gun ownership
gregladen | January 18, 2011Since he is a minor his name has been withheld. The 14 year old boy in South Carolina called the police to tell them that he had attacked his father, his grandmother, and his great aunt. He told the police he'd be there when they arrived, possibly waiting outside. When police appeared on the scene they found the boy with his hands in the air out in front of the house, and inside were his dead father and dead great aunt, and a critically injured grandmother, all three attacked with a dull butter knife and a small piece of twine.
No, wait, sorry, I got that detail wrong. The boy did not use…
gregladen | January 11, 2011Gun nuts in the Arizona State Legislature have introduced what they insensitively and stupidly call the Gifford-Zimmerman act, named after the wounded Congresswoman Gifford and her slain aid, requiring the state to train politicians and their staff as part of the process of arming them.
Read about that stupid idea as well as a very close call by one Joe Zamudio, who was the armed citizen at the scene of the Tucson Massacre who almost shot the guy who was holding the gun just taken away from the Teabagger who had killed and wounded all those people.
Zamudio's brave intervention as proof of…
gregladen | January 9, 2011The racist tirade, which shockingly invokes the words of Margaret Meade, starts around six minutes into this violence inciting speech by a talk show host I'd never heard of before.
gregladen | January 6, 2011This was just across the river from me:
It looks like this may have stopped a local crime wave of armed robberies in the area. More inf here.
In contrast, when this couple was burglarized, there was nothing they could have done to stop it:
A 28-year-old man is facing burglary charges after police say he stole items from the home of an elderly couple who had recently passed away.
Jason Williams, of Newport, Minn., is accused of stealing jewelry, a box of photo lockets of WWI-era pictures and two watches with the couple's initials engraved in them on New Year's Eve. Police say the…
gregladen | January 5, 2011Statistics and various studies show that yes, it might, but they also show that having a gun in the home is also potentially very dangerous, so the net aggregate outcome (and economists have strong armed us into thinking that net aggregate outcomes are the only criteria that are acceptable, bless their pointy heads) of having a gun in the home is that someone in your home is more likely to be shot and possibly killed than that the gun will be used to thwart a home invasion.
But enough about facts, let's look at two very current anecdotal cases and argue about them for a while:
Thwarting a…
gregladen | December 21, 2010NOTE Since writing this post other versions of the story behind this tragic and unnecessary gun related death have emerged. See the comments below.
The conversation that emerged from this post is not obviated by the story being different, as that conversation is more general.
I am not suggesting that one particular version of the story or another is correct. You'll have tobdo your own research on that.
Did I say toys? Sorry, didn't mean to prejudice the case. I meant "Legal Firearms For Protection Against Intruders and a Repressive Government."
We talk a lot about gun ownership and gun…
gregladen | December 15, 2010
1) Clay Duke tried to kill several school board members, but missed from a distance of between 6 and 8 feet with his Smith & Wesson pistol. Indeed, over 25 rounds were fired in the small public space, all aimed from a short distance, and only one fatal shot occurred. This puts an end to the idea that if everyone in every public meeting had a pistol that the bad guys would be easily dispatched.
2) Duke had previously been in trouble for a gun related stalking event in which he actually discharged a firearm. Only in a society with very little serious concern over gun ownership could a…
gregladen | December 9, 2010Or at least, I think he was trying to make a point, but I'm not entirely sure.
Joel Rosenberg, author of Everything You Need to Know About (Legally) Carrying a Handgun in Minnesota and proprietor of the web site "Jew with a gun," entered the Hennepin County Office Building to keep an appointment with Sgt. Bill Palmer, a Public Information Officer for the Minneapolis Police Department.
Apparently, Sgt. Palmer noticed Joel's holster, hand gun, and a big knife.
I presume that Joel being a white Jewish guy (though I don't quite get the "Jew" theme as he has developed it) was at first politely…
gregladen | December 6, 2010Is this thing on? Hello? Hello? ....
Ah, thats better. Comcast, which every day seems to do something to piss me off, had a major sub-regional outage for the last several hours, it would seem. So, we've been floating free of the Internet and a few things have accumulated.
First, this: Remember the rape charges brought against WikiLeak's Julian Assange? It would seem that with the latest Wikileaks leaks, the nature of and the stakes related to these accusations are taking on a new form, and we are starting to see conspiracy theories with a misogynist slant emerging to excuse Mr. Assange…
gregladen | November 30, 2010Samuel Hengel is, or should I say was, a mentally disturbed, probably depressed student in a rural area of Wisconsin who showed up at school yesterday with a pistol. He used the firearm to hold the teacher and students in one of his classes for several hours. (details here)
Scary part (well, there's several scary parts): He actually fired the weapon a few times and kept everyone in the room for something like an hour or an hour and a half before school authorities were aware that there was a problem.
Anyway, he fired his weapon a number of times, shooting various objects, and finally on…
gregladen | November 13, 2010It is funny to see this headline on our local news (CBS) web site:
"Some Prep for Snow, Other Think Flakes Won't Fly Yet"
Then I look outside the window and see accumulations nearing a half foot of snow, then I look at the weather maps and realize that the local CBS affiliate is probably buried, so no one could update the story about how it might not snow and stuff.
Speaking of WCCO, the local CBS affiliate, yesterday Tim Pawlenty, our lame Governor (insert the word "duck" in there if you want, though I'm not sure why you would), did his last weekly radio address. I never did listen to one…
gregladen | November 1, 2010... So, if a teenager eggs your car, you can blow his head off as he tries to run away.
a driver enraged after his Mercedes was splattered with eggs on Halloween fatally shot a 17-year-old in the neck and leg as the teen tried to run away.
Atlanta police spokeswoman Kim Jones says the driver confronted the teen and fired 10 shots at him around 8 p.m. Sunday. The Fulton County Medical Examiner's office says the teen, Tivarus King, died as he was being taken to Grady Memorial Hospital.
source
Gun control anyone?
Hat Tip: Jaf
gregladen | October 28, 2010
Bonus Video: Rachel Buying an Uzi:
Bonus Bonus Video: Rachel squeezes off some rounds:
gregladen | October 13, 2010 I dare you to tell me that this is not an argument for stricter control over access to firearms:
The identities of the two ninth-grade students found dead in a Lakeland park were released Wednesday, and authorities said they were both shot in what appears to be a case involving suicide.
...
Deputies found the two Tuesday evening "on the ground with apparent gunshot wounds," the sheriff said in a news release. Deputies recovered "a long-barreled weapon" near one of the bodies, he said.
strib
Here's the facebook page related to their death.
gregladen | June 22, 2010I have an ex facebook friend with no sense of proportion, no sense of humor, and very little sense of her own lack of importance. We disagreed on guns. She wants unfettered gun ownership. We disagree, apparently, on anthropogenic global warming. She thinks its made up. I don't. And now, she wants the whole world to know that I treated her badly, and she will do so by posting a screen shot of our last interaction on facebook "everywhere she can"
Well, I'd like to help with that:
First, her name on Facebook is Gwenny Todd, if you'd like to friend her or verify any of this with her. Second,…
gregladen | June 22, 2010I dunno. But Stephanie Zvan has worked out the Gun Protection Best Case Scenario. And it happens to be the latest post on Quiche Moraine so I know you won't want to miss this.
gregladen | June 22, 2010... Which might well be cold and dead because the firearm discharged by accident or was taken away from me by a home invader or I got depressed and shot myself.
Yes, folks, there are things to consider when contemplating private firearm ownership other than what you see on TV or read in the NRA propaganda. In the end, you need to ask yourself this question: How Well Does Your Gun Protect You?
gregladen | June 19, 2010... lunatics like Sharron Angle, Timothy McVeigh, Michele Bachmann and Rush Limbaugh think it's there to facilitate their idiotic temper tantrums. And a certain percentage of these horrible people carry out their violent fantasies.
Sorry, folks, but calling for a "second amendment remedy IS calling for someone's death by assassination. This woman should be locked up now.
gregladen | April 20, 2010... often involves partisans flailing about with statistics they don't necessarily understand. Lets look instead at two individual cases.
This: http://wcco.com/crime/elderly.woman.shoots.2.1644974.html is an example of a home owner using a gun to ward off an intruder. But it really isn't, is it?
This http://wcco.com/topstories/intruder.shot.and.2.363267.html is an example of a home owner with a gun killing an innocent person.
On the second story, I'll add that the victim (as in the one who got shot and killed) was a 17 year old kid named Anthony James Parks. He used to live about a half…
gregladen | April 19, 2010On April 20th, 1999, at the Columbine High School in Colorado, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, shot to death 12 students, one teacher, and themselves. Twenty-one others were wounded by them, and additional individuals were wounded while escaping the massacre. Columbine . They also injured 21 other students directly, and three people were injured while attempting to escape. Columbine currently ranks as the fourth deadliest school massacre, but it remains the deadliest event of its kind in the US. (The three deadlier massacres were very different in numerous ways and should not be placed…