@izzythepush,
izzythepush wrote:
Being free means being able to make your own choices and not listen to a pathetic cockroach like Oralboy. He needs a gun, because without a gun he is nothing. A sad middle aged virgin still living with his parents.
This site seems to attract them.
@bobsal u1553115,
Nobody would pay anything to be touched by that slug.
IN THE U.S., WHERE WE WOULD BE WITHOUT GUNS
First and fore most we would still be a british colony and we would all have bad teeth like izzy.
If not, we would have been tossed up like a like a scap of meat to be fought over by Germany and Japan.
If not, we'd all be drinking vodka and cowering in our homes.
If not, we'd be under sharia law.
If not, we'd be at the mercy of black, drug dealing street gangs.
And worst of all, we'd all be moronic, government dependant DEMOCRATS (shudder).
@giujohn,
I wasn't aware that WWII was won by citizen militias - f u c k w i t.
How many massacres in the U.S have been stopped by a "good guy with a gun"? I believe at last count the answer was zero.
Retired White Plains Officer Kills 2 Kids, Then Himself
Source:
http://7online.com
WHITE PLAINS -- Sources say a retired White Plains officer killed his 2 teenage daughters, then himself at a home in Harrison.
Glen Hochman retired two weeks ago in the end of January after 22 years on the job. He was assigned to traffic in White Plains and had an unblemished record.
The White Plains Police Department says they are in shock.
White Plains Police Commissioner David Chong released a statement Saturday night saying,
"The White Plains Police Department is shocked and horrified by the news of this unfathomable tragedy. We can only pray for the entire Hochman family.Police Officer Glen Hochman served the WPPD and the City of White Plains with honor and integrity. He recently retired after 22 plus years of exemplary service. When he retired, he was assigned to the prestigious Traffic Division. He also served in the patrol division."
Read more:
http://7online.com/news/sources-retired-white-plains-officer-kills-2-kids-then-himself-/528526/
Both girls were students at Harrison High School, and on the school’s website, Superintendent Louis Wool wrote the following note of condolence. The school will be open at noon Sunday to offer support:
Dear Members of the Harrison Community,
With great sadness our District mourns the death of high school senior Alyssa Hochman, and her younger sister Deanna both lost to incomprehensible tragedy. The high school will open tomorrow starting at noon; support staff, faculty and administration will be available to assist students and families.
Our high school community has faced life shattering tragedies this year, each time they have risen and demonstrated a depth of character and an ethic of care that is inspiring, we can count on them for no less this time, this is a remarkable, generous and giving group of adults and young adults.
In this awful moment, let us remember how proud we are of them, and how much they have helped others, and how much they will help others again.
Sincerely,
Louis N. Wool, Ed.D
Superintendent of Schools
@Wilso,
If I remember correctly when two young men pulled a fire alarm at their school and was shooting their classmates as they run out of the building a teacher with a firearm in his car stopped them and held them at gun point for the cops.
Say Something: Good Bystander Calls Police on Man Walking with Rifle
Officers find 33 guns in felon’s trailer
An observant citizen and good bystander called the police in January after seeing a man walking through Gardendale, Texas with a rifle and night vision.
Upon investigation, police found 33 firearms, 10,000 live rounds, a night vision scope, a range finder scope, a bullet proof vest and two helmets in a trailer belonging to the man, who was also a convicted felon.
The man was then charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. The concerned citizen proved why it's always important to #SaySomething when something you see or hear makes you uneasy.
Just another responsible gun owner (with an arsenal of 33 lethal weapons) until he wasn't. Maybe he was just a "collector?"
Although the right-wing gun lobby supporters warn that calling the cops on someone carrying a gun in public will result in a "false report" charge, this story indicates that is not always the case.
I believe that it is always be better to err on the side of safety, and report anyone carrying a gun in a public venue, and let the police determine the legality of the situation.
This article is from the SandyHook Promise Say Something initiative, which states:
Say Something is a program that educates youth to tell a responsible adult if they see, hear or read something indicating an individual may be a threat themselves or others. We offer two tools in the Say Something program:
1. In-Home Say Something Protective Action Guide : Meaningful actions you can take in your home with your children. Scroll down for full details or DOWNLOAD SAY SOMETHING PROTECTIVE ACTION GUIDE HERE.
2. Say Something Formal Training: Say Something training teaches students, through a student-to-student and educator to student approach, to tell a responsible adult if they see, hear or read something indicating an individual may be a threat themselves or others. DOWNLOAD THE SAY SOMETHING TRAINING INFORMATION GUIDE to learn more and request training.
Support SandyHook Promise in any way that you can, and involve your children in the SaySomething program in your area.
@Nark Mobble,
Quote:Say Something: Good Bystander Calls Police on Man Walking with Rifle
Officers find 33 guns in felon’s trailer
Well it nice to know that this time is was not some kid with a toy gun that ended up being killed by the cops.
In any case, it is not illegal in most places to be walking around with a rifle unless you are indeed a felon.
In PA where I was raised it was common to have men and some women carrying rifles in public in hunting season for example.
Kids and Gun Violence: Can We Change?
by: Frank Strier on March 4th, 2015 | 1 Comment »
A child holding a toy gun.
Credit: CreativeCommons / Frank Boston.
Sometimes the most important sound is the one you don’t hear. The sound that is conspicuous by its absence? A full-throated outrage over the rampant gun violence that plagues U.S. children. Consider:
A traditional indicator of a country’s tolerance for gun violence is its firearm fatality rate, which includes suicides and accidents. Ours is breathtaking. Among industrialized countries, the U.S. rate is more than twice that of the next highest country, and eight times higher than the average. Looking solely at gun homicides, an American is 20 times as likely to be killed by a gun than is someone from another developed country.
But the most alarming comparative data pertain to child gun violence. Gun violence wreaks havoc with American youth. The carnage is grim, both abstractly and relatively. Guns kill or seriously injure nearly 10,000 children each year in the U.S. The firearm fatality rate among children under 15 years old is spectacularly high, nearly twelve times higher than in 25 other industrial countries combined. And a recent Center for American Progress report projects that gun violence will surpass car accidents as the leading cause of child deaths sometime this year.
We implicate the children by the laxity of our gun laws and attitudes. The stories are legion. Some recent examples: last April, a 4-year old boy grabbed a loaded gun at a family cookout in Tennessee and accidentally shot a woman to death. Four days later in New Jersey, another 4-year old accidentally shot and killed a 6-year old playmate with a family rifle.
Later in Kentucky, a 5-year old boy accidentally shot his 2-year old sister to death. What distinguishes this case that the tiny rifle that killed the sister was received by the boy as a gift. The manufacturer, Keystone Sporting Arms, makes guns – real guns – geared towards children, featuring smaller guns in different colors. All perfectly legal.
A related issue of concern is the frequency of police shootings of black teens. A controversial issue of ProPublica in October of 2014 found that from 2010-2012, African-American teenage men age 15-19 were 21 times as likely as white teens to be shot by the police, and eight times as likely as white males of the same ages to be killed in gun-related homicides. Gun-related homicide was the leading cause of death among this group. The finding generated much controversy. In response, the magazine issued the following statement on Dec. 24, 2014:
Many have pointed to our reporting as proof of police bias. That overstates our case; ProPublica found evidence of a disparity in the risks faced by young black and white men. This does not prove that police officers target any age or racial group – the data is far too limited to point to a cause for the disparity.
How Did We Get Here?
Our gun culture. The right of self-defense. The Second Amendment. Gun rights advocates trot out these tired and questionable rationalizations after every horrific incidence of child gun violence. With great effect. For ours is the sole major industrialized country that has not responsibly addressed this problem.Indeed “problem” would be a euphemism. “Plague” or “crisis” would be more apt. The 3,000 children who are fatally shot each year is a death rate triple that of the American soldiers in The Revolutionary War.
But child gun violence is the undeclared war that never ends. No truce or conciliation beckons. Indeed, a common perception is that the war was lost seven years ago. That’s when a one-person majority on the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a badly needed Washington, D.C. handgun ban on Second Amendment grounds (Heller v. District of Columbia.) Though profoundly consequential, the Heller decision was but one symptom of a deep-seated, prevalent malaise.
There’s more to it. Much more. Some suggest that gun violence inheres in our societal DNA. After all, ours was a country baptized in armed revolt; moreover, we could not have tamed a continental wilderness without guns.
All that happened centuries ago however. What largely sustains and perpetuates gun violence now is American popular culture. Particularly entertainment. Violent gunplay is baked into TV, movies and video games. Many top-rated TV shows depict brutal and sometimes sadistic crimes. The likes of “Breaking Bad,” “Criminal Minds,” and “Hannibal” were at once wildly popular and surprisingly violent TV shows.
What are the prospects for harnessing child gun violence? Decidedly grim. A widely cited statistical projection based upon current trends finds that gun shootings will surpass car accidents as the leading cause of death among young people this year.
Formidable armaments populate this undeclared war on children: well over 300 million firearms (about one per person), of which 100 million are handguns – objects alluring to children, especially boys. And alarmingly easy to use if not locked. Ours is the highest gun ownership rate anywhere in the world, at any time.
A smart-gun with biometric scanner.
One proposed solution to child gun violence is 'smart gun' technology. This includes keypad safety locks and biometric scanners, so that only a designated person can fire the gun. Credit: BulletproofKidsUtah.
At least one explanation is obvious. Few industries are more lucrative than firearms. According to the Nations Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry is worth $32 billion per year. Moreover profits on handgun sales are surging according to Bloomberg Business Week – 43% for the first quarter of 2014.
How does that compare with the financial impact of gun violence? A widely cited study by Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig estimates that the total annual cost of gun violence in the United States is $100 billion (dwarfing gun sales), of which $15 billion is attributable to costs associated with gun violence to children and teens.
As measured in blood and bucks, this spectacular failure of law, policy and compassion amidst an otherwise child-friendly society raises fundamental questions: Do we not learn from experience? From the practices of other countries? The dimensions of this ongoing American tragedy hog the moral terrain.
One distinctive factor is America’s obsession with handguns. Americans first became enamored of the handgun’s utility in the taming of the frontier. The infatuation remains, resolute and unabashed.
Romancing The Gun
How did this come to pass? Theories abound. Here’s mine. The public perception of handguns was markedly different during my childhood. Sure, Al Capone and his successors were handgun-toting bad guys who had shot people. Lots of people. But they were inevitably captured or killed by lawmen bearing even more guns.And those iconic TV cowboy heroes – Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, Matt Dillon to name a few – would reliably and nonchalantly deploy their trusty six-shooters to gun down wayward foes. Indeed, “Marshall Dillon” of the wildly popular Gunsmoke would dispatch a foe during the teaser at the beginning of each show. (No reason to make your kids wait too long for their violent gunplay fix.) Gun killing became standard entertainment fare, blunting any sensibility about the sudden, violent, harsh reality of shooting people dead. Heck, Gene Autry even threw in a soulful, cuddly song or two after exchanging gun for guitar.
Movies too pandered to the public craving for enacted gun violence. Beginning with The Great Train Robbery (1903), Hollywood studios produced a cornucopia of movies featuring extended gunfights. In this early classic, a bandit pointed his gun straight at the audience and fired right in their faces to startle them. (The ploy worked, stimulating an adrenaline rush for the audience and launching a long-running cash bonanza for the industry.) A key subtext is that the handgun has become a quintessential part of Americana.
Our Children in Jeopardy
Our passion for guns has rendered many collectively deaf to the dreadful cacophony of child-victim gun violence endemic to the U.S. Inattention (or worse, indifference) to the dangers that guns impliedly permit creates a lethally volatile environment for minors. With approximately 310 million firearms in circulation nationally, of which over 100 million are handguns, the grim results are predictable. Data from the Children’s Defense Fund reveals that, in the U.S.:
About 3,000 children and teens die from gun injuries every year. (That exceeds one Sandy Hook Massacre every three days.)
A child or teen dies or is injured every 30 minutes from guns.
One-third of all of households with children younger than 18 have a gun, and more than 46% of gun-owning households with children store their guns unlocked.
What do these appalling data imply? That many if not most American adults are so in the thrall of their craving for guns that they allow the safety of their children to be flagrantly compromised?
The Awesome Political Power of the Gun Lobby
Maybe not. Consider: more comprehensive screening of gun buyers was supported by 91% of U.S. voters, including 88% of gun-owning households, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. Yet President Obama’s proposed mandatory background check bill failed to even reach a vote in a Democrat-dominated U.S. Senate. That’s a stunning display of political power. By any standard.In American politics, money is power. Using 2012 as a typical year, tax filings show the top six national gun rights groups brought in close to $301 million in revenue in that year, while six major national gun control nonprofits raised just more than $16 million. A ratio of 19 to 1.
That’s revenue. What about spending? According to ProPublica, the total amount of top campaign contributions by gun rights interest groups in 2012 was $3.13 million. The comparable figure for gun control groups was $4,036. That’s a ratio of 776 to 1.
Blocking a popular gun control proposal was only the most recent illustration of the gun lobby’s legendary influence over Congress. Federal law already forbids The Consumer Product Safety Commission from regulating the manufacture or sale of guns or ammunition. So the Commission can regulate teddy bears and toy guns, but not real guns. Feel safer?
A large monument of a gun with the end of the barrel tied in a knot.
Among industrialized countries, the U.S. firearm fatality rate is more than twice that of the next highest country, and eight times higher than the average. Credit: CreativeCommons / Jim, The Photographer.
Whatever the answer(s), one irony is inescapable. No country has done more for the welfare of children, domestically and worldwide, than the U.S. Yet we, as a nation, continue to facilitate availability of the key instrumentality of our distinctive gun violence malaise, the handgun, to our children. Puzzling.
The short explanation is that the “we” referred to is, ultimately, the will of a one-person conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. Its interpretations of The Second Amendment were profoundly consequential. The Court invalidated serious handgun control efforts by Washington, D.C. and Chicago in 2008.
But what about the public reaction to our extraordinary child gun violence? Has there been outrage? Remorse? Demand for gun control reform?
Perversely, just the opposite. Indeed, a recent Pew Research report found growing public support for gun rights. For the first time in two decades there is more support for gun rights than gun control: 52% said it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns, while only 46% said it is more important to control gun ownership. Moreover, nearly six-in-ten Americans (57%) said gun ownership does more to protect people from crime, while only 38% say it does more to endanger personal safety.
Along with all of our illustrious contributions to the welfare of children, these data – along with the perceptions and values they reflect – define us.
A Potential New Remedy
One innovation makes the current debate especially curious. Ballistic science has recently provided an option that could dramatically reduce child gun violence without weapon confiscation – programmable “smart guns.” Merely entering a simple three or four digit code of your choice would unlock the firing mechanism. A few seconds for the life of your child. Would this potentially life-saving feature be perceived as an offer too good to refuse, or an intolerable restriction?Before answering, consider: we could also require a breath analyzer that disabled a car’s starter if the car’s driver registered above a maximum alcohol content. According to The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, one of five child traffic fatalities involved drunk driving crashes. Proactively responsible? Of course. Sensible? Clearly. Think it would pass? Unlikely.
Why such a doomed prognosis? Maybe this: too many people believe that such constraints should only apply to other people, you know, those cretins who don’t share our keen appreciation of what is too much to drink.
Objections to Gun Control
Guns are undeniably woven into the fabric of American life. So any gun control proposals – even minimal ones or those directed at reducing the shootings of young people – will meet with rancorous resistance, particularly by those with a libertarian bent. Consider three such possible objections to gun control. Each is followed by responsive critique.First, imagine a devastating earthquake cuts food supplies to your part of the country and a small group of people have successfully managed to hide from the government (which had imposed a ban on guns) their private stash. These people then begin to go house to house looting the food supplies that you and your neighbors have managed to keep for themselves. Neighbors with guns might choose to protect their food supply if the alternative was that they and their young children might otherwise starve to death.
A child holding a toy gun at a wedding.
Some suggest that gun violence inheres in our societal DNA. After all, ours was a country baptized in armed revolt; moreover, we could not have tamed a continental wilderness without guns. Credit: CreativeCommons / Melinda.
Any such doomsday-like scenario offered presents the classic “return to a state of nature.” Civilized society and government no longer exist among the small group remaining. The overarching imperative is to survive – if necessary by wits and weapons.
But such a profoundly implausible state of affairs and commensurate values that obtain in the scenario are not comparable to the most advanced society in history and a population of 310 million. They could not, therefore, be the basis for value-setting. For example, one would not ask whether hunting was immoral if there were no alternative ways of providing protein to the human diet.
A second scenario: following a political victory, a conservative majority decides that it has the right to ban certain forms of dissent and a conservative Supreme Court backs them up. A civil war bursts out, but only the right-wing government has arms at its disposal. Some would argue that the Second Amendment was concerned to prevent such a state of affairs by protecting a right to bear arms.
Yet this is clearly not the scenario that the Second Amendment was addressing. The overwhelming consensus is that The Framers’ concern was either or both of the following:
A) A return of the British, or
B) A fear that the new U.S. central government would constrict the rights of the new states in a loosely allied confederation. That is why The Second Amendment references a “free state,” not a free nation.
Third, if preserving life is the primary social objective, some would suggest that it makes more sense to ban private automobiles and insist instead on spending public funds to develop adequate public transportation. Guns, it could be argued, should not be singled out more than all the other ways that human beings hurt themselves, their families and each other.
Several responses present themselves. Unlike disease and war, we can substantially ameliorate the toll of child gun violence. And that toll is rising alarmingly.
There are many ways that we hurt ourselves and each other. But we are addressing most of them via government oversight. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, The Food and Drug Administration and The Consumer Product Safety Commission are three prominent examples of public remediation.
What could be more meritorious than a similar solicitude towards the ten thousand U.S. children victimized every year by gun violence?
Black Teenager Shot Dead By Madison Police
Posted on: March 7th, 2015 No Comments
Tagged with:madison police, police brutality on teenagers, police racism, police shoots, usa police
Friday March 6, Madison, Wisconsin: A 19-year-old African American teenager, Tony Terrell Robinson Jr. was shot by Madison police officer, whose identity hasn’t been revealed to media, yet.
The incident occurred around 6.30 p.m., when the police officer reacted to reports of a man jumping in and out of traffic and that the same man is responsible for battery that had been recently committed. Officer followed the suspect to the house where battery took place. After hearing a disturbance inside the house, he forced his way in and then shot the teenager dead.
Madison Police Chief Mike Koval said at a press conference that Robinson assaulted the police officer right after he came in to the house and that is why the officer shot him. Also, Koval noted that the suspect didn’t have any weapon on him.
Officer provided first aid, but it was too late.
Robinson graduated from Sun Prairie High School in 2014, and was about to attend Milwaukee Area Technical College to pursue a business degree. He was known for his reputation of “loving and caring young man”.
Right after the incident, protesters gathered at the scene of shooting. There was more than 100 people that were standing there to state the shooting was unjustified. The crowd was chanting “Who can you trust? Not the police!” and “Black lives matter!”. Later, they walked to City County Building and held a sit-in.
The family of teenager wasn’t allowed to see the body. Robinson’s grandma said: “I just want to hold him and tell him it’s OK. Go home to God. They told me he was evidence.”
@hawkeye10,
This is clearly a problem. Why can't people see that?
