Guns and Kiddie Porn Figure in Recent Gun-Related Arrest

Thank goodness the staff of the store where the purchases were made wised up, after the last Fort Hood shooter (alleged) did his shopping there too.  I usually find that the local media tends to provide the best coverage of these stories.

from the Austin Texas Statesman:



By Jeremy Schwartz, Tony Plohetski and Miguel Liscano Updated: 6:33 a.m. Friday, July 29, 2011
Published: 10:08 p.m. Thursday, July 28, 2011

KILLEEN — An AWOL soldier fleeing child pornography charges was planning a potentially deadly attack on Fort Hood soldiers before he was arrested, investigators and officials said Thursday.
Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo, who was most recently posted at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, was expected to face federal explosives charges after Killeen police found explosive materials and other weapons inside his room at a budget motel just blocks from Fort Hood, according to federal and local authorities.
Abdo planned to detonate bombs at a popular downtown Killeen restaurant and then shoot survivors, according to law enforcement documents first reported by ABC News and confirmed by a military official with knowledge of the investigation.
Abdo was arrested Wednesday on the pornography charge and for being AWOL after a tip from a suspicious clerk at the Guns Galore firearms shop. The clerk alerted police after Abdo on Tuesday bought six one-pound containers of smokeless gunpowder, three boxes of 12-gauge shotgun shells and a spare magazine for a semi-automatic handgun.
"His questions suggested he really didn't know what he was buying," said clerk Greg Ebert, a former police officer.
Guns Galore is the same store where Maj. Nidal Hasan purchased the gun, ammunition and laser sights that witnesses testified he used during the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting massacre at Fort Hood that left 13 dead.
After Abdo paid in cash and left in a taxi, Ebert said he called Killeen police and gave them a description of Abdo, who did not need to provide identification for the items he bought.
Officials said Abdo planned to use the items to kill military personnel. An article on "how to make a bomb in your kitchen" from the English-language al Qaeda magazine Inspire was among the items found in Abdo's motel room, a law enforcement official told The New York Times.
"I would classify it as a terror plot," Killeen Police Chief Dennis Baldwin said. "We would probably be here today giving you a different briefing if he had not been stopped."

More Norway vs. the U.S.

via Democratic Underground, absolutely fascinating stats.

Wild West Show With Real Bullets

via my Daily Kos friend, senilebiker

The Daily Mail reports

A gunman who injured three tourists when he fired live ammunition instead of blanks during a mock Wild West shoot-out show was a convicted criminal, it has emerged.

Paul Doering, 49, is now facing a federal weapons charge because he should not have been carrying a gun.

Enacters are pretty weird to begin with. But when you combine that weirdness with a criminal past and reckless stupidity, you have a formula for disaster.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

U.S. Gun Regulation & the Norway Terrorist Massacre

From MSNBC:

Congresswoman: Norway gunman touted lax US gun laws

Rep. McCarthy urges limits on high-capacity clips, cites 'shame' in easy buys

WASHINGTON — The U.S. should be ashamed that its laws would allow high-capacity gun clips used in the Norwegian massacre to be sold and shipped overseas, says a New York congresswoman seeking to restrict use of such clips.

"There should be a lot of shame," Rep. Carolyn McCarthy told Politico. "We’re sending a death warrant to other parts of the world."
The Democrat commented after issuing a statement saying a 1,500-page manifesto by Anders Behring Breivik detailed how he used lax U.S. gun laws to help arm himself before killing 76 people in a gun and bomb attack in Norway.
"Unfortunately now, internationally, it’s known that you can get here, buy your guns, buy your large magazines, and you’re not going to have any problem," she told Politico.
McCarthy said Breivik easily acquired high-capacity ammunition magazines from the United States. Such magazines would be prohibited from manufacture or import if her bill, HR 308, were passed and signed into law. The legislation has 109 House cosponsors.
Story: Utoya survivors find their faith in Norway's system is even stronger
The sale or transfer of high-capacity magazines made after 1994 was banned under a federal assault weapons ban that went into effect that year but expired in 2004.
The National Rifle Association has decried HR 308 as more than an attack on Second Amendment rights, saying, "Firearms designed to use magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are among the most commonly owned self-defense firearms today." There would be no way to tell new magazines from old ones, which are used for law enforcement, self-defense and target shooting, the gun-rights group says.

NRA did not have an immediate comment on McCarthy's statement.
Breivik's manifesto described his purchase of 10 30-round ammunition magazines from a U.S. supplier who mailed the devices to him, she said.
Under a section of his manifesto titled "December and January - Rifle/gun accessories purchased," Breivik wrote:
"10 x 30 round magazines - .223 cal at 34 USD per mag. Had to buy through a smaller US supplier (who again ordered from other suppliers) as most suppliers have export limitations… Total cost: 550 USD."
In a section called, "How much ammo does a soldier bring to a battle?" Breivik cited a need for high-capacity "banana clips."
"He should bring a total of two ammo pouches with room for 6 banana clips and one in his rifle so a total of 7 banana clips. In addition he should bring 4 clips for his pistol. Some carry more; 8 mags for the assault rifle and 4 pistol mags."
Story: 'Poff! One of the other swimmers was shot, I saw the blood stream out'
Breivik wrote that he failed to acquire certain weapons illegally in the Czech Republic.
"I have now sent an application for a Ruger Mini 14 semi-automatic rifle (5.56). It is the most 'army like' rifle allowed in Norway, although it is considered a 'poor man's' AR-15. I envy our European American brothers as the gun laws in Europe sucks [expletive] in comparison."
McCarthy blamed the "the easy availability of high-capacity ammo magazines in the U.S." for  helping "enable a large-scale massacre."
"How many more innocent people need to die before we realize that some simple, commonsense gun safety laws in the United States could actually save lives?"
Story: Norway killings shift immigrant debate in Europe
McCarthy said the Breivik’s manifesto came just a month after American al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn issued an online video calling upon terrorists to take advantage of weaknesses in U.S. gun laws.
McCarthy has reintroduced HR 308 in several sessions of Congress since the 2004 expiration of the federal assault weapons ban. It was reintroduced this year shortly after the mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that killed six and injured 13, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
A high-capacity magazine was used in that shooting.
High-capacity magazines were also used in the 1993 Long Island Railroad mass shooting that took the life of McCarthy's husband and seriously injured her son, leading her into a life of activism for public safety. The devices were also used in mass shootings at Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Texas, and Binghamton, N.Y., she said.

Ever Want to Shoot the Alarm Clock?

Baldr tipped us off to this one.  Let no one say the Japanese have anything on our gun fetishism.

Milwaukee Man Asks Friend to Shoot Him

JSOnline reports

on the Milwaukee man who asked his friend to shoot him in order to win his girlfriend back. It didn't work.

The judge sentenced him to two years' probation and 100 hours of community service, and at a separate hearing this month, gave the same sentence to Anthony D. Woodall, 20, of South Milwaukee, a friend of Cardella who lined up Wezyk to do the shooting. Woodall was convicted of the same felony as party to a crime. If they both complete probation successfully, the court will consider a motion to expunge this offense from their records.

Sure, and after they get this one expunged, maybe Cardella can request that his gun rights be returned even though he did have one other felony. Of course by then Wezyk will be back in action, guns and all.

I think a little time in jail would have done these boys some good. But I feel much more strongly that losing their gun rights for life would have done them and everyone else around them more good.

What do you think. I would apply the one-strike-you're-out rule, or the MikeB is King rule, as it is sometimes known, even to people who drop a gun. I see that as the least offensive type of misuse, but one worthy of a severe response. When someone actually misuses a gun purposely, like these two did, they should never be allowed near guns again.

The reason for such severity, both in the case of negligence and in the case of wrong action, is based on the idea that anyone who does something like this once, is more likely to repeat it than someone who's never done it. I realize some people would be unfairly swept up in a policy like this, people who might have learned a lesson and never repeated the mistake, but just think of all the reckless and stupid people who would be helped.

Negligence and stupidity with guns would drop to an all time low after about ten years. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

Farago in the Washington Times

That's the Washington Times not to be confused with the Washington Post.

It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the church. The Times is known for presenting socially and politically conservative views.

Robert Farago, of course, is the leader of that merry band of gun-rights warriors called the Armed Intelligentsia of TTAG.

There's only one place on the internet that exceeds Robert's zeal in attacking the ATF.  That's the Sipsey Street Irregulars. Mike V. has practically turned his blog into a dedicated propaganda machine, even some of his fanboys have complained.

Farago uses his usual linguistic gifts to make his points, "the Nixonian cover-up," "the simmering scandal," "ATF’s ideological corruption," "moral abyss," "bloated bureaucracy," and so on and so on.

He had this to say too:

Displaying its ongoing antipathy to the right to keep and bear arms, the ATF has just pushed through an executive order creating an unconstitutional long-gun registry. The agency says the new regulations will help it catch smugglers trying to secrete American weapons into Mexico - the same crime it enabled and encouraged under Operation Fast and Furious.

By "unconstitutional long-gun registry," is he referring to the law requiring that multiple sales of guns like AR-15s be reported? Wouldn't such a law be one of the best ways to identify gun smugglers and straw purchasers? Wouldn't investigating people who buy more than one of those items make sense?

Well, apparently not to Robert Farago and his friends. To them, misrepresenting these attempts as "creating an unconstitutional long-gun registry, is part of their strategy to resist common sense gun control regulations.

What's your opinion? Is Robert Farago one eloquent son-of-a-gun, or what? Do you think he does a bit of spinning though, is he guilty of manipulating?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.