Saturday, July 28, 2012

How Many More Mass Shootings, Rampages, and Intent to Terrorize Before We Stop This?

The Maryland self-styled Joker, Neil Prescott, made terroristic threats that he was going to kill a lot of people where he used to work.  He had a small arsenal, including thousands of rounds of ammunition.  He has been identified in an article in the Huffington Post as claiming to be law abiding, you know, except for the part about making terroristic threats to commit a mass shooting because he was disgruntled:

A search for Neil Prescott on a website that tracks users' online activities led to a profile that appears to be him on mdshooters.com, a website for gun enthusiasts. On it, Prescott, who used an online tag of slog403 and identified himself as from Crofton, traded advice with other users about obtaining firearms.

During a conversation last week about acquiring a 30-round magazine, he indicated he would "never violate MD laws as I respect this site and state." But in a July 18 post, he also said he wished to "unleash 30 rounds of hell" and added a smiley face emoticon. It wasn't clear what he was referring to.
In Pennsylvania, we have another multiple murder and kidnapping involving firearms:


3 killed in Pennsylvania; suspect fled with daughter, 4, triggering Amber Alert

Pennsylvania State Police via AP
Kevin Cleeves
Three people were shot dead Friday night in rural Pennsylvania, state police said Saturday, and the suspect was later arrested after fleeing with his four-year-old daughter. One of the dead might be the child's mother.
Kevin Cleeves, 35, was under arrest and his daughter was safe in police custody, NBC affiliate WGAL TV reported.
During the search for Cleeves, police also initiated an Amber Alert for the child.
read more here

and in Indiana we have another gun nut gone berserk, including a repeat of  the gas mask wearing violence stylings of the Aurora, Colorado mass shooter.

Suspected Indiana gunman, passerby dead after shooting rampage

Updated at 1:45 p.m ET:
A suspected gunman and a bystander are dead after two officers were wounded and a police dog was killed during a shooting rampage in the central Indiana town of Pendleton, authorities said Friday.
A New Castle man identified as suspect Jim Kenneth Bailey, 58, was found dead possibly by a self-inflicted gunshot, police told NBC station WTHR of Indianapolis.
Police say Bailey, clad in a flak jacket and gas mask, showed up at his estranged wife’s home in Pendleton late Thursday and started firing his gun outside.

read more here

These are just a few random headlines from the national news.  EVERY state in this country and Washington DC has these kinds of headlines every week, reports of gun violence, threats of gun violence, law enforcement officers being shot  or at least shot at, in increasing record numbers.  There are approximately 3 murder suicides every week.

Our gun culture is a failure, our lax gun laws are a disaster.  There is nothing cultured about our so-called gun culture; it is brutish, it is contrary in essence and philosophy to the rule of law and the use of law enforcement instead of personal force by emotional people.  It is the choice of people who have the social and psychological development that show a lack of socialization and an inability to function successfully with other people who resort to violence because of those personal failures.

Enough is enough; it is time to remove the vast quantity of firearms from people who do not use them wisely, it is time to BE more cultured and more civilized and to be a less violent society without massive quantities of firearms.  Clearly people who claim to be safe are not safe - as evidenced by the many deaths every week and injuries ever week from firearms accidents, including the deaths of children.  I have yet to meet any gun owner who admits he or she is not safe, and yet we continue to have incidents where clearly people ARE NOT SAFE, and ARE NOT IN FULL CONTROL AT ALL TIMES of their weapons.  We do not have a good or sound reason for this prevalence of firearms among us.  It is time to apply reason and sanity in place of the emotional irrationality that consistently drives our firearms policies and legislation.

There is only one winner in all of this, the firearms manufacturers who sell a lot of guns and ammo; we've provided them enough blood money. Enough is enough; time to curtail firearms. Time to be reality based, and recognize that claiming to be safe and secure is not the same as being safe and secure, that claiming to be law abiding is not the same as being law abiding, that claiming to be sane and responsible is not the same as being sane and responsible.

1 comment:

  1. But, but, but...

    If the killaz din't haz teh gunz they's use knives or cars or cement blogs or bludgeonin' Barbie dolls or, whatever. I mean, really, we all know that people only use gunz to kill each other because they can't find anything else--oh, wait, that's bullshit. People use gunz to kill other people because they're generally gutless bullies who haven't got the sand to go up against anyone who has an even chance AND they don't really like "wet work" all that much.

    ReplyDelete