Snowflakes in Hell

I’m glad the San Mateo County Sheriff in California has so thoroughly solved actual, real crimes, that they take time out to bust small time poker games.

Police in San Mateo County, California apparently first spent months investigating the small-stakes poker game. From this firsthand account, it looks like a couple of the officers were playing regularly for several weeks before sending in the SWAT team, guns drawn, last week. If California is like most states (and I believe it is), a poker game is only illegal if the house is taking a rake off the top. In this case, it looks like that “rake” was the $5 the extra the hosts asked from each buy-in to pay for pizza and beer.

Police also took a 13-year-old girl out of the home, away from her parents, and turned her over to child protective services. In addition to the charge of running an illegal gambling operation, the hosts are also charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Good thing the poor girl was saved before slouching toward an inevitable life of crime.

You know, I don’t even care if the folks involved here were taking money off the top.  Can someone explain to me why this is a crime?  Is illegal gambling worth the trauma of a 13 year old girl getting a gun stuck in her face by a SWAT team and then taken away from her parents?

This is a disgrace.

It’s amazing that this woman wasn’t dead.  Apparently Oregon is the state for Extreme Drunk Driving:

Comer is pictured below in a 2006 mug shot snapped after a prior drunk driving arrest. In that case, her BAC was recorded in the relatively minor .3 range. In November, another Oregon woman, Meagan Harper, was nabbed for drunk driving with an extreme BAC. In her case, Harper’s BAC was measured at .55. Comer’s .72 edges out what TSG has previously identified as the highest BAC we’ve ever seen. That fallen record (.69) was held by Willard Ashley III, an Indiana man who was busted in October 2003. (3 pages)

Wow.

And more importantly, where were they when I was 14?  Geez.  I guess kids today who are hot for the teacher can thank Al Gore for his Internets.

Looks like some bozo with a rifle decided to take some pot shots at a water tower in North Carolina:

Catawba County Sheriff’s deputy Major Coy Reid said the tower appears to have been shot three times with a high-powered rifle. He said authorities believe the shooting took place early Monday morning.

I would have thought water towers would be pretty resistant to small arms fire.  In addition to the shape usually being rather roundish, I would have imagined the metal would need to be thick enough just to contain the water that it could deflect a hit from most projectiles.

Repeated again and again in communities everywhere.  Don’t fire guns into the air, says Lynn Abraham.  Probably good advice.  We’ll never compete with Kentucky anyway.  It’s not as big a problem as public officials like to make it out to be.  I agree that it shouldn’t be done, but I have to wonder if this type of PSA (or is that PSH) is designed more to scare people about gun ownership, than it is to combat a legitimate problem.  The kind of people who do this type of stuff are about as likely to care what Lynn Abraham thinks as they are to obey the gun laws which already make this activity illegal.

According to Scalawag, who links to a BBC article, it is.

Other people are doing a really good job of covering this.  I’m constantly listening to complains by folks that gun owners don’t care about other rights, that we’re lap dogs of George W and his goons.  Well, how come it’s gun bloggers and other sympathetic people who are most outraged by these kinds of law enforcement tactics?  Does anyone think this Hmong gentlemen, who was the victim in all this, make no mistake, was treated gently after having shot and wounded two officers after they unlawfully invaded his home?

There are cases where you have to do raids like this, but it shouldn’t be, in any case, so routine that we hear these stories pop up so often.  Maybe I’ll have an easier time taking some folks on the left as being anything other than babbling baboons when they wake up and realize that there are very real civil rights abuses going on under their noises that have nothing to do with George W. Bush.

Dave Kopel has an editorial in the Rocky Mountain News this week which echoes some of the sentiments I talked about in this post, back before the shooting in Colorado.  Dave Hardy points to Loren Coleman, who has studied these things.  I think there’s little doubt that media coverage of these events encourages future killers.

One thing I noticed about the Colorado shootings is that the courageous actions of Jeanne Assam shifted some of the media attention away from the killer and onto her.   I’m hoping that her willingness to talk to the media, and tell her story, will put these sociopaths on notice that churches aren’t the soft targets they imagine.  I am hoping that the publicity Assam’s actions have gotten will mean we won’t see a mass shooting in another church for quite some time.

This reiterates the importance of carrying wherever you go.  The life you save may not be just your own, and the people around you.  It may also serve to shatter the fantasy of these deranged people by shifting the attention away from them, and onto you, the person who stopped them, and to let them know their intended prey might not be so helpless as they think.  That kind of attention might be unwelcome, but I find the idea of a copycat killer more upsetting.

… are dangerous even without access to firearms.  Perhaps we need combustion control.

How could this happen in gun free Japan? Clearly what Japan needs is to make guns more illegal than they already are. Sorry for the bad Google translation there folks.

UPDATE: The original link went stale.  I’ve updated.

The deranged psycho responsible for the Church Shootings in Colorado, who’s life was mercifully dispatched with great prejudice by Ms. Assam, apparently had the following firearms:

• Bushmaster XM15 assault rifle, purchased January 9 in Aurora.
• AK-47 assault rifle, purchased November 17, 2006 in Aurora.
• Beretta .40 cal. semi-automatic handgun , purchased January 4 in Colorado Springs.
• Springfield Armory 9mm semi-automatic handgun, purchased September 11 in Denver.

The AK-47 was the assault rifle found in his car.

Purchased over the period of a year. Sometimes tells me he didn’t just come up with this idea.

UPDATE: Uncle asks “Then, how’d he die from a self-inflicted shotgun wound?”  Good question.

The fact that no one in your city got shot over the weekend is a major news item.

D.C. police made more than 400 arrests and violent crime dropped sharply during the latest installment of All Hands on Deck, a program that put about 3,500 officers on the streets last weekend, officials said.

Putting cops on the streets lowers crime?  The devil you say!  Someone better not tell John Street.

“It’s been a while since we had no shootings,” Groomes said, crediting the extra police presence for curtailing the usual weekend gunfire.

Good to see that gun ban working oh so well.

Clayton Cramer has a must read on the subject.  The article focuses on Oakland, California, but it could just as easily be Philadelphia.

Six suspended as investigation proceeds into allegations of sexual assault.  Weird, I just drove past that night club a few days ago.

… have absolutely no shame or sense of decency.

That’s the headline the AP is running.  Expect a lot of talk now that the armed resistance didn’t matter much.   I’m not really surprised by this.  It was a murder suicide fantasy, and he wasn’t about to let this woman take that away from him.  These types of mass shooters usually off themselves when the police are closing in too, lest it spoil their script.

Maybe this is why criminals don’t tend to hang around gun shows.

Police arrested a man wanted by the law at the Harrisburg gun show. He was trying to buy a firearm, but one dealer realized something was wrong. “He was wanted,” said show manager show manager Nick Jubinski. “State Police came over, picked him up and arrested him.”

A salesperson learned about the suspect’s wanted status on the phone through the Pennsylvania Insta-Check system.

Vendors like Jack Shuttleworth are required to dial before dealing. “We don’t dare sell any gun without doing a background check on it,” said Shuttleworth.

Read the whole thing.  Kind of flies in the face of the Brady Campaign accusations that gun shows are unregulated bazaars of criminal mischief.

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.

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.

I’m very angry about this.  The man’s suicide note apparently said he wanted to “go out in style.”  What kind of sick and depraved person thinks that killing 9, and probably more by the time this is all over, innocent people is going out “in style?”

Of course,  the media is giving him exactly what he wants.  He’s a celebrity now!  His name will be spoken far and wide for weeks.  If he was desiring notoriety, he’s got it now.

Keep your skills up folks, and pack this holiday shopping season.  There are bound to be copycats.  Make sure the next loser’s headline is “Mall shooter killed in a hail of gunfire after only getting off two shots.”   I’m sick of this crap.

A seven year old girl takes six bullets in an effort to save her mother.  Based on the wounds, she’ll be disfigured for life:

 A 7-year-old-girl is being hailed as an “angel from heaven” and a hero for jumping in front of an enraged gunman, who pumped six bullets into the child as she used her body as a shield to save her mother’s life.

Alexis Goggins, a first-grader at Campbell Elementary School, is at Children’s Hospital in Detroit recovering from gunshot wounds to the eye, left temple, chin, cheek, chest and right arm.

She’s very lucky she survived.  You want to know what gets me angry about this story?

Police identified him as Calvin Tillie, 29, a four-time convicted felon who Parker had dated for six months before breaking off the relationship.

Emphasis mine.  Can someone explain to me what this cretin was doing out on the streets?   The criminal justice system has pretty obviously failed this little girl and her mother.

There was a carjacking in Ambler the other day, which is five minutes from where I work. I drive through that town every day. I’m happy the Philadelphia Police have caught these guys, because they were dangerous individuals. A lot of folks ask why I carry a firearm, and this is it. I worry about Philadelphia’s crime problem traveling into the suburbs, and it’s bound to happen. I worry not so much because I could be a target, but because suburban folks reaction won’t just be “Man, I need to think about protecting myself.” They might join in the delusion promulgated by our media culture that we can take guns away from criminals if we pass Just One More Law^TM

Eric has more. Apparently the woman who was a victim in Havertown, which was the same carjacking ring, managed to get the gun away from the carjacker and shoot him. I didn’t even know that, because the press here didn’t mention it. My advice to people in the Philadelphia suburbs worried about car jacking is twofold. One, it’s better to have your own firearm than have to take your attacker’s first. Two, your car is a much more effective weapon than any firearm.  If they catch you while driving, don’t be afraid to plow the bastards down.

I’m guessing this guy decided that a job at Wal-Mart wasn’t his style.

With Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid’s sons in jail, and with media folks of all stripes throwing him a giant pity party, Kansas City Star and Fox Sports commentator Jason Whitlock hits the nail on the head with this column that eviscerates Reid & his wife, the “drug emporium” that became of their house, the sports media, and the War on Drugs.

America’s morally bankrupt war on drugs, a cause that has killed and destroyed more lives than Vietnam and Iraq combined, has finally put Andy Reid’s kids on the front lines (incarceration), and Andy Reid doesn’t have a damn meaningful thing to say about it.

That’s unacceptable. It’s cowardly.

Andy Reid knows my pain, and he’s too worried about a freaking football game to verbalize it. He could make Middle America and the power structure understand the helplessness and the pain you feel when people you love get caught up in America’s political ploy called a “war on drugs.”

Echoing Whitlock’s sentiment, is a piece in the Ed/Op section of today’s Philadelphia Inquirer by Douglas Marlowe.

For too long in this country, the approach toward substance-abusing offenders wavered between incarceration without treatment and treatment without supervision - one or the other, rarely both. The incarceration-without-treatment approach is an outgrowth of our “war on drugs,” a nationwide response to the scourge of drug addiction that failed miserably on a number of levels, not the least of which being the flawed assumption that jails are an effective response to the problem of drug-related crime.

Marlowe applauds the judges use of the combination of treatment and monitoring with small jail sentences. It’s time for Andy Reid to step up, do the same, and insist that it the norm for everyone, not just for the affluent.

But, oh yeah, he’s got a game to prepare for.

If you’re into collecting and shooting firearms, it’s a very good idea to not also be into drugs. That link is to an article and video of another “arsenal” seizure in Upper Darby, just outside of Philadelphia. If it wasn’t for the drugs and explosives, the news media wouldn’t have gotten their “Look! Dangerous gun owners!” story. It’s quite possible the drugs were the guy’s tenant, but that’s immaterial if he had functioning explosive devices.

I am disturbed by two things here. One is that apparently being denied entry into the home was grounds for a warrant? I mean, clearly he had something to hide right? So much for the fourth amendment.

The other thing is that he’s being charged under Title 18 § 2716 “Weapons of mass destruction” of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statues. This is a poor drafted law for a number of reasons, first is that it defines biological agent as:

“Biological agent.” A natural or genetically engineered pathogen, toxin, virus, bacteria, prion, fungus or microorganism which causes infections, disease or bodily harm.

Technically it would be illegal to culture strep or staph under this law, which is something labs do all the time. Home brewers can also end up doing it on slants used for culturing brewer’s yeast.

“Nuclear agent.” A radioactive material.

My smoke detector is a weapon of mass destruction under this definition. But I suspect this fellow falls under this definition:

“Bomb.” An explosive device used for unlawful purposes.

If I were this guy, I’d get a good attorney. This is bad law, and I’d like to see it modified. Even though I think the state can make it illegal to house explosives in a residential area, this was a case of the police finding the guy’s guns, and looking for any excuse to charge him with something, because clearly he was a menace to society, or something.