Gun Violence 4: It's Getting Worse

[Becky]

A hard look at the staggering numbers of guns and shooting deaths in the US, compared to the rest of the world, by the BBC:  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081

Between yet another mass shooting and the installation of a fundamentalist election denier as Speaker of the House, this is a bleak, bleak day in the USA.

[47of74]

2 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Another mass shooting, this time in Maine.

A bar and a bowling alley. 

I just heard about this myself.

Quote

A furious manhunt is underway after at least 16 people were killed and dozens injured in a mass shooting at a restaurant and a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine – with schools shuttered and people warned to stay indoors as more than 100 investigators and federal agents search for the killer, officials said.

Robert Card, 40, is being sought as a person of interest in the attacks, Lewiston police said around 11 p.m. ET Wednesday, adding he “should be considered armed and dangerous.”

Card is a certified firearms instructor and a member of the US Army Reserves, law enforcement officials in Maine told CNN. He had recently threatened to carry out a shooting at a National Guard facility in Saco, Maine, and reported mental health issues, including hearing voices, the officials said.

Some in the area are waking up Thursday to officers with long guns scouring their neighborhoods.

A supermarket chain closed all of its stores in Maine because the authorities had put out a shelter in place advisory.  The school districts in Portland, Lewiston, and a number of other districts in Maine closed down schools today.

Of course Republicans still won't want to do a fucking thing about this.

[47of74]

And of course when Republicans start spouting off about thoughts and prayers they should stick those thoughts and prayers where the sun doesn't shine.  

[libgirl2]

3 hours ago, 47of74 said:

And of course when Republicans start spouting off about thoughts and prayers they should stick those thoughts and prayers where the sun doesn't shine.  

She can't even spell the name of the town right. What a hypocritical moron. 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/lauren-boebert-misspells-maine-town-182632833.html

[apple1]

I have flipped between CNN and MSNBC on TV - one or both said that the shooter had a history of threatening to shoot up a National Guard post. Had a history of inpatient psych admission and a history of saying he heard voices in his head. Also supposedly was known to have multiple (I don't know how many is multiple) firearms.

ETA: Might have been Army Reserves instead of National Guard, not sure.

Edited October 26, 2023 by apple1

[zeebaneighba]

10 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Another mass shooting, this time in Maine.

A bar and a bowling alley. 

not mad at you, ozlsn, just the situation

[Ozlsn]

3 hours ago, zeebaneighba said:

not mad at you, ozlsn, just the situation

No problem, me too. I feel like by this stage it shouldn't shock and anger me so much, but that it takes this number of dead to hit the news here any more is just appalling.

The linked BBC article had a link to the CEO of a non-profit which tracks mass shootings in the USA and he said he used to remember the names and locations of the victims and now there are so many he just can't. Which is awful.

[Audrey2]

Please note that my thoughts are very dark and disturbing. That's why I put them under a spoiler.

Spoiler

You know how the Republicans love to spread the idiotic idea that Democrats will do abortions right up until the baby is born and even more ridiculously, post-birth abortions? I'm about ready to rebrand these mass shootings as post-birth abortions. The Republicans are totally fine with them because they get to use a gun to do that. I know they would hate the idea of being killed with a gun being labeled a post-birth abortion but at this point I'm so sick of these mass shootings that if we don't change the terminology they'll never stop.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[Ozlsn]

7 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

It annoys the hell out of me how consistently the conversation gets changed by people like Boebert because "you didn't get the terminology exactly right, you shouldn't have an opinion".

You don't actually need to know whether it's Armalite or Assault Rifle or Adult Rage that the AR stands for to talk about the need for regulation.

(Also Boebert of all people needs to STFU,  she doesn't understand her own workplace let alone anything more complex.)

[Xan]

I knew after Sandy Hook that the NRA and the GOP would never back down.  Now, it doesn't matter how many people get killed or where they are murdered.  If you won't change your policies to save school children, you won't change it for anything else.  Right to life, my ass.

[47of74]

That bastard has apparently been found dead. Good. 

Quote

The US Army reservist accused of killing 18 people and injuring 13 more in a shooting rampage across a small Maine city this week is dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, multiple sources tell CNN.

Robert Card, 40, was found dead in the woods near Lisbon, some 8 miles from Lewiston, where Wednesday’s shooting happened, the same sources said.

This follows a two-day manhunt that prompted shelter-in-place-orders and the shutdown of schools and businesses as law enforcement furiously pursued him after Wednesday’s attack at a bowling alley and a restaurant in Lewiston. The attack was the deadliest US mass shooting since last year’s massacre at a school in Uvalde, Texas.

Maine State Police plan to hold a news conference at 10 p.m. ET.

 

[47of74]

And the Maine National Guard tried to warn the police where he lived but nothing was done. 

Quote

The Maine National Guard asked local police to check on the reservist who killed 18 peopleafter a soldier became concerned he would “snap and commit a mass shooting,” according to information shared with CNN.

Officers from the Sagadahoc County and Kennebec County Sheriff’s Offices responded and tried to contact the man on September 16, less than six weeks before Wednesday’s massacres in a bowling alley and a bar, documents say, according to a law enforcement source.

The information obtained by CNN describes how the Sagadahoc County sergeant called for backup, tried without success to talk to the reservist and then received disturbing details from the Maine National Guard and the shooter’s family.

The responding sergeant from the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office was told “when [he] answers the door at his trailer, in the past he usually does so with a handgun in hand out of view from the person outside,” according to the source familiar with the welfare check report.

 

[Alisamer]

I just can't understand how anyone, no matter how pro-gun-rights they are, can think there is not a NEED for more limits on gun ownership. I know they trot out the old "if guns are illegal only criminals will have guns" trope, but the fact is that criminals often use stolen guns - and if there weren't tons of guns around to steal, the supply of guns to criminals would be reduced. The more people own guns legally, the more guns there are to be stolen by criminals to be used illegally. People can go on about protecting themselves and their home all they want, but the fact is most of the time homes are broken into when no one is home, and guns are one of the main items criminals are looking for to steal. Cars are broken into when no one is in them, and the criminals always look in the glove box. Why? Because that's a common place for people to keep guns. 

Since Lewiston, Maine there have been 13 other shootings involving 4 or more people killed or injured, including ones in North Carolina and in Tampa, Florida. (Those are links to news articles.) The gun violence archive keeps a list with links to news sources. 

It's simply ridiculous how many shootings there are in the US. 

[47of74]

The father of the Highland Park mass shooter pleaded guilty to reckless conduct charges. 

Quote

Robert Crimo Jr., the father of the man accused of killing seven people and wounding dozens more at the Highland Park, Illinois, 2022 Fourth of July parade, pleaded guilty to seven counts of misdemeanor reckless conduct as part of a deal with prosecutors as his bench trial was set to begin Monday.

Crimo Jr. had been set to face trial on seven felony counts of reckless conduct. As part of the deal reached with prosecutors, he will be on probation for two years, serve 60 days in jail, and complete 100 hours of community service. He is expected to report to jail to begin serving his sentence on November 15.

Prosecutors said Crimo Jr. was “criminally reckless” when he signed his son’s application for an Illinois Firearm Owners Identification card nearly three years before the massacre in Highland Park. The card is required for gun purchases in Illinois and people under 21 need a guardian to sign the application.

The article goes on to say the shooter had a history of mental instability. 

[47of74]

Someone who survived  Stoneman Douglas had more than enough

Quote

 Lane Murdock sometimes finds herself preemptively looking for emergency exits even though she now lives and studies in a country where mass shootings are rare.

More than five years after leading a national student walkout following the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the 21-year-old from Connecticut occasionally looks for open windows and other potential escape routes around her Scottish university campus.

“Most of America is still having to deal with daily mourning,” Murdock said of her native country, where nearly 1,500 children and teens have been killed by a gunfire so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

She added, “It makes me frustrated that the United States has stood by and watched young people be murdered.”

Times like this I'm glad my grandparents didn't live long enought to see this shit. 

[Ozlsn]

US breaks own record for most mass shootings in a single year.

A series of murders over the weekend have propelled the United States to a grisly new record: the most recorded mass shootings in a year.

Two attacks on Sunday occurring within a couple of hours of each other in Texas and Washington state were the year’s 37th and 38th mass shootings. Authorities believe a murder-suicide was responsible for the death of five family members in Vancouver, a suburb of Portland, Oregon, just across the border in Washington, while in Dallas a 21-year-old with a previous aggravated assault charge shot five people in a house, including a toddler.

--

Since then of course there's been another shooting in Las Vegas but only 3 dead so far, so not "mass" yet. 

This is appalling.

[Howl]

There was a rampage a few days ago here in Austin.  Guy killed his parents in the San Antonio area, then drove north to Austin and killed several more people and shot multiple others.  

Friends started posting "Safe from the shooting in south Austin"; turns out he shot a mountain biker in south Austin who was riding to the start of a group ride.  The mountain biker sustained a relatively minor injury - a through shot near his elbow that caused little damage -- he's a very very lucky guy.  After he was shot, he just kept pedaling as fast as possible with the guy chasing and firing at him and escaped. He was treated in the ER and released.  

[GreyhoundFan]

I think she should have received a longer sentence: "Mother of first-grader who shot Newport News teacher gets two-year sentence"

Quote

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Deja Taylor “abdicated most, if not all” of her responsibilities as a parent when her 6-year-old son got hold of her gun and used it to shoot a teacher at Richneck Elementary School in January, a judge told her Friday.

The failure was so fundamental that Newport News Circuit Court Judge Christopher Papile said he couldn’t accept the maximum six-month term called for in Taylor’s deal with prosecutors, in which she pleaded guilty to one count of felony child neglect. At her sentencing hearing, he told her he was going to give a stiffer punishment — two years in prison.

“A parent’s ultimate, overarching paramount responsibility is to keep their child safe, to protect their child, to keep them from bad influences, to keep them from dangerous situations, to keep them healthy and nurtured,” Papile said. “Ms. Taylor has abdicated most, if not all, of those responsibilities.”

He added: “I cannot diminish the severity of the way this child was raised and taken care of from the day he was born.”

Under Virginia law, in imposing sentences, judges are allowed to depart from the terms of plea agreements if they choose. Taylor pleaded guilty to the child neglect charge in August in exchange for prosecutors dropping a gun-related charge.

The sentencing brings to a close the criminal legal proceedings against Taylor, who is already serving a 21-month sentence on federal convictions related to owning the gun while using drugs and lying about her marijuana use during a background check for the purchase of the weapon. She was sentenced on those counts last month and will serve her state and federal terms consecutively.

Taylor, who appeared in court in a dark blue jail jumpsuit, never spoke at the sentencing. Her attorney pleaded for minimal incarceration, pointing to her significant substance abuse problems and saying she was the victim of domestic abuse.

Taylor’s son, who prosecutors say will not be charged in the case, took the handgun from his mother’s purse on top of a dresser, before stowing it in his backpack and taking it to his Newport News elementary school on Jan. 6, officials have said. He opened fire on his first-grade teacher, Abigail Zwerner, during class, severely injuring her.

The shooting captured national attention because of the age of the shooter and stirred anger in Newport News, where teachers and parents complained that the superintendent at the time and other school officials did too little to address violence on local campuses. The superintendent was ousted in the wake of the shooting.

Zwerner, who has undergone surgeries to repair damage to her hand and chest where the bullet struck her, testified at the sentencing Friday that the experience has had a searing emotional impact on her. She previously said she would not teach again.

Zwerner testified that she lost consciousness after being shot. Her left lung collapsed. Traces of the bullet are still in her hand and chest. Emergency responders worked to keep her alive.

“I was not sure whether it would be my final moment on Earth,” she testified.

She said her hand is still giving her trouble and she does not know whether it will return to normal. She has nightmares. She needs medication to sleep. She suffers from PTSD. And she has mounting bills from five surgeries.

“My life and once-cherished career have been turned completely upside down,” she said. “This would not have happened if not for the defendant’s actions or lack thereof.”

Travis White, one of two Newport News prosecutors who spoke during the hearing, focused on the 227 days that the child required inpatient treatment after the shooting.

“That is the effect of the neglect Deja Taylor inflicted on her child,” White said.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark S. Davis said during Taylor’s federal sentencing last month that Taylor had a “really troubling history leading up to this incident.”

Federal prosecutors alleged in filings that Taylor had fired the handgun used in the Richneck shooting about a month earlier during a dispute with the father of the 6-year-old. No one was hurt in the incident. Prosecutors also wrote that the 6-year-old had taken his mother’s car on two occasions, once crashing it.

They previously wrote in court filings that investigators found large amounts of marijuana in Taylor’s residences. She failed a handful of drug tests while awaiting sentencing in the federal case. Taylor’s grandfather now has custody of the 6-year-old and has said he is attending a new school.

Zwerner, 26, has filed a $40 million lawsuit against the former superintendent and officials at Richneck, accusing an assistant principal of ignoring multiple warnings that the boy had a gun on the day of the shooting. Ebony Parker, the assistant principal, resigned from her job and has not responded to requests for comment.

Last month, a Newport News judge ruled that Zwerner can proceed with her lawsuit and can collect more than workers’ compensation if she wins. The school district had hoped to limit any payout.

More charges are possible in the case.

A special grand jury empaneled by Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard E. Gwynn is still investigating any security lapses that led to the shooting. It’s unclear when the panel might finish the work that began in September and whether it will result in charges or simply a report about the shooting as is allowed under Virginia law.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

You couldn't make this up:

 

[Ozlsn]

On 12/16/2023 at 1:30 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

I think she should have received a longer sentence:

I got interested and looked up what the charges would likely be here. For not storing the firearm securely you are looking at 12 months jail. Ditto for the ammunition (must be stored separately, firearms must not be stored loaded). The child endangerment part is harder, but likely at least 12-24 months, probably the higher range due to the likely level of endangerment. As the child was 6 they would not be charged here, and I'm not sure whether the parent could be charged with the unlawful wounding/assault.

The things that made me saddest in that story were 1. the child being an inpatient for 227 days afterwards - that is a child who absolutely needed more than he was getting from either of his parents, and to get to that stage at age 6 is terrible and 2. the teacher saying she could never return to a career she'd loved. No one should ever have to be afraid of being shot in their place of work or learning.

[GreenBeans]

On 10/27/2023 at 11:36 PM, Ozlsn said:

You don't actually need to know whether it's Armalite or Assault Rifle or Adult Rage that the AR stands for to talk about the need for regulation.

It’s awful that this would be considered common knowledge at all. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard the term “AR” in the news here (Germany). That’s what gun control does.

[Ozlsn]

Some good news for a change - New gun safety laws take effect in states in the US.

New gun safety laws are taking effect in several states around the US on 1 January after the country ended 2023 with more mass shootings than days.

States including California, Illinois and Colorado are starting the year by implementing extreme risk protection orders, more commonly referred to as “red flag” laws, as a means to prevent further gun violence. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there were 655 mass shootings in the US in 2023.

[47of74]

There was a mass shooting in Iowa today;

Quote

Police in Perry, Iowa, say multiple people were shot at the city’s high school Thursday, early on students’ first day back in classes after their annual winter break.

Two gunshot victims were taken by ambulance to Iowa Methodist Medical Center in the state capital of Des Moines, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of Perry, a community of about 8,000 people. Dallas County Sheriff Adam Infante said the shooting occurred before school was set to start, so there were few students and faculty in Perry High School.

The suspect in the shooting has died of what investigators believe is a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to The AP on condition of anonymity.

Law enforcement is planning to hold another press conference with more details at around 3 p.m., and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds is expected to be there.

Of course Covid Kimmy had to make a Twitter post about this.  However it look like she got ratioed, with most replies telling her to stick her thoughts and prayers where the sun doesn't shine.

[Ozlsn]

More on that shooting: 6th grader, 17yo shooter dead.

Spoiler

One sixth-grade student is dead and five people are injured after a shooting at a high school in Perry, Iowa, on Thursday morning. Four of the injured victims are students at the school, and one is the school’s 56-year-old principal, authorities said.

The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation identified the gunman as 17-year-old Dylan Butler, a senior at Perry High School, who was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Before opening fire just before sunrise, officers said, Butler had posted videos on social media. Several students have been sharing one of Butler’s posts on TikTok, which features him facing the camera in front of a blue duffel bag with the caption: “Now we wait.” While police declined to comment on any specific post, several of Butler’s classmates confirmed to The Washington Post that he was the person in the video.

Police officers arrived at the scene “within minutes” and saw students and faculty sheltering in place and running for safety, said Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director at Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation. The entirety of the shooting took place before classes began but while a breakfast program was ongoing, which meant students attending other nearby schools were also present on campus at the time. The sixth-grade student that died attended Perry Middle School, Mortvedt said.

Officers secured the school and found an improvised explosive device, which they disposed of, and Butler’s weapons: a shotgun and a small-caliber handgun. Mortvedt declined to describe the makeshift bomb, but said it was “rudimentary.” Evidence suggests the gunman acted alone, Mortvedt said.

Authorities said that the shooter’s motives remain under investigation.

I. Just. Can't.