The murder-suicide involving Pennsylvania mother of three Meleanie Hain -- who gained national note and pro-gun fame as the result of a legal battle stemming from the revocation of her permit to carry a concealed handgun by local law enforcement after she openly carried a loaded Glock 9mm pistol to her daughter's soccer game -- is a macabre lesson in easy irony. A woman who preached the National Rifle Association gospel that guns make you safer and protect your family is shot dead by her husband in a murder-suicide, her surviving family devastated.
From news reports, Hain, who posted on the web site of the Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association under the name "shefearsnothing" with an accompanying graphic proclaiming "Danger: I know no fear," was a true believer: guns don't kill, people do. A corollary to this well-worn mantra is that gun ownership guarantees personal safety. The shooting in Pennsylvania belies both these pro-gun tenets. As her attorney, Matthew Weisberg, stated: "My first reaction was shock and sadness. The second was that it's the truest illustration of irony" -- a context only sharpened by the fact that the shooting occurred during Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
As an advocate who debated gun control supporters, Hain was well aware of the facts presented in opposition to her views. Yet she parried them as irrelevant to her world, in the same way that the concerns of her fellow Pennsylvania soccer moms were dismissed as the intellectual flotsam of the anti-gun mind. To this mindset, gun homicides, unintentional deaths and suicides were events that happened to other people who lacked the temperament, training or personal fortitude to own a gun. In essence, Hain, like many of her fellow pro-gun advocates, lacked an ability to think in the abstract: Her gun experience was positive and whatever negative effects others felt from firearms, the gun, and gun owners like herself, were never to blame. Is it too bold to think that if she had survived her husband's attack by shooting him to death she would have offered his killing as proof of the effectiveness of the self-defense handgun? Based on 25 years in the gun control debate I don't think so.
Instead, she will become one of the statistics that she so readily dismissed. One of the 30,000 who die from guns each year. One of the hundreds of women shot to death by their husbands or intimate acquaintances each year. One of the hundreds of murder-suicides that occur each year. One of the tens of thousands of families destroyed by gun violence each year. Each death standing as proof that the absolute she tried to personify -- that owning a handgun will guarantee your safety -- is false.
Dennis A. Henigan: The Gun Issue Is Back in the Supreme Court: What Does It Mean?
Although the Chicago handgun ban Supreme Court case involves interesting constitutional issues, even if Chicago loses, such a ruling is unlikely to prove a serious threat to state and local gun regulation across-the-board.
Suppose I'm in favor of bringing back Prohibition and suppose that an executive of Jack Daniels had just been killed by a drunk driver. Would it be in bad taste if I practically gloated over the exec's death? Said that somehow working for an alcohol company, having a nice stockpile of alcohol at home, enjoying drinking alcohol, etc. somehow made him more likely to be killed by a drunk driver?
Is it a "delicious irony" if someone who loves old cars, owns a couple collector cars, tinkers with them every spare moment they have, etc. is killed in a hit and run?
Is it a "delicious irony" if someone who is fascinated by Medieval weaponry, who collects swords, spears, shields, maces, etc., who proudly displays their collection, reads up on the Middle Ages and makes themselves into a subject matter expert (the kind of person you see on The History Channel sometimes) is killed by a knife wielding home invader?
I'm new to this forum, and I'd rather not say something personnel like I'm about to, but in all seriousness how many of the anti-gun people on here have experience handling/shooting guns?
Elderly Couple Involved In Murder-Suicide
POSTED: 8:19 am EDT October 20, 2009
NEWTON, Mass. (TheBostonChannel.com)
"When officials arrived, they found Jane Cooper Wyman, 86, dead from a stab wound to the neck, and her husband, William Wyman, 86, also dead from a stab wound to the neck."
Let us gaze upon the face(s) of gunloonery:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/Pack-Rat-Keeps-Explosive-Collection-64518862.html
"When police raided the home of father and son Burl and John Thomas in September, they found an arsenal worthy of a small country.
One bedroom alone housed more than 30 weapons, including a live military anti-tank rocket launcher, semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and pistols.
Lake County authorities also found a half-pound of dynamite, blasting caps, detonator cord, 400 grams of marijuana, and 1 ½ ounces of cocaine"
Antioch, IL? Aren't these the good people TP keeps telling us about?
In the even that it's LOST, here's an interesting link to evidence of a LOT of gungrabber hypocrisy:
http://www.stentorian.com/2ndamend/dirty.html
Have a great day today and a better day tomorrow. Stay safe, and may God bless. I wish you His peace.
Dan
It tells us why the Confederate flag should fly and explains why the Left hates The Lord of the Rings.
Truly, a scholarly site.
I'm expressing only my opinion, so none of what some people call facts or extenuating circumstances apply -- although the bizarre excuses for hideous crimes will still appear.
I don't need to hear from the usual suspects -- although as usual the usual suspects will say the usual suspect things, and as usual suspiciously follow me to whatever thread I go to next. The usual suspects must miss no chance to post something usual and suspect in response to what I say.
The claims made by certain groups on this thread are some of the emptiest I've ever in years of seeing their barren, amoral claims.
I'd call it shameful but in those people no capacity to recognize the shame of it exists.
You left out one minor detail Josh. You can't defend yourself with a gun by remote control. It has to be in your hands.
"Meleanie Hain's loaded pistol -- with a bullet ready in the chamber -- was in a backpack hanging from the front door." - from the report here on Huffpo.
According to Josh Sugarmann. According to the FBI, it is perfectly true 80,000 times a year (219 times a day).
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/hvfsdaft.txt
So, according to the FBI, it is perfectly false 16,000 times a year (44 times a day).
Not much of a guarantee, now, is it?
So, according to the FBI, it is perfectly false 16,000 times a year (44 times a day)."
You assume that 20% suffering an injury means that the the crime was not thwarted and that the results were worse than if the crime had been allowed to progress without resistance. That is not what the stat is saying.
It remains as illogical as when you first made it. All the other guns made no differnce since the killer only needed one. And that one he had was issued by the state.
The thing that really does matter is that two children are without their mom now, because the local law enforcement had warning that something could happen and didn't act. Not whose agenda it serves. So put the blame on where it belongs.
Well obviously it wasn't!!
Who knows? But the key point here is that she's a victim, not an offender. Man gun controllers just love to trample on a victim's grave. What compassion.
Gun Control politician Ted Kennedy: Bodyguard was arrested trying to bring an arsenal of guns into the capitol building. Arsenal included an actual machine gun (not a semi-auto "assault weapon" the gun controllers are always trying to confuse the public about)
Gun Control politician Dianne Feinstein: Admitted carrying concealed handgun at a point in her career. Same with Handgun ban advocate Dennis Kucinich.
Gun control advocate Barbara Graham, who founded the "Million Mom March": sentenced to 10 years to life for shooting and paralyzing an innocent 23-year-old man she blamed for killing her 19-year-old son
Prove it.
Gun Control advocate Josh Sugarmann: Holds an FFL, yet operates no gun store. But campaigned against so-called "kitchen table dealers" because they held an FFL, but operated no gun store.
The fact is that if the family had been anti-gun then they'd probably be still in one piece. Unless, of course, they decided to kill each other with knives.
The only thing that would have made a difference is if cops were not allowed to carry guns. Is that what you want?
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/longbow.htm.....