The gun violence thread. Or someone(s) got shot.

[Teelie]

I figure we might as well combine them (there are so many so frequently) and just dedicate a single thread to people who shot, were shooting or in some way involved with guns that resulted in newsworthy attention.

It's almost always of the criminal nature but sometimes we will just have someone in an unfortunate situation where a gun goes off and it wasn't criminal. I think. We'll see. The news likes to post grisly gun incidents more than ones that are funny. And every so often we'll have a politician (Ted Cruz below) defend or and offend with a gun stance position in an effort to get voters on their side.

The intention is not about banning guns or the place to be arguing for banning guns or being pro guns because somehow more guns is the answer to every situation where a gun was involved.

If you want to argue about banning guns or for everyone and their grandmother's right to own an arsenal that would make Ted Nugent feel inadequate go create your own thread for it.

This is strictly about guns (and gun laws) in the news. For as long as something like this can last. Hopefully we'll make it a page or two before someone threatens to shoot up the thread.

And to start it off, let's go with the obvious: CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE CARRYING GUNS! Okay, so an exception to the general guidelines above but this one should not be in question. Kids and guns outside of very controlled situations is literally asking for this to happen.

Pro-gun activist is accidentally shot by 4-year-old son

A Florida woman known for a strong pro-gun stance was shot, accidentally, by her 4-year-old son, authorities said.

Jamie Gilt, 31, was taken to a hospital after the Tuesday shooting, and is believed to be in stable condition.

A Putnam County Sheriff's deputy was on patrol when he noticed a truck stopped partially in the travel lanes and a woman in the driver's seat motioning for help. The only other occupant in the vehicle was the boy, who was not harmed.

"She was sitting in the driver seat and he was in the back seat, behind her. He shot straight through. The bullet entered her lower back and exited through her abdominal area. It went through her and we recovered the round inside the vehicle. It was a .45 caliber (handgun)," Capt. Joseph Wells said.

Authorities said the firearm was legally owned by Gilt, who maintained a Facebook page entitled "Jamie Gilt for Gun Sense," where she regularly posted pro-gun positions. On her personal Facebook page, Gilt once bragged about her son: "Even my 4 year old gets jacked up to target shoot with the .22."

Both pages appeared to have been taken down by Wednesday afternoon.

Detectives have not yet been able to interview Gilt because of her medical condition.

Florida law makes it a misdemeanor for a person to store or leave a loaded firearm in such a way that a child could gain access to it.

Authorities said they won't make a decision on charges until they can speak with the woman.

CNN

Gunmen shoot up backyard cookout in Pennsylvania; 5 dead, 3 hospitalized

Another of today's gun-involved crimes. People got shot, no one knows who or why yet.

A backyard cookout turned into a bloodbath overnight in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania -- ending with five people dead, three others hospitalized and a manhunt for two suspected shooters.

Authorities are still trying to determine the identity of all the victims as well as those of the shooters in the borough just east of Pittsburgh.

"Right now, we are asking for anybody who heard or saw anything in the area ... to call (police)," Allegheny County police Lt. Andrew Schurman told reporters early Thursday. "We don't have a lot of details."

The first shots rang out from an alley behind a house in Wilkinsburg shortly before 11 p.m. Wednesday. Partygoers responded by trying to escape through the back of the house -- only to have someone open fire from a yard adjacent to the residence, according to police.

Jackie Johnson recalled hearing a constant rat-a-tat of about 30 gunshots.

"When I came out, people were screaming and running," the neighbor told CNN affiliate KDKA-TV. "And bodies were laying on the ... porch."

Police arrived to find four people -- three females and one male -- lying dead on the home's back porch. A fifth person, a woman, succumbed to her wounds at a nearby hospital.

Two wounded men were in critical condition and a woman was in stable condition Thursday morning at a hospital.

Ballistic tests indicate the pair thought to have shot them escaped on foot, with no details offered on where they went, how they knew the victims (if at all) or whether they eventually used a getaway car.

Investigators cordoned off the area around the home in Wilkinsburg, a borough of about 15,000 people.

In video of the shooting scene from CNN affiliate WPXI-TV, a woman approached the house and cried out, "I've lost my baby."

Another woman grappled to make sense not only of the carnage but also that it happened in her neighborhood.

"This street is always quiet," she told the TV station. "There's nothing but kids on this street."

Johnson similarly had trouble digesting what happened next door.

"People's lives taken like that, just on the drop of a hat," she told KDKA. "It's just insane.

"And it needs to stop. It has to stop."

CNN

Ted Cruz's no-compromise stance on guns

Ted Cruz thinks everything is a-okay with the existing gun laws and wants nothing to change.

See, not everything in here is going to be about someone getting shot with a gun.

Three days after a young man named Dylann Roof fatally shot nine people in a historic church in South Carolina—the latest in a string of gun massacres across the U.S.— Ted Cruz campaigned at a shooting range in Iowa.

Bold move for a politician? Perhaps.

But the decision reflects Cruz's deepening alliance with the powerful gun lobby and his effort to cast himself as an unapologetic warrior for the Second Amendment.

As Cruz presses forward with his argument that he is the only logical alternative to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, he is also driving home his record on gun-rights — an issue fundamental to his political persona and to the traditional Republican base. On the campaign trail, Cruz has sought to position himself as the only candidate whose support for the Second Amendment is genuine and long-standing, dismissing Trump and others as late to the fight and looking to score political points.

A CNN review of speeches, interviews and court filings shows that Cruz has spent years forging ties with defenders of the Second Amendment — including a group to the right of the NRA. Some of those he's allied himself with disdain all gun control, including gun-free zones at schools and other government buildings. Cruz has embraced those relationships as an aspect of his candidacy that sets himself apart from his rivals.

The Republican candidates will gather Thursday night at CNN's debate in Miami. Last week during the Fox GOP debate in Detroit, Cruz blasted Trump for his earlier support of an assault weapons ban. Cruz told voters that the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia left gun rights advocates "one vote away" from the effective erasure of the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights.

"If you care about the Second Amendment, then you need to ask who on this stage do you know will appoint principled constitutionalists to the court and not cut a deal with your Second Amendment rights?" Cruz said.

Throughout the primary process, Cruz has touted his endorsement by the Gun Owners of America, a gun-rights group that boasts a "no compromise" stance on gun control.

In an election season that has defied all odds, the gun-rights debate has not followed a predictable path in the primaries. And while Cruz has worked to establish his Second Amendment bona fides, some establishment figures in the Republican Party see this alliance as one of the most serious problems he would face in broadening his appeal if he reaches the general election.

"This is a group that could be portrayed as extreme, and off in a ditch," said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a former 2016 presidential candidate who has tangled with Cruz in the Senate but now sees him as a preferable alternative to Trump. "Anybody they endorse will have to carry those bags."

The Cruz campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story.

The group's executive director, Larry Pratt, opposes all gun control and sees massacres like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School as evidence of the need for more, not fewer weapons in America.

Pratt has little tolerance for those who oppose his views, including the President and members of Congress. He said "it's kind of a good thing" that politicians who favor gun control are in fear of being assassinated or deposed.

"That's what the Second Amendment is," Pratt said, "It's a warning."

'You're one of us'

Cruz, an Ivy League-educated attorney who memorized the U.S. Constitution as a high school student, has long been a vocal defender of the Second Amendment and its guarantee of the right to bear arms.

But as his political star has risen, the candidate has cast himself not just a philosophical defender of the Second Amendment, but someone who actively exercises his right to bear arms. Cruz has fashioned himself as gun-toting Texan who keeps a .357 at his bedside for protection, hunts pheasant with a shotgun and gets a charge out of letting loose with a "full auto" machine gun every now and then -- as he did on the campaign trail in New Hampshire last year.

He told voters in Iowa that one of the most amazing experiences on the trail was a duck hunting excursion with the gray-bearded patriarch of the A&E reality show "Duck Dynasty," who later endorsed him.

Cruz and Phil Robertson, both dressed in camouflage and covered in face paint, filmed a campaign ad while huddled in a duck blind, shotguns in hand

"You're one of us, my man," Robertson told Cruz.

Pratt, the GOA executive director, shared that sentiment regarding Cruz's support for his group's agenda.

"We've got a real hero that's ridden into town from Texas," Pratt said shortly after Cruz's election to the Senate in 2012.

"I'm so happy that we made a major effort to support his campaign," Pratt continued. "I'm certain that he's not going to disappoint us. This guy is the real deal."

Pratt echoed that in a recent telephone interview with CNN. "What we saw is what we got," Pratt said. "He keeps his word."

Cruz has repeatedly returned to the notion that he alone has the record to back up his primary rhetoric on the Second Amendment.

"Everyone is going to say they support the Second Amendment -- unless you are clinically insane that's what you say in a primary," Cruz said during a January GOP Fox Business Network debate in South Carolina. "But the voters are savvier than that," he said, touting his "proven record fighting to defend the Second Amendment."

Cruz went on to tout his role in blocking President Obama's effort to advance gun control legislation after 20 children and six adults were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre -- a moment that a super PAC supporting his campaign highlighted in an ad.

"There's a reason when Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer came after our right to keep and bear arms, that I led the opposition," Cruz said in the debate. "Along with millions of Americans, we defeated that gun control legislation. I would note that the other individuals on this stage were nowhere to be found in that fight."

Most candidates would shy away from citing a massacre involving first-graders, but that has never been Cruz's style regarding Second Amendment matters.

Tim Macy, Chairman of the Board of Gun Owners of America who has campaigned for Cruz this year, credited Cruz with stopping that legislation, along with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

"They devised a plan to slow things down over that three-day holiday to allow us, the NRA, other gun organizations to alert their members to call in and absolutely bury the United States Senate phone lines, email access and everything else with the threat of 'You're going to lose all your races if you do this,'" Macy said.

"At the end of the three-day weekend, even the Republicans in the U.S. Senate who were saying 'We've got to cave on something' -- all of a sudden their backbones turned into titanium," Macy said. "They all said 'No,' and we killed that bill."

CNN

Look, the man goes on and on about his stance, he indirectly tries to somehow involve Christianity in defense of guns and I'd need two posts just for the story on his defense alone. Click the link above if you want to read the entire thing. Be warned, you will board the crazy train if you continue reading it.

 

[terry78]

Yeah, it's idiotic. I am sadly unfazed living here in Gary, as every other day someone is getting shot, mostly due to gang turf wars and what not.

 

[Teelie]

Escaped Mississippi murder suspect killed by family he held hostage

In a twist from the normal, a hostage taker was killed by his own hostages with a gun.

A murder suspect who escaped from a Mississippi jail was shot dead by a family he held hostage for several hours inside their home Thursday, police said.

After more than a week on the lam, Rafael Arnez McCloud was found dead in the bathtub of a home in Vicksburg, Mississippi, according to investigators.

The homeowner told police a man with a knife, later identified as McCloud, approached him around 4 a.m. Thursday as he and his 5-year-old son headed into the garage. The man forced his way into the home, according to the homeowner.

Hours later, the family used their own gun to fight back and escape.

Homeowner stabbed as he fought with suspect

A statement released by Vicksburg Police on Thursday evening gave details of the attack that ended with McCloud's death.

"According to the homeowner," police said, "he was bound in the bathroom by the suspect. The homeowner said he was able to free himself, fought with the suspect and sustained a stab wound to the back side of his shoulder."

The man, his wife and his child were held in the bathroom, police said. The situation turned when the wife was allowed to leave the bathroom at some point, police said.

"The wife returned with a handgun and fired one shot believing to strike McCloud. After the husband's bonds were cut by the wife, the husband took control of the weapon and fired additional shots striking McCloud," police said. "The family then ran outside and flagged a motorist and asked them to call 911."

When investigators arrived at the scene just after 7 a.m., they found McCloud in the tub with multiple gunshot wounds.

Suspect took jail employee hostage during escape

McCloud, 34, escaped last week after taking a jail employee hostage with a makeshift weapon, authorities have said.

Investigators warned they believed McCloud was armed and dangerous as they searched the area for him and offered a reward for his capture. Thursday morning they announced that the hunt for the fugitive had ended.

"This is certainly not the outcome that we wanted," Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said. "Our goal was to capture him safely and have him stand trial for the criminal charges he was in jail for. I am relieved that the family this morning was not injured more seriously than they were."

The husband was being treated for his injuries, which were not life-threatening, Pace said. The wife and child were not injured, authorities said.

The experience was "very traumatic" for the family, Vicksburg Police Capt. Sandra Williams said, adding that exhausted investigators who had been searching for McCloud are happy the hunt has come to an end.

"There's no telling how many lives were saved," she said.

Charged with capital murder

McCloud had been in custody on charges in the killing of 69-year-old Sharon Wilson, whose body was found in an abandoned hospital in late June, according to the Vicksburg Police Department.

She had been hit in the head and beaten.

Investigators have said McCloud admitted to kidnapping Wilson from her home and dumping her body in the grass behind the hospital.

He was charged with capital murder, sexual battery, rape, arson, home invasion, weapon possession by a felon, grand larceny auto theft and burglary in connection with the slaying. He pleaded not guilty in January.

CNN

 

[Handsome Rob]

Armed Invader Killed by Armed Resident

http://www.tennessean.com/story/new...e-police-investigate-fatal-shooting/81518432/

Ring (The Resident) told police he saw a man kicking in his back door. He retrieved his pistol and remained in the bedroom, police say. He said the light outside his bedroom came on just before the burglar opened the door. Ring saw Rodriguez (the Invader) and yelled at him to freeze. When Rodriguez reached for his waistband, Ring said he fired at him.

Rodriguez had a pistol in his right front pocket.

 

[Immortalfire]

Armed Invader Killed by Armed Resident

http://www.tennessean.com/story/new...e-police-investigate-fatal-shooting/81518432/

Rodriguez had a pistol in his right front pocket.

Good man.

 

[Teelie]

Three laws could cut US gun deaths by 90%, study says
Researchers analyze gun stats and state laws, but critics say links are weak.

This research does have flaws in it as the comments section in the originating article point out but it might be a step towards reducing the violence. Or it might have a minimal impact.

The problem here is no one knows just how much gun violence is from legal versus illegal gun ownership and would do nothing for illegal or straw purchases which are when someone legally buys a gun for someone who is legally unable to own one.

If the federal government enacted just three gun-control laws—requiring universal background checks for firearms, background checks for ammunition, and firearm identification—gun deaths could fall by as much as 90 percent according to a new study.

The study, published in the The Lancet, tried to tease apart the independent effects that 25 state gun control laws implemented in various states in 2009 had on firearm related deaths (including homicides and suicides) between 2008 and 2010. The analysis, led by researchers at Boston University, also took into account factors related to gun deaths such as unemployment rates and levels of gun ownership.

However, some skeptics of the study wonder if the limited data of just a few years and correlations are enough to draw definitive links. The authors themselves admit that impacts of gun legislation could take several years to unfold in the statistics. And various other factors influencing gun death rates—such as suicide prevention efforts, law enforcement implementation, and demographics—may also skew the analysis.

“I'm generally skeptical of cross-sectional studies of association,” Garen Wintemute, an emergency physician who studies violence prevention at UC Davis, told the Los Angeles Times. “Evidence from such studies is not considered to be strong.”

In a commentary published alongside the study in The Lancet, the Harvard School of Public Health's David Hemenway echoed the concern, noting the impressive claim of a 90 percent reduction with just three laws. “That result is too large—if only firearm suicide and firearm homicide could be reduced so easily,” he wrote.

Still, the authors defend their analysis and emphasize that the study highlights the need to focus on gun control measures that definitively work at reducing gun-related deaths. Currently in the US, guns kill about 90 people every day.

"This study is the first big step to figure out which of all the gun laws seem to be effective," Bindu Kalesan, a quantitative social researcher at Boston University and lead author of the study, told CNN.

Overall, the researchers found that nine laws linked to increases in gun deaths, nine associated with decreases, and the remaining seven had inconclusive effects.

According to the study, the nine laws associated with increased gun deaths included:

requirement for the dealer to report records to the state for retention, allowing police inspection of stores, limiting the number of firearms purchased, a 3-day limit for a background-checks extension, background checks or permits during gun shows in states without universal background-check requirement (ie, closure of the gun show loophole), integrated or external or standard locks on firearms, a ban or restrictions placed on assault weapons, law enforcement discretion permitted when issuing concealed-carry permits, and stand-your-ground.

The nine associated with decreased gun deaths were:

state license to sell firearms, keeping and retaining of sales records, at least one store security precaution, firearm identification [either microstamping or ballistic fingerprinting], reporting of lost or stolen firearms, universal background checks for all firearms, safety training or testing requirement to purchase firearms, law enforcement involvement in obtaining of permits, and background checks for the purchase of ammunition.

Ars Technica

 

[Victarion]

Biggest pro-tip when it comes to guns: don't point them at something you don't want to see destroyed.

 

[Handsome Rob]

Man Eating Whataburger Shoots Armed Robber

http://www.fox4news.com/news/109177587-story

Two armed robbers picked the wrong victim in northwest Dallas.

Police said they approached a man eating his dinner in the parking lot of Whataburger at Inwood Road and Lemmon Avenue and tried to rob him around 1 a.m. Thursday morning.

The man was an off-duty, but armed security guard. He shot and killed one of the robbers. The other ran away.

Police have since detained a man who is possibly the second suspect. He is being questioned by investigators.

The dead suspect’s identity has not yet been released. Police said he did have a pistol.

 

[Teelie]

Don't try and steal a man's Whataburger burger.

 

[Erzengel]

Boo got shot.

 

[Immortalfire]

Man Eating Whataburger Shoots Armed Robber

http://www.fox4news.com/news/109177587-story

Trying to rob a man in Texas, who is eating Whataburger. Yeah, great idea.

 

[Teelie]

7-Eleven customer shoots, kills hatchet-wielding attacker

Bringing a knife hatchet to a gun fight is a mistake.

A customer drinking coffee at a Seattle 7-Eleven Sunday morning drew a pistol and shot dead a hatchet-wielding man who went after him and the store clerk, authorities said.

Investigators haven't yet identified the suspect, who's believed to be in his 40s and was wearing a mask when he entered the store early Sunday, the King County Sheriff's Office said.

"The suspect did not make any statements but swung the hatchet at the customer and then went behind the counter and attacked the clerk," the sheriff's office said.

Then, the customer fired back, according to the sheriff's office. Paramedics tried to resuscitate the suspect, authorities said, but he died at the scene.

The customer, a 60-year-old man, had a concealed pistol license, according to the sheriff's office. He was not injured.

The store's 58-year-old clerk had a minor injury to his stomach from the hatchet attack, the sheriff's office said.

CNN

 

[Teelie]

Chief: Shot that killed detective 'deliberately aimed' by another officer

Although it so far appears the officer who did the shooting did not know it was another officer he was targeting. This is also a reminder even trained police officers can make mistakes in a situation where you don't know who is the bad guy let alone untrained civilians who have no idea what is going on in a given situation.

The gunshot that struck a police officer in Maryland this week was "deliberately aimed at him by another police officer," a chief said Wednesday.

It was previously known that Officer First Class Jacai Colson had been killed by friendly fire.

"The shot that struck and killed Detective Colson was deliberately aimed at him by another police officer. It's another tragic dimension to this unfolding story," Prince George's County police Chief Hank Stawinski told reporters.

He stressed how chaotic the situation was and that he does not believe any malice was involved on the part of the officer who fired the weapon.

The chief stopped short of speculating what that officer may have believed about Colson in the moment.

Colson was in plain clothes with no bulletproof vest when he jumped out of his unmarked car Sunday to confront a gunman outside a police station. Three other officers returned fire.

"I do not believe for a second that a police officer intentionally fired at another police officer." Chief on #LODD pic.twitter.com/zxbYuEQJbq
— PGPDNEWS (@PGPDNews) March 16, 2016

"The environment was incredibly chaotic. We had officers under fire immediately, trying to seek cover," Stawinski said.

"There's no intention, as I have seen the facts and as they have been explained to me, to indicate any malice or anything along those lines."

Brothers recorded shooting

Michael Ford, 22, is accused of initiating the shootout with police. Authorities have said his brothers, Elijah and Malik Ford, watched and filmed as he used a .40-caliber handgun to open fire on officers outside the station, as well as at an ambulance and random people's cars.

Elijah, 18, and Malik Ford, 21, each face 10 charges, including first-degree assault, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder, said State's Attorney Angela Alsobrooks. Both are being held on no-bond status.

Michael Ford, who suffered what's believed to be nonlife-threatening injuries, faces 25 counts, Alsobrooks said. He is also being held without bond.

3 brothers in custody in ambush of police station, officer killed after gunman opens fire. https://t.co/JXI9Py56vn pic.twitter.com/CvQUPMvAmv
— PGPDNEWS (@PGPDNews) March 14, 2016

Michael Ford discussed with his brothers a plan to "engage police in a shootout," according to charging documents filed in district court. His brothers drove him in a red Honda Accord to an intersection near the police precinct, dropped him off so he could approach the precinct on foot, drove to a nearby side street and began recording the incident, the documents allege.

Soon after the shooting began, Michael Ford took cover behind a police van and police officers asked the brothers where he had gone, the complaint says. Malik Ford shouted back that he did not know, despite Michael Ford being visible, thus allowing Michael Ford to continue his attack, police say.

The entire incident was captured on cell phone and surveillance footage.

Officer was a 'hero'

Colson, a four-year veteran of the Prince George's County Police Department, would have celebrated his 29th birthday this week.

He was an undercover narcotics officer and fondly remembered by his friends and colleagues.

A new sign inside our District III Station as a memorial to Officer Colson and all our responding officers. pic.twitter.com/tziHc7mLbV
— PGPDNEWS (@PGPDNews) March 16, 2016

Colson was a "brother, friend, police officer, and a hero -- not only to the Prince George's County Police Department, but to every citizen in Prince George's County," Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 89 President John Teletchea said.

Teletchea said the Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, native was a personal friend, one with an infectious smile and tremendous personality.

"Jacai could light up a room. He lit up everybody's life he touched," Teletchea said Monday.

"He made a decision several years ago to make a difference in the world when he joined the Prince George's County Police Department. He made a difference every day he was here, and he made the difference and saved lives yesterday."

CNN

 

[Immortalfire]

Stop or granny will shoot!

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/05/0...truder-who-attacked-husband.html?intcmp=hpbt4

This 80-year-old great-granny got a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it.

Barb Moles shot and killed a home intruder who beat her husband with a crowbar and stabbed him with a knife. She now tells a local televison station she is “not just the typical granny.”

“You know, never in my whole life did I ever anticipate having to take another life -- especially at age 80,” Moles told KOMO-TV in Seattle, Wash., last week. “Give me a break here!”

This 80-year-old great-granny got a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it.

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Barb Moles shot and killed a home intruder who beat her husband with a crowbar and stabbed him with a knife. She now tells a local televison station she is “not just the typical granny.”

“You know, never in my whole life did I ever anticipate having to take another life -- especially at age 80,” Moles told KOMO-TV in Seattle, Wash., last week. “Give me a break here!”

Moles grabbed her gun, a .38-caliber pistol, when she saw her 75-year-old husband bleeding on the floor during a home invasion in their rural Sultan home around 8:30 p.m. on April 28.

Deputies said Steven Sheppard, 25, attacked Leland Moles after breaking into the couple’s home to steal drugs.

KOMO reported that when Sheppard encountered Barb Moles, he said one word: “Gun.”

Moles, a grandmother of eight and a great-grandmother of three, pulled the trigger four times. Three bullets hit the mark, KOMO reported.

“I was just intent upon stopping him,” she told the station. “I didn’t have any other thought in my head. I just knew I had to stop him.”

Q13 Fox reported that Sheppard was an ex-con who spent time in prison for robbery.

Leland Moles remains in a hospital where he is listed in stable condition, the station reported.

The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate Moles’ actions.

KOMO reported that the gun was a Christmas gift from her husband.

She said she wouldn’t hesitate to use it again.

“You know how mothers are with their kids,” she said. “That’s the way I am with my husband. I just protect his back. I’m not just the typical granny -- in case you haven’t noticed.”