Hey, kids, y'all want some ink?

Looking back through the archives, I realise it’s been over a year since we last had a tattoo story, so here, to celebrate 4th July, is one from the other side of the pond.

A northwest Georgia couple arrested for giving six of their children homemade tattoos say they didn't do anything wrong. The kids, they say, wanted the tattoos to be like Mom and Dad.

Aaah, bless!

"I'm their mother," Patty Jo Marsh said. "Shouldn't I be able to decide if they get one?"

Well, no, at least not according to State law in Georgia, where both unlicensed tattooing and the tattooing of minors are illegal.

Marsh and husband Jacob Edward Bartels were arrested late last year after the biological mother of some of the children found that markings on their hands wouldn't wash off.

So much in that one phrase –‘ the biological mother of some of the children...’, especially as this was nearly a month later.

Five of their six children, ages 10 to 17, received small cross tattoos on their hands. Another child had "mom and dad" lettered on a hand.

Which 'mom and dad', I wonder (see above)? And crosses? Isn’t that taking ‘bearing witness’ a bit too far? Still, I suppose it saves paying $9.99 for a pendant from Wal-Mart’s Jewelry of Faith [sic] range.

Police described the home-made tattoo gun as a plastic pen with a needle made from a guitar string that was connected to an electric motor.

Yee-haw! Tattoos, religion and redneck DIY – this story’s got it all!