Manhunt in Montana

[Sig]

Saw the thread title and my first thought was, "Looks like a new blend from Seattle Pipe Club." Which of course led to my next thought of, "Wow, even their blend naming is suffering in Joe Lankford's absence." Then I remembered that they're being assimilated into the STG borg.

You can tell I don't get out much, right?

Resistance is futile.

 

[RL Bucktails]

“without Mr. Brown’s cooperation, little could be done.” And herein lies the problem, you can replace Mr. Brown with a multitude of lost souls whether from drugs, alcohol or mental disorders.

 

[telescopes]

It used to be, the American Legion required overseas military service. I’ll bet the war stories there are real.

VFW -obviously you weren’t JAG. I Qualify for both.

 

[Sig]

First of all, this dude was crazy before the Army. You can't "catch" schizophrenia and bipolar from adult trauma. He already HAD these illnesses, but trauma could have exasperated it. 99% of combat veterans who have PTSD do NOT become violent.
Second, being from a small, rural town, I can 100% tell you that telling the types of stories he told, proves he is crazy. Patrons of small town dive bars ALL have known each other their whole lives. The bar regulars knew this guy was full of BS before and after the Army.

 

[Briar Lee]

VFW -obviously you weren’t JAG. I Qualify for both.

1983 was a really bad recession year.

The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines all had recruiting booths set up in the spring of 1983 at UMKC Law.

I went down the line, and I’ll give the Marines spiel

(A spit shined and polished jarhead who looked like Chesty Puller’s son is behind a desk)

Good morning, I noticed you’ve talked to the Army Navy and Air Force

Yes sir, I have

The Marines are a bit more selective

With the others they promised you no boot camp, and promotion to flag Captain in six months

Here we ask you to choose between San Diego and Paris Island, and if you survive Marine Basic as a buck private, then you have the privilege to go to Marine Officer Candidate Training School where if you make it through you’ll be a second lieutenant until you earn your rank.

And as a JAG officer you’ll mostly defend Marines who get in bar fights unless there is a war.

And if there is a war the Marines don’t need many lawyers and you will take a rifle and lead your fellow Marines into battle.

I don’t remember any of my friends getting a job during Recruitment Day, except Earl Edwin Pitts.

Earl Edwin Pitts - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Earl is a shirttail relative of mine by marriage on his mother’s side, and my mother always blamed Earl’s wife for him trying to pay off her credit cards.

But getting through law school, doesn’t mean you always retire with no regrets or worries, you know?

 

[VUswim73]

Saw the thread title and my first thought was, "Looks like a new blend from Seattle Pipe Club." Which of course led to my next thought of, "Wow, even their blend naming is suffering in Joe Lankford's absence." Then I remembered that they're being assimilated into the STG borg.

You can tell I don't get out much, right?

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

 

[jpberg]

First of all, this dude was crazy before the Army. You can't "catch" schizophrenia and bipolar from adult trauma. He already HAD these illnesses, but trauma could have exasperated it. 99% of combat veterans who have PTSD do NOT become violent.
Second, being from a small, rural town, I can 100% tell you that telling the types of stories he told, proves he is crazy. Patrons of small town dive bars ALL have known each other their whole lives. The bar regulars knew this guy was full of BS before and after the Army.

Exactly.

 

[Sig]

1983 was a really bad recession year.

The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines all had recruiting booths set up in the spring of 1983 at UMKC Law.

I went down the line, and I’ll give the Marines spiel

(A spit shined and polished jarhead who looked like Chesty Puller’s son is behind a desk)

Good morning, I noticed you’ve talked to the Army Navy and Air Force

Yes sir, I have

The Marines are a bit more selective

With the others they promised you no boot camp, and promotion to flag Captain in six months

Here we ask you to choose between San Diego and Paris Island, and if you survive Marine Basic as a buck private, then you have the privilege to go to Marine Officer Candidate Training School where if you make it through you’ll be a second lieutenant until you earn your rank.

And as a JAG officer you’ll mostly defend Marines who get in bar fights unless there is a war.

And if there is a war the Marines don’t need many lawyers and you will take a rifle and lead your fellow Marines into battle.

I don’t remember any of my friends getting a job during Recruitment Day, except Earl Edwin Pitts.

Earl Edwin Pitts - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Earl is a shirttail relative of mine by marriage on his mother’s side, and my mother always blamed Earl’s wife for him trying to pay off her credit cards.

But getting through law school, doesn’t mean you always retire with no regrets or worries, you know?

This will sound crazy, but after I graduated from Cornell with my DVM, I worked for a local veterinarian who was very well respected.
My plan was to work with him for awhile, then open my own clinic.
I had always wondered if I had went the right path with the DVM, because my original plan was to do the military career thing.
Then 9/11 happened.
I was just over the river in NJ and watched the second tower get hit.
Over the next couple weeks the drive became too much. But I was 30 years old, how could I ever join the Marines?
I went to the local recruitment center, which was very busy due to the terrorist attack. I talked to the Marine guy who told me it would a year before I would be deployed in a combat role.
Soooo, I talked to the Army guy.....he said 26 weeks(basic, AIT and Airborne School)......I joined the Army that day. Had a deployment less than 6 months later. Then RASP, then Ranger School over the next year.
I don't regret doing it, but might have done it BEFORE university if I could go back.

 

[SmokingInTheWind]

(A spit shined and polished jarhead who looked like Chesty Puller’s son is behind a desk)

You reminded me of the autobiography of Chesty Puller’s only son. I read it many years ago. After being severely wounded as a Marine Lieutenant in Vietnam he earned a JD and was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1974.

 

[AJL67]

Oh i thought you left your wife and were looking for something new in Georgia. Carry one.

 

[Briar Lee]

Oh i thought you left your wife and were looking for something new in Georgia. Carry one.

Cue Miller’s Cave!

Xxx

Police have named four people killed in a shooting at a bar in the US state of Montana as a manhunt for an army veteran suspected of the attack entered its third day.

Barmaid Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 64, and three customers - Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59, David Allen Leach, 70, and Tony Wayne Palm, 74 - died as a rifle-wielding assailant opened fire at the pub in the city of Anaconda on Friday morning.

Police said the suspect, 45-year-old Michael Paul Brown, fled to the nearby foothills afterwards.

Released by law enforcement of killer leaving the Owl Bar. (Where’s his rifle?)



Montana has had a moratorium on capital punishment since 2015. Only three murderous villains have been executed since 1976.

Capital punishment in Montana - Wikipedia - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Montana

The USA and Japan are the last two civilized modern democracies that execute civilians for heinous crimes.

And we lack the will to do much of it, or we’d do it sooner than twenty or thirty years after the crimes.

No modern society in about two hundred years has ever executed a raving lunatic who doesn’t know right from wrong, at least not in theory.


I’m a lukewarm supporter of both the death penalty and the existence of watering holes like the Owl Bar. And a lot of good, moral people disagree with me on both counts.

My support of the death penalty is not grounded so much on deterrence, as life in a cage is a powerful deterrent, that here didn’t deter. And vengeance or retribution is a base human emotion unworthy of Christian civilization.

But, when people years from now read the story it ought to have a proper ending, you know?

Last Public Hanging in West Virgina

 

[Sobrbiker]

Montana has had a moratorium on capital punishment since 2015. Only three murderous villains have been executed since 1976.

Knowing more than one “top of the spear” fellows on such manhunts, I’d have to ponder a correlation with why so many manhunts there (and elsewhere) end with the perp in a coroner’s van….

 

[Briar Lee]

Knowing more than one “top of the spear” fellows on such manhunts, I’d have to ponder a correlation with why so many manhunts there (and elsewhere) end with the perp in a coroner’s van….

There have been over 250 mass murders in America so far this year and the editors of the major news media have to move Ozempic and Apple computers.

Mac - Mac Does That - Switch to Mac

Mac lets you work, play, and create in ways you never imagined. Discover how easy it is to make the switch from a Windows PC to Mac.

www.apple.com

Good newspaper (paper or digital) editors are like good songwriters, they give us a fix of little tragedies and stories we crave.

Sing one Stonewall!

Washed my Hands in Muddy Water

There’s maybe 250 or so good guys all with wives and mothers and sweethearts praying out in Montana and every one of them hoping they’ll get a clear shot and not be bushwhacked.

——

The gunman was believed to have used his own weapon in the shooting, Knudsen said, before he was seen fleeing the bar on security footage.

Law enforcement last had contact with the suspect at about noon during a pursuit, Knudsen said. It is believed he then fled to the nearby foothills in a stolen white Ford F-150 with camping gear inside.

Brown’s home, which public records show is next to the bar, was cleared by a SWAT team on Friday.

Authorities said Brown was wearing a tie-dye shirt, blue jeans and an orange bandana at the time of the attack. A photo released by the attorney general’s office showed Brown having removed his clothes, only wearing underwear.

Knudsen told reporters Sunday that Brown is likely wearing garments from inside the truck.

——

If I was there, I’d want to supervise the drones.

Everybody enjoys a good manhunt except the man they are hunting and the men closest to the quarry.

This is why we pay the police.

His biggest mistake was killing the barmaid.

Everyone after him knows he has not a trace of mercy left.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

There have been over 250 mass murders in America so far this year

Nope. Not even close to that many.

Those numbers are outright lies.

The gun snatchers call every incident with a gun a mass murder.

 

[Briar Lee]

Nope. Not even close to that many.

Those numbers are outright lies.

The gun snatchers call every incident with a gun a mass murder.

My youngest son got a brand new dirt bike when he was in the fifth grade. My wife bought him all the protective gear, helmets, boots, etc and he was happy as a pig in dung heap.

One of his classmates got a brand new four wheeler, a good kid who would go riding with our kids, and his parents thought a four wheeler safer than a dirt bike.

The kid with the four wheeler was riding along a creek and whatever happened, he flipped over into the creek and drowned, or was crushed, the kid died.

Our school had grief counselors and it was quite a tragedy, and I watched my wife ask our son tenderly, if there was anything he wanted to tell her about the loss of his good friend.

He glared at her and said if this shit costs me my new dirt bike is the biggest thing I’m worried about.

He went on to distinguish how much safer dirt bikes were than four wheelers.

We gun owners are as selfish as children about our shooting irons.


My AR and G2 togather cost a little over half of what this cell phone cost and were a lot easier to buy. I get through the instant check instantly and add those toys to my toy box.

AI Overview

+7


In the U.S., a
mass shooting is generally defined as an incident of targeted violence where one or more shooters kill or wound multiple victims in a populated area, but definitions vary across agencies. The FBIdefines it as four or more murders during the same incident, while Everytown Research & Policy defines it as four or more people shot and wounded or killed, excluding the shooter.
Key aspects of the definition:

• Active Violence The incident involves one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people.
• Location The violence occurs in a populated or public area.
• Victims Multiple victims are associated with the attack, either by injury or death.
• Time and Duration The events are considered a single, ongoing incident.

Discrepancies and nuances

• No Universal Definition There is no single, universally accepted definition for mass shootings in the U.S., which leads to different criteria being used by various organizations and researchers.
• Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria Definitions vary regarding the minimum number of fatalities or injuries, and whether excluded events like gang-related violence, domestic violence, or acts of terrorism should be counted.
• "Mass Killing" Statute The Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012defines a "mass killing" as "3 or more killings in a single incident".
• Exclusion of Perpetrator Fatalities Many definitions, like that from Everytown, exclude the shooter's death when counting casualties, as the perpetrator is a participant in the crime, not a victim of the event.

——

What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

While the number of gun deaths in the U.S. fell for the second consecutive year in 2023, it remained among the highest annual totals on record.

www.pewresearch.org

——-


I shoot a lot of old guns that date back before World War Two.

That perp in Montana could have taken a Model 12 in that bar and the result would be the same. He could have used a pair of Colt 1860 revolvers, and the result would have been the same.

There have always been murders, and we will always have guns. Today there is no political will whatsoever to effectively ration out guns to the good guys and limit the bad guys from possession.

I stood in a line with thousands of people all sitting ducks for a bad man with a gun to walk up and shoot several dozen of us at St Louis, for five hours.

I was the only smoker.Probably the only NRA Life Member there as well, I don’t know.

It took the mothers of America about 150 years to gain the vote.

When the wrath of the mad mothers finally does fall on us gun owners, there will be great wailing and gnashing of teeth.

My beloved Ruger 44 Special Flattops ought to survive, but the newer plastic blasters, maybe not so many.

Mass shootings are not a bunch of guys playing poker and one goes off. They aren’t a man kills his family. Nor are they gang bangers shooting another gang banger.

They are you and me in a public place and a madman with a gun starts shooting and he hits at least four of us.

The press selects the most interesting ones to sell us stuff.

Which breed more mass shootings.

They have to shoot more and more, to make the news.

 

[telescopes]

Nor are they gang bangers shooting another gang banger.

Do you just ignore the data you don't like or agree with?

 

[Briar Lee]

Do you just ignore the data you don't like or agree with?

If a gang banger, in a public place, shoots and hits four people, that counts as a mass shooting. If he kills four, that’s a mass murder.

My fellow gun lovers like to split hairs between clips and magazines and assault rifles and semi auto military style rifles and bury our heads in the sand. We hear about crisis actors and the deep state and gun free zones, etc, etc, etc.

Walk into any gun shop.

Mr Shitball can buy a $600 AR and a $200 G2 and enough ammo to kill a bunch of people in less time and for less money than this iPhone.

——
This is a list of mass shootings that took place in the United States in 2025. Mass shootings are incidents in which several people are injured or killed due to firearm-related violence; specifically for the purposes of this article, this consists of a total of four or more victims. A total of 258 people have been killed and 1,161 people have been wounded in 267 shootings, as of July 31, 2025.

List of mass shootings in the United States in 2025 - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

——


AI Overview

+4


Studies show that the majority of mass shooters acquire their firearms legally, with percentages ranging from the mid-70s to over 80%, depending on the study's timeframe and methodology
. For instance, one National Institute of Justice (NIJ) analysis found 77% of mass shooters purchased at least some of their guns legally, a finding supported by other analyses. These figures suggest that while firearms are often obtained through legal channels, some perpetrators may also acquire weapons illegally or through other means, such as theft or gifts from family members.

——

A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

—-

The militia’s regulations ain’t so well regulated, you know?.

——

Crime with Legally Owned Machine Guns

In 1995 there were over 240,000 machine guns registered with the ATF. (Zawitz, Marianne,Bureau of Justice Statistics, Guns Used in Crime [PDF].) About half are owned by civilians and the other half by police departments and other governmental agencies (Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York, 1997.)

Since 1934, there appear to have been at least two homicides committed with legally owned automatic weapons. One was a murder committed by a law enforcement officer (as opposed to a civilian). On September 15th, 1988, a 13-year veteran of the Dayton, Ohio police department, Patrolman Roger Waller, then 32, used his fully automatic MAC-11 .380 caliber submachine gun to kill a police informant, 52-year-old Lawrence Hileman. Patrolman Waller pleaded guilty in 1990, and he and an accomplice were sentenced to 18 years in prison. The 1986 'ban' on sales of new machine guns does not apply to purchases by law enforcement or government agencies.

——

Eventually the mothers will get a belly full of their precious little children being afraid of getting slaughtered with our guns and they will stop most of this shit.

They’ll keep their guns. They’ll just force us to be responsible with ours.

Ever notice how few women go postal?

About 60% of gun deaths each year are suicides, usually old white guys.

About 36% of gun deaths are old fashioned murders, with a high percentage of urban minorities.

3% are police shootings and a smattering of justified self defense killings.

The 1% of mass shooters is where usually a white boy runs wild with a gun and it sometimes make the news, big time, other times they don’t.

Why all these mass shootings happen I don’t know.

My guess is the mass murderer is part of the one third of Americans who do not believe in an afterlife of a hell that burns but does not consume.



If this life is all there is, and after it only darkeness and nothing, why not make the papers on your way out?

 

[Auxsender]

Nope. Not even close to that many.

Those numbers are outright lies.

The gun snatchers call every incident with a gun a mass murder.

What is the actual number?

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

What is the actual number?

I don't know.

But you can count "mass shootings" per year with a couple of fingers.

The national media will never forget to tell you they happened, that stuff excites a certain type of people.

Even if it was 250 per year, and it's not... The only answer would be, stay strapped or get clapped. Limiting guns wouldn't be the answer.

 

[Briar Lee]

What is the actual number?

About 1% of all the almost 50,000 gun deaths.

A mass shooting has to be in a public place, such as church, school, bar, street, or workplace.

The FBI requires four dead bodies. By that definition there’s close to 50 this year.

The do gooders require four wounded not counting the perp. Counted that way there’s just over 250.

They are almost always without a rational motive. The closure rate is close to 100%
The shooter knows they will die that day, or be executed, or die in prison. It’s a one way ride.

Mass shootings are terrorist acts to gain publicity.

Human beings have never changed and never will change.

What has changed in my lifetime is the widespread availability of semi auto rifles and pistols that are cheap and have quick change magazines. Mass shootings were virtually unknown years ago.

Whatever guns a good guy can own a bad guy will also own.

I