Sounds like Cathy Middleton and her husband Bill had a real nice time for her birthday the other night. They and Cathy's parents and her brother and sister all went and saw that circus—what's that circus? It's like a French circus. Circus du Soleil. Canadian, I guess, you know the one I mean.

E! reports that the group showed up at a private room (with bar, la-dee-da) at London's Royal Albert Hall last night about 45 minutes before the 8 p.m. showing of Kooza, that circus thing. Cathy probably didn't have anything to drink (she's got a little one on the way, and gin and tonics give her burps), but, you know what? She sure was acting blitzed.

Here is a list of actions E! says she performed throughout the performance of, what is it? Kazooza?:

• "laughing"
• "clapping"
• "gasping"
• "pulling her hair across her face"
• "curling into William"
• "intensely concentrating" (on a circus)

• Even weirder, Cathy and her mom, Carole, reportedly just about died with laughter when a clown whose crown had been stolen pointed at the audience and asked "Who has my crown?" They thought this was just about the funniest thing. E! says they even "cast glances" at Bill "who clearly saw the humor and giggled right alongside them."

  Are there layers to this joke that I'm just not seeing? Is it possible that the members of the clown race are the One True Rulers of England, that Bill's ancestors stole their magic crown centuries ago, and that until clowns can locate their stolen crown, they are cursed to perform as fools and buffoons?

  I didn't even know the clowns were allowed to talk in the Circus of Soleil.

  I thought it was very French.

  [E! // Image via Getty]

It will already be less risky to possess marijuana in New York City in 2013 after a Manhattan judge ruled against the NYPD's "stop and frisk" program. Well, okay, that applies to minorities, who were the only ones arrested and jailed for possessing small amounts of marijuana discovered during "stop and frisk" in the first place. But if New York governor Andrew Cuomo has his way, it won't be an issue for anyone in the state any longer.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Wednesday that his top priorities in 2013 will include the decriminalization of marijuana possession, one of the most frequent crimes committed in the state that sweeps up thousands of young people, especially minorities, every year.

"It's not fair, it's not right," Cuomo said. "It must end, and it must end now."

Of course, Cuomo has expressed his support for decriminalization before. A bill to decriminalize weed was nuked by Republicans in the New York Senate — all of whom, it should be noted, were white — last year, but Cuomo may have some momentum behind the proposal coming off of the "stop and frisk" ruling.

Whether that means the NYPD will just find new reasons to throw blacks and Latinos in prison remains to be seen, but a combination of the curbing of "stop and frisk" and the decriminalization of marijuana would theoretically keep many, many people out of handcuffs.

It also might mean that Sandra Lee, Cuomo's wife and famed food personality, may have to update some recipes.

[via Raw Story, image Getty]

Let's rewind back to Dec. 21, 2012 — about four weeks ago, and exactly a week after Adam Lanza killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. On that day, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said that "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." He also proposed that armed guards be stationed at every school in the country to prevent mass shootings.

Well, today we had our first school shooting since Newtown, and it just so happened to prove the NRA very wrong. Today at Taft Union High School in Taft, Calif., a student entered into a classroom armed with a shotgun and shot a classmate and a teacher. Taft Union employed an armed guard, but that person was not on campus today after being "snowed in," according to Kern County sheriff Donny Youngblood. Of course, the NRA would say that this precisely proves their point, but instead it shows the fallacy of the entire argument. Today, the armed guard was "snowed in." Tomorrow, the armed guard will be out to lunch or taking his or her mother to the doctor or in bed with the flu. A fleet of armed guards deployed to cover every school in America just isn't feasible.

But even more important is why the still unnamed shooter — who police say was holding 20 rounds in his pocket — didn't wound or kill anyone else. According to police, the shooter was talked down by another teacher and a supervisor at the school.

"They talked him into putting that shotgun down. He in fact told the teacher, 'I don't want to shoot you,' and named the person that he wanted to shoot," Youngblood said.

"The heroics of these two people goes without saying. ... They could have just as easily ... tried to get out of the classroom and left students and they didn't," the sheriff said. "They knew not to let him leave the classroom with that shotgun."

This itself isn't the only solution, either. Victoria Soto, who was killed at Sandy Hook along with some of her students, likely pleaded with Lanza to put his gun down, too. But it's a very high profile reminder that more guns isn't the "only thing" that stops guns. And there are several teenagers still alive today to show for it.

[via Huffington Post, image of today's shooting at Taft Union via AP]

Justin Bieber is a tiny adult. But he's also one of the most famous people in the world and is thus impervious to consequences. One thing you can do as a tiny adult impervious to consequences that you can't do as a tiny adult subject to consequences (like, say, myself) is punch most people, including an ex-Israeli soldier who is your bodyguard. Such are the privileges of being young and famous.

Bieber's ex-bodyguard Moshe Benabou — the Bieberguard — is suing the large-hatted teen idol for $420,000, claiming he was assaulted as well as being owed unpaid overtime.

According to Benabou — who claims he worked for the singer from March 2011 to Oct. 2012 — JB berated him and punched him in the chest multiple times during a disagreement about how to handle a member of Bieber's entourage.

Benabou is seeking unspecified damages for assault and battery — and more than $420,000 in unpaid overtime.

Bieber's people say that Benabou is a money-hungry miffed ex-employee, but that's really beside the point. Even if Bieber didn't punch his ex-Israeli military bodyguard multiple times in the chest, the fact is that it's entirely plausible that he did. Because there's no bodyguard in the world that can punch Bieber back.

We all should all be so lucky. Or not.

[via TMZ, image via Getty]

Everything that happens on Earth is the work of God. Hurricanes? God. Earthquakes? God. Michele Bachmann not coming anywhere remotely close to winning the GOP nomination for president? God. Bachmann not paying her campaign staffers because they refuse to sign nondisclosure agreements? I hate it to say it, but that's God's will, y'all. Win some, lose some (to God).

Over a year after she dropped out, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann has refused to pay five staffers from her failed presidential bid, according to a former top campaign official. Peter Waldron, her controversial former national field coordinator, told Salon the dispute started when former Iowa straw poll staffers refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement that would bar them from discussing any "unethical, immoral, or criminal activity" they witnessed on the campaign with police or reporters.

Waldron said the staffers are owed a mere $5,000, and that Bachmann has more than $2 million in her campaign account, but has refused to pay unless the staffers sign the agreement.

Waldron, for his part, is stunned that a good, devout Christian would stoop so low as to be shady with money. Who has ever heard of such a thing?

"It is sobering to think that a Christian member of Congress would betray her testimony to the Lord and the public by withholding earned wages from deserving staff," Waldron added.

The spat over signing the nondisclosure stems from a scandal over an email list that Bachmann's campaign allegedly stole from a homeschooling group and then used to fundraise. The homeschooling group is suing the campaign and Waldron confirmed to Slate in an interview that a police investigation is ongoing.

"They wanted us to have no further conversation [with police] without first notifying Michelle's attorneys, and we just refused," he told Salon. "We've been lied to at every turn."

Being lied to at every turn must really hurt. But God works in mysterious ways to better us all as a people.

[via Slate, image via Getty]

Two gunmen who took 14 hostages at a Los Angeles mall last night have apparently escaped after an overnight standoff that involved the LAPD SWAT team locking down the mall and holding around 200 moviegoers in theaters until nearly 3 a.m. All 14 employees who were trapped in the Nordstrom Rack where the hostage situation unfolded have been found safe; KTLA reports that the LAPD is saying the suspects are still at large.

Details are still forthcoming, but the standoff seems to have begun inside the Nordstrom Rack at the Promenade at Howard Hughes Centerr, in Westchester, on Thursday night after two armed robbers entered the store. Freelance journalist Pamela Chelin, among the best sources of news during the events last night, writes that LAPD is now describing all 14 rescued Nordstrom employees as hostages, and that the police were called around 10 p.m., and the hostages were led into the bathroom around half an hour later:

LAScanner, a Twitter account following the LAPD police scanner, documented the deployment and arrival of LAPD and SWAT:

Since the mall was closed, the only civilians left in the complex were all seeing movies at the Rave theater one floor above the Nordstrom, and arriving officers quickly locked it down. Buzzfeed Entertainment's Richard Rushfield interviewed one of the trapped audience members:

Rumors are floating of bad injuries, but nothing has been confirmed. Update: Cherlin has spoken with LAPD Lieutenant Andy Neiman and confirmed that one victim was stabbed, sustaining a non-threatening wound, and one was sexually assaulted. According to the Los Angeles Times, the hostage was stabbed in the neck, and another was pistol-whipped. We'll update as we know more.

[KTLA, Buzzfeed, image via Andrewdayrit]

After two decades of reporters and talking heads trying to blame the violence in his films for spurring real-world violence, Quentin Tarantino decided yesterday that he'd had enough.

When the question inevitably came up again during a sit-down with Krishnan Guru-Murthy of Britain's Channel 4 News, the filmmaker simply refused to answer.

"Why are you so sure that there's no link between enjoying movie violence and enjoying real violence?" Guru-Murthy asked Tarantino, who was in London for the British premiere of Django Unchained.

"Don't ask me a question like that – I'm not biting," the director responded. "I refuse your question."

"Why?" prodded Guru-Murthy. "Because I refuse your question," Tarantino repeated. "I'm not your slave and you're not my master. You can't make me dance to your tune. I'm not a monkey."

But Guru-Murthy pressed on, asking Tarantino over and over why he wouldn't respond. After some increasingly heated back and forth, Tarantino got serious.

"It's none of your damn business what I think about that!" he exclaimed. Guru-Murthy persisted: "Well, it's my job to ask you why you think that because…" Retorted Tarantino: "And I'm saying no! And I'm shutting you down."

To his credit the auteur did not leave the interview, despite being obviously fed up.

Following the explosive exchange, Guru-Murthy released this statement to the Daily Telegraph:

I was surprised about his reaction to the questions, which were very gentle. I love a lot of his work – I wasn't looking for a fight. I would have thought if you invite somebody to interview you it is better to try to answer the questions rather than not. No interviewee has ever said 'I'm not your slave...I'm not a monkey' to me before.

[video via Channel 4 News]

Not to give away the ending, but let's just say this video totally makes up for that one from a few weeks back that had a similar, albeit much less real conclusion.

[Reddit]

The 16-year-old suspect in yesterday's shooting at Taft Union High School near Bakersfield allegedly used a list of bullies to target specific students during yesterday's attack.

Local authorities are said to be investigating "widespread reports" that the unnamed teen relied on a "hit list" he compiled last year.

"He had intended targets. There's no question," said Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood. "Certainly the two people that he targeted had bullied him, in his mind."

At least one of the community members contributing to these reports is Angela Hayden, the mother of a 16-year-old Taft Union student, who told the Los Angeles Times that the suspect "was telling everyone that he had a list of people who messed with him over the years and that he was going to kill them."

CNN has quotes from students who say no one took the suspect seriously because he would often say "really weird, random crap."

The school was apparently concerned enough to expel the boy for a few days over his threats, but would not comment on why the punishment wasn't more severe.

Law enforcement officials say the student ultimately made good on his tough talk, arming himself with his brother's shotgun and heading into the school with pockets full of ammunition.

He managed to shoot one target in the chest, but missed the second one.

A much larger tragedy was averted thanks to an alert resident who phoned the Taft Police Department to report a boy entering the high school with a weapon. Police were at the scene within 60 seconds, according to Police Chief Ed Whiting.

Science teacher Ryan Heber and campus supervisor Kim Fields have also been praised for successfully talking the teen out of shooting anyone else.

The shooting victim, meanwhile, remained in hospital, and was listed in critical but stable condition.

[photo via AP]

For many millions of Americans who lost their jobs when the Great Recession struck, unemployment has not just been a typical, momentary bump in the road; it has been persistent, and grinding, and, for many, seemingly impossible to escape, despite their best efforts. Losing a job is bad enough, but the sort of long term unemployment afflicting America for the past several years has been a nightmare. Now, there seems to be the merest flicker of improvement.

This is a fairly arbitrary landmark, but a (tiny) landmark nonetheless:

The long-term unemployed-those out of work more than six months-made up 39.1% of all job seekers in December, according to the Labor Department, the first time that figure has dropped below 40% in more than three years.

The other relevant facts that may cause you to lose any tiny spark of joy that this news produced: there are still nearly five million Americans who have been unemployed more than six months. And the labor force participation rate has been plunging ever since the recession, indicating the fact that more and more people simply give up and stop looking for a job altogether, at which point they are no longer counted as "unemployed." (The WSJ says that the current drop in long term unemployment is largely a result of people actually getting jobs, not dropping out of the labor force.)

If only every unemployed person would stop looking for work, we could get that unemployment rate down to zero. In the meantime, send us your unemployment stories.

[WSJ. Photo: raincoaster/ Flickr]

A married lesbian couple say they had just finished enjoying a meal at The Stingray Café in New Bern, North Carolina, when they were approached by the owner and handed a letter riddled with spelling errors telling them their homosexuality was hurting everyone around them.

The full letter is transcribed below (sic throughout):

God said in the last days that man and women would be lover of self, more then the lover of God.

That man and woman would have unnatural effection for one another. Then, the coming of the Son of Man, who is Jesus. So please, look at your life. See how it hurt every one around you. And ask the Lord to open your eye before it to late.

The Love of Christ

P.S. my daughter also was gay. It destroy her life and my grandson.

Reached for comment by NewsChannel 12, Ed McGovern confirmed the incident as described by Ariel and Shawnee McPhail.

He told the station that the letter was an act of "love," and that this wasn't his first time handing such a letter to a lesbian couple.

He also claimed that he was spurred by the sight of Ariel and Shawnee kissing outside his cafe.

The McPhails deny any PDA — "we don't kiss in public. We were holding hands" — but say it doesn't matter either way.

"If I did kiss my wife in public, what married couple would you go to and say, 'how dare you. You cannot hold hands and you cannot kiss in public therefore you deserve my judgement," Shawnee said. Added Ariel: "If we're experiencing it, then other people are too and that's not fair."

[images via WCTI12]

TMZ has just unearthed another artifact that will work nicely in your upcoming exhibition "Lindsay Lohan: A Life Hard Lived." It's audio of Lindsay Lohan sniping at her co-star and director on the set of The Canyons.

TMZ calls the hissyfit a "tantrum"; "brat-attack" is probably more apt.

"Please James," Lohan says to Canyons lead, porn star-cum-actor James Deen, "say your line as you're walking over, cause we're doing rehearsal with lines. Do your fucking job."
"I was actually saying my line until you started talking over—-" Deen begins.
"I didn't say anything, as you just walked over. Do your fucking job."

Elsewhere in the tape, Lohan expresses further frustration that she is the only one on this goddamn planet who knows how to do a job.

"Come on," she chastises Deen. "I know it's for fun for you, but let's do it."

In case you missed it, yesterday the world was treated to an 8,000 word Times thinkpiece about Lindsay Lohan being late. ("I don't want this to be all about Lindsay being late," her publicist says early on).

While you read the article that Gawker's Rich Juzwiak called "the most humanizing portrait of [Lohan] that we have seen…possibly ever," use the audio as a soundtrack. You can hear Lindsay Lohan fighting on set as you read about Lindsay Lohan fighting on set.

A multi-sensory experience.

[TMZ // Image via Getty]

An infamous "Second Amendment educator" from the southern Oregon city of Medford alarmed many in Portland when he and a friend were spotted wandering neighborhood streets armed with assault rifles.

The Oregonian's Noelle Crombie reports that Warren R. Drouin's habit of openly carrying AR-15s in public places has resulted in so many calls to local police that he is known by top officials in Medford as simply "Warren."

On Wednesday, Drouin, 22, and his friend Steven M. Boyce of Gresham decided to "educate the public" on their Second Amendment rights by walking around Southeast Portland with their AR-15s slung over their shoulders.

Their provocation — which they recorded (see left) — soon elicited nearly a dozen 911 calls to police from citizens who remember the December 11th shooting at nearby Clackamas Town Center all too well.

Portland has a ban on carrying loaded firearms in public places, but citizens with concealed handgun licenses — like Boyce and Drouin — are exempt.

Still, Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said their "demonstration" could potentially distract the attention of officers from "more urgent emergency calls."

The Oregonian also took issue with the stunt.

In a piece entitled "poster-bullies for gun transparency," the paper's editorial board wrote that the two mean could present a danger to themselves of others by doing "the Second Amendment equivalent of yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater."

In addition to terrifying people, their behavior could have been — in fact, was — mistaken as a threat, and it could have prompted a deadly response by well-intentioned bystanders. The sheriff's offices that issued these licenses should exercise their discretion and pull them.

[screengrab via KPTV]

You've spent years carefully cultivating your home's boho-chic look. Tearing through boutiques, looking for just the right accent pieces that look like they'd been found at a Portland, Ore. estate sale.

Now, finally, you've found it. That last piece to complete the home you'd always dreamed of: a racist candlestick.

The "Trinket & Treasure Candlestick" from Anthropologie — a boutique for rich women who like to look French — is neither. It is a totem pole of racial stereotypes. Working from the bottom up, in just 21 inches, Anthropologie has managed to offend Asians, staunch JFK opposers, African-Americans, Palins and clowns (I think? I don't really have any idea what the hell that thing is).

I'm legitimately curious: did Anthropologie think sticking a porcelain mammy figurine in the middle of a candlestick was cool? Sure, the mammy archetype represents decades of marginalization of African-American women, but look how cute it is!

Your perfect candlestick is an "online exclusive" and will only set you back $398. Chump change if you're really dedicated to polishing your home's "fashionable horder" look.

[Image via Anthropologie]

Every so often, the Internet will become so distended with cute animal videos, that a drastic measure will be executed by the Viral Gods to relieve the pressure.

Case in point: YouTuber baskwith was in the middle of editing his latest skate video when encountered a huge spider that demanded his immediate and full attention. "so i sprayed it and killed it, then this fricken alien worm came out of it!!!" baskwith exclaims in the video's description.

In a desperate bid for balance, the Internet bum-rushed the footage, giving it over 200,000 views overnight.

You're not going to want to watch this thing, but you will anyway, so here's the 4-1-1 from an insightful commenter:

It's a round worm, it could be found human stomachs and animals its very common usually the egg of the worm is carried by flies and when the fly land on food it will lay that egg and you will be infected, I didn't know spiders had them but still makes sense cause spiders trap flight flies on there web.

So if a fly land on your food don't eat it or you'll get a round worm in your stomach and it could grow to a little over a foot long.

[H/T: Mashable via Brobible]

Well, that was certainly something wasn't it?

Good news is, balance has been fully restored, so we likely won't be seeing another one of those appetite-devastating videos go viral anytime soon.

The great news is, because of the harrowing ordeal we've had to collectively endure, the Viral Gods have graced us with the cutest video in recent memory.

Daisy the eight-week-old foster pup is having some trouble getting the hang of stairs, so Simon the six-week-old rescue pup volunteers to help her out.

Now let us never speak of spiders and alien worms again.

[H/T: Reddit]

The Golden Millennium of Beyoncé continues today, as Us Weekly has just confirmed that Destiny's Child will publicly reunite on stage during the Super Bowl.

But make no mistake, Kelly and Michelle. Don't go telling all your friends you're going to be on TV. This is still a Beyoncé show.

Us reports that Beyoncé will open the halftime show solo, since she's the one the football teams are coming to see; then, "midway through her performance" she will be joined by the surviving members of Destiny's Child.

The trio will perform a medley of their hits before launching into a brand new song called "Nuclear," which probably opens with Kelly, builds to a show-stopping Beyoncé verse, and Michelle is on stage, too.

Beyoncé will perform the finale, rumored to be the debut of a new track from her upcoming album, solo.

Yesterday, Beyoncé revealed that Destiny's Child would soon release their first original tracks as a trio since 2004 and also that she is crazy.

[Us Weekly // Image via AP]

Hmm, well, okay.

One nice thing you can say about the Duchess of Cambridge's first official portrait, unveiled today at Britain's National Portrait Gallery, is that it certainly does feature a range of different colors arranged onto canvas in the semblance of a human face. You might note that, like the real Duchess of Cambridge, her likeness features two eyes, a nose, and even a mouth. The portrait is also big, very big indeed; much larger than many smaller portraits.

If you're not looking for something nice to say, you might just go with "YEEEESH why did the National Gallery commission a portrait of the oldest woman in the world and then hang it above Kate Middleton's name?"

It's unclear why the artist, Paul Emsley, chose to imagine Kate, not as the vibrant 31-year-old she is today, but as the chilling ghost whose unhappy specter will haunt the apartments of Kensington Palace after her death.

One thing's for certain, though: he's doing his best to make up for it now by talking about how beautiful Kate is in person.

So beautiful.

Incredibly beautiful.

Literally too beautiful to paint, like the smell of a sunrise or the sound of a smile:

"The fact that she is a beautiful woman, for an artist, is difficult.

If a subject has a lot of wrinkle lines or a distinctive chin or nose or something like that it is easier to get a likeness, but when you are working with someone whose face is just a lovely face it is harder."

The Duchess, who studied (though, evidently, not very closely) art history at St. Andrews, helped personally select the artist who would later betray her.

Even the Telegraph, which, God bless, tried SO HARD to be excited about this painting of a gray witch, couldn't help but note that Emsley had included bags too big to be carry-ons under the Kate's eyes:

He refused to comment on whether the Duchess was upset that she has bags under her eyes in the painting.

Prince William, speaking about, I don't know, something else, probably said of the painting: "It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful."

[Telegraph // Image via AP]

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) called Todd Akin's now infamous "legitimate rape" comments "partially right" at a breakfast with constituents yesterday. Also, he's a trained obstetrician.

Gingrey was speaking about how the Democrats managed to maintain control of the Senate — addressing Akin's comments as well as controversial remarks by Richard Mourdock of Indiana. According to the Marietta Daily Journal:

"And in Missouri, Todd Akin … was asked by a local news source about rape and he said, ‘Look, in a legitimate rape situation' - and what he meant by legitimate rape was just look, someone can say I was raped: a scared-to-death 15-year-old that becomes impregnated by her boyfriend and then has to tell her parents, that's pretty tough and might on some occasion say, ‘Hey, I was raped.' That's what he meant when he said legitimate rape versus non-legitimate rape. I don't find anything so horrible about that. But then he went on and said that in a situation of rape, of a legitimate rape, a woman's body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur. He's partly right on that."

And later:

"And I've delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don't be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.' So he was partially right wasn't he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you're not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman's body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak. And yet the media took that and tore it apart."

Essentially he's saying if you were scared during your rape then the adrenaline will prevent conception. If you do get pregnant, you were not scared, and you wanted it. Trust him, he's a doctor.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a statement from Gingrey's office clarifying his remarks.

"At a breakfast yesterday morning, I was asked why Democrats made abortion a central theme of the presidential campaign. I do not defend, nor do I stand by, the remarks made by Rep. Akin and Mr. Mourdock. In my attempt to provide context as to what I presumed they meant, my position was misconstrued."

By the way, Rep. Gingrey sits on the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Health, which oversees the Department of Health and Human Services. Great.

[Image via AP]

The Montpelier Exempted Village Schools Board of Education in Montepelier, Ohio has instated a surprising policy in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month: voting to allow school custodians to carry loaded handguns.

The school board took the vote Wednesday night, unanimously deciding that arming its custodians is the best way to protect its students.

"Sitting back and doing nothing and hoping it doesn't happen to you is just not good policy anymore. There is a need for schools to beef up their security measures," the district's Superintendent Jamie Grime told the Toledo Blade. "Having guns in the hands of the right people are not a hindrance. They are a means to protect."

Montpelier is a small town of barely 4,000 people in northwest Ohio about 65 miles west of Toledo. The city's children all go to school on the same campus housing grades K-12. Four custodians in all will be armed, once they've taken a two-day training class in March.

School officials say they've been considering the idea for six months but did not announce it publicly until this week, when, motivated by the massacre at Sandy Hook, they voted to approve the policy.

While arming school employees is not exactly a new idea — one Texas school district has allowed employees to carry concealed weapons since 2007 — it has certainly gained popularity in some circles since Sandy Hook. All other issues aside, doesn't the protection of young children against an armed intruder seem like a lot of pressure to place on someone who wasn't hired to be a bodyguard? This cannot end well.

[Image via Shutterstock]