Norway Remembers

from  msnbc.com and Reuters:

Norway marking the massacre anniversary

Norway massacre: Nation remembers victims one year later Survivor: 'Very few people can go through a day without thinking of the events of July 22'

By Balazs Koranyi
Norwegians by the thousands gathered on Sunday at somber memorials to the 77 people killed a year ago by far-right gunman Anders Behring Breivik to show his bloody rampage had done nothing to change their dedication to an open society.

"The bomb and the shots were intended to change Norway. People responded by embracing our values. He failed, the people won," Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told the crowds, carrying red and white roses at the memorial in central Oslo.
Breivik, who said his mostly teenage victims were traitors because they supported multiculturalism and Muslim immigration, detonated a bomb outside parliament that killed eight, then shot dead 69 at the ruling Labour Party's youth camp on Utoeya.
The anniversary fell two days after a gunman in the U.S. state of Colorado killed 12 and wounded 58 in a crowded movie theatre. No link has been suggested between the two rampages.
"Very few people can go through a day without thinking of the events of July 22," said Vegard Groeslie Wennesland, an Utoeya survivor, who escaped Breivik by barricading himself in a cabin with about 50 others.
"You know, a person you miss, someone you were supposed to hang out with or seek advice from or anything like this. Or something that just reminds you of what happened."
On the island, Stoltenberg and most cabinet members joined around a thousand survivors in songs, speeches and commemoration that included releasing a large, heart-shaped helium balloon to which they had attached personal messages.
"In the past year, young people joined the service of democracy and responded to violence with activism," Stoltenberg said on Utoeya.
"By meeting blind hatred with knowledge and reason, we have shown that democracy is stronger than its biggest threat."
Signs left beside flowers around the Oslo cathedral and the bombed government building repeated one after the other what has become Norway's battle cry in the past year: "If one man can create so much hatred, imagine how much love we can create together."
Closure has been difficult to achieve as Breivik's 10-week trial this year forced Norwegians to relive chilling horrors in detail day after day. A verdict is due on August 24 and a commission report on the events is expected in the coming weeks.
Breivik faces either indefinite mental care or a 21-year prison term with the possibility of indefinite extension.
"This anniversary is an important end to a cycle where families have had their first Christmas, birthday and national day without their loved ones," said Kitty Eide, a spokeswoman for the National Support Group for the victims and mother of a survivor.
Open societyThe attacks shocked the Nordic nation of five million, which prides itself on its open society, consensus-seeking politics and economic success.
But Norway reaffirmed its commitment to an open society in the wake of the attacks and resisted calls for radical measures.
"I think both politicians and people, perhaps without directly saying so, have made it clear that they want society to remain unchanged," said Thomas Hylland-Eriksen, a Professor of social anthropology at Oslo University.
"They are going to preserve what they feel is most valuable in Norway: its openness and feeling of safety."
At a special mass in Oslo Cathedral, Bishop Helga Haugland Byfuglien told Norwegians: "The light shines in the darkness; darkness hasn't been able to overcome it."
Prosecutors have asked the court to declare Breivik insane, flying in the face of the public view that his lucid testimony shows he deserves prison, while Breivik wants to be declared sane and considered a political activist.
Breivik said his victims, the youngest of whom was 14, were brainwashed "cultural Marxists" whose immigration policies adulterated pure Norwegian blood and risked leading to a civil war with Muslims.
He arrived at the camp dressed as a policeman, claiming to have come to protect the camp, only to pull out a gun and shoot children from point-blank range with what witnesses described as a "joyous battle cry".

Aurora, Colorado Mass Shooting - Update 5

The gunman's fancy drum-style magazine apparently jammed; had it not, it is likely the numbers of dead and wounded would be much higher.

There appears to have been a pause in the shooting where the gunman either reloaded, and/or switched weapons because of the jammed magazine.

The gunman MAY have received a phone call before leaving the theater to armor up and get his weapons from his vehicle, after the other movie trailers finished playing.

This has led to speculation by the conspiracy theorist wackos on the right to make all kinds of crazy speculations, which of course they represent as fact.  These speculations have included asserting there were multiple shooters (not true) or that the shooter had an accomplice (so far, also appears to be untrue).

What IS true is that the investigators, in order to research as much background to this slaughter, investigators have spoken with every member of his student program.  The exception so far is one appears to be one student who is overseas, in Asia, who has been there for a number of weeks, according to the student's landlord.

It appears that the shooter (alleged) had died his hair the odd not-found-in-nature color for a period of time significantly before the event, and had tried on-line dating (supposedly unsuccessfully).  The absence of a love life is one more element that appears to be in common with Anders Breivik, the mass shooter in Norway who appeared to be a failure at having a normal, active love life.

And then we have the right wing nut conspiracy crazies who must have an over-sized, bulging, deformed, extra-large-potato-sized primitive brain bits, mostly their emotion center amygdalas, and fecal brown matter of the variety referred to colloquially as pudding poop where their cerebral gray matter should be.

I can think of nothing more disrespectful, more egregiously obscene and exploitive than the distortions and contortions of the real events made by some of the far right wing gun nuts and generally tin hat crowd that have tried to make the mass shooting into something it very much is not.

knobby bit of cypress wood

These are the same people who actually think crass self-promoters like Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann or hate-mongering bigot Pam Geller make real sense.  Clearly, to the reality based world, they don't; to the reality based world, they are grossly factually challenged and morally bankrupt.

An example of the kind of stupidity that is being attached to this tragedy, here are a couple of examples from the extreme right unraveled fringies:

Is it just me?  Or is everyone just as frustrated by the lies coming out of the mouths of the talking heads in our Jewish controlled media pertaining to the circumstances behind the latest shooting at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado? Personally, I am sick and tired of having these idiots continue to steer people away from the truths and instead filling their minds with absolute garbage and falsehoods.
....  We have heard from witnesses on how this man went on a rampage after receiving a mysterious phone call ( To switch on the MK Ultra agent's kill mode?) and then right after the shootings calmly (?) surrender himself to the police like as if nothing had happened... I have seen many stories over the alternative news about how MK Ultra victims have their minds switched on and off into different modes of opertion, and this latest incident shows all the earmarks of being exactly that! A good example is again how Anders Brievik had supposedly received a call from his Swedish Mossad handler just before he went on his "rampage"... A call to switch "on" Brievik's kill mode?
And.. We see the talking heads in the almost laughable MSM continue to preach that this was a "lone gunman".... Without even talking about HOW Holmes was able to go out an Emergency Exit without setting off the automatic alarm that is generated when an Emergency Exit is usually tripped... Or the fact that his armor, and guns, were conveniently right outside that Emergency Exit door (?)... Or the fact that SOMEBODY had to let him back into the theater through this Emergency Exit door after he changed into his shooting gear (!)... What we have here is most definitely an accomplice to this crime, pure and simple... But tell that to the fools at the MSM, and all we get is them denying it, and instead sticking to their scripts....
It does not take rocket science to understand that the shootings in Aurora could not have been timed more perfectly... The criminals in the US government are going to sign the UN treaty on gun control this coming Friday, July 27th, and they are desperate to have the American public come on board with the insane idea of surrendering their guns. The psychological effect of having 12 people killed by a "crazed gunman" could be enough to convince gullible Americans that something has to be done about guns in America by pushing forward legislation that would ban guns, and therefore destroy the 2nd Amendment rights to bear arms.

These are the same fools who don't believe we landed on the moon:

Last Friday, July 20th, was the 43rd anniversary of the fraudulent Apollo 11 "landing on the moon" mission. It is so ridiculous today that people still believe that massive lie and swindle concocted by the US Government and their NASA organization. The facts speak for themselves... Man cannot venture beyond low Earth orbit with even today's technology, unless he is able to come up with a solution for the extremely high and deadly radiation levels within the Van Allen radiation belts... I have been pelted on and off by commentators that claim that Dr. James Van Allen, had to take back his original estimates of the strength of that barrier which he reported back in the late 50's, and to say before his death in 2006 that he was "mistaken" and the dangers of the belts were not there....I can tell you that of course he had to take back his original findings, because he and his family were obviously threatened by the criminals in NASA if he did not! I only need to turn to the Russian findings about the dangers of the belts (Russia was of course not sitting idly by, and doing their own measurements of the VA belt radiation levels) which were reported by Dr. EE Kovalev of the Russian space medicine firm back in 1983 which not only supported Van Allen's original estimates, but showed that the levels of high radiation were actually much much worse than Van Allen's own 1950's readings!.... It is very strange that few people have actually ever heard of the Van Allen Radiation belts at all, and the fact that no manned space craft before or after Apollo has ever ventured off into space beyond low Earth orbit. This makes Project Apollo an "anomaly" indeed.... People should be asking the real hard question: If it was so easy to go to the moon with antiquated technology of the 1960's, then why have we not gone back since, and especially with the superior technologies of today? And to the naysayers, don't give me the crap about "We did it once before, and therefore there is no reason to return". To me, that is a copout, and nothing more than an excuse to cover for the inconsistencies of of the fraud of the entire Project Apollo.

and this, from another right wing wrong-brained conspiracy theory gun nut -- again about the Aurora, Colorado shooting:

THE U.S. GOVERNMENT’S MURDEROUS AGENDA TO DISARM THE CITIZENRY

When will enough be enough??

Does it not seem highly unlikely that the murder spree in Aurora, CO. would not have happened if the government were not about to sign the upcoming U.N. Gun Treaty on July 27th, which is only seven days away? Furthermore, it is also quite ironic that the tragic shooting at Columbine School happened 13 years ago and is only 13 miles away from Aurora. Numerology has powerful meaning for the satanic criminal elite so you can bet that there is great significance in these particular numbers.

No doubt this was a planned false-flag psyop by C.I.A. spooks or some other nefarious group within the U.S. government. Nothing about it rings coincidental or happen-stance.

According to CNN reports, suspiciously, the shooter received a phone call right before he pitched a gas canister into the theater full of patrons at a midnight showing of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. That smacks of an MK-Ultra tactic. I think it more than possible that the perpetrator was a sleeper agent, and at just the specific moment he was activated by the phone call in order to carry out this murderous deed. He may also have no memory of the heinous act.

Shame on these people, SHAME on them.  The right wing fringies, like these, are embarrassments to the rest of us.  They are not crazy, they are simply stupid, representing the worst of us, representing those who would push for lethal violence no matter how dishonest, how stupid, how delusional.  These are the core fanatics of the NRA.  Gun nuts should be ashamed of their fellow fetishists.

Bad Stand Your Ground Shooting 1

As in the Trayvon Martin shooting, and as in any number of other 'shoot first' incidents, there is a strong vigilante, the-hell-with-the-police-I'm-going-to-hunt-him-down mentality that relies on the same fundamental assumptions as the castle docrinte and the shoot first laws.
In this case, as with George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin shooting, the vigilante gun nut followed someone, instead of actually standing his ground or defending his domicile (or in the case of some of these gun nuts, we perhaps should call it dumb-o-cile).

I want to focus here, between the bad shoot first incidents, and the mistaken intruder shootings, on all the gun culture failures of these laws being implemented by non-law enforcement, or in one case, an off-duty law enforcement acting personally rather than professionally.
Another Washington state incident:

Arlington man who fatally shot burglar gets 12 years for murder

By Diana Hefley, Herald Writer
EVERETT -- In the end, a judge decided that the case wasn't about a murder.

What Keira Earhart did was more akin to manslaughter, Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Larry McKeeman concluded on Wednesday. He sentenced the Arlington man to a dozen years in prison -- three years below the standard range.

Earhart shot Ryan Rzechula in the back on Nov. 16, 2009. Earhart, 39, encountered Rzechula about three hours after a break-in at his Arlington house, a quarter-mile away. Earhart had gone looking for the burglar and his wife's missing jewelry. He suspected that Rzechula, 25, was responsible for the break-in and called 911.

Prosecutors alleged that Earhart shot the unarmed man as he was running away, ignoring Earhart's commands to stop. Rzechula died in a creek bed. His body was discovered two days later. Detectives found jewelry in his pocket that was stolen from Earhart's house.

When the case went to trial late last year, jurors acquitted Earhart of intentional murder. They were deadlocked over whether he was guilty under a different theory and also couldn't reach a decision on whether he was guilty of manslaughter.

That left the door open for Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Mara Rozzano to retry the case.

Jurors last month convicted Earhart of second-degree murder under a felony murder theory. They concluded that Earhart committed assault by pointing a gun at Rzechula. In the course of that crime, Earhart killed the Stanwood High School graduate. That made him guilty as charged, the jurors found.

The jury rejected Earhart's claim that he shot Rzechula in self-defense.

Prosecutors on Wednesday asked for an 18-year prison term, a mid-range sentence under state guidelines.

"You don't get to shoot someone who won't stop," Rozzano said.

Earhart has shown little remorse for his actions and has taken steps to "further victimize Ryan without taking responsibility for his actions," Rozzano said.

Defense attorney Pete Mazzone argued that there were grounds to deviate from the standard range and sentence Earhart to six years in prison -- a year for the killing and a mandatory five years for criminal use of a firearm.

The law gives judges discretion to deviate from the standard range under certain parameters.

Mazzone argued that Rzechula provoked the situation by breaking into Earhart's house and threatening him three hours later. That was reason to impose a sentence below the guidelines, he said.

Earhart's been a law-abiding family man his whole life, the lawyer said. Dozens of people, including the man's two children, ages 10 and 12, wrote letters to the judge. They praised his contributions to the community and his family.

"Dad is really nice. He is always in a good mood. I don't believe I ever saw him sad. Or at least cry a tear, which is good, it means he's strong," his 10-year-old daughter wrote.

Earhart apologized to Rzechula's parents on Wednesday.

"I'm very sorry. I'm very sorry," Earhart said through tears.

Rozzano argued against leniency. Rzechula's life was taken over a few possessions, she said.

"This is a tragedy of Mr. Earhart's making. He elected to pull the trigger," Rozzano said.

McKeeman presided over both murder trials. He heard the same evidence that jurors heard, and more.

The judge on Wednesday acknowledged that both families were suffering because of Earhart's actions. They have handled themselves well during two very difficult trials, the judge said.

McKeeman said he'd hadn't received any letters from anyone asking him to endorse vigilantism.

Jurors didn't believe Earhart's version of events and rejected his self-defense claim, the judge said. Still, the evidence was clear that Rzechula burglarized Earhart's home and eluded police to avoid taking responsibility for his actions.

He continued to try to elude authorities when he refused to stop for Earhart, the judge said. That provoked the final incident that ended in his death, McKeeman concluded. The burglar's actions also supplied reason to sentence his killer to punishment below the standard range, the judge said.

Earhart's reaction was disproportionate to Rzechula's actions, McKeeman said. However, this murder was not typical. Earhart didn't intend to commit a felony. He set out to locate the burglar, have him arrested and get his property back, the judge said.

"If he intended to commit a felony, he wouldn't have called 911," when he encountered Rzechula, McKeeman said.

The judge said a more-appropriate punishment for Earhart would be a sentence typical for first-degree manslaughter. He felt Earhart's actions met the legal definition of being reckless -- a necessary element of manslaughter.

Regardless, under the law Earhart will remain a convicted murderer.

Mistaken Intruder Shooting 2

Another bad stand-your-ground / shoot first premise firearms incident that demonstrates why shoot first laws are a bad idea.  I would argue to MikeB readers that these events occur far more often than they acknowledge.  So, I'm going to start posting them.  The an in the story below was subsequently arrested for assault, but appears intending to use the stand your ground defense. 

From Washington State:

MARYSVILLE, Washington —

Two 911 calls stemming from an incident earlier this week, in which a Marysville homeowner is accused of opening fire on two boys, tell different stories of what may have happened.
Ken Aubrey, 46, is the accused homeowner and has said he thought the boys were breaking into his car. In one of the 911 calls, Aubrey told a dispatcher one of the boys may have been armed.
“They took off when I tried to chase them, but I think one of them shot at me or something,” he told the 911 dispatcher. “I heard a bang, but I don’t know what it was when I was chasing them.”
Aubrey said the two tripped a motion sensor light he installed the last time he was burglarized, and he believed his car was being broken into again. But later in the call, he seems unclear on what he really saw.
“Did you see them in your vehicle?” the 911 dispatcher asked.
“No,” Aubrey replied.
David Bornheimer and Laura Murril, two neighbors who live about a block away from where the incident occurred, got a very different story.
“If they had a gun, the police would have found it that night when they searched the boys in my driveway,” Murril said.
The teens can be heard in the background of Bornheimer’s 911 call.
“Did that guy pull a gun on us for no reason, dude?” one of the teens said.
“Yes,” the other said.
Aubrey told dispatchers that wasn’t true.
“You are not armed, correct, Ken?” the 911 dispatcher said.
“No, no. I have a flashlight,” Aubrey said.
Police arrested Aubrey and said he later admitted to firing two shots.
When KIRO 7 learned Aubrey had bonded out of jail, a crew went and knocked on his door to get his side of the story. No one answered.
“I think he was fed up with his property getting messed with, but that still doesn’t make it OK to pull a gun out on anybody,” Murril said.

Mistaken Intruder Shooting 1

The mistaken intruder shootings, in view of the shoot first laws, seems worth tracking.

From San Mateo, California:

No charges for shooting mistaken intruder

May 23, 2012, 05:00 AM Daily Journal Staff Report

Neither the man who drunkenly entered the wrong Foster City home nor the houseguest who mistook him for an intruder and shot three times will be charged in the late March incident. The incident was not criminal but just a bad mistaken accident on both parts, said District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. The 24-year-old San Mateo man was shot three times when he entered the residence on the 600 block of Crane Avenue just after 4 a.m. March 25. Authorities say he had spent the night drinking with friends the previous night and was so intoxicated he inadvertently thought the residence belonged to a friend. Inside the home, a Brentwood man staying over after a family gathering thought the unarmed man was an intruder and opened fire.

School Shootings--A New Thing?

Not in the good old USA, I just found this interesting page: History of School Shootings in the United States.

It seems that School Shootings have been happening in the USA back when it was a former colony. The earliest known United States shooting to happen on school property was the Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre on July 26, 1764, where four Lenape American Indian entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed nine or ten children (reports vary). Only two children survived.

Anyway, there is a long list of School Shootings in the US.

Maybe the Second Amendment is about private ownership of firearms--after all, having mass shootings is what makes the USA so great!

Don't forget this page as well

Obama Haters' Hypocrisy

via Under the Lobster Scope