Legislating stupidity
According to the Washington Post, 22-year-old Devon Staples, after a little lubrication, put a fireworks mortar on his empty head and threatened to light the contents. His friends thought that they had talked him out of it, when suddenly it ignited and killed Staples instantly.
Staples’s brother, 25-year-old Cody Staples, called it an accident.
“I was the first one who got there,” he told the New York Daily News. “There was no rushing him to the hospital. There was no Devon left when I got there.
“It was a freak accident. … Devon was not the kind of person who would do something stupid. He was the kind of person who would pretend to do something stupid to make people laugh.”
Stupid, right? Well, according to the Associated Press, his mother seems to think that her son’s stupidity should be regulated;
Staples’ mother, Kathleen Staples, said she is going to reach out to lawmakers about the possibility of tighter controls over fireworks. The state should consider requiring safety training courses before allowing someone to use them, she said. She compared fireworks with other regulated items such as cars and guns.
“At least it’d be a little bit more than, ‘Here you go,'” Staples said. “That’s an explosive. They didn’t just hand me a license and put me in the car.”
There are also unlicensed drivers on the road. What part of the word “explosives” made Staples think that they wouldn’t blow his head off? Of course, this is Kathleen’s way of diverting blame for her son’s upbringing from herself. The problem with this country today is that there are too many regulations and rules – so many that most of us break laws everyday without knowing that we broke a law. Government can’t protect us from ourselves. If Staples’ friends couldn’t convince him that launching explosives from his head were a bad idea, why does mother think that any amount of training would do the job?
Category: Dumbass Bullshit
I think someone should giver her a beer and a firework hat too.
/problem solved.
I think maybe the law should have her name on it, that she can’t give birth to anymore STUPID SPAWN!!
Staples. Now that was easy! Maybe his mother should join MADD – Mothers Against Drunk Detonations.
“It was a freak accident. … Devon was not the kind of person who would do something stupid. He was the kind of person who would pretend to do something stupid to make people laugh.”
The only freak in this case, unfortunately, was the guy who lit the fuse. As the squirrel said: “It’s all fun and games until someone loses a nut”.
I feel sorry for his friends and family, but you don’t even pretend to do something ‘stupid’ when you are dealing with explosives.
Like guns, they aren’t toys and you don’t screw around with them.
Agreed.
This is a sad case.
No winners here.
Darwin wins. Again.
Indeed
This kid had high asperations, and come this fall he could be the 2015 Darwin Award winner
R I P S Rest In Perpetual Stupidity
I saw a headline the recently that said lawmakers are considering regulations concerning zip lines because of a number of recent deaths. Zip lines, the real killer.
IMHO fireworks and zip lines and a whole host of other things serve a Darwinian purpose that, in the final analysis, benefits the herd. If they cut to the chase and just outlaw stupidity, we’re all fooked.
Did he say: “Hey! Watch this!”
Right after he said, “Hey hold my beer.”
“Hold my Meth”
Geez-don’t you guys know nothing?
If we can just pass enough laws no one will ever have anything terrible happen to them ever again.
We can legislate ourselves to utopia-it’s worked every single time it’s been done so far.
Per the socialist mantra:
“If it’s not compulsory, it’s forbidden.”
That has morphed into:
Whatever you did was forbidden and whatever you did not do was compulsory.
The Surgeon General has determined, after long study and lots of grant monies, that living is the #1 cause of dying in the United States.
Therefore, life will be added to the Schedule 1 list of controlled substances.
I’m impressed. Someone did something dumber than Bernath landing because of low fuel, then taking off without adding any, and suing the aircraft manufacturer for a “fatal design defect”.
Well done.
Darwin Award, First Place.
I think of it as a form of population control and genetic purification.
“It was a freak accident. … Devon was not the kind of person who would do something stupid. He was the kind of person who would pretend to do something stupid to make people laugh.”
Freak accident…my ass! It was a numb nuts with too much booze in him and he found out Newton’s Third Law, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”, was…REALLY…No SHIT!
As for mom, “Staples’ mother, Kathleen Staples, said she is going to reach out to lawmakers about the possibility of tighter controls over fireworks. The state should consider requiring safety training courses before allowing someone to use them, she said. She compared fireworks with other regulated items such as cars and guns.”
Well mom, how about reaching out to lawmakers about the possibility of taking and passing a valid IQ test before we allow dumb asses like you procreate.
I really don’t understand what went wrong. Seemed like a good plan. He took a used mortar tube, reloaded it, put a fuse in it, pulled out a lighter, put the tube to his head, and lit the fuse.
2/17 Air Cav…I’m pretty much in agreement with you. After all, you can’t say the guy didn’t use his head
Ding! Ding! Ding! Thread winner.
To paraphrase a rule that even my 6-year-old understands and repeats upon request:
“Always treat every [mortar tube] as if it were loaded at all times.”
I think the rest of Col Cooper’s rules would easily apply to this situation as well:
“Never point a [mortar tube] at anything you don’t wish to destroy.”
“Keep your [match] off of the [fuse] until you are on target and ready to fire.”
“Always be sure of [the direction your mortar tube is facing] and what is beyond.”
“so many that most of us break laws everyday without knowing that we broke a law.”
I seem to remember reading somewhere that the average person commits 1-2 felonies a day without even knowing it. Whether or not that is true, I don’t know.
Three felonies a day according to Attorney harvey Silvergate-http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
Ayn Rand
Sorry for their loss, but common sense offers two easy alternatives, both of which could have saved him.
One: don’t put fucking explosives on your dome. See? Very simple. Like, monkey simple.
Two: if he’s drunk and/or dumb enough to fail at Option One, then the rest of you shouldn’t let him near fireworks at all. Of course, this obviously requires some personal responsibility from all involved.
So explain to me again whose fault this was?
The fireworks manufacturers… duh. Also guns. And Bush.
Funny. Nobody ever blames the alcohol.
Don’t give our “liberal brethren” any more “good ideas”, PN.
We already tried Prohibition once, and it didn’t work worth a damn the first time around.
Just a bit of snark on my part, Hondo. And there is more of a chance of me being on SpaceX’s Mars exploration launch, than there is for liberals banning alcohol.
Don’t be so sure about that, PN.
Rural Protestants were only one group advocating prohibition. The Progressives of the day were the other major force pushing for it. Both groups “knew what was best for us” and wanted to “protect us from ourselves”. They proposed to do so by making something that was “too dangerous to be legal” unlawful.
Only their rationale was different. The rural Protestants thought alcohol was a “tool of the Devil” and should be banned because it was “evil”; the Progressives thought it was a “social scourge” that should be banned because it was “a menace to society”. Neither group was willing to allow people the freedom to choose for themselves.
Sound familiar?
But it did make the Kennedy’s rich.
This is the same kind of jack-assery that resulted in manufacturers of hair dryers or toasters having to put warning labels to not use them in water.
And why (I have read) 2/3 the price of a new ladder is for the liability insurance the companies have to carry to cover the lawsuits filed by dumbasses who misuse ladders, fall off, etc.
It might be a good idea for the mother to take a basic physics course… especially concentrating on Newtonion physics. It’s pretty much certain that any contained explosion powerful enough to drive an ounce or so of mortar round up 2-300 feet is going to cause enough recoil to drive that tiny wooden baseplate through something soft like her son’s head.
My back of the envelope calculation of what it would take to get something 200′ straight up gives an initial muzzle velocity of 113.2 ft/s.
Accelerating something, even 1 oz, up to 77 mph nearly instantly is going to have some impact on Newton’s 3rd.
Probably somewhat more than that due to wind resistance, actually. But yeah, I got about the same number when I did the math – 112.9 ft/sec.
The difference is probably because I assumed the tube was approx 2ft long and pointed straight up and based the calculations on a vertical altitude of 198 ft above the muzzle. (smile)
Newton’s equations of motion are still in effect, as are his laws.
I feel terrible for the friends as well. They honestly thought that they had prevented him from Darwinizing himself.
Working as a Safety Professional, I tend to use the word “incident” vs “accident”. There are no accidents. Bad things occur because of unsafe acts (like this) or unsafe conditions (faulty explosives).
Close to 90% of incidents involving injuries are due to unsafe acts – doesn’t matter what safeguards (i.e. legislation, warnings, etc.) are put in place. Stupid is as stupid does.
Yep – the mortar jumped on his head by itself….
I wonder what the anti-fireworks crowd would say about this….
http://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153093307588969&pnref=story
A “freak” accident would be the mortar firework you placed at a safe distance detonates and a 1″ piece of metal travels 100 yards and finds your jugular vein or your femoral artery causing you to bleed out….
An expected outcome is placing a fireworks mortar on your head and having your head blown off.
There is no equation that I’ve learned that can solve for the variable “fucking stupid”. I truly wish I could find that equation, because I would be the most talked about mathematician ever….
I saw this last night and asked myself what it takes to be this stupid.
And then his mommy pops up and blames the fireworks for killing her boy instead of acknowledging that her ‘boy’ (he’s a grown man, for Pete’s sake!) got stinking drunk and did something stupid.
^^^WORD^^^
I read a news article about it last night which made it sound like the reason it went off was the brother got a little too close with a lighted match.
Whether or not it’s true, I don’t think it takes a genius to recognize that putting explosives on top of your head is RARELY a good idea if you wish to KEEP said head.
Boys will be boys and drunk boys will be stupid boys. I have two boys, and frequently cautioned them to think before acting, chanted safety rules for various activities, etc. But that doesn’t stop them from doing things I consider risky/stupid.
Drifting around curvy mountain roads at night, shooting pop bottle rockets out of your ass (my son’s friend, really old enough to know better but a lousy drunk), blowing up Matchbox cars with fireworks, etc.
Boys like things that go boom. Boys like to drink. Boys think stupid shit is funny (the Jackass show anyone?). Combining the three is a Darwin Award waiting to happen.
I’m fortunate that my sons survived their teens and seem to be getting a bit wiser in their 20s. Not always though. Fortunately, they are dead serious around cars and guns.
Some people need to learn the hard way and some don’t get a second lesson. Unfortunate.
Ladies and Gentlemen of TAH®™, I’ll let Ron White say it himself.
Legislation like this only serves to 1–protect the stupid, 2–give a false sense of security to same.
Darwin wins. Again.
This wasn’t a freak accident.
Bruce Jenner is a freak accident.
Bruce Jenner is a freak. That was no accident.
Amen !!!!!!!
Protecting the stupid is akin to fertilizing weeds. Life is too short as it is, it’s shorter if you are stupid. Mother nature has a mechanism for dealing with those too stupid to survive, she usually kills them before they can reproduce. Youth is a test to measure your suitability for adulthood. She knows that if too many of the stupid reproduce, it puts a strain on survival of the species.
Oh please protect us from scary fireworks. And forget those SCARY BLACK COLORED GUNS..
Take away all those scary butter knives too.
Bhwhahahahahahahahahaha ! ! ! ! !
Evolution at work in this story. Thank God…
One less dumb ass to feed…
You know, it’s strange that the kids around here can get fireworks for the 4th of July, start popping them off the day before and keep going through the day after, and not one kid, including the smallest has even gotten a tiny blister from the gunpowder in the fireworks – and this is year 10 that I’ve been living here.
No one’s gotten hurt. No one has set a building on fire. No one has blown up a bucket of cherry bombs. The worst thing that happens is that my cat goes into his hidey hole in my bathtub and stays there until it’s all over.
Now, how come these children can have fun with something that is fairly dangerous and not get even a scratch from it, but the deceased Staples blew himself to bits by getting drunk and playing with fire? Why?
Frankly, I blame his Mommy for that. She’s right: his stupidity should be regulated. He had plenty of it and not an ounce of fucking common sense. I blame her for this incident.
It’s like the guy that got eaten by the alligator, signs were posted, he was told not to get in the water, but he said “Fuck the Alligator” 10 seconds later he was a snack
This was not an accident, it was intentional he ignored every safety warning and did exactly the opposite.
I am sorry that he was killed and a feel for his family but no amount of law or regulation stops stupid
It isn’t just the general public who’s not too bright. In ’78 at Hohenfels when I was a young 13F CPL we were out running around in our tracks playing “fire markers” during a big FTX. Someone would call in a fire mission and we would drive out to the coordinates and toss out artillery simulators, smokes, or whatever (Tankers get really ticked when you roll an arty simulator under their hulls when they are sleeping). Anyway, some brilliant PFC grabbed a simulator, pulled the cord, and said: “I’m going to make an air burst!” before any of us could say “what”? Delaying tossing the damn thing, the split second it left his hand it detonated. How he got away with just singed hair, temporary deafness, and a few skin burns is a mystery to me. Unfortunately, just one of many such stories over the years. Most were teachable moments.
Stupidity of that magnitude usually requires a senior NCO!
When I was a Squad Leader I had a Platoon Sergeant who thought it would a good idea to use a Hoffman device to simulate a claymore in JRTC. He wouldn’t listen to us SLs that it was a bad idea. Thank goodness an OC intervened.
I can neither confirm nor deny the rumors of a certain SGT tossing a mortar simulator in a rice paddy near CP Humphries sometime in 1989. I understand it made a spectacular geyser and crater…
Hohenfels How I did miss that mud pit
Mud? I remember snow in July 1992.
June 2007 in Vilsick, Germany. Snow, snow and more snow.
Oh, the good old days.
During one of my tours to Germany I almost slept through summer one day.
Stories like this don’t make me sad. They make me introspective.
After reading such as the above OP, I look back at all the really stupid shit I’ve done over the years… and survived.
Neener neener.
It’s like Aunt Bea from Andy Griffith used to say…”Act like you’ve got some sense.”
You can never, ever go wrong quoting Aunt Bea. Smiling here.
Sooner or later somebody had to recognize this bottle rocket scientist. Of course, this was General Stupidiso, grandson of the great warrior, Kirjath Toney. The Home Depot Parade Gloves were the prime example of Dipshittery passed down through generations. Gramps even taught how to really spruce up the old uniform by having matching collars on his uniform. That way, if any of the TAH crowd sees him, he can always say he was Generalissimo Spidyman; sekrit squirl in the First Fartillary brigade.
I can’t say with certainty what thoughts were going through his mind when he was contemplating this suicidal act, however I do know the last thing that went through head!
Moron!
Out!
His teeth?
Nope … a foot long, 3 inch in diameter mortor tube made of reinforced cardbaord.
I can imagine, based on my basic engineering knowledge and limited medical background, there was little left of his cranium, scull and surrounding facial bones.
But what do I know …
I had a girlfriend that lived in Calais years ago. The people out there were real odd and this coming from a backwoods hick in the far NE of VT. I’m not surprised as all.
Oh, she was a Psycho Therapist and told me about some of the people up there. Scary stuff.
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I bet his last words were “Hold my beer and watch me do this!”
Sometimes, stupidity can be like a dose of chlorine in the gene pool.
“They didn’t just hand me a license….” Actually, that’s pretty much what happened to me. My first license was a military license. The licenses were issued in the motor pool. (Made sense at the time.) Anyway, I tell whoever it was that I never had a civilian license and he issues me a military license right then and there. So, it was just handed to me. But that’s not all. When I ETS’d, I went to the state DMV and they issue me a license based on my military one! That’s twice I was just handed a license.
Alcohol + Fireworks – Common Sense = FATALITY
What part of that equation doesn’t Mommy understand?
In Memory
All clear in the backblast area? Anybody?
Between this guy and the one in Texas who recently said “F— the alligators!” before leaping into an alligator-infested body of water AT NIGHT when they feed and was predictably “ett” by a large amphibian predator, the 2015 Darwin Awards will have a pretty competitive field this year.
Life is tough. It’s a lot tougher when you’re stupid.
How much you want to bet that this mom was a helicopter mom always insulating his dumbass from the consequences of his own stupidity.
Basically, I would no doubt consider to be one just from her words following his demonstration of Darwin’s Law… In spades…
I wonder if St Peter is still holding his sides and peeing his gilded robe from laughing at this knob !!!
She is every bit as steyoopid as her kid is, was. And that is saying something…
I’d bet she made him wear a helmet when he rode his Big wheel.
New contest for my friends and associates here on TAH.
My neighbors kid was so stupid he… (Fill in the blank)
…kept a bucket of rattlesnakes in his garage, and played with them until he got bit.
…or there’s that unmentioned possibility that he meant to find a way to kill himself and make it look like an accident.
Like they said in Animal House, “Drunk and stupid is no way to go through life…”
Well, just goes to show you, it GREATLY shortens the life part being both sometimes….
Stupid should be painful. – R. A. Heinlein
Well, there are plenty of Democrats up there and they create laws on the whims of emotion and good intentions.
And yet another in my home state vying for the coveted Darwin award using a similar method:
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Texas-Man-Hurt-Dies-after-Shooting-Fireworks-from-his-Chest-312514491.html
How does the fact that some people drive without a license support your case? Are you arguing that we do not need driver’s licenses because some people don’t follow the law?
And it is natural for her mother to call for regulation. These are explosives. I consider fireworks on a spectrum. Some are like airsoft guns; pretty harmless even in the hands of children. Others are like pellet guns; adult supervision and training at least at first is necessary. Other are like basic firearms. Some basic instruction on safety and handling is probably necessary and adult supervision is mandatory. Others are like god-damn mortars and they need some proper training and controls.
This one was a 45mm mortar. It does not take regulation to tell someone not to put it one your head but asking that these require training or control before they are sold to drunk morons is not an unreasonable thing for society to do. And it is certainly not unreasonable for a grieving mother to ask.
The device in question almost certainly wasn’t sold to a “drunk moron”, Lars. If it was, the seller could be in legal trouble. That’s the reason many bars won’t continue to sell alcohol to an obviously sh!tfaced individual any more.
However, the device in question does indeed appear to have been abused by a possibly drunk moron. That’s a different thing entirely.
There’s quite a difference between “use” and “abuse”. And in this case, it was clearly a particularly foolish form of abuse – which cost the abuser his life.
There is nothing in the world that cannot be abused by a fool, particularly when copious alcohol consumption is involved. No amount of legal restriction or regulation will prevent that – not even outright prohibition. We’ve tried that before, and it doesn’t work worth a damn.
One would think that an “elite student from Berkeley” would already know the above. But apparently that’s not the case.
No matter how we do it, we will never be able to legislate common sense. We have a brain and pain nerves for a reason, and that is for survival. And that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? We have gotten so far from raw survival that we think we can do anything and get away with it. That’s not true, but a large part of society seems to believe it. You’re supposed to learn about the time you crawl that things that burn can hurt you. Even before you learn the term ‘explosive,’ you learn that things that FLASH can hurt you (lightening). Your parents are supposed to teach you this, and as you get older, that training is supposed to be reinforced with safe examples, so that the lesson is reinforced. But that doesn’t happen anymore, and deaths like this occur.
And it’s been said here before but I’ll say it again: emotional legislation is never the way to go. The boy made his own choices and suffered the consequences. The mother needs to understand that. Whether his mother neglected her child’s training or not, he was a man, and should have known better — by others’ sad examples, if nothing else.