Gun Crime in the USA ~ Shootings and Killings

[Rinzler]

At Least 4 Dead in Apparent Shooting and Carjacking Spree in Southern California

LOS ANGELES — A gunman is suspected of shooting and killing at least

three people before turning the gun on himself in a multicity shooting

and carjacking spree in Orange County early Tuesday morning.

 

 

One woman was found dead at a home in Ladera Ranch, a residential

community in central Orange County, at 5:20 a.m., said Jim Amormino, a

spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The suspect, a man in his 20s, fled the scene and drove a sport-utility

vehicle into Tustin, just north of the Ladera Ranch area. It is unclear

exactly what happened next, but the police in Tustin then received a

call of a carjacking with shots fired around 5:30 a.m. There was a

second call of another nearby carjacking and fatal shooting near another

freeway several minutes later. The suspect then apparently shot two

people in another carjacking nearby.

When police tried to stop the suspect, he shot and killed himself, the

authorities said. Neither the suspect, nor the victims, were identified.

The shootings shut down several stretches of freeways during the early

morning rush between Los Angeles and Orange County.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/us/shooting-spree-in-california.html?ref=us

 

And yet again the shooter kills himself.

[Tornado]

What the hell is a carjacking spree? When you steal a car so you can drive to a place to steal a different car?

 

 

I've never heard of such a thing before outside of GTA.

[Tornado]

Gregory Dale Lanier, from the US town of Frostproof in central

Florida, was driving his pickup truck on Saturday night when his dog

accidentally kicked the .380 lying on the floor.

The gun went off and shot the 35-year-old in the leg.

"Lanier said he heard a boom, saw smoke and felt a burning in his leg," a police spokesman told Highlands Today.

Mr Lanier, who was not seriously injured, told police he did not realise the gun was loaded.

The dog was not detained.

 

 

Linky.

 

 

Do you see what happens people? Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the alps kick your dog off the furniture when you get home from work?

 

 

 

And *blah blah serious comment about how the guy was stupid for leaving his gun loaded and "only in Florida" and etc.*

Edited February 27, 2013 by Tornado

[Patticus]

He was a bit of a massive thicko for leaving the safety off of a loaded gun, and then just leaving it lying around.

 

I won't go into details about what might've happened if the truck got stolen and the gun fell into a ne'erdowell's hands, but needless to say it could've been resulted in bad things, and badder feels.

[Your Vest Friend]

Yeah, no gun crime laws in the world would help him. 

[Nepenthe]

Reading that immediately reminded me of The Plague Dogs and how my young mind was not in any way prepared for

or the raucous sound that came with it. Fortunately this dumbass guy got off luckier than that.

[Candescence]

This is why you leave the safety on with guns and outright unload the gun if you don't need it, people.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I'm sorry, but that story just made me laugh...I know, I'm horrible.

[Stacy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21722377

 

In South Dakota Teachers are now allowed to arm themselves to the teeth to protect students if they want to.

 

Seriously I am only who thinks this a really bad idea what if a Teacher decides to keep a gun and a student manages to get a hold of it and shoot other students and even the teachers themselves.

 

If was a parent in South Dakota  I wouldn't feel safe leaving my child or children with a teacher that a firearm even if it was their safety.

 

The NRA will be rubbing their hands. 

[Patticus]

It won't be long now before an overly stressed teacher with an anger management problem and an unruly class just decides to just haul off and wipe out his whole class.

[Tornado]

Having waded through 2 months of people arguing about this exact thing on another forum, the biggest reaction I can think of is "meh." It's at least a functional compromise between hiring guards at schools when most school districts couldn't remotely afford to do so, and doing nothing at all about the issue.

 

That the immediate reaction to it in this thread is "what if a student gets a gun and starts shooting everyone" and "watch out for when that teacher snaps and starts shooting everyone" is even less surprising.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Tornado

[Patticus]

All it takes is one teacher or student to be pushed over the edge, and instead of having a lawsuit over a pupil being slapped or whatever, you've got a severe injury with intent to kill, manslaughter, murder, or several murders. Hell, it doesn't even need to be that, it could just be a careless teacher who forgot to put the safety on accidentally shooting themselves or someone unlucky enough to be in the bullet's path. I'd hardly call it an unreasonable concern when teaching can be a very stressful job to begin with.

[Tornado]

Two things:

 

The "gun being easily stolen from a teacher and used to shoot someone" concept is a theme from lazy cop movies. The teachers who would be carrying the guns wouldn't be using quickdraw holsters on belts with bandoliers built in so they could hold single action revolvers from the 1870s. Guns don't just go off when held in holsters, and teachers wouldn't be sticking guns down their pants like when Plaxico Burress shot himself in that nightclub a few years ago. Modern holsters look like this more often than not:

 

 

 

They aren't designed to let the gun be accessible by anyone but the person wearing them, meaning you can't just walk up and yank the gun out of it. To take it out from the holster without wearing it yourself you need to deliberately hold the holster with two hands, pull it out away from the person wearing it along the top to give yourself space to work in, and remove the strap holding the gun in place; and safety or not the gun explicitly cannot go off when it is in it, because the parts of the gun that shoot the bullet can't be moved. There are still quick-draw holsters, but it's silly to assume that the school won't mandate a certain type of holster (probably one made of hard plastics with at least a Level II release mechanism instead, like this) be used instead if they were to allow external carry. And all of that is assuming that the teachers would be using the extremely visible external hip holsters like police officers use instead of the far more likely concealed-carry holsters (which teachers have already been using in some states); which would make the gun completely inaccessible to anyone but the wearer unless the teacher was incapacitated and would make it so the students wouldn't know the teacher was armed in the first place.

 

 

And as far as "it's a stressful job so it's only a matter of time before something bad happens," how many examples are there of schools with armed security guards or police officers already there (which some schools, particularly those in inner cities, have had for decades now) shooting up said schools? How many examples are there of teachers "snapping" on the spot and attacking students with murderous intent at all, let alone ones armed (which they have been allowed to be in several states for a good while, including in Connecticut up until I *think* 1999)?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's not a perfect solution by any means, but the better ones aren't particularly feasible in most areas; and the typical alternative to those unfeasible ideas has always been for politicians to just say "schools need more security" and then not do anything about it.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Tornado

[Stacy]

Why do teachers in American schools need armed security? In our schools we have security its called a caretaker and he smells of bleach and old dusty cupboards and that's enough to scare anybody away! 

Edited March 9, 2013 by BW199148

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

And how easy is it to obtain a gun in your country?

[Patticus]

Anybody who asks around enough could get one illegally, I'm sure. Gun crime has risen over the past 15 years or so, and tackling it is a priority for police forces nationwide, but the bigger problem in the UK is knife crime, the tackling of which is an ongoing job.

 

Legally, it's not hard to get a gun, but it takes time as you'd be going through the police to apply for one. Its actually rather an interesting process, and I have to wonder if America might benefit from implementing a similar system?

 

To obtain a firearm certificate, the police must be convinced that a person has "good reason" to own each firearm, and that they can be trusted with it "without danger to the public safety or to the peace". Under Home Office guidelines, firearms licences are only issued if a person has legitimate sporting or work-related reasons for ownership. Since 1946, self-defence has not been considered a valid reason to own a firearm. The current licensing procedure involves: positive verification of identity, two referees of verifiable good character who have known the applicant for at least two years (and who may themselves be interviewed and/or investigated as part of the certification), approval of the application by the applicant's own family doctor, an inspection of the premises and cabinet where firearms will be kept and a face-to-face interview by a Firearms Enquiry Officer (FEO) also known as a Firearms Liaison Officer (FLO). A thorough background check of the applicant is then made by Special Branch on behalf of the firearms licensing department. Only when all these stages have been satisfactorily completed will a license be issued, which has to be renewed every 5 years.

[Stacy]

And how easy is it to obtain a gun in your country?

 

Not as easy as you can in the States. Other countries in the world people have legal access to firearms and they don't need armed security and police in schools maybe that's because they have better gun laws and a better understanding of the dangers of firearms. Maybe its because their politicians aren't bribed or blackmailed by a organisation know as the NRA. Maybe they see owning a gun as a privilege rather than a God given right.

 

We have shootings here three years ago there was a really bad one in Cumbria but not as near as frequent as the good old US Of A. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumbria_shootings

[Tani Coyote]

Alright the topic is about gun crime, so I think I can make this point of mine relevant. This is for crime in general, most of which make use of guns.

The most common crimes with repeat offenses are motor vehicle theft (78.8%), selling stolen property (77.4%), larceny (74.6%), robbery (70.2%), and selling, using or possessing illegal weapons (70.2%). These are the statistics for parolees, anyway.

The common trend here is almost all of these are financially-motivated. Our system makes it near impossible for convicts to find jobs, incentivising them to re-enter the criminal lifestyle as soon as they're out. With education supported primarily by property taxes, doors to better lives are closed to countless people in poor neighborhoods, also encouraging crime, especially as more unskilled labor is outsourced overseas.

We can see a lot of the United States' crime has an economic origin, which is really the greatest tragedy. With guns so readily available, many of these criminals will make use of them as well. Trying to reduce the availability of guns is addressing a symptom and not the cause; inclination towards crime altogether needs to be addressed.

We need better education, better social services, less harsh criminal justice. It will probably do wonders more to cut crime than any gun ban or regulation could ever do.

===

Of course, that only addresses the wider spectrum of crime. As for mass shootings (which lack an economic motivation), gun regulations probably would be useful in that department. Though finding ways to reduce stress in people's lives will probably help enormously. Instead of making weapons less dangerous for when people snap, aim for so they never snap at all.

Addressing such unprovoked murders really is a tough issue. We can clearly identify the cause of most robberies or money-related crime. What drives a man to kill his fellows with such little remorse?

[Stacy]

What about health care? Some people turn to crime because they can't afford to pay for their health care. It baffles me how Guns are considered a right while Healthcare is considered a privilege.

[Patticus]

Examining the roles of healthcare (and mental healthcare) in the context of being catalysts for gun crime, and doing whatever needs to be done to take it away as a source of people's desperation (and other reasons for committing crime), needs to be an important part of any effective anti-crime and anti-mass murder policy. The problem is, with the influence of insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry over half (or more) the members of Congress; it will be very difficult for the necessary changes to be made to the country's healthcare systems. For example, the US needs a single player system, but getting that would be even more of an impossible task than Obamacare itself ever was, even if Obama held both houses.

[Stacy]

Examining the roles of healthcare (and mental healthcare) in the context of being catalysts for gun crime, and doing whatever needs to be done to take it away as a source of people's desperation (and other reasons for committing crime), needs to be an important part of any effective anti-crime and anti-mass murder policy. The problem is, with the influence of insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry over half (or more) the members of Congress; it will be very difficult for the necessary changes to be made to the country's healthcare systems. For example, the US needs a single player system, but getting that would be even more of an impossible task than Obamacare itself ever was, even if Obama held both houses.

 

Problem with America is its controlled by big business, the gun industry and like you said the bloodsucking insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies pull Congresses strings.

 

When I went to the states last year and I was shocked at how much poverty their was. All the supermarkets had food schemes to help people in need it was very shocking. The world's most powerful country as a huge poverty problem.

Edited March 10, 2013 by BW199148

[Patticus]

That's what I'm saying - several critical parts of the solution to America's chronic gun crime problem are already being held hostage by the poisonous and corrupting influence of the country's largest and most influential industries and their lobbyists.

 

Their ability to legally bribe Congress to take their side will not disappear any time soon, sadly, which means that many of America's worst problems are also set to continue ad infinitum until some brave soul breaks the link between money and politics.

[Tani Coyote]

Food is generally more expensive in poor areas too. Vicious cycles...

 

What about health care? Some people turn to crime because they can't afford to pay for their health care. It baffles me how Guns are considered a right while Healthcare is considered a privilege.

 

Healthcare being the leading cause of bankruptcy and all the financial woes, and thus finance-related crimes, yes, it should be addressed as well as the others. Poverty needs alleviating.

 

The problem comes from the fact that when you help the poor it's "socialism." I wonder how many anti-UHC folk would be mad if they knew we used our military budget to fund UHC in Iraq. So let me get this right. The GOP higher ups, normally very good at putting US citizens above everyone else, would be fine with funding another country's healthcare system but not our own?

 

Seriously. Just what?

 

Examining the roles of healthcare (and mental healthcare) in the context of being catalysts for gun crime, and doing whatever needs to be done to take it away as a source of people's desperation (and other reasons for committing crime), needs to be an important part of any effective anti-crime and anti-mass murder policy. The problem is, with the influence of insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry over half (or more) the members of Congress; it will be very difficult for the necessary changes to be made to the country's healthcare systems. For example, the US needs a single player system, but getting that would be even more of an impossible task than Obamacare itself ever was, even if Obama held both houses.

 

Yes, it needs to be easier for people with mental issues to find care. It's just ungodly expensive many don't until it's too late.

 

It's assumed all shooters are malicious through and through. This is false. Many actually have serious mental issues that coupled with the availability of guns leads to a disaster. The University of Texas shooting was one of the deadliest in US history. Yet the perpetrator KNEW there was something wrong with him - he left a note asking doctors to examine his brain to see what made him go nuts. That's what's really scary. Had healthcare been more adequate he possibly could have avoided becoming the mass murderer he's known as today.

 

When Obama tries to strengthen federal laws so people with mental issues can't get firearms, he's planning to oppress the citizenry. When he tries to make it so insurance doesn't cost an arm and a leg, he's taking over the entire healthcare system. I don't know what's sadder, the misinformation or the amount of folk who swallow it because Hannity or Limbaugh barfed it up.

 

Conservative politicians often talk about the need to stop covering all the costs of education, as it encourages colleges to just increase their expenses. If this is true, why not the same for healthcare or crime? Instead of absorbing the costs as they grow, why not, I don't know, work to cut the costs? Subsidise research, give benefits to increase the supply of doctors, etc.

 

Instead every single measure that tries to better our society is chalked up as socialism.

 

In good news the ire towards more progressive programs will go away in a few decades once the legacy of the Cold War is fully gone. Good riddance. I'm gonna spit on its grave for holding us back for so long.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Ogilvie Maurice

[Badnik Mechanic]

================

 

Wanted: Teacher of Geography. St Mary's Roman Catholic school seeks out going and enthusiastic individual to teach children aged 8-10 Geography, both local and global.

 

Must be kind, approachable, patient and have at least 5 years experience with teaching children aged between 5-11.

 

Ideal candidate will have a recognised teaching degree and experience in handling small arms as well as high caliber assault rifles. Must have confidence and recognised certificates to use such weaponry in a frantic and chaotic environment. Must hold a full clean weapons license. Full and clean driving license is beneficial but not required.

 

================

 

.... So.... whilst I made up that job advert... does anyone else feel something has gone very very wrong if jobs for teaching will have to look like that in the future?

[Patticus]

Teachers should all have masters degrees in their chosen subjects, subsidized by the government, not be required to hold firearms licences just to teach kids.

 

If they must have firearms in class, then they should be made to receive the very best training to be granted a licence to carry on school grounds.