Gun it!

May 13, 2013

guns-cartoon-US-map-smallerDeep ground fog this early Monday on California’s north coast and will most-likely burn off before too long — another ‘normal‘ day fashioning itself.
Quiet and still — a facade to the upcoming work week that will most-likely produce more bat-shit crazy.

The good, ole US of A is one messed-up place — Shannon Roberts at Interim LSU Hospital in New Orleans yesterday afternoon: “All innocent bystanders got hit…When I got the call saying they were shot, I wasn’t thinking at all, I was just shivering and crying… just hoping they be all right…Mothers should not have to be crying any day no less Mother Day.”

(Illustration found here).

The lady was attending to three family members who were wounded in a shooting at a Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans — those among 18 adults, a 10-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl, who were struck by bullets in the incident. Fortunately, there were no fatalities, though, reportedly a man and a woman were reported to be in surgery Sunday evening.
New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas (via): “It appears that these two or three people, for reasons unknown to us, started shooting at, towards or in the crowd,” Serpas said, adding that the incident was over in “just a couple of seconds.”
Police officials were quick to rule out terrorism: “It’s strictly an act of street violence in New Orleans,” New Orleans FBI spokeswoman Mary Beth Romig said Monday.
Just random gun violence, nothing to see here, move along.

This past weekend packed some gun violence nationwide — early yesterday, police stormed a Trenton, NJ., home and ended a 37-hour hostage stand-off, and finding a woman and her 13-year-old son dead, with the perp shot to death.
The mother and son supposedly been dead two weeks.
From CNN:

Police received no response at the door.
Fearing for the safely of the family, authorities made a forced entry into the home and immediately smelled an odor “consistent with a decomposing body,” police said.
The officers also noticed maggots throughout the house, Trenton Police Director Ralph Rivera said.

Another horror show.
The dead shooter was also under an arrest warrant in Pennsylvania for failing to register as a sex offender, and had an extensive record of violence, including convictions for aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy, as well as arrests for robbery, weapons offenses, and child endangerment.
Yet the guy was armed to the teeth — WTF!

Meanwhile, on Saturday night, police found four bodies in a home in south Indiana, all shot to death. Although police suspect it was drug related (meth deal gone bad), but have no official motive.
Stevie Furkin, a relative of one of the victims: Speculating on the nature of the homicide, Furkin said, “It might have been planned, might not have. I wouldn’t have no idea.” But he said he doesn’t worry that there will be more victims: “They’re all dead.”

And still this morning in south Humboldt County — about an hour south of me — police from numerous agencies are still searching for Shane Miller, the guy accused to killing his wife and two small daughters last week over in Shasta County. The manhunt is being conducted in some of the most-heavy-duty wilderness in the country.
In the midst of the search, police also responded to another gunshot victim found in the vicinity, though, that incident was unrelated to the Miller search.
And so it goes…

America is an armed camp — Stanford University law professor John J. Donohue and reality of the attitudes toward firearms:

Since 1965, more than 1.3 million Americans have died in gun-related incidents, though at least half were suicides, Donohue said.
By comparison, 617,000 men and women of this nation died in all of the wars the United States fought throughout the 20th century.
More than 100,000 Americans become shooting victims each year.
Last year, there were 11,101 gun-related homicides in the United States, 19,766 suicides by gun and 851 shooting accidents, according to Donohue’s statistics.
Americans own 270 million of the more than 600 million guns in private hands worldwide, he said.
The United States has far more homicides each year than other countries within the top 25 most affluent nations worldwide, Donohue said.
Oakland also is above average in deaths compared with similar cities throughout the nation, according to Donohue’s research.

Despite the NRA’s assertions, Donohue claims that there is no credible evidence that large gun ownership reduces crime.
He rejects studies done by the gun lobby that point to different conclusions.
“Many of the studies are similar to the studies by the Tobacco Institute that said that cigarettes were good for you,” he said.
Widespread gun ownership also has its downside.
More than 1 million guns are stolen from private homes each year and make their way into the black market as stolen weapons.
“You don’t have to worry about enough gun rights,” he said.
“You have to worry about the gun you have because the gun is not only a threat to you but a threat to everybody.”

Smokin’ barrels gone crazy.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.