An update, A shooting, And a free book

I like to give a Swag Bucks update once in awhile, so here is one :-). I just turned in enough to get another Amazon.com gift card, making me $85 I have earned since March. I currently have $35 sitting in Amazon, and 2 $5 cards waiting to clear - takes a week or so for them to get verified after you order them.

I figure by the time the other two clear, there may be enough items I want that I can use up the credit, or most of it, though by that time, I also may have earned more. I just wish I had started it ages ago.

I received my first book from Tyndale Publishers yesterday in the mail to review. The book was free, but I have to read it, do a review on my blog, and also on Amazon, and submit the reviews to Tyndale, and then I can order another book for review. What's bad about this review, is I put in to be part of the blog tour for the book, which means I can't post the review til the end of July. Which also means, no new book to review until after that. Had I thought that out, I may not have opted to do the blog tour, though if you read my one blog post, you know I will be able to give away a free copy of the book - actually a certificate for a free book. Although the review is a month away, check out the author's website at Randysinger.net - although the time to vote is past, he still has a video you can watch and decide what verdict should be rendered in Justice Games.

I am about halfway through the book, and wow. I am 100% against gun control. I think it makes as much sense to take alcoholic beverages away because of what it does, as it does to take away the guns, but man, this guy knows how to write a story. I don't want to review the book yet, besides, I haven't finished it- but I already like the lawyers for both sides, and am already sympathetic toward both sides. The verdict was decided by visitors to the author's website who read the synopsis and watched the video.

I guess I can add this, as it isn't part of the book. The big thing that directed the author to be interested in the gun debate was personal. In 1988, a young man, with a gun he had illegally purchased, stormed into the Christian school where the author's wife taught, and his kids attended. He shot a teacher, and then headed for a room where a Bible class was in session. As the kids huddled in terror, the gunman opened fire on the class, but the gun jammed. A male teacher tackled the gunman, and other than an assistant principal being injured, no one else was hurt.

The author, a lawyer, represented the family of the slain teacher in a lawsuit against the gun store that sold the gun illegally through a straw purchase - the kid brought in someone else to buy the gun for him. The results of the lawsuit shocked everyone.

So how will this fictional lawsuit turn out? Well, I guess in a way, I was part of the jury. I sided in favor of the gun manufacturer, but how many viewers of the video did, and how many did not? I have to admit, I'm tempted to peek, but I won't. And again, if you only occasionally read my blog, make sure you watch the last few days of July, for I will have the giveaway when I finally review the book.

After I finished my post, I was curious about the real-life shooting that inspired this book, so I googled it. If anyone else is interested, here are a few sites that talk about it:
http://www.lorrainewakeland.com/pdfarchive/jammed_gun.pdf

http://www.lorrainewakeland.com/pdfarchive/an_assistant.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/17/us/student-with-pistol-kills-one-teacher-and-injures-another.html