Snowflakes in Hell

New Jersey is busy exporting criminals to Pennsylvania, so we can shoot them, apparently. In this report they claim criminals are moving here because of our lax gun laws.

In Hudson County, New Jersey, prosecutor Edward DeFazio says there’s one overriding reason the Lehigh Valley sees trouble moving in from the Garden State. DeFazio: “Handguns are much more easily purchased in Pennsylvania than in New Jersey.” Statistics show that the vast majority of gun crimes in New Jersey can be traced back to Pennsylvania purchases. DeFazio says the criminals are getting their guns in Pennsylvania … and now they’re committing crimes in the Keystone State, too.

Except it would seem Pennsylvania is also a more hazardous place to try to terrorize people. There are about 580,000 LTCF holders in Pennsylvania.  Had Mr. Pierce been a resident of New Jersey, he’d be the one in the hospital, or worse.

It’s much better doing Silhouette when your trigger pivot pin is properly in place.  Last week was 22 and 25, which put me dead last in my class.   This time I got 31 and 33, which puts me in the middle of the pack.  This is with a stock 10/22, crappy “Golden Bullet” ammo, and a 30 dollar scope.  I figure some better equipment might be worth a few more animals.  I like shooting the ram silhouette the best.

It seems that the UMass Daily Collegian know about as much about running a web site as they do about our gun laws.  Here’s a comment I tried to leave for Nick Milano, but was unable to because of server errors.   Maybe they have “not a commie” detectors to weed out the crazy folks like me.

Interesting… so you learned about our countries gun laws from West Wing eh?  Great.  Please tell me you’re not a law student.

What is this “illegal gun industry?”  All firearms manufacturers in this country are required to be federally licensed.  They sell their firearms to distributors, who are also federally licensed.  That transaction is logged and recorded, according to federal regulations.  Distributors sell firearms to dealers who, you might guess, are also federally licensed.  These dealers sell firearms to gun owners like myself, after presenting photo ID, filling out ATF Form 4473, swearing under penalty of felony I am the actual purchaser of the firearm, a US citizen or permanent resident, not a drug user, never been convicted of a felony, am not a fugitive from justice… you get the idea.  After that the dealer conducts a background check to verify the information on the form is correct.  This happens over the phone and takes a few minutes.  After that, the transaction is similar to any other consumer product.  Of course, there are laws about where you can and can’t buy a firearm.  Different states have extra restrictions, and you can’t go out of state to evade them.  You and the dealer can go to jail for that.  Massachusetts requires a license to buy firearms, which, for handguns, the police can decide not to issue to you because they don’t like that awful garlic breath you have from the  linguine you had for lunch.

Now of course, that’s the one option.  The other option is to buy one out of the back of a van in Dorchester.  Criminals obtain firearms from a variety of sources, none of them legal, which is why we call those guns “illegal guns”.  This is the black market.  If you believe we should be enforcing those gun laws, and locking illegal gun runners up, I would agree with you.  But you’ll have about as much luck stopping the illegal gun trade as stopping the illegal drug trade.  There’s a reason they are called “criminals” it means they break laws, and gun laws are just another law to break.

Nothing you guys didn’t already know, but I didn’t want it to go to waste.

They Brady’s seem to have quietly done their press release.  Not big push for donations, like after Virginia Tech.  The headline on the latest release is, “America Again Witnesses The Cost of Assault Weapons In Civilian Hands.”  Unfortunatly for the Brady Campaign, the SKS was never covered by the federal ban, and isn’t an assault weapon under any of the state bans that I’m aware of.  It’s certainly not an assault rifle, as it was not designed by Comrade Siminov to fire automatically.

I’m glad the Brady’s don’t seem to be exploiting this tragedy like they did Virginia Tech, but they are still misleading the American people as to the true nature of the firearms they are trying to demonize.  Paul wants to know where the rifle came from, well, it’s looking like the killer stole the rifle from his step father, probably because he’s prohibited from possessing a firearm under the law, and is unable to purchase one thanks to the, clearly very effective in this instance, background checks mandated by the Brady Act.  Maybe we need to make it illegal to steal a firea… oh wait.

Don’t mess with Pennsylvanians, ’cause we’ll shoot you:

While being told to be quiet and cooperate, he was dragged across the street in the darkness and told he was going to be shot. But in an instant, the hunted became the hunter.

Pierce, who carries a handgun for protection, pulled out a .357 revolver and shot Maurice Cook of Easton, who had thrust a .45 handgun into Pierce’s back and the side of his head.

Cook, 22, who was shot in the abdomen, was taken to St. Luke’s Hospital-Fountain Hill, where he underwent surgery and was expected to survive, police said.

He and the other mugging suspect, Tyrone Wright, 22, of Newark, N.J., were charged Wednesday with robbery, aggravated assault and conspiracy. Wright told a district judge he was recently freed from a New Jersey prison, where he had been held on a drug charge.

In a sharp contrast to what the reaction would be in Philadelphia, here’s what the Northampton County DA had to say:

Morganelli said he supports laws that allow people to carry concealed weapons and hopes this latest shooting in the West Ward, the second in less than a week, sends a message to ”these young thugs” that their victims might fight back.

Not so easy pickings on this side of the river, eh?   Thanks to Clayton for the pointer.

Check out this editorial in the Atlanta Journal-Constipation. That could have been written by the Brady Campaign.

Not surprisingly, Northern states are getting tired of watching their residents gunned down by weapons imported from the South. That’s why New York City sued 27 gun shops, including some in Georgia, whose weapons showed up in crimes 800 miles away. Last year, four Georgia shops and 11 in other states settled the case and agreed to court-appointed monitoring of their sale practices.

Of course, New York’s largest source of guns is… New York itself!

Among the allegations in the lawsuits: Adventure Outdoors of Smyrna was the source of at least 21 handguns recovered at New York crime scenes between 1994 and 2001. The suits also contend that at least 126 weapons first sold by the Gun Store in Doraville were recovered in New York crime investigations between 1996 and 2000.

Wait wait, I can change a few things here to make this work better

Among the allegation in the lawsuits: Adventure Motors of Smyrna was the source of at least 21 vehicles wrecked in drunk driving accidents in New York between 1994 and 2001. The suits also contend that at least 126 bottles of Jim Beam sold by the Booze Barn in Doraville were recovered from drunk drivers between 1996 and 2000.

So. Ms. Downey, do you believe we should sue Jim Beam and Adventure motors? Wouldn’t that be patently ridiculous? Why is it good to hold gun shop owners responsible for criminal action when they are not breaking the law? Oh, right, because you have no idea what you’re talking about.

I’m pretty ho-hum about Mike Huckabee surging forward in the GOP primary.  Marshall Manson talks about his feelings on Governor Huckabee, which echo a lot of my own.  Here’s what he says in the article about Fred Thompson:

Like many conservatives, I had high hopes for Senator Thompson. Unfortunately, his campaign just hasn’t taken off. That’s in spite of the fact that he has presented some of the best policy proposals of any candidate in the race. I confess that I haven’t heard the Senator in person. But the collapse in support for his candidacy in Iowa and New Hampshire suggest that he hasn’t been particularly effective in communicating his message, either in person or through media. I was also disappointed in Thompson’s late summer staff purge, where he eliminated many of the minds behind innovative campaign that he seemed to be developing last spring. Instead, he’s embraced a fairly traditional campaign, but given his late start, he needed to do more, and his campaign now looks to be in trouble. I would be glad if Thompson recovered and made himself a factor for the nomination, but I’m not especially hopeful.

I’m pretty much feeling the same way.  My understanding is that Fred is free falling in the polls, which is sorely disappointing.  Except for a few areas, Thompson is about as good a candidate as I could hope for from the Republicans.

With Fred fizzling, and the Democratic primary increasingly looking like a race between Obama and Hillary, my registration as an independent is looking like it will stay in place for yet another primary cycle.   I’m still waiting, Republicans and Democrats, for someone worth voting for.

I’m also angry at the media for how they cover these events.  Both SayUncle and Ahab today have talked about once instance of stupidity, but I’m sure the day will be filled with it.

We’ve had firearms as a technology for centuries now, and self-loading rifles for one of those centuries.  These horrific murder-suicides are a recent phenomena.   What changed?  Our media culture changed.  News is no longer about disseminating information, and keeping the public informed.   News is entertainment, and what better way to keep people glued to their TV than “Mass Murder in Nebraska!” and talking about the deranged perpetrator for the next several days, 24 hours a day.

Somewhere out there,  there is another person who’s life is crap, who feels powerless, who is watching this, and entering his own murder-suicide fantasy.  The media, who are only happy to portray a man with a gun as a force that strikes fear into the hearts of mere mortals, by parading the victims before the camera to talk about how scared they were, by prattling on about the power of the weapon he used, and by repeating the killer’s name far and wide to the point it becomes a household name.

I stated yesterday that I doubt the possibility of armed resistance plays much into selection of venue for the mass shooter.  They choose malls and schools because it shocks us, and scares us.  There have been studies that show this happens less often in areas that have concealed carry laws, and I believe this, but I think it’s less about the shooter thinking rationally and more about the culture.

A culture where firearms are more common, and people are familiar with them, won’t tend to breed these types of killers.  Why?  Because to people familiar with firearms, the gun is not a talisman.  It’s not an object of fear, control, veneration or prestige; these are ideas that are promoted by our media culture.  I believe these incidents are less likely to happen in a society that has a healthy shooting culture, not only because of the decreased likelihood of getting away with it, but because a man with a gun isn’t portrayed as powerful by that kind of culture.  A man with a gun is your neighbor, the town police man, or the grocer up the street.

It’s obvious that firearms play a role in these shootings, but I don’t think you can fully address the issue without addressing how our media and entertainment cultures portray them.

For people thinking it’s all just not worth it, and looking to check out, I have a bit of advice for you: have the guts to put a bullet in your head yourself, throw yourself in front of a train, or off a bridge.  What possesses someone to take the route of suicide by cop?  Or to “go out in in style”?

People argue that we live in a society that glorifies violence, glorifies guns, or any matter of depravity.  The truth is we live in a society that abhors personal responsibility. Murder-suicide is the ultimate escape from that, and it’s not surprising it’s become more common.  No longer do you have to worry about ending your own life.  You can “go out in style” by making yourself a celebrity, and, in the end, dodge the ultimate responsibility of having to off yourself.

Surely there will be an endless parade of people who will blame a countless number of things for this recent happening in America’s Heartland.  I don’t want to offer anything that will help the perpetrator evade responsibility and shame for these kinds of actions.

The perpetrator of this latest mass murder-suicide is a coward, plain and simple.  Society would do itself a favor by simply curing his name, and spitting on his memory.  Maybe some public shame, rather than deflecting blame, might do more to discourage other disturbed people from doing the same thing.