Buyers, Sellers of ‘Murderabilia’ Have No Shame

The Christian Diarist ^ | October 2, 2012 | JP

[CHRISTIAN DIARIST]

During their three-year crime spree, the infamous young couple murdered nine police officers and at least as many civilians. The pair finally got what was coming to them on a dusty road in Louisiana, where a six-man posse ambushed them and shot them dead.

Frank Hamer, the Texas Ranger who led the posse, was rewarded for his service by being allowed to take anything the outlaws had in their possession at the time of their deaths.

So he took the Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol the 25-year-old male had in his waistband and the .38 Special the 23-year-old female concealed under her dress.

Over the years, the weapons Hamer recovered from the bullet-ridden corpses of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker ended up in the hands of collectors. And, this past weekend, the guns were sold at auction, with Bonnie’s .38 fetching $264,000, and Clyde’s Colt .45 going for $240,000.

Now I know the owners of the two weapons had the legal right to auction them off. And I know that the anonymous buyer of both weapons had the legal right to acquire them.

I still find the so-called “Gangster Auction” this past weekend revolting. Because I think it inherently offensive to traffic in instruments of murder – whether seller, buyer or auctioneer.

As it happens, the buying and selling of “murderabilia” – collectables related to killers and their crimes – has become a thriving cottage industry.

Indeed, in addition to the sale of Bonnie and Clyde’s weapons, RR Auction, based in Amherst, New Hampshire, also sold John Dillinger’s death mask and George “Baby Face” Nelson’s .38 Smith & Wesson revolver (which he referred to as his “lemon squeezer”).

Now, some may not consider RR’s “Gangster Auction” particularly disturbing since it was peddling the murderabilia of killers who committed their crimes way back in the Depression era; gangsters, like Bonnie and Clyde, have been dead more than three-quarters of a century.

But the passage of time has not taken the pain entirely away from 96-year-old, Ella Wheeler McLeod, the sister of the late Texas highway patrolman Edward Bryan Wheeler. A motorcycle cop, he was gunned down by Bonnie and Clyde, when he and his partner stopped by the outlaw couple’s car unwittingly thinking they needed help.

“I think about him every day,” McLeod said last year, on the anniversary of her brother Edward’s death. “He was always good to me,” she recalled. “He was my guardian angel.”

Neither RC Auction, nor the seller and buyer of Bonnie and Clyde’s weapons could care less about still-grieving Ella Wheeler.

And that’s why those traffickers in “murderabilia” are beneath contempt.

[CHRISTIAN DIARIST]

Bonnie and Clyde were glamorized in the movies, with Faye Dunaway playing the former and Warren Beatty the latter. But the fact is the outlaw couple were cold-blooded killers.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Freedom is such an ugly thing.

[Da Coyote]

And the writer’s opinion of Fast and Murderous is?

Just wonderin’.

[trailhkr1]

And that’s why those traffickers in “murderabilia” are beneath contempt.

I disagree..are we not to collect Hitler's personal items-that would be in the same category..

BTW the blood covered chair Lincoln sat in is in the Dearborn museum..people want to see this stuff..does not make them strange or ghoulish.

[NYCslicker]

This post is kind of on the whiny side for a conservative web site.

If people want to pay some outrageous sum of money for a murderer’s gun, that’s their business, not the business of some overly-sensitive sniveling Christian journalist.

[circlecity]

Wonder what Clyde’s BAR would fetch?

[Uri’el-2012]

And that’s why those traffickers in “murderabilia” are beneath contempt.

On what Scripture do you base this feeling ??

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

In all fairness, pretending that evil and villainy do not exist is far worse than glamorizing it. As a rule of thumb, people are not attracted to such things because they want to emulate the evil of their former owners, but because they want to understand it.

Why did the Catholic church commission and publish demonologies? So that their learned clergy could not just recognize demonic action, but identify it as such, as well as which demon was responsible. Likewise botanists and biologists carefully examine and describe poisonous and dangerous plants and animals.

Yet people are much more complex. No one will be interviewing Bonnie and Clyde anytime soon, and so what little record of their villainy remains is contained within a few objects.

Between the two, they killed 13 people, and committed kidnappings and armed robberies. As such, not very impressive for a couple of about 22-24 year olds. But what made them stand out was the size of the manhunt against them, as well as the publicity they received.

Why do we remember Jack the Ripper? For much the same reason. He was the first "tabloid serial killer", but other than that, not very impressive. Except for the newspapers, he would have been long forgotten.

Others, like Mumia Abu-Jamal, are nothing without their fan club. In his case, what he did and who he is are nothing compared to the leftist agenda that uses him as their poster boy. They do not care that he is guilty, just that they can use him to rally support against their political enemies.

Yet had they not embraced him, he might have been let out of prison long ago. So this is a two-edged sword.

Some wit noticed the inanity of embracing a murderer, despite his guilt, creating this t-shirt to sneer at it.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Just think,
should we destroy such weapons as the gun that killed Alexander Hamilton, or the gun that killed Lincoln, or Jessee James’, Billy the kid’s or any other weapon used in a famous killing? How about the knife used by Buffalo Bill to scalp Yellow Hand, in a small museum in Berryville, Arkansas.

NO!

[Gamecock]

Frank Hamer, the Texas Ranger who led the posse,

I love a good posse.

[Donkey Odious]

Freedom has many faces. In America (for now) you can buy and sell as the market allows. Some people collect Barbies, some barbed wire and some the ephemera and hardgoods associated with criminals. Don’t like it? Don’t buy it.....(or bid in it).

[Donkey Odious]

Freedom has many faces. In America (for now) you can buy and sell as the market allows. Some people collect Barbies, some barbed wire and some the ephemera and hardgoods associated with criminals. Don’t like it? Don’t buy it.....(or bid in it).

[Donkey Odious]

Freedom has many faces. In America (for now) you can buy and sell as the market allows. Some people collect Barbies, some barbed wire and some the ephemera and hardgoods associated with criminals. Don’t like it? Don’t buy it.....(or bid in it).

[CHRISTIAN DIARIST]

Have we no sympathy for crime victims or their survivors, like Ella Wheeler McLeod, the sister of the late Texas highway patrolman Edward Bryan Wheeler gunned down by Bonnie and Clyde?

Do we not care how she feels about those profiting from the sale of weapons that very well may have been used in her brother’s murder?

[ussc1863]

My husband’s barber was a small child living on a farm near Arcadia, LA at this time. He was telling my husband that Bonnie and Clyde came to his parents farm for a period of time before their death for breakfast and dinner. Clyde would always give them $5.00 for the meal and the two of them helped with the chores. He received his first piece of candy from Bonnie. When they were killed on that day, the family figured out who they were and they were heading to the farm house again. Never know about the different sides of people.

[ussc1863]

My husband’s barber was a small child living on a farm near Arcadia, LA at this time. He was telling my husband that Bonnie and Clyde came to his parents farm for a period of time before their death for breakfast and dinner. Clyde would always give them $5.00 for the meal and the two of them helped with the chores. He received his first piece of candy from Bonnie. When they were killed on that day, the family figured out who they were and they were heading to the farm house again. Never know about the different sides of people.

[discostu]

Items tied to famous events will always sell big. You can focus on items tied to famous criminals and whine, or you can focus on Hollywood memorabilia and probably still whine about people being shallow, or you can focus on other historical memorabilia like the Lincoln stuff that’s been auctioned recently and be happy. The choice is yours.

[ExGeeEye]

“Caring” about people’s “feelings” is the worst reason in the world for denigrating the Constitutionally-protected liberties of a fellow citizen.

That way lies Sharia and other societal cancers.

[ozzymandus]

Why don’t you go tell the Holocaust Museum that they are “beneath contempt”. Do you know what history is?

[Smokin' Joe]

Somewhere out there there is Sergeant York's rifle, a couple used by Gunny Hathcock, The spear the Centurion used to poke the Lord Jesus, perhaps, even one of the knives which stabbed Julius Caesar.

All of these items have value beyond that simply of a weapon. Some were used for good, some ill, and one to fulfill Biblical prophesy.

That affects their market value, and the infamous and famous similarly increase in value with fame or notoriety.

These are mere props in events which affected the world. The evil (if any) was resident in the users, not the item itself.