Category: Crime
By now, we’ve heard this. Attested by people who have relatives who attend MSU, all the buildings are ‘gun free zones’, even for those with carry permits.
As always, that sure seems to work, doesn’t it?
Michigan State Shooter Found Dead.
ORIGINAL STORY:
A shooting at Michigan State University gripped the news cycle on Monday evening. Reports of two separate shootings on campus broke (one at a residence hall and another in a gym), apparently carried out by the same person. Currently, at least one person is dead while five have been hospitalized.
Hours after the shootings, police held a press conference and officially released a description of the suspect. Shortly after that, the MSU Police Department released pictures as well.
Unfortunately, some used the immediate aftermath of the tragedy as a way to spread false information in an attempt to paint the shooter as some kind of right-wing white supremacist. I won’t link those posts, which went viral within an hour of the first shots fired, so as to not further defame the guy who is being targeted by them. Pictures of three men walking down the street were also being spread to suggest there were three shooters. That was also false.
The shooter, who is described as a short, black male with red tennis shoes, is still at large and is assumed to be armed and dangerous. RedState will provide further information as it comes in.
UPDATE:
The death toll has now risen to three.
Good and hard, Denver.
Rocky Mountain High to Rocky Mountain Hellhole.
Seven years ago, Business Insider published, “14 reasons why Denver is the best place to live in America.” They recommended everyone consider Denver as “your next hometown” citing a strong job market, low unemployment, great restaurants, and practical perks such as a low crime rate and good schools. That was then. How is Denver doing now as “trendy and desirable”?
In answering that question, the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle published, “Denver becoming America’s crime capital.” That’s quite the turnaround in less than a decade, especially when we think of New York City, Baltimore, or Philadelphia as America’s crime capitals.
In 1963, an unknown singer named Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr was urged to change his name if he wanted to pursue a musical recording career. “He took his stage name from the beautiful capital city of his favorite state, Colorado. Later in life, Denver and his family settled in Aspen, Colorado and his love for the Rocky Mountains inspired many of his songs.”
The rest is history. What would John Denver think of his namesake now? Would he still, “See it rainin’ fire in the sky, the shadow from the starlight softer than a lullaby”? Probably not. Now it’s raining crime, drugs, homelessness, illegal immigrants, and many other big city urban blights.
The Chronicle, noted above reports, “Crime in the Mile High City is now worse than New York City or Chicago, and growing increasingly dangerous as the new year begins.” This includes violent crime, where on a scale of 1 to 100, Denver outranks NYC by 2.5 points, and property crime where Denver surpasses Chicago by 4.5 points. Bet you haven’t heard that on the news.
“Auto theft is now an epidemic in Denver and the second highest in the nation”, according to Denver Police Department data. Nearly 100 vehicles are stolen every day in Denver and rather than “rainin’ fire in the sky”, Colorado is raining car thieves, now leading America in auto thefts per capita.
Other statistics are not flattering. Ranking, “U.S. cities for home and community safety, natural disaster risk, and financial safety”, Denver falls between Little Rock and New Orleans. For home and community safety, Denver sits between Baltimore and Fort Lauderdale. Not a flattering position for the Mile High City.
If John Denver were alive today, he likely would stay far away from his namesake city, instead singing “Thank God I’m a country boy.”
Concentrate Where the Murders Are Concentrated
One of the principles of good public policy is to focus efforts on understanding social problems and searching for effective responses where those problems are serious, not where they are minor or missing. Local problems justify locally focused and decided policies, problems that have effects that are more widely spread justify geographically broader policies, and the broadest problems justify national policies, as illustrated by the federalism of the US Constitution, particularly the Tenth Amendment.
That such a principle is well established is illustrated by t Edgar K. Browning and Jacquelene M. Browning’s textbook, Public Finance and the Price System, which I used when teaching my first such class over four decades ago and which said, “The key issue here is the geographic area over which persons necessarily benefit [or are harmed],” which requires that “care is needed in determining what types of policies are more suitable for local governments.”
However, that principle is often honored in the breach today, as politicians at higher-level governments are always trying to regulate and legislate issues that are more local in character. Why? It lets politicians in areas where the problems are greatest pretend they are a national problem rather than ones tied to their jurisdictions and policies. Further, the power to vote on national-level plans gives politicians representing other areas the leverage to “rent” their support for such programs in exchange for more of what they want through the legislative pork barrel.
Just think how many times a single event in one place starts trending, then immediately gives rise to proposals for new state or national policies as “the solution,” as is so common with issues of crime. The Monterey Park mass shooting is a good illustration. The same day it was reported in the Los Angeles Times, they ran an editorial about mass murder shootings becoming “a sickeningly frequent occurrence in America” arguing that mass shootings “have one thing in common: They have guns” and asserting that we must limit the Second Amendment in the US Constitution—not only federal law, but the highest law of the land—because “national suicide is not the compulsory price of freedom.”
The result of such broad, national responses is also poor “target efficiency,” because too little attention focuses on the more local reasons for where the problems are worse.
An excellent example of this is provided by recent research on the US murder rate by the Crime Prevention Research Center, and its president, John R. Lott Jr., whom I have known since we overlapped many years ago in the UCLA Economics PhD program. I would note that John’s work is often controversial, which also makes him a frequent subject of ad hominem attacks, because the empirical data he develops can strongly contradict what others are “selling” as the truth in some area, particularly with regard to crime. However, I have never seen him abuse logic and statistics to get a particular answer he set out to find (or was paid to, as many “researchers” are). His focus, which strongly reminds me of the work of Harold Demsetz, who taught both of us, is on designing empirical tests to differentiate among alternative explanations, then following where the evidence leads, rather than torturing evidence to create the “right” wrong answer.
Increases in homicide rates tend to be treated by state and federal politicians as if they are broadly distributed national problems to scare Americans into supporting overly broad-brush “solutions.” But Lott’s research shows instead that “homicide rates have spiked, but most of America has remained untouched.” Or as David Strom summarized the results, “There are vast swathes of the country where violent crime is very, very rare, and small areas of the country where it is common.” If that is true, we should focus our attention on those small areas, not on national policies poorly focused on where the actual problems are most severe.
Lott’s research, which used 2020 homicide data, examined the concentration of homicides in particular areas to see whether America’s increasing homicide problem is national or local. He let that data tell its story.
First, he focused on county-level data rather than national data. Some of the dramatic results he found:
- The worst five counties (Cook, Los Angeles, Harris, Philadelphia, and New York) accounted for about 15 percent of homicides.
- The worst 1 percent of counties (31), with 21 percent of the US population, accounted for 42 percent of the homicides.
- The worst 2 percent of counties (62), with 31 percent of the population, accounted for 56 percent of the homicides.
- The worst 5 percent of counties (155), with 47 percent of the population, accounted for 73 percent of the homicides.
- In contrast, over half of US counties (52 percent) had zero homicides in 2020, and roughly one-sixth of the counties (16 percent) had only one.
Continuing his investigation, Lott looked at even finer-scale zip code data for Los Angeles County. He found that the worst 10 percent of zip codes in the county accounted for 41 percent of the homicides, and the worst 20 percent accounted for a total of 67 percent of the homicides.
From such data, Lott concluded that: “Murder isn’t a nationwide problem.” Instead, “It’s a problem in a small set of urban areas, and even in those counties murders are concentrated in small areas inside them, and any solution must reduce those murders.”
Despite the constant political and media drumbeat to portray homicides as a national problem that threatens everyone everywhere, and thus demands national solutions in line with what the political Left wants, the evidence points us in a far more local direction.
That may well explain the political reason for the volume and persistence of that drumbeat. It provides camouflage for those whose policies (and those who support them) would come under far greater scrutiny if people recognized just how concentrated homicides are and then asked what is different in those places, rather than the “blame America first” bromides they are routinely misdirected toward today.
But that means if we really cared about those most harmed by the murder rate, rather than imposing broader-than-necessary restrictions on Americans, it is important to follow the evidence so many would prefer to keep hidden.
California all over the major news media, but Chicago’s usual weekends?
Chicago shootings: 30 shot, 7 fatally in weekend gun violence across city, police say
CHICAGO — At least 30 people have been shot, seven fatally, in weekend shootings across Chicago, police said.
Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act introduced
We’re dealing with a revolving door justice system in the United States. Progressive jurisdictions just bounce perpetrators and predators back and forth from the back of police cars, to holding cells, and all too often back onto the street. A bill just introduced in the House of Representatives aims to require prosecutors to prosecute certain crimes. Republican Representative Nicole Malliotakis introduced H.R.27 – Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act on January 9, 2023.
This bill requires certain state and local prosecutors to report data on criminal referrals and outcomes of cases involving murder or non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson, or any offense involving the illegal use or possession of a firearm.
The reporting requirement applies to state and local prosecutors in a jurisdiction with 380,000 or more persons that receives funding under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program. The report must contain data on
- cases referred for prosecution,
- cases declined for prosecution,
- cases resulting in a plea agreement with the defendant,
- cases initiated against defendants with previous arrests or convictions, and
- defendants charged who were released or eligible for bail.
This measure might not solve all our problems in the criminal justice system, however it will help combat the practice of supporting prosecutors who vow to outside entities they’ll allow chaos to ensue in their jurisdictions. Accountability might be achieved.
The text of the bill indicates an extensive list of original cosponsors, and at this time there are 23 total.
Ms. Malliotakis (for herself, Mr. Reschenthaler, Ms. Stefanik, Ms. Van Duyne, Mr. Newhouse, Mr. Johnson of Louisiana, Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Tiffany, Mr. Crenshaw, Mr. Issa, Mr. Stauber, Mr. Calvert, Mrs. Lesko, Mr. Joyce of Pennsylvania, Mrs. Spartz, Mr. Webster of Florida, Mrs. Cammack, Mr. McClintock, Mrs. Greene of Georgia, and Mr. Moylan) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
One of the features built into the bill is that once all the prosecutors and district attorneys report to the Attorney General, the Attorney General is required to create a report that’ll be publically available.
(3) SUBMISSION TO JUDICIARY COMMITTEES.—The Attorney General shall submit the information received under this subsection to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and shall publish such information on a publicly viewable website.
Having such information reported on will arm the population, as well as those who wish to truthfully report on such statistics, with information on potential bad actors. While some of these positions are elected and others appointed, having the data for all to see can affect both categories of persons. If the bill had provisions in it that would have a little teeth, that would be nice, but we’ll just have to deal with scrutiny via public opinion as a punitive measure.
This is the first bill of 2023 that I’m reporting on. There’s already a big pile that are worthy of bringing up. We’re dealing with a rather lame duck session. The House Speaker can mutter all he wants about promises kept, but we’d be fooling ourselves if we purported that any of these pro-liberty bills or pro commonsense ones will pass both chambers, and find their way to the Resolute Desk. Are we in a better position than we were a few weeks ago? Absolutely. But as far as legislation goes, we’re going to be best situated to hold the line. Given the make-up, we’ll have to be ready for further executive overreach.
If the goobermint had just done its job, and this crim had been deported……
Man sentenced for killing 3 people, wounding 2 others in Springfield
Aman who was found guilty of murdering three people and injuring two others during a two-day span in 2018 was sentenced Friday to five consecutive life sentences.
Luis Perez, 27, was sentenced to the prison time following a hearing in front of Judge Thomas Mountjoy. It was Mountjoy who presided over Perez’s trial and found him guilty in October of three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of assault.
Court documents say this case started when Perez was kicked out of a home in the 900 block of East Locust Street. Police say Perez returned to the home early on Nov. 1, 2018 and opened fire on his ex-roommates, killing Steven Marler and Aaron “Joshua” Hampton and injuring two others.
The next day, police say, Perez killed Sabrina Starr, a 21-year-old woman who had provided him with the gun he used in the other two killings.
Greene County Prosecutors initially announced they would be seeking the death penalty before later changing course. Life in prison without the possibility of parole is the only other punishment for a first-degree murder conviction in Missouri. Friday’s hearing centered around whether the sentences should be imposed concurrently (at the same time) or consecutively (one after the other) and how much prison time Perez should get for the non-fatal shootings.
Assistant Greene County Prosecutor Phil Fuhrman argued Perez should not get any breaks.
“Mr. Perez is dangerous, he is violent and he is deserving of the maximum sentence,” Fuhrman said.
Perez’s attorney asked for the sentences to be run concurrent, presenting evidence of Perez’s difficult upbringing as the son of poor immigrant parents growing up in inner city New Jersey.
Luis Perez, 27, during a sentencing hearing for the 2018 murders of Steven Marler, Aaron “Joshua” Hampton, and Sabrina Starr and assault of two others. Perez was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences.© Nathan Papes/Springfield News-Leader
Judge Mountjoy said he was “struck by the magnitude of the violence” in this case in choosing to run the sentences consecutive to one another.
“The magnitude speaks to requiring the most severe sentence that the law would structure,” Mountjoy said.
In the days after Perez was charged with the killings, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a scathing news release criticizing Middlesex County New Jersey for not holding Perez in jail in December 2017 when he was arrested there on suspicion of multiple felonies, including assault, aggravated assault and child abuse. ICE said it had asked that Perez be held in jail while it started deportation proceedings against him since he is originally from Mexico and was in the country illegally.
According to its website, Middlesex County had a policy of declining requests by ICE to detain some inmates, if those people have not been convicted of certain serious offenses.
Once more; a ‘known wolf’ on the FBI’s radar.
“It’s not a bug, but a feature!”
Times Square machete wielding suspect was on terror watch list: report
The suspect being held in a machete attack of three police officers in New York City on New Year’s Eve was previously on the FBI’s radar and was interviewed by agents in the weeks before the attack, according to CNN.
Trevor Bickford, 19, had indicated he wanted to travel overseas to help fellow Muslims. His family reported him to the Wells, Maine police department in December after he said he wanted to join the Taliban. He was later interviewed by FBI agents and placed on the agency’s terrorist watch list.
New York City police said Bickford approached an officer late Saturday and, unprovoked, attempted to strike him over the head with the machete. He then struck two other officers on the head with the machete. One officer shot Bickford in the shoulder, the police department said.
The three injured officers were released from the hospital on Sunday. Bickford has not been charged in the attack, CNN reported.
Law enforcement sources also told CNN that investigators found a diary belonging to Bickford that included a last will and testament, including instructions for his burial.
The incident is being investigated as a possible terrorist attack, according to ABC News.
If you’ll remember, the ‘joke’ name for Chicago for years has been ‘Chiraq’.
Plus I’m shocked that this unpolitically correct statistic is in the article:
“Black and Hispanic men represented 96% of those who were fatally shot, and 97% of those injured in a shooting…”
Seem Bill Whittle was right: “Maybe it’s the people holding the guns.”
Risk of death by gun violence is higher for men in some U.S. areas than in wartime.
In some parts of the United States, young men face a higher risk of dying from gun violence than if they’d gone to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, a new study reports.
Young men living in certain high-violence ZIP codes in Chicago and Philadelphia run a greater risk of firearm death than military personnel who served in recent U.S. wars, according to findings published online Dec. 22 in JAMA Network Open.
Young men in Chicago’s most violent ZIP code were more than three times as likely to experience gun-related death compared to soldiers sent to Afghanistan, the researchers found, while those in Philadelphia’s most violent area were nearly twice as likely to be shot to death.
In all ZIP codes studied, young men from minority groups overwhelmingly bear the risk of firearm-related death, the findings showed.
“These results are an urgent wake-up call for understanding, appreciating and responding to the risks and attendant traumas faced by this demographic of young men,” said study leader Brandon del Pozo, an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School in Providence, R.I.
His team examined shooting data from 2020 and 2021 in four large U.S. cities — Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia.
The investigators zeroed in on shootings involving nearly 130,000 men between 18 and 29 years of age. They grouped them by ZIP code so U.S. Census data could be used to examine demographics in those neighborhoods.
The researchers also compared the cities’ gun violence data with combat-related deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan — from 2001 to 2014 for Afghanistan and 2003 to 2009 in Iraq.
While young men in Chicago and Philadelphia had a much greater risk of firearm death, those in the most violent parts of Los Angeles and New York had a 70% to 91% lower risk than U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, the researchers said.
“We often hear opposing claims about gun violence that fall along partisan lines: One is that big cities are war zones that require a severe crackdown on crime, and the other is that our fears about homicides are greatly exaggerated and don’t require drastic action,” del Pozo said in a university news release.
“We wanted to use data to explore these claims — and it turns out both are wrong,” he continued. “While most city residents are relatively safe from gun violence, the risks are more severe than war for some demographics.”
Black and Hispanic men represented 96% of those who were fatally shot, and 97% of those injured in a shooting, according to the report.
The study authors noted that exposure to combat has been associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and higher rates of homelessness, alcohol use, mental illness and substance use.
“Our findings — which show that young men in some of the communities we studied were subject to annual firearm homicide and violent injury rates in excess of 3.0% and as high as 5.8% — lend support to the hypothesis that beyond the deaths and injuries of firearm violence, ongoing exposure to these violent events and their risks are a significant contributor to other health problems and risk behaviors in many U.S. communities,” the research team concluded.
The health risks are likely even higher for city dwellers because they have a lifetime “tour of duty,” as opposed to a typical year-long posting to a war zone, del Pozo added.
“The findings suggest that urban health strategies should prioritize violence reduction and take a trauma-informed approach to addressing the health needs of these communities,” he said.
Canada had a mass shooting even with tyrannical gun control laws designed to prevent mass shootings and or overthrowing said tyrannical government
3 Central Florida men plead guilty in drug trafficking conspiracy
The gang had grenades, suppressors, short barreled rifles; all kinds of ‘restricted’ weaponry. Gun control laws will never affect criminals.
Walmart murderer's "manifesto." I am unsure that I would call this a “manifesto,” more like a suicide note. pic.twitter.com/mmdhQHJJlj
— John R Lott Jr. (@JohnRLottJr) November 25, 2022
It had been posited last night that the shooter in Virginia was a Walmart employee.
Well, he was a manager at that and it appear that the dead and wounded were also employees.
One last point;
Since he was of the wrong demographic, and he only used a handgun, no anti-gun narrative will fit, so expect this to be memory holed just like the football team murderer of two weeks ago.
Chesapeake, Virginia Walmart gunman who fired on coworkers identified as Andre Bing
Andre Bing, 31, of Chesapeake, was armed with ‘one handgun and had multiple magazines,’ city says
The city of Chesapeake, Virginia has identified Andre Bing as the alleged Walmart employee who opened fire last night at one of the company’s stores there, killing six people before police say he turned his pistol on himself.
Bing, the company said in a statement to Fox News Digital, was an “overnight team lead and he’s been employed with us since 2010.” The 31-year-old from Chesapeake was “armed with one handgun and had multiple magazines,” according to the city.
“While details of the tragic incident in our Chesapeake, Virginia store are still emerging, authorities have confirmed multiple fatalities. We are focused on doing everything we can to support our associates and their families at this time,” Walmart said in a statement. “The alleged shooter has been identified as Andre Bing. We can confirm that he was a Walmart associate.”
The development comes as employees at the Walmart Supercenter location in Chesapeake are now speaking out about the violence that erupted in the break room of the store late Tuesday night.
Employee Briana Tyler said the overnight stocking team of about 15 or 20 people had just gathered in the break room to go over the morning plan. She said the meeting was about to start, and her team leader said: “All right guys, we have a light night ahead of us,” when her manager turned around and opened fire on the staff.
“It is by the grace of God that a bullet missed me,” Tyler said. “I saw the smoke leaving the gun, and I literally watched bodies drop. It was crazy.”
At first, Tyler didn’t think the shooting was real. “It was all happening so fast. I thought it was like a test type of thing. Like, if you do have an active shooter, this is how you respond.”
Tyler, who worked with the manager just the night before, said the assailant did not aim at anyone specific.
“He was just shooting all throughout the room. It didn’t matter who he hit. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t look at anybody in any specific type of way.”
Employee Jessie Wilczewski told Norfolk television station WAVY that she hid under the table, and the shooter looked at her with his gun pointed at her. He told her to go home, and she left.
“It didn’t even look real until you could feel the… ‘pow-pow-pow,’ you can feel it,” Wilczewski said. “I couldn’t hear it at first because I guess it was so loud, I could feel it.”
A witness also told WAVY that she heard the suspect laughing at one point and that she believes the shooting was planned.
The city of Chesapeake said Wednesday that “Three individuals, including the shooter, were located deceased in the break room of the store.
“One victim was located deceased toward the front of the store. Three other victims were transported to local hospitals for further treatment, but succumbed to their injuries,” the city tweeted.
“At least six additional victims were transported to local hospitals for further medical treatment. One of these individuals is currently in critical condition,” the city added.
The chaos ended after police say the shooter, who was armed with a pistol, turned the weapon on himself. He is believed to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Yee, this hits close. I’ve been treated myself at that hospital.
Not for being shot though.
Virginia police: Multiple people killed in Walmart shooting
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — A shooting at a Walmart in Virginia on Tuesday night left several people dead and wounded, though the exact numbers were not immediately known, police said. The shooter was among the dead, officials said.
In this image taken from video Virginia police respond to the scene of a fatal shooting at a Walmart on Tuesday night, Nov. 22, 2022, in Chesapeake, Va. (WAVY-TV 10 via AP)© Provided by The Associated Press
Officers responded to a report of a shooting at the Walmart on Sam’s Circle around 10:15 p.m. and as soon as they arrived they found evidence of a shooting, Chesapeake Officer Leo Kosinski said in a briefing.
Over 35 to 40 minutes, officers found multiple dead people and injured people in the store and put rescue and tactical teams together to go inside to tend to victims, he said.
Police believe there was one shooter, who is dead, he said. They believe that the shooting had stopped when police arrived, Kosinski said. He did not have a number of dead, but said it was “less than 10, right now.”
Kosinski said he doesn’t believe police fired shots, but he could not say whether the shooter was dead of a self-inflicted gunshot.
“We are shocked at this tragic event at our Chesapeake, Virginia store,” Walmart tweeted early Wednesday. “We’re praying for those impacted, the community and our associates. We’re working closely with law enforcement, and we are focused on supporting our associates,” the tweet said.
Mike Kafka, a spokesman for Sentara Healthcare, said in a text message that five patients from the Walmart are being treated at Norfolk General Hospital. Their conditions weren’t immediately available.
The Virginia shooting comes three days after a person opened fire at a gay nightclub in Colorado, killing five people and wounding 17. That shooter, who is nonbinary, was arrested after patrons at the club tackled and beat them. The shootings come in a year when the country was shaken by the deaths of 21 in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Tuesday’s shooting also brought back memories of another shooting at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunman police say was targeting Mexicans opened fire at a store in El Paso and killed 22 people. Walmart didn’t have a security guard on duty that day.
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner tweeted that he is “sickened by reports of yet another mass shooting, this time at a Walmart in Chesapeake.” State Sen. Louise Lucas echoed Warner’s sentiment tweeting that she was “absolutely heartbroken that America’s latest mass shooting took place in a Walmart in my district.”
Chesapeake police tweeted that a family reunification site has been set up at the Chesapeake Conference Center. This site is only for immediate family members or the emergency contact of those who may have been in the building, the tweet said.
Chesapeake is about 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of Norfolk.
We’re only a few hours into the response, so we don’t have all the answers yet. Chesapeake Police continue their investigation into the active shooter event at Walmart on Sam’s Circle. We do know there are multiple fatalities plus injuries and the shooter is confirmed dead.
— City of Chesapeake (@AboutChesapeake) November 23, 2022
Some thoughts on the Colorado Springs Club Q shooting. THREAD:
(1) What do we actually know?
The 22-year-old suspect had an hours-long standoff with a crisis response team in June 2021 after threatening to harm his mother with a bomb and “other weapons.”
No bombs were found. He was arrested and charged with several felonies. The local prosecutor’s office did not pursue those charges, the case wasn’t adjudicated, and the records were sealed. It’s thoroughly unclear why this outcome occurred, or with what potential conditions.
It appears there are records for him buying at least two firearms – one rifle and one handgun – but it’s not clear when those purchases occurred. Notably, reports are that police recovered two guns from the suspect: one rifle and one unspecified.
The suspect showed up at the club as an obvious would-be gunman, wearing a “flak jacket” with what witnesses have described as at least six magazines and openly wielding the rifle. He opened fire immediately.
Two unarmed patrons very heroically ran toward the suspect and subdued him, likely saving many lives at great risk to their own.
We also know that Colorado:
– prohibits the sale, transfer, & possession of 15+ round magazines
– requires universal background checks
– has red flag laws
– allows substantial gun regulation at a local level
and a number of other gun control wishlist items
In fact, Colorado is universally ranked above-average by gun control groups and was #13 the last time I checked for “gun law strength.”
(2) What don’t we know?
We don’t know why the local prosecutor declined to pursue charges or why records were sealed. We don’t know whether he was referred to mental health treatment.
We don’t know a whole lot else about the suspect’s past, period.
It’s pretty safe to assume that someone who spends hours in a standoff with a crisis response team and forces the evacuation of his neighborhood is not, in that moment, a stable human in a healthy mental or emotional place. There’s a good argument that he shouldn’t have guns.
It doesn’t appear that any red flag petitions were sought, though this isn’t particularly surprising given that Colorado has one of the lowest usage rates out of all states with red flag laws and the local sheriff one said his department wouldn’t file any.
Colorado Springs police have filed 2 petitions since 2019. So if a family member didn’t file one, no one else was likely to do so, either.
Regardless, any such petition would have needed to be renewed at least twice since summer 2021 to be active today.
So it’s not at all clear that, without additional concerning actions on the suspect’s part, he wouldn’t have had his guns returned under the law by now, anyway. In other words, we’re still in a waiting game, and need a lot more information.
(3) What still doesn’t matter?
It’s utterly irrelevant whether his rifle had a pistol grip, collapsing stock, or barrel shroud [i.e., whether he used an “assault weapon” rifle or “non-assault weapon” rifle]. Don’t fall for this trap.
Any person shot with an “assault weapon” rifle will sustain the exact same injuries as a person shot with a “featureless, non-assault weapon” rifle. Why? Because it will be the same caliber round, leaving the rifle with the exact same muzzle velocity, impacting with same energy.
AW bans do NOT mean a ban on civilians possessing semi-automatic rifles chambered in .223/5.56. They merely mean that your semi-automatic rifle chambered in .223/5.56 may not also have features like a pistol grip or collapsing stock, none of which affect victim injuries. Period.
Reminder: The Club Q Shooting May Not Be What the Left Wants You to Believe It Is
Late Saturday night, police responded to a shooting at a gay nightclub called “Club Q” in Colorado Springs, Colo. According to reports, five people are dead and at least another 18 were injured.
It’s early enough that those numbers could change. Yet, before we even know all the facts, the left has already decided who is to blame: Republicans.
“Every GOP politician spewing anti-LGBTQ rhetoric bears responsibility for the Colorado Springs shooting,” claimed Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D-N.Y.) on Twitter. “Every GOP politician who says that guns aren’t the problem bears responsibility for the Colorado Springs shooting. Enough.”
Actually, I say enough with the finger-pointing. Leftists do this every time there’s an incident they can exploit for political gain. For example, in June 2016, a shooter killed 49 people at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. The media quickly sought to blame conservative Christians for the shooting, concluding that the shooter specifically targeted the Pulse nightclub because it was a gay nightclub.
This wasn’t true.
For starters, the shooter wasn’t even Christian; Omar Mateen was Muslim and had pledged allegiance to ISIS.
Nor was the shooting about anti-LGBT hate. As Vox reported in April of 2018, “There’s now conclusive evidence that the shooter wasn’t intending to target LGBTQ people at all.”
According to a report from the Huffington Post titled “Everyone Got The Pulse Massacre Story Completely Wrong,” also published the same month, “Mateen had never been to Pulse before, whether as a patron or to case the nightclub. Even prosecutors acknowledged in their closing statement that Pulse was not his original target; it was the Disney Springs shopping and entertainment complex.”
Despite this, the myth that the attack was a hate crime specifically targeting the LGBT community remains alive and well. There’s even a planned memorial and museum — yes, a museum — dedicated to perpetuating the lie that this was an LGBT hate crime.
Club Q issued a statement describing the Saturday shooting “hate attack.”
“Club Q is devastated by the senseless attack on our community. Our prays [sic] and thoughts are with all the victims and their families and friends. We thank the quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack,” the club posted to its Facebook page.
When people like Velasquez and countless others on social media try to blame Republicans for the shooting or immediately conclude it was a “hate crime,” they are part of the problem. According to the most recent report I can find, the suspect has been identified, but no motive has been determined yet by law enforcement.
There are reports that the shooter was also behind a 2021 bomb threat, for which he was charged with two counts of Felony Menacing and three counts of First-Degree Kidnapping. It is not known why, if this is the same person, he was out on the streets already, but his violent history would seem to point to mental health problems, not a political agenda.
So, let’s not forget that even The Huffington Post admitted “everyone got the Pulse massacre story completely wrong.” Maybe before people jump to conclusions about the shooter’s motives, we should wait for the details to be confirmed. Anything else is irresponsible.
Betcha this will get more widely covered than the 4 dead coeds in Idaho.
5 people dead and 18 injured in mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs
Five attendees were murdered and another 18 injured after a shooter opened fire at a gay bar in Colorado Springs.
Colorado Springs Police first got the call around 11:57pm for a an active shooter at Club Q.
They are taken to local hospitals.
“They did find one person inside who we think is the suspect,” said Lt. Pamela Castro of the Colorado Springs Police Department. “Right now, the suspect is being treated, but in police custody.
Castro did not explain whether the suspect was included in the count of those who were hurt in the shooting.
The police have chosen not to comment on any possible motives. According to the Captain of the Colorado Springs Fire Department, Mike Smaldino, eleven ambulances responded to the area after receiving many calls to 911.
Castro stated that they would be staying put for “many, many hours to come.”
In a statement on social media, Club Q said it was “devastated by the senseless attack on our community” and offered condolences to victims and their families.
“We thank the quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack,” the statement said.
Castro stated that “this was not an officer-involved shooting,” despite the fact that the police have not yet disclosed the specifics of how the shooting came to a close.
MEDIA LOSES ITS MIND OVER “RAMBO STYLE KNIFE” USED IN IDAHO QUAD-MURDER
That the media is prone to hyperventillation over anything weapon-related should hardly come as a shock. Our friends in the firearms community face it all the time when the media label what to many is just a light range trip worth of guns and ammunition an “arsenal”. Well they are at it again, and this time it is the knife community’s turn in the barrel, as the media frenzy over the quadruple homicide in Moscow, ID rages.
If you haven’t tuned into the news this week, 4 University of Idaho students were brutally stabbed to death over the weekend, and the Police seem to be at a loss. Their decision to focus on the potential murder weapon, looks to this reporter like an attempt to give the media anything in the face of very few public leads. The murder weapon remains undiscovered.
I am not a forensic expert by any means, though I took a few forensic anthropology classes in graduate school and I understand how the coroner reached their conclusion as to the nature of said weapon. The wound channels from the stabbings would have particular characteristics in terms of size and shape, and from this they have deduced that they match the characteristics of one of the most, if not the most mass-produced and iconic American fixed blade knives, the USMC Mark 2., commonly known as the KA-BAR.
KA-BAR USMC MK. 2 (from KABAR.com)
From Idaho Statesman:
Moscow police appear to be searching for a “Rambo”-style knife involved in the killing of four University of Idaho students, a store manager said Wednesday. Scott Jutte, general manager of Moscow Building Supply, told the Idaho Statesman that police have visited the store more than once to ask whether the retailer sold anyone Ka-Bar brand knives, which are also known as K bar knives. Idaho State Police spokesperson Aaron Snell told the Statesman on Thursday that detectives visited several local hardware stores that may carry “fixed-blade type knives,” but that they weren’t solely asking about Ka-Bar knives.
Ka-Bar, of Olean, New York, manufactures military-grade blades that were originally designed for use by American troops in World War II.
Jutte said a police officer stopped by the home improvement store and lumber yard off North Main Street in Moscow to speak with him on Monday. “They were specifically asking whether or not we carry Ka-Bar-style knives, which we do not,” Jutte said in an interview. “If we did, we could’ve reviewed surveillance footage. But it wasn’t something I could help them with.” Jutte said he is familiar with the military-style weapon, even though his store doesn’t sell it.
He says he is “familiar with the “military style weapon””…
I am trying to figure out what is specifically “military” about the KA-BAR, other than its history of course. The name of the Mk. 2 in Government-bureaucratese is “Knife, Fighting Utility”. Fighting is a verb, something you could do with it, not a description. I can fight you with a stapler. An entrenching tool is a devastatingly effective melee weapon. We don’t call a “Fighting Shovel”, no matter how efficiently it can be used as such.
Utility is a good descriptive word, as they are used for everything from prying open crates to opening ration cans. The “KA-BAR” (originally made by Camillus, PAL, and others under WWII contract) was much better at these tasks than the WWI era M1918 Trench Knife, with its more fragile, less utilitarian stiletto blade and single grip knuckle-duster hand guard.
The USMC Mk.2, now manufactured by KA-BAR Knives Inc. of Olean, New York, remains one of the most popular fixed blade outdoor knives in existence. A good portion of this is due to its military heritage. Many a serviceman or has carried the knife on deployment, even into combat just like their grandfathers before them. They are an heirloom quality tool, and it is entirely possible that someone actually carried their Grandfather’s own knife in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Of course plenty of civilians, this writer included, own one as well. It is an extremely robust and useful knife to have in the woods. It can shave, baton, drill, and all of the other tasks one might need in the field. I imagine that there is at least one in 20% or more of households in Idaho given the lifestyle and demographics. And that doesn’t count other fixed blade hunting knives as well of which Idaho most certainly has an abundance.
I feel for KA-BAR, which is being dragged by the media online. They slant their coverage to imply that anyone who owns this most common of fixed blades is some sort of survivalist nutball. It is expected, but disheartening.
Where they have made a heck of a jump is to apply the “Rambo” label to the knife. Rambo carried two different Jim Lile custom knives in the First Blood Movies:
It’s not a bug, but a feature
Police Chief: UVA Threat Assessment Team Was Alerted About Shooting Suspect in September
University of Virginia (UVA) police chief Timothy Longo said the school’s threat assessment team was alerted about shooting suspect Christopher Darnell Jones in September.
Jones allegedly shot five individuals at the UVA campus’ Gilbreth Garage on Sunday, killing three and leaving two wounded, Breitbart News reported.
A manhunt for Jones began immediately and UVA students were told to “shelter in place.” The search carried on throughout the night.
Chief Longo announced the capture of Jones during a Monday morning press conference, the Richmond Times-Dispatch noted.
During that same Monday morning press conference, Longo noted that Jones had been brought to the attention of UVA’s threat assessment team in September 2022.
“Our office of student affairs reported to multidisciplinary threat assessment that they received information that Mr. Jones had made a comment about possessing a gun to a person who was unaffiliated with the university,” Longo said.
Longo said that police do not believe the person who reported Jones’ gun ever actually saw the gun.
He noted that “the office of student affairs followed up with the reporting person and made efforts to contact Mr. Jones.”
Longo noted that Jones also came to the threat assessment team’s attention via alleged “involvement in a hazing investigation of some sort.”
He noted that Jones also had “a criminal incident involving a concealed weapon violation outside the city of Charlottesville in February of 2021.”
Interesting in that the suspected shooter didn’t commit suicide, or the police arrive in time to deal with him. That doesn’t happen very often.
UVA Shooting: 3 killed, 2 injured; former football player named as suspect
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – A manhunt is underway in Charlottesville for Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. – a student and former football player who police say is suspected of shooting and killing three people on-campus at the University of Virginia and injuring two others.
The shooting was reported around 10:30 p.m. Sunday when officers responded to shots fired in the Culbreth parking garage. A campus-wide alert was issued and a shelter in place order was in effect until being lifted around 10:30 a.m.
Police say a manhunt in underway in Charlottesville for Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. – a student and former football player who they say is suspected of a shooting at the University of Virginia that left three dead and two others injured.
Christopher Darnell Jones (UVA Police Department)
Authorities say Jones Jr. is a former UVA football player and a current student. He was last seen wearing a burgundy jacket/hoodie, blue jeans and red shoes. Police said he could be driving a black SUV with Virginia tag TWX3580. Officers say Jones is considered to be armed and dangerous.
Anyone who sees him is asked to call 911 immediately and not approach him.
“I am holding the victims, their families, and all members of the University of Virginia community in my heart today, and we will make plans to come together as a community to grieve as soon as the suspect is apprehended,” Ryan said.
Ryan said the UVA Emergency Hotline at 877-685-4836 can be used to establish contact with family members or friends who are on campus grounds.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin issued a statement saying they are praying for the school community.
The motive behind the shooting is not yet known.