| Thursday, August 07, 2008 |
| Road rage? |
A senior citizen shoots a federal agent dead in broad daylight in the parking lot of a post office a few blocks from my home in the suburbs. He shot the guy in the head as the agent's 12-year-old daughter watched. Her older sister turned 15 today. Their mom gave a tearful press conference yesterday about losing the love of her life.
The manhunt? Off the hinges. There were cops from every conceivable jurisdiction -- hundreds of them -- descending on this area, parked on every corner and stopping car after car to ask questions and hand out flyers. Everyone around here assumed it was some sort of hit -- something related to the federal agent's job. Instead? Turns out to be just another random shooting by a "law abiding gun owner."
MIRAMAR - A police report says today that U.S. border protection agent Donald Pettit died as the result of a road rage incident.
The report said both Pettit and James Patrick Wonder, the man charged with his murder, exchanged obscene gestures with each other as they drove along Dykes Road Tuesday morning.
The report said Wonder, 65, pulled into the Pembroke Pines post office first from Dykes Road. It said Pettit then pulled into the post office parking lot from Pines Boulevard.
There, they argued some more, Wonder pulled a gun from his waistband, removed the safety and shot Pettit in the head, the report said.
As for Wonder? Neighbors say he was a nice guy; quiet ... no temper. No signs that he would become a wanted murderer. He got caught after attending a dialysis appointment at a nearby mall.
This, I'm afraid, is what comes of the nexus between readily available guns, and the common stresses of suburban life -- like road rage. Without the gun, this is at worst a fist fight in the parking lot. Probably not even that, since the assailant is a 65-year-old man with a bad kidney, and the victim was a fit federal agent. Think Wonder would have messed with him unarmed?
Thanks, NRA.
| Labels: Florida, gun violence, NRA |
posted by JReid @ 5:09 PM   |
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| Thursday, June 26, 2008 |
| The militia, everywhere |
 Talk about the courts inventing new rights never before seen in the Constitution ... turns out each of us has the right to a bazooka..!
The truly insane Wayne LaPierre was on "Hardball" tonight confirming press accounts about his next plan, post D.C. v. Heller: they're going to start suing other cities to take down their gun restriction laws. And the first case? The NRA will soon, perhaps even starting tomorrow, seek to " rearm Chicago," and overturn a San Francisco law banning people living in public housing projects from owning firearms. Say the NRA's ironically named chief lobbyist, Chris Cox: "When the Supreme Court says 'all Americans,' it includes those who aren't fortunate enough to afford a 24/7 security detail like Barack Obama," Cox said, working in a dig at the Democratic nominee. Obama's campaign today backed away from a previous statement, made last year by an aide, that Obama supported D.C.'s ban. Now, I don't know how many projects Chris has been to, but let's assume San Francisco's are much like many in other cities, including here in South Florida -- sometimes calm, if hard-scrabble, but too often run down and dangerous. So raise your hand if you think it's a good idea to bring more guns into, say, Dunbar Village , where the teens who assaulted a young mother and her son last year could theoretically have found a gun to steal, along with that family's innocence. [And before the gun nuts start braying that had the mother in Dunbar had a gun, she could have shot her assailants, I cede the point. However, keep in mind that the teens who attacked her lured her outside, leaving no way for her to get her hands on a gun. Perhaps they'd prefer that her 12-year-old son grabbed the gun, and maybe shot ... whom? Statistics suggest his only victim would have been himself or his mom.]
And surely LaPierre and company would like to see more states pass laws like Florida's " castle doctrine," which lets members of the "well armed militia" that now apparently includes us all, shoot first and ask questions later (gun nuts seem to love the idea of " good citizens shooting the bad guys dead, and not waiting around for the cops," though most of them are at best, armchair cowboys, and most "good citizens" don't have the training that police do ... hence ... the fact that they're the police...) Maybe, now that we're all living in Wayne's world, we could all get guns and go back to settling our disputes like they did in the Wild West. Maybe crazy Zell Miller has gotten his wish, and we now live in a time when you can challenge a man to a duel... Or perhaps we could all buy rocket launchers or tommy guns and parade them in the streets. That'd show the criminals! Wouldn't it? And how should law enforcement react to the notion that the NRA would like to see a gun in every American home, car, workplace and even church? Sure makes traffic stops or responses to domestic incidents more "interesting..."
Truly, there will be blood on the hands of five Supreme Court justices, the NRA and their gun nut supporters, if, as in the case of the late assault weapons ban, their advocacy puts more guns, and more death, on the streets.
And make no mistake, now that the gun lobbyists have found five jurists filled with enough NRA Kool-Aid to turn the entire nation into a militia, you'd better believe they're looking to strip away the "well regulated" part of the Late, Great, United States Constitution, next... (may it rest in peace.)
I'll leave you with two clips from an editorial in last week's Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Who dies in greater numbers from firearms, police in the line of duty or preschoolers?
The answer — contained in a searing new report by the Children's Defense Fund — is surprising and disturbing. In 2005, the most recent year for which data are available, guns killed 69 preschoolers, compared with 53 law enforcement officers.
That's just one of the alarming facts in the Washington-based child advocacy group's "Protect Children, Not Guns" report. Among the others:
• Since 1979, gun violence has taken the lives of 104,419 children and teens.
• A black male has a one-in-72 chance of being killed by a firearm before age 30; a while male has a one-in-344 chance.
• While black children are more likely to be victims of firearm homicides, whites are more likely to use a gun to commit suicide. Eight times as many white kids committed suicide by gun as blacks.
The danger posed by guns to America's youth is on the rise. In 2005, 3,006 children and teens died from firearms, compared with 2,825 in 2004. That's the first increase in gun deaths among children since 1994 and since the longstanding assault weapons ban expired in 2004.
The children lost to guns in 2005 would fill 120 public school classrooms. Despite the bloodshed, the issue of gun safety has not become a focal point in the 2008 presidential race. And hardly anyone running for office in Georgia — where it becomes legal next month for permit-holders to carry firearms in restaurants and on MARTA — mentions guns except to eagerly note that they own them.
The silence speaks to the sway of a gun lobby that fights any regulation, even modest laws designed to keep weapons away from children. And that silence is deadly, contributing to the ease with which guns are finding their way into the hands of kids and teens, with fatal consequences.
"Imagine a tragedy like the Virginia Tech shooting occurring every four days, or a Northern Illinois shooting happening every 15 hours," said Children's Defense Fund president and founder Marian Wright Edelman. Last year's Virginia Tech massacre left 32 people dead, while five students died when a gunman opened fire at Northern Illinois University in February. ... And this one's for Tony Scalia, and his ode to the handgun:
... Opponents of gun laws argue that it's America's culture of violence that necessitates the need for unfettered access to firearms. They argue that widespread gun ownership and quick access to firearms keeps communities safe and violence at bay.
If that's true, why does the United States lead the developed world in gun deaths? Why do more 10- to 19-year-olds in America die from gunshot wounds than any other cause except car accidents?
If guns equal safety, shouldn't the U.S. have fewer casualties and injuries, since our society is so well-armed? That's a calculus problem that the gun lobby refuses to tackle, because it fears the answer: More guns on the streets doesn't lead to greater safety. It leads only to more gun violence.
A 2002 study on firearm deaths by the Harvard School of Public Health showed that children ages 5 to 14 died at higher rates in states with more guns. The study found that children in the five states with the highest levels of gun ownership — Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and West Virginia — were 16 times more likely to die from unintentional firearm injury, seven times more likely to die from firearm suicide and three times more likely to die from firearm homicide than children in the five states with the lowest levels of ownership, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Delaware.
Consider, too, that while 11,344 Americans were murdered with a firearm in 2004, Australia suffered only 56 gun homicides and England and Wales had 73. Imagine, indeed.
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| Labels: gun control, gun lobby, gun nuts, gun violence, Heller, NRA, Supreme Court |
| posted by JReid @ 11:04 PM |
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| Cheney get your gun |
 Bang! The right is overjoyed as Tony Scalia pens an ode to the gatt
The right is over the moon over the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling striking down D.C.'s gun ban (Cheney is probably strapping up and scoping out his next victim's face as we speak...) though a few cooler heads, even at RedState, point out that the court didn't ratify a right to own any weapon you like (military weapons, tanks, etc., which the truly insane gun nuts think they have a right to.) Scalia, of course, wrote the opinion. The WaPo explains: The Supreme Court, splitting along ideological lines, today declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns for self-defense, striking down the District of Columbia's ban on handgun ownership as unconstitutional.
The 5 to 4 decision, written by Justice Antonin Scalia represented a monumental change in federal jurisprudence and went beyond what the Bush administration had counseled. It said that the government may impose some restrictions on gun ownership, but that the District's strictest-in-the-nation ban went too far under any interpretation.
Scalia wrote that the Constitution leaves the District a number of options for combating the problem of handgun violence, "including some measures regulating handguns."
"But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table," he continued. "These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home."
The court also held unconstitutional the requirement that shotguns and rifles be kept disassembled or unloaded or outfitted with a trigger lock. The court called it a "prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."
Scalia was joined by the most consistently conservative justices -- Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Justice John Paul Stevens spoke from the bench to denounce the decision, which he said violated the court's precedent that the Second Amendment refers to a right to bear arms only for military purposes.
He spoke dismissively of the court's "newly discovered right" and said decisions about gun control should be made by legislatures.
"This court should stay out of that political thicket," he said. Stevens was joined in dissent by the court's most consistent liberals: David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
In announcing the opinion, Scalia specifically mentioned that some restrictions on owning and carrying a gun are valid, such as denying the sale to felons or the mentally ill, or restricting the possession of guns in "sensitive places," such as schools.
But he acknowledged that the majority opinion was not setting standards that might be easily apparent to governments deciding how to restrict gun rights. As a result, Scalia said the ruling will probably result in more litigation.
The political responses: President Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino, said in a statement that "the President strongly agrees with the Supreme Court's historic decision today that the Second Amendment protects the individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms. This has been the Administration's long-held view. The President is also pleased that the Court concluded that the DC firearm laws violate that right."
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee quickly put out a statement endorsing the decision, calling it a "landmark victory" for Second Amendment rights. "Today's ruling . . . makes clear that other municipalities like Chicago that have banned handguns have infringed on the constitutional rights of Americans," McCain said.
Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the Democrats' all but certain nominee, also issued a statement saying that "I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures.
"The Supreme Court has now endorsed that view, and while it ruled that the D.C. gun ban went too far, Justice Scalia himself acknowledged that this right is not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe." In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg sounded an optimistic note in his written statement: In just two years, 320 Democratic, Republican, and independent mayors have come together to support the common sense goal of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. From the beginning, we have said that fighting illegal guns has nothing to do with the Second Amendment rights of Americans. Today’s decision by the Supreme Court upholding those rights will benefit our coalition by finally putting to rest the ideological debates that have for too long obscured an obvious fact: criminals, who have no right to purchase or possess guns, nevertheless have easy access to them. Mayors and police chiefs have a responsibility to crack down on illegal guns and punish gun criminals, and it is encouraging that the Supreme Court recognizes the constitutionality of reasonable regulations that allow for us to carry out those responsibilities.(New York City filed an amicus brief for the District of Columbia.) And last, but not least, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty: In a news conference two hours after the court overturned the city's ban on handguns, Fenty (D) said that he will work with the D.C. Council and police department on what happens next.
The mayor added that he believes he speaks for District residents in saying, "We are disappointed in the ruling. We wish it had gone the other way, but we respect the court's" decision.
The District now must create new regulations detailing the process for registering handguns, which the Supreme Court said can be kept in homes for self-defense. The city has regulations already on the books, which have been largely moot because of the gun ban, but those rules likely will be updated and revised, officials said. More political reactions here.
Meanwhile, the WaPo's Colbert King speaks for the neighborhoods, and the future victims of gun violence who will rue this day: The record will show that our home-grown shooters have blown through the city's so-called strict handgun ban like John Riggins going up the middle. Over the past 20 years, there have been more than 6,500 homicides in the nation's capital, most committed with firearms, predominantly handguns. In 1976, the year the ban was put in place, the District had 135 gun-related murders, according to CNN. Last year, the number reached 143. Thus far this year, we've had 85 murders.
You thought D.C. stands for "District of Columbia? "Dodge City" is more like it.
If D.C. street thugs are pleased by anything, it's probably the fact that five of the justices -- a slim majority, but that's all it takes to win -- have come around to seeing things their way.
And he has a few choice words for Scalia:
Writing for the majority, Scalia said that the Constitution doesn't allow "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home." Folks have a right to keep and bear arms -- and, by golly, a right to use 'em, too, if necessary.
Scalia also wrote this hymn to the handgun: "The American people consider the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon." He went on to argue: "There are many reasons that a citizen may prefer a handgun for home defense: it is easier to store in a location that is readily accessible in an emergency; it cannot easily be redirected or wrestled away by an attacker; it is easier to use for those without the upper-body strength to lift and aim a long rifle; it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police. Whatever the reason, handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid."
And if machine guns one day should become the weapon of choice for home protection -- what say ye then, Justice Scalia? With the exception of that reference to dialing the police, D.C. street thugs' response to Scalia's ode to the handgun was undoubtedly, "Hear, hear!"
King adds that the NRA, fueled by this "victory," will now go after the gun laws in San Francisco and Chicago. Why not head down here to Miami, guys? We've got plenty of AK-47s on the streets for you to deregulate, and a whole lotta killings, too! Yeehaw!
One more gasp of optimism, also courtesy of the WaPo:
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a group favoring tighter firearms controls, said that the ruling was "quite clearly" a defeat for the organization's legal position. But, he said, there was a silver lining. Although the majority opinion says that handguns can't be banned, it does allow governments to impose restrictions on ownership, Helmke said. He contended that the decision carved out the extremes in the debate over gun rights.
"This takes off the idea that you can have a near-total ban on guns, especially guns for self-defense," Helmke said. "We haven't really pushed that . . . The gun lobby, however, has been trying to say that any step in the common sense direction is part of the slippery slope toward confiscation. In effect, [the Supreme Court] has taken that slippery slope away, and that's where the ruling actually could be a benefit politically to folks who are fighting for common sense gun control."
Let's hope so.
Read the SupCo decision for yourself here.
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Labels: gun control, gun nuts, gun violence, Supreme Court |
| posted by JReid @ 1:03 PM |
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| Friday, February 15, 2008 |
| Obama on Illinois campus shooting: nix violence, not guns |
Barack Obama may have found the sweet spot today in commenting both on gun violence (in a statement on the tragic campus shooting in Illinois) and individual gun rights. From AP:
Obama said he spoke to Northern Illinois University's president Friday morning by phone and offered whatever help his Senate office could provide in the investigation and improving campus security. The Democratic presidential candidate spoke about the Illinois shooting to reporters while campaigning in neighboring Wisconsin.
The senator, a former constitutional law instructor, said some scholars argue the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees gun ownerships only to militias, but he believes it grants individual gun rights.
"I think there is an individual right to bear arms, but it's subject to commonsense regulation" like background checks, he said during a news conference.
He said he would support federal legislation based on a California law that would facilitate immediate tracing of bullets used in a crime. He said even though the California law was passed over the strong objection of the National Rifle Association, he thinks it's the type of law that gun owners and crime victims can get behind. The candidate issued the following statement today:
"Michelle and I were heartbroken to learn about the terrible tragedy that occurred in DeKalb today, and our thoughts and our prayers are with the victims and their families. While the full details are still unclear, what is clear is that this kind of senseless violence must stop, and all of us have a responsibility to do what we can to stop it."
Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, gun control, gun violence, Second Amendment |
| posted by JReid @ 3:04 PM |
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| Sunday, April 22, 2007 |
| A solitary, twisted life |
The New York Times attempts to unpack the mind and the short, unhappy life of Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung Hui. The report, by N.R. Kleinfeld, also reveals more details about the time lag between the first and second shootings, and how police -- and the campus -- missed the forrest for the trees. The account -- that police initially believed the first female victim had been shot by her boyfriend, who was known to own guns -- makes sense, and in my mind at least, mitigates against the school's actions, at least a bit. That said, in the post-Columbine age, I doubt any campus is going to escape liability for something like this...
And for the conspiracy theorists out there, the link between Cho's older sister and the Iraq war has got to be damned irresistible...
And Congress, always timid on the subject of gun controll, may now consider a law that would keep the mentally ill from purchasing firearms.
Meanwhile, Virginia Tech students want the media to leave campus, yesterday.
Labels: Cho Seung Hui, gun control, gun violence, New York Times, Virginia Tech massacre |
| posted by JReid @ 5:47 PM |
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| Wednesday, April 18, 2007 |
| Ismail Ax |
The blogosphere is buzzing with frenzied attempts to ferret out information about Cho Seung Hui, America's latest infamous mass murderer. Much of the focus currently is on the phrase "Ismail Ax," which Hui scrawled in red ink on his forearm sometime before he committed suicide by slaughter at Virginia Tech. That phrase is now a hit on Technorati, and I'm sure on Yahoo! and Google, too. News organizations are scrambling, too, even posting Facebook and MySpace pages trolling for information from anyone who might have known Hui. (The Chicago Tribune appears to have the hot hand at the moment...)
Surprise, surprise, the extremists on the right are taking this case to another (lower) level:
Right-wing reaction to the shootings: The National Review’s John Derbyshire asks, “[W]hy didn’t anyone rush the guy? It’s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness’ sake–one of them reportedly a .22.” Right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel speculated that Cho
Seung-Hui, “who had been identified at that point only as a man of Asian descent, might be a ‘Paki’ Muslim and part of ‘a coordinated terrorist attack.’”
Look, Debbie, I made an internal pledge never to mention you again on this blog, because, frankly, I think you're a blithering idiot, and I like to comfort myself with the notion that no one with any sense actually listens to you, but that comment just begs for a response. First of all, dear, Hui was a naturalized American citizen permanent resident who had been in this country for 15 years. He went to high school in the red state of Virginia (Centreville). If he learned how to be an Islamofascist terrorist, he learned it there, not in "Paki"stan. And by the way, that little slur is beneath even you. ... Or then again, maybe it's just your speed.
And as for the Derbyshires and Nathaniel Blakes of the right ring world, I picture you sitting there in your bow ties and specs, probably about 120 pounds soaking wet and with the only fight experience in your life being the several times a week you were beaten up in elementary school for your lunch money, and can't help but snicker at the idea that you are calling out the men of Virginia Tech.
Meanwhile, Europe takes a piece out of America's hide (sorry, Charlton Heston. They don't like you. They really don't like you.)
Also:
Eight years after Columbine, a familiar profile of a killer: angry, alone, depressed. Even his roommates didn't know him.
And Hui's parents are hospitalized, suffering from shock. But reports that they had attempted suicide are apparently untrue.
The gun shop owner feels badly. Well, I'm thinking that a clearly troubled 23-year-old. who would have had difficulty renting a car, should have gotten something more than an instant background check.
Barack Obama goes way, way, way out on a limb ... (Don Imus must be saying "damn! I thought this was going to be my week off!"
An Asian student at VTech goes online to clear his name.
And none other than The Smoking Gun, has Hui's writings.
Related: Ten states see campus threats. All of the schools involve respond with a novel idea: lockdowns.
And Tom Tancredo disputes the "worst school massacre" meme. We had a couple of callers to the morning show yesterday who angrily contested the "worst massacre in U.S. history" too, saying that massacres of Black residents in Oklahoma and Rosewood, Florida were worse. Question: does that really matter? The VTech massacre was bad, man, can we all agree on that?
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Labels: current affairs, gun violence, news, violence, Virginia Tech |
| posted by JReid @ 6:48 AM |
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| Crazytown |
 Virginia Tech becomes the scene of carnage as a gunman, who apparently was a student at the university, shoots two people (apparently, his estranged girlfriend and a student advisor) in a dorm, and then goes berserk, two hours later, killing 30 people across campus at Norris Hall, where students were attending class. The gunman then shot himself.
This is a story of immense tragedy, but it also contains elements of true heroism, such as 75-year-old Liviu Librescu, an Israeli immigrant by way of Romania, who shielded students with his own body, giving students time to escape out a window in Norris Hall before he was fatally shot himself.
There are also stories of apparent incompetence. The shootings began sometime around 7:20, when the gunman, who has been identified only as a Chinese immigrant in his early twenties, shot and killed the girlfriend he was apparently quarreling with, along with 22-year-old Ryan Clark, a student and apparent dorm advisor who tried to break up the argument. The gunman waited two hours before making his way across campus to the classrooms at Norris Hall, where he chained the doors shut and systematically murdered 30 people, according to one report, lining some students up against a wall and executing them. Pannicked students scoured the Internet for information after getting emails from the campus administration that a gunman was loose on campus. Some jumped out of windows to escape. Others played dead. The police weren't called until 9:30, two hours after campus police responded to the dorm shootings. I can't help but wonder where he got the two guns he used. Probably with ease at a local gun store, eh? (Time to turn America's college and high school campuses into gun free zones, wouldn't you say? And increased security and a better warning system would be nice...)
And on the campus, students are reacting with fury to the university's lack of action after the initial shootings, including the failure to make a public address system announcement that a gunman was on the loose: "I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action
after the first incident," said Billy Bason, 18. That sentiment is all over the Internet this morning ...
Update: ABC News is reporting that the gunman has been identified as "Seung Hui Cho, a permanent resident of the United States, a Korean national and a Virginia Tech student ..."
The student left a "disturbing note" before killing two people in a dorm room, returning to his own room to re-arm and entering a classroom building on the other side of campus to continue his rampage, sources said.
Cho's identitiy has been confirmed with a positive fingerprint match on the guns used in the rampage and with immigration materials. It is believed that he was the shooter in both incidents yesterday. Sources say Cho was carrying a backpack that contained receipts for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol, sources said. Witnesses had also told authorities that the shooter was carrying a backpack. Sections of chain similar to those used to lock the main doors at Norris Hall, the site of the second shooting that left 31 dead, were found inside a Virginia Tech dormitory, sources confirmed to ABC News. I wonder when the beef began between Cho and his girlfriend. I wonder if it correllates with when he bought the gun... Also, he's not Chinese, he's Korean...
Update 2: Hours after the massacre at Va Tech, a bomb scare triggers an evacuation at the University of Tennessee.Labels: current affairs, gun violence, news, violence, Virginia Tech |
| posted by JReid @ 7:00 AM |
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