On Thursday, an individual who had "serious grievances with the city government" in the St. Louis suburb of Kirkwood, Missouri brought his gun to the police station and then a City Council meeting and killed five people - first two police officers, then two council members and the public works director - and wounded two others, including the mayor.
According to the killer's brother, the shooter "went to war tonight with the people, the government that was putting torment and strife into his life." News reports mentioned that the shooter "felt harassed" because police "cracked down on his parking of vehicles for his construction company outside his home...."
After two arrests for disorderly conduct at council meetings in 2006, and a subsequent conviction, the shooter continued to regularly attend and disrupt council meetings, making "inappropriate noises, heehawing like a donkey" and making "derogatory comments."
The shooter's brother said, "he has spoke [sic] on it as best he could in the courts, and they denied all rights to the access of protection and he took it upon himself to go to war and end the issue."
We also learned yesterday about an aborted "large-scale shooting rampage" at the Super Bowl from an individual who "purchased an AR-15 assault rifle from a Phoenix-area gun store on Jan. 29" along with 200 rounds of ammunition, and "planned a massacre as a form of revenge against the Tempe, Ariz. City Council - because it overwhelmingly denied a liquor license for his restaurant."
In a letter mailed before he decided not to carry out the attack, the gun buyer said that "I cannot outvote, outspend, outtax or outincarcerate my enemies ... but for a brief moment I can outgun them."
These two stories raise a number of issues - the weakness of our gun laws nationally, as well as in most of the states; the easy accessibility of assault rifles and large stores of ammunition; the non-deterrent effect of police carrying guns and the disregard by those who are willing to be "suicide shooters" for their own lives; and the highly-charged level of controversy involved in much of local government activity.
This last point deserves some more attention. One of the first times I got involved in a controversy with the gun lobby was when, as Mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, I suggested that individuals not be allowed to bring guns into our City-County building. (The County, which owned the building, had just banned guns from the County Courthouse and I argued there were just as many contentious issues being discussed and decided by the legislative and administrative parts of local government as by the judicial part.)
The gun lobby saw this suggestion as an attack on their "Second Amendment rights" and responded strongly. As someone who had received death threats and been called a "dictator" because of other government issues, I knew that there were a lot of people who I did not want to see carrying guns into city meetings and the offices of city employees.
These incidents all highlight the tensions involved when individuals argue that their "personal liberty" outweighs the rule of law and trumps community policy as decided by our governmental systems.
These tensions are part of the legal debate about the Second Amendment in the D.C. v. Heller case pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. In the brief filed for Heller on Monday, his lawyers argue in favor of the "individual use of Second-Amendment-protected arms to check despotism" and the importance of "retaining the ability to resist tyranny."
The killer in Kirkwood and the would-be shooter at the Super Bowl both thought they had to act to "check despotism" and "resist tyranny." But encouraging easier access to dangerous weapons by dangerous people puts us all at risk. We need to value the rule of law along with the claims of individual liberty or we all suffer.
(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)
Kelli
Now stop insulting people and stop focusing on gun violence as if it's somehow worse than knife violence and baseball bat violence. Or crock-pot violence (wonder who remembers this one).
Apparently, whatever pro-rights people are doing, IS working. We have 31 states, and the majority of Congresscritters from both houses, all filing briefs in favor of Heller, to back us up on that.
It makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over.
When can we be expecting a retraction from Peter Hamm, regarding the false statements he made regarding funding for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus? No doubt he will be going before the same cameras, so his retraction will receive the same coverage as his false statements, correct?
They are clearly not "funded by the gun industry, by the companies that are selling the guns,".
I'm having a hard time understanding how something like this can happen. A restraining Order is a Court Order. And it is against the law to violate a Court Order. So how is it that someone can become a victim of violent crime when there are laws in place which are aimed at preventing this from happening?
Oh, yeah, can it be because criminals don't obey laws?
http://www.wreg.com/Global/story.asp?S=7901057
K
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/feb/19/e19attackweb/
I gather that you have no comment regarding the fact that the BC just got caught lying through it's teeth about the SCCC being funded by the "gun industry"
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/feb/19/e19attackweb/
Paul, with this sex offender be included in the "needless gun death" statistics? Just wondering...
Hat tip to Say Uncle.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...20/2167381.htm
Overall a good article, but damn does this show the extent that they're willing to lie about.
Quote:
But Peter Hamm, communication director for the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence, is concerned that the group is the latest tool of the powerful gun lobby.
"We know very clearly that they were organised and they are funded by the gun industry, by the companies that are selling the guns," he said.
"This is not some spontaneous, grassroots organisation.
"There are more members than there were before Virginia Tech because the gun industry is spending more money to enlist more young people to help them spread the word, that if only we had more guns in America, we'd have less of a gun violence problem."
A few things - we don't even have enough money to legally incorporate, there's no way we're being 'funded' by anybody.
We are spontaneous - we were formed immediately following the tragedy at VT, and we are grassroots - I spend my free time away from classes and work on this, I'm not paid, and I'm certainly no professional.
The reason why there are more members now than before VT is simple - we didn't even exist before VT. Nobody's being recruited here - people are signing up on facebook.com and are searching for us, and voluntarily signing up.
This is, to be quite honest, a golden opportunity for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus - it gives us the chance to discredit our biggest critic, internationally.
__________________
~Mike F.
Campus policies left students shooting back with camera phones. Life's worth more than pictures.
www.ConcealedCampus.com
http://web.mac.com/flitcrma/iWeb/Site/Home.html
So, the SCCC is funded by that enigmatic "gun industry". No proof, no documentation, nuttin'.
Violence Policy Center’s tax returns included a section entitled
“Schedule A, Part IV-A: Support Schedule.” It includes a line item for membership fees.
For the years 2000 through 2004, the total membership fees received was $0.
That about says it all.
Via Arms and the Law.
http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/VPCandPeople.pdf
All of which begs three questions.
1) Just how does one keep a non-profit
organizaton afloat for four years, with zero
donations?
2) What happened to all that Joyce Foundation
money?
3) How many Ferraris does Josh Sugarman own?
I wonder if any of the anti-gun crowd here- present sent the VPC any money from 2000 to 2004.
Illinois had a population of 12.8 million w/ a murder rate of 6.1/100K (780)
Chicago had 22.2% of the population of Illinois yet accounted for 60% of murders w/ a per capita rate of 16.4/100K
Cook County had 41.4% of the population of Illinois yet accounted for 73.6% of murders w/ a per capita rate of 10.83/100K
The Cook County murders in raw number/per capita increased 4.4% and 4.9% respectively while arrest numbers and rates dropped over 18% from '05 to '06.
If Chicago were to fall into Lake Michigan, the Illinois murder rate would drop to 3.14
Were the rest of Cook County to follow suit, the rate would drop to 2.74
Think there's a reason the IL .gov's won't correlate their violent crime numbers w/ the FBI?
Whose example should we be following again?
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5matias.6277765feb19,0,2152309.story
I guess this type of violence is ok though, right Kelli, since it wasn't committed with a gun.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/17/same-gun-dealer-sold-to-2_n_87050.html?refresh_comments=1
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f3949a.pdf
It's being taken quite seriously. The ATF is taking the matter seriously also, and is investigating.