I don’t care what ANYONE says, THIS is wrong.

A man realized his Chryster 500 was being stolen from his driveway. So, he jumps in his car and gives chase, caught up a few blocks away and fired off a few rounds into the fleeing car. The thief, a woman, is wounded. The problem? Well, the guy was a convicted felon. He ended up pleading guilty to having a firearm.

He’ll serve six years. Six years for shooting at a person who WAS IN THE PROCESS OF STEALING HIS CAR. We have restricted the circumstances under which someone can use a firearm to defend their property to the point where we don’t even have the right to use a gun to protect our property anymore.

Yes, SOME jail time would be in order for illegally having a gun. But even felons have property rights. As far as I’m concerned, he not only had the right to shoot and kill the thief, he had the right to stick her head on a pike in his yard next to his parked vehicle.

By the way: I’m not a big fan of the Chrysler 300. I would have let the broad steal it and collected the insurance.

Here’s how Peoria can fix its deficit

Create a special “no jaywalking” zone around Bradley University. Fine jaywalkers $5,000 if they jaywalk on West Main between North Bourland and Farmington Road. The average B.U. student, being the self-involved snobs that they all are, will find themselves incapable of obeying this law. We will raise millions. Oh, and double the fine if they jaywalk with cell phones attached to their faces.

Royce Elliott nearly killed me once

I was attending a labor function and Royce Elliott was the entertainment. This was back in the early 1990s and I was assistant editor of the LABOR Paper.

I had heard Royce’s act before, and I liked it. But I had never heard Royce in person, nor had I heard his entire act. Well, there was the time he walked up to me while I was sitting alone at McDonalds and started telling me jokes.

To hear his complete act, one one-liner after another had me doubled over. The jokes literally had me doubled over, unable to catch my breath. This was about 20 years ago. If it happened today, it would have killed me. To this day, I cannot remember even one joke.

Royce died last month.

I think that would have been an appropriate headline for Royce. “Comedian who killed a man with his humor passes away.”

Peoria is a lot less funny now.

The downtown history-of-peoria museum isn’t jerking the county around

The Peoria Riverfront Museum’s fiscal year ended ten months ago. And they STILL do not have a report yet. The Peoria County Board wants answers, but it being given the runaround by the museum.

Essentially, they are telling the county board the report is ten months late because auditing when there is taxpayer money involved in HARD.

What a bunch of hooey. These people are operating with TAXPAYER MONEY. The City and County of Peoria have finances much, much, much more complicated, and neither entity had any problems providing financial data. Go up and supply them with a Freedom ion Information Act request about financial data and you will get your answer, usually from a cheerful city or county employee.

If these people who run the Riverfront museum cannot find the competence to provide the financial data, they should be fired and replaced with people who can find it.

Does anyone think for a moment that if these numbers were any good, they wouldn’t be touting it all over the place? Oh please.