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99 Tiny Stories to Make You Think, Smile and Cry:Today, it’s been ten years since my abusive ex-fiancé sold my favorite guitar. He sold it on the day I left him. When I went to claim my belongings, he was proud that he had sold it to a pawn shop. Luckily, I managed to track down the guy who bought it from the pawn shop. He was really sweet, and gave it back to me for free, on the condition that I accompany him on his front porch for an hour to play guitar with him. He grabbed a second guitar and we ended up sitting there on his porch for the rest of the afternoon playing music, talking, and smiling. He’s been my husband for nine years now. MMTToday would have been the 127th day in a row that I visited her at the hospital as she rested in a coma. But last night I had a dream that she died, and I woke up in tears this morning and couldn’t bring myself to drive to the hospital to see her lying there like that. So I stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling, and thinking of how I was going to have to learn to live without her for the rest of my life. And then my phone rang, and it was her. MMTToday, about an hour after I lost my wallet, a man showed up at my front door with it. Everything was intact including the $200 in cash. As I expressed my gratitude, he explained to me that he hopes doing the right thing pays off for him. “Oddly enough, I lost my wallet sometime this morning too,” he said. “I had about the same amount of cash in there that you have and all my cards and IDs.” Without thinking about it, I pulled out $100 and handed it to him. “Take this, I insist,” I said. “Just in case you don’t find your wallet, we’ll split the cash.” He gratefully accepted the money and left. This evening he knocked on my door again. “Here’s your $100 back,” he said. “A woman found my wallet and returned it and all my cash about an hour ago.” MMTToday, while I was browsing in a secondhand bookshop, I found a copy of a book that had been stolen from me when I was a kid. I opened it and saw, on the first page, in familiar hand writing, my own name. It had been a gift from my (now late) grandfather. Next to my name my grandfather wrote, “I hope you rediscover this book someday when you’re older, and it makes you think about the important things in life.” MMTToday, a week after I donated three bags of clothes to a local homeless shelter, I saw a homeless woman sitting on a park bench wearing a tye-dyeshirt I made when I was a teenager. I walked by her and said, “I love your shirt!” She smiled and said, “Thank you! I really do too!” MMTToday at 7AM, I pulled over on my way to work to help a lady change a flat tire. At 4PM, she saved my life when she randomly saw me downtown and yanked me backward out of a crosswalk as a car ran the red light. MMTToday, it’s been five years since my mom was in a car accident that resulted in her losing all of her long-term memory from before the crash. When I was little, my mom and I used to quote a ‘Winnie the Pooh’ book as an inside joke. One of us would ask, “Have you ever seen a dragon fly?” And the other would reply, “I have, I have seen a dragon fly!” This evening I was sitting with her while we were watching TV and I randomly asked, “Have you ever seen a dragon fly?” And she responded with, “I have, I have seen a dragon fly!” We stared at each other for a prolonged moment, and then she jumped out of her seat and exclaimed, “Oh my god, I remember!” MMTToday, I have a disorder which frequently makes me faint for a few seconds, making it hard for me to be independent and hold down a steady job. I used to be really depressed about it, but my family and friends turned my illness into a game, seeing who could make me laugh the hardest when I returned to consciousness. They have also turned catching me into a sport. Believe it or not, I haven’t hit the floor once in the past two years. Someone has always been there to catch me. MMTToday was my first day back on the job after more than a year on disability leave due to a freak explosion in the plant that, among other injuries, left me legally deaf in both ears. When I walked into the plant this morning several of my colleagues signed me phrases like “Great to see you,” “Welcome back,” and “We missed you.” It turns out that nine of my colleagues got together and took a sign language course, just like I did, over the last several months. They did this so they could easily communicate with me when I returned. Their compassion MMT.Today, I am an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran. Upon arriving home three years ago from my final tour to Afghanistan I found out that my wife had been cheating on me and had spent/stole almost all of our money. I had nowhere to stay and no phone and was suffering from severe anxiety problems. One of my close friends from high school, Shawn, and his wife, seeing that I was in need of help, took me in and let me live with their family of five. They helped me deal with my divorce and get my life together. Since then, I’ve moved into my own place, opened a fairly successful diner, and my friend’s kids call my Uncle Jay when they see me. The way they adopted me into their family in my desperate time of need will always MMT.Today, I have been a counselor for foster care children for almost 15 years. This afternoon I ran into one of my previous foster children I hadn’t seen in over 5 years. About 10 years ago, on a day he was really upset and mad at life, I drew him a sketch of a superhero and wrote him a note on an index card about how he is a superhero and that superheroes always rise up and win in the end. I saw him today as I walked past the local fire station. He’s now a fire fighter. He recognized me as I walked by and ran up to me. We talked for about a half hour, and then before we parted ways he took his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out the superhero index card I made for him when he was a kid. MMTToday, I have diabetes. Two years ago, after my mom passed away, I inherited her cat, Kita. At 3AM this morning Kita woke me up by sitting at the foot of the bed and meowing VERY loud over and over again. I had never heard her sound that way, so I sat up in bed to see what was wrong. As soon as I did, I realized I felt extremely lightheaded and weak. I grabbed my glucose meter and tested myself. My level was down to 53. Normal, according to my doctor, is between 70 and 120. My doctor told me that had Kita not awakened me, I may have never awakened at all. MMTToday, we live in a lower-middle-class neighborhood. My wife was just diagnosed with breast cancer, so my 14-year-old son decided that he wanted to raise money to help pay for some of her miscellaneous medical expenses. His idea was to go door to door around the neighborhood with battery operated hair clippers and let people shave a part of his head for a small donation of their choosing. He asked me whether a $100 goal would be too much. I told him not to get his hopes up. He came back home ten minutes ago with a totally bald head and $1,223. Two people gave him $100 bills. MMTToday, it’s been ten years since my best friend became ill and needed a kidney transplant. As I was a fitting donor, I chose to donate one of my healthy kidneys to her even after doctors said her chance of survival was only 30%, and that there would be inherent risks to my health as well. But here I am at 10AM, getting ready to drive to her wedding venue where, in just a few short hours, I will be her maid of honor as she marries the love of her life who she happened to meet at the hospital ten years ago. MMTToday, I was buying food at the grocery store for my family, but at the checkout counter my debit card came back declined for over-withdrawal. (I’ve been laid off from work for awhile now and am barely making ends meet.) As I quickly explained myself to the cashier and started putting back some of the food I had picked out, the man in line behind me stepped forward and paid for all my groceries. I thanked him, and he said, “Someone did the same thing for me several years ago. This is my opportunity to pay it forward. I hope you can do the same someday.” MMTToday, exactly 10 months after suffering from a severe stroke that nearly killed him, my dad got up from his wheelchair without any help for the first time, and slow danced with me during the father/daughter dance at my wedding. MMTToday, a big stray dog randomly followed me from the subway on my walk home. For about six blocks he followed just a few paces behind me. And just as this began to freak me out, a guy came out of nowhere, held a knife up to my face, and yelled, “Give me your purse!” Before I had a chance to react, the stray dog lunged at the man and bit his leg. He dropped the knife and fell to the ground as I ran away. I am now at home, safely, because of that dog. MMTToday my son, who I adopted eight months ago at the age of seven, called me ‘mom’ for the very first time. MMTToday, I’m a police officer stationed at the state court house. This afternoon the judge finalized a case in which a 3-year-old boy was officially adopted by his late mom’s best friend two years after the boy’s parents and grandparents died in a car accident. The boy has been living with his mom’s best friend ever since the accident, and he treats her as if she is his real mom. Once the adoption was approved, everyone in the courtroom was smiling. But before the judge had a chance to slam the gavel and dismiss everyone, the boy ran up to the judge and asked if he could do it. The judge laughed and nodded yes. So, smiling ear to ear, the boy sat on the judge’s lap, looked up at everyone in the courtroom, slammed the gavel, and finalized his own adoption. MMTToday, my 17 year old autistic brother, Kevin, played guitar and sang every single word, flawlessly, to the Lifehouse song ‘Hanging by a Moment’ for his girlfriend (who is also autistic) on their one year anniversary. His girlfriend’s smile lit up the room. Although he struggles with a severe speech impediment, he has been practicing for this every single day since they first started dating. MMTToday, at the local convenience store where I work an elderly man with a guide dog came in, went to the aisle with the greetings cards, picked up a card, held it up extremely close to his face, and struggled to read it. Just as I was about to walk over to help him, a big truck driver asked him if he needed assistance reading, and then proceeded to read him almost every single greeting card out loud until the elderly man smiled and said, “That’s perfect! My wife will love that one!” MMTToday, when I landed at J.F.K. for a business trip, I turned on my phone and was inundated with several voicemails and text messages from family and close friends back in Seattle. “Call home. Your mom had a severe stroke and is currently in intensive care,” read the first text message to pop-up on my phone. My boss was with me, told me she’d handle things herself, and insisted that I catch the next flight back home. As I stood in line at the ticket counter, talking to my brother about my mother’s condition, crying, and explaining that I was going to try to make a flight that leaves in 30 minutes, the twelve people in line in front of me overheard my conversation and let me skip to the front. Then after the Delta rep quickly issued me a ticket, she walked around the counter, handled me a box of tissues, and before I had a chance to react, gave me a big hug. I made my flight. And my mom is now in stable condition. MMTToday, a deaf-mute child I have been caring for 5 days a week for the last 4 years looked up at me this afternoon after I fed him his favorite lunch and spoke aloud to me for the first time. He said, “Thank you, Monica. I love you.” MMTToday, the man that saved my life 28 years ago when he singlehandedly fought off three other men who were trying to rape me, walks with a cane due to the leg injury he suffered by doing so. And he looked so proud today when he put down his cane and slowly walked our daughter down the aisle. MMTToday, outside the doctor’s office, approximately 15 minutes after we received the discouraging news about my incurable cancer, she got down on one knee and asked me to marry her. MMTToday, my dad is the best dad I could ask for. He’s a loving husband to my mom (always making her laugh), he’s been to every one of my soccer games since I was 5 (I’m 17 now), and he provides for our family as a construction foreman. This morning when I was searching through my dad’s toolbox for a pliers, I found a dirty folded up paper at the bottom. It was an old journal entry in my dad’s handwriting dated exactly one month before the day I was born. It reads, “I am eighteen years old, an alcoholic who is failing out of college, a past cutter, and a child abuse victim with a criminal record of auto theft. And next month, ‘teen father’ will be added to the list. But, I swear I will make things right for my little girl. I will be the dad I never had.” And I don’t know how he did it, but he did it. MMTToday, I have an elderly patient who is suffering from a severe case of Alzheimer’s. He can rarely remember his own name, and he often forgets where he is and what he said just a few minutes beforehand. But by the stretch of some miracle (perhaps the miracle of love), he remembers who his wife is every morning when she shows up to spend a few hours with him. He usually greets her by saying, “Hello my beautiful Kate.” MMTToday, I’m a teacher in a low income neighborhood in greater Detroit. Because their parents don’t have enough money, some of my students come to school without lunch, or without money for lunch. So I lend them a few dollars here and there to buy a school lunch when they are short on cash. I’ve been doing this for several years, and other teachers think I’m crazy. But of the few hundred dollars I’ve lent students over the years, I have received every single cent back. Sometimes it takes them a few weeks, but every one of my students has paid me back without me asking. MMTToday, when my wife showed up to do a 5K walk in support of her breast cancer, over 200 of her current and past students (she’s a high school English teacher) and several of her colleagues showed up, unexpectedly, wearing pink shirts with her photo and a caption that read, “We’re going to beat this together.” I’ve never seen my wife so overwhelmed with joy before in my life. MMTToday, my cat got out of my downtown condo and got lost. I was sad because I figured I’d never see her again. About 24 hours after I posted flyers on telephone poles in the city I received a call from a man who found my cat. It turned out the man was homeless and used 50 cents to call me from a payphone. He was insanely nice and even bought a can of food for my cat. I gave the man all the cash I had on me as a reward. MMTToday, my brother spends most of his free time at school hanging out with the football team – he’s actually been working out with the team and everything. My brother has a mild case of autism. About a year ago my mom was ready to pull my brother out of school and have him home schooled due to excessive teasing from peers. One of the popular football players, who had stood up for him in the past, heard about this, explained the situation to his teammates and friends, and stood by his side until the teasing stopped. Now, a year later, he’s just ‘one of the guys.’ MMTToday, almost 5 years after I stopped volunteering at the suicide prevention hotline, the new manager gave me a call. She said this afternoon they received a $25,000 anonymous donation to help fund the support line. Along with the donation they received an email that read, “Thank you Claire. You saved my life.” Apparently, I’m the only Claire who ever volunteered there. MMTToday, a homeless man whom I recognize from around the neighborhood came into my bakery and purchased a large birthday cake (I gave him a 40% discount). I curiously watched as he walked the cake across the street to another homeless man. The other man started laughing and then the two men hugged. MMTToday, I watched a teenage boy help an elderly woman with a cane onto the city bus I was riding. He was so careful with her, assisting her every step of the way. The woman had the biggest smile on her face. They both sat directly across from me, and just as I was about to compliment her on having a wonderful grandson, the boy looked at her and said, “My name is Chris. What’s your name, ma’am?” MMTToday, I stopped on the side of the road to help an elderly man who was struggling with changing a flat tire. It turns out he was the firefighter who pulled my mom and me out of our burning apartment when I was a kid. Even though I hadn’t seen him in 30 years, it only took me a few seconds to recognize him. We chatted about it for awhile, and then as soon as I had the spare tire secured to his car, we looked at each other, shook hands and said, “Thank you,” simultaneously. MMTToday, my grandmother and grandfather, who were both in their early 90’s and married for 72 years, both died of natural causes approximately one hour apart from each other. MMTToday, my father had a serious heart attack in the waiting room at the hospital as my wife was giving birth to our first child. My father was waiting to welcome his first grandchild into the world. The doctors say he likely would have died if he wasn’t already at the hospital with medical care a few seconds away. But based on the lucky circumstances, he’s expected to make a full recovery. MMTToday, I witnessed a bad car accident at an intersection. An older drunk male with no headlights ran a light and hit a teenager’s car. The drunk driver’s car caught fire. Then the teenager, covered in blood, struggled out of his car, jogged to the burning vehicle and pulled the drunk driver to safety just before the cab of the vehicle burst into flames. MMTToday, I texted my supervisor to tell him I wouldn’t be able to come into work today due to the fact that I’m in the emergency room with my dad after he had a heart attack. I got a response saying I had the wrong number. But then a few minutes later the person called me, told me her prayers are with me and my dad, and then told me a story about how her dad made a full recovery from a heart attack last year. We spoke for a half hour and she made me feel better. People like her who convey unrelenting compassion and goodwill MMT.Today, after my daughter’s funeral I was going through my phone deleting all the condolence messages. There were so many of them that I simply selected ‘delete all,’ but one message didn’t delete. It was the last message my daughter left me before she passed and it was marked as ‘new.’ Sometimes my voicemail forces me to listen to messages before I can delete them, so played it. She said, “Hey dad, I just wanted to let you know I’m okay and I’m home now.” MMTToday, I walked up to the door of my office (I’m a florist) at 7AM to find a uniformed Army soldier standing out front waiting. He was on his way to the airport to go overseas for a year. He said, “I usually bring home a bouquet of flowers for my wife every Friday and I don’t want to let her down when I’m away.” He then placed an order for 52 Friday afternoon deliveries of flowers to his wife’s office and asked me to schedule one for each week until he returns. I gave him a 50% discount because it made my day to see something so sweet. MMTToday, my high school boyfriend, who I thought I’d never see again, showed me the pictures of the two of us he kept in his Army helmet while he was overseas for the last 8 years. MMTToday, a 9-year-old patient of mine will be undergoing her 14th surgery in the past 2 years to combat a rare form of cancer. Even after all the surgeries I’ve never seen her frown. She’s still 100% sure she’ll survive. And I’m certain her attitude is the primary reason she has survived to this point. She still laughs and plays with her friends and family. She has intelligent goals for the future. A kid like her who can go through everything she’s been through and come out smiling MMT.Today, during a fire evacuation at school, I ran outside to find one of the thugs at our school, who is notorious for being a tough guy, holding my little sister’s hand (she’s a special needs student) and telling her, “You’re okay. You’re safe,” and calming her down as she slowly stopped crying. MMTToday, in the background over the phone, I heard my 7-year-old son ask my wife, “If daddy’s job is going so well, how come he’s never home here with us?” MMTToday, when the chief ordered the firefighters to evacuate the building due to “extremely hazardous conditions,” I began to panic even more. My daughter was still trapped inside. But one fire fighter didn’t listen to the orders. Instead he ran around to another apartment unit that borders the other side of our unit, went out onto the balcony, jumped over to our balcony, smashed through the sliding glass door with an axe, and brought my daughter out alive. MMTToday, I was one of the paramedics on the scene where a professional skydiving instructor died due to a parachute failure. As we loaded the man’s body into the back of the ambulance, I noticed his t-shirt. It said, “I died doing what I love.” MMTToday, six months after his passing, I flew from Austin, Texas to Melbourne, Australia to clean out my brother’s overseas condo and finalize its sale. As you might imagine, the entire experience was a sad one. But one thing that jumped out at me was my brother’s desk planner. Two weeks before he passed he crossed out a 9-day vacation on his calendar with a note saying, “Not enough time, maybe next month.” MMTToday, as my grandpa rested in his hospital bed, desperately fighting pancreatic cancer, he squeezed my hand tight and said, “Promise me, no matter how good or bad you have it, you will wake up every morning thankful for your life. Because every morning you wake up, someone somewhere else will be desperately fighting for theirs.” MMTToday, after an 11 month tour of duty in the Army, my husband has been home from Afghanistan for 9 days. During a heavy rain storm this morning at 4AM, following a loud crack of thunder, my husband jumped out of bed, half asleep, and onto the floor and screamed, “Get down! Get down!” MMTToday, I told my 18 year old grandson that nobody asked me to prom when I was in high school, so I didn’t attend. He showed up at my house this evening dressed in a tuxedo and took me as his date to his prom. MMTToday, I watched in horror through the kitchen window as my 2-year-old slipped and fell head first into the pool. But before I could get to her, our Labrador Retriever, Rex, jumped in after her, grabbed her by her shirt collar and pulled her to the shallow steps where she could stand. MMTToday I turned 10. Yes I was born on 9-11-2001. My mom worked in the World Trade Center but wasn’t at work that day because she was giving birth to me. MMTToday, after several kids teased a less fortunate girl (who lives in a poorer neighborhood) this morning for always wearing the same clothes, seven students in my class went home at lunch time, emptied their drawers and closets and brought this girl 16 pristine and beautiful outfits to wear. I found out about this after I asked her why she changed her clothes after lunch today. MMTToday, I was sitting on the steps of a church waiting for a bus when I saw an old Catholic nun being assisted up the steps by a young man wearing a Muslim turban. Once they were at the top, the nun turned to the young man and said, “I can see both of our gods raise beautiful children. Thank you.” The young man smiled and nodded. MMTToday, our high school basketball team has a senior player who uses a wheelchair. He lost both of his legs from the knee down in a car crash when he was a sophomore. He was one of the best basketball players on the team at the time, so the coach insisted that he stay on the team to help coach the other players. He’s now the assistant coach, but he’s also the designated free throw shooter for injured players. When a player gets injured during a foul and can’t immediately shoot the foul shots, he rolls out to the foul line and takes the shots for the injured player. I’ve never missed a home game, and I’ve never seen him miss a shot. MMTToday, I paid my landlord back in full. Ten months ago I lost my job and couldn’t cover my rent for two months. Instead of putting my son and I on the streets, my landlord said, “You’ve been a good tenant for ten years and I know times are tough. Take your time, find another job, and pay me back as soon as you can.” MMTToday at 5AM, I asked an elderly man in the city where the nearest train stop was. He walked me to it and then waited next to me for 15 minutes. When the train finally arrived, he smiled and said, “Be safe out there, miss.” and then walked away without boarding the train. MMTToday, I was in a taxi on my way to work in Chicago when my blood glucose level suddenly dropped and I passed out. The taxi driver used all the tricks of his trade to get me to the hospital as quickly as possible. Apparently, he cut through a small park and drove over a median to get me there before it was too late. I know this because after I woke up, my nurse told me that my taxi driver “saved my life” and “physically carried me into the emergency room waiting area,” followed by a police officer who was after him for the said traffic violations. But then, my nurse said, “After the taxi driver explained himself, the police officer shook his hand and left.” MMTToday, two Orphan children (a boy and a girl) I used to care for years ago when they were teenagers are now married, are the owners of a successful marketing firm, own the home across the street from me, and have two beautiful children. And although I never officially adopted them, their two children call me ‘Grandma.’ MMTToday, I re-read the suicide letter I wrote on the afternoon of September 2nd 1996 about two minutes before my girlfriend showed up at my door and told me, “I’m pregnant.” She was honestly the only reason I didn’t follow through with it. Suddenly I felt I had a reason to live. Today she’s my wife. We’ve been happily married for 14 years. And my daughter, who is almost 15 now, has two younger brothers. I re-read my suicide letter from time to time as a reminder to be thankful – I am thankful I got a second chance. MMTToday, and every day for the last two months since I returned to school with burn scars on my face after being hospitalized for nearly a month for injuries I sustained in a house fire, a red rose was taped to my locker when I got to school in the morning. I have no clue who is getting to school early and leaving me these roses. I’ve even arrived early myself a few times to try to figure it out, but each time the rose was already there. MMTToday, as we were eating lunch at a diner my boyfriend leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek every few minutes when someone walked by. When I noticed what he was doing, I asked why. He said, “I want them to know you’re my girl.” We’re both in our mid-70’s and lost our spouses to cancer about 10 years ago. Second chances at love MMT.Today, my sister, who has Down Syndrome, followed through with her plan to sing at the school talent show. She’s been practicing her song diligently every afternoon for the last month, but it still worried me. I was terrified by the thought of how the students in the audience would respond to her. I just felt like there was a strong chance they would be mean. But they weren’t. In fact, she was the only act that received a standing ovation the entire night. MMTToday, two years after I was told I would never walk again, I got up out of my wheelchair and took my first few unassisted steps into my wife’s arms. MMTToday, one of my regular customers, an elderly man who has been eating in our diner every morning for the better part of 5 years, left me $500 in cash for his $7 breakfast. With the money, he left a small note that said, “Thank you, Cheryl. Your smile and hospitable service over the years gave me something to look forward to every morning after my wife passed. I’m moving to Long Island this evening to live with my son and his family. May the rest of your life be magical.” MMTToday, I unbuckled my seatbelt (I’m passionate about wearing my seatbelt) for two seconds so I could reach a printed map and directions sitting on the other side of the passenger seat. Just as I leaned over to grab it, I hit a big bump in the road and then my windshield shattered as a steel pipe that was hanging on the work truck driving in front of me shot, like a missile, through my windshield and directly into the center of the driver’s seat. I slammed on the brakes and crawled out of the passenger door. The cops that arrived at the scene couldn’t believe it either – there was an 8 foot steel pipe embedded into the driver’s seat, and it didn’t touch me. MMTToday, one of the football players at our school (who stands about 6’5) broke out in tears of joy and exclaimed, “Dad!” as he ran into his father’s arms in the middle of our Algebra II class. His father just returned home from Afghanistan early and came over to the school to surprise his son. MMTToday, I am a corporate accountant for a privately held chain of restaurants in the mid west. Our company employs several hundred people. The economic downturn has had a noticeable effect on the number of customers eating in our restaurants, but not a single employee has been laid off. But what our employees don’t know is that the owner hasn’t written himself a paycheck in six straight months. MMTToday, I was sitting on a park bench eating a sandwich I made myself for lunch when an elderly couple pulled their car up under a nearby oak tree. They rolled down the windows and turned up some jazz music on the radio. Then the man got out of the car, walked around to the passenger side, opened the door for the woman, took her hand and helped her out of her seat, guided her about ten feet away from the car, and they slow danced for the next half hour under the oak tree. MMTToday, I took a cab ride 16 blocks in Manhattan and when I got to my destination I realized I forgot my wallet at home. As I fumbled through my purse, trying to explain things to the cab driver and scrounge up enough cash, a man walked up behind me and handed me a $50 bill. “Thank you!” I said. “Let me have your address. I will pay you back.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out an old receipt and wrote down an address. “You can drop off my money here,” he said. This afternoon I went to the address he gave me and found myself standing in front of a soup kitchen that had a sign out front that said, “Accepting cash donations to feed the hungry.” I walked in and donated the $50. MMTToday, I’m a 3rd shift IT guy for a finance company in NYC. This evening I was updating our VPN server at 3AM when I noticed an employee was actively logged in. I got suspicious and I accessed their account on the backend to see what they were doing. They had just sent a suicide note in an email entitled “Thank you and goodbye.” I immediately looked up their home address in our corporate directory and called 911. This person’s son called me at 7AM, just before I got off my shift, to thank me and inform me that his mother is in stable condition in the hospital. MMTToday was the 10 year anniversary of my dad’s passing. When I was a kid he used to hum a short melody to me as I was going to sleep. When I was 18, as he rested in his hospital bed fighting cancer, the roles were reversed and I hummed the melody to him. I haven’t heard that melody since and almost completely forgot about it until last night. My fiancé and I were lying in bed. We were turned on our sides looking at each other when he started humming the melody to me. He said his mom used to hum it to him when he was a kid. MMTToday, after my dad ran out of options to come up with enough money to pay our mortgage he decided to sell his pristine 1969 Camaro that he restored and has babied for as long as I can remember. A wealthy local collector came to look at it this afternoon. When he realized how passionate my dad was about the car, he asked, “Why are you selling it?” My dad told him and then the collector handed my dad cash for the car and said, “Here’s $5k in cash. I have the rest in my trunk. I’ll be right back.” The collector walked out our front door, got in his car and drove away. MMTToday, my little brother’s internet start-up was purchased for $12,000,000. My brother is 17 years younger than me. Our parent’s passed away in a car accident while I was babysitting him 17 years ago. I was 18 at the time and he was 1. I took legal guardianship of him and worked two jobs for 16 years to make sure he had every opportunity in the world. He started his company at 18 just after he graduated high school. It took off like wildfire. This evening, he transferred $1,000,000 into my retirement savings account. MMTToday, a young teenage boy was in line in front of me at Target. He used a gift card to buy two video games. The cashier, an older woman probably in her late 60’s, rang him up and informed him that he had $12 remaining on his gift card. “Oh, wait then,” he said as he ran two isles over and grabbed a $10 bouquet of flowers. As the cashier added the flowers to his order the boy handed them to her and said, “These are for you.” The cashier could not wipe the smile off her face, even after he left. MMTToday, it’s been almost four months since my son’s seven-year-old dog, Grover, got lost at a crowded fair on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida. We were on a family vacation visiting my husband’s parents. We searched for him everywhere, put up flyers all over the city - the whole nine yards. Nothing. My son was devastated. This afternoon, Grover showed up at our front door in Austin, Texas all by himself. MMTToday, a woman in my line at McDonald’s noticed the uniformed Marine in line behind her, and when she handed me $20 to pay for her meal, she said, “Keep the extra $12 and use it to pay for the Marine’s meal.” When the Marine got up to the counter and ordered his food, I informed him that it was already paid for by another customer. He stared at me for a second, then turned his head and glanced out the front window, handed me his cash anyway and said, “Okay, make it two #4 meals then.” On the way out of the restaurant he handed the second meal to a homeless man who was resting on the sidewalk. MMTToday, losing my infant son was the worst pain I have ever felt. But the phone call I just received from the doctor telling me my baby’s organs instantly saved two other baby’s lives MMT.Today, my father found my little sister alive, chained up in a barn. She was abducted near Mexico City almost 5 months ago. Authorities stopped actively searching for her a few weeks later. My mother and I laid her soul to rest. We even had a funeral for her last month. All of our family and friends attended the ceremony except my father. He swore she was still alive. He looked for her all day, every day since she disappeared. And she’s back home now because he never gave up. MMTToday, I walked my daughter down the aisle. Ten years ago I pulled a 14 year old boy out of his mom’s fire-engulfed SUV after a serious accident. Doctors initially said he would never walk again. My daughter came with me several times to visit him at the hospital. Then she started going on her own. Today, seeing him defy the odds and smile widely, standing on his own two feet at the altar as he placed a ring on my daughter’s finger MMT.Today, due to Alzheimer’s and dementia, my grandfather usually can’t remember who my grandmother is when he wakes up in the morning. It bothered my grandmother a year ago when it first happened, but now she’s fully supportive of his condition. In fact, she plays a game every day in which she tries to get my grandfather to ask her to re-marry him before dinnertime. She hasn’t failed yet. MMTToday, at 4PM I pulled over to help a man (who turned out to be a paramedic) push his car out of the road. After looking under the hood for a few minutes we both agreed his radiator needed to be replaced. He told me he was running late to work, so I used my AAA card to get him a free tow and ride to a repair shop next to the hospital. Exactly an hour later I called 911 when my son’s best friend fainted and stopped breathing after an asthma attack. The same paramedic, Jake, showed up at my house, performed CPR on my son’s friend until he was breathing again, and took him to the hospital. MMTToday, it’s been 10 years that our office janitor/maintenance man has been working at our company. Ever since he started, even as our small company grew from 12 people (when I started) to 118, he has given a small gift and card to every single one of his coworkers on their birthday. I actually just received my 10th gift and card from him last week. Today, for his birthday, the owner and CEO gave him a $25,000 bonus and threw him an after-work party. MMT“Today is your funeral,” my mother said to me over the phone as she cried hysterically from joy. I’ve been MIA overseas for the last few months after a mission I can’t speak about backfired. I was rescued this morning – the day of my funeral. MMTToday, I came across a Facebook page with 89 fans that’s dedicated to making fun of a kid at my school. It made me sick to my stomach. So I wrote this on the page’s wall: “Read your cruel words, and then get up and look in the mirror, all of you! And say, ‘I like torturing others! I am proud of myself!’” I just checked the Facebook page again, about 7 hours later. No one responded to my post. But the page now has 26 fans. MMTToday, I was sitting on the subway, exhausted, in a horrible mood. Lately I just haven’t been happy. I’ve been struggling with my weight, my job, and life in general. About 15 minutes into the subway ride, the elderly lady across from me got up, moved next to me, and said, “You’re beautiful. I’m not joking. I was thinking it, and I wanted you to know.” I smiled, thanked her and asked, “Do you usually complement strangers?” “When I was your age, a woman my age sat next to me on a train. Her compliments saved me from doing something stupid. And today, I’m returning the favor.” MMTToday, I operated on a little girl that was in a car accident. She desperately needed O- blood, which is a bit rare. We didn’t have any available, but her twin brother was at the hospital who had O- blood. I explained to him that it was a matter of life and death – that his sister needed his blood. He sat quietly for a moment, and then said goodbye to his parents. I didn’t think anything of it until after we took the blood we needed and he asked, “So when will I die?” He thought he was giving his life for hers. Thankfully, they’ll both be fine. MMTToday at the beach, I ran into my old boyfriend from high school who I haven’t seen in 8 years. We broke up because his dad was in the military and had to move to the east coast. They moved away during our junior year in high school, and we kept in touch for awhile, but eventually lost touch. I recognized him from a distance because he was wearing a tye-dye shirt we made together for a summer beach party when we were sophomores. The kicker: I was wearing my matching tye-dye shirt, which I haven’t worn in years. We hung out the entire day and have a date this evening. MMTToday, my son turned 7 and I turned 23. Yes, I had him on the day I turned 16. The choices I made when I was a teenager were foolish, and sometimes I get worried I’m bringing my son up wrong. But today I took him to the park to celebrate our birthdays. He played for hours with a girl who has burn scars that cover most of her face. When my son took a break to eat, he pointed to her and said, “She’s so pretty and cool!” Which left me thinking, “I must be doing something right as a mom.” MMTToday at 1AM, my grandma, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, got up, got into my dad’s car and drove off. We contacted the police. But before the police could find her, two college kids pulled into our driveway with my grandma. One was driving my dad’s car and the other was following in their car. They said they overheard her crying about being lost at an empty gas station 10 miles away. My grandma couldn’t remember our address, but gave the kids her first and last name. They looked her up online, found our address, and drove her home. MMTToday, a young woman and her toddler knocked on my door. The woman stared at me in silence for a second and then smiled and said, “I was just visiting the area and I couldn’t help but look-up your address. Your son carried me out of the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001 before he went back inside to save others. I think about you and your family almost every single day.” MMTToday, I met the prettiest woman on an airplane. After some small talk, and under the assumption that I wouldn’t see her again after we made our connections in Atlanta, I told her how pretty I thought she was. She gave me the most sincere smile and said, “Nobody has said that to me in 10 years.” It turns out we’re both in our mid-30’s, never married, no kids, and we live about 5 miles away from each other in Dallas. We have a date set for next Saturday after we return home. MMTToday, the only reason I’m alive is because of my little brother. 7 years ago I swallowed a bottle of prescription pain killers. No more than 30 seconds later my brother called me from Iraq and told me how much he hates it there and that the only thing keeping him going is knowing that in a few months he’ll be back home hanging with his favorite person – me. I vomited up the pills and never told a soul. My brother and I are now roommates. MMTToday, because of my older brother, I’m a high school grad, I’m healthy and I’m alive. I’m 18 and my brother is 29. When we were 7 and 18, he got an apartment of his own on the good side of town and moved us out of the crack house our late drug addicted mother was living in. He worked 2 jobs to pay the bills and always made sure I was safe, fed and at school on time. He basically saved my life. MMTToday, as I was sleeping, I woke up to my daughter calling my name. I was sleeping in a sofa chair in her hospital room. I opened my eyes to her beautiful smile. My daughter has been in a coma for 98 days. MMTToday, through extensive charity work, we helped move a street family that has never lived in a house or slept on a clean bed into a house of their own. As he stared around his new bedroom in awe, the youngest boy in the family exclaimed, “I have a bed! My own bed! My very own bed!” MMTToday, at 8AM this morning, after four months of lifelessness in her hospital bed, we took my mom off life support. And her heart continued beating on its own. And she continued breathing on her own. Then this evening, when I squeezed her hand three times, she squeezed back three times. MMTToday, my 8-year-old son hugged me and said, “You are the best mom in the whole entire world!” I smiled and sarcastically replied, “How do you know that? You haven’t met every mom in the whole entire world.” My son squeezed me tighter and said, “Yes I have. You are my world.” MMTSource: 99 Tiny Stories to Make You Think, Smile and Cry

Mike the Durable- the Rasputin of the BronxMichael Malloy age 30 (Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill)Michael Malloy was a homeless Irish man who lived in New York in the 1920s and 1930s. A former firefighter, he is famously remembered in history as “Mike the Durable” and “Iron Mike”[1][1][1][1], who survived numerous murder attempts by five of his acquaintances who would have gained $3,500 through an insurance fraud if the ploy had succeeded.New York City, like the rest of the country, was devastated and demoralized by the Great Depression in the early 1930s. The carefree America of the Jazz Age had vanished like smoke. In its place, a somber populace waited in blocks-long breadlines for food. Unemployment was skyrocketing to near 30%.[2][2][2][2] Banks were closing at a rapid rate. Once wealthy Wall Street bankers now sat in gutters begging for change. Prohibition was still the law of the land, though it had no real teeth. The increasingly large block of poor and homeless transients that roamed the city often scrounged whatever free food and drink they could at their neighborhood speakeasy.Anthony Marino managed to weather hard times by the skin of his teeth. A grungy man who suffered from perpetual financial troubles and an advancing case of syphilis, Marino ran a small, bare-bones speakeasy in back of an abandoned storefront at 3775 Third Avenue in the Bronx.[3][3][3][3] It wasn’t much; a sofa, four tables, a twelve-foot long plywood bar along the back wall, and a modest supply of bootleg liquor (the saloon was so bland and nondescript that it didn’t even have a name.)[4][4][4][4]It was a miserable way to make a living. Sometimes Marino’s customers paid him, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they’d empty out whatever coins they had in their pockets and put the rest of their bill on a tab.[5][5][5][5] Sometimes they paid the tab, sometimes they didn’t. Some nights it seemed to Tony Marino as if he was pouring his meager profits down the collective gullet of his lowly clientele.Marino’s bartender was twenty-eight year old Joseph “Red” Murphy, an alcoholic simpleton and one-time chemist who had been a vagrant for most of his life. While Tony sporadically paid Red a dollar-a-day wage, it was unspoken yet understood that Murphy’s real payment was free run of his boss’s stock of booze behind the bar. The homeless Murphy usually crashed on the bar’s couch after he closed, curling up under a single blanket to stay warm. By his own later admission, he "had nowhere else to go."[6][6][6][6]The plot was conceived over a round of drinks. One afternoon in July 1932, Francis Pasqua, Hershey Green, Daniel Kriesberg, Joseph “Red” Murphy, and Tony Marino sat in Marino’s eponymous speakeasy on 3804 Third Avenue[7][7][7][7] and raised their glasses, sealing their complicity, figuring the job was already half-finished. They even had included a corrupt insurance agent in the plan.The “Murder Trust,” as the press would call them, now included a few of Marino’s regulars, including petty criminals John McNally and Edward “Tin Ear” Smith (so-called even though his artificial ear was made of wax), “Tough Tony” Bastone and his slavish sidekick, Joseph Maglione.[8][8][8][8]How difficult could it be to push Michael Malloy to drink himself to death?The Murder Trust (clockwise from top left): Daniel Kreisberg, Joseph Murphy, Frank Pasqua, and Tony Marino (The Man Who Wouldn’t Die)Every morning the old man showed up at Marino’s place in the Bronx and requested “Another mornin’s morning, if ya don’t mind” in his muddled brogue[9][9][9][9]; hours later he would pass out on the floor. For a while, Marino had let Malloy drink on credit, but he no longer paid his tabs. “Business,” the saloonkeeper confided to Pasqua and Kriesberg, “is bad.”[10][10][10][10]No one knew much about Michael Malloy—not even, it seemed, Malloy himself—other than that he had come from Ireland. He had no friends or family, no definitive date of birth (most guessed him to be about 60), no apparent trade or vocation beyond the occasional odd job cleaning coffins, sweeping alleys or collecting garbage, happy to be paid in alcohol instead of money.[11][11][11][11] He had been a gainfully employed stationary engineer – working on industrial machines in New York.[12][12][12][12] But this was the height of the Great Depression, and jobs were basically non existent.Like so many men of that era who once worked in America’s heavy industry, and so many Irish men who travelled to big cities across the United States, he hit the bottle hard, and became a slave to it. A “speakeasy derelict.”[13][13][13][13] He was, wrote the Daily Mirror, just part of the “flotsam and jetsam in the swift current of underworld speakeasy life, those no-longer-responsible derelicts who stumble through the last days of their lives in a continual haze of ‘Bowery Smoke.’ ”[14][14][14][14]Frank Pasqua (The Curious Case Of Michael Malloy – “Rasputin Of The Bronx”)Pasqua, 24, an undertaker by trade, ran a funeral home on E. 116th Street in East Harlem. A clever, cold-blooded type, Pasqua was one of the only people around who knew what Tony Marino had done to Betty Carlson.[15][15][15][15] Pasqua eyed Malloy’s sloping figure, the glass of whiskey hoisted to his slack mouth. “Why don’t you take out insurance on Malloy?” Pasqua asked Marino that day, according to another contemporary newspaper report. “I can take care of the rest.”[16][16][16][16]Marino paused. Pasqua knew he’d pulled off such a scheme once before. The prior year, Marino, 27, had befriended a homeless woman named Mabelle Carson and convinced her to take out a $2,000 life insurance policy, naming him as the beneficiary. One frigid night he force-fed her alcohol, stripped off her clothing, doused the sheets and mattress with ice water, and pushed the bed beneath an open window. The medical examiner listed the cause of death as bronchial pneumonia, and Marino collected the money without incident.[17][17][17][17]Pasqua offered to do the legwork. The men convinced Mike Malloy that he needed some insurance on himself. Malloy, who had spent untold years in an alcohol-induced haze, didn't seem to think anything was amiss and allowed Frank Pasqua to steer him towards the insurance office.[18][18][18][18] Malloy was instructed to identify himself as Nicholas Mellory and claim to be a florist, a detail that one of Pasqua’s funeral business colleagues would verify.[19][19][19][19] However, no amount of pomade and bay rum could clean up the pestiferous Malloy. The policy application came back stamped REJECTED.[20][20][20][20] As did a half-dozen others. It occurred to the boys that if Malloy was going to be insured by some gullible company, he could not show his face.It took Pasqua five months (and a connection with an unscrupulous agent) to secure three policies—all offering double indemnity—on Nicholas Mellory’s life: two with Prudential Life Insurance Company and one with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.[21][21][21][21] Pasqua recruited Joseph Murphy, a bartender at Marino’s, to identify the deceased as Michael Malloy and claim to be his next of kin and beneficiary.[22][22][22][22] If all went as planned, Pasqua and his cohorts would split $3,576 (about $54,000 in today’s dollars) after Michael Malloy died as uneventfully and anonymously as he had lived.[23][23][23][23]While death by automobile qualified for double indemnity, death by liquid poisoning, hypothermia, tainted seafood, and carpet tack sandwich did not.[24][24][24][24] The Murder Trust had been unknowingly undermining themselves since Day One.Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to killThe policy of “double indemnity” was at the heart of an infamous New York murder just five years earlier. In 1927, a Queens housewife named Ruth Snyder, and her lover, murdered her husband Albert and passed it off as a burglary gone awry. She had persuaded Albert to take out a life insurance policy, with an extra payout in the event of a violent death. The two were easily caught, convicted, and both electrocuted after a high-profile trial that inspired the novel Double Indemnity, and the classic noir thriller movie of the same name.[25][25][25][25]Malloy was an alcoholic and Marino, as owner of the speakeasy, thought that if he gave him unlimited credit, he would drink himself to death. Marino thought it a brilliant plan, declaring he would “give all of the drink he wants…and let him drink himself to death.”[26][26][26][26] But though Michael did abuse the credit and drank most of the time, he kept appearing in the bar for free liquor.To Malloy’s undisguised delight, Tony Marino granted him an open-ended tab, saying competition from other saloons had forced him to ease the rules.[27][27][27][27] No sooner did Malloy down a shot than Marino refilled his glass. “Malloy had been a hard drinker all his life,” one witness said, “and he drank on and on.”[28][28][28][28] He drank until Marino’s arm tired from holding the bottle. Remarkably, his breathing remained steady; his skin retained its normally ruddy tinge. Finally, he dragged a grungy sleeve across his mouth, thanked his host for the hospitality, and said he’d be back soon.[29][29][29][29] Within 24 hours, he was.Malloy, accustomed to getting the bum's rush because of his lack of funds, was so thrilled that he eagerly signed a petition that would help elect Marino for local office. What he actually signed was an insurance policy from Metropolitan Life for $800, and two from Prudential for $495 each. The gang even provided Malloy with a crash pad in the back of the bar to sleep off his hangovers.[30][30][30][30](The legend of Iron Mike Malloy and the Murder Trust)Malloy followed this pattern for three days, pausing only long enough to eat a complimentary sardine sandwich.[31][31][31][31] Marino and his accomplices were at a loss. Maybe, they hoped, Malloy would choke on his own vomit or fall and slam his head. But on the fourth day Malloy stumbled into the bar. “Boy!” he exclaimed, nodding at Marino. “Ain’t I got a thirst?”[32][32][32][32]Tough Tony grew impatient, suggesting someone simply shoot Malloy in the head.[33][33][33][33] As a bartender and chemist, Murphy was intimately familiar with all the lethal poisons floating around the country’s speakeasies.[34][34][34][34] The main ingredient of wood alcohol is methanol, a highly toxic chemical substance often found in such industrial compounds as paint thinner and automobile antifreeze.[35][35][35][35] Murphy recommended a more subtle solution: exchanging Malloy’s whiskey and gin with shots of wood alcohol. Drinks containing just four percent wood alcohol could cause blindness, and by 1929 more than 50,000 people nationwide had died from the effects of impure alcohol.[36][36][36][36] They would serve Malloy not shots tainted with wood alcohol, but wood alcohol straight up.Kriesberg allowed a rare display of enthusiasm. “Yeah,” he added, “feed ’im wood alcohol cocktails and see what happens.”[37][37][37][37] Murphy bought a few ten-cent cans of wood alcohol at a nearby paint shop and carried them back in a brown paper bag. He served Malloy shots of cheap whiskey to get him “feeling good,” and then made the switch.[38][38][38][38]The gang watched, rapt, as Malloy downed several shots and kept asking for more, displaying no physical symptoms other than those typical of inebriation.[39][39][39][39] “He didn’t know that what he was drinking was wood alcohol,” reported the New York Evening Post, “and what he didn’t know apparently didn’t hurt him. He drank all the wood alcohol he was given and came back for more.”[40][40][40][40]Tony Matiano Speakseasy (The Curious Case Of Michael Malloy – “Rasputin Of The Bronx”)Night after night, Malloy drank shots of wood alcohol as fast as Murphy poured them, until the night he crumpled without warning to the floor.[41][41][41][41] The gang fell silent, staring at the jumbled heap by their feet. Pasqua knelt by Malloy’s body, feeling the neck for a pulse, lowering his ear to the mouth. The man’s breath was slow and labored. They decided to wait, watching the sluggish rise and fall of his chest. Any minute now. Finally, there was a long, jagged breath—the death rattle?—but then Malloy began to snore. He awakened some hours later, rubbed his eyes, and said, “Gimme some of th’ old regular, me lad!”[42][42][42][42]Over the next few days the gang spiked Malloy's drinks with stronger doses of antifreeze, then turpentine and, finally, horse liniment with rat poison[43][43][43][43]The plot to kill Michael Malloy was becoming cost-prohibitive; the open bar tab, the cans of wood alcohol and the monthly insurance premiums all added up. Marino fretted that his speakeasy would go bankrupt. Tough Tony once again advocated brute force, but Pasqua had another idea. Malloy had a well-known taste for seafood.[44][44][44][44] Why not drop some oysters in denatured alcohol, let them soak for a few days, and serve them while Malloy imbibed?[45][45][45][45] “Alcohol taken during a meal of oysters,” Pasqua was quoted as saying, “will almost invariably cause acute indigestion, for the oysters tend to remain preserved.”[46][46][46][46]As planned, Malloy ate them one by one, savoring each bite, and washed them down with wood alcohol. Marino, Pasqua and the rest played pinochle and waited, but Malloy merely licked his fingers and belched.[47][47][47][47]At this point killing Michael Malloy was just as much about pride as about a payoff—a payoff, they all griped, that would be split among too many conspirators.[48][48][48][48] Murphy tried next. He let a tin of sardines rot for several days, mixed in some shrapnel, slathered the concoction between pieces of bread and served Malloy the sandwich. [49][49][49][49] Any minute, they thought, the metal would start slashing through his organs. Instead, Malloy finished his tin sandwich and asked for another.With the understanding that nothing ingestible would kill Michael, the Murder Trust saught alternative ways to kill him. The gang called an emergency conference. They didn’t know what to make of this Rasputin of the Bronx. Marino recalled his success with Mabelle Carlson and suggested that they ice Malloy down and leave him outside overnight.[50][50][50][50] That evening, with recorded temperatures of -14°F, Marino and Pasqua tossed Malloy into the back seat of Pasqua’s roadster, drove in silence to Crotona Park and lugged the unconscious man through heaps of snow.[51][51][51][51] After depositing him on a park bench, they stripped off his shirt and dumped 5 gallons of water on his chest and head. Malloy never stirred. When Marino arrived at his speakeasy the following day, he found Malloy’s half-frozen form in the basement.[52][52][52][52] Somehow Malloy had trekked the half-mile back and persuaded Murphy to let him in. When he came to, he complained of a “wee chill.”[53][53][53][53]File photo of an American cab driver (Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill)Ironically, Malloy took a week-long break from his booze consumption during this period to seek treatment for a festering sore on his leg at Fordham Hospital.[54][54][54][54] It showed the Murder Trust that despite everything, Mike Malloy was indeed physically fallible.February neared. Another insurance payment was due. One of the gang, John McNally, wanted to run Malloy over with a car. The gang had offered John McNally and James Salone $200 and then $400 to run him over, but both men refused.[55][55][55][55] Tin Ear Smith was skeptical, but Marino, Pasqua, Murphy and Kriesberg were intrigued. John Maglione offered the services of a cabdriver friend named Harry Green, whose cut from the insurance money would total $150.[56][56][56][56] Green, a 23-year-old son of Russian Jewish immigrants, ran a taxi company in the Bronx, and was asked to arrange an “accidental” collision with Mike Malloy.[57][57][57][57]They all piled into Green’s cab, a drunken Malloy strewn across their feet. Green drove a few blocks and stopped. Bastone and Murphy dragged Malloy down the road, holding him up, crucifixion-style, by his outstretched arms. Green gunned the engine. Everyone braced. From the corner of his eye, Maglione saw a quick flash of light.“Stop!” he yelled.[58][58][58][58]The cab lurched to a halt. Green determined it had just been a woman turning on the light in her room, and he prepared for another go.[59][59][59][59] Malloy managed to leap out of the way—not once, but twice. On the third attempt Green raced toward Malloy at 50 miles per hour. Two thuds, one loud and one soft, the body against the hood and then dropping to the ground. For good measure, Green backed up over him.[60][60][60][60] The gang was confident Malloy was dead, but a passing car scared them from the scene before they could confirm.On February 7, a man carrying Nicholas Mellory’s ID card was found battered and bloodied at Austin Place, in the South Bronx. He was revealed to be Joseph Patrick Murray, a 31-year-old immigrant from Calteraun, Co Sligo. In 1934, his permanent address was listed as 1786 Vyse Avenue, right on the other side of Crotona Park from Tony Marino’s speakeasy.[61][61][61][61]Iron Mike Malloy: The Rasputin of the Bronx - Celtic AttitudesAn out of work plasterer who had fallen on hard times, Murray was later found in a “rickety shack in a Depression colony” next to the Hudson Parkway.[62][62][62][62] Murray later recounted getting drunk at a speakeasy in Harlem on the night of 7 February, before being offered a free lift and free booze by a taxi driver. [63][63][63][63] There were two men in the back seat, and driving the cab was a face familiar to Murray – Harry Green. The New York Times reports that a “negro” saw Murray being knocked down by the car at Austin Place, and quickly wrote down the taxi license number – it was Green’s.[64][64][64][64]On the ID for Nicholas Mellory, found stuffed into Murray’s coat pocket after the accident, was his next of kin – Frank Pasqua, the undertaker.[65][65][65][65]It fell to Joseph Murphy, who had been cast as Nicholas Mellory’s brother, to call morgues and hospitals in an attempt to locate his missing “sibling.”[66][66][66][66] No one had any information, nor were there any reports of a fatal accident in the newspapers. Five days later, as Pasqua plotted to kill another anonymous drunk—any anonymous drunk—and pass him off as Nicholas Mellory[67][67][67][67] , the door to Marino’s speakeasy swung open and in limped a battered, bandaged Michael Malloy, looking only slightly worse than usual.His greeting: “I sure am dying for a drink!”[68][68][68][68]Malloy could only remember fragments of the previous night- the taste of whiskey, the cold slap of night air, the glare of rushing lights. Then, blackness. Next thing he knew he woke up in a warm bed at Fordham Hospital and wanted only to get back to the bar.[69][69][69][69]Image credits: NYC Municipal Archives via thejournalTired and running out of ideas, the Murder Trust gang took one final shot. It has been estimated that by this stage of the game, the Murder Trust had spent about $1800 trying to murder a man who was worth, at best, $1788.[70][70][70][70]Two of the men rented a room in an old boarding housenear 168th St. (less than a mile from Marino’s speakeasy) with gas lighting. On February 21, 1933 after he had passed out, they hauled him there, connected a hose to the gas valve, ran it into the old man's mouth, securing the hose with a towel wrapped around his head. The illuminating gas was dense with that lethal poison, carbon monoxide.[71][71][71][71]The conspirators didn't know, of course, that carbon monoxide is so efficient because it muscles oxygen out of the blood stream. They didn't know that carbon monoxide forms a bond with proteins in the blood that is 200 times more powerful than that of oxygen.[72][72][72][72] That it induces a chemical suffocation.They didn't know that and they probably wouldn't have cared. They just knew that the steady hiss of illuminating gas did its job. Malloy barely lasted ten minutes. Dr. Frank Manzella, a friend of Pasqua’s, filed a phony death certificate citing lobar pneumonia as the cause for a payment of $100.[73][73][73][73] Red Murphy successfully passed himself off as the brother of “Nicholas Mellory” and collected $800 from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Murphy and Marino both spent their shares of this money on new suits.[74][74][74][74]A check for $800 from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the only money the Murder Trust collected (The Man Who Wouldn’t Die)Pasqua arrived at the Prudential office confident he would collect the money from the other two policies, but the agent surprised him with a question: “When can I see the body?”[75][75][75][75] Pasqua replied that he was already buried. In fact, Malloy's friends gave him an elaborate burial in the Potter's Field at Ferncliff Cemetery for $12.[76][76][76][76]Pasqua billed his insurance company for an expensive coffin and non-existent floral arrangements.[77][77][77][77]In May 1933, gravediggers exhumed Mike Malloy's body from a 12-foot-deep pauper's plot in the charity section of Westchester County's Ferncliffe Cemetery.[78][78][78][78] And even though this was several months after the death, by that time researchers knew that carbon monoxide was not only efficient but durable, tainting a body for weeks after death.[79][79][79][79] Laboratory analysis easily found lethal levels of carbon monoxide in the remains of Malloy.Michael Malloy after exhaumation (Malloy the Invincible)An investigation ensued; everyone began talking, and everyone eventually faced charges. Green hadn't been paid his full share and started talking, while a professional hit man told friends that an insurance ring had been set to hire him, but his fee was too high.[80][80][80][80] Joseph Maglione, Edward “Tin Ear” Smith, John McNally, and Dr. Manzella all turned state’s evidence, and in exchange for reduced prison sentences, agreed to testify against the Murder Trust.[81][81][81][81] The now-recovered Joseph Murray told of his run-in with the Keystone Killers from the Bronx.[82][82][82][82] In their trial that autumn, the boys tried to pin the whole scheme on the deceased Tough Tony Bastone.Frank Pasqua, Tony Marino, Daniel Kriesberg and Joseph Murphy were tried and convicted of first-degree murder. At trial at the Bronx County Court House, the four murderers either claimed insanity or shifted the blame to each other, and then finally accused "Tough" Tony Bastone, a gangster who they said forced them to kill Malloy.[83][83][83][83] Bastone couldn't testify, having been killed a month after Malloy's death. “Perhaps,” one reporter mused, “the grinning ghost of Mike Malloy was present in the Bronx County Courthouse.”[84][84][84][84] Daniel Kriesberg, the 29-year-old grocer and father of three, stated he participated for the sake of his family.[85][85][85][85]In June and July 1934, Marino, Pasqua, Kreisberg and Murphy died in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison, which killed them on the very first flip of the switch. Harry Green, the taxi driver, went to jail. Dr. Frank Manzella served prison time for being an accessory after the fact.[86][86][86][86]In the end, with the exception of Malloy, no one profited from the scam. In his last months, Malloy had food, shelter, a never-ending supply of alcohol and what he thought were friends. His alcohol consumption alone exceeded the value of the insurance policies. As the number of co-conspiritors grew, shares grew smaller and smaller. Eventually, the Murder Trust turned on itself leading to the inprisonment of all and eventually execution for core members..Footnotes[1] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[1] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[1] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[1] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[2] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1528.html&ved=2ahUKEwjZn6mFx_PhAhVGM6wKHR4ZD_YQFjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw3c7Jm768EWR9kqzJczKISK[2] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1528.html&ved=2ahUKEwjZn6mFx_PhAhVGM6wKHR4ZD_YQFjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw3c7Jm768EWR9kqzJczKISK[2] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1528.html&ved=2ahUKEwjZn6mFx_PhAhVGM6wKHR4ZD_YQFjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw3c7Jm768EWR9kqzJczKISK[2] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1528.html&ved=2ahUKEwjZn6mFx_PhAhVGM6wKHR4ZD_YQFjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw3c7Jm768EWR9kqzJczKISK[3] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/deadly-policy-insurance-scam-goons-pay-hefty-price-murder-article-1.1278023%3FoutputType%3Damp&ved=2ahUKEwiKlqilx_PhAhVJJKwKHQu9CzoQFjAFegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw2w6EAoDBgMKiyQGL59lLz_&ampcf=1&cshid=1556480948837[3] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/deadly-policy-insurance-scam-goons-pay-hefty-price-murder-article-1.1278023%3FoutputType%3Damp&ved=2ahUKEwiKlqilx_PhAhVJJKwKHQu9CzoQFjAFegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw2w6EAoDBgMKiyQGL59lLz_&ampcf=1&cshid=1556480948837[3] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/deadly-policy-insurance-scam-goons-pay-hefty-price-murder-article-1.1278023%3FoutputType%3Damp&ved=2ahUKEwiKlqilx_PhAhVJJKwKHQu9CzoQFjAFegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw2w6EAoDBgMKiyQGL59lLz_&ampcf=1&cshid=1556480948837[3] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/deadly-policy-insurance-scam-goons-pay-hefty-price-murder-article-1.1278023%3FoutputType%3Damp&ved=2ahUKEwiKlqilx_PhAhVJJKwKHQu9CzoQFjAFegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw2w6EAoDBgMKiyQGL59lLz_&ampcf=1&cshid=1556480948837[4] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[4] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[4] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[4] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[5] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010. [5] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010. [5] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010. [5] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010. [6] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[6] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[6] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[6] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[7] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[7] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[7] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[7] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[8] New York Gangs Murder Trust and Michael Malloy Part 1[8] New York Gangs Murder Trust and Michael Malloy Part 1[8] New York Gangs Murder Trust and Michael Malloy Part 1[8] New York Gangs Murder Trust and Michael Malloy Part 1[9] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[9] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[9] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[9] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[10] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[10] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[10] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[10] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[11] The Science Behind Seven Of The World's Most Horrifically Gruesome Deaths[11] The Science Behind Seven Of The World's Most Horrifically Gruesome Deaths[11] The Science Behind Seven Of The World's Most Horrifically Gruesome Deaths[11] The Science Behind Seven Of The World's Most Horrifically Gruesome Deaths[12] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[12] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[12] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[12] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[13] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[13] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[13] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[13] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[14] A Toast to Mike the Durable[14] A Toast to Mike the Durable[14] A Toast to Mike the Durable[14] A Toast to Mike the Durable[15] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[15] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[15] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[15] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[16] The Curious Case Of Michael Malloy – “Rasputin Of The Bronx”[16] The Curious Case Of Michael Malloy – “Rasputin Of The Bronx”[16] The Curious Case Of Michael Malloy – “Rasputin Of The Bronx”[16] The Curious Case Of Michael Malloy – “Rasputin Of The Bronx”[17] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[17] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[17] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[17] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[18] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[18] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[18] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[18] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[19] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[19] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[19] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[19] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[20] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[20] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[20] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[20] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[21] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[21] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[21] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[21] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[22] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[22] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[22] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[22] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[23] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[23] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[23] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[23] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[24] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010.[24] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010.[24] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010.[24] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010.[25] The Shocking Story Behind The First Photo Of Death By Electric Chair[25] The Shocking Story Behind The First Photo Of Death By Electric Chair[25] The Shocking Story Behind The First Photo Of Death By Electric Chair[25] The Shocking Story Behind The First Photo Of Death By Electric Chair[26] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[26] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[26] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[26] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[27] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[27] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[27] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[27] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[28] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[28] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[28] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[28] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[29] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[29] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[29] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[29] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[30] The durable Mike Malloy[30] The durable Mike Malloy[30] The durable Mike Malloy[30] The durable Mike Malloy[31] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[31] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[31] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[31] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[32] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[32] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[32] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[32] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[33] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[33] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[33] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[33] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[34] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[34] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[34] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[34] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[35] http://O'Connor, Michael (2007-10-07). "The Durable Mike Malloy". New York Daily News[35] http://O'Connor, Michael (2007-10-07). "The Durable Mike Malloy". New York Daily News[35] http://O'Connor, Michael (2007-10-07). "The Durable Mike Malloy". New York Daily News[35] http://O'Connor, Michael (2007-10-07). "The Durable Mike Malloy". New York Daily News[36] Wood Alcohol[36] Wood Alcohol[36] Wood Alcohol[36] Wood Alcohol[37] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[37] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[37] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[37] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[38] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[38] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[38] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[38] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[39] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[39] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[39] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[39] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[40] The durable Mike Malloy[40] The durable Mike Malloy[40] The durable Mike Malloy[40] The durable Mike Malloy[41] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[41] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[41] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[41] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[42] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[42] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[42] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[42] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[43] The durable Mike Malloy[43] The durable Mike Malloy[43] The durable Mike Malloy[43] The durable Mike Malloy[44] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[44] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[44] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[44] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[45] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[45] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[45] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[45] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[46] Landmarks in Medicine[46] Landmarks in Medicine[46] Landmarks in Medicine[46] Landmarks in Medicine[47] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[47] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[47] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[47] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[48] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[48] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[48] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[48] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[49] The Science Behind Seven Of The World's Most Horrifically Gruesome Deaths[49] The Science Behind Seven Of The World's Most Horrifically Gruesome Deaths[49] The Science Behind Seven Of The World's Most Horrifically Gruesome Deaths[49] The Science Behind Seven Of The World's Most Horrifically Gruesome Deaths[50] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[50] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[50] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[50] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[51] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[51] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[51] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[51] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[52] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[52] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[52] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[52] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[53] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[53] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[53] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[53] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[54] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010. [54] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010. [54] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010. [54] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010. [55] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[55] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[55] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[55] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[56] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[56] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[56] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[56] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[57] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[57] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[57] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[57] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[58] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[58] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[58] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[58] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[59] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[59] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[59] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[59] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[60] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[60] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[60] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[60] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[61] Image on thejournal.ie[61] Image on thejournal.ie[61] Image on thejournal.ie[61] Image on thejournal.ie[62] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[62] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[62] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[62] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[63] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[63] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[63] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[63] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[64] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/House-Bizare-Killing-Michael-Berkley/dp/0425206785&ved=2ahUKEwj65bLF5PHhAhVOHqwKHajTAUM4ChAWMAJ6BAgHEAE&usg=AOvVaw0COWWTD2Hp4fBZqTJ3wVf8[64] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/House-Bizare-Killing-Michael-Berkley/dp/0425206785&ved=2ahUKEwj65bLF5PHhAhVOHqwKHajTAUM4ChAWMAJ6BAgHEAE&usg=AOvVaw0COWWTD2Hp4fBZqTJ3wVf8[64] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/House-Bizare-Killing-Michael-Berkley/dp/0425206785&ved=2ahUKEwj65bLF5PHhAhVOHqwKHajTAUM4ChAWMAJ6BAgHEAE&usg=AOvVaw0COWWTD2Hp4fBZqTJ3wVf8[64] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/House-Bizare-Killing-Michael-Berkley/dp/0425206785&ved=2ahUKEwj65bLF5PHhAhVOHqwKHajTAUM4ChAWMAJ6BAgHEAE&usg=AOvVaw0COWWTD2Hp4fBZqTJ3wVf8[65] Image on thejournal.ie[65] Image on thejournal.ie[65] Image on thejournal.ie[65] Image on thejournal.ie[66] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[66] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[66] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[66] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[67] Image on thejournal.ie[67] Image on thejournal.ie[67] Image on thejournal.ie[67] Image on thejournal.ie[68] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[68] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[68] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[68] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[69] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[69] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[69] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[69] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[70] Malloy the Invincible[70] Malloy the Invincible[70] Malloy the Invincible[70] Malloy the Invincible[71] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[71] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[71] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[71] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[72] Carbon Monoxide Poisoning[72] Carbon Monoxide Poisoning[72] Carbon Monoxide Poisoning[72] Carbon Monoxide Poisoning[73] PHYSICIAN IS GUILTY IN MALLOY SLAYING; Bronx Jury Finds That Dr. Manzella Gave a False Certificate of Death.[73] PHYSICIAN IS GUILTY IN MALLOY SLAYING; Bronx Jury Finds That Dr. Manzella Gave a False Certificate of Death.[73] PHYSICIAN IS GUILTY IN MALLOY SLAYING; Bronx Jury Finds That Dr. Manzella Gave a False Certificate of Death.[73] PHYSICIAN IS GUILTY IN MALLOY SLAYING; Bronx Jury Finds That Dr. Manzella Gave a False Certificate of Death.[74] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[74] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[74] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[74] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[75] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[75] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[75] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[75] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[76] Malloy the Invincible[76] Malloy the Invincible[76] Malloy the Invincible[76] Malloy the Invincible[77] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[77] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[77] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[77] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[78] The durable Mike Malloy[78] The durable Mike Malloy[78] The durable Mike Malloy[78] The durable Mike Malloy[79] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[79] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[79] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[79] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[80] The durable Mike Malloy[80] The durable Mike Malloy[80] The durable Mike Malloy[80] The durable Mike Malloy[81] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[81] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[81] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[81] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[82] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1996/06/20/keystone-killers/&ved=2ahUKEwjNwePzyfPhAhUFLKwKHfRjC8YQFjAAegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw2szu38HM-gRLJPAYOxEN4M[82] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1996/06/20/keystone-killers/&ved=2ahUKEwjNwePzyfPhAhUFLKwKHfRjC8YQFjAAegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw2szu38HM-gRLJPAYOxEN4M[82] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1996/06/20/keystone-killers/&ved=2ahUKEwjNwePzyfPhAhUFLKwKHfRjC8YQFjAAegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw2szu38HM-gRLJPAYOxEN4M[82] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1996/06/20/keystone-killers/&ved=2ahUKEwjNwePzyfPhAhUFLKwKHfRjC8YQFjAAegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw2szu38HM-gRLJPAYOxEN4M[83] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[83] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[83] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[83] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[84] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[84] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[84] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[84] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[85] ExecutedToday.com " daniel kriesberg[85] ExecutedToday.com " daniel kriesberg[85] ExecutedToday.com " daniel kriesberg[85] ExecutedToday.com " daniel kriesberg[86] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[86] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[86] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[86] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page

We can start by having an actual conversation, instead of shouting at each other and anyone else who will listen that our opponents are inhuman monsters who care nothing about our society. Dehumanizing or otherwise severely belittling your opponents tends to galvanize your existing base of support, but it rarely wins hearts and minds.When we take the tone and volume of the debate down about 10 notches, there are a few things we can probably come to some sort of agreement regarding:The permissive access to guns in this country, coupled with the lack of effective means to track their commerce, contributes to the criminal possession and misuse of firearms. On this point, I hear little disagreement.The United States Constitution is a singularly unique element of the discussion on gun control in this country as compared to any other nation on the planet, and the provisions in scope of the debate are not limited to the Second Amendment.Nobody, on either side, wants another child to be gunned down in their own school. Or in a movie theater. Or a mall. Or by a police officer, for that matter.So, with these things in mind, what can we do? Well, in very general terms, we can look at what’s working and what isn’t, with a clinical eye devoid of emotion.Again in general, my own observation is that the laws that have the greatest effect are the ones that give society in general the tools and the obligation to self-police. Making it illegal for a felon to have a gun is, practically speaking, little more than something you can use to get that felon back in front of a judge, and as a bargaining chip for a plea deal on whatever else you’re charging him with. Felon in possession is only actually tried in court when the prosecution can’t find anything else to charge him with. And it has minimal deterrent effect; the penalties for the things a criminal typically does with that gun far outweigh just having it, and if that isn’t enough deterrent, it should be clear this approach is unreliable at best.Now, giving a gun to a felon, there’s someone else involved there. Ostensibly, someone who legally owns said gun, and would like to continue to legally own guns. Now you have someone who, optimistically speaking, wants to do the right thing, and so will help you in your effort to prevent that felon getting a gun. More pragmatically speaking, you have someone with a lot to lose by being caught selling or giving a gun to a felon. Background checks, and proposed universal background checks, are a good example of a law that encourages the gun-owning community to self-police, by placing a responsibility on a lawful gun owner who wants to remain so, and an ability of the government to verify the gun owner met that responsibility.The basic problem with UBCs is that the typical way they’re done is in front of an FFL. Only FFLs (and the government itself) have access to the background check systems behind NICS. That requires the “transferor”, the person who is giving the gun, and the “transferee” who is getting it, to appear in person at the same time at a gun store with the gun in question, flag down an employee authorized to transfer firearms, have the transferee fill out a form similar to a 4473, have the FFL call it in and get the result before okaying the transfer. If this is a permanent change of ownership, i.e. a sale or a gift, this isn’t too bad. But UBCs also have to apply to temporary transfers, otherwise you could “loan” a gun to someone for an indefinite time and argue that because you expected to get it back, it was a temporary transfer and so not a sale or gift. So, you want to loan a gun to your neighbor you’ve known for 20 years who wants to borrow it for a hunting or range trip and then give it back to you? After the third or fourth time he wants to borrow that gun, with paperwork required every time the gun changes hands, you’ll tell him he can either buy it from you or find another one for sale. The extra hassle of a UBC on any transfer, temporary or permanent, is going to discourage lawful transfers, and encourage ones that are by definition unlawful even if totally innocent in nature.To make UBCs actually work, not only must the penalty for not doing it be fairly harsh and commonly enforced, you need the carrot that the system is ridiculously convenient, while still meaning something (a verifiable audit trail that can be used to prove the law is being followed), and the information involved is not centralized in government hands (this is a “gun registry” and is a very definite red line for gun owners; compliance with most registration requirements is estimated to be in the single digits).Being a software developer by trade, I know that there are solutions to very similar problems in information security. We’re very interested in mathematically proving, during a “secure” communication, the following basic tenets:Both endpoints of the communication are controlled by “actors” whose identities can be reliably verified.The communication cannot be intercepted and understood by any other actor, including the actors facilitating the communication.Any difference between the message sent and the message received can at least be detected if not prevented.The basic fact that communication of a specific message between an identified sender and an identified recipient did successfully occur can be independently proven, while the communication remains private.We have systems that can achieve this. What we need is to adapt such a system into a background check system with the following basic requirements:Buyer and Seller can both prove and verify each other’s true identity.Buyer can prove that he is eligible to receive a firearm from Seller at time of sale.Seller can prove, at an indefinite future time, that the person he sold to was eligible to receive the firearm.Neither Buyer nor Seller require storage of enough information about this transfer to make identity theft of either party a threat (a 4473 in private hands is identity theft on a silver platter; total no-go).Storage of the required information can be in either electronic or printed form without undue inconvenience either way.The Government, ideally, wouldn’t even know who Buyer and Seller are at time of sale, but could still prove, both at time of sale and at an indefinite future time, that Buyer’s or Seller’s assertions concerning the transfer are true and correct.It’s possible. All you really need is to use what the REAL ID Act has given us (nationwide access to driver license and photo ID records with truly unique identifiers), combined with a little basic Internet security.First off, and very importantly, FFLs can still vet private transfers, the same way they’d do the check for a sale of a gun from their store stock. The advantage for the gun owners is custodianship of records and an extra, unimpeachable witness to the transfer; the FFL, in return for their transfer fee, is giving you their employee’s time to handle the check, plus the allocated cost of retaining that 4473 (or similar transfer form) for the requisite 20 years and being available to testify that the transfer between these two people did indeed take place in his presence. There’s a value in that which a lot of people don’t really understand; all the gun owner needs to remember is which store and about what date they made the transfer and the ATF can follow up, with no long-term paperwork storage required.But, for those who choose, we need a system more convenient (and cheaper, ideally free) than showing up in person in front of a third party, that still allows a high degree of confidence that the two met up for the purpose of conducting a firearms transfer. Here’s the basic idea:The transferee, at their option, may visit a website and enter the audit number of their state photo ID, the type of firearm they are seeking to purchase, and the state in which they wish to make the purchase.This ID is already required for a gun purchase through NICS, and by 2020 having an ID that is REAL ID compliant, including that globally-unique audit number, will require actual effort to avoid.By submitting this form, the person is attesting two things:They are the person on the ID in questionThey would answer all the questions on the normal ATF Form 4473 truthfully and correctly, and are thus not a prohibited person. If we want to require a more active means, the person can click checkboxes on a digitized version of the questionnaire, but it’s really redundant at this point.This website can then access the ID records of the state it was issued and retrieve the full information of the card with that audit number, which will in most cases provide enough information to conclusively prove identity (including whether that ID is the currently valid one). No SSN should be required, unlike with the NICS check at the ATF.This website will perform the NICS background check and determine the clearance status of this person for the type of firearm being purchased (Federally the only difference is that 18–20 year olds can buy long guns but not handguns).The status of that clearance will be recorded and associated with the provided audit number. For NICS checks initiated by the transferee themselves, the record of the NICS approval will persist for one week after a “Proceed” finding is issued. For all other purposes, the approval will be purged within 48 hours as currently done. In any case, new information made available to NICS can be used to cancel a pre-approval.This pre-clearance process allows for the resolution of a “Delay” status without the two people involved in the transfer having to meet twice; once for the first attempt and the second once the approval occurs or the delay time expires. Instead, the transferee initiates the check and waits to be approved.With the pre-clearance in hand, or being otherwise confident of a fast approval, the transferee meets the transferor.With the details of the transfer agreed on, the transferor requests the transferee’s ID. The transferor is legally responsible for verifying that the picture on the ID matches the person standing in front of them.Having verified identity, the transferor visits the same website, indicates that they are a transferor (no identifying information is required, but an e-mail address could be optionally supplied), and enters the audit number of the transferee’s ID, the type of weapon being sold and the state in which it’s being sold. The site may, optionally, show the picture, name and mailing address associated with the ID allowing the transferor to be that much more confident in correct identity (but this could also be easily abused; limits on incorrect audit numbers, or requiring a name and audit number to prevent systematic entry would be recommended)If the transferee was pre-cleared for that type of weapon in that state, the transferor will see that clearance almost immediately. Otherwise, a NICS check will be performed and the transferor will get the results. They may only complete the transfer with a “Proceed” result, which is also the only circumstance in which they’ll get the documentation proving a lawful transfer.Assuming the transfer is approved and the transferor wishes to proceed, the transferor enters the make, model, serial number and caliber of the weapon being transferred and the nature of the transfer (temporary with an expected date of return, or permanent).This information about the transfer is submitted to the government’s server, where the basic information about the transfer is verified one last time as being approved, before all the information is then hashed to produce a digest. That digest is then asymmetrically encrypted using a private key known only to the government, creating a digital signature. This is all given back to the client in the form of a savable or printable document containing the transfer information and an Aztec barcode of the signature.The upshot is that the government never has to store any information about any actual transfer. It has to know it for a transient period of time in order to verify the transferee is properly approved and then digitally sign and encode the transfer information, but there is no reason that the government needs to keep any of the transfer info longer than a few seconds, and we can put whatever internal audits and reviews we wish in place to guarantee that.The transferor then simply prints or saves the approval document for their records, and completes the transfer to the transferee.Should the ATF come calling, to determine the lawful chain of custody of a firearm traced from the manufacturer through the FFL and any other buyers to the transferor, the transferor simply produces the document received from the government. This document will contain the basic information of the transferee (name, address and audit number as of the date of transfer; this is stored indefinitely in State records), the information about the firearm (make, model, type and serial number), the date of transfer, and an Aztec Code (a type of “2D barcode” similar to a QR code, which can store a lot of information and can be deciphered even with poor print resolution; it’s used for airline boarding passes and a few other purposes). The ATF just has to enter the information from the form, then scan the Aztec Code.Their software will perform the same hash of the form’s data that the government did, then use the public key of the keypair to decrypt the signature encoded in the Aztec Code. If the hash matches the one in the decrypted signature, the ATF knows three things:The information on the form was submitted to and vetted by the NICS system; no other system would have the private key needed to properly encrypt it.The information in plain text on the form is the same as what was submitted to NICS and has not been altered on the form, otherwise the hash wouldn’t match the signature.Therefore, NICS was notified of and approved this transfer as it appears on the form.This same validation can be done by anyone for any reason, including to make sure the government’s doing its job right, but the seller would only be required to submit the document for inspection to a law enforcement agent with a lawfully-obtained warrant.All of this happens without the government storing a damn thing about the transfer of the firearm; all records are kept by the seller, or the FFL, and can be independently verified as having gone through NICS with just the information on the piece of paper.The government’s computer system must be trusted with the buyer’s information long enough to verify the buyer, and with the transfer information long enough to validate, hash and encrypt it. These are both transient; the information does not have to be kept a second longer than necessary for those purposes and should never have to be written to “persistent storage media” anywhere in the government’s system. Whether it is being stored longer than necessary or not is a question for internal watchdogs; we can ask the same question about NICS in its current form, and the answer should be “all identifying information behind any NICS check with a “Proceed” finding is purged within 48 hours of the check, and we can only know the transfer actually occurred by visiting the FFL”. The answer would be much the same for this system.Can the transferee deny the transfer actually happened? Sure. So can someone buying a gun from an FFL. The transferee can assert that they filled out the form, got the transfer vetted by NICS, and then the transferor demanded an extra $200 and the transferee walked away. The same can happen in a face-to-face transfer. The transferor, FFL or otherwise, is legally required to visibly and irreversibly void the document in that case. Someone caught with any facially-valid ATF transfer document that says something happened other than what actually happened has falsified a Federal form and is in huge trouble. The question, as always, is going to be who the jury believes.This is a good reason to keep the FFL-based option for vetting private transfers; if you don’t trust the other guy, the FFL is a valuable witness and independent custodian of records.EDIT: Johannes W. van der Spek made a very salient point in the comments:And criminals will still not follow your system - so all you did was pubnish law abiding with more regulations, and add more government costs and regulations that do nothing.Or did you forget that Murder, Assault, even branishing are already illegal, and those laws stop no one, because they are ALREADY criminals.2017 homicide data provide insight into Baltimore's gun wars, police saySure, the bad guys won’t follow the law. Never said they would. The difference is the people who give the bad guys the guns (who are themselves not just committing a crime, but a 10-year Federal felony) can no longer say “I didn’t and couldn’t know he was bad news, and the nearest FFL is 50 miles away and jam-packed for deer season”, and get away with their crime.It is a crime, in fact sometimes a felony, to provide alcohol to a minor unless (in some jurisdictions) that minor is a direct relative by blood or marriage, over 18, and you do so in your own home. That’s true whether you have a liquor license or not. “He looked 21 to me” is not a defense. “The light was bad and I misread the birthdate on his license” is not a defense. Doesn’t matter if the person you gave it to drank it himself or gave it away to another underage friend; if he wasn’t supposed to have it in the first place, and you gave it to him without him going to criminal lengths to fool you as to his identity and age, you committed a crime, separately from whatever that kid did with it.The same is true for guns. It’s a crime under 18 USC 922(d) for anyone to give a gun to a prohibited person, not just an FFL. And not just a crime; the punishment, under section 924, is up to ten years in Federal prison. The problem, regarding enforcement of this law, is first that we can only reliably trace guns to their first owner, and second, that owner could transfer it to a prohibited person “in good faith”, or the appearance of it, because they couldn’t reasonably know otherwise. It’s how crooked FFLs got away for years with “he looked alright to me”.Then the Brady Bill passed and FFLs had to clean up their act; if they didn’t run a NICS check or State-implemented equivalent, they went to jail. If they ran a NICS check, got a “Delay” or “Deny” and handed the gun over anyway, they went to jail. And this system works; when it doesn’t, it’s typically a reporting failure, which is its own problem with some very easy-to find people to hold accountable (whether we do or not is beside the point at hand).The remaining gap in the system is the private seller. They are now where FFLs were in the ‘80s; it’s plausible to say “I didn’t and couldn’t know he was prohibited”, because non-FFLs can’t access NICS and therefore can’t run checks. And, with various jurisdictions like California making it legally impossible to open a gun store anywhere near most major cities, and making the stores that are left hard-pressed to stay in business with more and more restrictions on what they can sell, it can be a 100% valid argument that the nearest gun store is clear across town.No, it’s not a “loophole” as we understand that term; it was 100% intended when the law was written and there was no deceit or secrecy involved in slipping it past Congress. This was a good decision in 1992, we didn’t have the technology infrastructure or proliferation to make it widely available. Now, 90% of the country owns a cell phone, 77% own a smartphone, 80% have Internet access at home, and 98% of the land area of the country has Internet-capable cell signal and/or hardwired Internet service.With the system above, there’s no excuse. If and when the ATF comes calling, because a gun whose serial number has so far been traced to you was found at a crime scene and/or in a felon’s hands, you can pull out a verifiable record of sale, you can tell them where to find that verifiable record of sale, or you can be arrested and charged with a failure to perform a valid background check resulting in felon possession. This system makes it ridiculously simple, and the information you enter is verified against State records several times during the process so you can’t blame it on a typo.By not running the background check, you personally vouch for the guy’s correct identity, character and intentions. The fact that the gun was used in a crime is Exhibit A that you were wrong. Your absolute defense to prosecution is that you possess verifiable information that would validate your claim that you vetted the guy as being non-prohibited. The wise person would avail themselves of an absolute defense to a Federal crime.Of course there will be excuses:“I know the guy I sold to personally, known him since high school” - Great, should have been a quick approval, where’s the document? Better yet, if you know this guy, where is he right now? If he’ll back you up that you sold it to him and give us the next link in the chain, ideally with documentation, we’ll drop the charges.“He had a state license to carry” - Great, did you write down the license number and issuing state, or better yet, make a photocopy or take a camera photo and safeguard that? That’s as good as the NICS check form as far as we’re concerned.“The document was stolen/destroyed in a fire/waterlogged” - Also understandable, where’s the police or fire report corroborating the theft or damage of valuable sensitive records from a UL-listed fire safe or gun safe? Produce that and we’ll write this one off, these things happen even to FFLs.“I didn’t want to be responsible for keeping the paperwork secure” - Understandable, which FFL did you make the custodian of record by having them run the “old-school” NICS check for you?“I sold that gun before the UBC law went into effect” - Really? Because we have the date that the previous owner sold it to you from his records, scanned and authenticated by the system that was put in place by the UBC law, and that date is two months after the law took effect. So where’s your documentation showing you sold it two months before this mathematically-verifiable document says you bought it? Or are you claiming that the previous owner, a 75-year-old retired cattle farmer, is also a mathematical genius who’s cracked cryptography standards in place for nearly three decades and is on the verge of bringing the entire Internet to its knees?I’m a gun owner myself. I’m also a father of three. I get plenty of “wasn’t me, must have been (littlest one)”, when I find something broken or Kool-Aid spilled or crayon grafitti on the wall. I expect it from toddlers and kindergarteners, not from 30-year-old “law-abiding” gun owners. I’m tired of “my **** don’t stink”; it’s very obvious someone’s does. If law-abiding gun owners weren’t complicit in criminals getting guns, there would be far fewer. The system described above is a ridiculously simple way for people to vet buyers in a private sale, and to verify they did so after the fact, without identity theft or a government registry being a problem. Of course criminals won’t use it. That’s the point; this is how we identify who we should lock up.