CNN reports on the story of a Philadelphia shooter who opened fire in a movie theatre on a man who was talking during the film. I suppose the incident was preceded by frequent or continual talking and perhaps even a verbal warning or two to cut it out. But at a certain point, the offended film-goer had had enough.
James Joseph Cialella, 29, was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons violations, a police report said.
Much of what has been written about this Christmas Day incident has been sympathetic to the gunman. No one likes that kind of inconsiderate behavior in the movies, cell phones going off, too much talking, etc. As an example, Writes Like She Talks contains several such comments. I think they're somewhat tongue-in-cheek, though. I can't believe people would be less disturbed by a gunshot than by some talking during the movie, however disturbing it was.
What interests me is the arrest on weapons charges in addition to assault and attempted murder. Does that mean he had no concealed carry permit, but was a legal gun owner? Is concealed carry available in PA? Does it perhaps mean he owned the gun illegally? His photograph is quite impressive. Even though you can't judge a book by its cover, he could play a thug or hit man in the movies, no problem.
A question comes to mind which has been touched upon in a number of our other discussions. We usually talk about two groups, the legal gun owners and the criminal gun owners. I think we need a third group. These would be the people who own guns but not for criminal purposes. The hoops one must jump through, especially in certain states, are formidable to say the least. There must be many people who have decided to say the hell with all that paperwork and bureaucratic nonsense and pick up a gun or two illegally. Technically they would be criminals by this very fact, but I'd say if their only crime is the way they procured the firearms, they belong in another distinct category.
So, it goes like this:
Group A is legal gun owners.
Group B is gun owners who haven't followed all the rules.
Group C is criminal gun owners.
I'd bet Group B is a lot larger than you'd think. And the problem, as I see it, can be more easily described using this formula: the movement or flow of people and weapons from Groups A and B to Group C.
Does that make sense to anybody? Do you agree that Group B exists and that its numbers might be significant? Do you agree there's a movement of people and weapons the way I've described? Is that movement offset by the defensive gun incidents that occur in which someone from Group A thwarts someone from Group C?
What's your opinion?
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ReplyDeleteConceal carry is very legal in PA, as is open carry.
ReplyDelete"Weapons Violations" is a vague term, but given that they used a plural and not the specific "Carrying without a license". So there was likely at LEAST one other charge. It could be a stupid one like ignoring the posting on the theater door that says "No weapons", or he could have used a stolen gun, or be subject to restraining orders or felony convictions, et al. Hard to say.
As far as you A, B and C theory, you are initiating junk science, and calling it "Reason".
Remember, you refuse to read or reprint any comparable number of lawful self-defense use of firearms. You dismiss them as being "Unprovable", meanwhile you surround yourself with such stories as above, you do all you can to imply that somebody from Group A or Group C are in fact members of Group B (like the above story....also I remember you talking about some 20 year old gang-banger as a "Lawful Gun Owner") Or implying that a Father who's son broke into his gunsafe is somehow now a member of Group "B" despite his every action being following the rules, to the extent of turning his own son in to trumped up charges to the police and a bloodthirsty media.
Also you choose to ignore the goofy nature of how gun laws are written, and the way a simple mistake can be turn a well-meaning a law-abiding citizen into a denizen of group "B". Like a person who lawfully carries on their errands. Grocery store (OK) Bank (Legal), Clothing Store (OK), Jewelry Store (OK), Pub for a sandwich (Legal), then Post office for a book of stamps and to drop the mortgage bill in the drop-slot (FELONY!!!! GROUP B FOR YOU!!!)
Or somebody carrying in a state park for personal protection(Legal)...and then cross over to a National Park (Illegal until next Month).
Or a gentleman modifying a rifle as a project and mistaknely cutting the barrel down to 15.8 inches...rather than 16....tho with a $200 Registration cutting it down to 1" is perfectly legal.
I could go on for ages, but again, you're in deep denial that you are pushing a deep-rooted and wrong-headed agenda, that I doubt I'll get longer than a 4 line response from you. But according to your "Science" (That will only produce results you agree with! NICE) the above denizens of Group "B" closely resemble that of group A (Especially in intent, which you love to use to exonerate criminals who have actually DONE brutal and harmful crimes) but somehow this leads to a significant distinction with you?
Nope, Mike, you're attempting to cover a bias that you know is not true by a veneer of junk science that you shall control the input by discounting "inconvenient truth" and bending the criteria to encompass data that supports your bias, all while publishing the worst of the world (Without admonishing actual criminals...but admonishing people like Myself, Bob, Thomas (Who openly admits to carrying without a permit...which would make him a Group-B, despite him doing no harm except in his cantankerous rants *sticks and stones...*) who have not done, nor will ever do the horrible acts that you center your discussions on.
Your theories will only make sense to yourself and others who agree with you and also don't care about being correct in their views.
You can't convince others who are critical thinkers like myself because your bias is open, and your attempts to support it are lies.
But again, I don't speak from a high horse, Mike, as I used to believe as you did.
Only I was brave enough to admit I was wrong when I realized my own eyes showed my beliefs to be fiction.
I am not arrogant to say I can't be convinced again, and there have since been other points I have been wrong on since and before, But I am not a fool, Mike, and it will take a rational argument, not a hysterical one to change my mind.
You have it wrong again mike:
ReplyDeleteGroup A is law abiding citizens.
Group B is people that need custodial care in a psychiatric facility or prison, if not executed.
Gun ownership is IRRELEVANT. He could have easily stabbed the guy in the arm.
If you can't be trusted with ownership of arms you don't get to be a free human in society. Problem solved.
Fuck framing it in your terms because you look at the problem ass-backwards every fucking time.
From mike's Mexican paradise where all guns held by civilians are illegal unless you have very good political connections:
ReplyDeleteSaturday, prosecutors in the northwestern state of Sinaloa reported that at least four people were killed in a gunbattle between suspected drug traffickers in a remote mountain area.
The running battle apparently started on Christmas eve and continued for some time in the drug-plagued region known as "the Golden Triangle," near the border with Durango state, assistant state prosecutor Ramon Rodrigo Castro said.
Police using helicopters rescued two men wounded in the confrontation in the largely roadless area. But when the injured men were being transferred later by land to a hospital, about 30 masked gunmen intercepted the ambulance and abducted the victims.
It is almost trivial to get a license in Pennsylvania--$20 and a clean record, if you are from out of state you can do it by mail. I looked into a non-resident license for a trip I had planned, but it turned out that New Hampshire covered Pennsylvania, plus more additional states at the same cost.
ReplyDeleteEven with that ease, I'm willing to bet long odds that this idiot didn't have a license. People with licenses rarely do stuff this stupid and pointless, and the media would include the license status in the headline.
It is difficult to be a perfectly law-abiding gun owner--the laws are numerous and confusing even to those who try to study and follow them. We are coming to the point where it will be impossible for a person of normal intelligence and education to be a gun owner and still follow all the gun laws on the books.
We need simplified laws, so people who desire to be law abiding, can.
Sevesteen
ReplyDeleteFor one part of my mundane life, I was an Over the Road CDL driver. Do you think myself or any of my fellow drivers gave one flying fuck about gun laws when we had to drive into Detroit or D.C.?
We protected ourselves and the more annoying the laws become and the more they cost the more you end up generating "gun crimes" by du jour bullshit where nobody was shot, injured, hurt in any way, but you broke some law they changed last week.
When it came down to it, I slept in my sleeper with a .45 under my pillow in every state I ever drove in.
It's handy to be legal, but being illegal didn't ever bother anybody I ever knew much. That's LEOs included before they got their recent gift that LEOs (as golden special people) can carry in any state of the union regardless of state law.
Weer'd, What I said about the Group B people is this: "Technically they would be criminals by this very fact, but I'd say if their only crime is the way they procured the firearms, they belong in another distinct category." Far from relegating people to some criminal status, I'm excusing them. If I were into guns, I'd certainly be a member of this group.
ReplyDeleteThe whole exercise, which you so kindly described as "junk science," is to try to describe the relationship among the different kinds of gun owners. I'm challenging your long-standing contention that you legal guys have nothing to do with the illegal ones. I say you're all related because of the "flow."
"I say you're all related because of the "flow."
ReplyDeleteA "Flow" you can't prove, but attempt to anyway.
Garbage in, Garbage out, Mike.
If you eliminate lawful guns, you will eliminate the diversion of lawful guns to criminal pursuits. You may reduce the number of criminal guns, but you will not eliminate them. You will change the ratio from predominantly defensive to predominantly offensive use of guns.
ReplyDeleteSevesteen, Thanks for your last comment. I think you're the first one to acknowledge that there is a flow. But don't forget there're other problems. You've got the movement of people from Group A to Group C, Santa might have been one of them. Then you've got the suicides. We haven't spoken much about that but in today's post there's a heavy statistic about it. The question is would eliminating or seriously lowering all of that still not be worth it?
ReplyDeleteIf you eliminated pharmacies, you would reduce the flow of drugs from legal use to illegal use.
ReplyDeleteIf you eliminated car dealers and manufacturers, you would reduce the flow of automobiles to drunk drivers.
If you eliminated baseball, you would reduce the flow of bats to criminal use.
I've got a question for you mike regarding your ABCs:
ReplyDeleteIf I can go around not raping, robbing, murdering, nor pillaging on the occasions I carry places where I'm not supposed to but have done so for the sake of my safety, concealing things in such a way that you never know I'm carrying, how does having a law preventing me from having a gun or carrying a gun give you any peace of mind?
If you'd been at lunch in the same place as my friends and I ate yesterday, you would have no idea that any of us, and likely many others in the establishment, were carrying. It's not like you show a concealed handgun license when you ask the hostess for a table and they announce it on the loudspeakers and point you out to everybody. The only possible tip-off would be that none of us drank any alcohol, but it's not uncommon for people in the "bible belt" or elsewhere to have lunch with no alcohol.
I find this being STRONG evidence that laws you think give would give you "peace of mind" in actuality would do no such thing for you unless you want every time you go to a movie or eat at a eating house be like getting on an El Al flight. I don't think many people would put up with that sort of thing as national policy.