Drizzling rain and a bit windy this way-too-early Tuesday on California’s north coast as we stumble further into the week.
Nutcase times we do live in, as we travel along.
Guns and more guns — in Denver, police arrested a couple of juveniles this morning after they broke into a middle school, and then created a “cat and mouse” stand-off-type situation with cops lasting several hours. The school was empty except for a cleaning crew, who spied the boys and notified authorities. After a long search, the weapons the kids used were discovered: “What appears to be assault rifles are more than likely BB guns,” the update said.
Meanwhile, a 20-year-old man walked into the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus, New Jersey, last night and fired off a few rounds, causing panic and a full-blown SWAT-team reaction — the boy later killed himself behind the mall.
(Illustration found here).
A customer, who hid during the mall melee: “I had to go out of the store shouting at the officers with my hands up, and they turned and pointed their guns at me,” Woods said. “It was one of the scariest experiences of my life.”
Video taken inside the mall during the incident can be found at Mediaite.
And that, folks, is just the more-recent of gun-use news.
America has a huge, mother-fucker of a gun problem. The recent shooting at LAX this past weekend reveals the real horror of gun-toting permissiveness in the US — these sonofabitches are everywhere and most-startling is at airports.
Authorities have collected a shitload of weapons:
The TSA screens about 1.8 million passengers every day.
The total number of guns seized by the TSA at airports around the country has been on the rise since 2007.
The agency seized 1,556 guns in 2012, nearly double the 803 guns confiscated in 2007, according to agency figures.
In 2013, the agency seized 1,343 guns through the end of September, 13 of which were confiscated at LAX.
The Los Angeles airport is the sixth busiest in the world based on total passengers (63.7 million in 2012), according to Airports Council International.
The problem here is again the NRA — via Think Progress:
When the TSA subjected a girl carrying a firearm-shaped purse to extra questioning, the NRA responded that this extra precaution constituted harassment.
“We shouldn’t be surprised that security personnel who see nothing wrong with humiliating 85-year-old women at our nation’s airports might see a teenage girl sporting a purse with a firearm motif as a potential danger,” NRA President David Keene said at the time.
“But it should upset us as much as it did her and her parents.”
The extra scrutiny may be needed: TSA agents have confiscated 30 percent more guns from passengers, many of them loaded, in 2013 compared to last year.
Most travelers say they “forgot” they had the firearm, which has made sociologists think the trend is a result of people being permitted to carry their guns virtually anywhere.
The NRA also recently announced it has now sold its one millionth copy of the NRA Guide to the Basics of Pistol Shooting — the NRA’s bible for handguns.
And these NRA guys are physically-scary, creepy crazy — an estranged wife of one of these bozos can attest. Maribeth D’Alauro is divorcing her gun-nut husband, Richard D’Alauro, the NRA’s field representative for New York City and its suburbs. She’s become a passionate, public advocate to curb gun violence, and visited DC last week to help push a new background check law to prevent domestic abusers from buying guns.
From the New York Daily News:
It’s a role that D’Alauro said she could not have imagined only a few months ago.
“I feel very passionate now that I’ve had the experience that I’ve had,” D’Alauro told the Daily News.
“We are here talking about people who have lost their lives. I am concerned that I may end up being one of those people.”
…
The News revealed in March that he was barred from possessing guns under an order of protection stemming from a 2010 altercation with his wife.
At the time, cops confiscated 39 guns he kept at his home.
Richard D’Alauro was slapped with misdemeanor charges of assault and endangering the welfare of a child, and a noncriminal charge of harassment.
He pled guilty to the harassment charge.
When The News wrote about the case, Maribeth D’Alauro said she suffered from “years of domestic violence.”
She agreed to have her photo taken only if she was shown in silhouette.
But there she was at the Capitol, in full-fledged advocacy mode, meeting with aides to Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.
…
But it took her ongoing divorce, counseling and support from groups such as the Suffolk County Coalition Against Domestic Violence for her to adopt views on guns at odds with those she accepted during her 25-year marriage, and to become an advocate for victims of domestic violence.
“I was being bullied,” she said.
“I was living in fear. I wasn’t my own person. Someone else had control over me, over my life, over my thought process. Now I am free to think for myself. Free to advocate on any issue I want.”
…
Richard D’Alauro now can own guns, after the order of protection expired last month — a situation that has left his estranged wife fearful, she says.
But the mother of three said she didn’t want to be called a victim, and she dismissed any suggestion that she’s a “scorned wife.”
“That’s not what I am,” she said. “I’m an advocate.”
Still, she better keep an eye over her shoulder.
Or she could end up like the parents of that 12-year-old boy who killed a teacher last month in Nevada, shot some other students before killing himself. A horror story:
Jose and Liliana Reyes talked about their 12-year-old son in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal Monday as the community tries to understand what caused a boy known for his smile to bring a gun to school.
…
“My wife and I want to express our sincere condolences to Mr. Landsberry’s wife and family,” Jose Reyes said in a statement.
They said their son was a good boy who loved his family.
“We did not know Jose was angry or upset about conditions at school,” Reyes said.
“He had never complained about any particular teacher or student.
We knew that he had been teased and that he was trying to work through a speech problem that he had.”
…
Their daughters, who are 7 and 8, have moved to new schools since the shooting.
Both read letters to their brother during his services.
On Sunday, the couple’s oldest daughter cried.
“(She) said the only thing she wants for Christmas is for her brother to be here,” Liliana Reyes said.
Packing heat on a warm day — smile the NRA.
(Illustration out front found here).