There is a renewed legal debate going on in Alabama about allowing employees to have a gun at their workplace, despite any restrictions on such items by their employers. While the debate there rages between the right to bear arms and the rights of property owners, a simple assault case in Maine shows us that legislators may not be including the most dangerous kinds of weapons in their legislative attempts.
A 62 year old man from Warren, Maine has been sentenced to 180 days in jail, with all but five days suspended, and was placed on probation for a year for domestic violence assault and indecent conduct after assaulting his estranged wife. It seems that their marriage of 39 years was on the rocks, but one night while she was staying at his home he asked her if they could have sex for $20. She refused his offer, which apparently upset him, so according to prosecutors, he “took out his penis and struck her with it”.
Unfortunately I am saddled with a relatively simple mind, yet possess an extremely overactive imagination. This has left me struggling just a bit with this entire concept. I am having trouble assembling in my mind how this whole thing, for lack of a better phrase, went down.
So he “took out his penis and struck her with it”. Did he keep this thing in his pocket, or have it holstered somewhere? It almost sounds as though he twirled it around his head several times to gain some momentum before he threw it across the room at her, but we know that theory is not really practical. In fact, for many of us, this would have been an attack conducted at very close range, if you catch my drift. Also, we have no idea if this assault was a type of whipping, or more of the clubbing variety, again, if you know what I mean. In the end it doesn’t really matter, or perhaps I should say in the final result it doesn't really matter, but it makes a huge difference in potential execution of the apparent assault.
Also unanswered is whether this weapon was concealed or what we would call “open carry”.
According to the man’s defense attorney, compounding the husband's frustration was the knowledge that his estranged wife was planning to go to Pakistan to meet a man she met online. While I understand the frustration over an action like that, I am not sure that slapping her with your schlong is the correct method to persuade her to stay. I would’ve tried chocolates first.
I think this case clearly shows that Alabama legislators must expand their myopic view on the weapons debate. They likely already have thousands of people packing similar weapons to work every single day in their state. This is a potential problem, because unlike guns, these can’t quite so easily be left in the car or at home under the bed.