Women Murdered by Men

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Chicago - Another Bloody Holiday Weekend

 RT

Chicago police are calling for increased gun controls after another deadly Fourth of July weekend saw 65 people shot, 10 of them fatally. A 7-year-old boy was among the dead. At one point, police said they were confiscating an illegal firearm every hour.

Thirty people were shot across Chicago from dusk on Saturday until dawn on Sunday, after Independence Day celebrations. One of them was Amari Brown, seven, killed in his front yard late Saturday night in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.

Jon Stewart on the South Carolina Shooting

You guys love to talk about responsibility, right? Well, aside from that jerk-off who did the deed, I blame all of you who favor such weak or non-existent gun laws that a guy as dangerous as he is could get guns as easily as he did.

Shame on you.

Texas Legislators Reduce Penalty For Guns At Airports

Ammoland

The Texas state legislature voted 139-0 to reduce the penalty for licensed gun owners who accidentally bring their guns to the airport.

Bringing a gun to the airport under any circumstances is a 3rd degree felony in Texas, a penalty that one legislator called a “massive inconvenience.”

Under the new law, CHL holders who are stopped by security will be allowed to put their guns in their vehicles or check it with their luggage.

“One of the big arguments is, ‘What if someone is trying to use it to gauge our security? TSA will record it. If you try it multiple times during the day, you will be targeted,” said Rep. Drew Springer.

Texas made it a felony to have guns at airports during the 1990s, when the state first started issuing concealed carry licenses.

The law generated national headlines when State Rep. Drew Darby was charged with a felony after trying to take a .38 caliber Ruger pistol through security at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in 2013.

Darby told security that he forgot the handgun was in his bag.

The number of guns confiscated at airports in the United States has reportedly quadrupled in the past decade, from 660 in 2005 to 2,212 this year.

The Iron Pipeline - Georgia to New York

The New York Times

Early one October morning in 2011, two masked men with gloved hands smashed their way into a roadside pawnshop in rural Georgia, fleeing with 23 handguns.

Four years later, on a street in Queens on Saturday, a man raised one of those guns — a silver, five-shot Taurus revolver — and fired three times at New York police officers. A bullet struck Officer Brian Moore in the face; he died on Monday.

His death followed the killing of two officers in December in Brooklyn. That time, the handgun turned on officers also came from a gun shop a thousand miles away from the city, just 90 miles away in the same Southern state.

Law enforcement officials have long focused on Georgia and neighboring states with looser gun laws as the starting point of a so-called iron pipeline of guns flowing north, to New York and other cities, where the restrictions on legal gun purchases are more stringent — and the profits higher for traffickers.

New Hampshire Gun Nuts

Pennsylvania Mall Shooting Leaves Several Wounded

Huffington Post

Florida Mall Shooting - 2 Dead, 1 Wounded

Jose Garcia-Rodriguez

Local news reports

A Florida man had "several pockets full of ammunition" when he targeted his WIFE in a shooting Saturday morning that killed two people at a mall food court where the woman worked, police said.

Authorities said the shooting happened about a half hour before the mall was to open to customers. Jose Garcia-Rodriguez, 57, of Palm Bay, died at a hospital following an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at Melbourne Square Mall, said Cmdr. Vince Pryce of Melbourne Police.

The man's 33-year-old WIFE, Idanerys Garcia-Rodriguez, was hospitalized with a gunshot wound and was in good condition late Saturday, Pryce said. A police statement later identified her as a worker at the mall's food court.

"The survivor is the intended victim," he said.

"We were still hearing shots when the first officers arrived on scene," Pryce said.

Another man died in the shooting. His name was not released, and Pryce said his RELATIONSHIPto the Garcias remained under investigation and was unknown late Saturday. No one else in the mall was killed or wounded, police later said.

When officers found the three victims, Garcia "had several pockets full of ammunition," Pryce said. Police subsequently said investigators recovered three handguns at the site, along with the ammunition, believed to belong to the suspect.

"We believe this may stem from a domestic violence incident," he said.

Texas Gun Laws Not Loose Enough?

Newsmax reports

Texas has staunchly defended the Second Amendment to the Constitution as it pertains to citizens' rights to bear arms, and its laws reflect that anti-gun control belief.

More than 750,000 state residents have active concealed handgun licenses, and Texas has had a CHL program for 18 years. Also, permit-owning residents of 41 states can legally carry their firearms within Texas' borders.

The Lone Star State already has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the nation. Though machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, silencers, armor-piercing bullets, zip guns, and explosive weapons are prohibited, there is no waiting period for gun purchases, and qualified applicants can carry a concealed firearm with a permit.

Still, Texas is always looking for ways to further support individual liberties. In May 2013, the state House of Representatives passed multiple bills, all co-authored by Republican state Rep. Wayne Smith.

• House Bill 1076. The measure proactively preserves citizens' rights, and enhances the ability of the police to protect the public. It essentially prohibits state or municipal law officers from knowingly enforcing certain federal gun control laws.
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• House Bill 1314. This bill prevents the enforcement of federal laws that exceed the government's constitutional power by creating a new law for the unlawful seizure of a firearm.
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• House Bill 972. The measure allows concealed handgun permit holders to carry in public institutions of higher education, extending Second Amendment protection to students, faculty, and visitors. Individuals could opt out of the provision, however.
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• House Bill 1304. Protects a permit holder from being penalized for accidentally displaying a handgun.

I find that last one curious. In the same way that castle-doctrine and stand-your-ground laws are redundant to the already existing self-defense laws, this attempt to legalize accidentally displaying a handgun is completely unnecessary.  Furthermore, like the so-called get-away-with-murder laws, legalizing so-called accidents is harmful. Bullying and threatening concealed carry permit holders will be emboldened by having the legal right to "unintentionally" make their weapons visible. 

Instead, it should be incumbent upon them to properly and successfully conceal their guns.

Kansas City Man Charged with 2nd Degree Assault for Shooting a 4-Year-old

Delaney R. Singleton

Local news reports

Jackson County prosecutors on Tuesday charged a 22-year-old Kansas City man with assault in connection with the accidental shooting of a 4-year-old boy on Monday in the 6000 block of Blue Hills Road.

According to court records:

Before the shooting, a woman allegedly took the gun away from her boyfriend because she feared he was going to “do something stupid.”

She allegedly handed the gun to Delaney R. Singleton, who was visiting the apartment. Later, as he handled the gun, it fired. A bullet crashed through a bathroom door into a bedroom and struck a 4-year-old boy in the lower back near his spine. The boy began yelling and crying.

Asked what happen, Singleton allegedly told witnesses, “I don’t know. It fell on the floor and went off.”

Later, when talking to detectives, Singleton said that he had been trying to “clear the gun” when it went off.

Prosecutors charged Singleton with second-degree assault.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article733825.html#storylink=cpy

Louisiana Leads Nation in Gun Deaths - Mississippi, Alaska, Wyoming and Montana Close Behind

Local news reports

Louisiana had the highest gun-related deaths per capita in the nation in 2011, a new study shows.

The study was conducted by the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit group working to deter gun violence.

It analyzes data released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that say guns killed 865 Louisiana residents in 2011. That translates into 18.91 gun-related deaths for every 100,000 people in the state.

Mississippi, Alaska, Wyoming and Montana round out the top five states with the highest gun-related death rates.

According to the group, Louisiana's ranking is because of weak gun-ownership laws and a high rate of per-capita gun ownership. An estimated 45.6 percent of the state's residents own guns.

“Gun violence is preventable, and states can pass effective laws that will dramatically reduce gun death and injury,” Violence Policy Center Executive Director Josh Sugarmann said. “Our analysis shows that states with weak gun violence prevention laws and easy access to guns pay a severe price with gun death rates far above the national average.”

Background Checks in Washington