Saturday, March 22, 2014

North Carolina Man Dead - He Was Target Shooting

Local news reports

A 23-year-old North Iredell man died Wednesday night after what is being investigated as an accidental shooting. Robert Nathan Tatum was transported from his home on Tatum Road in Olin on Wednesday night and died at a local hospital, said Iredell County Sheriff’s Office Maj. Darren Campbell. 

Campbell said Tatum was target shooting in an area behind his home Wednesday night. His wife, after not hearing from him for about an hour, went outside to check and found him unconscious and not breathing. She called authorities, and Iredell EMS and first responders came to the home. They reported that Tatum had a single gunshot wound to the chest. 

Campbell said an autopsy is being conducted Thursday afternoon, but it's possible that the shot that hit Tatum ricocheted off one of the steel targets. Campbell said he hopes the autopsy will shed light on what happened, but there are no signs of foul play and the gun Tatum was target shooting with was found near his body.

Gun-mounted Flashlights Spark Concerns in Wake of Accidental Denver Police Shootings

Denver Chief of Police Robert White
Denver Chief of Police Robert White (Craig F. Walker, Denver Post file photo)

The Denver Post
Denver's police chief said Thursday he has ordered extra training and a review of department policies after the second accidental shooting by an officer this month and the fifth in a little over a year.
Police are still investigating the latest shooting Sunday night, but at least two of the accidental shootings have been blamed on gun-mounted tactical flashlights. Such lights have also been cited in other accidental police shootings across the country, including one that killed a man in Texas.
Police Chief Robert White said he is reviewing the use of all such flashlights and will likely require officers who use them to undergo added training. He has already banned officers from using a specific design of such flashlights.
"It's gotten to the point where I'm concerned about it," White said Thursday. "We're mandating additional training."
The latest incident happened Sunday night near the intersection of South Federal Boulevard and West Alameda Avenue. An officer chasing several car-theft suspects unintentionally fired his gun before taking one adult and three juveniles into custody. No one was hit.
That incident came less than a week after another in which an officer's gun accidentally went off while he was chasing a man suspected of a probation violation. A bystander was wounded in that incident, though it remains unclear whether she was grazed by the bullet or debris from its impact.
The department had three accidental shootings last year.
White said he is thankful no one has been seriously injured in the shootings. But he said the incidents are particularly troubling because accidental shootings are "more often than not a sign of negligence on the part of the officer."
While the two shootings this year are still under investigation and the officers involved remain on duty, White said the three officers involved in last year's unintentional shootings were all disciplined. Punishments ranged from a four-day suspension to a written reprimand.

Chicago 14-Year-old Accidentally Shot by Another 14-Year-old - No Adult Charged

Chicago Tribune

Police say a 14-year-old girl was accidentally shot in the legs by a 14-year-old boy in Englewood  Wednesday night.
The bullet went through one of the girl's legs and lodged in her other leg, police said. She was taken to Comer Children's Hospital where her condition was stabilized.
The boy was charged as a juvenile with unlawful use of a weapon, police said.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Arizona Man Unintentionally Shoots Himself While Driving, Crashes Car

Ohh Shoot

A Flagstaff, Arizona man was returning from picking up his handgun at a gun store where it was being repaired.  While driving he noticed that the .45-caliber handgun was cocked.  He picked up the gun to try to uncock the firearm and unintentionally discharged the weapon.

The bullet hit him in the foot.  He decided to try and continue driving to the hospital but blacked out from the blood loss. His car crashed into a tree in front of a local hospice home.

Paramedics had to cut down the tree in order to remove him from the car.  He was taken to the hospital for treatment.

The incident is still under investigation and no charges have been filed. 

The Continuing Saga of Mark Kessler, Disgraced Former Police Chief

via  
Baldr Odinson
 

First off, Mark Kessler is still entitling his Facebook page as "Chief Mark Kessler" despite being terminated.

Second, he's announced may be moving to Texas to be with his III% buddies to help them "secede from the union."  What a "patriot!"

Quote from his page:

"Well ticket for Texas is purchased, with any luck I won't return ! So wish me luck! Going to start a fund page, where anyone can donate to help move my family to Texas permanently , we will be starting from scratch, but it's time to move to a truly American state, and hopefully the first to secede from the union! now that would be epic , I would be on the front lines for that one!"


My guess is that he's basically been driven out of his little town, seeing as how he's embarrassed them so.


The Proposed Surgeon General

Vivek Murthy
Dr Vivek Murthy is President Obama’s nominee to be the next Surgeon General of the United States. Photograph: Jason Reed / Reuters
Only in America’s up-is-down, sky-is-green, right-is-wrong discussion about guns would views like those of Vivek Murthy be considered radical. Indeed, the good doctor’s views are remarkably similar to those held by a majority of Americans. According to the most recent polls:
  • Should America’s gun laws be more strict or less strict? A full 54% of Americans go with more, compared to 9% who say less. (And 36% are fine with the way things are.)
  • ban on assault weapons? How about 54% support that and 42% are opposed?
  • Even when asked about creating a database to track all gun sales, 66% of Americans are for it, with 31% against.
So Dr Murthy’s views fall within the political mainstream – and are similar to the views of the man who nominated him. Surely that’s enough to convince the Senate to confirm him as Surgeon General, right?
Think again.
In a depressing reminder of the NRA’s outsize influence in Washington, an aggressive lobbying campaign by the pro-gun lobby to block Murthy appears to be paying off. Over the weekend, the New York Timesreported that as many as 10 Senate Democrats – many of whom are from red states and running for re-election – were leaning toward voting against him. Of course, every Republican is opposed. The White House, suddenly, is “recalibrating”.

Keep Safe People

Embedded image permalink

Milwaukee 4-Year-old Shoots Himself - Responsible Adult Arrested

Local news report with video

It's funny, in this case the gun owner was arrested immediately for storing a gun within reach of children AND THEN the case was turned over to the DA for investigation. What gives?

The Latest Gun-Nut Paranoia - The United Nations is Taking Over the Internet

Prison Planet

Thursday, March 20, 2014

ANSWER: Historical trivia: What was the reason given by the Nazis for Kreystalnacht?

OK, I should accept "(4) all of the above" since to some extent they were all true.

But, the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, a official at the German Embassy in Paris, by Herschel Grynszpan on 7 November 1938 was the event which most closely caused Krystalnacht.  The German government retaliated to this event by barring Jewish children from German state elementary schools, indefinitely suspending Jewish cultural activities, and putting a halt to the publication of Jewish newspapers and magazines, including the three national German Jewish newspapers

There is ironic twists to this event:  Vom Rath was a professional diplomat with the Foreign Office who expressed anti-Nazi sympathies, largely based on the Nazis' treatment of the Jews, and was under Gestapo investigation for being politically unreliable at the time he was killed.

But, an act of violence created far more violence.  In fact, looking at Krystalnacht points out the truth of  N. A. Browne's The Myth of Nazi Gun Control:
The Third Reich did not need gun control (in 1938 or at any time thereafter) to maintain their power. The success of Nazi programs (restoring the economy, dispelling socio-political chaos) and the misappropriation of justice by the apparatus of terror (the Gestapo) assured the compliance of the German people. Arguing otherwise assumes a resistance to Nazi rule that did not exist. Further, supposing the existance of an armed resistance also requires the acceptance that the German people would have rallied to the rebellion. This argument requires a total suspension of disbelief given everything we know about 1930s Germany. Why then did the Nazis introduce this program? As with most of their actions (including the formation of the Third Reich itself), they desired to effect a facade of legalism around the exercise of naked power. It is unreasonable to treat this as a normal part of lawful governance, as the rule of law had been entirely demolished in the Third Reich. Any direct quotations, of which there are several, that pronounce some beneficence to the Weapons Law should be considered in the same manner as all other Nazi pronouncements - absolute lies. (See Bogus Gun Control Quotes and endnote [1].)

A more farfetched question is the hypothetical proposition of armed Jewish resistance. First, they were not commonly armed even prior to the 1928 Law. Second, Jews had seen pogroms before and had survived them, though not without suffering. They would expect that this one would, as had the past ones, eventually subside and permit a return to normalcy. Many considered themselves "patriotic Germans" for their service in the first World War. These simply were not people prepared to stage violent resistance. Nor were they alone in this mode of appeasement. The defiance of "never again" is not so much a warning to potential oppressors as it is a challenge to Jews to reject the passive response to pogrom. Third, it hardly seems conceivable that armed resistance by Jews (or any other target group) would have led to any weakening of Nazi rule, let alone a full scale popular rebellion; on the contrary, it seems more likely it would have strengthened the support the Nazis already had. Their foul lies about Jewish perfidy would have been given a grain of substance. To project backward and speculate thus is to fail to learn the lesson history has so painfully provided.
The simple conclusion is that there are no lessons about the efficacy of gun control to be learned from the Germany of the first half of this century. It is all too easy to forget the seductive allure that fascism presented to all the West, bogged down in economic and social morass. What must be remembered is that the Nazis were master manipulators of popular emotion and sentiment, and were disdainful of people thinking for themselves. There is the danger to which we should pay great heed. Not fanciful stories about Nazi's seizing guns.
I would also add that you read this paper for further debunking of the Hitler non-sense.

But, the bottom line is that no one who knows anything about the Second World War and the Third Reich buys into the "Hitler was for gun control."

If anything, Hitler was pro-gun.  He probably would have welcomed armed Jewish resistance as a reason to exterminate the Jews. 

Remember that the usual result of Jewish Ghetto uprisings was a quicker trip to one of the dedicated Operation Reinhard extermination camps (e.g., The survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto were sent to Treblinka).

FYI, the first nation to have an actual gun registration programme was Great Britain (The Gun Licence Act 1870, Pistol Act of 1903, and The Firearms Act of 1920)--Where is the British Genocide?  I would also add that the Home Secretary ruled that self-defence was no longer a suitable reason for applying for a firearm certificate in 1937, and directed police to refuse such applications on the grounds that "firearms cannot be regarded as a suitable means of protection and may be a source of danger"

Virginia Man Wounded in Gun Accident - Idiot Gun Owner Faces a Misdemeanor Charge

Local news reports

A 22-year-old man suffered a gunshot wound to the stomach after an acquaintance accidentally discharged his firearm inside of a residence, according to the Colonial Heights Police Department.

When police arrived on the scene, the victim was discovered to have been shot in the abdomen with a .40-caliber handgun, which had gone off while a man he was with was disassembling the firearm, according to the police.

Authorities would not release any names while the investigation is still pending, but said that the shooter faces a misdemeanor charge of reckless handling of a firearm.

Both the victim and the shooter were reported to be in possession of a firearm, Ruxer said. 


Disassembling a firearm with a round in the chamber which results in someone being injured should be considered more than a simple misdemeanor. This is gross and inexcusable negligence.  Stupidity is no excuse.

Utah 9-Year-old Critically Wounded by her 8-Year-old Cousin - Lengthy Investigation Continues

A 9-year-old Richfield girl was in serious condition Wednesday, a day after she was accidentally shot in the stomach by her 8-year-old male cousin.
Richfield police said the incident occurred just before 4 p.m. Tuesday when the boy, sitting with the girl in the back seat of a car traveling on Main Street near 500 South, apparently found a .45-caliber handgun.
While he handled the firearm it went off, a single round going through the girl’s abdomen.
Police learned of the incident when notified by the hospital. The girl’s vital signs were reported stable, and doctors said she was expected to recover, police said.
Police did not release any other details, noting that the investigation was ongoing.
I suppose it'll take weeks to determine who was driving the car and whose gun it was. Then, chances are it'll be swept under the rug as one of those "no foul play" accidents.

Southern Beale's Tennessee Gun Report

Southern Beale has the usual confederacy of dunces, including this one:

WKRN, Nashville News, Nashville Weather and Sports

Proper Gun Control

Proper Gun Control Laws (not exhaustive, a work in progress)

1. Licensing of all gun owners which would include a penal background check, a mental health background check, an eye exam, a written and practical test and approval by the local authorities (may-issue licensing).

2. Registration of all newly bought firearms which would need to be renewed after three months and yearly thereafter by presenting the paperwork and the weapon to the police.

3. Background checks on all purchases including private ones. This can be done at the local FFL dealer for a nominal fee.

4. Three day waiting period for all first purchases.

5. "May Issue" policy for concealed carry permits managed federally - same rules in every state.

6. Assault Weapons Ban using the California model which would include restrictions on extended magazines.

7. Safe Storage of Firearms when not in use - guns must be kept in a gun safe.

8. All negligent discharges should be considered criminal.

Illinois Man Shoots Himself by Accident - No Charges

Local news reports

A 21-year-old man checking on a relative's animals at a rural Downs home shot himself Monday with a semi-automatic handgun, but his injuries were not life-threatening and the shooting is thought to be an accident. 

The victim was transported to OSF St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington by a family member who picked him up at the scene, said McLean County Sheriff's Sgt. Jody May. The man was treated for a gunshot wound to the thigh. 

May said the victim was alone when the incident took place shortly before emergency personnel were notified about 5:13 p.m. Monday; police do not think there was any foul play. 

May said the incident remains under investigation.

Idiot gun owners who violate the basic safety rules and shoot themselves should be charged with criminal negligence.  This should be considered "foul play." Guys like this need to be disarmed for their own good and for the good of those around them.

Tennessee Teen Critically Wounded in Gun Accident - No Charges

Local news reports

Police have ruled the Monday night shooting that critically wounded a Nashville teen as accidental. 

William Blackwell and Robert Goodner, both 18, were handling Goodner’s pistol while visiting a Woodridge Drive home, according to a statement from police. 

Goodner noticed the safety was off and asked to see the gun. Goodner told police he mishandled the weapon when it fired, hitting Blackwell in the neck. 

Responding officers performed CPR on Blackwell and were able to stabilize him. Blackwell was rushed to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for further treatment. 

Two other witnesses talked to police. Investigators deemed their statements to be consistent with an accidental shooting.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Historical trivia: What was the reason given by the Nazis for Kreystalnacht?

It's something which tends to fall out of the debate: especially if you are one of those people who think that Arming the Jews might have prevented the Holocaust.  So, the question is:

What was a reason given by the Nazis for Kreystalnacht?
  1. They didn't need a reason--they just hated the Jews.
  2. They were waiting for the right time to persecute Jews this way
  3. The Murder of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jewish person in protest of the Nazi treatment of the Jews.
  4. All of the Above
Part of me is interested in seeing your responses, which I probably won't read.  In fact, I have already posted the answer, which  I've set to post tomorrow.

HUMOUR BREAK

A little truth in Advertising from Malaysian Airways

  Boeing, Boeing Gone?

I'll stick to British Airways (or "Quantas, Defintely Quantas" in that part of the World).

Gun Street Girl - Tom Waits



Falling James in the Tahoe mud
Stick around to tell us all the tale
Well he fell in love with a Gun Street girl
And now he's dancing in the Birmingham jail
Dancing in the Birmingham jail


He took a hundred dollars off a slaughterhouse Joe
Brought a brand new Michigan twenty-gauge
He got all liquored up on that road house corn
Blew a hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette
A hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette


He bought a second-hand Nova from a Cuban Chinese
And dyed his hair in the bathroom of a Texaco
With a pawnshop radio, quarter past four
He left for Waukegan at the slamming of the door
Left for Waukegan at the slamming of the door


I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home


He's sitting in a sycamore in St. John's wood
Soaking day-old bread in kerosene
Well he was blue as a robin's egg and brown as a hog
He's staying out of circulation 'til the dogs get tired
Out of circulation 'til the dogs get tired


Shadow fixed the toilet with an old trombone
He never get up in the morning on a Saturday
Sitting by the Erie with a bull-whipped dog
Telling everyone he saw, They went that-a-way, boys
Telling everyone he saw, They went that-a-way


Now the rain's like gravel on an old tin roof
And the Burlington Northern pulling out of the world
Now a head full of bourbon and a dream in the straw
And a Gun Street girl was the cause of it all
A Gun Street girl was the cause of it all


Well he's riding in the shadow by the St. Joe ridge
Hearing the click-clack tapping of a blind man's cane
He was pulling into Baker on a New Year's Eve
One eye on a pistol and the other on the door
One eye on a pistol and the other on the door


Miss Charlotte took her satchel down to King Fish Row
Smuggled in a brand new pair of alligator shoes
With her fireman's raincoat and her long yellow hair
Well they tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire
They tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire


I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home


Banging on the table with an old tin cup
Sing I'll never kiss a Gun Street girl again
Never kiss a Gun Street girl again
I'll never kiss a Gun Street girl again


I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home

On TTAG It's Unanimous: You Need to Home Carry…Even In the Shower


TTAG provided a wonderful post in which a gun enthusiast/expert demolished all the objections to home carry - even in the shower.

2. I don’t like to feel like I’m being overly paranoid.
My view: Preparedness is not to be confused with paranoia. Paranoia is based on fear; preparedness is based on avoiding and mitigating negative outcomes.

Charles5 says:
My wife and I don’t carry IN the shower per se, but we do have a cabinet directly next to the shower and on top of the cabinet (about 6.5 ft tall) we keep a Stainless Smith and Wesson 686 Plus, loaded with .38 Special +P. It isn’t visible from the door because it sits below a three inch high molding around the top of the cabinet. I cut a gap in the side facing the shower so we don’t have to reach up and over the molding and it takes a nano second to reach up and grab it. I keep it rubbed down with oil every few weeks and I haven’t had any trouble with rust forming. We also have the alarm panel in our bedroom near the bathroom door. Whenever we are home we have the doors locked and the alarm set for home. If my wife was in the shower and anyone broke in, she would hear the beeping even before the alarm sounded after the 30 second wait for entry. I have also trained her to lock the bedroom door when she is taking a shower. Now, we don’t have any kids yet, so some of this will have to be modified for children, but I think it works well for now.

Texas A&M University: Does Strengthening Self-Defense Law Deter Crime or Escalate Violence? Evidence from Expansions to Castle Doctrine

Link

5. Conclusion

In recent years, more than 20 states have strengthened their self-defense laws by
adopting castle doctrine laws. These statutes widen the scope for the justified use of lethal
force in self-defense by stating the circumstances under which self-defense is justified and
removing the duty to retreat from a list of protected places outside the home. In addition,
in many cases they also establish a presumption of reasonable fear and remove civil
liability. Thus, these laws could hypothetically deter crime or, alternatively, increase
homicide.

 Results presented indicate that expansions to castle doctrine do not deter crime.
Furthermore, our estimates are sufficiently precise as to rule out moderate-sized deterrence
effects. Thus, while our view is that it is a priori reasonable to expect that strengthening
self-defense law would deter crime, we find this is not the case.

More significantly, results indicate that castle doctrine laws increase total
homicides by around 8 percent. Put differently, the laws induce an additional 600
homicides per year across the 21 states in our sample that expanded castle doctrine over
this time period. This finding is robust to a wide set of difference-in-differences
specifications, including region-by-year fixed effects, state-specific linear time trends, and
controls for time-varying factors such as economic conditions, state welfare spending, and
policing and incarceration rates. These findings provide evidence that lowering the
expected cost of lethal force causes there to be more of it.

Gun-happy Georgia Lawmakers Put Public Safety at Risk

The Washington Post

THE NATIONAL Rifle Association calls it “the most comprehensive pro-gun reform legislation in recent state history.” That’s true, sad to say.


Georgia’s House has endorsed a series of proposals premised on the dubious notion that the more often guns are in the hands of willing shooters, the better. The state Senate is considering a few measures of varying senselessness. Depending on the version, gun owners would be allowed to bring firearms into bars and government buildings; teachers and staff would be allowed to carry guns into schools, after some training; the penalty for bringing guns onto college campuses would be reduced to a small fine; and the state would be barred from keeping a database of gun owners with carry permits, to satisfy gun-rights conspiracists. In keeping with one of the latest trends in pro-gun lawmaking, another reform on the table would extend “stand your ground” protections to felons, who can’t legally carry guns.
Stand-your-ground laws are dangerous. A Texas A&M University study last year found that states that adopted them, all within the past decade, see more homicides than do peer states. Some might not consider that a problem, particularly if many of those additional killings were based on shooters’ reasonable fear of injury. We disagree. Centuries of legal practice has demanded that those in danger retreat, if it’s safe to do so, before using deadly force. That discourages conflicts from escalating. The stand-your-ground model encourages confrontations to get out of hand, almost certainly resulting in unnecessary deaths. But instead of rolling back its stand-your-ground law, Georgia is poised to offer its protection even to people the government previously determined to be too risky to trust with legal firearms.

Alabama Woman Shot in the Chest - Dropped Gun Responsible


A woman was taken to Huntsville Hospital after accidentally shooting herself in the chest, Huntsville police report.

The victim told officers that she was retrieving a candle holder from the top shelf of a closet when she inadvertently knocked a 22-caliber revolver off the shelf. When the pistol struck the ground, it accidentally fired one shot, striking the woman in the chest, police said.

Louisiana 18-Year-old Shot while Dirt Biking

An 18-year-old man who was shot in the head Saturday while riding a dirt bike in Schriever survived the incident, and authorities believe he was the victim of an accidental shooting, possibly from someone target shooting in the area.
The 18-year-old victim had indeed been shot in the back of the head, and was taken by ambulance to Thibodaux Regional Hospital, said the sheriff's office. After undergoing surgery at the hospital, the man was release Saturday evening. His injuries are not life threatening and he is expected to make a full recovery.
During the investigation detectives learned that the field where the man was shot is an area where people go to shoot guns for target practice, said the sheriff's office, but they have not been able to locate the shooter. 

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Florida Has Never Executed A White Person For Killing A Black Person

Think Progress

California Executions Death Chamber

Chris W. Cox Lies and Twists His Way into a Bizarre Reality

Gun control advocates, such as Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, frequently use discredited and false information to push their gun control schemes. Here are the facts.
Berceau’s claim, pushed also by the Brady Campaign, that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) has stopped more than 2 million would-be gun purchases sure sounds impressive — only it isn’t true.
The fact is the vast majority of the 2.1 million people flagged by NICS are either legitimate purchasers (who are snagged by mistake) or criminals who are then turned loose to obtain firearms elsewhere, rather than being prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
For example, in 2010, only 62 out of 72,659 NICS denials led to prosecutions by the federal government — and only 13 of those prosecutions resulted in a conviction. That’s 0.0001 percent.

First they drop the unsubstantiated claim that part of the "vast majority" of those blocked are really legitimate purchasers who are flagged by mistake. Then they focus on the fact that the criminals who are blocked are not arrested and prosecuted for lying on the form.


This is extremely misleading. The background check has done its job by preventing the purchase. To blame the background check system for the fact that criminals have so many other options to buy guns is wrong.  In fact, it's doubly wrong since the number one option criminals have is to buy a gun privately without a background check.  So, the genius argument of the NRA is to blame the Brady Background check system for the fact that it's not universally required, something gun control folks have been fighting for and the NRA has been resisting.


The most recent Department of Justice survey of 1,402 convicted criminals found that nearly 90 percent of them got their guns from sources including theft, straw purchases, family, friends and the black market. None of these would have been blocked by NICS.
If Rep. Berceau truly wants to keep guns out of the wrong hands, she would challenge Biden and the Obama administration on their admitted refusal to prosecute those they know may be attempting to purchase a firearm illegally. Instead, she’s calling for a so-called “universal background checks” scheme, which has more to do with registering and criminalizing lawful transfers than reducing violent crime.
This is the kind of circular logic that boggles the mind. The first paragraph offers a sort-of tautology. As convicted criminals, the only way they CANNOT get guns is from licensed dealers who require a background check, hence the list of possible ways, "theft, straw purchases, family, friends and the black market."

The next paragraph contains the mind-blower. Prosecuting people for lying on a government form would not prevent them from attempting to procure guns through "theft, straw purchases, family, friends and the black market."

And the conclusion:

The goal of anti-gun is to harass law-abiding gun owners and manufacture public shame toward anyone who exercises their Second Amendment rights. They can try by hook or by crook, but the National Rifle Association won’t them get away with it.

Yes, the poor persecuted gun owners are being shamed and harassed.  But, not to worry, the NRA is there to protect them from this terrible abuse.

NRA Opposition May Sink Obama's Surgeon General Nominee

Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy
Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy said at February’s hearing on his nomination for surgeon general that he didn’t plan to use the position as a bully pulpit for gun control. (Charles Dharapak / Associated Press / March 16, 2014)

LA Times

Intense opposition from the National Rifle Assn. has all but doomed prospects for President Obama's nominee for surgeon general, officials said Saturday as pro-gun Senate Democrats peeled away from the White House on a volatile issue in an election year.

Facing a potential high-profile setback for the president, the White House is not pushing for a vote to confirm Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy, a Harvard- and Yale-educated internist and former emergency room doctor who has advocated for stricter gun control laws, the officials said.

Democratic leaders in the Senate have begun surveying senators to determine whether there is enough support to save the troubled nomination. Few Republicans are expected to back Murthy, and as many as eight Democrats also could be opposed.

"We don't expect a vote to happen," a Senate aide said.

The divide between the White House and the president's party has widened in recent weeks as Obama's low poll numbers leave Democrats increasingly concerned about their chances in the November midterm election and whether they could lose their majority in the Senate.


Monday, March 17, 2014

The Truth About Guns Stirs the Pot with Ridiculous and Paranoid Suggestions

TTAG  Title of post: "Connecticut One Step Closer to Confiscation"

  CT-firearm-surrender-letter

Washington Shooting Accidents Soar; State Gun Laws Remain Unchanged



Seattle Times

In 2012, more people were seriously hurt by accidental gunshots in Washington state than in any previous year in nearly a generation.
Hospitals here admitted 122 people with “unintentional firearm” injuries that year, the latest for which data is available. Hundreds more were treated in emergency rooms but not admitted. More still were wounded in accidents that were not classified as such.
It was the highest injury tally since 1995 and 30 percent higher than the average over that period, according to a Seattle Times analysis of state Health Department records. The state’s population grew about half that much over that time.
State officials and local law-enforcement authorities say the surge may correspond to a soaring rise in gun ownership.

Massachusetts Woman Shoots Herself at the Gun Range - No Charges - It Was Just an Accident

A woman practicing shooting at a local firing range apparently shot herself accidentally this afternoon, according to police.
The victim was rushed to Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro.
Three firefighters were treating the woman in the back of the ambulance — an indication the injuries likely are serious, police said.
The incident was reported about 2 p.m. at the American Firearms School in the industrial park off John Dietsch Boulevard.
Witnesses said they speculate the woman’s gun may have jammed.
The woman appeared to fall backward, they said.

After the mishap, the range officer ordered everyone to stop firing and evacuate the shooting range, the witnesses added.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Florida 2-Year-old Dead - Lengthy and Thorough Investigation Continues - Charges Very Unlikely

Local news

The self-inflicted shooting death of a Pensacola toddler is still being investigated, Escambia County officials said. 

A 2-year-old boy reportedly shot himself in the head at a duplex in the 1500 block of South Fairfield Drive the morning of March 1. 

The death is being investigated as an “accidental shooting,” Escambia County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Deputy Delarian Wiggins said the day of the incident. 

Sena Maddison, Sheriff’s Office public information officer, said on Friday that the shooting is still being investigated, and that she did not have a timeframe for its completion. 

A representative of the State Attorney’s Office said they cannot comment on whether any charges will be filed in the shooting until the investigation is complete.

Alabama 9-Year-old Shot in the Chest - No Problem - There Was No Foul Play

Local news 

The Thursday afternoon shooting of a 9-year-old boy appears to be accidental, said Prattville Police Chief Mark Thompson. 

At this time there is nothing to point to foul play being involved the chief said. 

As of 7:45 a.m. Friday, the chief was unaware of the child's condition. He expects to call a press conference about the incident sometime today. The boy was transfered by helicopter to Prattville Baptist Hospital about 6:30 p.m. Thursday to Children's Hospital in Birmingham. 

Radio dispatch logs show Prattville fire medics were dispatched to a home in the 600 block of Upper Kingston Road at about 5:10 p.m. Thursday for a male subject shot.

I say we need to redefine "foul play."