This post borders on slander. I respectfully request you remove it.I politely said no and asked what exactly was the part which bordered on slander. No response.
Seventeen months after an 8-year-old Connecticut boy fatally shot himself with a machine gun provided at a Massachusetts gun range, the Westfield Sportsman's Club pleaded no contest today to a manslaughter charge and to furnishing a machine gun to a child.Besides Christopher's father who brought him to this sick event and was too far removed from the action to be of help, it came out later that the one responsible for supervising the boy was just a kid himself.
As part of a settlement in Springfield Superior Court, the club agreed to pay a $1,000 fine for the manslaughter charge and to pay $10,000 to two charities that work with children.
Christopher Bizilj of Ashford, Conn., died on Oct. 26, 2008, after losing control of a high-powered Uzi machine gun, which recoiled and fatally shot him in the head. The boy's father had brought him to a gun shooting event at the club.
The mother asked how it could have happened that it was an unlicensed 15-year-old boy, the son of one of the gun dealers sponsoring the event, who was in charge of supervising her son.So, just so no one can say the gun club and all the dads involved got off light, there was another legal consequence.
"How could [the gun dealer] think his 15-year-old son could possibly be mature enough and skilled enough to put a powerful automatic weapon in the hands of an 8-year-old boy? How could gun club range officers allow non-certified instructors to be in control?" she asked, adding, "It is hard to comprehend the extent of negligence that went on that afternoon."
"There will be no more automatic weapons at the Sportsman's Club. That's the condition I accept this plea," the judge said. "We cannot endure another case like this. This has shaken the conscience of the whole community."
If Cleveland had its way, every gun in the city would have to be registered, no one would carry a weapon openly and assault weapons would be banned.All three of those rules, however -- and there are others the city would like to impose -- run contrary to an Ohio gun law that took effect three years ago establishing one set of firearm rules for everyone from Lake Erie down to the Ohio River.
The city has had its tougher gun restrictions on hold ever since House Bill 347 passed while it has battled the state to a draw in court over whether the local rules are legal.
Now, the Ohio Supreme Court has decided it will hear the case to settle the dispute for once and for all. A lower court sided with the state, saying only federal and state codes could restrict firearms. But an appeals court backed the city, saying the state gun law is not "general law".
So, they're going to keep the one-gun-a-month restriction but allow folks to keep guns in cars. What's your opinion? Is that a safe thing to do?The Virginia Senate today approved two controversial House of Delegates gun bills that will allow permit holders to carry concealed handguns into bars and non-permit holders to conceal their firearms in cars.
House Bill 505 (bars) and House Bill 885 (cars) were essentially identical to two Senate-sponsored bills that had already passed the chamber and were approved by the House. All four bills now head to the desk of Gov. Bob McDonnell, who has indicated he will likely sign the legislation.
The Senate votes on the House bills were split, with several rural Democrats siding with Republicans. House Bill 505 passed 25-15, while House Bill 885 passed 24-16. Democrats hold a 22-18 majority in the 40-member Senate.
I read about this on Weer'd Beard's site yesterday. He's asked me not to link to him, so you'll have to find him yourself if you want to. I left a comment there which I don't know if he published. He may have adopted a commenting policy similar to mine which allows the deletion of comments containing personal attacks and name calling.In what was seen by some as a victory for law enforcement and advocates of gun control, the state’s highest court ruled that the Second Amendment does not restrict the right of Massachusetts to impose its own rules on gun ownership.
“We conclude that the legal obligation safely to secure firearms in [state law] is not unconstitutional,’’ Justice Ralph Gants wrote for the unanimous court.
The gunlock case involved Richard Runyan, a Billerica man facing prosecution for keeping a rifle under his bed without a trigger lock. Police in 2007 discovered the firearm as they investigated complaints that Runyan’s then-18-year-old developmentally disabled son was shooting a BB gun at a neighbor’s house.
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With a newly elected Republican governor, a fortified GOP majority in the House of Delegates, and sympathetic rural Democrats in the Senate, proponents of expanding gun rights and the death penalty entered the 2010 General Assembly session with an ambitious agenda.
Repeal the one-gun-a-month statute. Allow concealed guns in bars and in cars. Expand the death penalty to accomplices in capital murders. Prohibit public access to records of holders of concealed-handgun permits. Prohibit localities from requiring fingerprints to apply for concealed handguns. Change the restrictions on hunting near subdivisions.
The only obstacle was the Democrat-dominated 15-member Senate Courts of Justice Committee and its chairman -- a soft-spoken, stubborn, septuagenarian senator and noted civil-rights lawyer from Richmond, Sen. Henry L. Marsh III.
Marsh turned out to be carrying a big stick.
I understand the "against gun violence" part, but something like that "cemented his opposition to the death penalty?" Now that's unusual.In 1997, his 59-year-old brother, Richmond lawyer and substitute Judge Harold M. Marsh Sr., was fatally shot while stopped at a South Richmond traffic light.
The senator said the tragedy reaffirmed his stance against gun violence and cemented his opposition to the death penalty -- two positions he has advocated consistently on the Senate Courts of Justice Committee.
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That's a fascinating image isn't it? Getting up from a confrontative conversation with a remark like that. It makes you wonder how many gun owners go through their lives with that kind of seething anger just below the surface. What I don't understand is why do the ones who don't suffer from that, the great majority, get so defensive when I ask about it.Bond was set at $400,000 for Edgar Tillery, 60, of Portage, said Porter County Prosecutor Brian Gensel.
Tillery became upset Friday during a poor job review, in which a manager told him the public and co-workers had complained about him, according to court documents. The manager told him he had 90 days to improve his performance, according to a probable cause affidavit.
After Tillery refused to change his practices, the supervisor told him he should perhaps consider resigning, to which Tillery replied, "I have an answer to that in my car," court documents said.
Tillery, a Workforce Development auditor for 19 years, returned from his car with a shotgun and fired through the glass front door an office supervisor had locked behind Tillery, according to police. He fired a second shot inside the office as his 16 co-workers fled in all directions out the back door, police said. No one was hurt.
The Associated Press reports on an accidental shooting which happened in a classroom during history lesson.
BILLINGS, Mont. — The superintendent of a rural Montana school district says he was showing students his black powder muzzleloader when he accidentally fired the weapon into a classroom wall during a history lesson.
Dwain Haggard, who used to be a Civil War re-enactor, was showing the gun to five students in Reed Point High School's American history class Friday when it fired.
No one was injured, and Haggard says he can't explain how the weapon was loaded.
He says he usually fires a cap during the demonstration, but this time there was a loud bang and the room filled with smoke.
The ball shot through the "o" in the word "North" on a wall map.
Haggard says none of the students' parents was upset with him. He described the incident as "bitter irony" because he has tried to increase safety in the school district west of Billings.
Haggard says none of the students' parents was upset with him. He described the incident as "bitter irony" because he has tried to increase safety in the school district west of Billings.
What is it with these cops in the States? In the U.K. they take down a samurai warrior without firing a shot but in New York they kill people with toy guns?A cop responding to frantic 911 calls Monday shot and killed the son of a retired New York State lawman who witnesses said was waving an imitation pistol outside a Brooklyn school.
Some students were still milling around Public School 194 a half-hour after dismissal, when parents and residents said they saw the man brandishing the silver-and-black toy gun.
George D'Amato, 22, pointed the gun at the officer outside the Sheepshead Bay school and refused orders to drop it, police sources said. "[The officer] fired three times," one of the sources told the Daily News.
“It was utter chaos,” he said. “People were trying to get out, running over each other, losing shoes. I don’t blame them.”Guns are probably allowed in places that serve alcohol in Minnesota, so why didn't one of the other patrons put a stop to this? Why did it take a wild-west saloon scene like hitting the shooter over the head with a chair?When the shooting ended, Edward John Walberg, 40, was shot to death in the chair Jugovich had been sitting in earlier in the evening. Cale Steven Nelson, 29, was critically wounded after being shot in the stomach and Larry Vernon Elj, 38, was shot in the shoulder.
The alleged shooter, Jason Musburger, 47, a former Chisholm police officer, was subdued by patrons, including Ryan Simonson, who smashed a chair over Musburger’s head.
“It was heroic,” Jugovich said of Simonson’s actions. “If that didn’t happen, there was another gun and more people could have been injured or killed. He was very courageous.”
A man apparently angry over a poor performance evaluation entered an Ohio State University maintenance building early Tuesday and opened fire, killing a manager before turning the gun on himself, police said.Larry Wallington, 48, a building services manager at the OSU Maintenance Building, was pronounced dead at the scene of the 3:30 a.m. ET shooting, Ohio State University Police Chief Paul Denton said. Wallington was a 10-year university employee, he said.
Authorities found suspect Nathaniel Brown, 51, a custodial worker, suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot at the scene, Denton said. He was transported to the Ohio State University Medical Center, where he was dead on arrival.
Six officers suffered minor injuries in the incident on Friday.
Officers were called to West Hampstead after the man was seen with the weapon. They ordered the man to drop the sword and a violent struggle ensued.
Passers-by erupted into spontaneous applause after police seized both the sword and a kitchen knife. A man, 37, has been bailed until April.
Pc John Dunwell, of the Metropolitan Police, said: "Having risk-assessed the situation, I felt it was necessary to confront the man before he hurt himself, or someone else.
"He proved to be very strong and I'm just thankful to my colleagues for coming to my assistance so quickly."
Gun owners nationwide are applauding the patriotic, though accidental, exercise of Second Amendment rights by 8-year-old Timothy Cummings Tuesday.
"Timothy is a symbol of American heroism," said NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre from Cummings' bedside at Norfolk General Hospital, where the boy is in serious but stable condition from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. "While praying for his recovery, we should all thank God that his inalienable right to keep and bear arms has not been infringed."
Two separate groups went into the same area in Johnny Park, Colorado to do some target shooting. Neither knew the other group was there. One group, reportedly firing off an assault rifle, AK variant, unintentionally shot the other group. One person was shot in the abdomen and the other person was hit in the buttocks. Fortunately, neither was seriously injured.
Ohh shoot.
A 43-year-old man was shot to death early Sunday on Okeechobee Road, authorities said.
The shooting followed an argument between two men about 7:30 a.m. at Okeechobee Road and Northwest 117th Avenue.
One pulled a gun, fatally wounding the other, said Detective Javier Baez, a Miami-Dade police spokesman. The victim's name was not released.
Police were looking for the gunman, who they said drove away in a white pickup truck.
Flanked by several parents who had lost children to gun violence, Mayor Richard Daley on Monday called for new laws to restrict gun sales and stiffen penalties for criminals who use them.
Although Daley announces new gun-control initiatives every year, this year's announcement took on added significance because the U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether to overturn the city's handgun ban.
Daley backed changes to state law that would require background checks for those buying a gun in a private sale, ban assault weapons, require that gun dealers be licensed and limit the number of handgun purchases to one per person per month. Those were all ideas that failed in previous legislative sessions.
This time, the mayor also is asking the General Assembly to make it a Class 1 felony to knowingly sell a gun to a known gang member, stiffen penalties for unlawfully using a weapon and require "micro-stamping" of guns that make it easier to match weapons used in crimes.
"I was in the courtroom on Tuesday for the Supreme Court argument [PDF file] in McDonald v. City of Chicago, in which the Court is considering whether the new Second Amendment right, created two years ago in District of Columbia v. Heller, is incorporated under the Fourteenth Amendment as a constraint on state and local gun control laws. Unsurprisingly, the same five justices who formed the Heller majority and voted to strike down the District of Columbia's handgun ban, now seem poised to vote for incorporation and strike down Chicago's handgun ban. Although this will be hailed by the gun lobby as a victory, there was much about Tuesday's argument suggesting it could eventually prove to be a hollow victory indeed.
What's your opinion? Does it make sense what he says?
The argument in McDonald gives hope that the McDonald majority, even if it strikes down Chicago's handgun ban, will amplify the Heller message that the Second Amendment erects no constitutional barrier to reasonable laws – at any level of government - to make it harder for dangerous people to obtain dangerous weapons. The gun lobby will be displeased, but the American people will have dodged a constitutional bullet."
Is this a pro-gun way of describing the events? Are the words, "a gun he was looking at fired as it was being put away," supposed to minimize the involvement of the shooter? Isn't this similar to the criticism often expressed to gun control folks, that they fear inanimate objects and don't realize the gun is just a tool and the real problem is the person using it?A 19-year-old Chandler man was shot dead Saturday after a gun he was looking at fired as it was being put away, police said.
Mark Martinez went with a friend to Jose Sandoval's home in the 2200 west block of Butler Street in Chandler around noon Saturday, a Chandler police spokesman said.
Martinez asked Sandoval, 58, to see Sandoval's gun.
Sandoval agreed and showed it to Martinez and his friend- Sandoval's nephew, police said.
After displaying the gun, Sandoval was putting it back into the holster when the gun fired, striking Martinez in the chest, police said. Martinez was transported to a local hospital where he died.
A Chandler police spokesman said the department would submit allegations of negligent homicide to the County Attorney's Office for review.
MODESTO, Calif.—Prosecutors say the man behind the wheel of a car involved in a fatal drive-by shooting of a San Francisco man could get up to 140 years in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder and other charges Friday.To me it seems like a wildly excessive sentence for the shooter, since he was only 14. But the decision to charge and convict the driver for 1st degree murder is absurd. I'm all for shared responsibility, but this is something different.Stanislaus County Deputy District Attorney Brad Nix says 20-year-old Isidoro Mata could get even more time than the convicted shooter in the case.
Jurors needed only three hours to convict Mata for driving the car that carried the gunman who shot and killed 28-year-old Manuel Rayas at a child's birthday party in Modesto in June 2006.
Mata is due back in court April 23 for sentencing.
The gunman, Angel Cabanillas, was sentenced in October to 132 years to life in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder. Cabanillas was 14-years old at the time of the shooting.
If you're extra good in prison, you might earn yourself some Spork privileges. No more eating pudding with the folded up lid for you; you've earned the right to use utensils, son! But that's only if you keep your nose clean, stay out of trouble and generally go out of your way to make prison life more bearable for all. So how good do you have to be to earn gun-building rights? You can ask David Marshall Williams that question, he spent most of his prison time building, testing and refining new types of machine guns.
The parents of a 2-year-old Vacaville girl who was accidentally shot to death by her 8-year-old brother have been convicted of criminal charges, an attorney in the case said Friday.
Michael Shanahan, 28, and Daniela Shanahan, 26, could each face up to two years in prison in connection with the Sept. 23 death of Ayana Shanahan.
Michael Shanahan pleaded no contest Thursday in Solano County Superior Court to one count of unsafe storage of a firearm. Daniela Shanahan pleaded guilty to one count of child endangerment.
Prosecutors are seeking two-year prison terms when both are sentenced April 30. But defense attorneys will argue for probation on the grounds that the parents have already suffered enough, said Michael Shanahan's lawyer, Anthony Finkas.
"Obviously, they are devastated by what happened," Finkas said. "They're serving a life sentence based on their apparent negligence."
Ayana was shot once in the head at the family's home on the 1000 block of Syracuse Circle as her brother was playing with a handgun.
The boy did not think the gun was real, police said. The parents were home at the time.Michael Shanahan was an active Army reservist at the time of the shooting, and the gun that killed Ayana was one of numerous weapons in the home, authorities said.
The mother of a man charged with murder for shooting at a car and killing a 13-year-old girl says it was an accident. Richard Calderon, 24, appeared in court today. He is free on bond. Calderon is accused of crashing into and speeding away from the car Alexis Wiley was riding in on Wednesday.
"It's a tragedy that this accident happened," said Isbel Calderon, the suspect's mother. "If the the mother was in the car then she should know exactly what happened, it was an accident."
Linda Carty is the rarest of rarities. She's a British subject who once sang for the Prince of Wales. She's a principal in a film documentary. She's garnered massive international media, legal and political attention and support. She worked as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Agency. And she's a grandmother. This last notation is mentioned only because that makes her one of only a handful of grandmothers who have ever been scheduled to be executed in a capital case. Carty was convicted of a murder, that she denies committing.
She could be executed in or before June in Texas if the Supreme Court turns down her appeal. It's her last; every other court has rejected her plea for a new trial. The odds on paper that the high court will dump her death sentence are long. The Court considers only about one in 30 death penalty appeal cases.
The gender bias that riddles the death penalty as much as racial and class bias is a good thing in that it saves the lives of women. What's problematic is the rationale for saving their lives. Prosecutors regard women as less violent, less threatening and more emotionally unstable than men. If they kill and maim, they supposedly do it out of blind love or loyalty to a man. This reinforces the notion that women are the dainty sex in need of guidance, protection and, ultimately, male control. This strips them of any social and moral accountability for and control over their acts. It makes it even easier to marginalize women. Carty's case typifies that. Carty says that four men kidnapped the victim, a woman, in a murder for hire scheme and then murdered her. Witnesses back her story and have publicly declared that she is not a cold blooded murderer.
