Marine Dies after Shooting Himself in Washington DC Barracks

Washington Post

On Friday evening, authorities say, Schoenfelder shot himself in the head at the barracks buildings in Southeast Washington, where the Marine commandant lives. He died Saturday in what D.C. police say is being investigated as an accident.

Two D.C. police officials said Schoenfelder was shot inside a guard shack and there was a second Marine with him at the time. Investigators are exploring the possibility that a gun accidentally discharged as the Marines were playing the game “Trust,” in which one points a weapon at the other, according to those two officials and a third person in law enforcement, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Capt. John Norton, a spokesman for Marine Barracks Washington, would not comment on the number of people in the guard shack at the time of the shooting, nor would he discuss whether investigators are looking into the “Trust” game, which has led to deaths and headlines across the country.

As part of the game, one Marine pretends to load a magazine into a weapon, points it at another’s head and says, “Do you trust me?” according to accounts in the Marine Corps Times. After getting an answer, the Marine holding the gun either pulls the trigger or lowers the weapon. Either way, there should not be any bullets fired.

The Times paper has reported on service members convicted of manslaughter and court-
martialed after accidental shootings. If Schoenfelder was killed while playing “Trust,” police say, something went terribly awry for him to have shot himself.

Oath Keeper Billboard on USMC Base 29 Palms

From the Trenches has the hysterically paranoid story.

Two Marines go on Pellet Gun Shooting Spree

CBS Los Angeles reports
I suppose pellet guns like this are a bit more than simple toys. They seem more like proper weapons. I have a solution for that too.

What's your opinion? 

Accidental Shooting of Younger Brother by Marine While Camping and Drinking

The Daily Mail reports

Police have arrested a 27-year-old man on suspicion of manslaughter after he accidentally shot his 17-year-old brother who idolised him. 

Juab County Sheriff Alden Orme says Cameron Bryce Charlton died in the early morning shooting at Yuba Lake State Park in Utah. His 27-year-old brother, Eric Wayne Charlton, is in custody.

'His brother went into the Marine Corps, and that’s all [Cameron] wanted to do when he got older: go into the Marine Corps like his brother did,' said the boys’ grandfather, Stan Charlton.

Authorities say the brothers were camping near Yuba Reservoir with about 20 other people.

Officials say the brothers and a friend were awake and outside the tent when the gun went off and killed the teen.

I would think it's safe to assume that he was not only a lawful gun owner gone bad, but one who'd had proper training.

This is additional evidence that the gun-rights attempt to blame gun violence on criminals is bogus.  They themselves are often directly responsible for it.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Katy Perry Joins the Marine Corps

It's so silly it's embarrassing, yet there have been over 50 million views.

One thing the video gets right is that young people who join the Marines often do so for less than patriotic and heroic motives.  More often than not it's about running away in one form or another.

Then, a couple years later the conservative element in the country puts these mixed-up kids on a pedestal of jingoistic and patriotic red, white and blue. They're elevated to heights of honor, often praised with exaggeratedly serious platitudes like, "thank you for your service."

You can hear this very often on the pro-gun blogs.  Some of the folks doing this are draft-dodgers and service-avoiders like Ted Nugent, that's real irony.  Others are former servicemen themselves who've chosen to forget their original motives and relish all the wrong-placed admiration and praise.

The truth is there has not been an honorable and necessary reason to participate in the military for about 65 years, if then. Oftentimes, participation in this global system of abuse, this world-policing by the US, is actually immoral. Those who do so are often constrained by economic disadvantages, the result being that minorities and the poor are over-represented, suicides and other forms of self-abuse are more and more prevalent, and after service care is off the charts.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Shooting at Cop - 14 Years

To me it sounds like a crazy drunken incident which proves guns and alcohol don't mix.  But what about that sentence?  Presumably this young Marine was one of the good guys up until the incident, that is he was one of the bad guys disguised as a good guy.  Defensive pro-gun folks like to pretend these people don't exist.  You're either law-abiding or you're a criminal. There's really a rather large subset of the law-abiding, let's call them the "about-to-become-criminals."

A former Marine has been sentenced to 14 years in state prison for shooting at a California Highway Patrol officer after a 2009 freeway chase in El Cajon. 

The Los Angeles Times reports Edward Michael Forney was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty to assaulting a police officer. The officer was not hurt in the August 2009 incident. 

Forney was a passenger in a car that a CHP officer attempted to pull over on suspicion of drunken driving.

Prosecutors say Forney shot at the officer as the driver, Charles Neal, sped away. 

Neal pleaded guilty to felony evading arrest and was sentenced to two years in prison. 

Forney was stationed at the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego at the time of the incident.

What do you say? Is 14 years a little heavy for something like this?

Please leave a comment.

Marine Corps Training

I've been wanting to dedicate a post to Bob S., one of our frequent commenters, who seems to disagree with me on just about everything, but has a respectful and thoughtful way of doing so. His son recently graduated from the Marine Corps Basic Training in San Diego.

I myself went through that training in Parris Island in the summer of 1970. I did it for all the wrong reasons, mainly to get my father's approval. All this is in retrospect, of course, but even during that summer's frenetic activities, I often wondered what I'd gotten myself into. On the graduation day, which followed what was at that time nine weeks of incredibly intense physical and psychological assault, my elation at having survived and the thrill of receiving the drill instructor's as well as my father's beaming approval, inflated my persona into something new and different for the 17-year-old, 135 pounder that I was at that time.

I went on to have a less than illustrious military career and to commence upon a decade and a half of rebellion against everything, all material for other posts. Yet, I believe some lifelong habits and attitudes were instilled in me that summer, many of which have served me well.

Best of luck to your son, Bob. May the Universe smile upon him wherever his military duties take him. And may he be one of the survivors like I was.