A Lee County, Florida man shot and killed his wife and three daughters—ages 10, 6, and 2—over the weekend, before turning the gun on himself. Sheriff Mike Scott called it the single-largest mass shooting in Lee County history.
“This is everyday USA behind me,” Scott said on Sunday as he was standing front of the crime scene. “Something snapped, something went terribly wrong. And we’ll never know the answer to why.”
No, probably not. But we do know the answer how: He had a gun. Whatever it was that set the shooter off—alcohol, mental illness, a domestic dispute—it was the immediate availability of the gun (which he no doubt kept to protect his family) that made his awful impulse so deadly.
To emphasize that point, a neighbor, Karen Downare, is quoted remembering the shooter as a “kind, gentle, loving dad.”
“If you would have told me that it was possible for him to ever do this, I would have told you you’re a liar,” she insisted. “That it was not possible for that man to do that to his family.”
Tragically, yes, it was possible, Karen. With a gun.
According to Wayne LaPierre, NRA’s executive vice president, “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
My question is this – where are all of the good guys?
Will the NRA argument be that we just not reached gun saturation levels? Where absolutely everyone is armed.
When even armed police officers are shot dead (Las Vegas), the “good guy with a gun” BS just doesn’t cut it.
Maybe he should amend it. “The other thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a bad guy with a gun after he’s shot everyone on his list.”
So why didn’t he leave the kids out of it? It’s a pointless question, because he did drag them into whatever hell was going on in his mind. Humans and guns don’t mix. Isn’t that obvious by now?
I’m not optimistic about this, though. Just because our country is afflicted by a terrible problem (gun violence) doesn’t mean we’ll ever fix the problem. Humans are perfectly capable of polluting, shooting, and/or nuking themselves to extinction. When you’re dealing with humans, sad endings are not only possible, but more likely than not. All I can say for sure is, don’t worry, if you humans don’t solve your self-inflicted problems, then you can count on nature to do it for you, one way or another, and after all of you stupid humans are gone we rabbits are gonna run this place. Then everything will be as it should be.
@1 What Wayne LaPierre misses is that it’s MUCH easier to stop a bad guy if he doesn’t have a gun. If you purge all the guns from American society, you’ll still have bad guys, but you won’t have shootings. Fratricide is a lot more manageable when it’s done with fists, kicks, sticks, and rocks.
A Lee County, Florida man stabbed and killed his wife and three daughters—ages 10, 6, and 2—over the weekend, before turning the knife on himself. Sheriff Mike Scott called it the single-largest mass stabbing in Lee County history.
“This is everyday USA behind me,” Scott said on Sunday as he was standing front of the crime scene. “Something snapped, something went terribly wrong. And we’ll never know the answer to why.”
No, probably not. But we do know the answer how: He had a knife. Whatever it was that set the knife wielder off—alcohol, mental illness, a domestic dispute—it was the immediate availability of the knife (which he no doubt kept to prepare food) that made his awful impulse so deadly.
To emphasize that point, a neighbor, Karen Downare, is quoted remembering the knife wielder as a “kind, gentle, loving dad.”
“If you would have told me that it was possible for him to ever do this, I would have told you you’re a liar,” she insisted. “That it was not possible for that man to do that to his family.”
Tragically, yes, it was possible, Karen. With a knife.
@7 The simple and obvious answer to your lamebrain retort is: I like my odds facing a bad guy with a knife a lot better than my odds facing a bad guy with a gun.
You also overlook the fact that it’s much harder to kill someone with a knife than with a gun. Just ask Jodi Arias. How many times did she stab her boyfriend before he died? 40 times?
A bullet can take you down instantly (although it doesn’t always). If someone starts poking holes in me with a knife, he’d better get me in the heart with his very first lunge, because if he doesn’t I’ll break his fucking neck. I may bleed to death, but not before I take him with me.
re 7: Are you suggesting that it would be just as effective to arm our military with Swiss Army Knives as with firearms?
I’m at a loss to understand how that woman (Jodi Arias) was able to kill her boyfriend with a knife, especially given that she had to stab him 40 times to finish him off. Where were his hands during this? Why weren’t they wrapped around her throat?
Let me tell you sumpin. The coroner ain’t gonna find defensive wounds on my carcass. I won’t waste my last breath on futile posturing. My claws will be digging into his jugular, not pushing him or the knife away. I’m willing to get killed, but I’ll make him trade. Anyone can kill me, but he has to pay the toll. I don’t believe in giving away my life for free.
I had an experience in Vietnam with a fellow soldier. The guy was a friend of mine. We were posted on a hill to guard a road. Without anything happening, he suddenly snapped, and hit me with the butt of his M-16. I was knocked backwards. He then aimed his M-16 to shoot me. I grabbed my M-16 and got there at the same time. We were in a Mexican standoff. He was pointing the muzzle of his M-16 at my chest with the selector switch on full auto and his finger on the trigger. I was pointing my M-16 at his chest with the selector switch on full auto and my finger on the trigger. I thought I was going to die. When this was happening, I believed my chances of survival were zero. I could see it in his eyes. I started talking to him, trying to talk him out of it, but I really expected that would be futile. I told him I didn’t want to kill him and wouldn’t shoot first, but if he shot me, I would take him with me. He knew this was true. If he fired, the impact of his bullets hitting my body would jerk my trigger and my M-16 would go off. He didn’t respond for a long time, just stared at me, clearly thinking it over, and I think he was ready to make the trade. After several minutes, during which time he said nothing, he raised his weapon and walked away. To this day, I don’t what started it, or why he walked away. Maybe he’d been in Vietnam too long and reached his breaking point. I think it’s a pretty good theory that something had happened, somewhere else, that I didn’t know about, that was under his skin and it came to the surface in that time and place. Obviously we weren’t friends anymore after that, we never spoke again, so I never got any explanation for his behavior that day. What I can tell you, though, is how I reacted when I abruptly found myself staring at the business end of a military weapon in the hands of a man with an immediate present intent to cause my death: I knew I couldn’t save my life, so I focused on taking his, and making sure he knew I would. I don’t think he cared about that. He was ready to die, I saw it in his eyes. I think what saved both our lives that day is that he wasn’t a killer at heart and after he had a few minutes to regain his rationality he decided this was something he didn’t want to do. I think it was an inner moral force in this man that got him to walk away from that confrontation. I’m sure it was a life-changing experience for both of us. It certainly was for me. You can’t go through an experience like that and be the same as you were before. After something like that, you’ll never again see the world through the same eyes as before. This is the first time I have ever posted about this anywhere on the internet. Even my wife doesn’t know about this. I’m talking about it now because I know exactly what I would do if faced with a mortal threat — it isn’t conjecture or guessing on my part; I’ve been there, done that. If someone tries to kill me, I’m going to kill my killer. I won’t beg for my life, I’ll make the trade. I’ll go, but he’ll go with me. That’s it. That’s how I’m bolted together.
Which makes me the last rabbit any terrorist, domestic or otherwise, wants to meet because if I find myself in a situation like that I will go straight at the fucker. You can kiss my furry ass goodbye, but I will take the terrorist down if I possibly can, and I will do as much damage to him as I possibly can. That’s how this rabbit is bolted together. I was designed to kick, bite, scratch, and gouge. That’s what Great Mother Rabbit Spirit gave me claws and teeth for, and I know how to use ’em.
@7 You miss the point, perhaps deliberately. It’s not that it isn’t physically possible to murder one’s family with a knife. Or poison. Or a pillow. Or a car. It’s that more than any other weapon, a gun facilitates transforming such impulses into an immediate and final reality.
Had he not owned a gun, he might have come to his senses before he had time to act.
@13 Some people come to their senses; some don’t. The greatest danger of guns is they can make weak people feel invincible.
@13. Exactly. Guns take altercations that ought to end in a fist fight, and instead make them end with a dead person and a murderer.
What people don’t seem to get about hand guns is that their only purpose on this earth is killing people. So unless you plan on killing someone, don’t purchase a hand gun.
@15…”What people don’t seem to get about hand guns is that their only purpose on this earth is killing people. So unless you plan on killing someone, don’t purchase a hand gun.”
That has to be one of the most ridiculous comments I’ve read lately.
What do we do to insure the police, military and other local, Stste and federal people don’t have access to guns?
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11
I had an incident where I had to relieve a drunk of his Browning automatic shotgun because he was intent on ambushing a highway patrolman who previously arrested him for drunk driving. A rather scary event, as I recall.
@16 You could argue that handguns are used in sport shooting (i.e. target practice) and even hunting, but handguns are designed to be used against human beings and that’s their primary function. Most people buy handguns with some type of self-defense in mind — either home defense or concealed carry in public. Even at shooting ranges, handguns are often fired at human-shaped silhouette targets. Saying this does not detract from handguns’ utility for self-defense. One could argue that a handgun in a woman’s purse when she enters a parking garage after work is utilitarian if having it gives her an added measure of comfort vis-a-vis the potential dangers that might be lurking in a parking garage. But in this example, the purpose of the handgun is to shoot a human being if a perceived need arises. That’s what she bought it for, and is why she’s carrying it in her purse. The same is true of most other purposes to which handguns are put. In nearly all cases, the intended use of a handgun is to modify, or if necessary to stop, human behavior. So, while your criticism of Goldy’s comment is not altogether wrong, neither is Goldy’s comment altogether wrong.
@19 I’d rather face a drunk stumbling around with a shotgun than a stone-cold-sober trained soldier and combat veteran armed with an M-16 in a war zone, but neither experience is a walk in the park.
Also, He Had A Gun, Too
The media are now telling us the Walmart shopper killed in Sunday’s “Militia Massacre”* in Las Vegas was a 31-year-old man who was carrying a concealed pistol and “died a hero” by confronting Jared Miller with his gun. Not realizing that Amanda Miller was with Jared Miller, was his wife, and was armed, the man — who thought he was up against only one gunman — was shot once in the ribs by Amanda Miller and immediately collapsed. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts. Hmm, well, not really; but at least he gave it the old college try. But remember what Wayne LaPierre said? To wit, “only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun,” or words to that effect. I think we need to qualify that a bit, i.e., “a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun, but only if the good guy doesn’t get shot first.” In real life, the good guys don’t always win. (They’re not always the guy wearing the white hat, either. So you have to be careful when taking aim at a shooter with your concealed handgun. First, you want to make sure he’s not a cop. Second, you want to make sure he’s not a good guy. Third, you want to make sure the cops and good guys realize you’re not the bad guy. This can get complicated if you’re firing a handgun at people in their vicinity. They’re not going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out which side you’re on, if you need what I mean. More probably, they’ll shoot first and worry about that later.)
Unfortunately the mantra of explosion of gun crimes is false. Check out:http://bearingarms.com/cold-ha.....aign=nl_pm