Where else, but Florida? AGAIN.
Good Morning America had the video recording from the cell phone; I'll try to post that as well later.
Won't it be interesting to see where the gun came from, and whether this is a previously 'lawful' gun owner who suddenly snapped, or if she has a history of violence, gun or otherwise.
from NBC Miami:
TAMARAC, Fl. -- Authorities say a Boca Raton man recorded his estranged mother-in-law shooting him in her front yard during a visit to pick up his son.
Salvatore Miglino, 39, was picking up his 3-year-old Thursday at his mother-in-law's home in the 8600 block of Northwest 57th Court as part of a court order when the attack occurred, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.
Miglino was expecting a confrontation, so he hit the record button on his iPhone, according to the BSO.
The mother-in-law, 66-year-old Cheryl Hepner, met Miglino outside with the boy's pillow and bag, and told him that her husband was inside and wanted to talk to him.
When Miglino declined, Hepner pulled a handgun from behind the pillow and opened fire three times, the BSO said.
Wounded in his ribcage and shoulder, Miglino landed on Hepner in the front yard.
"I can't believe you did that! I can't believe you shot me!" Miglino screams in the iPhone footage, as Hepner curses and tells him to get off her.
According to the BSO, Hepner told officers that Miglino had tried to shoot her but she knocked the gun out of his hand and shot him instead.
"Why did he do this to you?" asks the dispatcher in the 911 call.
"He's a son of a bi**h," the woman says.
She goes on to say that Miglino and her daughter were in the middle of a "horrible divorce."
Miglino was taken to Broward General Hospital by Tamarac Fire Rescue and later released.
Hepner was arrested Thursday night and charged with attempted first-degree murder. She was being held without bond and it was unknown whether she has an attorney.
dog gone:
ReplyDeleteWithin an hour I guarantee that this post will have dozens of comments by the member of the BBOTCCW* decrying this woman's idiocy and murderos intent and INSISTING that all KKKrazzeepants grannies like her have their gunz taken away from them (and held along with their other belongings, to be returned to them after their sentence has been served) at the gates of the prison.
* Brave Brotherhood Of The Concealed Carry Weapon.
Nah, they'll be insisting that just because she lost it once doesn't mean she shouldn't just keep on exercising that 2nd Amendment right of hers anyway.
ReplyDeleteI lived a little north of Orlando as a teenager. If the heat and humidity don't get you, the mosquitoes, deer flies, and no-see-ums will. (No-see-ums is the local term--they're tiny gnats that get in through screens and leave little red welts.) There's a good reason that my Florida carry license is the non-resident variety.
ReplyDeleteSee, dog gone, what did I tell you. Dozens of comments by gunzloonz, concerned that one of their own has violated the law.
ReplyDeleteDemocommie,
ReplyDeleteWhat do we need to say? She allegedly broke the law, and if convicted, she'll go to prison. Case closed.
democommie,
ReplyDeleteI think people such as the granny that try to seriously injure or murder people should never see the light of day again. That takes care of two problems:
(1) Recidivism
(2) Whether or not she should ever be able to bear arms again.
Keep in mind I advocate this position when the aggressor was unprovoked ... which it sounds like was the case in this instance.
No, Greg Camp, what you actually need to say is, "Gosh, maybe my ridiculous fantasies about having to have a gun on my person at all times is complete bullshit and I need to think about the cost to society of allowing other fucking morons to shoot people before we decide that they shouldn't be strapped." Not that I expect anything like a sane and sober evaluation of the facts--and a reasonable conclusion being drawn from them--from a deranged, delusional shootist like you.
ReplyDelete" think people such as the granny that try to seriously injure or murder people should never see the light of day again. That takes care of two problems:
ReplyDelete(1) Recidivism
(2) Whether or not she should ever be able to bear arms again.'
"Vengance be mine, saith the Lord", not working for you, eh?
Crunchy wrote:
ReplyDeleteI think people such as the granny that try to seriously injure or murder people should never see the light of day again. That takes care of two problems:
(1) Recidivism
(2) Whether or not she should ever be able to bear arms again.
So, the notion of sentencing proportional to the crime is not something you're big on then Crunch?
You are aware I presume that longer incarceration has no demonstrable effectiveness in reducing recidivism?
So you ignored, or were incapable of reading anything that measures what is effective in reducing re-offending, in favor of ignorant so-called common sense eye for an eye retributive justice.
Better would be granny should not have had a gun in the first place.
Keep in mind I advocate this position when the aggressor was unprovoked ... which it sounds like was the case in this instance.
Wow. I'm waiting for one or more of you gun loons to tell us how this was a great situation for open or concealed carry. What, no one telling us how the victim ought to have whipped out his gun instead of his cell phone, and shot his mother in law?
Or are you all avoiding acknowledging that yet another unarmed victim took the gun away from the bad guy without any need for lethal violence?
And are you all acknowledging that a cell phone was a better response to criminal violence than another gun?
Because wouldn't it just make the kids Christmas to have Grandma shoot Daddy, and then have Daddy blow away Grandma?
No?
In this case, having that cell phone and using it did a whole lot more to hold Grandma accountable, and to provide support to the victim than a gun would have.
Um, I'm not following some of the posts. Perhaps some of you assume that when I said violent offenders should never see the light of day again, I was referring to capital punishment?
ReplyDeleteWhen I say that violent offenders should never see the light of day again, I am simply saying that they should either be incarcerated forever (preferably in solitary confinement as far as I am concerned) or executed. I have no opinion on which is more appropriate and do not care to debate about it.
dog gone,
ReplyDeleteThe trouble with a violent encounter is that the victim, at the outset, has no idea how it will progress. And in the heat of the attack, the victim has no idea how it will end. No one is clairvoyant; no one will ever be able to apply "just enough" resistance. So your answer is no resistance at all.
Why are you so passionate about letting the attacker do whatever they want when they are violating another human being? Why can't the victim do whatever they want in defense of themselves?
I am not saying this to be mean spirited or to insult you. I believe you need to see a counselor about your obsession with letting attackers do whatever they want. I can understand concerns about "collateral damage" (e.g. an attack spilling over to innocent bystanders). What you are advocating goes against all laws of nature and places the criminal above the victim.
If someone is incarcerated forever, they cannot possibly repeat a violent crime and that would make recidivism an impossibility for that criminal.
ReplyDeleteAs for how much that would discourage other would be criminals who knows.
I can tell you that severe punishments seem to make a definite difference. I know a wealthy physician who grew up in Iran. He explained how he could walk down a street in the poorest section of any city wearing a $2000 suit and $4000 in gold jewelry without any concerns. Why? Because over there, if you steal and get caught, the courts cut your hand off. Get caught again, and they cut your other hand off. Get caught stealing a third time, or get caught raping or murdering someone, and they cut your head off. And the entire proceedings are finished within a few days. Not surprisingly their crime rate is almost nil (according to him anyway).
Now I am not saying that I advocate the same system over here. But I will argue that our prisons are not effective at reducing crime in the U.S. A much more severe sentence/punishment for unprovoked, vicious violent attacks might help.
Crunch wrote:Um, I'm not following some of the posts. Perhaps some of you assume that when I said violent offenders should never see the light of day again, I was referring to capital punishment?
ReplyDeleteNo.
Perhaps you are unawareof the differences between restorative or reparative / restorative justice and retributive justice.
You can read about the differences between the two, including in length of sentencing here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice
I advocate for an objective rather than so-called 'common sense' approach to sentencing and incarceration.
We incarcerate more people, per capita, than anywhere in the world, yet we call ourselves the land of the free.
Criminal Justice studies through analyzing the objective measurement of what works and what does not work in understanding things like repeat offending, as well as what leads people to commit crime in the first place.
I have previously posted links to the academic studies that focus on such metrics of what works and what does not.
There is extensive research about what does and does not discourage recidivism; longer sentences are not among them.
Sentencing should be proportional to the crime for Justice to occur. If simply locking people up worked, we'd be the safest place on the planet - but we're not.
I routinely argue here for objective and fact based understanding of crime, and punishment and civilian and police responses to it; not emotional responses, particularly in the area of crime and reactions to crime.
Sorry Crunch, but I found what you proposed to be simplistic - and if we haven't formally welcomed you here yet, welcome to the MikeB blog.
What do we need to say? She allegedly broke the law, and if convicted, she'll go to prison. Case closed.
ReplyDeleteOR, we could argue that it would be better to prevent firearms in the hands of people like this woman in the first place, rather than locking people up afterwards, when the damage has been done.
Some problems are preventable. Clearly, that other places have fewer of these events have prevented them, through fewer firearms in the population.
Crunch wrote:Capn Crunch said...
ReplyDeleteIf someone is incarcerated forever, they cannot possibly repeat a violent crime and that would make recidivism an impossibility for that criminal.
As for how much that would discourage other would be criminals who knows.
I can tell you that severe punishments seem to make a definite difference.
Anecdotal stories like yours don't stack up against academic studies of large numbers of people.
We DO know what works and what does not. We have a lot better information to go on than unconfirmed anecdotes like yours.
If this is a topic that interests you, there is plenty of material. I suggest you read some of it to better inform your opinion on the topic of crime punishment and deterrence of recidivism.
And NO, simply having longer sentences or more harsh punishment does NOT work, even if that seems counter-intuitive to you.
dog gone:
ReplyDeleteRecidivism IS a problem. It is also exacerbated to a large extent by the dehumanizing and degrading treatment of prisoners at virtually every level of the justice system. The documented cases of abuse by their warders and other prisoners number in the hundreds of thousands in the U.S. in the last 50 years. Incarcerating people who are already psychologically damaged and then punishing them at every opportunity (as happens in not a few cases) WILL cause many of them to sink into the part of the brain that the lower animals survive with.
Cap'n Crunch:
Keeping people in prison for life is horrendously expensive, even if you're not taking good care of them (not taking good care of them is, btw, hideously grotesque). For every Bundy, Dahmer or Gacy that's in the system there are hundreds, if not thousands of men and women who inhabit a huge arc of behaviors and mental states. Even with jail cells, one size does not fit all.
dog gone,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your intellectual approach to prison sentencing. I haven't spent any significant amount of time studying it so I cannot comment much about it.
I like your comment about how if locking people up would reduce crime, we should be the lowest crime nation in the world because we lock up more people than anywhere else in the world.
I think the shortcoming there is that, while we lock up lots of people, we let them out.
One thing I have learned in my life is that people (whether academics or otherwise) tend to over simplify very complex matters and then they also often over complicate simple matters.
I know that last statement sounds kind of incoherent so let me elaborate. I believe there are hundreds of variables that influence crime in our nation. At the same time, I believe reducing crime can have a hugely simple solution.
I tried the same approach to my new work crew when I was just promoted to a manager. I tried to understand all of the goings-on in the personal and professional lives of my crew. I thought I might be able to sort everything out and coach everyone for the best possible work performance. After floundering a bit, my manager gave me some sage advice. He instructed me that the mechanics of what made the work crew "tick" were too complex to ever understand or coach. By and large it didn't matter why someone didn't cut the mustard. If they didn't cut the mustard, they were out. The point being there is a limit to being "sensitive" and at some point you just have to be tough.
I can see the same applying to prison sentencing and restorative versus retributive justice. At some point, we have to simply "bust some chops".
democommie,
ReplyDeleteI admit that keeping violent criminals incarcerated forever would be hugely expensive. I do not see an immediate solution to that.
A friend of mine had an interesting idea. Just drop all of the violent criminals on some island and then float in weekly shipments of weapons. That was a retributive justice approach of course. But it sure would be an inexpensive approach.
And then we thought about another interesting approach. Instead of floating in weekly shipments of weapons, float in weekly shipments of shovels, rakes, hoes, seeds, fertilizer, and other rudimentary farming tools. The criminals might just sort themselves out that way.
Capn Crunch,
ReplyDeleteThe British did just what you propose. It was called Australia.
Dog Gone,
Perhaps you missed it, but the victim got shot. That cell phone didn't stop that. You said that there was no need for lethal violence. Potentially lethal violence already had occurred.
Crunch wrote:One thing I have learned in my life is that people (whether academics or otherwise) tend to over simplify very complex matters and then they also often over complicate simple matters.
ReplyDeleteIn fact Crunch, I can prove you are mistaken. Academic studies document over and over that is not the case. I've demonstrated that over and over again here. A recent case in point was the much ballyhooed study done by Senator Tom Coburn that featured the shrimp on a treadmill
Expensive congressional hearings on the funding of the National Science Foundation took place.
You know what the outcome of that very expensive congressional hearing on the supposed 'wasteful spending' on academic studies turned up?
NOTHING. It demonstrated that ALL of those studies were appropriate, that the money was well spent, that they produced important and useful information in a way which held up under critical review and challenge.
What it DID turn up was that Coburn had misrepresented all the studies he criticized- also done on the tax payer nickel - that LIED, that misrepresented the science.
I see a lot of oversimplification in solutions that are proposed, particularly by conservatives. I don't see a lot of making things more complex than they should be, when I look closely, but I do see a lot of misrepresentations - in some case deliberate lies to the public about that - which get believed by people who don't understand it.
Most of all, by people who blindly accept that it is so and do not fact check it.
I like to fact check things. I challenge people to produce credible sources.
We have some commenters here, like Greg, and frequently RedAZ who chronically fail to fact check and who routinely make statements which are factually inaccurate or false, because 'someone told them so' or because they read something without applying a modicum of critical thinking before believing it, and then repeating it as true.
I would strongly encourage you to do some reading on this topic.
Capn Crunch, You are quite the character to use Iran as an example of successful criminal management.
ReplyDeleteIn other discussions though, I'll bet you disapprove of too much government power such as they have over there.
How do you feel for example about the recent legislation about incarcerating suspected terrorists indefinitely with no trial? Don't you think that's too much government power? Don't you think that'll be abused by the fed?
Greg Camp:
ReplyDelete"Capn Crunch,
The British did just what you propose. It was called Australia."
Man, you are dumber than a bag of hammers.
Australia was originally a penal colony. Eventually the "criminals" (many of whom were disaffected political dissidents) took over the prison. One of the results of that is that Australia has comprensive and sensible gun control. All from a bunch of convicts.
Once again you demonstrate you amazing cluelessness.
Cap'n Crunch:
Putting all of the convicts on an island would solve the problem I suppose, as would simply shooting them in the back of the head upon conviction. Most of us would like to think we've moved a bit beyond the level of 1940's era Chinese courts and the summary public executions of this sort:
http://www.pbase.com/omoses/image/118045027
Mike asked of Capn Crunch:
ReplyDelete"How do you feel for example about the recent legislation about incarcerating suspected terrorists indefinitely with no trial? Don't you think that's too much government power? Don't you think that'll be abused by the fed?"
I am 110% against incarcerating any U.S. citizen indefinitely with no trial. And I am not liking the prospect of incarcerating foreigners indefinitely without trial. (That tends to engender international ill-will toward the U.S. as a whole.) The down side to a public trial for foreigners is that the trial would reveal the identity of spies or classified intelligence gathering techniques -- greatly limiting their future usefulness.
I don't have an answer there. I don't want people incarcerated without "due process". And I also want to continue to have the ability to identify and remove additional attackers.
A third option is to radically reduce our interaction with other regions of the world -- especially areas that encourage terrorism or fail to aggressively pursue eradicating it. I like this option the best.
A fourth option would be to ignore the problem and accept the death toll on U.S. soil. I think this is the least favorable option.
There is another way to address Mike's question about indefinite incarceration.
ReplyDeleteIn a different topic discussing Castle Doctrine, Mike stated that he would be willing to sacrifice 1 homeowner (who was breaking no laws) to save the lives of 99 home invaders.
Can we apply the same standard? Sacrifice one foreigner (who may or may not be a terrorist) to save the lives of hundreds of U.S. citizens?
Cap'n Crunch has talked about silly ideas like putting criminals on an island with guns.
ReplyDeleteI imagine that the idea of gators and electrified fences across our southern border appeal to him as well.
The sad part of this is that these are all emotional arguments that are not well grounded in factual information about the issue - in this case crime, in the case of gators and electrified fences, it's immigration.
I hope I encouraged Cap'n Crunch to take a more educated approach to the issue of crime by directing him to reading on the subjects of deterrence theory of punishment:
It has been argued that deterrence is ineffective at achieving its ultimate goal. Critics of specific deterrence argue that offenders do not pause to consider the possible punishment for a crime they are about to commit, especially in the heat of the moment, and when drugs or alcohol are involved. Some suggest that potential offenders are more likely to be deterred by the threat of being caught rather than the threat of punishment, citing an example of the crime rate falling dramatically in areas where closed-circuit television surveillance systems were introduced.[citation needed] General deterrence has also been heavily criticised for relying on publicity of heavy punishments; it has been described as "the least effective and least fair principle of sentencing".[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_%28legal%29
If punishment - either execution or incarceration - worked, the death penalty would be the ultimate deterrent, yet is clearly is not.
But there is a segment of our population, our electorate, that is comprised by the 'low information voter'.
I'm sorry to say that Cap'n Crunch is one of those, but I'm hoping to introduce him to new sources, new ideas, that rely on the quantifying and qualifying measurement of what works and what does not work. I hope this will replace his current bad ideas with better ones.
I think we can find a beginning common ground with a foundation for anything we do to be based on measuring if it works or not in objective ways, and then going with those techniques instead of the ones that appeal to the low information voters.
I'm looking at this discussion as a 'teaching moment'.
Dog Gone,
ReplyDeleteYou just can't bring yourself to understand that people can agree on the facts, but differ in their values.
You want to build common ground? You have to show us some willingness to move toward our side. Until then, there are no deals possible.
Democommie,
Capn Crunch suggested sending criminals to an island with tools and seeds to rebuild their lives. That was Australia.
GC writes:You just can't bring yourself to understand that people can agree on the facts, but differ in their values.
ReplyDeleteNo I value facts and you don't have any to supply.
That is the basis for our disagreement.
You'd like to explain your lack of critical thinking and your failure to produce facts as 'a difference in values' but that is patently dishonest on the face of it.
Unless your argument is that we don't share the value of intellectual dishonesty?
You are correct, and no common ground will ever exist without intellectual honesty - something you are clearly not in the habit of demonstrating.
Dog Gone,
ReplyDeleteI value facts too, but that's not what I'm talking about. What about the values of liberty and safety? I value the former more, while you value the latter. That's what's going on here.
"Dog Gone,
ReplyDeleteI value facts too, but that's not what I'm talking about. What about the values of liberty and safety? I value the former more, while you value the latter. That's what's going on here.
December 13, 2011 7:48 PM"
Like the lady says, you have no fucking idea about intellectual rigor as it applies to your gunzlogic--none.