The Cowardly Lyin’ runs away from British reporter after being asked tough questions.
I’m surprised he didn’t blame his daughters again.
At the time I posted the CBC story, it read that the man had been arrested, also mentioning that shots had been heard.
This has now turned into a much bigger story than it was at the time, but my post was in response to the apparently perplexed question from @DrCube about whether “simply seeing a gun” should be perceived as an actionable threat. My point was that in civilized countries that control gun violence, the answer is “hell, yes!”. Seeing a man with a gun on a public street generated multiple 911 calls, and multiple police units immediately responded.
These recent updates to the story only prove that not only does the presence of a gun suggest a potential threat, in this case it turned out to be very much a real threat. Who knows what would have happened if police had not immediately responded, if Canada had a gun culture where police had said, “you saw a guy carrying a gun and doing nothing else wrong? Stop wasting our time!”. We might have had one of our extremely rare school shootings. But we didn’t. As I said in the earlier post, if you’re serious about gun control, this is how it’s done.
The story at this time is that he “confronted” police. The full details have yet to come out, but in Canada it’s a Big Deal if a police officer just draws his firearm, requiring lots of justification and bureaucratic paperwork just for that. To shoot and kill someone without full justification would be outright murder.
No one is being “secretive”. The media is reporting all it knows, and the Chief of Police was on scene talking to the media. However, as he said, he is prohibited from giving details while the SIU investigates (the Special Investigations Unit that must investigate every police shooting). IOW, he’s not giving details until all details are known and confirmed. At that point they will be fully released to the public, along with any consequences the officers might have to face. Also, although I didn’t see this anywhere in relation to this incident, I believe it’s standard procedure that one or more officers involved in the shooting will automatically be placed on administrative leave until the investigation is complete.
CBC article says that there were reports of a man with a rifle, but also say that a pellet gun was found at the scene.
Police chief says that he cannot give further details as the matter is under investigation by Special Investigations Unit.
If it was a long gun, the carry restrictions cited upthread would not apply.
I’m not even sure it’s that simple:
Though personal firearms are allowed at the convention, the NRA said guns would not be permitted during the session featuring Trump because of Secret Service security protocols.
I’m also not sure which would have been worse: the stunning hypocrisy or the arrogance, insensitivity, and obliviousness.
Hm.
I have the dilemma that my former governor stood up to Donald Trump and refused to change the outcome of the 2020 election for him… but it’s really really really hard to feel anything positive for Mike Pence. And he’s also freakin’ red in politics, but thank Og he actually has quaint notions like obeying the law.
I suspect this red state I live in is more purple than a lot of people think it is, and not just because I live in a blue county. This state also voted for Obama in 2008.
But if we were going to divide up the US into Blue and Red I’d definitely move to Blue, if for no other reason than it being the lesser of two evils, but I really detest this push to force us all into two different warring camps.
My vote would be 25. There’s considerable evidence that human brain development is not complete until the mid-20’s. Younger people who want to hunt can do so under the supervision of an older hunter licenses to supervise, but they can’t themselves own or keep the guns in their possession. Ditto for something like target shooting - the under-25’s can participate with older adult supervision and keep their shooters under lock and key at the range or whatever, but not in their possession. Sort of like how teens learning to drive need supervision and then have limited licenses until they’re older and more experienced.
Well, that’s my current notion. Subject to change with time and/or more information.
Excellent deterent!
No, they really shouldn’t.
My mom was one of those “shouldn’t have guns” people. Not because she had ambitions of shooting up a school, but because she was an anxiety-filled, at times fearful person who battled depression her entire life. She was exactly the sort of person who would shoot a family member who got up to pee in the middle of the night.
Which is why there were no guns in the house when I was growing up. Mom probably would have killed herself or someone else, or both, at some point.
Mom shouldn’t have had a gun not because she was a bad person or a violent person but because she was a fear-filled person with mental health problems. Fortunately, mom never wanted to have a gun in the first place, which made it easy for us. But if society had drummed it into her from an early age that you must have a gun maybe that would have been a harder thing for all of us.
The other sad thing about this whole shooting has been the anemic police response. It is funny that the right has been saying “You cannot defund the police! What are you going to do if there’s a gunman on the loose? Call a social worker?” What’s the point of having a very expensive SWAT team if they completely fail to stop a shooter and cannot breach a school. Maybe a social worker would have done better, they could not have done worse.
I also suspect that it could wind up like the security guard at the Tops Grocery in Buffalo, NY - he was a retired police officer guarding the public. When he “engaged” the shooter he didn’t stop the bad guy (although he might have delayed him, letting some other people escape) and wound up dead on the floor himself.
We need to tear up the myth that a “good guy with a gun” is going to save the day. Because clearly that doesn’t work in all cases, even if the good guy with a gun is a professional cop (albeit retired).
SIU has confirmed that the dead man had a pellet gun, not a rifle.
I’m quite content with police watchdogs doing a steady investigation and releasing information only once it’s confirmed, without trying to rush to make the next news cycle.
They have already announced it was a pellet gun. They’re not hiding anything, they’re just saying things once it’s confirmed.
It is very unfortunate a man carrying a pellet gun was killed, but it might still have been a justified use of force; you can’t tell it’s just a pellet gun if a guy’s pointing it at you. We’ll see. It is possible it was unjustified, too. I hope not.
Not at all. Citizens saw the weapon as a threat or provocation. They reported it to the police and the police responded. It establishes the norm for public behavior.
Public display of a weapon has all the optics of a threat. If I needed to return a child’s plastic replica of an assault weapon, I’d put it in a bag before I got out of the car.
Three are some groups I trust with guns, and I guess for me, police would be somewhere in the middle. I wouldn’t want them to not have weapons, but at the same time, the mentality of “I’d better shoot this Black driver I pulled over for failing to signal, and do it in front of his kids, because you just never know.” isn’t so much an issue with firearm training as it is with police academies not screening out amoral psychotic bullies like they should.
I have a cousin who’s been in the U.S. army for over twenty years; he’s been reliably conservative, at least until the CFSG came along, and he also split with the GOP over vaccine stupidity. He is a big 2nd amendment guy, needless to say. And I’d say that he’s exactly the kind of person I want carrying a gun. He’s been trained extensively to use it, he’s experienced both intense simulated combat and real-life live fire, he’s witnessed IRL the consequences of gunfire, and I assume even at his high military rank, he regularly goes in for re-assessment and firing range time
It’s the weekend warriors, the dudes who think that a thousand hours of Call of Duty is all the training they need, the ones who suck down Mark Wahlberg “America, fuck yeah” movies like a Big Gulp, that shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near automatic weaponry, no matter how patriotic they view themselves and how loud they shout about 2A.
You are saying it is NOT AT ALL unfortunate that a man was killed? He was a human being, for Christ’s sake. His life had value. Do you know the details of what happened?
People have been reported as “being a threat” or a “provocation” who were not justifiably so. Ask the family of Tamir Rice. Ask the family of John Crawford. Was it not at all unfortunate they were killed? Until we know all the details, I am not sure the man needed to be shot to death, and neither do you.
I know the details as I stated them and that is sufficient for this case.
Your post ignores the events of that day and the proximity to a school. It also ignores that any practical, legal use of the weapon did not require public display. A miniscule amount of self discipline could go a long way toward solving the gun problem.
How do you write that distinction into law though? And how do you get others to agree with your distinction, or sidestep the Second Amendment question?
I would agree some people shouldn’t own guns. I also agree some criminals deserve to die for their crimes. But I don’t trust the government to institute a moral or reliable death penalty and I don’t trust the government to pick and choose who can own guns in an unbiased manner that upholds people’s rights either.
Certainly not based on their personality. If they’ve demonstrated they will commit crimes using guns, that’s one thing. “That guy creeps me out and I don’t trust him” is quite another. You’d be surprised how often “creepiness and distrust” is just thinly disguised racism or prejudice. You see it on the right all the time. “I don’t like gay people, I don’t trust anyone who politically supports gay people, and therefore every Democrat is a pedophile.”
I’m quite certain that if you make it illegal for anyone with any mental illness to possess a weapon, you’ll find that it’s mostly just poor folks, women and black people who are barred from owning a gun. And you’ll continue to encourage people not to get treatment, especially the gun crazy young white folks who are almost exclusively the ones shooting up schools.
I agree that attempting laws aimed at individuals are impractical and violate the second. So, how about two simple steps - laws that require safe storage in the home and the casing of weapons during transport. No second violation and no restrictions on persons.
Well, at least you’d still allow the “keeping”. People also have the right to “bear” though, which your proposal ignores.
If the Supreme Court were to rule that the gummint can’t confiscate their guns, the big argument against regulations would dry up.