Police in New York state say a man who ambushed firefighters had served 17 years for manslaughter in the death of his grandmother.
Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering says 62-year-old William Spengler was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.
Police say he set fire to a car and house to lure firefighters to his house on the shore of Lake Ontario early Monday.
When firefighters arrived, he opened fire, probably with a rifle. Two firefighters died at the scene and two others were hospitalized. A fifth first responder was injured.
Here is a comment on the Twitterverse fairy-tale land of liberals from Breitbart:
While liberals on Twitter pointed at the shooting of four firefighters in upstate New York as evidence that more gun control is necessary, NBC News reports that the gunman, one William Spengler, was already banned from owning guns.
Spengler served 17 years in prison for killing his grandmother with a hammer in 1980. He was convicted only of manslaughter, and was paroled in 1998. It seems that stronger sentencing for convicted murderers might be a more worthwhile goal of liberals seeking to prevent gun violence.
In the story linked to the picture of the suspect… the gun, almost identical to the one used in the Sandy Hook murders, was described as an “assault weapon/rifle.” These are already banned. This is a wrong description, but the continued killing was halted when an off-duty policeman showed up:
Several firefighters went beneath the truck to shield themselves as an off-duty police officer who came to the scene pulled his vehicle alongside the truck to try to shield them, authorities said.
The first police officer who arrived chased and exchanged shots with Spengler, recounting it later over his police radio.
“I could see the muzzle blasts comin’ at me. … I fired four shots at him. I thought he went down,” the officer said.
At another point, he said: “I don’t know if I hit him or not. He’s by a tree. … He was movin’ eastbound on the berm when I was firing shots.” Pickering portrayed the officer as a hero who saved many lives.
David Gregory mocked the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre for proposing that armed guards be at every school in America. But the NBC host seems to have no problem with armed guards protecting his kids everyday where they attend school in Washington, D.C.
“You proposed armed guards in school. We’ll talk about that in some detail in a moment. You confronted the news media. You blamed Hollywood and the gaming industry. But never once did you concede that guns could actually be part of the problem. Is that a meaningful contribution, Mr. LaPierre, or a dodge?,” asked Gregory.
Later the host suggested that guns don’t prevent violence in schools (he cited the mass shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech). “But you would concede that, as good as an idea as you think this is, it may not work. Because there have been cases where armed guards have not prevented this kind of massacre, this kind of carnage. I want you would concede that point, wouldn’t you?,” Gregory pleaded.
The NBC host would go on the rest of the segment to suggest that armed guards might not be effective in preventing mass murders at school. Which is perhaps an interesting theoretical argument.
But when it comes to Gregory’s own kids, however, they are secured every school day by armed guards.
And this as well:
Nationwide, at least 23,000 schools — about one-third of all public schools — already had armed security on staff as of the most recent data, for the 2009-10 school year, and a number of states and districts that do not use them have begun discussing the idea in recent days…
In this episode, some history and calm common sense is used to about the recent shooting in Connecticut. (Posted by: https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/) Examples from history are used (Bath School Massacre in Michigan) as well as video interview of Bernie Goldberg and the person who most likely stopped the massacre in the Clackamas Mall shooting. Columbine and other examples are used as well.
This should be combined with the three interviews of John Lott (the first three videos on this at the top of this post:
John Lott, the gun advocate who recently had a heated encounter with Piers Morgan, spoke to Soledad O’Brien on Monday morning — continuing to make his pro-gun argument. O’Brien had a hard time stomaching Lott’s perspective, telling him she simply does not understand it.
Heated debate with Piers Morgan, John Lott:
John Lott on CNN’s State of the Union w/ Wolf Blitzer discussing gun control and the Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
Dr John Lott on High Octane.
In the sad and tragic aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school shooting, it’s only natural for the more ignorant among us to immediately begin calling for an attack on our Second Amendment right to bear arms even before the bodies of the innocent little angels are removed from the classroom where they were slaughtered by an insane killer. But these people completely ignore the rights of millions of law-abiding, normal American citizens to defend themselves against such insanity, as well as all the cases where lawfully armed citizens have done so. Mark Levin discusses gun control with John Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime.
How many murders do you suppose these old western towns saw a year? Let’s say the bloodiest, gun-slingingest of the famous cattle towns with the cowboys doing quick-draws at high noon every other day. A hundred? More?
How about five? That was the most murders any old-west town saw in any one year. Ever. Most towns averaged about 1.5 murders a year, and not all of those were shooting. You were way more likely to be murdered in Baltimore in 2008 than you were in Tombstone in 1881, the year of the famous gunfight at the OK Corral (body count: three) and the town’s most violent year ever.
As for the traditional Western gunfight as depicted in movies, the inaccuracy of handguns at the time would have made quick-drawing skill irrelevant: It was simply so unlikely you’d hit a guy on the first, second or third shot that it didn’t really matter which guy got out his gun first. The closest history got to high-noon show downs was dueling, where people just stood across from one another with their guns out, aimed and fired until someone got lucky, and someone else was dead. Forget about “fanning,” rapidly cocking a single-action revolver between rounds like Clint Eastwood does in A Fistful of Dollars. You’d be lucky to hit a henchman if the duel took place in a closet.
Why Do We Believe It?
Because famous gunfighters like Billy the Kid wanted you to believe it. If you’ve seen Young Guns on cable, you probably know the guy was gunning somebody down every ten minutes!
Well according to sources who aren’t Billy The Kid, his lifetime kill count was four. Criminals inflated their murder stats for the same reason guys today inflate their sexual experience: It made them look cool. Towns like Deadwood talked up their violent, lawless natures in order to attract adventurous settlers. Books were written about them and movies were made as soon as cameras were invented, and nobody who’d been out west was rushing to correct the misconceptions because, why the hell would they. A century and a half later, we still love that lie…
Miss Malcolm’s Book has some startling examples of a society gone mad, the Brits/English!
Malcolm’s book has shown me that I radically underestimated the danger of gun control. Her detailed study of British legislation on the topic shows the real aim of the disarmers. They wish to abolish the right to armed self-defense entirely. The point is not only to block armed resistance to the state, as I had previously thought; in addition, everyone is to be made totally dependent on the state for protection.
Some of Malcolm’s examples are shocking. In England “[m]erely threatening to defend oneself can also prove illegal, as an elderly lady discovered. She succeeded in frightening off a gang of thugs by firing a blank from a toy gun, only to be arrested for the crime of putting someone in fear with an imitation firearm” (p. 184).
Not even if one’s life is in danger can one legally use a weapon. In another case, two men assaulted Eric Butler in a subway, smashing his head and choking him. “In desperation he unsheathed a sword blade in his walking stick and slashed at one of them. . . . The assailants were charged with unlawful wounding but Butler was also tried, and convicted of carrying an offensive weapon” (p. 185).
You can imagine the legal position if someone goes so far as to use a real gun to defend himself. As British law now stands, you cannot even use a gun in your own home to defend yourself against burglars. In a 1999 incident, Tony Martin surprised a professional burglar and his accomplice while they robbed his home. He fired, killing one of them.
Did the government commend Martin for his bravery in confronting the burglars? Quite the contrary, they tried and convicted him for murder. “Thus an English farmer, living alone, has been sentenced to life in prison for killing one professional burglar and ten years for wounding another when the two broke into his home at night” (p. 216). Fortunately, our story has a “happy” ending: the court of appeals reduced his sentence to five years, on grounds of “diminished capacity.”
[…]
Gun control advocates, faced with these facts, will at once begin to yammer uncontrollably, “a correlation is not a cause.” Indeed it is not; but in this instance, a strong correlation holds in two ways: when guns increase in number, violent crimes decrease, and when guns decrease, violent crimes increase. Further, a plausible causal story explains the correlation: the prospect of armed resistance deters criminals. This is about as good as an inductive argument gets. But I do not anticipate that those who wish to take away the right to self-defense will alter their position. They aim to make everyone totally dependent on the all-powerful state.
There was time for her to get it out and save lives (of some other staff member):
…Hochsprung’s husband, George, told CNN: “There were gunshots. Somebody shot the window. Somebody came in, into the — not into the office, but into the building, the foyer of the building. And Dawn told us to go hide,” George said the teachers told him.
Hochsprung “and at least one other teacher went out and actually tried to subdue the killer. I don’t know where that comes from. Dawn was 5’2,” he continued, sitting surrounded by his three daughters from a previous marriage and one of Dawn’s two daughters from her previous marriage.
“Dawn put herself in jeopardy. And I have been angry about that. Angry. Until just now, when I met two women that she told to go under shelter while she actually confronted the gunman,” George recounted.
“She could have avoided that. And she didn’t. I knew she wouldn’t. So, I’m not angry anymore. I’m not angry. I’m not angry at anyone. I’m not angry,” he repeated as if hoping she would hear him, adding in a small voice, “I’m just very sad.”…
Gun control advocates just need to look at Virginia. Between 2006-2011 gun sales went up by 73% and at the same time gun-related violent crimes fell 24%. Virginia Commonwealth University professor Thomas R. Baker, who specializes in research methods and criminology, said this proves that more guns do not in fact cause more violence.
“While there is a wealth of academic literature attempting to demonstrate the relationship between guns and crime, a very simple and intuitive demonstration of the numbers seems to point away from the premise that more guns leads to more crime, at least in Virginia,” said Baker.
Baker examined six years of data from the Virginia Firearms Transaction Center that broke down the number of gun transactions for every federally licensed firearm dealer in Virginia. Background checks went up from 243,251 in 2006 to 420,829 in 2011. In 2006 there were 23,431 violent crimes in Virginia and dropped to 18,196 in 2011.
Handgun purchases increased 112% between 2006-2011 and violent crimes committed by people using handguns dropped by 22%.
Guns are a major part of Switzerland’s culture. Instead of a standing army they have a militia. Men between the ages of 20 and 30 are put into the militia and undergo military and weapons training, which means Switzerland has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world. Yet, Switzerland has a low crime rate. In 2010 there were only 40 gun homicides.
Which supports the idea I intimated on my FaceBook the day of the attack:
I am even madder at Mayor Bloomberg (NY) and Mayor Menino (Boston) are using this opportunity to politicize a horror. I was listening to Larry Elder talk to a security expert, he made the point that our banks, federal buildings, many corporations, and the like have armed security. But our schools are soft targets. He said “you don’t think a bunch of terrorists are putting two-and-two together. Twin Tower type attacks… hard. Walking into a school… easy.”
[…]
If only 5% or 10% of the staff were trained and were able to carry concealed firearms… this would not have been so tragic. But crazy lefties are wanting to restrict what can only help in this type of situation. Crazy.
[…]
I watched 60-Minutes and the nurse that lived through the ordeal hid in the closet for 4-hours… and she said she felt helpless. No duh! Even having a 22 in her purse (or other faculty) and shooting out his kneecaps would have stopped countless deaths. And she wouldn’t have felt helpless.
Gateway Pundit shares this story of the Police Chief saying “its time to arm staff:”
St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch says after the shooting last week in Newtown it is time to arm the teachers. Local KMOX reported:
St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch says it is time to talk about arming civilian school personnel following Friday’s massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, comparing it to arming airline pilots after September 11, 2001.
“I see it no differently,” he said. “Pilots have been armed now for many many years, we’ve not had another hijacking and the issue is, for the bad guy, he doesn’t know which airplane he’s getting on, if the pilot is armed or not.”
Fitch said the killing will not be stopped by legislation or laws. “If there’s somebody that’s really hellbent on doing something like this, they’re not going to care what the law is.”
PORTLAND — Nick Meli is emotionally drained. The 22-year-old was at Clackamas Town Center with a friend and her baby when a masked man opened fire.
“I heard three shots and turned and looked at Casey and said, ‘are you serious?,'” he said.
The friend and baby hit the floor. Meli, who has a concealed carry permit, positioned himself behind a pillar.
“He was working on his rifle,” said Meli. “He kept pulling the charging handle and hitting the side.”
The break in gunfire allowed Meli to pull out his own gun, but he never took his eyes off the shooter.
“As I was going down to pull, I saw someone in the back of the Charlotte move, and I knew if I fired and missed, I could hit them,” he said.
Meli took cover inside a nearby store. He never pulled the trigger. He stands by that decision.
“I’m not beating myself up cause I didn’t shoot him,” said Meli. “I know after he saw me, I think the last shot he fired was the one he used on himself.”
This shooter saw an armed citizen, and took his life. Similarly, when Adam Lanza heard the first responders coming, he turned the weapon on himself.
Another recent example for the record books here at RPT, via Free Republic:
Two people are hospitalized after a gunman chased terrified restaurant patrons into the lobby of the Santikos Mayan 14 movie theater during a showing of “The Hobbit” last night, 1200 WOAI news reprots.
Police detectives and sheriff’s investigators say the incident started in the China Garden Restaurant on Southwest Military Drive about 9 PM Sunday, when an employee of the restaurant walked in looking for a woman.
When the woman, who officials say is also a restaurant employee, wasn’t there, the man pulled a gun and attempted to open fire in the restaurant but his weapon jammed.
“It started at the restaurant and then went into the parking lot and then into the movie theater,” Deputy Lou Antu told 1200 WOAI news.
Investigators say some of the terrified restaurant patrons poured into the movie theater, and the gunman followed.
He opened fire, shooting one man in the chest, before Antu says an off duty sheriff’s deputy who was working security at the theater shot him once.
Liberals like Jason Whitlock want you to believe that the NRA killed Kansas City Chiefs player Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend. Zo tells you why the NRA is not the KKK, and reminds you who is really to blame for this murder-suicide, in addition to other tragedies in black communities.
The murder-suicide concerning NFL linebacker Jovan Belcher has reignited the national debate over gun control, especially in the wake of commentary provided last night by NBC sportscaster Bob Costas. Radio host Leo Terrell and author Erik Rush appeared on Sean Hannity’s show tonight for an incredibly heated segment on gun control. At one point, Rush got so frustrated with Terrell interrupting him he loudly begged Terrell to “please shut up!”
I will import a great post from Gateway Pundit for others here who do not realize the history of guns and black people and why the NRA was created:
On September 28, 1868, a mob of Democratsmassacred nearly 300 African-American Republicans in Opelousas, Louisiana. The savagery began when racist Democrats attacked a newspaper editor, a white Republican and schoolteacher for ex-slaves. Several African-Americans rushed to the assistance of their friend, and in response, Democrats went on a “Negro hunt,” killing every African-American (all of whom were Republicans) in the area they could find. (Via Grand Old Partisan)
Obviously, Whitlock is as ignorant as he is offensive. The NRA actually helped blacks defend themselves from violent KKK Democrats in the south, not the other way around. Ann Coulter wrote about the history of blacks and the NRA back in April.
This will give you an idea of how gun control laws worked. Following the firebombing of his house in 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King, who was, among other things, a Christian minister, applied for a gun permit, but the Alabama authorities found him unsuitable. A decade later, he won a Nobel Peace Prize.
How’s that “may issue” gun permit policy working for you?
The NRA opposed these discretionary gun permit laws and proceeded to grant NRA charters to blacks who sought to defend themselves from Klan violence — including the great civil rights hero Robert F. Williams.
A World War II Marine veteran, Williams returned home to Monroe, N.C., to find the Klan riding high — beating, lynching and murdering blacks at will. No one would join the NAACP for fear of Klan reprisals. Williams became president of the local chapter and increased membership from six to more than 200.
But it was not until he got a charter from the NRA in 1957 and founded the Black Armed Guard that the Klan got their comeuppance in Monroe.
Williams’ repeated thwarting of violent Klan attacks is described in his stirring book, “Negroes With Guns.” In one crucial battle, the Klan sieged the home of a black physician and his wife, but Williams and his Black Armed Guard stood sentry and repelled the larger, cowardly force. And that was the end of it.
As the Klan found out, it’s not so much fun when the rabbit’s got the gun.
The NRA’s proud history of fighting the Klan has been airbrushed out of the record by those who were complicit with the KKK, Jim Crow and racial terror, to wit: the Democrats.
Sadly, asshat Whitlock will get away with his outrageous lies. The early KKK Democrats would be proud.
“I feel horrible. It doesn’t feel good. It makes you think about life’s decisions, and how you should live your life,” Henderson [one of the robbers] said in an interview with the Star-Banner at the jail on Saturday afternoon.
Jones College Prep, a Chicago Public Schools “selective enrollment” school, held “Social Justice Week” in March, a collection of events geared towards turning students into activists. See the schedule of events here.
According to a flyer on the school’s website:
Social Justice Week was created to promote community advancement through dialogue and community service based activism. Moreover, we hope to unify the voice of various JCP and community organizations in which to facilitate collaboration for the betterment of the community at large and promote a unified human rights advancement initiative.”….
[….]
On Wednesday of Social Justice Week, Black Star Project, a Chicago-based community organizing group, was brought into the school after school hours to teach students about “non-violent” protesting. Led by Phillip Jackson, former “Chief of Education” under former Mayor Richard Daley, the optional discussion was focused on students fighting back against gun crime.
Black Star Project, according to its website, is funded by Open Society Foundations (i.e. George Soros), Best Buy, ING and Toyota Motor Sales, among others.
But Jackson apparently had no interest in allowing students to come to their own conclusions on gun ownership.
Jackson’s co-presenter, Camille Williams of the Peace in the Hood movement, made several inflammatory statements about gun ownership and the National Rifle Association. She claimed the NRA is indifferent to gun violence….
[….]
At this particular session of Social Justice Week, no opposing views were offered. It appeared only certain outcomes were being sought. Jackson strongly encouraged the students to develop forms of non-violent protest. “I’m not telling you to do it, but if you were going to,” he said, leading the proverbial horse to the water.
“I’m just saying,” he said on several occasions.
Jackson then offered the idea of creating a symbolic graveyard on the school lawn of headstones featuring the names of Chicago residents killed with guns….
….Apparently this has occurred to no one because our excellent public education system ensures that no American under the age of 60 has the slightest notion of this country’s history.
Gun control laws were originally promulgated by Democrats to keep guns out of the hands of blacks. This allowed the Democratic policy of slavery to proceed with fewer bumps and, after the Civil War, allowed the Democratic Ku Klux Klan to menace and murder black Americans with little resistance.
(Contrary to what illiterates believe, the KKK was an outgrowth of the Democratic Party, with overlapping membership rolls. The Klan was to the Democrats what the American Civil Liberties Union is today: Not every Democrat is an ACLU’er, but every ACLU’er is a Democrat. Same with the Klan.)
In 1640, the very first gun control law ever enacted on these shores was passed in Virginia. It provided that blacks — even freemen — could not own guns.
Chief Justice Roger Taney’s infamous opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford circularly argued that blacks could not be citizens because if they were citizens, they would have the right to own guns: “[I]t would give them the full liberty,” he said, “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”
With logic like that, Republicans eventually had to fight a Civil War to get the Democrats to give up slavery.
Alas, they were Democrats, so they cheated.
After the war, Democratic legislatures enacted “Black Codes,” denying black Americans the right of citizenship — such as the rather crucial one of bearing arms — while other Democrats (sometimes the same Democrats) founded the Ku Klux Klan.
For more than a hundred years, Republicans have aggressively supported arming blacks, so they could defend themselves against Democrats.
The original draft of the Anti-Klan Act of 1871 — passed at the urging of Republican president Ulysses S. Grant — made it a federal felony to “deprive any citizen of the United States of any arms or weapons he may have in his house or possession for the defense of his person, family, or property.” This section was deleted from the final bill only because it was deemed both beyond Congress’ authority and superfluous, inasmuch as the rights of citizenship included the right to bear arms.
Under authority of the Anti-Klan Act, President Grant deployed the U.S. military to destroy the Klan, and pretty nearly completed the job.
But the Klan had a few resurgences in the early and mid-20th century. Curiously, wherever the Klan became a political force, gun control laws would suddenly appear on the books.
This will give you an idea of how gun control laws worked. Following the firebombing of his house in 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King, who was, among other things, a Christian minister, applied for a gun permit, but the Alabama authorities found him unsuitable. A decade later, he won a Nobel Peace Prize.
How’s that “may issue” gun permit policy working for you?
The NRA opposed these discretionary gun permit laws and proceeded to grant NRA charters to blacks who sought to defend themselves from Klan violence — including the great civil rights hero Robert F. Williams.
A World War II Marine veteran, Williams returned home to Monroe, N.C., to find the Klan riding high — beating, lynching and murdering blacks at will. No one would join the NAACP for fear of Klan reprisals. Williams became president of the local chapter and increased membership from six to more than 200.
But it was not until he got a charter from the NRA in 1957 and founded the Black Armed Guard that the Klan got their comeuppance in Monroe.
Williams’ repeated thwarting of violent Klan attacks is described in his stirring book, “Negroes With Guns.” In one crucial battle, the Klan sieged the home of a black physician and his wife, but Williams and his Black Armed Guard stood sentry and repelled the larger, cowardly force. And that was the end of it.
As the Klan found out, it’s not so much fun when the rabbit’s got the gun.
The NRA’s proud history of fighting the Klan has been airbrushed out of the record by those who were complicit with the KKK, Jim Crow and racial terror, to wit: the Democrats.
In the preface to “Negroes With Guns,” Williams writes: “I have asserted the right of Negroes to meet the violence of the Ku Klux Klan by armed self-defense — and have acted on it. It has always been an accepted right of Americans, as the history of our Western states proves, that where the law is unable, or unwilling, to enforce order, the citizens can, and must act in self-defense against lawless violence.”
Contrary to MSNBC hosts, I do not believe the shooting in Florida is evidence of a resurgent KKK. But wherever the truth lies in that case, gun control is always a scheme of the powerful to deprive the powerless of the right to self-defense.
