An upstanding authority on guns and gun safety becomes a murderer

Murderer, and gun authority, Richard Erick Venola

If someone is an authority on all matters related to guns, like this editor and writer, wouldn't you expect that they would live up to higher standards?  Another "law abiding" gun owner who now isn't.  Now he's a drunken murderer.


From an article:

Former ‘Guns & Ammo’ editor charged in Arizona slaying

The former editor of Guns & Ammo magazine was accused of murdering a friend with a gun and ammo in Golden Valley, Arizona on Wednesday. 

Mohave County sheriff’s charged 53-year-old Richard Erick Venola with second-degree murder for the killing 39-year-old James Patrick O’Neill, who was found dead at the scene. 

Sheriff department spokeswoman Trish Carter told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Venola shot O’Neill in the chest with a “high-caliber” rifle and at least three weapons were removed from the scene. O’Neill was visiting the former Guns & Ammo editor’s house at the time. 

Detective Larry Matthews wrote in his report that Venola seemed to be intoxicated by the time he talked to officers. Neighbors told deputies that the the suspect was having “heavy words” with O’Neill. 

“Mr. Venola came over to the neighbors carrying a rifle and stated he just killed a man,” according to the report. “Mr. Venola acknowledged he killed the man, but didn’t say why.” 

According to the Guns & Ammo website, Venola became the 12th editor of the magazine in 2007. He had served as the associate editor of RifleShooter magazine since 2004 after being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 1996. 

After President Barack Obama took office in 2009, Venola used his position as editor to warn readers that they should join his “largest business competitor,” the National Rifle Association (NRA), or “those in the new administration who drool at the chance of neutering the Second Amendment will become emboldened.” 

Guns & Ammo spokeswoman Amy Sorrells told the Journal-Review that the former editor continued contribute as a writer.

There's also a lovely video there of Mr. Venola shooting up an iPad because, well, just to be destructive with his gunz.  Lovely.

Did you catch that bit about his paranoia about joining the NRA out of fear of a Barack Obama anti-gun conspiracy?  

Well, apparently this murderer "neutered" his own Second Amendment rights without needing a "drooling" government to do it for him.




ADDENDUM:  HERE is an article he wrote for Guns & Ammo, wherein he echoes the NRA conspiracy-theorists in claiming that government concern about U.S. guns being illegally trafficked to Mexico is an overblown liberal government conspiracy to disarm gun owners:

But the Department of Justice doesn't care about this. They want to take Mexico's chronic (no pun) strife and make it the excuse to disarm YOU, the law abiding American Citizen, by doing a little end-run around the Constitution. ....

If Mexico is so upset about American guns, why don't they do something about it? Because that's not the problem. The only problem is the one being cooked up by anti-gun partisans and thier fellow travelers in the left-wing mainstream media: those who have reccieved thier marching orders from the new administration and are in full blown frenzy. The message that they're speading is that because Mexico can't keep its own house in order, we should give up the only right that keeps that sort of disorder and tyrrany at bay here in the United States. 

What a gunloon!

Drinking Alcohol and Guns

I knew it was legal in Las Vegas to carry a drink around with you, but this is interesting.

The vast majority of U.S. states and localities prohibit possessing and/or consuming an open container of alcohol in public (i.e. on the street). Only seven states (Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Pennsylvania) have no state law against general public possession and/or consumption of an open container by a person of legal drinking age.

I'll bet you noticed the same thing about those states that I did. Am I right?

Please leave a comment.

AA Shooter of Kayson Helms Justified?

Suddenly the story we discussed last year of a young man trying to hold up an AA meeting in South Carolina received a lot of attention. There were a dozen or so comments and many more hits. I took this to mean the story was back in the news, probably the courts declaring the action of the shooter justified, but I couldn't find anything this morning.

The main interest seems to be, like when the story first broke, about what constitutes a justified shooting. Some say, since you can't read the criminal's mind, you should presume the worst and act accordingly to protect property and life. In fact that pretty much describes the pro-gun attitude. I don't think I've heard one pro-gun commenter ever question the righteousness of a DGU; to them they're always justified.

Gun control folks, on the other hand, question if in some of these shootings a bit more restraint might not have worked better for everyone.

About the Kayson Helms killing, I wondered if the old adage of "two wrongs don't make a right," might not apply. A young kid comes into an AA meeting with a gun. Chances are he's not a killer. Most likely - I believe statistics about how often armed robberies turn into actual murders supports this - he has no intention of killing anyone. If no one there has a gun and no one resists, as incomprehensible as that is to the gun-owning law-and-order types, the kid would take the coffee money and a watch or two and be on his way.

Part of the problem is that folks who carry guns often disparage the very humanity of criminals. They call them names like "goblins" and "scumbags," careful never to hint at the slightest racial slur. But the disparaging of an entire class of people, yes people who have rights like everybody else, is not dissimilar to any other bigotry that's so politically unacceptable that only the truly hardcore would fail to conceal these feelings.

Dividing people into two separate classes, criminal and law-abiding, has its problems too. There exists a third group in between, often referred to as "the gray area." This is comprised of the many people who break minor rules, take shortcuts, and engage in risky behavior, but do not really fit the profile of either the criminal or the law-abiding. It's possible this group is the largest and that's one of the reasons why it's dangerous for people to go around with guns and the attitude of adjudicating the actions of others.

Another interesting angle on this case, which no one mentioned, is that the shooter was presumably an AA member. As I understand it, and most people do understand 12-step recovery programs these days, having been popularized on TV and in the movies like they have, is that the Program of Recovery is about surrender to a Higher Power and not about self-reliance. Part of that Program of Recovery is described in Step 12.

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The idea of "carrying the message," seems antithetical to the actions of the shooter of young Mr. Helms, who very possibly was an addict and alcoholic himself. The idea of surrender to the will of the Higher Power also seems antithetical to the self-reliance so graphically demonstrated by the shooter.

What's your opinion? Was the shooter justified? Is it the same rationale that says Christians can protect themselves with guns as AA members can? Do you think there's a gray area in the categorizing people for lawful adherence?

Please leave a comment.

European Men vs. American Men

Mudrake posted a wonderful piece about the difference between European men and American Men.

Then there is the gun- a man’s weapon here in the states- ready to blow the head off of someone in anger. A simple, quick ’solution’ to the situation at hand. Blamo!

While I was in Europe last Fall for 14 days, there was not a single act of gun violence reported there. Not one. Today I opened our local paper and read of several just over this weekend.

Is it the ease of gun possession here in America that has halted the maturing of the fully-functioning American adult male? Because many men believe that the gun can ’solve the problem,’ have they not been able to reach that highest plateau in maturity of the fully-functioning adult man? Has it, like a crutch, inhibited that final phase of growth?

That gun is not as readily available to the European male and, as a result, has not been a crutch in his quest for complete personhood. He has had to make those final steps up to the top on his own.

What's your opinion? Do you think the prevalent gun culture in the States makes the men different than they might otherwise be? It's not just the availability and use of firearms, which is indeed great, but the attitudes and mentality that go along with them. These things could arguably inhibit a person from maturing in the area of conflict resolution, for example. What do you think?

Not only the gun but the booze. American males are literally awash in alcohol. It has become a rite of initiation into the adult world on his 18th birthday. He becomes a ‘man’ with that first legal beer. He’s all set to move into adulthood with that first snap of the lid. Atta boy!

I suggested in my Famous 10% post that only 3% of gun owners suffer from substance abuse to the point of rendering them unfit to own guns. I think that's an extremely lowball figure. As Mudrake says, "American males are literally awash in alcohol."

And even most pro-gun apologists admit mixing guns and booze is bad.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Rip Torn, Alcoholic Gun Owner

The Republican American reports on the latest trouble for the actor Rip Torn.

TORRINGTON - Actor Elmore “Rip” Torn was arrested Friday night after police said they found the 78-year-old had broken into Litchfield Bancrop branch on Main Street in Salisbury while “highly intoxicated” and armed with a loaded handgun.

Police responded to a burglar alarm at 9:40 p.m., and found Torn with the handgun. Torn was arrested without incident and charged with carrying a firearm under the influence of alcohol, first-degree burglary, first-degree criminal trespass, third-degree criminal mischief and carrying a pistol without a permit.

Friday's arrest, near Torn's Lakeville home was Torn's second in 13 months. The “Men in Black” and “30 Rock” star was charged with driving while intoxicated in December 2008 after police found him creeping along the breakdown lane on Route 44 in his Subaru with a Christmas tree tied to the roof.

Torn has previously been arrested twice for alcohol-related driving offenses in New York. A Litchfield Superior Court judge granted Torn a special form of probation in May that spared the actor jail time, and required an alcohol education program.

Torn's first arrest in 2004 in New York state resulted in an acquittal after jurors decided that prosecutors had failed to prove he was drinking before a fender-bender with a taxi. A police videotape showed him cursing and berating officers before turning down a sobriety test.

Torn's second prior arrest in Salem, N.Y., in 2007 resulted in a reduced charge of driving while impaired.

At what point does a person with alcoholism lose the right to own guns? Does such a severe restriction of the god-given right to protect oneself have to wait until there is loss of life? Rip Torn was very lucky, again, that no one got hurt. But in your opinion, is he the kind of man you want to own guns?

The sad reality is some people cannot be trusted with guns due to substance abuse problems. In The Famous 10%, I put the figure at 3% of gun owners, while in the population at large it's much higher. Do you think that's a fair estimate?

Please leave a comment.

Alcoholism

CNN reports on some new studies on alcoholism.

A recent survey of alcoholism studies in the Lancet suggests that men have more than a 20 percent lifetime risk of developing alcohol-use disorders, while women's risk is 8 to 10 percent.

I couldn't help but notice that men have the same kind of bad deal here as they have in the suicide stats we talked about the other day. Why do you think that is?

The main point of the CNN article seems to be that alcoholism is genetic.

Much of that risk is inherited. Studies show that as much as 60 percent of the risk of alcohol-use disorders is genetic, said Dr. Marc Schuckit, professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the alcohol and drug treatment program at the Veterans Affairs-San Diego Healthcare System, who wrote the Lancet article.

The risk for alcoholism is four times greater for children of alcoholics, even those who are adopted by non-alcoholic families, Schuckit said.

I find that fascinating. How about you? Everyone agrees that a high percentage of prisoners were abusing alcohol and drugs during their criminal careers. Do you think the idea of genetic predisposition to alcoholism or drug addiction detracts from the idea of personal responsibility? If there really is such a thing as the genetic factor, wouldn't it follow that leniency is appropriate for those afflicted?

What's your opinion?