Homeowner stands his ground, kills his wife

Senseless gun tragedy in Goldsboro, as a quick-draw homeowner stands his ground and kills his wife.

WRAL reports

A Goldsboro man accidentally shot and killed his wife early Friday morning when he mistook her for someone trying to break into the home.

...Billy Williams then got a gun from a safe, opened the front door and fired one shot, authorities said. The front porch light was not on.

There are so many other things the homeowner could have done...call the police, turn on the outside lights, yell out that he was about to shoot. Instead, he fired blindly into the dark.

More guns = more carnage.

Murderous weekend in North Carolina

Melbourne, Australia has been my beautiful and peaceful home for just over a year now, but I've continued to follow the news from North Carolina and the U.S. closely. And too much of that news from my old home has been unfathomably tragic.

This Sunday's news stories from the tar heel state would give any caring person pause.

• A Statesboro father guns down his two preschool sons and tries, but fails, to gun down himself.
• A teenager in Raleigh is randomly and inexplicably gunned down. 
• A retired law officer in Gastonia is gunned down, another Gastonia resident wounded, and other law officers and an innocent bystander are subsequently wounded in a gun battle.
• A Winston-Salem man is gunned down and another man is wounded at a party.

During this awful, gory, bloody weekend, the state of North Carolina with its population of 9.9 million people--and its millions of guns--murdered more people with those guns than the nation of Australia with its population of 23.1 million people murders with guns, knives, hands, pipes, pills, and whatever in a typical week (source).

While this weekend's gun victim body count in North Carolina is higher than usual (thankfully there are more peaceful weekends), the average number of murders in NC on a given day (1.4) is twice the average number in Australia (0.7). Adjusted for the differences in population size, North Carolina's murder rate is almost five times Australia's.

One of the things my wife and I have come to appreciate in our new home town is the ability to walk out of our urban apartment (flats here), walk down streets and alleys (laneways here), and hang out in crowded, noisy bars (pubs here and the laneway pubs are the absolute best) with no worries about gun-toting idiots (idiots here too!).

North Carolinians don't have to live (and die) the way that they do, and maybe someday they will escape the thrall of the NRA and its lies about more guns and more guns and more guns making people safer.

In the meantime, if you want a drink in a dodgy but safe laneway pub, look us up. We'll shout you a round.

Licenses to kill

The gun apologists argue that lawful concealed carry gun holders pose no risk to the general public. However, 644 people (at least) would likely disagree if they were around to tell their side of the story.

The Violence Policy Center reports that since May 2007, 644 people have been killed by private citizens authorized to carry concealed handguns. These include 28 incidents of mass shootings and 14 deaths of law enforcement officers. About five out of six of the incidents were murder-suicides.

And none of the incidents involved self-defense.

Disarming logic

A biology professor at Boise State University asks for some practical advice and pens one of the best op-ed columns of the year.

Gun claims the life of another NC preschooler

Guns do kill people.

Just a few weeks after a NC two-year-old was killed while handling an unattended gun, another small child has died. wral.com reports

A 4-year-old child died early Saturday after accidentally shooting himself inside a home in west Fayetteville home, police said.

...According to investigators, the boy found the loaded gun on top of the refrigerator before accidentally shooting himself. Emergency crews attempted to treat him, but he was pronounced dead at the home.

Tragic, sad, and unnecessary.

11-year-old with 400 rounds of ammo

More evidence that the U.S. has more guns than it can responsibly handle. CNN reports

A Washington state middle school boy was arrested Wednesday and faces an attempted murder charge, after he brought 400 rounds of ammunition, multiple knives and a handgun to his school, police said.

The 11-year-old was booked into a juvenile detention facility after the incident that caused the lockdown of Frontier Middle School, Vancouver Police said.

The NRA should be along any moment now to tell us that the only thing that stops a bad 11-year-old with a gun is a good 11-year-old with a gun.

Irresponsible gun ownership

This week's news featured a trio of stories of irresponsible gun ownership that so far have led to the deaths of two children and one adult and the woundings of two other children. The words "so far" have to be emphasized because the gun from one of the incidents is still out in the community and because the week is only half over.

On Saturday, a two-year-old in North Carolina died after finding her father's loaded semi-automatic pistol. Besides being irresponsibly stored, the gun was irresponsibly provided to the father, a convicted teenage felon.

On Monday, a Nevada 12-year-old child killed a teacher, wounded two other middle-school students, and shot himself after taking a semi-automatic pistol from his parents' home.

And still later this week, we discovered that an AR-15 rifle was stolen from the home of NC Rep. Renee Ellmers after her family left it and other gear "out in plain sight" in an unlocked garage. To make it easier for thieves, the Congresswoman's teenage son had earlier advertised the availability of the gun in a tweet. Heaven knows where or how the stolen weapon will be used.

Rep. Ellmers' spokesperson expressed the Congresswoman's concerns, "As you can imagine, the Ellmers family is shaken by these events and is working with law enforcement to make sure those responsible are found and brought to justice."

We already know who was irresponsible, and it's highly doubtful that Congresswoman's community, which is also shaken by the availability of another gun, will see any justice.

Ironically, Rep. Ellmers co-sponsored legislation calling for a special prosecutor to investigate gunwalking.

Update (10/23/13, 2:30 p.m.): The week's tragic toll includes the death of a third child. CNN reports

A woman who was babysitting a 5-year-old who fatally shot himself Monday with her gun has been charged with abandoning or endangering a child, a felony, and jailed in Orange County, Texas, police said Wednesday.

Americans participating in the labor force like it's 1978

The U.S. Department of Labor reported this morning that the national unemployment rate fell from an estimated 7.4 percent in July to 7.3 percent in August, on a seasonally adjusted basis. At first blush, a falling unemployment rate looks like good news, but upon closer examination, the supporting survey data suggest that the labor market actually weakened in August.

The unemployment rate is calculated from a large, national, monthly survey of approximately 60,000 households. Among other things, the survey asks whether adult members of the households were participating in the labor force (meaning they were either working or available and looking for work) and whether they were employed. The unemployment rate is calculated as the ratio of people who are in the labor force but not working (the numerator) and all people who are in the labor force (the denominator).

By these definitions, the August survey indicates that nearly 200,000 fewer Americans are unemployed, which should be very good news--except that all of this decline (and then some) came from a reduction in the labor force. Overall, the government estimated that the number of Americans in the labor force fell by just over 300,000, and the number of Americans who reported that they were working fell by just over 100,000.

The percentage of non-institutionalized, adult civilians who were in the labor force fell from 63.4 percent in July to 63.2 percent in August, the lowest that figure has been since 1978. The percentage of non-institutionalized, adult, civilians who were working fell from 58.7 percent in July to 58.6 percent in August. That number is little changed since the depths of the Great Recession (the rate bottomed out at 58.2 percent in 2010).

Some of the change seems likely to be sampling error. The Department of Labor cautions that monthly changes in the survey estimates that are smaller than 400,000 aren't statistically meaningful. Thus, we can't rule out the possibility that the numbers of people in the labor force and who are employed actually grew. Indeed, preliminary estimates from the establishment survey, which counts jobs at firms rather than counts of people who report employment, indicate that the number of non-farm jobs grew by 169,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis (plus or minus 100,000 given the sampling error).

Nevertheless, we can conclude with certainty that jobs aren't being added quickly enough to make meaningful improvements in the economic lives of Americans. That's disappointing and sadly, not news.

Arming teachers, what could possibly go wrong?

This for one thing.

Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Benton, is interested in exploring whether state law allows school districts to make decisions on school safety. If a legal avenue does not exist, he hopes the Legislature will change the law.

After the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, Hutchinson became interested in arming school personnel, he said. He was invited to attend an "active shooter" training and—using a rubber bullet-loaded pistol—he mistakenly shot a teacher who was confronting a "bad guy."

Oops.

Who says that the Carolinas have lost their exporting edge

The Carolinas might not be the export powerhouse they once was when it comes to useful goods, but they're finding new markets for exporting mayhem.

The New York Times explains

“A lot of firepower,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg mused as he paused to look at some of the 254 guns — large-caliber pistols and military-grade weapons modified to improve aim and avoid detection — that were bought by the police during the yearlong undercover investigation.

In a 264-page indictment announced on Monday, prosecutors said 19 people in two separate but loosely connected rings brought the guns to the city from North and South Carolina for one simple reason: they could buy low where regulations were loose and sell high on the city streets.

NC legislature would give a gun to John Hinckley Jr.

Unbe-f***ing-lievable.

Both houses of the NC legislature have voted to strike the provision that "No individual who has been found not guilty by reason of insanity may petition a court for restoration under this section" from the NC statute regarding the restoration of gun rights (see Section 9 of HB 937).

Under this provision, if John Hinckley Jr. were a NC resident, he could petition to get his gun "rights" restored.

Another accidental shooting

CNN is reporting another accidental shooting tragedy.

A Kentucky mother stepped outside of her home just for a few minutes, but it was long enough for her 5-year-old son to accidentally shoot his 2-year-old sister with the .22-caliber rifle he got for his birthday, state officials said.

Little Caroline Starks died Tuesday in Burkesville, in southern Kentucky, according to Cumberland County Coroner Gary White.

"The little Crickett rifle is a single-shot rifle and it has a child safety," White said of the weapon. "It's just a tragic situation."

It's hard to comprehend how a rifle, even the "little" Crickett rifle, would be appropriate for a 5-year-old. But Crickett marketing materials (pictures are shown below) encourage putting guns in the hands of even younger children.



The company also has testimonials that encourage giving the guns to small children. Two examples

Thank you for supporting the next generation of recreational shooters. My 4 1/2 year old daughter thought the "pink one" was far superior to a black synthetic stock,who am i to argue? I never would have thought that a pink rifle would be sitting in the rack in the gun room.

Just wanted to drop you a note, to let you know what a great product you offer. I just recently bought two Crickett .22's, one pink and one black. They are exceptionally accurate, and just the right size for my 5 and 7 year olds. They are awesome and we couldn't be happier. Thanks So Much!!!!!"

More than 1 million shot in the U.S. in the last decade

A disturbing coda to the figures on gunshot injuries and fatalities that I posted on Saturday.

The post focused on trends in U.S. shootings and how they have increased over the last decade. The post only briefly touched on the enormous scale of the carnage.

If you add the figures together, they indicate that more than one million people were shot in the U.S. in the last decade (2002-11) for which numbers are available. About 310,000 of these shootings were fatal.

One million people exceeds the combined populations of Charlotte and Winston-Salem.

310,000 people exceeds the population of Greensboro.

Put another way, if a service was held to read the names of each of the decade's million-plus U.S. shooting victims, the speakers took just three seconds per name, and the speakers read continuously day and night, it would take more than a month to read the names. While the last decade's victims were being remembered, more than 10,000 additional people in the U.S. would be shot.

The increasing chances of being shot

Americans' risks of being shot by a gun were higher in 2011 than a decade earlier.

The figure below shows figures from the Centers for Disease Control WISQARS database supplemented with preliminary mortality data for 2011 on people in the U.S. who either suffered a non-fatal firearms injury (the blue bars) or were killed by a firearm (the red bars). The sum of the figures indicates the total number of people who were shot.



In 2011, just over 106,000 people were shot in the U.S., or about one out of every 2,940 Americans. Just over 32,000 of these shooting injuries were fatal. A decade earlier just under 93,000 people were shot (about one out of every 3,080 Americans) with just under 30,000 fatalities. When you adjust for the increase in the population and average the changes across all 11 years, the chances of being shot rose by 0.8% per year.

Nearly two-thirds of these shootings were assaults and homicides; figures appear below. In 2011, there were just under 67,000 firearms assaults and homicides compared to just over 52,000 a decade earlier. Adjusting for population growth and averaging changes across years, the chances of an American suffering a homicide or an assault injury at the end of a gun climbed by 1.7% per year.



Accidental shootings were down over the decade, falling from 18,500 in 2001 to 15,500 in 2011. Adjusting for population size and averaging the changes over the decade, the chances of being accidentally shot fell by 2.3% per year. While the gun accident figure might seem encouraging, it is worth considering that the chances of being accidentally cut or stabbed fell even more (2.6% per year).

More guns, more shootings, more misery.

Toughest milk monitor this side of the Pecos

The Charlotte Observer reports more evidence that the flood of guns puts all of us at risk.

A 7-year-old brought was taken into custody after allegedly bringing a gun to school Thursday, the Alexander County Sheriff’s Office says.

Sheriff Chris Bowman says the gun was seized around midday by staff members at Sugar Loaf Elementary School, on N.C. 16 a few miles north of Taylorsville. Students told teachers about the gun, authorities say.

Thank goodness the school staff was able to secure the gun before a bigger tragedy unfolded.

Guns do kill people

Gun apologists are fond of saying that "guns don't kill people -- people kill people." How then to explain this story from the Charlotte Observer.

Nearly two years after a Charlotte teenager died and two others were wounded in a mysterious shooting in eastern North Carolina, the Columbus County district attorney has determined a gun malfunction is to blame.

The bullet that struck and killed Jasmine Thar, a 16-year-old Ardrey Kell High student, over Christmas break in 2011 was fired from a rifle that accidentally discharged, District Attorney Jonathan David said in a Monday news conference with Thar’s family.

The story goes on to describe a well-known defect in the model of rifle that would have cost "pennies per gun" to fix.

The gun lobby's strategy of putting more dangerous and malfunctioning guns into the hands of more people increases the odds of these tragedies.

Jasmine Thar never had a chance, and arming her, her friends, or anyone else wouldn't have helped.

What could possibly go wrong?

Greensboro's year started with a gun tragedy. On the morning of January 7, as her family was preparing for work and school, Sandra Palmer shot her 14-year-old middle-school son five times, killing him, and shot her live-in boyfriend and her 18-year-old daughter multiple times. The boyfriend escaped to get help when Palmer's first gun jammed. Palmer grabbed a second gun and turned it on herself, ending her own life.

This morning's News & Record reports that Palmer obtained the gun permit from our friendly sheriff's office two days before the slaughter, despite:

• suffering from a history of psychiatric problems,
• being on five separate medications for psychiatric and emotional issues, and
• suffering through a host of financial hardships, including the recent loss of her job, a recent bankruptcy, and the ongoing foreclosure of her house.

Palmer did not disclose any of these problems on her permit application, and even if she had, none of them would have disqualified her. This litany of problems didn't even raise a speed bump along the path to a gun purchase.

Sandra Palmer might not have technically been crazy, but irresponsible policies that quickly put a gun in the hands of someone with her problems and circumstances surely are.

Sen. Hagan lost my vote today

Senator Hagan (aka "Kowardly Kay") lost my vote today by repeatedly standing with the gun lobby and against sensible gun safety and a majority of her constituents. Kowardly Kay

• Voted against the Lautenberg amendment to restrict large capacity ammunition feeding devices.
• Voted against the Feinsten amendment to restrict assault weapons.
• Voted for the Cornyn amendment to require states to accept every other state's concealed weapons permits and allow a "race to the bottom" for gun safety.
• Voted for the Burr amendment to make it easier for crazy people to get guns.

Kowardly Kay had earlier voted in favor of the Inhofe amendment to prevent the United States from entering into the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty.

Guns don't kill people; 4 year-olds with guns kill people

Two heart-rending stories in the last few days show the tragic consequences of a country that is awash in guns.

A 6-year-old New Jersey boy has died after being shot in the head by a 4-year-old playmate as their parents stood in the yard nearby, a local police chief said.

..."The 4-year-old ... retrieved a rifle within the house, a .22-caliber rifle, came outside," Mastronardy told reporters earlier Tuesday. "... A shot went out and the 6-year-old was struck in the head."

The news report continues

This eastern New Jersey incident follows another fatal shooting days ago that also involved a 4-year-old boy, this time in Tennessee.

Josephine Fanning had gone into a bedroom, along with the boy, where her husband -- Wilson County Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Fanning -- was showing a relative some of the lawman's guns.

At some point, the boy picked up a loaded pistol from a bed and shot Josephine Fanning dead, said Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Kristin Helm.

Two lives lost; two others, scarred. Tragic, senseless, needless.

Insanity

Completely and insanely legal right now in the United States.



This is what our crazy gun laws allow.