Monday, December 12, 2011

Another Guy in California Who Should Not Have a Gun: Hollywood shootout

Of course the gunloonz would insist that we should never deny people like this  (or anyone else) their 'precious' 2nd Amendment rights, because guns are inanimate objects, that don't hurt people; people do that -- with guns.

They would have us believe their 2nd Amendment rights - incorrectly interpreted - are more important than the lives of everyone else.

If guns were more difficult to obtain, it is far less likely that this man would have had one. If guns were less prevalent, it is far less likely that this event would have occurred.  If guns were not idolized in gun lunatic fantasies, as some empowering equalizer, impulsive events like this would be far less likely to take place.

Just to call attention to one more aspect of this incident - it was the police who stopped the shooting, and their response time was very quick.  It was the use of a cell phone which was successful, not a civilian firearm.

If there were far fewer firearms, incidents like this would be far more rare, and distraught people like the shooter could be getting help for their problems instead of being dead.  And those he injured would be more likely to be well, not harmed.

From the LA Times:

Hollywood shootout: Gunman's motive a mystery

LAPD officers run with guns drawn to the suspected gunman after the shooting spree on Vine Street in Hollywood

A motive remains elusive for a 26-year-old man who randomly fired on pedestrians and motorists in Hollywood on Friday, hitting a music producer in the face before being fatally shot by LAPD officers.
Tyler Brehm had recently broken up with his girlfriend, but authorities say they don't know if that is the motive behind the attack.
The couple moved into a Hollywood apartment complex about a month ago, neighbor Ermelinda Benitez confirmed to The Times. She described an incident about two weeks ago in which she saw Brehm in the hallway, banging on the door to his and girlfriend's unit. Benitez presumed the two were fighting and said Brehm was carrying a clear plastic bag with what appeared to be a comforter or blanket inside.
Friends in Pennsylvania, where Brehm grew up, were shocked by the violence. They described him as an athletic, friendly person.
“I last saw him about a year or two ago,” his former high school coach, Greg Clippinger, told the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa.  “He was very friendly. When I heard the news, I was shocked. I wonder how things got that far and how he could do this. It didn’t seem like Tyler. He always seemed to value life and had a lot going for him. I said a prayer for him.”
"When you walk down the street shooting at people that's probably when you expect that you are going to die," friend Christina Mesropian told KABC-TV. "He was most probably asking for it."
Girlfriend Alicia Alligood, 24, said  that she and Tyler Brehm, 26, dated for four years before breaking up. In an interview with KTLA News, she described Brehm as "really stressed out lately" and said he'd recently started taking pharmaceutical drugs, which she called surprising because she didn't know him to use hard drugs. 
LAPD sources said that at about 10:20 a.m., Brehm began firing a .40-caliber handgun in the air and menacing motorists in a McDonald's parking lot before walking toward the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street. Just south of Sunset, he fired several shots at a silver Mercedes-Benz coupe. The driver, music industry executive John Atterberry, was struck by three bullets in the neck and face.
PHOTOS: A deadly scene in a Hollywood intersection
Brehm began walking into the bustling intersection, still firing into the air and at cars. Witnesses described a frenzied scene that some initially thought the shooting was part of a movie being filmed in the area. But once the sound of bullets striking cars filled the air, pedestrians sprinted away, dashing inside businesses and jumping over walls.
Several car windows were shot out. Drivers sped off or made U-turns, trying to avoid the gun-wielding Brehm, who wore sunglasses and was dressed in dark pants and a white tank top. An onlooker in a nearby building shouted at Brehm, trying to distract him. Some of the rampage was captured in videos and photos.
The shooting ended after about three minutes, when two LAPD officers, including an off-duty motorcycle officer working on a nearby movie set, confronted Brehm and ordered him to drop his gun.
Alligood said that she and Brehm went to junior high and high school together.  She called him a "humanitarian" and said he wanted to "change the world for the better."

14 comments:

  1. How would you determine that this man shouldn't have guns? Yes, he was taking drugs--not specified, just called pharmaceutical, so they may have been prescribed--and that's a reason not to handle a firearm, but surely you don't insist that we deny firearms to anyone who has a prescription, and we don't know that someone is taking an illegal drug until he's caught.

    Again, how do you keep this man from having guns without keeping the rest of us from having them as well?

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  2. I guess this guy shouldn't have had a gun either.
    http://www.11alive.com/rss/article/217098/3/Funeral-set-for-former-state-Sen-Robert-Brown

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  3. Another group who should never, ever be allowed to own or purchase a gun is anyone who served in the military,and they should never, ever be allowed to be a cop.
    http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/04/military_veterans_suicide_042210w/

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  4. "Again, how do you keep this man from having guns without keeping the rest of us from having them as well?"

    That is their goal.

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  5. Do any of you clowns ever deal with the truth.

    I have said, for at least 20 years, that this country needs some sort of sensible policy for keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill, career criminals and those who are otherwise a danger to themselves or others if they have guns.

    You gunzloonz consistently conflate that position with banning and confiscating guns. You defend the assholes that can't face life without injuring or killing others because they just gotz to have teh gunz.

    You can have ALL the fucking gunz you want--that's obviously not enough. You want to force others to put up with your childish selfishness and your unreasonable fear of "the other".

    This guy was in California with .40 Cal. He just moved there recently. So, did he buy it illegally? Did he travel from his last address to CA without registering the gun with the CA authorities? Or did he wake up and find it had been left under his pillow by the gun fairy?

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  6. "This guy was in California with .40 Cal. He just moved there recently. So, did he buy it illegally? Did he travel from his last address to CA without registering the gun with the CA authorities? Or did he wake up and find it had been left under his pillow by the gun fairy?"

    He broke the law. I guess if there was yet another gun control law to break that he would have chosen to walk the straight and narrow? Make it illegaller, that will help. California is one of the gun control paradises you all harp on yet every time it fails it is the fault of someone else. Sounds like more gun control FAIL to me.

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  7. Democommie,

    I have no idea how he got his gun. As you indicated, it was possibly through a means that wouldn't have been caught in the systems that I've seen proposed here. Until recently, there was nothing to indicate that the man was a danger with a firearm. That's why I see any proposal that would have kept him from having a gun as being more about removing guns from all private citizens than keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.

    The shooter in this case appears to be someone who would have had no red flags, until the moment when he did. If that's true, you'd have to take guns away from everyone to keep something like this from happening.

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  8. FatWhiteMan:

    The gun didn't appear out of thin air. As much as you people like to think that you have no responsibility for the idiots like this one, your total disregard for the safety of those who don't WANT to have their communities awash in gunz guarantees that this shit will happen.

    Greg Camp:

    "That's why I see any proposal that would have kept him from having a gun as being more about removing guns from all private citizens than keeping guns out of the hands of criminals."

    Of course you don't, you braindead fool. Nothing would convince you that there's the slightest thing wrong with shitheads like yourself running around with a gun hidden under your shirt. That's because you are too high on the fumes. You're a sad, sad little man.

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  9. "I guess this guy shouldn't have had a gun either.".

    Well, he may have killed himself with or without a gun, but with the gun it's a lot easier.

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  10. Democommie,

    I'll have you know that I'm 6'1" tall and quite cheerful.

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  11. What the gun-rights zealots desperately want to avoid admitting is that all the guns start out with them. That's why many gun control laws need to be focused on them.

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  12. Greg Camp:

    Being a sad, little man has nothing to do with physical stature. Lots of rather nasty individuals are quite cheerful.

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  13. Mikeb302000,

    Someone without a record can buy a gun and then commit a crime with it. That may be the case here. There's handwringing about how the shooter got his gun, but he may have acquired it legally. How would your proposals prevent that from happening? You would have to ban private ownership. This man had no record.

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  14. "This man had no record."

    From the same guy who says that a guy who blew his brains out at a firing range prolly had an accident and we should wait until ALL of the information about the shooting is made public before we jump to conclusions.

    So, Greg Camp, you got the inside track on the police departments in the communities the decedent lived in? No? So how is it that you "know" he has no record? You are such a chump.

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