Umpteenth shootout in the US, this time near New York's Empire State building

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Kentonio- please could you add a link for the graph? I'd like to look at the source and methodology.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

1995 looks like a party year ... what was the event?

If that graph is based on the BCS figures, it was probably the inclusion of a self-complete module in the survey in order to improve reporting of sensitive crimes such as domestic violence and sexual offences.

[The Mad Monk]

Armed bystander stops stabbing outside school

SAN ANTONIO - A woman is in critical condition after she was stabbed outside her child's school Tuesday morning.

The attack happened around 10:00 a.m. Tuesday outside the Bonham Academy on St. Mary's Street. Teresa Barron, 38, had just dropped off her child at the school when the child's father showed up, and the two got into an argument. The child's father, 38-year-old Roberto Barron allegedly then stabbed the woman several times in the upper body and neck area.

Police say a bystander who happened to be a concealed handgun license holder pulled his weapon and ordered Barron to drop the knife. Barron surrendered and was taken into custody by the bystander and a school district officer.

The woman was taken to San Antonio Military Medical Center.

Barron was arrested for aggravated assault, and is in jail on a $150,000 bond.

http://www.woai.com/news/local/story/Armed-bystander-stops-stabbing-outside-school/6zTYMpy8pUOeyrbElEBOTQ.cspx

The headline says "stops" not "prevents", so I guess that works, though as it is there's at least one unintended interpretation. I suspect he may have prevented a kidnapping and Amber Alert.

[SlowwHand]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19372533

This is like those terrorist attacks in Israel/Iraq/Afghanistan. After a while everyone thinks it's normal.
So what are US policy makers going to do about this random violence do you think?

Do you have a New Year's Resolution to come visit here every quarter and whine about things that are none of your concern? Put in a less polite way, **** off.

[kentonio]

Kentonio- please could you add a link for the graph? I'd like to look at the source and methodology.

Sorry man I can't remember the source, I was the reading up on some stuff and came across that chart.

[Wezil]

News of a shooting in NJ is just breaking.


We'll have new carnage to talk about.

[Traianvs]

News of a shooting in NJ is just breaking.


We'll have new carnage to talk about.

O you think? Like I said earlier

After a while everyone thinks it's normal.

[Wezil]

Normal doesn't make it any less sad.

[Lonestar]

Nice gun!

My next one is going to be a Henry Golden Boy. I am Yankee American Cowboy, da?

[Dauphin]

Was on the tram in Geneva today with a soldier who had a gun in plain sight. Made me feel a little uncomfortable. Odd, given that I've been fine when I've been around cops with guns in plain sight.

[snoopy369]

I don't feel 100% comfortable around cops with guns, either. Anybody capable of ending my life or a life of a family member with very little difficulty makes me nervous. Too many stories of police brutality - and I have a lot of respect for the police, but it just takes one - to be that comfortable.

[Hauldren Collider]

My next one is going to be a Henry Golden Boy. I am Yankee American Cowboy, da?

Yippie kai yay, yeehaw, etc

[DinoDoc]

News of a shooting in NJ is just breaking.


We'll have new carnage to talk about.

Did the police shoot most of the victims again?

[Wezil]

Not the story I read.

Shooter killed two then himself.

[The Mad Monk]

92-year-old Verona man shoots intruder at home

VERONA — Earl Jones had just turned off his new TV shortly after 2 a.m. Monday when he heard a bang in the basement.

The 92-year-old Boone County farmer walked eight paces to get his loaded .22 caliber rifle from behind the bedroom door. He unwrapped a beige cloth and returned to the living room, sitting in a chair with clear view – and shot – of the basement door, waiting with the gun across his lap.

Some 15 minutes later, when he heard footsteps moving closer up the stairs, he raised the rifle to his eye. The intruder kicked open the door. Jones fixed his aim on the center of the man’s chest and fired a single shot. The Boone County Sheriff later announced the death of the intruder, Lloyd (Adam) Maxwell, 24, of Richmond, Ky.

“These people aren’t worth any more to me than a groundhog,” Jones told the Enquirer. “They have our country in havoc. We got so many damned crooked people walking around today.”

Two men with Maxwell, Ryan Dalton, 22, and Donnie Inabnit, 20, both of Dry Ridge, were charged with second degree burglary and tampering with evidence. Police say they removed Maxwell’s body from Jones’ Violet Road home.

The Boone County Sheriff had no information Monday night on whether Jones would be charged, but he appeared clearly to act within Kentucky’s legal definition of justifiable force in the defense of his home and property.

An investigation is ongoing. Police haven’t said if the intruders were armed.

Kentucky, like at least two dozen states, has a “Castle doctrine” enshrined in its laws. That’s the right to defend one’s home with deadly force.

Kentucky law allows the use of physical force if someone believes it’s needed to prevent criminal trespass, robbery, or burglary in their house.

Some states, including Kentucky, have expanded the Castle doctrine in recent years, giving people the right to use deadly force outside of their homes.

Called “no retreat” or “stand your ground” laws, they do not require an individual to retreat before using force and allow the individual to match force for force, including deadly force, in public places. Florida’s “stand your ground” law is at the core of the Feb. 26 shooting death of black teen Trayvon Martin by crime-watch volunteer George Zimmerman.

The number of killings nationally of a felon during the commission of a felony by private citizens has increased in recent years, from 196 in 2005 to 278 in 2010, acording to FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics.

Two high-profile cases of justifiable homicide took place regionally in recent years.

In January, an 84-year-old Hamilton man shot and killed an elderly intruder at his home in the 2700 block of Hilda Avenue and was not charged. In March 2007, a Covington man fatally shot an intruder whom he said was beating him in his home at 3:30 a.m. and was not charged, either.

'I aimed right for his heart'
In Earl Jones’ mind, his actions are justified, as well. He said he was completely within his rights to defend his life and ranch home on the 500-acre farm he has worked since 1955.

“I was hoping another one would come up – I aimed right for his heart,” Jones, who served in the U.S. Army Air Forces from 1941 through ’46, told the Enquirer Monday afternoon. “I didn’t go to war for nothing. I have the right to carry a gun. That’s what I told the police this morning.”

Not long after the shooting, Kenton County Police responded to a call on Courtney Road of a man who had been shot. There they found Maxwell’s body and two uninjured men in a 2001 Chevrolet Impala who later, during questioning, would admit to being at Jones’ home on Violet Road.

The break-in was the third Jones has experienced on his farm this year. In April, thieves stole 90 head of cattle from the field behind his house. In August, burglars took from his house a television, a few thousands dollars cash and a personal check they unsuccessfully tried to cash and ripped his phone out of the wall.

“I can’t leave the damn house to do my work outside,” said Jones, removing his World War II veteran cap with his right hand and running his left through his thin white hair.

Jones has lived alone since his wife, Virginia Pearl, died in 2006. The couple had no children. Jones grew up hunting squirrels in Boone County and volunteered for the forerunner to the U.S. Air Force in 1941. He went through weapons training in the military.

He is not happy that police took the rifle used in the shooting.

“How am I going to protect myself if they come back looking for revenge?” he said.

Maxwell fell back seven steps onto a landing. Jones didn’t pursue them into the basement.

He called a neighbor and calmly said, “I need help. I just shot a man,’” he said.

At the same time, the two unhurt intruders, Dalton and Inabnit, fled Jones’ property with Maxwell’s body. Not long afterward, having driven across the county line, they called Kenton County Police with a bogus story of how Maxwell had been shot.

When Boone County Sheriff’s deputies arrived at Jones house, they found the basement door ajar and no one except Jones in the home.

Jones didn’t like how deputies treated him. “They stood down there with their guns on me, yelling, `Get your hands up! Get your hands up!’” he said. “I told them, `I’m not putting my damn hands up.’”

Finally, he did. Police approached up the long gravel driveway, flanked by a field of tobacco that Jones rents to another farmer, and questioned him.

“Was I scared? Was I mad? Hell, no,” Jones said. “It was simple. That man was going to take my life. He was hunting me. I was protecting myself.”

http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20120903/NEWS010703/309030021/Verona-man-92-shoots-robber-home?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE