Guns

[LFC]

This is too good.

[goldenvalley]

A good guy with a gun...yeah I'm analyzing by anecdote but I really don't see a lot of good guys actually accomplishing something good with their weapons.

A 9-year-old girl died after a man who was held up at a Houston ATM fired at her family's pickup truck while attempting to shoot the robbery suspect, police said.

The suspect in the shooting, identified by police as Tony Earls, 41, was making a transaction at a drive-thru ATM at 2900 Woodridge Dr. in southeastern Houston with his wife Monday shortly before 10 p.m. when he was robbed at gunpoint, according to police.

"Earls first shot at the robbery suspect, who was fleeing on foot, and then at a pickup truck he thought the robbery suspect had gotten into," police said.

One of those rounds struck the back window of the pickup truck, which was occupied by a family of five that was not involved in the robbery, police said. A 9-year-old girl in the rear passenger seat was struck during the shooting, police said.

The girl, who has not been publicly identified by authorities, was transported to Memorial Hermann Hospital in critical condition. She was pronounced dead Tuesday afternoon, police said.

Apparently having a gun doesn't help when the robber has the drop on you at the ATM machine and it doesn't prevent a person from making a serious error in judgement.  But cheer up family of the dead child, she was free to own her own weapon if she got to age 18.

[pnwguy]

Feb 17, 2022 3:56:24 GMT goldenvalley said:

A good guy with a gun...yeah I'm analyzing by anecdote but I really don't see a lot of good guys actually accomplishing something good with their weapons.
Apparently having a gun doesn't help when the robber has the drop on you at the ATM machine and it doesn't prevent a person from making a serious error in judgement.  But cheer up family of the dead child, she was free to own her own weapon if she got to age 18.

Just ask any Good Guy

[LFC]

Feb 17, 2022 3:56:24 GMT goldenvalley said:

A good guy with a gun...yeah I'm analyzing by anecdote but I really don't see a lot of good guys actually accomplishing something good with their weapons.

The one case the gun nuts crowed about was the church shooter from just a few years back. The man that shot him wasn't just some good guy with a gun, he was a firearms instructor and a former reserve sheriff's deputy. Read his account and compare it to the asshole blasting rounds at a vehicle over a robbery without even knowing who was inside.

“I didn’t have a clear window,” he said, referring to church members who “were jumping, going chaotic.” Wilson, a 71-year-old firearms instructor who has also been a reserve sheriff’s deputy, said: “They were standing up. I had to wait about half a second, or a second, to get my shot. I fired one round. The subject went down.”

BTW I remember watching the video. At the same time there was another "good guy with a gun" working his way down the next aisle and sweeping dozens of people's heads with his muzzle and both hands on the gun. Yeah, like I would trust that guy to make the correct split second decision on whether or not to fire over an entire group of people. So even the one reasonably recent case of a "good guy with a gun" that I've seen has a massive ASSterisk on it.

In this latest case the shooter wasn't even somebody trying to safeguard themselves or another person. This was a flat out revenge shooting for being robbed as the suspect was fleeing the scene. This is murder.

[AnBr]

By a Facebook friend.

[LFC]

I'm dropping this here to remind people she was an NRA and Republican darling. Yes, these are the kinds of terrorists that Republicans just love pal'ing around with.

It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on this character.

Convicted Russian spy Maria Butina just did a bizarre and rather concerning interview with the BBC in which she argued that Ukraine is “bombing” its own civilians and pushed Kremlin talking points that President Vlodymyr Zelensky, a Jewish descendant of Holocaust survivors, is a Nazi.

The interview honestly sounds like a confused hostage video. I’ll get into the details more below. But since serving 15 months in U.S. prisons after being convicted of working as an unregistered foreign agent — for attempting to infiltrate the National Rifle Association and after admitting to helping set up a Russian backchannel for conservative strategists ahead of the 2016 election — Butina returned to Russia in 2019. And she’s a politician now — apparently a fairly successful one. Butina became a member of the Russian parliament’s lower chamber in 2021 and has batted away accusations that President Putin helped hand her the position as a “reward” for her criminal endeavors in the U.S.

“It’s not a reward,” she told the New York Times in November 2021. “I wasn’t a spy. I wasn’t working for the government. I was just a civilian.”

Since joining Russia’s parliament, Butina has used her platform to “to cast herself as an expert on both America and penal systems,” in the Times words. She also reportedly had a hand in writing President Putin’s recent media censorship law — the very law that prompted the New York Times and other Western media outlets to pull their correspondents out of Russia in recent days. The law essentially criminalizes any reporting on Russia’s war on Ukraine that veers from the Kremlin’s framing of events, with penalties of up to 15 years in prison.

She is using her time wisely.

[LFC]

More and more mass shootings, and the right's answer is always more and more guns.

At least eight people were killed and more than 50 others hurt in at least eight mass shootings over the weekend, as the United States continues to grapple with a rise in gun violence and crime.

Among the incidents was a shooting at a car show in Dumas, Arkansas, that left one person dead and at least 28 injured -- the most people wounded in a mass shooting event in the US in more than two years, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

At least 107 mass shootings have unfolded so far this year in the US, including those on Saturday and Sunday, per the Gun Violence Archive, which like CNN defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot, not including the shooter. More than two-thirds of the country's most populous cities recorded more homicides in 2021 than the previous year, with at least 10 setting all-time homicide records -- with the majority committed with a firearm.

The Biden administration in recent weeks redoubled its focus on combating gun crime, even as lawmakers in at least seven states have forged ahead -- often against the advice of enforcement officials and advocacy groups -- with bills that would allow citizens to legally carry concealed guns in public without firearm training or a license.

[goldenvalley]

Mar 21, 2022 18:02:33 GMT LFC said:

More and more mass shootings, and the right's answer is always more and more guns.

At least eight people were killed and more than 50 others hurt in at least eight mass shootings over the weekend, as the United States continues to grapple with a rise in gun violence and crime.

Among the incidents was a shooting at a car show in Dumas, Arkansas, that left one person dead and at least 28 injured -- the most people wounded in a mass shooting event in the US in more than two years, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

At least 107 mass shootings have unfolded so far this year in the US, including those on Saturday and Sunday, per the Gun Violence Archive, which like CNN defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot, not including the shooter. More than two-thirds of the country's most populous cities recorded more homicides in 2021 than the previous year, with at least 10 setting all-time homicide records -- with the majority committed with a firearm.

The Biden administration in recent weeks redoubled its focus on combating gun crime, even as lawmakers in at least seven states have forged ahead -- often against the advice of enforcement officials and advocacy groups -- with bills that would allow citizens to legally carry concealed guns in public without firearm training or a license.

With bullets flying around how does a good guy figure out who to shoot at?  When I hear police defenders talk about how dangerous it is to police because they don't know who is armed I always have to ask "wouldn't restricting weapon ownership and carrying alleviate that problem?"

[LFC]

It just keeps getting worse. There's no level of gun violence that will make these people stop and think about the real life outcomes of what they advocate.

Every day in the United States more than 110 Americans are killed with a gun. These are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives—taken too soon from their families and friends. Thanks to the actions of Republican state legislators in Indiana—and the state’s GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb—these daily tragedies will likely rise.

Last week, Indiana became the latest state to make it legal for ordinary citizens to carry a concealed weapon on their person, with no permit and no training. This follows the lead of two other states that passed such laws this year—Alabama and Ohio—and six states that enacted similar legislation last year. Legislatures in Georgia, Nebraska, South Carolina, and Wisconsin are also considering such legislation.

States have long allowed gun owners to carry a concealed weapon, but all but Vermont required them to go through a permit process, which often entailed a background check and a mandatory safety class. In many states, police could reject permit applications.

These new laws, however, remove all restrictions. No background check, no training, no shooting exercises. Indeed, in permitless concealed carry states residents can buy a weapon and carry it hidden on their body—even if they have no idea how to use that weapon properly.

All this is happening at a time when firearm homicides in 2020 surpassed 45,000—the highest number yet recorded.

[pnwguy]

The gun is the ultimate worship of the divine, who bestows them on the righteous. No human life is worth more than His Holy Instrument on earth. "Are you trying to limit God? Blasphemy!"

[LFC]

Mar 29, 2022 18:50:37 GMT pnwguy said:

The gun is the ultimate worship of the divine, who bestows them on the righteous. No human life is worth more than His Holy Instrument on earth. "Are you trying to limit God? Blasphemy!"

You know it, baby!

[goldenvalley]

My town Sacramento has hit the big time of mass murders (killing of 4 or more) by gunfire.  A couple of weeks ago an a*&%*&e shot his 3 kids, the guy who was supervising the shooter visitation with the kids and then himself...in a church that was supposed to be neutral ground for the visitation.  And then in the early morning hours of Sunday 6 people were killed and 12 injured by gunfire.  Not many details on that so far beyond some brawl broke out before the shooting and witnesses saying gunfire was rapid.  

California has some of the best gun control laws around, but as opponents to them point out, it doesn't stop anything.  That's partly because guns are like illegal drugs.  There is a demand for them and the dealers find ways to supply it.

[LFC]

Apr 4, 2022 16:15:34 GMT goldenvalley said:

California has some of the best gun control laws around, but as opponents to them point out, it doesn't stop anything.  That's partly because guns are like illegal drugs.  There is a demand for them and the dealers find ways to supply it.

The issue is that gun control needs to be national, not local. I remember seeing an NY Times piece on where the illegal guns in Chicago came from and they were the states with lax gun laws.

The trick is to clamp down on illegal sales by making it a more dangerous business to be in. When somebody can buy unlimited guns in an untracked manner in one place and drive to another with strict gun laws then the laws obviously can't work well.

[indy]

Apr 4, 2022 17:38:26 GMT LFC said:

Apr 4, 2022 16:15:34 GMT goldenvalley said:

California has some of the best gun control laws around, but as opponents to them point out, it doesn't stop anything.  That's partly because guns are like illegal drugs.  There is a demand for them and the dealers find ways to supply it.

The issue is that gun control needs to be national, not local. I remember seeing an NY Times piece on where the illegal guns in Chicago came from and they were the states with lax gun laws.

The trick is to clamp down on illegal sales by making it a more dangerous business to be in. When somebody can buy unlimited guns in an untracked manner in one place and drive to another with strict gun laws then the laws obviously can't work well.

Chicago's problem was not just neighboring states but in many cases neighboring municipalities. The outlying suburbs were particularly problematic.

[pnwguy]

Apr 4, 2022 16:15:34 GMT goldenvalley said:

My town Sacramento has hit the big time of mass murders (killing of 4 or more) by gunfire.  A couple of weeks ago an a*&%*&e shot his 3 kids, the guy who was supervising the shooter visitation with the kids and then himself...in a church that was supposed to be neutral ground for the visitation.  And then in the early morning hours of Sunday 6 people were killed and 12 injured by gunfire.  Not many details on that so far beyond some brawl broke out before the shooting and witnesses saying gunfire was rapid.  

California has some of the best gun control laws around, but as opponents to them point out, it doesn't stop anything.  That's partly because guns are like illegal drugs.  There is a demand for them and the dealers find ways to supply it.

SCOTUS will be working in the opposite direction, so expect more Wild West scenarios.  Every Good American should own and carry a gun -- everywhere.  GOP's new school board victors will recommend classes to train elementary kids to be the quickest on the draw.  Guns and ammo should be available in vending machines.  "Stand your playground swing, Jimmy!"

[AnBr]

Apr 4, 2022 17:38:26 GMT LFC said:

The issue is that gun control needs to be national, not local. I remember seeing an NY Times piece on where the illegal guns in Chicago came from and they were the states with lax gun laws.

The trick is to clamp down on illegal sales by making it a more dangerous business to be in. When somebody can buy unlimited guns in an untracked manner in one place and drive to another with strict gun laws then the laws obviously can't work well.

So much this. And we have known this for decades. It is why Putin kept funneling money into the NRA.

[LFC]

Isn't it interesting where the murder rates are really going up.

Every news outlet from FOX to CNN to The New York Times to local newspapers has a story with attention-grabbing headlines like “US cities hit all-time murder records.” Fox News and Republicans have jumped on this and framed it as a “Democrat” problem. They blame it on Democrat’s “soft-on-crime” approach and have even referred to a New York District Attorney’s approach as “hug-a-thug.” Many news stories outside of Fox have also purported that police reform is responsible for this rise in murder and have pointed to cities like New York and Los Angeles.

There is a measure of truth to these stories. The US saw an alarming 30% increase in murder in 2020. While 2021 data is not yet complete, murder was on the rise again this past year. Some “blue” cities, like Chicago, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, have seen real and persistent increases in homicides. These cities—along with others like Los Angeles, New York, and Minneapolis—are also in places with wall-to-wall media coverage and national media interest.

But there is a large piece of the homicide story that is missing and calls into question the veracity of the right-wing obsession over homicides in Democratic cities: murder rates are far higher in Trump-voting red states than Biden-voting blue states. And sometimes, murder rates are highest in cities with Republican mayors.

For example, Jacksonville, a city with a Republican mayor, had 128 more murders in 2020 than San Francisco, a city with a Democrat mayor, despite their comparable populations. In fact, the homicide rate in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco was half that of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Bakersfield, a city with a Republican mayor that overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Yet there is barely a whisper, let alone an outcry, over the stunning levels of murders in these and other places.

We collected 2019 and 2020 murder data from all 50 states. (Comprehensive 2021 data is not yet available.) We pulled the data from yearly crime reports released by state governments, specifically the Departments of Justice and Safety. For states that didn’t issue state crime reports, we pulled data from reputable local news sources. To allow for comparison, we calculated the state’s per capita murder rate, the number of murders per 100,000 residents, and categorized states by their presidential vote in the 2020 election, resulting in an even 25-25 split.

We found that murder rates are, on average, 40% higher in the 25 states Donald Trump won in the last presidential election compared to those that voted for Joe Biden. In addition, murder rates in many of these red states dwarf those in blue states like New York, California, and Massachusetts. And finally, many of the states with the worst murder rates—like Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, and Arkansas—are ones that few would describe as urban. Only 2 of America’s top 100 cities in population are located in these high murder rate states. And not a single one of the top 10 murder states registers in the top 15 for population density.

Whether one does or does not blame Republican leaders for high murder rates, it seems that Republican officeholders do a better job of blaming Democrats for lethal crime than actually reducing lethal crime.

[LFC]

He was going to murder people for shoplifting. Instead he shot a 9-year old girl. He needs to be locked up and never be allowed to own or handle a firearm again as long as he lives.

A store owner has been arrested in the shooting of a 9-year-old girl police said was hit by an errant bullet at a Southern California mall when the merchant allegedly opened fire on a pair of shoplifters he was chasing.

Marqel Cockrell, 20, was being held on $1 million bail after he was arrested in Nevada and booked on suspicion of attempted murder, the Victorville Police Department announced Wednesday.

Deputies found the wounded girl and immediately began rendering medical aid, Victorville police said. She was taken to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where she was in stable condition.

The girl's family members told ABC station KABC in Los Angeles that she suffered a gunshot wound to the arm.

Cockrell, who is the co-owner of a sneaker store at the mall called Sole Addicts, attempted to chase down two shoplifters out of his store according to police. In an attempt to stop the shoplifters, Cockrell fired multiple shots, missing the shoplifters and striking the young victim.

After fleeing the scene, Cockrell was arrested by the Nevada Highway Patrol in Clark County, Nevada, about 9 pm. Tuesday. He was booked at the Clark County Jail on suspicion of attempted murder and is awaiting extradition back to California.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 14, 2022 13:56:37 GMT LFC said:

He was going to murder people for shoplifting. Instead he shot a 9-year old girl. He needs to be locked up and never be allowed to own or handle a firearm again as long as he lives.

A store owner has been arrested in the shooting of a 9-year-old girl police said was hit by an errant bullet at a Southern California mall when the merchant allegedly opened fire on a pair of shoplifters he was chasing.

Marqel Cockrell, 20, was being held on $1 million bail after he was arrested in Nevada and booked on suspicion of attempted murder, the Victorville Police Department announced Wednesday.

Deputies found the wounded girl and immediately began rendering medical aid, Victorville police said. She was taken to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where she was in stable condition.

The girl's family members told ABC station KABC in Los Angeles that she suffered a gunshot wound to the arm.

Cockrell, who is the co-owner of a sneaker store at the mall called Sole Addicts, attempted to chase down two shoplifters out of his store according to police. In an attempt to stop the shoplifters, Cockrell fired multiple shots, missing the shoplifters and striking the young victim.

After fleeing the scene, Cockrell was arrested by the Nevada Highway Patrol in Clark County, Nevada, about 9 pm. Tuesday. He was booked at the Clark County Jail on suspicion of attempted murder and is awaiting extradition back to California.

This good guy with a gun thing turns out to be more complicated than the pro-arm everyone folks believe.  Somehow that weapon isn't a magical thing that makes the bad guys wither and surrender. Sort of like "train hits car" idea...it turns out that bullet hurt unintended people.  Why? Because like a train on a fixed track, the bullet moves on a straight path and hits whoever is in the path.

[LFC]

Apr 14, 2022 15:07:50 GMT goldenvalley said:

This good guy with a gun thing turns out to be more complicated than the pro-arm everyone folks believe.  Somehow that weapon isn't a magical thing that makes the bad guys wither and surrender. Sort of like "train hits car" idea...it turns out that bullet hurt unintended people.  Why? Because like a train on a fixed track, the bullet moves on a straight path and hits whoever is in the path.

Even outside of the wild shots being fired it shows there is a culture that believes that when you carry a gun and you feel wronged you may murder the person who wronged you. Not endangered, just wronged. Death is a fair and just punishment for stealing what, some f***ing sneakers?

I have a friend who owns a LOT of firearms, conceal carries regularly, and is a strong gun rights supporter. He's also sane. His view is that if there is an incident where he or his family might be threatened he is legally allow to "shelter in place." That means trying to get out of the line of fire and securing yourself in one position i.e. "standing your ground." The only way you have a right to fire is if the threat then comes at you. The instant you leave that position you are an active participant in a gunfight and have a high chance of being in the wrong. This is the antithesis of George Zimmerman or Kyle Rittenhouse who actively ran into a situation while armed. Also his views on open carry are set in stone. Anybody involved in open carry is simply trying to intimidate other people, end of story.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 14, 2022 15:23:51 GMT LFC said:

The only way you have a right to fire is if the threat then comes at you. The instant you leave that position you are an active participant in a gunfight and have a high chance of being in the wrong. This is the antithesis of George Zimmerman or Kyle Rittenhouse who actively ran into a situation while armed. Also his views on open carry are set in stone. Anybody involved in open carry is simply trying to intimidate other people, end of story.

I agree with him.  But you have to have confidence and self possession to do what he suggests.  Most people don't have that.  It's why they want a weapon in the first place.  

[Bact PhD]

Apr 14, 2022 15:27:51 GMT goldenvalley said:

Apr 14, 2022 15:23:51 GMT LFC said:

The only way you have a right to fire is if the threat then comes at you. The instant you leave that position you are an active participant in a gunfight and have a high chance of being in the wrong. This is the antithesis of George Zimmerman or Kyle Rittenhouse who actively ran into a situation while armed. Also his views on open carry are set in stone. Anybody involved in open carry is simply trying to intimidate other people, end of story.

I agree with him.  But you have to have confidence and self possession to do what he suggests.  Most people don't have that.  It's why they want a weapon in the first place.  

What, you mean you expect people to actually *know* what the hell they’re doing when they exercise their Gawd-given Second Amendment rights?? Surely you jest!

[LFC]

Apr 14, 2022 16:38:37 GMT Bact PhD said:

What, you mean you expect people to actually *know* what the hell they’re doing when they exercise their Gawd-given Second Amendment rights?? Surely you jest!

C'mon! They know exactly what to do.

a) Go to gun store.

b) Buy gun.

c) Buy ammo to go with gun.

d) Take home and show off to your friends and maybe on social media.

e) Shoot some paper targets.

Now you're ready to enter the world of combat with firearms!

[LFC]

"My husband and I may be violent traitors but he umpires baseball so we need guns!" Well, that's about the summation.

A woman charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection has asked a court to allow her to carry a firearm while she awaits trial.

Marilyn Fassell, who was arrested in September after she and her husband Thomas Fassell turned themselves in, asked to have the non-possession restriction lifted in her pretrial order, although she did not ask the judge to lift a restriction against destructive devices.

"[Fassell] advises that her husband umpires games in a baseball league, which frequently schedules its games at night, keeping him away from home till late," her attorneys said in a court filing.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 20, 2022 17:19:45 GMT LFC said:

"My husband and I may be violent traitors but he umpires baseball so we need guns!" Well, that's about the summation.

A woman charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection has asked a court to allow her to carry a firearm while she awaits trial.

Marilyn Fassell, who was arrested in September after she and her husband Thomas Fassell turned themselves in, asked to have the non-possession restriction lifted in her pretrial order, although she did not ask the judge to lift a restriction against destructive devices.

"[Fassell] advises that her husband umpires games in a baseball league, which frequently schedules its games at night, keeping him away from home till late," her attorneys said in a court filing.

Would she think it would be ok if a Black man charged with drug dealing carried a weapon because he umpires games in a baseball league that has night games?