50% of Firearms Used in Crimes Come from Family and Friends, or Straw Purchases

When I read about tragedies like the death of this young woman, I have to wonder where the criminals responsible for this firearm violence got the guns they used.

Are they part of the group, the ones who get the firearms they use in 40% of crimes from family and friends?  Are they part of the roughly 10% who get them from straw purchases?  Or are they part of the 40% who get them from illegal street transactions, the ones where the guns are stolen from legal firearms owners who don't secure their weapons well enough to prevent easy theft?

Events like this serve to underline why we need to make private transactions, whether  weapons transfered through private sales, gifts, inheritance or loaned to other parties require accountability by the legal owner for where those weapons go, for who gets them from the legal party.  That should require mandatory reporting of loss of those firearms to law enforcement when it occurs, it should require a background check of those to whom the weapons are transferred from the original owner, and every transfer after that original purchase.

If we did that, we could significantly reduce those 50% of guns used in crimes from getting into the hands of criminals.  But the pro-gunners would rather see guns used in crimes, even firearm deaths like this one, than be inconvenienced.

Shame on them; for that resistance, for not doing what they could help to do to keep guns ONLY in the possession of the law abiding, they share some of the blame, some of the guilt, for these occurrences.  They share with the criminals a disregard for the life and safety of others.


from the HuffPo and the AP :

Laurence Lovette Jr. Guilty In Murder Of Eve Carson UNC Student Leader

By MICHAEL BIESECKER   12/20/11 12:51 PM ET  

HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. -- A Durham man was convicted Tuesday and sentenced to life without parole in the slaying of a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student body president.
The jury on Tuesday found Laurence Lovette Jr. guilty of first-degree murder in the March 2008 slaying of Eve Carson. He was also convicted of first-degree kidnapping and robbery. He showed no emotion as the verdict was read.
Lovette, 20, was not eligible for the death penalty because he was a minor when the crime was committed.
For the kidnapping and robbery charges, Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour tacked on an additional 20 years to the end of Lovette's life sentence.
"Mr. Lovette will spend the rest of his life in prison," Baddour said from the bench. "This act has no place in our society. It is not activity that we can allow to occur in our society. The life that Ms. Carson led was too short, but I know that she continues to be an inspiration, not only for her family, but for thousands across this country."
Prosecutors say Lovette, who was 17 at the time, had driven in his mother's car to nearby Chapel Hill with another man, Demario Atwater, to go find someone to rob.
In the early morning darkness, they happened upon Carson, a busy Morehead scholar and much-liked student leader from Athens, Ga., who friends said regularly stayed up all night do her school work. The pair shot her five times, prosecutors said, for her ATM card and because she had seen their faces.
Atwater pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to two life prison terms.
Carson's parents declined to comment after Tuesday's verdict. Lovette's mother and sisters also declined to speak when leaving the courtroom.Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall had not offered the defendant any plea deal other than a life term.
"We knew we had really strong evidence," Woodall said. "I trusted the jury and felt like we'd get a conviction."
Lovette's lawyer, Karen Bethea-Shields, filed notice of her intent to appeal the verdict. She said her client was prepared to be handed a life sentence.
"There were some very difficult facts," Bethea-Shields said. "We were realistic about it."
According to prosecutors, Lovette and Atwater kidnapped Carson at gunpoint and drove in her Toyota Highlander to a nearby teller machine. The surveillance camera captured an image of a man witnesses later identified as Lovette using Carson's debit card to withdraw $700, the maximum daily limit on Carson's account.
Prosecutors say they drove to Durham to attempt a withdrawal from another ATM before returning to a secluded neighborhood near the UNC campus. Carson was forced from the car and shot four times with a .25 caliber pistol, according to her autopsy report. She would have still been conscious and aware, the medical examiner testified, when she suffered a last blast to the temple from a sawed-off shotgun.
Her body was left in the street.
Graphic photos of Carson's corpse, including her disfigured face, were shown to the jury.
The seven men and five women on the panel deliberated less than 3 hours before handing up their verdict. The jurors declined to comment following their decision.
Though satisfied with the verdict, Woodall stressed that no action of the legal system could mitigate the tragic loss of a young woman with so much potential.
"When you learn about Eve and you meet her family, you understand what an extraordinary person she was. But she was also a college student. She could have been the girl from the next dorm. We all saw our daughters and nieces in her."

More Gun Violence, this time in Amish Ohio

One more person who would not be dead if there were fewer firearms.

While it is possible this was a murder by another member of the Amish community, it is relatively unlikely.

From MSNBC.com and the AP:

Girl driving buggy in Amish Ohio area fatally shot

updated 12/19/2011 7:34:32 PM ET

FREDRICKSBURG, Ohio — Police say a teenage girl driving a horse and buggy in an Amish area of northeast Ohio has been shot in the head and has died.

Holmes County Sheriff Timothy Zimmerly says 15-year-old Rachel Yoder died Friday, a day after her brother found her outside their home in Fredricksburg, in neighboring Wayne County.
WJW-TV reports she was Amish and had attended a Christmas party for employees of a produce shop.
Zimmerly says she dropped off a friend before being shot about 3 miles from home. He says she fell from the buggy when the horse arrived at the home.
Zimmerly tells Wooster's The Daily-Record newspaper a bullet was found in the girl's head but no bullet holes were in the buggy and no casings were nearby.
The Amish are known for careful selectivity of technology and their peaceful ideals.

Social Media and Murder

We don't know the age of the shooter who committed the murder of two people and then committed suicide.  All three deaths by firearm are tragedies, tragedies which could have and should have been avoided.

The following news article about teen gun violence is significant as a demographic in light of the following statistics from the CDC and the Legal Community Against Gun Violence:

Guns cause the death of 20 children and young adults (24 years of age and under) each day in the U.S.⁴⁰
Children and young adults (24 years of age and under) constitute over 41% of all firearm deaths and non-fatal injuries.⁴¹
In the United States, over 1.69 million kids age 18 and under are living in households with loaded and unlocked firearms.⁴²
More than 75% of guns used in suicide attempts and unintentional injuries of 0-19 year-olds were stored in the residence of the victim, a relative, or a friend.⁴³
A 2000 study found that 55% of U.S. homes with children and firearms have one or more firearms in an unlocked place; 43% have guns without a trigger lock in an unlocked place.⁴⁴

The practices of keeping firearms locked, unloaded, and storing ammunition in a locked location separate from firearms may assist in reducing youth suicide and unintentional injury in homes with children and teenagers where guns are stored.⁴⁵

and this, citing THEIR sources for the data:

^40. WISQARS Injury Mortality Reports, 1999-2007, supra note 1. ^41. Id.; WISQARS Nonfatal Injury Reports, supra note 2.
^42. Catherine A. Okoro et al., Prevalence of Household Firearms and Firearm-Storage Practices in the 50 States and the District of Columbia: Findings from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2002, 116 Pediatrics e370, e370 (Sept. 2005), at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/116/3/e370.
^43. Grossman et al., supra note 16, at 875.
^44. Mark A. Schuster et al., Firearm Storage Patterns in U.S. Homes with Children, 90 Am. J. Pub. Health 588, 590 (Apr. 2000).
^45. David C. Grossman et al., Gun Storage Practices and Risk of Youth Suicide and Unintentional Firearm Injuries, 293 JAMA 707, 711-13 (Feb. 2005).

From MSNBC.com and the AP:

Police alerted to Ind. deaths by Facebook post

By The Associated Press

FORT WAYNE, Ind. -- Authorities in Indiana say they were alerted to the shooting deaths of a woman and two men after someone thousands of miles away called police about a chilling posting on Facebook.
Police in Fort Wayne are investigating whether the breakup of a 19-year-old woman and her boyfriend was the motive behind the killings.
Authorities suspect the ex-boyfriend shot and killed Erin Jehl and her friend 19-year-old Ryann Tipton. They say Jehl had brought Tipton with her when she went to her ex-boyfriend's house in Fort Wayne on Saturday afternoon to retrieve some belongings.
Foster said authorities were alerted to the scene by a woman who said she was in Washington state. She told police a friend on Facebook had posted that he had killed two others and himself.

Another Example of Firearms Being Dangerous in Violence Against Women and Children

This incident is significant because it reflects several key points. A woman and children died from a firearm, and because of the possible sale of a weapon involved in the killings, through the gun show / private sale loophole.

That would be the loophole that some of our commenters keep insisting doesn't exist; except that it appears clearly it DOES exist.  Note enlarged bolded type is my emphasis - DG.
From MSNBC.com and the AP:

Okla. authorities charge man in deaths of 2 girls

By Kelly Kissel , The Associated Press

OKEMAH, Okla. --  A three-year-long hunt for a suspect in the fatal shootings of two young girls in eastern Oklahoma ended Friday when authorities announced murder charges against a man already in custody for an unrelated killing.
Okfuskee County prosecutors charged Kevin Sweat, 25, with first-degree murder in the deaths of Taylor Placker, 13, and Skyla Whitaker, 11, two friends who were found shot multiple times in June 2008. Sweat was already in custody in connection with the death of his girlfriend, Ashley Taylor.
"We were always hopeful that we would come to this point," Okfuskee County District Attorney Max Cook said. A bill of particulars has been filed in the case, a first step toward seeking the death penalty against Sweat, Cook said.
Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents pored over 900 leads, performed 19,000 forensic tests on 800 pieces of evidence and conducted hundreds of interviews in the high-profile case, OSBI director Stan Florence said. He thanked the victims' families for their patience.
"They have endured a terrible ordeal," Florence said.
Earlier, the OSBI identified one of two weapons used in the killings as a .40-caliber Glock model 22. They released the serial number of the weapon, EKG463US, in the hope that someone would come forward with it.
Sweat may have tried to sell that gun at a gun show in Tulsa this March, officials said. A reward of $5,000 reward is being offered for the firearm.
The arrests come more than three years after family members discovered the girls along an unpaved road less than a half-mile from Placker's home. They had been headed for Bad Creek Bridge, where they planned to wade through waist-high weeds to the river bank to collect shells and pebbles.
Their deaths were one of a series of tragedies to strike the town of barely 900 people.
Weleetka residents also have been shaken in recent years by a house fire that killed six people; the death of a beloved youth minister in an oil tank explosion; and a fire that tore through several downtown buildings.

More Gun Violence in California

From the AP by way of  MSNBC.com, Crime and Courts:

Police: Revenge may be motive in toddler shooting

Authorities are still searching for suspect who fired into home

By AMY TAXIN

updated 9/13/2011 6:07:03 PM ET 2011-09-13T22:07:03

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — A suspect who fired into a house, killed a 3-year-old girl and critically injured a pregnant woman and her toddler might have been angry that another resident of the home intervened in an assault earlier in the day, police said Tuesday.

Piecing together witness accounts, police believe that a man living at the victims' address saw the suspect assaulting another woman on Monday and got involved, allowing the unidentified woman to escape, said San Bernardino police Lt. Gwendolyn Waters. The suspect is the same man who later Monday opened fire on the home where the Good Samaritan lived, she said.

"That appears to be our motive — that somebody from that residence did a good thing and intervened and tried to save another woman from being assaulted," Waters said at a news conference.

Searching for suspect Police are searching for the suspect, who they believe ran away, and want to speak to the woman who was assaulted and at least two other witnesses to the assault.

A 3-year-old girl, Nylah Franco-Torrez, was struck in the head during the shooting and pronounced dead at a hospital late Monday.

The pregnant woman and her 3-year-old daughter were in critical but stable condition on Tuesday, authorities said. The woman was shot in the neck and jaw and her daughter was shot in the head, Waters said. Police are not releasing the name of the woman, who is five months pregnant, or her daughter.

The fetus appears unharmed, Waters said.

The shooting at about 7:40 p.m. Monday marked the end of more than two months without a homicide in the sweltering hot desert city about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

It was one of four shootings in the last 24 hours, an anomaly for a city that has seen its crime rate decline to its lowest level in a decade last year, said police chief Keith Kilmer.

Makeshift memorial Outside the mustard-colored house wedged between a tax service business and a boarded-up home, a makeshift memorial was set up with pink and white teddy bears, a baby doll and candles. Residents of the home declined to comment when approached by the AP.

Neighbors said an extended family lived inside the house. Waters said about a dozen people were home when the shooting occurred but the relationships among them were not entirely clear.

Frank Damian had just gone inside his house across the street to watch television when he heard the shots ring out Monday night.

"It went pow-pow, pow-pow-pow — it was about a good 20 shots," said Damian, adding that his wife grabbed the phone and called 911.

At a press conference Tuesday, police released a photo of Franco-Torrez wearing a blue-flowered sundress, her sad eyes looking straight at the camera.

Kilmer urged the public to come forward with any information that could help officers in their investigation and encouraged the suspect to turn himself in.

"We will find you, we will seek you out and we will arrest you and bring you to justice," Kilmer said. "We are going to be relentless."

Religious Leader Shoots 4 Year Old Boy To Death Because He Might Be Gay

What a predictable intersection of the religious extreme, and gun violence, and the predictable right wing homophobia.
Remember as you read this, Nut Gingrich believes our 2nd Amendment rights come from God by way of the Bible. 

from The New Civil Rights Movement:
So, does this mean the ignorant religious right fundies believe that a 4 year old is able to CHOOSE to be gay?   It is too bad this kind of religious extremism that promotes violence is not a justification for denying gun ownership.  Given the marginal nature of this group, I wonder what their source of funding was, and if the firearms used were legal or illegal.  It reminds me of the sickos in the cult with David Koresh and the Waco compound, on a smaller scale. I hope the other two women are held accountable as well; if it was a crime for Casey Anthony not to report the death of her daughter, it should be equally a crime for these women not to have reported these deaths.  There are eight other kids who are going to be screwed up for life, and probably believe they need guns too.

Religious Leader Shoots 4 Year Old Boy To Death Because He Might Be Gay
David Badashin

A religious leader in North Carolina shot to death his four-​year old step son because he thought the boy, Jadon Higganbothan, might be gay. The man, Peter Lucas Moses, 27, who also shot to death a 28-​year old woman, may face the death penalty.
Moses, whom police stopped short of calling a cult leader, lived in a one-​room home with nine children and three women. The 28-​year old woman, Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy, Moses killed had been beaten and strangled with an extension cord before Moses murdered her. The day he did, she had escaped to a neighbor’s house and begged her to use her cell phone. The neighbor did not call police because she claims she thought the woman might be mentally disturbed. She witnesses Moses dragging her into the house, and still never called police.
Moses beat her throughout most of the day, with the women joining in at least once, and tried to strangle her with an extension cord, according to the witness. The witness described how McKoy begged for her life, but Sisk got the gun Moses used to kill Jadon and took it to the bathroom, prosecutors said. The women told Moses “you cannot let her go” and said they feared him going to jail, Cline  They turned on the same music in the bathroom and took McKoy in there, prosecutors said. Sisk shot McKoy several times, killing her, they said. The group threw a party a few days later, prosecutors recalled the witness saying, and Moses showed McKoy’s body to several relatives, including his mother Sheilda Evelyn Harris, 56, his brother P. Leonard Moses, 21, and his sister, Sheila Falisha Moses, 20. McKoy’s body was also kept in the house for some time, taped up inside black garbage bags placed in garbage bin, prosecutors said the witness told them
A few salient facts:
Religious extremism is at the heart of this sad story. The children were home schooled. Neighbors ignored them. This took place in North Carolina, the current subject of a social agenda campaign against the LGBT community. A same-​sex marriage equality ban may be on the 2012 ballot.
Good thing they have their priorities in order.

In the religious belief of that organization, homosexuality was frowned on,” Cline said. Huh? That better not be allowed in court.
Investigators think some of those involved in the deaths were members of a religious sect known as the Black Hebrews, which believes it descends directly from the ancient tribes of Israel,” the stated.

We're ALL Less Free Because of Illegal Guns, or Illegally Used Legal Firearms

This shouldn't happen to anyone.  No one who is shot, whether killed or just injured, is free when they are the victims of gun violence.  Minnesota is supposed to be one of the safest states in the country, but we still have tragedies like this, far too many of them.

I'm waiting for someone like Anonymous to make excuses for why the victim 'deserved' to be shot.  In case you wonder what I mean, I'm referring to the comment made by one of the many Anonymous commenters back in April:http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2011/04/st-paul-minnesota-1-dead-1-wounded.html?showComment=1310134115720#c667963682101533638

From the 7/8/'11 STrib:

Teenage girl fatally shot in head in Brooklyn Park

By Paul Walsh

A teenage girl was fatally shot in the head late Thursday in Brooklyn Park, and police are hunting for the killer.
The shooting occurred about 11 p.m. outside an apartment complex near 73rd Avenue and Unity Lane, said Deputy Chief Craig Enevoldsen. The 17-year-old was found dead outside of a car at the Huntington Place apartments.
Enevoldsen said that as officers approached the complex they saw several people standing outside of the car, with one of its doors open. When the officers "lit up the car with their spotlight," those people ran from the scene, Enevoldsen said.
Authorities have yet to release the identity of the victim or say anything about the circumstances leading up to the killing. Enevoldsen said police don't think the victim lived at the apartment complex but aren't sure what brought her there.
As for suspects, "we have no arrests at this point," Enevoldsen said. "It's still really early on."