Posted on 10/02/2012 11:08:16 AM PDT by 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.
Such things have value beyond their mere mechanical or artistic presence.
Better such things be bought & sold by willing participants, than compelling objecting taxpayers to fund their purchase, preservation & display.
Methinks it entirely appropriate for George Bush to own and display, and to donate as he saw fit, the Glock 18 (!) possessed by Saddam Hussein at his capture.
Ya know, without such items being bought and sold to someone’s consternation, a whole bunch of people would never have heard that fascinating little story.
I do not see your point. What do you mean? Why should she care a whit that those weapons are bought and sold? There is no logical connection.
He should have taken the Thompson and the BAR.
The Holocaust Museum is not trying to profit from the buying and selling of artifacts from the Holocaust.
If you don't want to buy items like that -- DON'T!!
Are you sure you’re on the right site? You might be more comfortable at some anti-gun leftist gathering. Or maybe you could just mind your own business instead of “condemning” anything you don’t like.
Most of the weapons used by Bonnie and Clyde (and many other hoods of that era) were stolen from rural National Guard armories. They were used once a month and left unguarded, and had proven a convenient place to store much of the leftover arms and equipment from World War I. When these weapons could be identified, they were returned to military stocks.
After long and varied “service lives”...there’s probably quite a bit more “murderabilia” out there in private hands today than anyone knows about.
And for anyone curious, that .45 (made between 1913 and about 1917) would probably be worth about a hundredth of that price as just another old .45.
I’m absolutely pro-Second Amendment. I do not condemn guns. Just those who use guns to kill innocent people.
Yup. Depending on condition, it would probably bring between $500 (junk) and $3000 (near mint).
Sympathy is a separate matter.
No one is saying you can’t have sympathy. I just fail to see how someone profiting or not profiting from the sale of these items denotes either on the one hand sympathy or on the other hand a lack of sympathy.
Should the news report that occurred as a result of the news items generated from the murder be outlawed from running commercials during the news segment? That’s profit.
Should the newspaper that reports the the story not be able to sell that issue? That’s profit.
Should the undertaker who buries the body not be paid for his services? That’s profit.
Should this website not get donations to upkeep this website because people come here and post posts like this that draw people to comment on them? In as sense that’s “profit.”
So there are a number of parties that “profit” when someone is murdered. Does that mean those parties are evil? Of course not.
Simply saying something generates profit from the sale of a weapon of murder, and that sale is evil or wrong, fails to separate the act of murder itself, which is wrong, from the object of murder. In fact its the same argument that liberals use to justify gun control.
Remember: Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. Its fairly easy to kill someone with a pencil if you know what you are doing and have positive and determined intent to do so (which I do not advocate, I’m just trying to illustrate a point.)
So, as Thomas Friedman liked to say, consider the logical consequences of the policies you advocate. You’ve confused that which is evil, the act of murder, with something which need not be either evil or non-evil, i.e. capitalist activity in a free society. And consider the ramifications of your logic of the economic activities of a free people, ramifications to be used by liberals on trade, used by liberals on commerce, used by liberals on taxes, and ultimately as is always the case, used by liberals to *LIMIT MAN’S NATURAL RIGHTS IN THE NAME OF A FABRICATED AND ARTIFICIAL MORALITY* (think Obamacare.)
The defense rests your Honor.
you would
as I said, you would, but I forgot the :)
don’t want to sound sarcastic...well, maybe a little...:)
What’s not to love about a posse?
Get away from the job, camp out, you’re with your friends... Come on, it’s a week-long game of hide-and-seek on horseback.
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