My personal best wishes for love and light this holiday season.

Rather than one by one share the stories of accidental shootings, I just googled "accidental shooting" and here were the results:

 Results 1 - 10 of about 1,650,000 for accidental shooting.

I don't think that anyone, me included, wants me to start posting these one by one to attempt to make some point.

http://www.komotv.com/news/local/12804032.html

I think we can all see how this is wrong on so many levels.  A gun is always treated as LOADED until you have VISUALLY inspected the chamber and ensured there are no rounds in the magazine well.  NEVER put your finger on the trigger...  I could go on and on and on....

Why am I posting this?  Because the guy was an IDIOT and a damn lucky one at that.  And NO I don't support any sort of legislation that might maybe perhaps possilby have if one is lucky have prevented that.  Stupidity cannot be regulated.  Responsibility must be drilled into everyone's heads at all times.

Never accept a gun from someone else until YOU have seen an empty chamber.   

http://www.komotv.com/news/12787757.html

Off duty cop gets into argument with butcher, pulls gun on butcher.  No charges filed yet. 

Gotta love Snopes :)  Here's a snip:

I can't seem to copy the text, it's a good read though.

I have Mondays and Tuesdays off. Since some here have issues or misconceptions about openly carrying firearms, I would like to invite anyone who cares to meet me and discuss the issue in depth to join me for coffee/tea/whatever at an agreeable time on almost any Monday or Tuesday. I am a regular at JavaFlow, and OC there often. Or we could meet at OldSchool. For smallish groups I'll buy the coffee or some pizza.

The 7th and 8th aren't good for me. (I have to go to Bremerton and consult with a civil rights attorney...)

In the meanwhile I would suggest www.OpenCarry.org as a great place to lurk and read what REALLY goes on with OC issues.

BTW, I OC'd around downtown Oly for sometime today. Went from Percival Landing to JavaFlow, to Orca Books, and then to The Reef (bleh! But I was hungry and they were open...) and then home. No problems.

This is the fourth in a series of eight posts about the eight folks who want to take Doug Mah's old seat on the Olympia city council.

There are a handful of applicants to the city council that have the kind of resumes that you'd like to see in an applicant. They've spent several years on city advisory committees and they've led community groups.

Reddick has spent time on the both the Planning Commission and the Parks Advisory Board. He was also the co-founder of the Parks, Arts, Recreation and Cultural Foundation in 1997. Since then that group has raised $79,000.

He is also a member of the committee that promoted the sidewalk and park levy a few years ago.

This guy is someone who has deep roots in the local civic community and has a lot of experience in the way you'd want a member of the city council to have experience.

One of his interesting responses to the council's questions was that he'd like to get neighborhood associations more involved in the council. While a lot of candidates and applicants say stuff like this, it would be neat to see Reddick actually pull this off. A subcommittee of the council meets with NA presidents twice a year, but beyond that, I'm wondering if he has any interesting ideas.

Other interesting ideas of his include:

• Free parking for downtown employees.
• More citizen input in budget process, so citizens fully understand were their money is being spent.

There isn't really anything bad you can say about Reddick. If he becomes a member of the city council, I'd expect we'd be well served.