Category: Crime

Police Chief Daniel Thompson has stated: “It is unknown if the incident has any nexus to terrorism” which is legalistic non-answer. No name has been released, so all I’ll say right now is that running a car into a Christmas Parade sure makes one think from the past attacks on Christmas celebrations, that there’s a ‘nexus’. When a person is charged, and then named,  we’ll be in better position than only being able to speculate.

Multiple fatalities, more than 20 people hurt after car drives through crowd at Waukesha Christmas parade

UPDATE 8:04 p.m. — Waukesha police have said that they have a suspect in custody. [actually they say they have a ‘person of interest’ in custody, and there is a major legal difference]

They added that of the victims, 11 are adults and 12 are children. Police also said multiple people are dead but did not say how many. The shelter in place order has been lifted. An officer did fire their gun at the car to try and stop the driver. There were no other shots fired.

More than 20 people were injured after a car drove through a crowd at the Waukesha Holiday parade Sunday evening, according to Waukesha police.

Officials said at least one person died. Ambulances, police, and family members drove the injured to local hospitals.

Waukesha police have recovered the vehicle and are aware of a person of interest.

The incident was live-streamed on the City’s Facebook page. A video sent to TMJ4 shows a car driving through a busy section of the parade and hitting least half a dozen people. The car continued to drive through the parade and then the video ended.

The incident happened on Main Street beginning at Barstow and going past Gasper. The vehicle had to drive past a barricade to get into the parade.

This was clearly ‘something personal’ as we can see the deadhead was waving out of the way what turned out to be an off duty cop that TCOB.
‘Stupid is as Stupid does’

Also, lesson learned from other’s experience?
‘Check 6 isn’t just for fighter pilots’

Hero off-duty Baltimore cop kills gunman who fatally shot barber

The gunman, identified as Carlos Ortega, entered The Bladi Style barbershop in Baltimore’s Medford section Saturday afternoon with a handgun and “fired it at one of the barbers” working there, killing him, Police Commissioner Michael Harrison told reporters Saturday.

An off-duty cop in plainclothes who was getting a haircut from another barber reacted immediately and “with great bravery produced his firearm” and fatally shot the attacker, Harrison said.

Cops identified Ortega, 38, early Monday as the man who killed barber Rafael Jeffers, 33, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Investigators believe Ortega was tied to two earlier Saturday shootings, including one that left one person dead. Another victim was listed in critical condition following gunfire near the city’s Greektown section.

If more guns caused more crime, we would know it.

BLUF:
The violent crime rate fell by about 38 percent over two decades while the number of guns sold each year almost doubled. The implied number of gun owners also doubled. If anything, this data shows that firearms sales cause a decrease in violent crime.

Gun Ownership versus Crime in the US 2000-2019

I’ve seen analysis that relates guns and crime. In particular, the data looks at the growing number of firearms in civilian hands in the United States. It compares gun ownership with the rate of violent crime across the country. Unfortunately, that data is a few years old. It is easy to get raw numbers, but it is very hard to get good data. This is what I found.

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Just to point out, in case you were wondering. Drs. Wintermute & Hemenway are leftists and rabidly anti-gun/anti-self defense .

More Than Gun Violence That Differs Between US, Other Places

So-called gun violence is higher in the United States than in other first-world nations. It’s a point that is continually brought up, in part because we also are the only first-world nation to actually respect people’s gun rights.

As we’ve noted in previous posts, ABC News has been running a series about rethinking firearm-related violence here in the United States. We’ve poked an awful lot of holes in some of their stories, and today’s isn’t likely to be any different.

You see, they’re focused on comparing the United States to other countries on this subject.

The United States has a gun violence epidemic, and it’s not one shared by its peers. The nation that by one estimate has more guns than people has the highest rate of firearm deaths compared with other high-income countries. Mass shootings, an all-too-common occurrence in the U.S., are also exceedingly rare in peer countries — where governments have often been quick to pass gun reform in the wake of such tragedies.

“Compared to the other peer countries, basically what we have is lots and lots of guns, particularly handguns, and we have by far the weakest gun laws. Not surprisingly, we have huge gun problems,” David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, told ABC News. “I think if we had basically the gun laws of any other developed country, we’d be better off.”

It’s unclear if gun prevalence definitively impacts gun violence, though research by Hemenway’s center has found links between a large number of guns and more firearm homicides, suicides and accidents. The implementation of new gun restrictions has also been associated with a drop in firearm deaths, a 2016 review of 130 studies across 10 countries found.

The U.S. is “not necessarily a more violent society than others,” Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis, told ABC News.

“What we have is unique access to a technology that changes the outcome — firearms,” he said.

It’s not uncommon to compare the U.S. with other developed countries, especially after yet another horrific mass shooting. There are developing countries with higher rates of firearm deaths than the U.S., though comparing gun violence among peers helps to control for other factors, Hemenway said. And while there are lessons in other nations’ policy measures that could help address the problem here, because the U.S. is on such a different plane when it comes to civilian gun ownership, it will also take more research and multiple, targeted solutions to address the scope of the problem, experts said.

“Other countries do better. We should be able to figure out how to do better,” Hemenway said.

Hemenway is essentially arguing that the only real difference between these other nations and the United States is our lack of gun laws and that we really should embrace how the rest of the developed world treats firearms.

Well, that might be a compelling argument if it wasn’t premised on such a faulty concept.

The United States is a unique experiment, one that may look like the other developed nations of the world, but isn’t, and for a number of reasons. One of those is indeed our Second Amendment protections of our right to keep and bear arms, but there are other differences as well.

For one thing, we tend to be more racially diverse.

England, as an example, is 87.2 percent white and only three percent black, three percent Indian, 1.9 percent Pakistani, two percent mixed, and 3.7 percent other.

Meanwhile, we’re only 61.6 percent white, 12.4 percent black, 10.2 percent classified as multiracial, six percent Asian, 8.4 percent other, 1.1 percent Native Americans, and 0.2 percent Pacific Islander. Then, by ethnicity, they have 18.4 percent Hispanic. In other words, we’ve got a lot more ethnicities trying to share this patch of land.

Now, I’m not saying that any of these minorities are more prone to violence than anyone else, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that all these ethnic groups rubbing together may create some kind of tension that we just haven’t resolved that results in that violence. After all, we live in a time when everyone is accusing everyone else of being racist. It’s possible that racial animosity–which goes in all directions–may result in people feeling like they don’t have to play by the rules.

Or, it may have no difference. We simply don’t know, but it is a data point that shows there are differences between us and many other developed nations.

But that’s only one potential difference.

Let’s also talk about poverty. America is the land of opportunity, but it’s also the land of falling on your butt if you’re not careful. Many people do just that and rebuild. Others don’t and some start off on their butts and foster resentment.

Among the 38 nations that make up the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the majority of which are developed nations, the United States has the fourth-highest poverty rate. The three nations with more poverty? Chile, Israel, and Mexico. Of those three, only Israel can be universally considered developed and they have a problem with violence as well, though theirs comes in the form of terrorism.

So it’s not difficult to see that the United States has some stark differences that separate it from other developed nations. Poverty alone may account for all of the difference. This holds up upon more localized examination.

After all, we think of cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Saint Louis as being extraordinarily violent, but even there, you’ll see that the violence is generally localized. Where? In the poorer neighborhoods in the city.

In other words, poverty within our cities also seems to have a direct correlation with violent crime in our country. That’s poverty that doesn’t show up in other nations for various reasons.

Where is that in Hemenway’s examination?

It’s not there because it’s not useful for him to push his preferred narrative. It’s just that simple.

And I haven’t even gotten into all the nations with strict gun control laws that have much worse violent crime rates than we have.

So don’t come to me about what other countries do or don’t do. Those countries aren’t the United States, so their experiences are largely irrelevant.

Here’s the part that is seen so often
It’s like it’s not a bug, but a feature.
Kongsberg: Bow and arrow suspect known to Norway police

A man arrested over a deadly bow and arrow attack in Norway had converted to Islam and there were fears he had been radicalised, police say.

The 37-year-old Danish citizen is accused of killing four women and a man on Wednesday night in the southern town of Kongsberg.

Police were in contact with the man last year over their concerns.

The suspect has not been identified, and police are working to establish whether it was a terror attack.

Meanwhile, flags were flown at half-mast on Thursday while flowers and other memorials were placed in Kongsberg’s main square.

The victims were all aged between 50 and 70, regional police chief Ole Bredrup Saeverud told reporters.

Residents have told local media that the close-knit community has been deeply shaken by the violence.

Police confronted the man six minutes after the attack began at 18:12 (16:12 GMT) on Wednesday, but he shot several arrows at the officers and escaped. He was caught at 18:47 – 35 minutes after the attack started.

All five victims are believed to have been killed after the police first encountered the man. Officers fired warning shots before he was eventually arrested.

Man armed with bow and arrow kills five people in Norway attacks

OSLO, Oct 13 (Reuters) – A man armed with a bow and arrow killed five people and wounded two others in a series of attacks in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg on Wednesday, local police said.

The suspect was in custody, police added.

“The man used a bow and arrow … for some of the attacks,” police chief Oeyvind Aas told reporters. The police were investigating whether other weapons had also been used, he said.

“The man has been apprehended … from the information we now have, this person carried out these actions alone,” Aas added.

One of the wounded people was an off-duty police officer.

Newspaper VG showed images of an arrow that appeared to be stuck in the wall of a wood-paneled building.

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Watch how quickly this drops off the radar with the perp not fitting the gun-grabber narrative since he’s the in the wrong demographic subset.

Texas high school shooting injures multiple, suspect in custody, Arlington police say

The suspect has been identified as 18-year-old Timothy George Simpkins. Police say he likely fled the scene in a 2018 Silver Dodge Charger with license plate PFY-6260 and anyone who spots him should dial 911. 

A suspect who fled after opening fire inside a Dallas-area high school, which sent students and staff running for their lives, was taken into custody Wednesday after an hours-long manhunt, authorities said.

Arlington police say cell phone video obtained from a student shows that a fight broke out inside a classroom at Timberview High School around 9:15 a.m. Wednesday before 18-year-old Timothy George Simpkins drew a weapon. He fled the scene and was believed to be driving a 2018 Silver Dodge Charger.

Authorities said Simpkins was caught following a manhunt and is expected to be charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He was being questioned by detectives Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

St. Louis New Murder Capital Of U.S.

When we talk about violent cities, I usually bring up Chicago. Sometimes, I’ll add in places like Baltimore. Both are famously violent cities, after all, so it makes sense to bring them up.

However, it seems someone else is the murder capital of the United States for 2020.

Homicides in the U.S. in 2020 increased nearly 30% over the previous year according to new FBI figures and St. Louis City is reportedly the U.S. city with the highest murder rate.

St. Louis City had 263 homicides in 2020 with a homicide rate of 87 per 100,000 people.

The murder rate hit a 50-year high for the city but fell short of its all-time record of total homicides of 267 in 1993. The city’s population has declined since 1993 so the homicide rate was higher in 2020.

It’s not just murders, nationwide violent crimes in 2020 went up by a more moderate 5.6% over the previous year. In St. Louis, the increase was less than the national average at 3.8%.

Dr. Richard Rosenfeld, a criminology professor at the University of Missouri- St. Louis, points out that while the homicide and violent crime rate are up, those crimes are rare. He stressed it is important to note the rate of other, more common crimes dropped.

The FBI data shows property crimes continued a nearly two-decade decline, falling 7.8% between 2019 and 2020. St. Louis saw a 6.3% drop in those types of crimes as well.

Dr. Roenfeld actually makes a perfectly valid point.

Few people deal with homicide in their lifetimes at all, but most will be the victim of some form of theft and those rates are declining, so that’s a very good thing.

Yet people don’t rest easy because they no longer need to be concerned if their lawnmower is going to get stolen. They get jumpy about things like murders and violent crime in general, and those rates are going up.

Some will likely use this to point out that due to preemption laws in Missouri, the city of St. Louis can’t really do anything about violent crime. That, of course, is a cop-out. After all, if the lack of local gun control were the problem, every city in Missouri would be damn near as bad as St. Louis. It’s not.

What happens is that you congregate a lot of people in a fairly small amount of space and they’re going to find excuses to clear out the competition for resources. I suspect it’s something bred into our evolution to some degree as a way to prevent resources from being stripped from an area too quickly or something, though I have absolutely zero evidence for that.

Regardless, stuff like this is an issue in larger urban areas, not rural parts of the state, which tells me there’s something about the cities that’s the issue.

It’s not the lack of gun control, it’s the cities themselves that appear to be the problem.

Besides, I’m sure next year it’ll be Chicago or Baltimore again and St. Louis will be down the list a notch or two, all without any changes in the laws.

Unfortunately, this blind focus on gun control means no one is interested in looking a little deeper so as to find out the truth of these things.

FBI: Over 3.5x More Killed with Knives than Rifles of Any Kind

FBI data released Monday in the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) show over three and a half times as many people were stabbed to death in 2020 than were killed with all kinds of rifles combined.

The UCR shows that 454 people were shot and killed with rifles in 2020 while 1,732 were stabbed or hacked to death with “knives or cutting instruments.”

Breitbart News reported that the previous UCR release showed over four times as many people were stabbed to death in 2019 than were killed with rifles of all kinds.

The exact figures for 2019 were 375 killed with rifles while 1,525 were stabbed to death with “knives or cutting instruments.”

On September 30, 2019, Breitbart News reported that the FBI’s UCR for 2018 showed a similar finding, with over five times as many people stabbed to death with “knives or cutting instruments” as were killed with rifles of any kind.

The broad categorization of “rifles” includes a broad swath of firearms, from bolt action rifles to lever action, pump action, breech action, and beyond. It also includes semiautomatic rifles that take a detachable magazine, which the left often classifies as “assault weapons.” Yet three and a half times more people were stabbed to death in 2020 than were killed with all of these various rifle types combined.

Remember this?:
Blinken Admits Most Afghans Were Not Vetted Before Boarding US Evacuation Planes

Assault on female US service member by male Afghan refugees at Fort Bliss under FBI investigation

An investigation is underway into an alleged attack of a female U.S. military service member by several male Afghan evacuees being housed at Fort Bliss.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed to Fox News it is investigating a referral from a Fort Bliss Afghan refugee housing complex in New Mexico alleging that a woman, whose name and age are unknown at this time, was assaulted on Sept. 19 by a “small group of male evacuees.”

“We received the referral from Fort Bliss and our office is investigating the allegation,” FBI Public Affairs Officer Special Agent Jeanette Harper told Fox News.

Officials at Fort Bliss confirmed the report of the assault to Fox News.

“We can confirm a female service member supporting Operation Allies Welcome reported being assaulted on Sept. 19 by a small group of male evacuees at the Doña Ana Complex in New Mexico,” the 1st Armored Division and Fort Bliss Public Affairs said in an emailed statement. “We take the allegation seriously and appropriately referred the matter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The safety and well-being of our service members, as well as all of those on our installations, is paramount.”

The statement added that counseling and support has been provided to the service member.

“Task Force-Bliss is also implementing additional security measures to include increased health and safety patrols, additional lighting, and enforcement of the buddy system at the Dona Ana Complex,” the statement continued. “We will cooperate fully with the FBI and will continue to ensure the service member reporting this assault is fully supported.”

Rep. Yvette Herrell, a Republican congresswoman who represents New Mexico’s 2nd congressional district, called the news a “vetting failure.”

“My prayers are with the courageous soldier and her family. This is yet another tragic failure in the vetting process for Afghan nationals,” Herrell tweeted. “The American people deserve answers.”

The alleged attack comes on the heels of two Afghan refugees housed at Wisconsin’s Fort McCoy being indicted for federal crimes including sexual assault on a minor and domestic assault.

Bahrullah Noori, a 20-year-old Afghan evacuee, is being charged with attempting to engage in a sexual act with a minor using force against that person, along with three other counts of engaging in a sex act with a minor, according to a statement from the Department of Justice. Additionally, 32-year-old Mohammad Haroon Imaad is being charged with assaulting his wife by choking and suffocating her on September 17.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have reacted to the news of violence carried out by Afghan refugees being housed in the United States with demands for answers from the Biden administration.

On Thursday night, Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford and four other Republican senators sent a letter to the Biden administration seeking more details on the way Afghan refugees are being vetted.

“How many Afghan nationals are waiting on background checks at a transit site? How many Afghan nationals have been paroled into the United States?” the Republican senators asked. “What specific categories, classes, or criteria constitute the Administration’s definition of ‘vulnerable Afghans’? How many individuals who have been paroled into the United States fall under each category, class, or criteria?”

Earlier this month, an official with the Biden administration categorically denied anyone “of concern” had made it into the country, saying there is a “second layer” of screening once a refugee gets to a U.S. entry point.

“No one has gotten into the United States or entered that is of concern,” the official said. “The administration is working with urgency and with care to enhance the screening and vetting operations to make them more efficient without compromising U.S. national security.”

Strict laws absolutely will not stop someone bent on mayhe

Man Kills 5, Himself in UK’s First Mass Shooting in Decade

LONDON (AP) — A young man who killed five people, including his mother, and then took his own life in Britain’s first mass shooting in over a decade had complained online about difficulties meeting women and being “beaten down” by life.

Police said Friday the motive for the shootings was unclear but there were no immediate signs that the crime was an act of terrorism or the 22-year-old gunman had connections to extremist groups.

They identified the shooter as Jake Davison, 22, and said he had a gun license, but revealed few other details. Witnesses reported that he used a pump-action shotgun, police said, though they wouldn’t confirm what type of weapon it was and whether it was the one Davison was licensed to use.

Gun crimes are rare in Britain, which has strict firearm control rules.

Police responded to multiple emergency calls at 6:11 p.m. Thursday arrived six minutes later at an address in Plymouth’s Keyham neighborhood, where Davison had shot and killed his mother, 51-year-old Maxine Davison, also known as Maxine Chapman.

According to police accounts, Davison left the house and immediately shot and killed a 3-year-old girl, Sophie Martyn, and her father, Lee Martyn, 43. He then shot and wounded two other people down the street whom police haven’t identified.

Police said Davison moved on to a park where he shot Stephen Washington, 59, who died at the scene, and then to a nearby street, where he shot Kate Shepherd, 66 on a nearby street. She died later in hospital.

Eyewitnesses reported that Davison shot himself before police arrived. He was licensed to use a gun last year and police are checking whether he had the license before then.

Shaun Sawyer, chief constable for Devon and Cornwall police, told reporters that investigators are not sure what Davison’s motive was and keeping open minds but do not think extremist ideology prompted the attack.

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Triangle [Virginia} man shot and killed by Dale City homeowner in self defense tied to string of armed robberies

A 20-year-old Triangle man who was fatally shot last month by a Dale City woman in what police determined was a justified act of self-defense has been connected to five recent armed robberies at area 7-Eleven stores, police said Monday.

The man, identified as Azhar Laurent Smart, 20, of Triangle, was found by police suffering a gunshot wound at 12:25 a.m. on Thursday, July 22, outside a home in the 4100 block of Hoffman Drive, a residential area off Prince William Parkway near the Sheetz gas station, according to a news release issued at the time.

Smart was shot by a resident of the home who told police he approached her while she was outside walking her dog. Police later determined that Smart was wearing a face mask and was armed with a handgun when he was shot, according to the police news release.

Smart was transported to a nearby hospital, where he died from his wounds, the release said. The Dale City resident who shot Smart was not identified and was not injured, according to police.

On Monday, Aug. 2, police said a subsequent police investigation into the handgun Smart was carrying determined it matched a firearm that was discharged during a July 16 armed robbery at the 7-Eleven on Dale Boulevard in Woodbridge.

During that robbery, the lone suspect fired a round after taking money from the store. No injuries were reported. The shell casing collected at the scene was compared to the weapon recovered at the July 22 homicide and was determined to be a match, 1st Sgt. Jonathan Perok, Prince William County police spokesman, said in an Aug. 2 news release.

Detectives have been investigating the July 16 robbery in connection to four other robberies that occurred at 7-Eleven stores in Woodbridge and Dumfries since late June involving a suspect with the same description, clothing and behaviors observed in all five incidents, Perok said in the Aug. 2 release.

The other robberies occurred at 7-Eleven stores on Fraley Boulevard in Dumfries on July 5, where a shot was also fired, and locations on Cloverdale Road on July 3, Darbydale Avenue on June 29, and Minnieville Road on June 28, Perok said.

“Detectives became increasingly concerned over the robberies escalating after the suspect was found to have discharged a handgun during the two more recent incidents. Forensic examination of the shell casing recovered on July 5 is ongoing,” Perok said.

At the time of the July 22 homicide, the deceased was wearing clothing that was also observed in the reported robberies, Perok said.

“Following the investigations into this robbery series, all known evidence indicates the deceased was responsible for all five incidents,” Perok said.

Detectives are still looking into why Smart was at that particular house on Hoffman Drive on July 22, Perok said.

Federal law-enforcement officials from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives contributed to the investigation, Perok said.

Man Behaving Erratically Shot, Killed After Entering Pleasant Hill Home

PLEASANT HILL [California] — A man who was behaving erratically was shot and killed Tuesday evening after entering a home, according to Pleasant Hill police.

It happened at about 5:45 p.m. on Shadow Mountain Court near Camelback Road. Several 911 callers reported a suspect was vandalizing parked cars and trying to get inside homes, according to police.

Responding officers, along with the 911 dispatcher heard several gunshots and discovered a male intruder in the living room of a home suffering from a gunshot wound.

The victim was transported to John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek where he succumbed to his injuries.

Authorities have not released the suspect’s name or identified the shooter.

Police said the residents of the home, along with witnesses were cooperating with the investigation. There are no other suspects at this time.

More information may be released later.

Gun Control Isn’t Needed, Criminal Control Is

It seems lately that so many publications with the word “Christian” in the name have been on a gun control push lately. It’s kind of creepy, actually, especially since so many evangelicals identify as pro-Second Amendment.

Frankly, there’s nothing particularly Christian about gun control. Even Christ himself told his followers to arm themselves, for crying out loud. Yet we keep seeing the anti-gun narrative expressed in Christian outlets.

I mention that because, well, it’s nice to see the other side presented.

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The ‘epidemic’ is not that there are committees of vigilance roaming the streets – a blatant canard since, if true, would likely reduce crime – but that there are criminal street gangs roaming the streets of major metropolitan cities, shooting up each other’s members (as well as a lot of unintended targets) with the membership demographic causing the majority of this; black men, ages 14 to 35.

The ACLU Claims the Second Amendment Is Racist, But Gun Control Has the Real Record on Systemic Oppression
To date, black Americans are more likely than any other group to suffer the adverse impacts of gun control laws.

The ACLU fired shots on Twitter last month, claiming that the Second Amendment is “racist” alongside an article and podcast episode that posed the question “Do Black People Have the Right to Bear Arms?”

The article, written by Ines Santos, claimed that gun violence in America — which she labeled an “epidemic” caused by widespread “vigilante” firearm ownership — negatively impacts black people because of racially discriminatory policing. “What is absent in the intense debates on gun rights in America is the intrinsic anti-blackness of the unequal enforcement of gun laws,” she wrote.

Santos went on to say that racism determined the Second Amendment’s inclusion in the Bill of Rights.

These are hefty charges worth examining. Let’s break down the claims made here and review the history.

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Gainesville Spree Shooter Used Stolen Guns

The media tells us mass shootings are on the rise, that such shootings are happening several times a day. We just can’t keep up with all of these shootings. This, we’re told, is evidence that we need more gun control. However, what about the number of these shooters using stolen guns?

See, I ask because I wrote about a shooting in Tucson over the weekend where the shooter was a felon and couldn’t legally own a firearm. That weapon was most likely a stolen firearm bought off the black market. We don’t know for certain about that yet.

We do know about a shooting in Gainesville, Florida, though.

Shortly after five teens were shot during a party at Gainesville’s American Legion hall June 24, the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office recovered a gun used in the shooting.
It had been stolen in Alachua, yet another filched weapon to be used in the ongoing gun violence committed by teens or young adults.
“These kids can’t go into a gun dealer, put their ID on a table and say ‘I want to buy that gun.’ And felons cannot possess guns. Because of that, they have to get them illegitimately,” Gainesville Police Chief Tony Jones said. “We know several guns were used (in the American Legion shooting). They could be out on the street now.”……..

Everytown For Gun Safety, a nonprofit gun control advocacy group, reports on its website that theft does play a sizable role. It cites several studies.
“Gun thefts often divert guns into an underground market where people with dangerous histories are easily able to obtain firearms without restriction,” Everytown states. “That is why stolen guns are often recovered at crime scenes, including at the scenes of homicides and other violent crimes.”
Gainesville attorney Robert Rush, who is representing one of the children wounded at the American Legion, said his experience shows that stolen guns are often used in crimes and often get resold or passed around to be used in other crimes — an observation backed up by police.
Rush said he has found data that a stolen gun will be used in a homicide within a year — which has been borne out in cases he has taken on.

In other words, even Everytown agrees that stolen guns represent the lion’s share of the problem. However, as I noted with the Tuscon story on Tuesday, the media uses statistics like those found at the Gun Violence Archive and presents those uncritically, as if they tell the whole story. However, many of those so-called mass shootings aren’t. They’re criminal shootings like this and they use stolen guns.

Meanwhile, some will try and use those statistics to justify more gun control when even Everytown admits that many of these firearms are stolen from lawful and law-abiding gun owners.

Remember that when the subject comes up.

The truth of the matter is that the majority of crimes are committed with firearms that were obtained illegally. That’s why so many of us are skeptical of the idea that gun control will somehow impact criminals rather than us, the law-abiding gun owners and gun buyers. After all, it never has before, so why would it now?

Even when talking about the supposed hundreds of mass shootings reported in the media, gun control didn’t stop many of those, as we can see here.

Why Is Austin Media Refusing to Release Description of At-Large Austin Shooter? Just Kidding. You Know Why.

Early Saturday morning, a gunman shot and injured at least 19 people outside an Austin, Texas, bar. Rick Moran reported:

Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, was crowded with post-Covid revelers on Friday night when a man described as “black” with a thin build and “dreadlocks” opened fire outside a bar. At least 13 people were taken to the hospital. Of the 13 wounded, 11 were in stable condition with two critical.

On Saturday afternoon, the Austin Police Department updated its website to say that one suspect is in custody, while another is still at large. Earlier in the day, police released this description of the suspect:

The suspect(s) remains at-large. It is unknown if there is one, or multiple suspects involved. There is one suspect described as a black male, with dread locks, wearing a black shirt and a skinny build. The area will be closed for an extended amount of time to process the crime scene. Investigators are collecting and reviewing camera footage and surveillance video.

That description—black, male, dreadlocks—was not only in an official announcement by the APD, but it was all over social media as well on Saturday. But the city’s flagship newspaper, the Austin-American Statesman, is refusing to release the description of the suspect, a dangerous mass shooter who is still on the run, because—you guessed it—it would be racist to do so. The newspaper explained in an Editor’s Note appended to its main story on the shooting:

Editor’s note: Police have only released a vague description of the suspected shooter as of Saturday morning. The Austin American-Statesman is not including the description as it is too vague at this time to be useful in identifying the shooter and such publication could be harmful in perpetuating stereotypes. If more detailed information is released, we will update our reporting.

The description by police was not, by any stretch of the imagination, “vague.” The description, in fact, dramatically reduced the suspect pool in the Austin area, narrowing it down to black males wearing dreadlocks—or 50% of the 15% black population in the city, if you’re doing the math. If you’re a police officer (or a citizen who is on the lookout for an at-large criminal) wouldn’t you want to know that information? Wouldn’t you need that information to make an arrest?

Related:Black Murder Rate Soars Thanks to BLM And Lefty Politicians

And then there’s this bit from the newspaper’s report: “Police said they had zeroed in on two suspects involved in [a] previous dispute and were rapidly working to arrest them.”

In other words, the Statesman knew that the police knew who the suspects were. If police said the suspects were black, why didn’t the newspaper take the APD at its word? I’ll tell you why: the Statesman wants to perpetuate the fictional narrative that dangerous, gun-toting white supremacist rednecks are roaming the city of Austin, hunting black people.

The Statesman would have us believe that everyone in the Austin area was a potential suspect, when, in fact, the newspaper knew that not to be true. (On a related note, the same public safety issues arise when no one knows whether a suspect is a male or a female because assuming someone’s gender might result in hurt feelings.)

Austin is not alone in prioritizing the woke agenda over safety. As PJM’s Kevin Downey Jr. reported last week, San Francisco police released the picture of a suspect who lit a woman on fire on a BART train, but blurred out her face, purportedly to avoid perpetuating racial stereotypes.

Austin and other U.S. cities continue to demonstrate that they care more about being woke than protecting the public from dangerous criminals. That’s why, as PJM’s Bryan Preston has documented, police are retiring or fleeing these cities in droves and murder rates are skyrocketed all over the country.

If I were an Austonian right now I’d be putting my house on the market and getting out before it turns into another Chicago gangland.

This happens in California; which has the laundry list of every kind of gun control law the gun-grabbers in Washingtoon want for the rest of the country. Well, we can easily conclude that the gun control laws they say will decrease whatever, won’t, so, they want gun control for another reason. Of course we know what this is: People Control, because the old line about them wanting to do things that will wind up making it worthwhile to shoot them, just might be true.

8 killed in San Jose shooting, suspect also dead

A shooting at a rail yard in San Jose, California, early Wednesday left eight people dead, not including the suspect, who was also declared deceased after taking his own life, authorities confirmed.

The suspect was identified as Samuel Cassidy, who was an employee at the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), where the incident took place, according to authorities. No motive is known for the shooting at this time.

Santa Clara County Sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Russell Davis said several explosive devices were found inside a building at the VTA control center. A bomb squad is at the scene and there is no present danger to the community, he said.

An investigation is also underway of an arson fire at what is believed to be the nearby home of the suspect. FBI agents and the San Jose Fire Department were at the second scene. Authorities say the house caught fire before the shooting at the VTA.

In Washington, D.C., principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the White House will continue to stay in close contact with local officials in San Jose, before using the shooting as an opportunity to call for Congress to strengthen background checks.

“The White House is monitoring the situation, and our hearts go out to the victims and their families,” Jean-Pierre said. “We still don’t have all the details, but what is clear, as the president has said, is that we are suffering from an epidemic of gun violence in this country, both in mass shootings and in the lives that are being taken in daily gun violence that doesn’t make national headlines.”

Deputies responded to multiple 911 calls around 6:30 a.m. local time about an “an active shooter” situation unfolding at a VTA facility in the area of 100 W. Younger Ave. and San Pedro Street in San Jose. VTA Chair Gel Hendricks confirmed that the shooting took place outside in the yard, not inside the control center. He said service would be suspended after the incident.

“It’s just very difficult for everyone to be able try to wrap their heads around and understand what has happened,” Hendricks said at a news conference………

The VTA provides bus, light rail and other transit services throughout Santa Clara County, the largest in the Bay Area and home to Silicon Valley.

The shooting took place at a light rail facility that is next door to the sheriff’s department headquarters and across a freeway from the airport. The facility is a transit control center that stores trains and has a maintenance yard. It’s also located just two blocks from county buildings, the main jail and a courthouse.

Not a lot compared to the yammering by media and other political hacks.

What Percent Of Mass Public Shooters Are White Supremacists?

The news media and entertainment television keep pushing the notion that most mass public shootings are done by white supremacists. Who is a white supremacist is actually fairly difficult to determine because many of the classifications are based on solely whether the person visited neo-Nazis or white supremacist website.

The Government Accountability Office has a report identifying white supremacists and neo-Nazis from 2000 through 2016. There were 52 mass public shootings over that period and the GAO identifies four of them who are either white supremacists or neo-Nazis (7.69%). Over the 1998 through May 20, 2021, there were 82 mass public shootings and between 7 and 9 attacks that involved people who were white supremacists, neo-Nazis, visiting neo-Nazis or white supremacist websites, or anti-immigrants (8.5% and 10.97%). One of these racists, Patrick Wood Crusius, who did the El Paso, Texas, mass public shooting, was an environmentalist extremist. He didn’t want immigrants because he thought they would have more children, which would harm the environment.

All this isn’t too surprising given that we have pointed out that 71% of mass public shooters have no identifiable political views.

Our information for all mass public shootings between 1998 and May 20, 2021 is available here.

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