World's First Female Pistol Duel

Back in 1877 Denver was the site of the recorded first gun duel fought between women. Madames Mattie Silks and Katie Fulton fought a duel with single shot Derringers over a married man they both laid claim to. Neither was his wife. Both followed the general guidelines, paced off their steps, turned and fired. Neither Madame took a hit.

However, Cort Thomson, the man at the center of the dispute was hit. Some versions of the story say that immediately after the smoke cleared the ladies engaged in the mother of all cat fights. Silks won the cat fight. A bloodied and bruised Fulton left on the next stage never to be heard from again.

Silks continued running her business and went on to become the most successful Madame in Denver. Eventually Thomson and Silks married. They had to wait for Thomson's wife to die as she wouldn't give him a divorce. Silks went on to purchase The House of Mirrors at 1942 Market Street.

Mattie Silks lived to be 83, passing away in 1929 at Denver General Hospital. She died from the complications of a broken hip. Her House of Mirrors establishment exists to this day as a bar with a museum to the world's oldest profession upstairs.

This moment of home town heritage was brought to you by Wild West Tech on the History Channel.

References:
Denver History - Mattie Silks
The Jailery - Mattie Silks of Colorado Queen of the Red Light District

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Prostitution, although hounded, imprisoned, and chained, is nevertheless the greatest triumph of Puritanism.
- Emma Goldman

Obama Predictions: Gun control

Over the last couple of weeks the President and White House spokes people placed a great deal emphasis on the problems with drug gangs in Mexico. It is amazing how much of that talk centers around apologizing for our responsibility in those problems. That would be our consumption of drugs coming from or brought through Mexico and the cash and guns heading south.

The emphasis on the guns has been loud and clear in each and every statement. Newscasters, White House staffers, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and even President Obama himself have all stated flatly that 90% of weapons recovered from the bad guys can be traced back to the United States.

That number is a serious distortion of the facts. Read on…

In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

Fox News: The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.

In addition to that, the vast majority of that 17% are traceable back to weapons legally sold to various agencies in the Mexican Government.

I'm one of these people that always wonders "who benefits?" It is amazing how many difficult puzzles come crystal clear when you apply the "What benefits are derived and who benefits from the event" filter.

One possible answer (and the only answer that makes any reasonable amount of sense) is the President is beginning a systematic attack on guns and gun owners. Demonizing guns, and by default people that own guns, would make it easier for him to get anti-gun legislation through a congress that still has enough grasp of reality to realize gun owners vote in great numbers.

Obama Prediction:

With this post I predict that President Obama is going to use the gun violence in Mexico and the bullshit 90% number to refine his campaign promise to leave gun owners alone into some kind of heavy duty anti-gun push.

We are so screwed.

Here's another link on the 90% number: Factchack.org - Counting Mexico's Guns

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This battle for 'common-sense' gun control laws pits emotion and passion against logic and reason. All too often in such a contest, logic loses. So, expect more meaningless, if not harmful, 'gun control' legislation. Good news - if you're a crook.
- Larry Elder