….Monalisa Perez and her dead boyfriend, Pedro Ruiz III! Yes, we should blame the victim. And his girl friend.
Clarence Darrow said, “History repeats itself. and that’s one of the things that’s wrong with history.” If Monalisa and Pedro had been students of stupid moments in literary history, they would have encountered the ridiculous tale of novelist William Burroughs (“Naked Lunch”), who on September 6, 1951, was at a drunken party at a bar in Mexico City. For no apparent reason, Burroughs suddenly shouted to his equally drunk wife that it was time to show everyone their “William Tell trick.”
They had never performed their trick before.
Joan Vollmer (well, they held themselves out as married, though they were not) balanced a highball glass on her head and Burroughs, playing Tell, tried to shoot the glass off with his revolver. William Tell wasn’t drunk, however, and Burroughs was. He aimed too low and shot Vollmer right between the eyes.
Believe it or not, Perez and Ruiz were even less sympathetic than Burroughs and his wife. They weren’t drunk, just cretinous and greedy. They were making a YouTube video. A few hours before Monalisa shot Pedro, a posting on her Twitter account read: “Me and Pedro are probably going to shoot one of the most dangerous videos ever. HIS idea not MINE.” The stunt he had talked her into involved Ruiz holding up a hardcover encyclopedia volume in front of his chest as she shot a .50-caliber Desert Eagle pistol at the book from about a foot away “to see if it would go through.”
Well, waddya know! It did!
This was part of Pedro’s plan to become rich and famous via viral YouTube videos. Now he’s dead, Monalisa is charged with murder, and their yet-to-born child will be off to terrible start in life, in addition to carrying some dubious genes.
Yes, it’s a tragedy…a tragedy born of astounding recklessness, inadequate life competence, irresponsibility, and a poor understanding of risk-reward ratios.
Blame the victims.
There is no way around it.
Ethics Alarms 
And the social media dumbing down of society continues apace…
Yes, but at least natural selection is still at work…
Sadly they already had a 3 year old son (who according to at least one report I read was in the room) and she is pregnant.
Agreed!
Wow.
I find it hard to have any sympathy. What’s her excuse, their ad revenues were too low to afford a second encyclopaedia and spare bullet to test the damn stunt first, or are they really just that stupid? Sheesh.
It seems like involuntary manslaughter is more appropriate. Where is the mens rea?
The known or should have known factor. They may lower the charges as you suggest: I would. But let’s say he wanted her to do the same stunt with a thinner book..a thick paperback…a magazine..a newspaper…a single sheet of paper. When is it reasonable to say “if he shoots, it’s murder”?
What a pity the dear girl was already preggers. Assuming the download successfully comes to full term; Pedro is ineligible for a Darwin Award – regardless of how richly he deserves (er, deserveD) one.
Darwin Awards are only granted to those who do stupid things to remove themselves from the gene pool prior to passing along their DNA.
Ah, darn. Well, he’s maybe still eligible since he can’t further pollute the gene pool.
Here’s the criteria. Looks like he’s eligible:
Reproduction
Out of the gene pool: dead or sterile.
Excellence
Astounding misapplication of judgment.
Self-Selection
Cause one’s own demise.
Maturity
Capable of sound judgment.
Veracity
The event must be true.
A .50 caliber … pistol? There is such a thing? When I think of .50 caliber I think of depleted uranium and the A-10.
OH yes. When I was a young Lieutenant with more money than I needed a .50 cal desert eagle screamed at me for $1900 at the On post mall.
I didn’t buy it but man was I tempted.
Instead for the same money I got a good road bike and good mountain bike.
Hah. Great story. Evidently you can get them on line for a few hundred bucks now.
From wiki re the ammo:
“Like other handgun cartridges of such magnitude, the principal uses of the .50 AE are metallic silhouette shooting and medium/big game hunting. Like the .44 Magnum, .454 Casull, .460 S&W Magnum, and .500 S&W Magnum, it is also well suited for defense against large predators, such as bears.”
Guess someone will have to had “Or killing a book and a guy on youtube.” Isn’t wiki open edit?
They’re really good at teaching you to flinch when you’re pulling the trigger so it’s hard to hit anything.
Yes several. S&W makes a nice one, mostly for Bear deterrent purposes, but the one in this instance was a Desert Eagle .50.
Also, she is charged with 2nd Degree Manslaughter, not murder.
Oh, hell yes. This was probably the .50 Action Express round, and here’s the firearm that’s chambered for it.
OB, that’s a 30 MILLIMETER. Fifty caliber is one half inch across, just .05 inch bigger than a .45 slug…amount of propellant in, say a Momma Deuce (.50 caliber machine gun) is a whole ‘nother topic.
Related image
Correct. I guess I was thinking of a .50 machine gun round. 30mm is massive. But still, wasn’t the .50 caliber a big, dominating gun for ground troops and usually operated by a specialist in a squad? A lot of fire power for a pistol.
Other Bill,
.50 cal machine guns are still used but it’s a massively different .50 cal round.
Uh, yeah. A Momma Deuce round, while the bullet is .5 inches, the cartridge is like an inch across, and (wag) 6 inches long? Never actually measured, but it will definitely NOT fit in a Desert Eagle.
Same sized holes in a body though…
texagg04 wrote, “Same sized holes in a body though…”
Only the .50 cal entrance wound tex, beyond that there are absolutely zero similarities. The result of the mass and velocity differences between the .50 AE and the .50 BMG are… let’s keep it simple and just say it’s rather catastrophic.
I figured you would have already known that.
Equally dead seems sufficient for Other Bill’s observations.
Pistol Round
Rifle Round
BIG DIFFERENCE!!!
Here’s a direct comparison “photo”…
Yes, the M-2 is a crew served or vehicle mounted weapon.
A .50 cal hole from an M-2 and a .50 cal hole from a Desert Eagle, though packing unequal muzzle velocities are both going to leave the receiver of the round equally dead.
It is a lot of firepower for a pistol, according to doctrine the .50 cal is for light skinned vehicles and non-reinforced structures. Though a dedicated gunner can include reinforced structures as a legitimate target.
An individual can justify carrying that large of a pistol if he needs to kill large game or predators or because he’s an American and the government has no right to tell him or her no.
Isn’t .50 caliber the size of that anti-material rifle from Fallout: New Vegas Khaleesi used on the T-800 in the beginning of Terminator Genisys?
Valk,I’ve long thought you were just shy of being an idiot when it came to understanding economics and politics. But I’ve also long thought that you were a clever writer who could make me laugh out loud and, for whatever it’s worth, the proof of the pudding is the above post.
PS: you owe me a new keyboard.
I’ve been long hoping that they’d find a way to have Linda Hamilton as a guest on Game of Thrones just to get all three Sarah Conners in the same episode.
Yes, Other Bill, I confess: I have held a Desert Eagle. Yes, it is a .50 caliber pistol. Using one is not for the faint of heart – or hand – or encyclopedia. Think of it as a scaled-down GAU-8 (that’s the 30mm cannon that fires DU rounds – a bit bigger than .50 cal). The Desert Eagle is a hand-held cannon, indeed!
Not to be a techno-nerd, but the A-10 has a 30mm cannon (an incredibly awesome thing to see at work!), and there are 3 different kinds of .50 pistol; the .50 Desert Eagle, the .500 S+W, and the .50 Browning machine gun round fired from the Maadi Griffin pistol.
That’s in ascending order of power. Here’s the .50 BMG round:
…and the .50 Desert Eagle (Action Express) compared to other common pistol rounds:
Alright guys enough!
I don’t think Jack permits this kind of pornography!
This seems like a shoo-in for the 2017 Darwin Awards.
Pedro Ruiz and his girlfriend are both blithering idiots. I’m sad for any child that has genes from those two morons.
Had a .50 Desert Eagle a long time ago with a 10″ barrel that I used for hunting deer, it’s a reasonably accurate behemoth two handed “fun gun” pistol; too much bang, too much buck ($). I didn’t keep it very long I went back to my trusty .44 Magnum Dirty Harry pistol with the 8 3/8″ barrel which is a fabulous all around and extremely accurate firearm.
Mr. Marshall:
The stupidity of these two is inexcusable, but their theory was nonetheless sound. A book of sufficient thickness will stop most handguns and even some rifles (the same principle as Kevlar). Why neither of them thought to test the theory first or why they even thought the principle needed demonstrating (Mythbusters did a whole episode on it) is beyond me.
Zoltar:
“I’m sad for any child that has genes from those two morons.”
That’s not how inherited traits work. I suppose it’s comforting to know that belief in Social Darwinism is still a thing.
1) Call me Jack.
2) Yes, this is why our soldiers in battle wear books. It still isn’t much help if the gun is powerful and nearly at point blank range, though.
Son of Maimonides wrote, “Why neither of them thought to test the theory first…”
Actually the article that Jack linked to said, “He had shown her another book that he had shot and the bullet didn’t go all the way through,” Too bad the idiot didn’t understand that one test for something like this is not sufficient scientific proof of consistent results.
I built a .460 Rowland on a 1911 frame in my machine shop a while ago. It did everything I’d ever want a handgun to do,
I would love to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation:
Him: “Hey,honey. I have a great idea.”
Her: “Tell me, dear love. What is your idea?”
Him: “I will hold a big book in front of me and you shoot that big gun at it to see of the big book stops the bullet.”
Her: “Hmmm . . . Sounds kinda dangerous but our YouTube account has been slow lately, so it might be good for ratings and potential advertising.”
Him: “Man! Our YouTube clicks are gonna go through the roof. We will be rolling in dough!”
Her: “Yeah. Maybe we can get enough cash to buy that new stroller. We are gonna need a two-seater, what with babe on the way and that beautiful toddler over there. He looks more like you every day.”
Him: “I just want to make you and our children proud. It’s all I want in this life.”
Her: “I know the toddler loves you and I am sure that this little bundle of joy growing in my belly will, too.”
Him: (Welling up in tears) “Shoot. I am a lucky man. Let’s try it out first before we tape it. You know, safety first.”
Her: “That’s why I love you. You are so smart. Let’s do it.”
Him: (After setting up the book in front of him.) “Now, Peaches, I’ma put this book in front of my chest, and you stand right about there. Aim it real good, and make sure you focus on the center of the book.”
Her: “Right. I’m ready. You?”
Him: “Yep. Shoot!”
(BANG! Him crumples over dead as a doorknob.)
Her: “Well, damn. That didn’t go as planned. And I didn’t even get it recorded for YouTube.”
jvb
Okay. Readers will climb all over me for making this comment.
We talk all the time about the ‘dumbing down’ of society, but frankly, it’s not the educational system or the society. It is, in my opinion, the GENETIC dumbing down of humans in general. The intelligent people are restricting their reproduction to one or two children, or none. Morons are reproducing like flies.
The most intelligent and healthy of the species are limiting the number of children they have, while the less intelligent, less healthy (and yes stupid) of the species are having 200% more children than the latter group..
Sorry to say this. There is no way to legislate a solution that would be fair and ethical.. But as long as our future leaders, thinkers, writers and artists decide NOT to reproduce, that sector of the gene pool of humans will get smaller and smaller, and we’ll have more and more total morons who think a shooting on YouTube is somehow acceptable behavior.
Amen. Sparty’s raising only two children. Makes sense but not good for the gene pool in the long run. But at least she’s having two and she and Mr. Sparty are replacing themselves. Lot’s of Sparty’s young peers are not having any kids at all.
Ah, but E2, the species is resilient. Genius arises from the rabble. It’s still a long, hard road to the top – always will be – but enough of the offspring of morons are verifiably decent enough to keep hope alive. I have to believe that enough intelligent people are out-reproducing enough morons to make a net positive difference, eventually.
Idiocracy did a thing on this.
Also a wonderful science fiction short story called “March of the Morons,” which I’m pretty sure “idiocracy” ripped off.
I’m going to have to watch that!
“March of the Morons” was actually a bit frightening to me, on the original read.
Very. And appropriately so.