Gun Violence 3: Thoughts and Prayers Continue to be Insufficient

[47of74]

The Dubuque, Iowa man who thought it'd be a great idea to joke about driving by a school with an assault rifle is now experiencing the found out part of fuck around and find out.

Quote

A Dubuque man was sentenced to five years in prison related to a Facebook post about driving by a school with a semiautomatic rifle, which he later said was a joke.

David J. Hanson Jr., 42, of Dubuque, was given the sentence Monday in Iowa District Court of Dubuque County after pleading guilty to a charge of threat of terrorism. A charge of failure to comply with the sex offender registry was dismissed as part of a plea deal.

“Formal probation is not appropriate,” Judge Monica Zrinyi Ackley said when ordering the sentence. “... We place our children in school every day thinking that they are going to be in a safe environment enveloped in love, confidence and safety. If not, what’s the point? All of us would home-school our children.

“It’s a terrible thing you did. Terrible.”

 

[CTRLZero]

6 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

A charge of failure to comply with the sex offender registry was dismissed as part of a plea deal.

Five years was quite the prison sentence for what he considered a “joke.”  Then I read this and bet there is a lot more to his story.  Probably a history of being a less than model citizen. 

[47of74]

30 minutes ago, CTRLZero said:

Five years was quite the prison sentence for what he considered a “joke.”  Then I read this and bet there is a lot more to his story.  Probably a history of being a less than model citizen. 

Correct.  As the story noted he's also on the sex offender registry for attempted assault with intent in 1999.  He was supposed to register all of his social media accounts with law enforcement but did not do so.  I think they didn't even know until the guy in New York reported the threat.  I'm not sure if he was convicted of a felony or misdemeanor in 1999 but in any event he's the type who shouldn't have firearms. 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

8 hours ago, 47of74 said:

The Dubuque, Iowa man who thought it'd be a great idea to joke about driving by a school with an assault rifle is now experiencing the found out part of fuck around and find out.

 

The finding out is my favorite phase of FAaFO!  I can’t with the “it was a JOKE” bullshit. I really hope the judge asked him to explain the joke. “Go ahead, we’ll wait. Jokes are supposed to be funny. I just have to know what I am missing because I don’t find it funny at all so go ahead, Tim the Tool Man Taylor*, help this humorless judge out and explain it.” 
 

I know the five years included weighing in his prior criminal history but I think it would have been justified even without a prior history. Don’t. Terrify. Schools. And. Staff. And. ESPECIALLY. Students.  Perhaps I am influenced because the Taquitos’ school had to be evacuated or go on lockdown/protective drill multiple times due to threats made on social media or called in. We live in a pretty “safe” area with a very low rate of violent crime, especially crimes involving firearms or explosives (the evacuations were due to bomb threats.) I am VERY grateful that the schools take all potential threats seriously rather than “wait and see” but having children text (not call in case it really is someone with a gun coming in) that they are on lockdown and being directed to go out windows so could I leave work and get them at (designated meeting spot) is terrifying.  Worse is getting texts from children on upper floors who cannot get out through windows. For some reason our school had a pocket of time where there were multiple incidents.

And I am probably influenced because a person on the fringes of my friend group has a child who was in the St. Louis school that was just victimized. I don’t know her well- we met through some mutual friends- but her FB post letting us know her daughter is safe but their whole family is shaken as well as asking for prayers for the young woman (a month away from 16) and the teacher her own daughter looks up to and sees as a big role model as well as the many who are injured and their families just tore me. I am not even close with this woman and am in no way appropriating her tragedy but as I face always cried over the murders in schools, this one hit me more because I have had the privilege of meeting her lovely and talented daughter so knowing she could have been hit but for the drills and quick actions of her teacher and all in her classroom just overcomes me. 
 

I apologize for the wall of text. I just don’t understand why anyone would be so sick to make such a FB post.

[47of74]

4 minutes ago, AlmostSavedAtTacoBell said:

The finding out is my favorite phase of FAaFO!  I can’t with the “it was a JOKE” bullshit. I really hope the judge asked him to explain the joke. “Go ahead, we’ll wait. Jokes are supposed to be funny. I just have to know what I am missing because I don’t find it funny at all so go ahead, Tim the Tool Man Taylor*, help this humorless judge out and explain it.” 
 

I know the five years included weighing in his prior criminal history but I think it would have been justified even without a prior history. Don’t. Terrify. Schools. And. Staff. And. ESPECIALLY. Students.  Perhaps I am influenced because the Taquitos’ school had to be evacuated or go on lockdown/protective drill multiple times due to threats made on social media or called in. We live in a pretty “safe” area with a very low rate of violent crime, especially crimes involving firearms or explosives (the evacuations were due to bomb threats.) I am VERY grateful that the schools take all potential threats seriously rather than “wait and see” but having children text (not call in case it really is someone with a gun coming in) that they are on lockdown and being directed to go out windows so could I leave work and get them at (designated meeting spot) is terrifying.  Worse is getting texts from children on upper floors who cannot get out through windows. For some reason our school had a pocket of time where there were multiple incidents.

And I am probably influenced because a person on the fringes of my friend group has a child who was in the St. Louis school that was just victimized. I don’t know her well- we met through some mutual friends- but her FB post letting us know her daughter is safe but their whole family is shaken as well as asking for prayers for the young woman (a month away from 16) and the teacher her own daughter looks up to and sees as a big role model as well as the many who are injured and their families just tore me. I am not even close with this woman and am in no way appropriating her tragedy but as I face always cried over the murders in schools, this one hit me more because I have had the privilege of meeting her lovely and talented daughter so knowing she could have been hit but for the drills and quick actions of her teacher and all in her classroom just overcomes me. 
 

I apologize for the wall of text. I just don’t understand why anyone would be so sick to make such a FB post.

No problem at all.  I am so fucking done with clowns like this so he got what he fucking deserved with this sentence.  I’m at the threaten or hurt my nieces don’t worry about the parents fucking worry about ME instead stage. 

[WiseGirl]

Once again. From the article "Across the country, at least 67 shootings have happened on school grounds so far this year."

Why is this okay/normalized in the US? Just ventin before I head off to my job....at a school.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/10/25/us/st-louis-school-shooting-tuesday/index.html

[EyesOpen]

There was a threat at my sons school last week… didn’t hear about it till yesterday. Good times. school communication sucks. I was nervous sending him… although the student is currently suspended… I asked him does he remember his Alice training. What will he do. He said I will hide or I will figure out a way to fight. I’m afraid they think this is some fortnight match that isn’t real.

[47of74]

Yeah this fucker is going away for a very long time.

 

 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

23 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Yeah this fucker is going away for a very long time.

 

 

Please indulge me. The absolute composure and control the loved ones of the victims showed is incredible and awe-inspiring. I’m sure the judge admonished the room that anyone who couldn’t keep their composure should leave before the sentences were read but even if they all thought they could stay quiet, it had to be a Herculean feat to keep that commitment when their own beloved was named, especially for those whose loved person died. I am so very moved and also truly heartbroken for them all. 17 dead, more almost dead, and he only has one life to give. Yes, it will be a life locked up and mostly regulated by rules and timetables but he will likely find a routine, become institutionalized, and find the loopholes and ways around the rules. It won’t be the lives we lead but it won’t be the hell the people who lost their loved ones lead or those who survived lead either. The families of the dead will have every holiday marred by an empty place; every year a “missed” birthday; every milestone of another’s life such as a wedding or birth of a child met with a silent whisper that the lost child will never marry or have a child; and there will always be that could have been, should have been, almost was. For the survivors, there will be the survivors’ guilt unfairly put on them; the physical and mental wounds that will maybe or maybe not heal; the decision how much to make the survival a part of their identities; and the constant replaying of the nightmare in their minds. 
 

The judge hit just the right note in my view. She was clearly emotional and trying to keep from letting it show too much. I appreciate that she didn’t totally go flat and stone cold but allowed her feelings and emotions to come through. I could feel she was genuinely torn up. 
 

As for the defendant- I could see the moment it registered that his life was going to be nothing but prison. I would like to say my empathic side won out but I couldn’t find anything in me to feel for him. Not even when he was crying as they were taking him out or when I read about his childhood/upbringing. I am sad for the child he was and what he suffered but the sympathy stops where he started shouting at innocent kids. 
 

Thanks to any of you who bore with my long post. I am just so exhausted and sickened we can’t do better in this country. Columbine should have been the end. But Sandy Hook should have definitely stopped it all. We need more of us to be louder. Thank you all who shout so loud and fight so hard for better gun control. We can’t make it happen if we don’t make a lot of noise. 

[47of74]

Probably an unpopular opinion but what the FUCK was Judge Scherer thinking doing this?

Quote

After the Parkland school shooter was formally sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without parole for murdering 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, the judge in the case controversially decided to hug members of the prosecution team.

As trial watchers can attest, Judge Elizabeth Scherer has dressed down members of Nikolas Cruz’s defense team numerous times during the penalty phase and sentencing proceedings. On one occasion, she ripped the defense for “unprofessionalism.”

Now legal observers, many of them defense lawyers, are saying much the same of Scherer’s decision to hug prosecutors. Many described Scherer’s actions as “inappropriate,” “inexcusably improper,” biased, unfair, and bizarre.

Florida Code of Judicial Conduct says that a judge “shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety” in all of their activities.

To be brutally honest, I wasn't comfortable with some of her behavior towards the defense team.  Yeah the defense team didn't score too many points with me with their behavior but it just seemed like she was spoiling for a fight.  If I was practicing in Florida I'd be questioning her ability to be fair and impartial in any case.

If I had passed last year I'd probably be doing some defense work right now and if there was one thing impressed upon us in school is that everyone has a right to zealous representation.  Yeah I'd probably have to represent some awful people but I would do my fucking job and represent them to the best of my ability and my foot would be having an appointment with the hinder of anyone who got in my face about me doing my fucking job.  I remember one fucking asshole at church in 2016 who was going on about Mrs. Clinton doing the job the court ordered her to do in representing a rapist while dismissing what fuck face said as "locker room talk" and I was pretty much either he goes or I fucking do.  Fortunately that sack of shit left the church because the pastor and other church members didn't fall down and worship fuck face to his satisfaction.

[47of74]

Cedar Rapids area agencies thought they needed to do this

Quote

The Cedar Rapids Police and Fire Department along with the Linn County Sheriff’s Office and the US Marshall’s Office held an active threat drill at Kirkwood Community College on Tuesday morning.

The drill simulates an active threat, like a mass shooting, for law enforcement to practice procedures and operations during an emergency situation. According to FBI data, the number of active shooter incidents in the United States increased by 52.5% increase from 2020 to 2021.

Charlie Fields, who is the Special Operations Lieutenant for the Cedar Rapids Police Department, said the increase in active shooting incidents makes these drills important for law enforcement to practice. He said the department is lucky to perform this drill once a year, but does smaller drills related to active shootings more often.

“We only have so much manpower, budget,” Fields said. “Trainings are great to have, but we can train this every day in small scales, when I start thinking about it and doing the mental prep ahead of time,” Fields said.

Yeah it’s good they decided to train for this. What I don’t fucking like is that they felt they had no choice cause fuck knob’s party won’t do a goddamn fucking thing about guns. 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

On 11/15/2022 at 6:53 PM, 47of74 said:

Cedar Rapids area agencies thought they needed to do this

Yeah it’s good they decided to train for this. What I don’t fucking like is that they felt they had no choice cause fuck knob’s party won’t do a goddamn fucking thing about guns. 

A Trumper I forgot was still on my FB “friends” recently posted about her kindergarten grandchild going through active shooter drills at school. Because the kids are so young, the drill was given a name to go with the school mascot (think “Wall off the Wildcats” or “Lay Low Lions”) .I posted a comment reminding her that our kids went through those same drills. She responded that she was surprised there were still these drills after the Trump years. I private messaged her including links to Trump-era rollbacks and/or refusal to extend gun safety and control legislation as well as R blocks of legislation that would at least hinder/slow down potential school shooters and other potential mass murderer as well as those at risk to kill family/close friends/people in current or past relationships. Her response despite my many peer-reviewed research studies and papers was “That’s your opinion.” No, Kelly, it’s not my opinion. It’s the view of several experts who studied these mass murders and other murders and the killers at length and found significant commonalities. It’s this thing called research. 

[noseybutt]

On 11/8/2022 at 5:58 PM, 47of74 said:

Probably an unpopular opinion but what the FUCK was Judge Scherer thinking doing this?

To be brutally honest, I wasn't comfortable with some of her behavior towards the defense team.  Yeah the defense team didn't score too many points with me with their behavior but it just seemed like she was spoiling for a fight.  If I was practicing in Florida I'd be questioning her ability to be fair and impartial in any case.

If I had passed last year I'd probably be doing some defense work right now and if there was one thing impressed upon us in school is that everyone has a right to zealous representation.  Yeah I'd probably have to represent some awful people but I would do my fucking job and represent them to the best of my ability and my foot would be having an appointment with the hinder of anyone who got in my face about me doing my fucking job.  I remember one fucking asshole at church in 2016 who was going on about Mrs. Clinton doing the job the court ordered her to do in representing a rapist while dismissing what fuck face said as "locker room talk" and I was pretty much either he goes or I fucking do.  Fortunately that sack of shit left the church because the pastor and other church members didn't fall down and worship fuck face to his satisfaction.

Re-election, maybe? She will go down as the one who sentenced him to LWOP versus death, and maybe she wanting to distance herself from that?

I only watched snippets of the trial and agree judge did not seem to strive for impartiality. I wondered if she had personal connections to the DAs office.

IME public defender death penalty teams often have poor boundaries with defendant plus they take nonstop heat for doing their actual job and that can make for strange optics to outsiders.

 

 

 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

Well, it was at least two good guys without guns who stopped more people being shot:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/20/us/colorado-springs-shooting-gay-nightclub/index.html

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[libgirl2]

On 11/20/2022 at 12:24 PM, AlmostSavedAtTacoBell said:

Well, it was at least two good guys without guns who stopped more people being shot:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/20/us/colorado-springs-shooting-gay-nightclub/index.html

I heard this morning that Mr. Fierro had some drag queens beat the shooter with their heels. I don't know if it is true but it sounds damned good to me. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Howl]

3 hours ago, libgirl2 said:

I heard this morning that Mr. Fierro had some drag queens beat the shooter with their heels.

Not a drag queen, rather a trans person.  This was clarified by a person who had been on the scene at the time of the shooting.  But yes, high heel to the face. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

DAMMIT!

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/22/us/chesapeake-virginia-walmart-shooting/index.html
 

 

[Xan]

6 hours ago, AlmostSavedAtTacoBell said:

DAMMIT!

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/22/us/chesapeake-virginia-walmart-shooting/index.html
 

 

As awful as this is (and it is really awful), incidents like this might help us get some better gun laws.  The extreme right wing doesn't care if you shoot up an LGBTQ bar or a Jewish temple.  They don't even seem to care if it's a school.  They do start to care more when it's a place like Walmart.

[libgirl2]

7 hours ago, AlmostSavedAtTacoBell said:

DAMMIT!

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/22/us/chesapeake-virginia-walmart-shooting/index.html
 

 

The news is saying the shooter was an employee possibly a manager. 

[Loveday]

7 hours ago, AlmostSavedAtTacoBell said:

DAMMIT!

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/22/us/chesapeake-virginia-walmart-shooting/index.html
 

 

This is my Walmart. Or one of them. I go either to this one, and the Sam's Club right next to it, or the one that's about the same distance away (3 or 4 miles) but in the other direction. I saw this late last night when all they were saying was 'multiple fatalities,' which could mean 2 or 22 or an other number, and woke up this morning to 7 dead. I want to say it's just unbelievable, but it's not anymoe, is it? All too damned believable, unfortunately. 😢 🤬

49 minutes ago, Xan said:

As awful as this is (and it is really awful), incidents like this might help us get some better gun laws.  The extreme right wing doesn't care if you shoot up an LGBTQ bar or a Jewish temple.  They don't even seem to care if it's a school.  They do start to care more when it's a place like Walmart.

Or a grocery store frequented mostly by the black community. They didn't really care about that one, either. But this Walmart is in a pretty right wing, conservative, majority white community, so maybe--just maybe--THIS shooting will propel us at least a little further along towards better gun laws. I'm not holding my breath, though. My benchmarks are Sandy Hook and Uvalde. If nothing changed after all those little ones were so brutally slaughtered, then I'm afraid nothing will EVER change. 😢 

[libgirl2]

15 minutes ago, Loveday said:

This is my Walmart. Or one of them. I go either to this one, and the Sam's Club right next to it, or the one that's about the same distance away (3 or 4 miles) but in the other direction. I saw this late last night when all they were saying was 'multiple fatalities,' which could mean 2 or 22 or an other number, and woke up this morning to 7 dead. I want to say it's just unbelievable, but it's not anymoe, is it? All too damned believable, unfortunately. 😢 🤬

Or a grocery store frequented mostly by the black community. They didn't really care about that one, either. But this Walmart is in a pretty right wing, conservative, majority white community, so maybe--just maybe--THIS shooting will propel us at least a little further along towards better gun laws. I'm not holding my breath, though. My benchmarks are Sandy Hook and Uvalde. If nothing changed after all those little ones were so brutally slaughtered, then I'm afraid nothing will EVER change. 😢 

On the news this morning, they were talking to an employee who seemed to infer that people had issues with this employee/manager. 

[Emma]

According to cnn, governor Youngkin called this “a stark reality”

SERIOUSLY?

 He called a mass shooting “STARK REALITY”

as if it’s something we have to live with?

When the hell are they going to DO something about too many guns?