Friday, December 16, 2011

And Gunners Wonder Why We Want Places Like Courhouses to Be Gun Free Zones

Increasingly it appears we need to have metal detectors to keep people (who are certain they know best) from carrying their guns into public places and then using them.  Obviously, the use seems to them like a good idea at the time, regardless of what the rest of us who are affected by their decision think about it.

That very much goes to the issue of why many of us are not happy with those who carry 'just because, maybe, some day' they might have a use for that weapon which is legal, or at least justified in THEIR mind.  That we might not agree that it is a proper use of a weapon, that we might be incidentally injured by their use, or that we may feel unsafe and threatened because they have faulty judgment at least some of the time or do not think clearly and unemotionally is ignored and disrespected.

We have bailiffs in Minnesota courts, who are armed.  They are trained law enforcement officers.  It always amazes me that given the recorded incidents where that did not prevent violence or result in the extermination of the bad guy - which is what the gun loons seem to exalt, KILLING / EXECUTING the bad guy, not just stopping the crime in progress so the bad guy can be arrested and tried - I think the gun loons have exaggerated ideas of what they can accomplish with their firearm.

Minnesota is considered a safe state, one of the safer states in terms of gun violence.  We still have too many occurrences; the conservatives who have temporary control of our legislature are hell-bent on making those occurrences where we have to put up with someone with a weapon in public, or dangerous private use, more common and with less accountability and with weaker background checks than we have had.


From Reuters:
Defendant shot Minnesota prosecutor three times at courthouse
By David Bailey
MINNEAPOLIS | Fri Dec 16, 2011 10:56am EST
(Reuters) - A man found guilty of a sex crime shot a county prosecutor at a courthouse in a remote corner of northeastern Minnesota three times and a second man multiple times before he was captured, authorities said on Friday.
Cook County Attorney Tim Scannell was shot twice in the abdomen and once in the groin and was recovering after surgery, said Beth Johnson, spokeswoman for Essentia Health-St. Mary's Medical Center in Duluth, Minnesota.
Scannell was alert and talking on Friday and listed in fair condition, Johnson said.
Daniel Schlienz, 42, of Grand Marais, Minnesota, was arrested shortly after the shooting at the Cook County Courthouse in Grand Marais Thursday afternoon and was being held in the county jail, the state public safety department said.
Three people in all were shot in the incident, authorities said. A second man, Greg Thompson, was listed in good condition at the Duluth hospital on Friday after also sustaining multiple gunshot wounds, Johnson said.
A third person was treated and released from a Grand Marais area hospital on Thursday, authorities said.
Schlienz was found guilty on Thursday of a sex crime in a jury trial presided over by Judge Mark Munger, said John Kostouros, spokesman for the Minnesota judicial branch.
Munger was talking with jurors in the courtroom at the small courthouse after the conclusion of the trial when they heard shots fired in another part of the courthouse.
Grand Marais is a city of about 1,400 people along the north shore of Lake Superior about 110 miles northeast of Duluth near the Canadian border.
Windy conditions prevented authorities from flying the wounded from the shooting to Duluth by helicopter and they were driven by ambulance.
The Cook County Courthouse does not have metal detectors. It remained closed on Friday as the investigation continued.
(Reporting by David Bailey; Editing by Jerry Norton)

5 comments:

  1. Gee, yet another post about some asswipe with a gun shooting up the place and gunzloonz like Greg Camp and MAweerd'yBeardygunowner have zero interest.

    You can bet your sweet ass that if somebody had taken this guy out with their 1911 or whatevah, that they'd be on this thread like white on rice.

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  2. Yep, a criminal commits a criminal act with an illegal gun in a place you are not allowed to carry so naturally a new law would prevent this. Make it illegaller, that will help.

    The more of these stories about gun control FAIL you post convinces me more and more that I need to carry.

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  3. FatWhiteMan:

    Into places where it is illegal to do so?

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  4. Democommie,

    On the rare occasion that I have to go into a courthouse--voter registration, tax forms, or the like--I leave my handgun locked up somewhere else. What exactly do you want me to say with regard to this article? Every courthouse in my part of the country has metal detectors, making it unlikely that this would happen here. As FatWhiteMan said, it was already illegal for the shooter to have a firearm. How was it that a convicted sex offender had the opportunity to get his gun and bring it to court? The answer here is to keep this lowlife locked up and not running around the free world.

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  5. Greg Camp:

    Oh, noes! You hatez teh sex offenders, too?

    Garsh, you ask all the questions except, "WHERE did the officer'o'thecourt blaster come from?". Did he buy at his local gunshop? steal it from some shithead who stored it in his dresser drawer? find it in a box of cornflakes? or was it delivered to him by the gunzfairy?

    "The answer here is to keep this lowlife locked up and not running around the free world.".

    Right, because punitive incarcertation in this, the land of the free, is at an all time high and it's worked SOOOOOOOOOOOO well.

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