they are very aware that the national headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan is in Arkansas. Why did the hunter really get away with killing that woman? I can explain exactly how he got away with it. After this woman was killed there was statewide coverage so people knew about it. But what did my friends on Face Book post? Did they have posts saying to hunters to be sure on what your shooting at. Did they have posts on what a shame it was that this woman lost her life. Did they have posts as a tribute to this woman? No this is what my good Christian Pro-life friends thought this was what God wanted them to post on Face Book?
THERE ARE OVER 500,000 HUNTERS IN THE WOODS WITH GUNS AND NOT A SINGLE MASS SHOOTING THINK ABOUT THAT!
Did anyone notice I wrote that in hunter’s orange? Someone said they had seen a post similar to this in three different states. There’s no doubt that these posts originated from the NRA. After seeing three or four of these posts I thought and I do my best not to comment, but I saw enough first I thought my comment would be; no mass shootings that’s not what Bambi says. But then I thought better of it and I made the comment: How many deer hunters use AR-15 ? Well you think that would be harmless enough comment but you would be wrong. A short while later there was two comments lecturing me that guns don’t kill people and it don’t matter what kind of guns hunters use there’s no difference between a hunting rifle and a AR-15. I sure glad they cleared that up for me. By the way I think now would be a good time to explain the difference between hunting rifles and assault rifles. It’s a very simple difference a bullet coming out of an assault rifle travels at 3 times the velocity than a hunter’s rifle. Does this mean that the impact force is 3 times greater? No not when you factor in Einstein’s theory of relativity the impact force of the bullet is not 3 times greater it’s squared which means the difference between an assault rifle and a hunter’s rifle is the force of impact is 9 times greater. What does this mean a hunter’s rifle can damage organs, an assault rifles will totally obliterate organs. Hunters know what an assault rifle would do to a deer it would destroy the meat that’s why hunter’s don’t use assault rifles. But that is the reason mass shooters always use assault rifles and them never use hunting rifles. The above post is not only foolish and wrong it is dangerous. It also explains how hunters always get away with murder. It doesn’t matter if it’s a thrill kill or the made up Stand Your Ground kill either way the NRA and it’s followers will come to the defense of the hunter by the millions.
My Face Book friends who posted this pro-gun post also make many posts claiming their love for unborn babies, they say they are prolife. How can you be both progun and prolife? Imagine if this wasn’t a 72 year old woman but rather it was a 23 year old woman and her unborn baby was also killed. Would they forget her unborn baby as fast as they forgot the 72 year old? Well it’s sad to say we already know the answer to that . In the Las Vegas shooting and the Texas church shootings there were unborn babies that died in both shootings. Did anyone see any posts about these babies from any prolife people? No they were silent it seems their concern for the unborn has to line up with their politics before they really care.
How could we stop ALL these killings? I live in Fort Smith Arkansas my city is famous for Judge Isaac Parker know as the “Hanging Judge”. Judge Parker was once asked if hanging was really a deterrent? Judge Parker said “The severity of the punishment wasn’t the deterrent it was the certainty of punishment”. If you killed someone and came before Judge Parker you were certain you would be hanged. If a deer hunter is certain that if he kills a person in the woods he WILL GO TO PRSION and that would stop all these “I thought it was a deer” killings. But until one of these hunters receive anything but praise from the gun lobby until human life becomes as “precious” as their guns nothing will chance. This was yet another example of no one caring about the right to life of the victims, but millions of gun lovers will come to the defense of the hunter after all he said “I thought it was a deer”.
There has been a new development since I first posted this story. The State of Michigan has made it legal for hunters to also wear hot pink vests and caps while deer hunting. I hope this doesn’t spread to here in the south because it will just give hunters another excuse they will now say “I thought it was a gay deer!”
But wait there’s more! Yesterday the Johnson County Prosecutor filed charges against the hunter! It turns out the hunter admitted to drinking alcohol earlier in the day and the lab results tested positive for marijuana and methamphetamines. Now here’s the bad news he was only charged with manslaughter. So what’s manslaughter here’s a definition: Manslaughter is an unlawful killing that doesn’t involve malice aforethought—intent to seriously harm or kill, or extreme, reckless disregard for life. The absence of malice aforethought means that manslaughter involves less moral blame than either first or second degree murder. I guess what took so long for the Johnson County Prosecutor to file charges he first had to have it cleared with the NRA. Here’s an example of manslaughter; Two men get drunk at a bar, they get in a fight and one man dies as a result of the barfight. Both were drunk and witnesses say the dead man started the fist fight. Or two neighbors get in a disagreement and while their on the front porch and one pushes the other and then the other neighbors pushes back and the neighbor falls backwards off the porch and his head hits a rock in the flowerbed and dies as a result, then it is likely that the charge of manslaughter would be filed. Taking a high power hunting rifle and placing a bullet in the chamber shows an intent to kill. He wasn’t taking target practice at beer bottles some of which he emptied that day. He loaded his rifle and took aim at the woman and pulled the trigger that shows intent. We also learned the hunter was a least 50 yards away, that’s half a football field away and the bullet hit the woman “dead center” in the chest. There’s no way this could be an accident as the manslaughter charge implies. You may say Jeff your not a lawyer or a prosecutor you don’t know what you are talking about, well I know a lot of you are lawyers and prosecutors so feel free to correct me in the comments! In the murder trail that was involved in as a juror, the jury was given the options of 1st degree murder, 2nd degree murder or manslaughter that was up to a jury to decide but the Johnson County Prosecutor shows his clear prejudice so there is no way this woman’s family will feel any justice. There’s a good chance this hunter won’t serve one day in prison which will make the gun lovers very happy.