If the cops would have tazered her and kicked her and got her gun before she shot herself, you would have bad mouthed the cops .

Sounds like the restraining order wouldnt have done any good.

If the cops would have tazered her and kicked her and got her gun before she shot herself, you would have bad mouthed the cops.

None of the people whom the Portland cops have needlessly killed in recent years had guns. Not Jim Jim, not Jahar, not Squeaky, not Kendra.

The cops in all those cases were overreacting jerks -- kind of like your comment.

Good to hear this woman is off the street. It's a shame the man relied on a piece of paper instead of a more effective way of protecting himself.

Hmmm...She wasn't even supposed to *have* a gun in her possession, if she was under a domestic violence restraining order. I thought gun laws would have prevented her from committing such a heinous crime! It is unfortunate for her victim that, like many criminals, she refused to obey the gun laws.

This is just another illustration of how futile gun laws are in preventing those who would harm others with a firearm from so doing. More gun laws are not the answer to this sort of violence.

Perhaps the victim was one of those people (like our esteemed moderator) who vowed never to have a gun in his home, and the agressor knew that, and planned her assault accordingly. One has to wonder if, had he been carrying his own gun and had used it, he would be in the hospital now.

I hope he comes through it okay; prayers for him.

I believe the guy is dead.

If we had tighter gun control laws, would she have been able to get a gun? If it were harder to do so, would she have gone through all the bother?

Probably, but not every disturbed person is so persistent.

Don’t confuse us with logic al. It screws up the hypothetical.

He did have a gun. She shot him with it.

"There is a connection between having a gun and shooting someone and not having a gun and not shooting someone." Bill Hicks.

Hip hop's demographics continue to widen.

No, this one is more "Helter Skelter" than Tupac.

Wait a minute. This crazy lady got her hands on his pistol somehow, and shot him with his own gun ?!? Got a source for that ? I've looked around at the news here and don't see that angle.

And there were numerous eyewitnesses to her threatening his life ? And she had had a restraining order against her previously, as well as numerous incidents of attempted assault, harassment, threats against other people's lives, etc, etc ?

Now, just imagine if the genders were reversed, and she had gone to the police with a laundry list like that about a violent man who was stalking her.

Do ya think things might have possibly played out a wee bit differently ?

Personally, if I had been that guy, I might have taken a vacation far, far away for a while, if at all possible.

I mean, as a someone who was a witness in a murder trial a long time ago, who also has the most dangerous job in the US, I own the proper tools for self defense, and cherish that right, but, still...you have to sleep sometime, and someone that crazy and determined will eventually ambush you. They don't need a firearm to kill you if they are sufficiently motivated, either. Bog is right though, not every nutjob is quite that persistent.

Cabbie,
That’s what was mentioned on the TV report I saw last night. It may have been conjecture, but as that’s the third most likely use of a gun kept in your house (following killing yourself or your spouse) it seems more than likely.

I thought convenience store clerk was the most dangerous job in America. Actually, having seen the list of highest paid city employees, not to mention my brother-in-law’s new house, it must be firefighter. Why else would they make so much?

"Now, just imagine if the genders were reversed, and she had gone to the police with a laundry list like that about a violent man who was stalking her.

Do ya think things might have possibly played out a wee bit differently ?"

How would it have played out differently if the genders were reversed? It played out exactly as it often does for women victims. Failed relationship, followed by stalking, followed by restraining order, followed by death. No different.

"It may have been conjecture, but as that’s the third most likely use of a gun kept in your house (following killing yourself or your spouse) it seems more than likely."

Would you please cite your source Sherwood? I can show you reports from the CDC and FBI that refute that claim, although the Brady Bunch still stands firmly behind it.

Joey,

That "conjecture" (we call it something different at our house) you were asking about has been thoroughly refuted, yet the Brady Bunch keeps repeating it, as if continued repetition will somehow turn lies into truth. When they did that "study", they injected a wee bit of bias into it: They asked households in which a a member had been murdered if they had guns in the house, and that's where they came up with that "statistic." The results would have been much different had they asked gun-owning households if any members of the household had been murdered. It's all about the group you pick to ask the questions of.

You can read more about this and many other gun-grabber statistical fantasies in John Lott's book, "More Guns, Less Crime" which is a county-by-county analysis of how liberalized gun laws have led to reductions of crime in those places where citizens are permitted to carry weapons. As you can imagine, the anti-gun crowd hates it, but they haven't been able to refute it.

Cheers,
al

Just to be fair, and to play Devil's Advocate, some of the numerous mouthpieces for the anti-self defense lobby attempted to refute that idea a while back. For example, the conclusion Steven Levitt came to in The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Violent Crime was that the drastic reduction in violent crime during the 90s was not so much due to the granting of the right to armed self-defense to private citizens, but rather to the effects of Roe v Wade.

In other words, less poor people were born in the 70s, they were instead flushed into the trash before they became "human", and thus less crime a generation later.

Of course, that argument seriously flirts with Eugenics, and we all know how liberal that is.

Are you saying that a child in the house using the gun in some way comes before the spouse shooting someone? Maybe. Not quoting a survey just stating the bleeding obvious.

Anyway, I’ve discovered in my fifteen years in bravery’s home that there is no more pointless debate than this - unless you count gate crashing a meeting of the flat earth society. There are some people that believe that there is no connection between 250,000.000 guns and 33,000 shooting deaths and some that think there just might be. The relative lack of passion about it these days must mean that most people consider ten 9/11s a year to be somehow normal; that America is some sort of psychopathically murderous place. I find it to be much more placid than most countries I’ve visited (try Newcastle on a Friday night) just better armed.

Al, I’ll look for that book next time I’m at Powells. I assume it’s shelved next to “Eat more pies get less fat” and that seminal work “Drink more beer get less drunk.”

Wow, you managed to conjure both NineUhLevun for the scare factor, and your worldly globetrotting to assure us you know what you are talking about.

You don't.

If you look at the total violent crime rate for the entire world, not just shootings, you will find that the US isn't anywhere near the top of the list.

Moreover, like most of the disingenuous statistics pumped out by the anti-self defense lobby, the various figures for "shooting deaths" per year that they often toss out include legal uses of a firearm for self-defense, and Police shootings.

Nice try, though. I personally feel that if you wish to strip others of the right to defend themselves, you should put your money where your mouth is and affix a large sign to your front door proclaiming that your house is "Gun-Free."

Cabbie,

Amen to that! Self-defense is the ultimate "right to life."

Sherwood is right, though: there's no more pointless debate, when the anti-choice crowd continues to trot out the same old lies about how you're "more likely to be shot by your own gun" and how "you're gun is more likely to be taken away and used against you." Pure bunk, and proven to be so with every defensive use of firearms -- and most defensive firearms uses do not involve discharge of said firearm. Seems that bullies are afraid of getting shot, and would rather avoid that sort of thing.

Imagine that.

So, Sherwood, the connection between the 250 million guns in our society and the 33,000 shooting deaths a year (and I don't even admit that you've got your numbers right, here) is that, without the guns, there would be a lot MORE shootings. That's been statistically proven, see the aforementioned book. We all know you won't read it, though, because then to be intellectually honest, you would have to admit that your long-held and passionate beliefs about the evils of privately-held firearms are just plain wrong. And the anti-choice crowd isn't big on intellectual honesty.

You can behave like prey if you want. I won't try to deny you that choice, as it's your right. As for me, I make a different decision to take personal responsibility for my own safety. It's just common sense to me.

One major issue around firearms is who should be allowed by a society to possess them, and who should not, and who should decide this in it's Government.

I'm not very happy with the squatters currently occupying our Federal Government, and I'd wager that most of you aren't either.

Still though, I support the idea of extremely thorough background checks for the purchase of a firearm. The basic idea is, to make it difficult for psychos like the perpetrator of this tragedy to kill people.

I've met genuine schizophrenics, like when I lived within 1/2 block of the main entrance of the huge old Texas State Asylum, and even in that nutty, gun-crazy State they weren't allowed to be anywhere near guns. That idea is fine by me.

It's a slippery slope, but also a genuine, pragmatic concern.

Also, anyone with little kids, if you are so stupid that you don't have a locked place in which to store your guns when you are gone, you do not deserve to possess guns, or have children. But there we go with Eugenics again...

Boys, I told you there was no point in discussing this. Nobody is coming for your guns (paranoid and packing is the worst of all worlds). A few restrictions on military weapons and on criminals/nutters is about as far as I ever see it going. With each mass shooting I still get panicked calls from my parents. I’ve become so blasé about it I just give them the odds and complain that the worst thing is it ruins TV news for a night. After all, in a country with hundreds of millions of guns floating around a nutter/teenager shooting a bunch of people is no more of a news story than “Man buys hat, puts on head” or “Puppy poops in park.”

The no gun in house sign sounds like an interesting idea. At least that would tell me if I should let my daughter play there. And, if you take away the guns you can’t have more shootings. People would have to throw bullets at each other, which may sting but wouldn’t kill you. In England (I would argue a more violent place) you have 25(ish) shooting deaths a year. Proof, I think we can agree, that throwing bullets or stabbing/beating is so much less efficient.