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Showing posts with label shooting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shooting. Show all posts

Monday, August 18, 2014

Reportedly shot multiple times in broad daylight with his hands up?

This explains the intense media coverage of it, no?


BREAKING NEWS



Governor calls in National Guard


An independent autopsy conducted for the Brown family says the teen was shot twice in the head and four times in the right arm, all to the front of his body. FULL STORY

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Who Gets Shot in the United States?

This is from a fascinating article in the New York Times. Here ...


This is from a journalist who, while writing for the Times, covered many, many, many shootings and killings. She then complied a report--called the Gun Report--where she summarizes what she learned in her time covering such incidents.


Very important stuff. READ IT!


This is portion of the article:


Before starting work on Gun Report, I had my own ideas about gun violence: Most of it probably resulted from gang activity, I assumed, along with the marital domestic shootings we so often read about.

More than 350 posts and 40,000 deaths later, here is what I learned.

Gang shootings are prevalent, especially in former hubs of industry now in economic decline in Ohio; the Flint/Tri-Cities region of Michigan; in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, Indiana; Newport News, Va.; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Carjackings and home invasions often appeared in my Google news searches. I was surprised to learn that suburbs were a magnet for gun violence, perhaps mirroring the housing implosion, which decimated the suburbs and propelled people to cities, where there are always jobs.

Not that nation’s largest cities are exempt: Miami, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Newark, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Dallas are notable examples. (Less so New York, possibly because of the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy, which was ruled unconstitutional.) Drive-by shootings still plague northern and southern California; Los Angeles, Fresno and the entire east side of the state are rife with gang activity. Tennessee, Alabama, and Missouri also frequently popped up in this regard.

What was also notable was where the shootings aren’t: Maine, Hawaii, Vermont, Wyoming, Montana, and New Hampshire were rarely mentioned in the report. Why? Weapons don’t easily flow into Hawaii, surrounded by the Pacific, and Montana and Wyoming are sparsely populated, mostly by experienced, rural gun owners. But homeowners in these states are also armed against home invaders, and as we saw in Montana in May, tragedy can result.

But while half of the shootings I featured were the result of a crime, the other half, I was most surprised to learn, resulted from arguments — often fueled by alcohol — among friends, neighbors, family members and romantic partners. More and more, people are solving their differences not with their fists but with guns. Husbands and wives are shooting each other, as are sisters and brothers. In many homes across America, loaded guns are easily accessible, and children find them, accidentally shooting themselves or each other. One hundred children died in unintentional shootings in the year after Newtown, which breaks down to two every week.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

From my friend Mary

My friend Mary today posted this on her Facebook page:

"The SCOTUS just sold out the U.S. and there was an 8.2 magnitude earthquake in Chile, yet CNN's top 'breaking news' story is STILL about a plane that crashed into the ocean weeks ago."

Amen.

Here is what she is talking about with the SCOTUS (US Supreme Court). Mark it down. April 2, 2014, the day democracy in America died.

Yet, the lead story on CNN was still about a missing plane.

Well, untill yet another shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. It is now CNN's lead story.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

More random, violent crime ...

... more shootings ...

The 12-year-old student who opened fire inside a crowded middle school gym with a shotgun may have warned some students not to go to school before the attack, police in New Mexico said. FULL STORY

Notice that in this story, CNN is again talking about "heroes," in line with that narrative commonly used in the media to frame these kinds of stories.

Just like CNN did in its story yesterday of the movie theater shooting, which is again on the front page:

Watch this video

Woman: He glared at me for texting

A few weeks before a texting dispute turned deadly at a Florida theater, the suspect had a run-in with another moviegoer, prosecutors say. FULL STORY
Again, "heroes..."

In that article, CNN reports:

"Sadly, theater violence is nothing new. Less than two years ago, an Aurora, Colorado, cineplex was the scene of a shooting massacre that left 12 people dead."

So there you have evidence of the process of linkage, where CNN links this shooting to that shooting, even though the two are not linked.


Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Random. Violent. Gun. Death. = News

Take a random act of violence with a gun that produces a death, and POOF!, you've got national news.

CNN has this story as its front page story today:


Watch this video

Texting man shot dead at movie

Witnesses say it started when Chad Oulsen, seen here with his wife in a Facebook photo, sent a text message to his daughter during previews at a Florida theater. It ended when another moviegoer, a retired police officer, shot him, police said. FULL STORY

Oh, and look, heroes, too!

Think of the major themes and narratives used by the media to depict these kinds of stories. This fits right in with them.

As for my reaction, well:

1) The movie company asks people NOT to text during movies ...
2) and the man who was murdered was texting during the movie ...
3) yet he did not deserve to die for that ...
4) although I've been in the same situation with a person texting in front of me ...
5) which is very distracting because of the flashing light that is created by this activity ...
6) and when you ask someone to stop he or she almost always ignores you or appears very put off by your request, as if you are the one doing something wrong.

And finally,

7) Who the hell brings a gun to a movie theater? ...
8) But then had there been a mass shooting there the very same man may have saved a lot of lives and been a hero ...
9) and states have created laws allowing people to carry guns pretty much anywhere they want so ...
10) this is the logical outcome of such laws.




Wednesday, September 5, 2012

If it is a gunman, he MUST be crazy

I heard this story coming into work this morning on NPR. It was about a shooting that occurred in Montreal, Quebec, where there is tension between Anglophones and Francophones. Yes, that's right, people who speak English (the minority) and people who speak French (the majority). Sigh.

But anyway, here is the developing story from Yahoo News:

"A masked gunman opened fire during a midnight victory rally for Quebec's new premier, killing one person and wounding another. The new premier, Pauline Marois of the separatist Parti Quebecois, was whisked off the stage by guards while giving her speech and uninjured.

"It was not clear if the gunman was trying to shoot Marois, whose party favors separation for the French-speaking province from Canada. Police identified the gunman only as a 62-year-old man, and were still questioning him Wednesday morning."

The speculation about the motive comes from things he reportedly said while being dragged away by the police. 

http://news.yahoo.com/gunman-kills-1-rally-quebec-premier-060908664.html

Getting back to what I heard on NPR, the reporter being interviewed from Canada speculated that the man was mentally ill or mentally unstable (this is also raised as a possible issue in the Yahoo News story). After all, what "sane" person shoots another human being?

But since mental illness runs in my family, and since I study this for a living, I know that that most mentally ill people are not violent and thus such characterizations of the mentally ill as crazy and dangerous is inaccurate, and it angers me.

In the book, it is shown that mental illness is often given by the media as a source of violence, even though it is not. On NPR this morning, the reporter from Canada said this shooting is likely due to mental illness, the work of a crazed gunman, because "in most shooting cases it is a crazy person who does it" (paraphrasing here).

First of all, I am not even sure that is true. But even if it is, it is also true that "in every case it is a person with a gun who does it."

So what is the real problem then? Mental illness or guns?



Monday, August 27, 2012

Who covers the war on drugs?

I was going to blog today about the story in New York City where the police shot 9 unarmed people in their effort to shoot and kill one armed man. The New York Times even ran it as a front page story, featuring a version of this shocking photo on their paper's first page:



There is so much here to discuss, touching upon many issues in the book.

But then I got a call today from the Huffington Post, and they are devoting coverage to the Republican National Convention starting tomorrow. One angle they are taking is policies that Republicans are not talking about (the "Shadow Convention" or something like that).

One of those policies is the drug war.

And guess who is being interviewed LIVE (web interview of course) alongside others including Mr. Michael Steele (former RNC Chairman)??? Yep, me!

Wow, live at 12:30pm tomorrow on http://live.huffingtonpost.com/

So tune in and you'll hear some serious people discussing a serious issue that is NOT being covered by most mainstream media outlets!



Tuesday, August 7, 2012

What exactly can be done about a "crazy" person with a gun?

In the past month, "crazy" people with guns have gone on shooting sprees, killing multiple people in each incident.

First was the movie theater shooting in Colorado that killed 12 people.

Then there was the massacre at the Sikh religious facility in Wisconsin that left seven dead.

In fact, in the past 30 years there have been at least 58 cases of mass murder with guns in the US. To be included in this list the event must meet these criteria:

  • The killings were carried out by a lone shooter. (Except in the case of the Columbine massacre and the Westside Middle School killings, both of which involved two shooters.)
  • The shootings happened during a single incident and in a public place. (Public, except in the case of a party at an apartment complex in Crandon, Wisconsin.) Crimes primarily related to armed robbery or gang activity are not included.
  • The shooter took the lives of at least four people. An FBI crime classification report identifies an individual as a mass murderer—as opposed to a spree killer or a serial killer—if he kills four or more people in a single incident (not including himself), and typically in a single location.
  • If the shooter died or was hurt from injuries sustained during the incident, he is included in the total victim count. (But we have excluded cases in which there were three fatalities and the shooter also died, per the previous criterion.)
  • We included six so-called "spree killings"—prominent cases that fit closely with our above criteria for mass murder, but in which the killings occurred in multiple locations over a short period of time.


In the Colorado shooting, the psychiatrist who treated the shooter James Holmes actually made contact with a University of Colorado police officer to express concerns about her patient's behavior several weeks before Holmes' alleged rampage, sources told ABC News.

The sources did not know what the officer approached by Dr. Lynne Fenton did with the information she passed along. They said, however, that the officer was recently interviewed, with an attorney present, by the Aurora Police Department as a part of the ongoing investigation of the shooting.

 Fenton would have had to have serious concerns to break confidentiality with her patient to reach out to the police officer or others, the sources said. Under Colorado law, a psychiatrist can legally breach a pledge of confidentiality with a patient if he or she becomes aware of a serious and imminent threat that their patient might cause harm to others. Psychiatrists can also breach confidentiality if a court has ordered them to do so. 

This raises an important question. If we have evidence that a person with a serious mental illness or brain disorder is talking about or even planning such a massacre, what can actually be done about it?

The answer is, it depends on the state. In some states, the police can take action and a person can be held against his or her will pending a mental health evaluation. In others, the person cannot be detained unless he or she is an immediate threat to himself or herself (or others) at that very moment.

This is a tough one. We'll always look back on cases like this one (and the Sikh shooting where the shooter was known to many groups and the US government as a threat and dangerous, hate-filled person ... and the Columbine killings where the shooters were known to be in serious trouble and the plot was known to many beforehand ... and ...) and we will speculate about what could have been done.

The news media will address the issue for weeks after every mass killing. And yet, nothing will ever be done. So get used to this happening again and again, year after year.

Monday, July 25, 2011

At least this murderous rampage did NOT occur in the US

You know as well as I do.

When a man loses it, he loses it in the US.

It is here that people tend to go on shooting sprees.

Sure, it happens elsewhere, but not like in the good ole, US of A.

Until now.


Anders Behring Breivikma may have killed 100 people in his bombing and shooting rampage in Norway. And so clearly, this has made the news.

Make no mistake about it: This man to the left is a terrorist. Why? Because he committed an act of violence in order to achieve a political result. That's the textbook definition of terrorism.

Imagine if al-Qaeda was as effective against soft targets as this man. Think of the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber and the Times Square truck bomber. None of their bombs went off or else hundreds would have been killed. Be thankful that al-Qaeda has not chosen a mall for a simple shooting spree. Imagine how many people three or four of them could kill at different entrances of a mall, moving inward.

Surely, Anders Behring Breivikma will help change American perspectives on terrorism, right?

Don't hold your breath. We seem convinced that the only terrorists are Arabs and Muslims and dark-skinned foreigners.

I ask that you tell your far-right friends--who talk about the evils of terrorism and religious tolerance, and how Christianity is under attack, and how Marxism and socialism threaten our freedom, and how we must rid the US of such forces--tell them about this man. In his own words, this is what motivated him to shoot unarmed and innocent children in the face.

His words:

"I have spent several years writing, researching and compiling the information and I have spent most of my hard earned funds in this process (in excess of 300 000 Euros). I do not want any compensation for it as it is a gift to you, as a fellow patriot."
___

"Multi-culturalism (cultural Marxism/political correctness), as you might know, is the root cause of the ongoing Islamisation of Europe which has resulted in the ongoing Islamic colonisation of Europe through demographic warfare (facilitated by our own leaders)."
___

"In order to successfully penetrate the cultural Marxist/multiculturalist media censorship we are forced to employ significantly more brutal and breath taking operations which will result in casualties. In order for the attack to gain an influential effect, assassinations and the use of weapons of mass destruction must be embraced."
___

"The ideology that has taken over Western Europe goes most commonly by the name of "Political Correctness." Some people see it as a joke. It is not. It is deadly serious. It seeks to alter virtually all the rules, formal and informal, that govern relations among people and institutions. It wants to change behaviour, thought, even the words we use."
___

"Christendom is gradually being deconstructed. It is time that the Pope and his cardinals begin to resist the deliberate deconstruction of European Christendom. The process would, however, be quite challenging, but worth the effort as all Justiciar Knights who dies for their faith will be a great source of inspiration for generations to come. They will be role models. Certain, exceptionally brave and selfless, Justiciar Knights in the coming decades should even be considered as candidates for official veneration."
___

"I have never in my life felt that I have done anything more meaningful than what I am doing now regardless of the lack of moral support from my founding brothers or other armed resistance fighters."


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jt7Cm2Xi6WkIvHuawtRa0Rugy0LA?docId=cfb2cffd356a4a848e826161a0160bb7

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Yeah, because we NEED to see people get shot at!

This is a story of economic turmoil and suffering.

"I'm going to die today ... You fired my wife. We're broke."

Yet, what we see is a "crazed man" with a gun (who thankfully is a bad shot).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/15/clay-duke-bay-district-shooting