Another Unintentional Shooting in Texas

Ohh Shoot reports.

22-year-old Adan Mascorro, of Redwood, Texas was cleaning his .22-caliber handgun when the gun unintentionally discharged. The bullet struck Adan in the hand and continued on and struck his friend, Bernardo Samangio, who was standing nearby. Bernardo was hit in the chest. The pair drove to the medical center in San Marcos. Bernardo needed to be transported by helicopter to Brackenridge Hospital in Austin. He remains in the hospital but is hoping to be released sometime this week.

Young Adam Mascorro will be back in action very quickly. In gun friendly Texas, they don't even mess with your 2nd Amendment rights if you kill someone by accident.

The fact is guys like this are a menace to society. They're a danger to themselves and others. They should pay for their sins by suffering the MikeB is King Rule formerly known as the one-strike-you're-out rule.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Police Turning to Volunteers

via Dog Gone of Penigma with the following intro.

This is scary. I wonder just how long before the gun-fetishist vigilantes begin 'helping', bringing along their personal firearms, not because the situation requires a weapon, but 'just because they can' and using that to throw their weight around as having quasi-official status.

The New York Times has the report.

Roman Sarkisian easily passes for your average Fresno police officer: crew cut, tight-set jaw and “just-the-facts” demeanor.

“I like to do law enforcement stuff,” said Mr. Sarkisian, 23, an immigrant from the republic of Georgia who is studying criminology at the city college here. “I like helping out putting bad guys in jail.”

But Mr. Sarkisian is not a police officer, and he does not carry a gun or a Taser. He is a police volunteer, part of an experiment by departments across the country that enlists trained amateurs to perform a broad — and occasionally dangerous — array of investigative duties like collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses, searching for missing persons and looking into long-dormant cases.

Hamstrung by shrinking budgets, the police say the volunteers are indispensable in dealing with low-level offenses and allow sworn officers to focus on more pressing crimes and more violent criminals.

What's your opinion? Is this a good initiative or not?

Please leave a comment.

Utah Concealed Carry Permits

A truly incredible situation.

From 2009 to 2010 the number of Utah permits issued to Texans more than doubled to 5,678 from 2,173, according to Utah's Bureau of Criminal Identification. Of the 66,371 permits Utah issued last year, more than 70 percent went to out-of-staters, bureau figures show. All this was while the overall number of concealed licenses issued in Utah declined.

The ease with which one can get a Utah permit to carry a concealed weapon in other states is incredible. It is not even necessary to ever have fired a gun.

There is good news, though.

Brian Malte, director of state legislation for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said he worries that some people are getting Utah permits because they want to skirt background-check provisions in their home states.

"What are they hiding?" Malte asked.

Aware of the loophole, Utah is moving to tighten requirements. A bill recently approved by the Utah House and Senate would require out-of-staters seeking a Utah permit to first get one from their home state if their state recognizes the Utah permit. The proposal followed decisions by Nevada and New Mexico to stop recognizing Utah permits.

"We didn't want to have a cottage industry of issuing concealed weapons permits for the whole United States," said Utah state Sen. John Valentine, author of the measure.

What's your opinion? Are they coming to their senses even in the wild, wild west?

Please leave a comment.

More on Shawna Forde

via Norwegianity from Crooks and Liars



I guess the liberal folks at Crooks and Liars, along with just about everyone else, are in favor of this Capital Punishment decision. That's too bad. I oppose the death penalty in all cases, it doesn't matter how heinous or ugly the crime is. Government sanctioned pre-meditated murder should not be part of a modern society, period.

The video report of the third part of the trial was interesting. For mitigating circumstances they presented the usual abused childhood evidence, which in this case was indeed heavy. But, what about the fact that she didn't kill anyone? She herself did not pull the trigger. Besides being opposed to the death penalty, I'm especially opposed to the felony-murder type of prosecution in which the prosecutor charges everyone involved with the worst part of the crime. I admit she was more involved than a getaway driver, by all indications she was the leader, but still when talking about a capital offense we cannot paint with the old broad brush.

What's your opinion? Isn't it possible she herself intended to rob only and not kill anyone and her husband went rogue? Wouldn't that have been the proper defense?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

The Man Who Would Be King

From an Anonymous fan, responding to this part of my post.

"So, applying the one-strike-you're-out rule, we've got to include the seller of that gun, the one who handled it when in "accidentally" went off all by itself, and of course, the organizers of the show."

Let's call that rule by what it is - it's the "MikeB is King rule". You just want to be able to rule over other people...too bad you aren't king and you aren't going to be king - EVER!!!

I may never be king, but I can sure rename my one-strike-you're-out rule. The MikeB is King rule. It has a nice ring to it.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

Travis Unholz - Prince of a Guy

The Orange County Register reports.

In a deal that will end his law enforcement career, a sheriff's deputy pleaded guilty Monday to injuring his wife and then violating a protective order by attempting to obtain a gun. 

Travis Christopher Unholz, 36, of Trabuco Canyon pleaded guilty to one felony count of attempted possession of a firearm in violation of a protective order and one misdemeanor count of domestic battery with corporal injury, according to a news release from the Orange County District Attorney's Office.

He had denied felony counts on both those charges earlier this month but took the offer from prosecutors and pleaded guilty to one of them as a lesser charge. Unholz was sentenced to 19 days in jail and three years of formal probation, including participation in a 52-week batterers treatment program.

He is also barred from owning or possessing any firearms, and a protective order was issued prohibiting him from having any contact with the victim or his two children for three years, prosecutors said.

It's a violation of federal law to posses a firearm after a domestic violence conviction, which will effectively end Unholz's law enforcement career.

This guy is a perfect example of the kinds of people you find among lawful gun owners. The overall percentage is low, but not nearly as low as they claim. Unfortunately, brutal, wife-beating, low-lifes are to be found in all groups. Perhaps among gun owners the percentage is actually higher than in the population at large. The testosterone-driven aggression, the adolescent belligerence, the terrible difficulty with authority, all lend themselves to anti-social behaviour.

I wish I had a nickel for every time one of the gun defenders said they don't know a single gun owner like that, that being anything negative like the description I offered above or anything else. They swear they don't know one who drinks too much or has a problem with anger.

Well, I give you former-officer Travis Unholz, exhibit A.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Guns on Campus - Texas Style

The USA Today published an op-ed which questions the wisdom of the upcoming Texas legislation allowing guns on campuses.

Statistics show that students are safer on campus than off, and college students are far more likely to be crime victims when they're away from campus. One reason legislators in most states have rejected guns-on-campus laws is probably because most were once college students themselves and can remember the binge drinking, drug taking and the bad judgment common at an age when science says brains haven't yet fully developed and the propensity for risky behavior is at its highest. The one state where college students are allowed to pack heat on public campuses statewide is Utah, where the influence of the Mormon church is strong and college drinking is lower than in other states.

Of course the die-hard gun defenders think owning a gun makes people more responsible. I guess in some cases that's true, but the kinds of shenanigans that college-age people get up to is much too powerful to be deterred by something like that.

It's interesting what was said about Utah.

What's your opinion?

Please leave a comment.