A shame and a disgrace...
Recently, I was reminded that Lon Horiuchi is not only alive and free, but considered to be a worthwhile enough person to endorse products. This...does not please me.
For those not familiar, Lon Horiuchi is best-known for shooting Vicki Weaver, an unarmed woman with no criminal charges of any sort against her, in the face while she was holding her nursing baby. You may ask---how is it that he's walking around a free man, and even endorsing products? The answer is simple. At the time he did this, he was with the FBI's "Hostage Rescue Team," and this was at the Ruby Ridge standoff with Randy Weaver.
The whole Ruby Ridge thing was a case of federal mismanagement. Randy Weaver was never a threat to anyone. Hell, I've met the man, and he's smaller and skinnier than almost all of my friends. My girlfriend could probably beat him up, if it were ever necessary for her to do so. To be sure, he had some rather crankish religious beliefs. BFD! My mom grew up down the road from the Amana Colonies, and my dad was very glad that he wasn't the one having to deal with the Amish back when they were refusing to go to school. And aren't weird religious beliefs protected by the Constitution, anyway?
The State of Idaho brought charges against Horiuchi, but the Federal government forced them to drop those charges. So we have Horiuchi endorsing H-S precision gun stocks. This is rather like having Jim Jones doing a commercial for Flavor-Aide, or John Wayne Gacy endorsing the Big Brothers program.
The thing is...if Horiuchi had gone through the trial, and maybe been sent to prison for a few years (they were charging him with involuntary manslaughter, which is NOT what you usually get when you're a highly-skilled marksman deliberately shooting into a building you know is inhabited under circumstances that make it highly likely that someone innocent is going to catch a bullet) most people wouldn't be as angry with him as they are. As it stands, I believe he's in the Federal Witness Protection deal, and he'll have to watch out for the rest of his life, because many of us have l-o-n-g memories.