I read an initially amusing news story this morning about two guys in Rogers, Arkansas who both wound up arrested after shooting each other while wearing bulletproof vests. On March 31, 2019, Charles Eugene Ferris, 50, and Christopher Hicks, 36, were sitting outside on the back porch drinking. Ferris was wearing a bulletproof vest, so naturally he decided he needed to test it out. He told Hicks to shoot him.

Hicks, obviously an obliging sort, shot his friend with a .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle. The shot hurt, and it pissed off Ferris, who then gave the vest to his friend to try on. Ferris then unloaded the clip into Hicks’s back. Fortunately… or maybe unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the bulletproof vest did its job and the two men weren’t seriously injured. But when Ferris complained of pain after the shooting, his wife ordered him to visit the emergency department of their local hospital.

The hospital staff determined that Ferris’s injuries could have been a result of foul play. They called the police, who interviewed Ferris. Ferris didn’t want his friend to get into trouble, so he came up with a bullshit story about taking fire after having been paid $200 to “protect an asset”. He claimed that he took fire after driving off gunmen who shot him. The truth came out later when the police officers spoke to Ferris’s, wife, Leslie.

Both men were arrested and have been charged with aggravated assault. They are both free on $5000 bonds. The rifle and the vest have been confiscated, and the men are under orders not to contact each other. They will be arraigned May 13th.

As I read this story, I couldn’t help but notice how sheepish these two guys looked. I’m sure it seemed like harmless fun at the time, trying out the bulletproof vest to see if it actually worked. Naturally, alcohol was involved… and probably boredom. These two guys are probably Trump fans, too. Yep… in fact, I looked up Ferris on Facebook and he has a picture of himself holding the severed head of a ram. He’s even some kind of minister. Indeed, he is a fan of Donald Trump and a vehement pro-lifer. And yet, he also gets drunk and shoots his friend for shits and giggles.

I hate to say this, but it seems that America is full of idiots like these two guys. They are all about gun rights, restricting access to abortion, and being racist. Ferris purports to be some kind of religious leader and has several pictures of himself on social media dressed in religious garb. And he also has a very public Facebook page, loaded with memes about conservative politics, being anti-abortion, and maintaining the right to bear arms. He and his friend have proven that neither of them should have any access to weapons. They lack critical thinking skills and good judgment.

This morning, I also read a very sad story about a family that fled violence in Honduras. They probably would have liked to have stayed in their homeland, but they were targeted by gangs who were looking for money. They headed to the United States, where they were separated in Calexico, at the California border. They were trying to reach San Francisco, where the mom had an uncle who might help them. The youngest of the three children with the family, a toddler girl, was snatched from her father’s arms and sent to San Antonio, Texas. The father, who had previously been expelled as an illegal alien, was arrested. It took the mother going to the press and threatening to go to Texas to retrieve her child before U.S. authorities returned the girl, thinner, suffering from a hacking cough, and infested with lice.

I wonder if Charles Ferris, a supposed Christian with his pro-America, anti-abortion, pro-gun views, would be in favor of helping this family? Would he want them protected, provided for, and loved the way Christ taught people should love their fellow man? I have a feeling he hasn’t thought much about it. It looks to me like his religion is more about maintaining white power. I see that he’s even proud of his sudden notoriety. Ferris is a founder of a couple of Facebook groups. On one them, he re-posted this.

Ferris runs a page called “Poor Knights of Christ”, which may or may not have anything to do with racism. However, when I look at the picture of the men in that group, I can’t help but be reminded of the Ku Klux Klan. Click on the associated Web site, and you go to a site with the word “militia” in its address. Having looked at the Web site, it appears to be some kind of Catholic organization, perhaps married with the Masons. Upon further examination of this guy’s social media, I found both of these photos…

I just can’t wrap my head around this. This man is supposedly a “man of God”, but he gets drunk, shoots his friend, lies to the police, and posts all kinds of vile, hateful rhetoric. Plus, he openly supports an immoral criminal who is leading our country down the drain. And he openly admits to selling his soul to the devil that is Donald Trump, simply because of illegal immigration– brown people invading the United States because they’re being terrorized by gangs in their own country. He supports forcing women to give birth, but he has no problem killing people who have already been born and are in need of help. He likens them to invasive “raccoons”.

It’s nauseating and scary. I’m now kind of sorry I didn’t just laugh off this story. But I have a habit of falling into rabbit holes, don’t I?