Helmke on the Traver Appointment

In his Huffington Post article, Paul Helmke strongly supported the nomination of Andrew Traver to head up the ATF. He equally denounced the NRA for running interference through their lobbying machine.

What I found interesting was the point that the difference between automatic and semi-automatic is minimal.

The NRA bosses don't dispute the AK's murderous capabilities or argue the fact that assault weapons are the mayhem-spreading gun of choice for drug dealers and gang members. Nor do they quarrel with Traver over the notion that stray bullets kill and maim innocent Americans with nauseating regularity.

No, the NRA bosses are all tied up in knots because Traver didn't make it clear enough to the TV audience that a fully automatic weapon (like the one the reporter apparently blasted) can get a few rounds out more quickly than a semi-automatic and is not as readily available to the general public (although they would like it to be).

What's your opinion? Do you agree with his assessment of the two types of assault rifles, the semi- and the fully-automatic? Isn't is sometimes said that the semi-auto version is more deadly because the shooter has increased control and he doesn't run out of ammo so quickly?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Boston Fireman Joins the 10% Club

The problem with the 10% club is it's sometimes difficult to identify its members until they do something really stupid. Of course that's the excuse used by the pro-gun crowd to block the very requirements which might help.

In this case, of course, some will be quick to point out that the fireman in question was already breaking laws by having the gun in the first place.  This would somehow remove him from the rest of the lawful gun owners who maintain weapons in the home legally and relegate the poor guy to the world of criminal law-breakers like murderers, crack-dealers and gang members.

I say, anyone with a shred of honesty will admit this guy was more a member of the first group, let's call them the good guys, than he was a member of the second, the bad guys.

Larry Trammell, 56, shot the woman, whom police would not identify, once in the torso with a .38-caliber handgun between 12:30 a.m. and 1 a.m. Trammell told police that he shot the woman inside his home on West Elm Street because he mistook her for a prowler. She had apparently gotten out of bed to use the bathroom.

This story perfectly illustrates what we often say, a gun in the home is more likely to be misused than to be used to save the day.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Wesley Snipes - Tax Evasion

It's Florida again.  They don't only have screwed up practices as far as gun laws go, but other things as well.

Actor Wesley Snipes was ordered on Friday to start serving a three-year prison sentence for failing to file income tax returns by a federal judge who rejected the Hollywood star's bid for a new trial. 

"The defendant Snipes had a fair trial ... The time has come for the judgment to be enforced," U.S. District Judge Terrell Hodges said in his ruling.

Revoking bail for the 48-year-old star of the "Blade" trilogy, the judge ordered him to report to prison as directed by the U.S. Marshals Service or Bureau of Prisons.

I'm sure it was a fair trial, it's the sentencing guidelines I have a problem with. Prison should be reserved for violent criminals not white-collar tax evaders.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Winter Shooting

Via FatWhiteMan, this fascinating and extremely entertaining article held me spellbound.  It's replete with meticulous advice, a la Robert Farago and Xavier the Nurse (retired I think) as well as anecdotes from the Korean War.

As to gloves, you want the one on the hand that works the trigger to come off quickly, smoothly, and silently when you need to shoot. I tried the old woodsman's trick of a thin, lengthwise knife slit on the trigger finger portion of the glove to let the warm index finger sneak out when it needed to work the trigger. Imperfect. Snow got into the glove and froze the finger as soon as you had to grab a snowy branch or catch yourself in a fall in the snow. Also, the palmar surface of the glove wants something rubbery for traction.

What's your opinion? Is the guy a little bit extreme, or what? I love the introduction:

Whether you're talking about hunting (big game season is generally in the colder months), or just working the ranch or farm with the usual needs for firearms that crop up "on the place," or carrying a concealed personal protection handgun, there are factors to be considered and changes that sometimes need to be made.

One thing that occurred to me is, as fanatical as this guy sounds, he provides a very needed service. Other than the criminals, the guys who cause most of the problems, the members of the 10% club in other words, are generally not guys like this, and they don't take advice from guys like this. Those nonchalant arrogant types could use counsel from a guy like this.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

The Crocodile Tears of Sean Sorrentino

Sean in his boiler suit preparing to slay
another strawman of his own design
or hoisting his own petard

40-Year-Old Virgin, Sean D. Sorrentino spends much time lately knashing his teeth about the shooting of a police officer in NC.

Apparently, our Medieval Times server has some sort of Kevin Bacon Six Degrees of Separation-like connection to the wounded officer.  To be sure, the story is tragic; every day in this country, police officers are wounded or killed in course of their duties.  But, Sir Sorrentino of Gunloonaria omits the wee detail that criminals gain easy access to guns because of folks like Sean D. Sorrentino.

NRA Members in the News

Tim Profitt, brave NRA member and woman stomper, pleads not guilty to assault.

Interestingly, the brave NRA member Profitt and woman assaulter, attempted to reach out for support to a woman running as an independent for LT Governor of KY named Dea Riley.  It wasn't a good idea.  Here's an excerpt of her response to Timmy:

"On a personal note, if you had kicked me...I would have done all I could do to beat your ass into the ground with everything I had in me. Guarantee it. I'm afraid I stand with Ms. Valle and wish I had been there to defend her - which is what I would have done and am doing now. You don't put your hands on women - EVER!"

Meanwhile, AR has elected a state representative named Loy Mauch.  Mauch is a proud member of both the NRA and the GOA.  He also happens to believe AR should secede. that Abe Lincoln was a criminal and John Wilkes Booth was a hero, and the Confederate Flag is a symbol of Jesus Christ.

The Neighborhood Watch and Gun Owners

via Boing Boing.

I found the bullet holes in the upper sign very interesting. I wondered who did that, I mean what kind of gun owner. I don't suppose anyone who comments here would admit to ever having done something like that, or like this.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

Wild Road-Rage Incident in Orlando

Florida drivers seem to be seething with anger. Of course, you can't go by the daily reports in the news, or can you?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

UCSF Gun-Drawing Incident

The video shows the incident.  All I could think was that poor cop could see he was being filmed by a number of the protesters.  He must have known he was in trouble.

But is he in trouble?  Did he do wrong?  Is it permissible for police to draw their weapons like that as a deterring action?  I think Robert Farago has said you do not draw your gun until you're ready to shoot.

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

Pennsylvania 17-Year-Old Arrested

When the kid's an older teen, as opposed to the following story about the Georgia 10-year-old, it's somewhat less likely that the problem is at home. 17-year-olds have the contacts and the means to procure weapons outside of the home.  Nevertheless, I would put a big spotlight on the parents even in this case.  If the gun turns out to have belonged to them, they should be arrested and forfeit their gun rights.

Does it sometimes seem that the gun crowd is all for strict sentencing except when it comes to guns? They're quick to point to the gang members who supposedly get off light, but when it comes to the non-violent crimes that they themselves commit, it's suddenly about infringement of their rights.

That's called a double standard.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Georgia 10-Year-Old Arrested

Georgia is one of the most gun-friendly states out there. It's no wonder the boy was arrested, the incident is being investigated and the parents were merely notified.

What's your opinion?  Is this part of that division of responsibility the gun crowd is always talking about?  Only the offender is responsible for his actions.  I mean, it's not the dad's fault if that disobedient boy didn't follow instructions.

What's your opinion?  Would it be too much to lock the dad up for a few days and strip him of his gun rights, if it turns out that the gun was his of course?

Please leave a comment.

Jon Stewart on John McCain on DADT

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Hunters - A Dying Breed

via Opinione.

The Medal Of Honor

This is obviously another liberal plot, which this bizarre article takes to task complete with misogyny and delusional biblical references.

According to Bill McGurn of the Wall Street Journal, every Medal of Honor awarded during these two conflicts has been awarded for saving life. Not one has been awarded for inflicting casualties on the enemy. Not one.

Gen. George Patton once famously said, "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his."

What's your opinion? Do you think there have been some tremendous acts of heroism of the "inflicting casualties" type that have been overlooked in these recent years? Would that indicate progress in some way, perhaps representinig a change in the way we view heroism?

Please leave a comment.

Update; Linky fixed--JG

The Michigan Deer Hunter

We hear of these every year at hunting season.  I remember one unforgettable case in which the hunter reached down over a little cliff with his rifle to help his buddy climb up.  The gun went off and killed him.

What struck me in the article though was the huge number of hunters and the huge number of deer taken, and that's just Michigan.

Hunters in Michigan killed about 9 percent fewer deer last year than they did in 2008. About 444,000 deer were harvested last year, down from about 490,000 in 2008.

About 686,000 people went out to hunt in 2009, down about 1 percent from the previous season. 

I never did understand hunting. To me it's sick. I wonder how many of those Michigan hunters also subscribe to the general gun-rights arguments.

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

The Philadelphia Inquirer on Lax Pennsylvania Gun Laws

Highlighting the murder of a state wildlife conservation officer by a prohibited person with a gun, the Inquirer Editorial makes some good points.

A proposal supported by most Pennsylvanians would require reporting lost and stolen weapons as part of a strategy to curtail illegal gun sales by buyers who pose as fronts or so-called straw buyers. It has the support of law enforcement and mayors in dozens of cities and towns, but it has gone nowhere in Harrisburg.

Another gun-safety tactic would be to limit handgun buyers to one a month - once again, to cut down on illegal trafficking without infringing on anyone's right to legally own a handgun.

Finally, the state needs to close the so-called Florida loophole that allows people to acquire out-of-state handgun licenses even after they have been turned down in Pennsylvania.

Unfortunately, the election of NRA acolyte Tom Corbett as governor doesn't bode well for moving ahead with such sensible gun-safety regulations. But their enactment would be a fitting tribute to the dedication of law enforcement officers such as David Grove.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Horace Dixon - South Jersey Gun Trafficker

What do you think about this guy and what he did? Wouldn't many of his activities be allowed in other states? I mean, possession of semi-automatic rifles doesn't sound too bad. Of course the machine gun and the rocket launcher would have raised some eyebrows in the most gun-friendly states, don't your think?

Please leave a comment.

More on the Australian Twins

Now they're calling it a suicide pact. It's not clear if they shot each other or each one shot herself.

And how about that sick irony in the name of the range they chose to do it in?

The Probability of a Meteorite Strike

Here's the official formula for calculating Los Angeles.

Area of Earth = 5.1 x 10^8 km^2

about 500 meteorites fall every year

area of los angeles = 1200 km^2

estimate the probability that a meteorite will fall in Los angeles in the next year.

All right, I admit being involved in a truly legitimate DGU may be slightly more likely than this, but not enough to justify owning and especially carrying guns.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Road Rage in North Carolina

Why do the pro gun advocates keep trying to portray themselves as being totally removed from scenes like this? Aren't gun owners human? Aren't they subject to the same stresses and frustrations as everybody else?

Of course they are. That's why so many of them misuse their guns.

...one driver cut off another driver and both cars starting speeding. Hand gestures were exchanged and one driver showed the other driver what looked like the barrel of a gun.

Investigators said that is when the other driver pulled out his own gun and fired shots into the air.

I realize it's kind of unfair, gun owners can't win with me. If these guys were already criminals, their guns originally came from legitimate sources. Gun owners are to blame. If they were legitimate gun owners up until this incident, they prove the 10% theory, or worse, they prove the 10% figure is too low.

Faced with these terribly unfair choices, my advice to gun owners is this. Keep yourselves safely within the 90% and stop being so defensive about the others.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Heller II

This is really fascinating.

Gun owners in Washington told a federal appeals court that the city’s firearm registration process and a ban on some assault rifles violate their constitutional rights. 

The lawyer for Dick Heller, the plaintiff in a U.S. Supreme Court case in 2008 that expanded Second Amendment rights, argued to the three-judge panel today that the District of Columbia’s regulations are so burdensome that gun owners are deprived of their constitutional rights. The rules are inconsistent with high court rulings, including Heller’s earlier case, he said.

One fascinating part is that the case being argued now was originally raised just 12 days after the big victory in Heller vs. D.C. That would have been before they even know how restrictive the registration practice would be.

Washington requires residents who want to keep a gun at home to be fingerprinted and photographed by police, provide a five-year work history, and note their intended use of the weapon. Residents must register every firearm they own every three years. Applicants must allow police to run ballistic tests on each gun they register. Firearms defined by the city as assault weapons and magazines that hold more than 10 bullets are banned. 

I was wondering when does the restrictive part come in. To me there's nothing objectionable about this. All these measures will contribute towards minimizing the gun flow to criminals.

Once again the pro-gun crowd refuses to be inconvenienced, even for the greater good.

What's your opinion?  Was filing this lawsuit immediately after the first case was decided an indication of planned incrementalism?  Isn't that what they always accuse the gun control folks of doing?

Please leave a comment. 

Osama bin Laden Wants to Buy a Truck

It's so funny, they're just yuckin' it up down there in Florida.  The AK-47 giveaway is good for business.  It's just what your everyday "hunters, fishermen and outdoorsmen" need with their new pick-up.

The decision to focus the ad campaign on the AK-47, an assault rifle used by armed groups the world over, including insurgents battling US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, has not gone unnoticed among Ginetta's employees.

"The salesmen, they make jokes," he said. "'Nick, line one. It's (Osama) bin Laden. He wants to buy a truck!"

I know I'm a spoilsport, but I wonder how many of those guns will end up in the wrong hands two-years from now.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

The Australian Twins

At Family Shooting Center in Colorado one twin ended up dead and the other in critical condition.  The police are baffled.

It could be a suicide pact, a murder or a horrible accident, with no scenario ruled out.

What's your bet? I say suicide pact.

Please leave a comment.

A Florida Road Rage Incident

A fascinating story.

Blake Gracie made an obscene gesture after the school bus cut him off Monday morning. The bus driver returned the gesture and Gracie jumped out of his jeep and grabbed a rifle. He pointed the gun at the bus driver, who remained in the bus.

One student was also in the back of the bus.

Gracie got back in his car and sped off.

The student and bus driver were not injured.

The bus driver gave deputies a partial license plate number. They tracked it to 18-year-old Gracie and arrested him at home, charging him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill.

How do you think they determined it was "without intent to kill?" That sounds like the kind of thing that can be plea-bargained right down to a misdemeanor and when this hot head turns 21 he can join the ranks of legitimate gun owners who carry guns everywhere they go.

What do you think? Would he have been charged like that in New York City, do you think?

Please leave a comment.

Florida Nightclub Shooting - 1 Dead 5 Wounded

The gun crowd generally opposes all gun laws, regardless of how reasonable or obviously beneficial. Allowing guns in bars is a good example.  In response to stories like this one, the usual responses would be offered.

1. Most shootings happen in gun-free zones.  If you prohibit the good guys from having guns in a certain place they'll be sitting ducks.

2. The guy in this story was obviously a criminal.  Lawful gun owners don't do stuff like that.

3. The gun is only a tool, the problem is the person.

4. Constitutionally-protected, natural rights are not to be restricted.  That's what "shall not be infringed" means.

5. and my favorite: Freedom has its price.

Have I forgotten any?

Please leave a comment.

Some of Farago's "Average Americans"

Tougher Sentencing in Baltimore

In Baltimore they're going to try to do something.

Of course, Sebastian sees it as a conspiracy against gun owners.

Pennsylvania has a tiered approach. If you are otherwise qualified to have a license, it’s a misdemeanor for carrying without a license. Only if you’re prohibited from carrying a firearm does it become a felony. Why can’t Maryland take such an approach? Oh yeah, because locking up criminals isn’t the point.

What's your opinion? Why do gun owners so often see these things as conspiracies? Is it so difficult to think the mayor of Baltimore is completely focused on fighting crime and her measures are just a bit too broad? Isn't that more likely than that she's got some hidden agenda against all the gun owners there?

Please leave a comment.

More About the Founders

TYWKIWDBI has a fascinating post up which reminded me of how much I dislike the attitude often expressed about the Founding Fathers, especially among 2nd Amendment apologists. Quoting When the Mississippi Ran Backwards: Empire, Intrigue, Murder, and the New Madrid Earthquakes:

George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, and other founding fathers were all land speculators on a grand scale.

Of course there's nothing wrong with making a buck, right?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Grand Funk Railroad - Country Road

Doing the Right Thing

Even in Texas, death penalty cases are diminishing.  Some people don't like that.



What's your opinion? Is this really about doing the right thing or is it about revenge? If it was wrong for those boys to kill the cabbie, how could it be right for the State to kill them?

It's not. It's wrong.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

The Pennsylvania Lawmakers

I've been watching Lost, and I think I understand now what must have happened.  The Keystone State must have been moved by Benjamin Linus from its rightful geographical position down there near Louisiana and Mississippi. How else can you explain this? 

Pennsylvania Gun Laws Too Soft

Here's an example:

Justin McGlynn, 24, and Edward McGlynn, 21, both of Bushkill, were arrested after police pulled their truck over near the intersection of Smith and East Brown streets.

Police initially pulled the truck over because the driver backed up in the middle of the road to talk to a group of people walking on the sidewalk.

During the traffic stop, one of the pedestrians told police that one of the men in the truck had brandished a handgun in front of the group.

Police searched the truck and found a Glock .45-caliber pistol in the glove compartment.

Both men were charged with reckless endangerment, simple assault, criminal conspiracy and disorderly conduct.

Legitimate gun owners should be screaming for stricter measures in cases like this. These young men do not sound representative of the legitimate gun-owning public, so why protect them with patty-cake laws like these?

I've already presented a solution for this kind of thing, but I didn't hear much support among the gun crowd. Why? You have more at stake than anyone else. Even if you call brandishing a gun a non-violent crime, it should be a felony and it should mark the offender as one unfit to own firearms.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Georgia Man Kills Wife - Shoots Self

I think our friends over at Ohh Shoot, who post stories of "accidental" shootings should start a franchise which specializes in murder/suicides.

Here's a typical case, marital trouble, man owns gun, man does murder, and in this case attempted suicide. He's in critical condition.

Using 20-20 hindsight, can we all agree this guys should not have owned a gun? Please think about it before you begin your knee-jerk arguments. The guy should not have had a gun and probably qualified for the 10% under more than one category.

The only question remaining is, how to identify these guys before they act. Agreed?

Please leave a comment.

Joyce Kaufman

via Common Gunsense.


How can anyone take this kind of rhetoric seriously?

Comic Strip Fame

Serr8d has honored us with being the subject of a comic strip. I kinda like the figure which represents me. You can double click for a clearer version, or simply visit his blog.  But be warned, the sarcasm and mockery is heavy over there.

Robert Farago on the Brady Campaign

The Truth About Guns published a very interesting article about the Brady Campaign's favorite saying: “We make it too easy for dangerous people to get guns in this country.”

The plain truth of the matter: the more you attempt to restrict criminal access to firearms, the harder it is for non-dangerous people to get access to firearms to protect themselves against these dangerous people. It’s a balancing act without a perfect solution.

Utopian-minded gun control advocates simply can’t—or won’t—get their heads around this fact. They start with the [flawed] idea that the police are responsible for personal self-defense: an oxymoronic concept that attempts to infantilize the average American. And leave him or her defenseless. From there, gun control advocates would err on the side of restriction, trading one type of collateral damage for another.

The even plainer truth: gun control groups view ALL civilians as dangerous people. The Brady blog, Mikeb302000, VPC and the rest seize on stories of “average” citizens who commit gun violence—rather than everyday tales of gang and drug-related shootings. You don’t have to read between the lines to see that gun control groups would restrict access to firearms to a very small group.

I must admit, Robert has drawn a bead on the truth, and he does know how to direct reasonable discourse.  As proof, just look at that admission that we're involved in a balancing act without a perfect solution. The Truth About Guns is certainly not just another gun blog waging all out war with the gun control world.

Nevertheless, I must take issue with the following: "The Brady blog, Mikeb302000, VPC and the rest seize on stories of “average” citizens who commit gun violence—rather than everyday tales of gang and drug-related shootings."

Speaking for myself, I don't limit it to stories of concealed carry guys or policemen who do wrong.  I frequently present stories of criminals who do their thing in order to question where the weapons come from.  The answer is always the same.  Guns used by criminals come from lawful gun owners.  Somewhere through the chain of ownership, either through theft or straw purchase or bad private transfer, there is a lawful gun owner who knowingly or unknowingly passes it to a criminal. That's why the two groups are inextricably connected.

What's your opinion?  Don't the Brady and the VPC folks do the same thing I do? 

Please leave a comment.

Teenagers - Guns - Alcohol

The teens in this story sound like your normal adolescents.  At that age, the Eddie Eagle lessons of their earlier years begin to take a back seat to the rebellious showing-off of burgeoning manhood.  This is Oregon, after all.

Maybe the dad needs to be instructed by the courts to buy one of these. Or would that be too much like blaming him?

What do you think?

Van Backfires - Cops Shoot

I'll bet this happens to concealed carry guys too, or is it just cops who do this kind of stuff?

Domestic Double Murder in Fairfield CA

Mercury News reports:

Police are searching for a 50-year-old Fairfield man suspected of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. 

Police say Ricardo Martinez Deleon killed the two at an apartment complex in Fairfield around 1:15 a.m. Friday. The victims' names have not been released.

Police were called around 6:15 p.m. Friday to investigate a disturbance at the complex. Witnesses told officers Deleon had been arguing with his ex-girlfriend in the parking lot, but the woman's family was able to convince him to leave.

Fairfield police Lt. Greg Hurlbut said investigators determined that Deleon later returned and waited for the victims.

Police say Deleon—who is of medium height and build with brown hair and eyes—may be driving a late 1970s or early 1980s white van with a blue stripe.

I wonder if he was an upstanding NRA-type before this incident or if he was already a criminal. It really doesn't matter though. He was obviously a guy who should not have had a gun, and the gun he did possess came from legal sources.

That's why we need to focus on the gun and its last legal owner, that's where intervention can make a difference. The pro-gun complaint that we don't focus on the criminal is a smokescreen used to hide the fact that by focusing on the criminal it's already too late. He's already gotten the gun.

The focus needs to be on the lawful gun owner who knowingly or unknowingly allows the gun he owns to slip into the criminal world. That's where restrictions and controls can do the most good.

Meanwhile, we continue to investigate and fight crime, we continue to lock up criminals, the violent ones for a long time hopefully. All this can continue while we focus on the true gun problem, which is the passage of guns from the good guys to the bad guys.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

The NRA on the Justice Dept. Report

Opposing Views published an op-ed by the NRA about the Recent Justice Department report. In a predictible response, they're warning that it could lead to more unnecessary laws.

...the final report flat-out recommends that the BATFE “Work with the Department [of Justice] to explore options for seeking a requirement for reporting multiple sales of long guns.” To justify its recommendation, the report claims “[l]ong guns have become Mexican cartels’ weapons of choice,” without noting that no one knows what percentage of the cartels’ guns are long guns, or what percentage of their long guns ever had any connection to the United States whatsoever.  In a response to the report, the BATFE says it agrees with the recommendation, but that requiring multiple sales reports on long guns "may" require a change in federal law—although existing law makes clear that Congress only imposed such a requirement for multiple handgun sales. 

Doesn't it often seem like these NRA characters are opposing any gun law regardless of its merits or value? Why would anyone be against this kind of reporting requirement?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Manny Pacquiao - The Greatest Boxer Ever

I usually don't like that substitution game any more than I like comparisons between guns and cars, but this was too perfect to resist.

Blogginig is not about killing each other, it's about entertainment for everybody.

Drunken Gunloonery

After seeing Serr8d's Venn Diagram,  I needed a drink.

As with most all gunloons, Serr8d --and others--swear up and down that they never drink and gunloon.  Never.  Ever.

They tell us it's a bad, bad idea and responsible gunloons never, ever do it.

Yet, why has this happened?

Leaders in the Iowa State Sheriffs and Deputies Association said Wednesday a new state law also would allow Iowans to drink alcohol while carrying a handgun

The answer is simple: gunloons do drink and gunloon.  They also want to do it legally.
Meanwhile, drinking and gunlooning appears to be off to a poor start in Mississippi.

Update: Stay at home drinking and gunlooning not doing well in South Dakota.

Proper Storage

Gun owners who use Pendleton products for storage do not contribute to the gun flow, at least not by making theft easier.

What do you think?

Trigger Happy Oakland Cops

SF Gate reports on the latest police shooting.

Two Oakland police officers apparently mistook an electronic scale commonly used to weigh drugs for a handgun when they opened fire on the owner of a hair salon Monday night, killing him, police said Friday.

Derrick Jones, 37, of Oakland also had marijuana in a glass jar in his pocket when police shot him on the 5800 block of Trask Street in East Oakland.

I know we weren't there, we don't really know what happened, but they should be more careful, don't you think?

Please leave a comment.

Utah High School Gun Incident

Utah is the state which gun-rights advocates point to as proof that guns on college campuses do no harm.  But, what about the high schools?

A 16-year-old Hunter High School student has been arrested after allegedly threatening a rival with a gun on campus.

Could this be a gang thing? Do they even have gangs in Utah? I'd like to know what the boy's family life is like. I'd like to know what his father's relationship with guns is.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Plainfield NJ Shooting

 NJ.com reports:

For the second time in 24 hours, gun shots rang out in Plainfield’s violence-plagued West End section with the same tragic outcome: a young man was dead.

Although the two shootings appear to be unrelated, they both occurred in broad daylight and left local residents frustrated as Plainfield’s homicide rate continues to spike.

One of the big pro-gun arguments is that what we read in the news is misleading, that these are just rare anecdotes and don't properly represent the reality. But, I'm afraid in Plainfield, just like in Austin, Texas, the reality is pretty grim.

[Keith] Hathaway’s death is the seventh homicide in Plainfield this year, far outpacing the two homicides that took place in Union County’s second-largest city in 2009.

What's your opinion? Are we having a bad year for gun violence? It sure seems like it. Of course, it's entirely possible that when the year-end statistics come out, they'll be some way to explain it all away. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

Murder / Suicide - Erie PA

AP reports:

A man shot and killed a woman and their two daughters in his home Saturday morning before turning the gun on himself, authorities said.

Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook identified the dead as a 29-year-old man, a 27-year-old woman and two girls, ages 4 and 7. A 2-year-old boy was taken to a hospital with a minor injury, and police believe the man tried to shoot him, too, Cook said.

Even the two-year-old was injured. That's bad.

Do you think this guy was a mentally ill felon who did just what they do?  Or do you picture him as one of the many legitimate gun owners living in Western Pennsylvania who cracked? I know it could be either one or something in between, but what do you think?

Please leave a comment.