Another Shooting, Close to Home

[Policenaut]

The point is this guy was nuts. If he didn't get a gun he would have made a bomb or started stabbing people or try to run over people as they were leaving the meeting. He was going to do something to try and kill people.

 

[baron]

The point is this guy was nuts. If he didn't get a gun he would have made a bomb or started stabbing people or try to run over people as they were leaving the meeting. He was going to do something to try and kill people.

So it's just as easy to make a large bomb, smuggle it into a public hall and detonate it than it is to pull a trigger?

How many stabbing sprees have claimed seven lives that you know of?

How many times have seven people been deliberately run over and killed?

Lots of people are nuts but in many countries that doesn't regularly result in carnage.

 

[Minadin]

There were only 5 people killed by the guy.

And, it would have been easy to smuggle something into this place. The room is totally open most of the time.

That said, a handgun is obviously much easier to use as it's pretty simple and can be used from long range or close up, they're easier to get a hold of, and you don't have to build it.

 

[Minadin]

deluxe paraphrased version of events

Did anyone hear the statement his brother made? Basically said the council members, etc... had it coming. Wow. Saw it on CNN too tired to search for it online.

Yeah, and his mom called it an "act of god".

Basically the guy's beef with the city was that he got a bunch of parking tickets 7 years ago for parking 7 commercial trucks on a residential street (at his house) and then going on vacation. He went on vacation for a few days and when he got back he had a ticket on each truck for each day he was gone. Which I will say is kind of a jerky thing for the police to do.

But, if he would have gone in and complained about it and agreed to pay 1 fine but not 7 or tried to work with the city at all to reconcile, this all could have been avoided.

Instead, he decided that the city was challenging his manhood in some way. So, he stopped "playing by their rules". Which, when you're a residential contractor in that city, apparently means doing anything that might involve giving the City any money for anything. Such as, but not limited to:

1. Paying parking tickets
2. Renewing your business license
3. Obtaining a building permit
4. Obtaining zoning approval
5. Getting site plans approved
6. Applying for Temporary Special Use permits for things like dumpsters and trucks you want to park out in a street at a job site

So, refusing to do these things for the last several years, he butted heads quite a bit with city officials, who are charged with enforcing their ordinances, and after several warnings he started to rack up some hefty fines, about $18,000 total. He also apparently at one point either assaulted or physically threatened / harmed the director of public works, Ken Yost, who would later become one of his victims, and was arrested for that.

Around this time is when he started disrupting City Council and Planning and Zoning board meetings. At first, he would apply to get on the agenda (if you are a resident of Kirkwood and have a topic that fits the purview of the board you are petitioning, they are required to give you time by city law) to talk about a specific topic, but when it was his turn to speak, he would instead talk about how he thought all the city officials could go to hell, or how the mayor's head particularly resembled a donkey's behind. Sometimes he would bring an easel and a sharpie and play pictionary.

At first people thought this was embarrassing or occasionally amusing. Most towns have their nutty guy or two, right? But as the guy kept on persisting and wouldn't ever be talking about his topic, but rather insulting the Council, Zoning Board, Mayor, and occasionally their mothers, they stopped putting him on the agenda.

So then he started coming to meetings just as an attendee, which is his right as a city resident. Typically, before the council or board would put an issue to vote after each agenda item, they would ask for any comments from citizens. He would then stand up and say something, but at this point he's not even making unrelated insults, he would just say, "Mr. Mayor, blah blah blah. Blabbity blah. Blah blah. Blabbity blah blah blah." for several minutes and then sit down. Or, on at least one occasion that my boss was in attendance, he hee-hawed like a donkey for a bit. On several occasions he was removed by police and he was arrested at least 2 times for disorderly conduct / creating a public disturbance.

The council decided not to ban him from attending, but because he felt that his first amendment rights were being violated by being removed / arrested, he took the city to court. The city tried to appease him by saying they would reduce or remove his fines - I'm not sure if they were talking about the parking tickets or the ones from not following procedure in his contracting business. Last week he lost his case in federal court when a judge dismissed his suit on the grounds that he was in fact being disruptive and that the city was acting within its legal bounds to remove him.

So that was the situation as of Thursday morning.

His brother says he went to war with the people who were causing him strife. The only person who was causing strife in his life was him. He just got so fixated on his hatred for the city that he eventually flipped out. He thought they were deliberately picking on him, forming secret plans against him, and possibly discriminating against him because he was black, when in fact, if I had done the things he attempted, or my company had, we would have expected to be treated in exactly the same way.

His mother says it was an "Act of God". She's 100% wrong. It was an act of insanity, accomplished through paranoia and stupidity, and ending in violence. His family should have sought counseling for him years ago when he became obsessively fixated on this. Prior to that time, from all accounts, he was a pretty nice guy and well-liked individual.

 

[Minadin]

Uh, you did notice that 2 of the victims were police officers. There is a 99.99999999999999999999999999999 percent probability that at least two of the victims had guns (I'm not aware of any situation in any police department in the USA in which police officers acting in an official capacity don't carry guns [other than when visiting prisoners in a jail]). It didn't do much to protect them, did it?

Both of the officers who were shot and killed had guns. Neither of them had time to draw or use them, however. In fact the first officer, who was shot outside, was deposed of his firearm by the shooter in this incident, so he went in with 2 guns. Apparently one was a .40 caliber police service handgun and the other was a "large caliber" revolver (.45 maybe?) which belonged to the assailant.

More details about the actual incident itself: The shooter reportedly was holding the guns behind a protest sign and no one inside the council chamber saw them until he had gunned down the officer on the inside, who was the police department spokesperson.

 

[baron]

Both of the officers who were shot and killed had guns. Neither of them had time to draw or use them, however. In fact the first officer, who was shot outside, was deposed of his firearm by the shooter in this incident, so he went in with 2 guns.

So this effectively proves, if proof were needed, that the garbage posted by some of the pro-gun crowd (I'm not referring to you) is just that; garbage.

Not only did having a gun not prevent the crime occurring, it arguably exacerbated its effect on account of the perpetrator obtaining an additional weapon.

And these were trained officers, not rednecks who think nothing will ever happen to them as long as they're carrying the most powerful firearm money can buy.

 

[Rolfe]

So this effectively proves, if proof were needed, that the garbage posted by some of the pro-gun crowd (I'm not referring to you) is just that; garbage.

Not only did having a gun not prevent the crime occurring, it arguably exacerbated its effect on account of the perpetrator obtaining an additional weapon.

And these were trained officers, not rednecks who think nothing will ever happen to them as long as they're carrying the most powerful firearm money can buy.

You'd think so, wouldn't you. But no. It appears that the police officers are rank amateurs compared to the rednecks, and really, it would be better to sack the police and give all the protection work over to these super-skilled rednecks.

A rather large number of police actually pull their guns when they clean them and when they have the (usually annual) required firearms check (fire at a target, hit it a few times, you're fine). Very few (unless a lot of people are lying) have fast draw and fire training). If my gun is in my hand and yours is in your holster and you and your partner are no more than 60 degrees apart neither of you will have time to draw.

(I'm back) Unless the second person has had such training. In the real world the average officer may be in a situation like that once in his career - if that.

And since it's always possible to find some way to kill someone if you're determined enough, then there's no point in reducing the availability of the overwhelmingly preferred and most efficient method.

I mean, someone who wants to commit suicide will always be able to find a way so there's no point in reducing the availability or accessibility of the commonest suicide methods, is there? Oh, but. We do that, and hey, it works!

Rolfe.

Rolfe.

 

[littlehulkster]

Too bad 80% of all criminals get their weapons off the black market, which isn't going to be effected by these restrictions.

 

[fuelair]

So it's just as easy to make a large bomb, smuggle it into a public hall and detonate it than it is to pull a trigger?

How many stabbing sprees have claimed seven lives that you know of?

How many times have seven people been deliberately run over and killed?

Lots of people are nuts but in many countries that doesn't regularly result in carnage.

The bomb does not have to be large and (if you have contacts or reasonable amounts of time and money) is not hard to obtain rather than make. No details here, thank you - except, has everyone seen a hand grenade? Movie depiction of what they do is of some limited accuracy.(A hand grenade does not just explode, it sends pieces/pellets of fast moving metal in every direction - like a shotgun that shoots in all directions at once (and, it takes about 40 cents worth of material to make one small but effective one on your own.)

You haven't heard of stabbing sprees because guns are easier to learn than knives. But, I guarantee in a room similar to that described a trained knife/edged weapon person could murder/harm that many people if he wasn't throwing any and more if he was. (key word is trained. Untrained would likely be taken down by the first reasonably strong person to come from side or behind).

 

[baron]

The bomb does not have to be large and (if you have contacts or reasonable amounts of time and money) is not hard to obtain rather than make. No details here, thank you - except, has everyone seen a hand grenade?

I don't advocate a society where handgrenades are freely available any more than one where guns are. As for home made ones, the absence of freely available guns doesn't provoke unbalanced people to construct their own grenades, as the almost total lack of civilian grenade incidents in gun-restrictive societies clearly illustrates.

You haven't heard of stabbing sprees because guns are easier to learn than knives.

That's one of many reasons, yes.

But, I guarantee in a room similar to that described a trained knife/edged weapon person could murder/harm that many people if he wasn't throwing any and more if he was. (key word is trained. Untrained would likely be taken down by the first reasonably strong person to come from side or behind).

The key word is indeed "trained". I'm not contesting outlandish scenarios where the town planning meeting is invaded by a psychotic ex-Navy Seal, I'm trying to make the point that when guns are freely available it causes far more death and destruction than when they're not.

 

[Minadin]

If we would for a moment pretend that we lived in a world where it was possible to have absolutely 0 access to guns in this situation, that is to say that the police would not have them, nor would the criminals / insane / upstanding and honorable citizens, how would that have changed this outcome?

In my mind, with the way this unfolded, you would probably have fewer killed here, perhaps 2-3 since he was close enough to those first victims and surprised them, and he could have killed or injured them easily with a knife in this situation. But I would think that it would be less easy for him to get at the other victims after that, so you're giving other people more time to remove themselves from the situation. I suppose also that it wouldn't have been as easy for the police to stop him as quickly as he was. I know I wouldn't want to approach a knife-wielding maniac if I was unarmed. However, if they have tazers or other less-lethal methods at their disposal in this world-without-guns we're imagining, perhaps they could employ those. The guy would probably have been taken in alive and had to stand trial.

It's a tragedy either way, though perhaps less of one without guns, and I'm not sure that a long trial for this guy would be the best thing for the city. I'm glad they're not having one under the real-world scenario that actually happened, because they just got finished with a big on about a month ago, from when one of their other officers was gunned down about 2 years ago. But, of course you would trade the prolonged agony of the judicial system for the extra lives saved if presented with that choice, wouldn't you?

As far as my own personal stance on guns and gun ownership, it's complicated. I do not own a gun, nor do I ever plan on owning one again. I used to have a small-gauge shotgun for hunting, which I did on occasion as a teen, but I stopped enjoying it and sold it to my dad, who does still enjoy it. He also owns a .22 caliber marksmanship-style rifle.

Even though I don't ever plan on exercising my right to bear arms again, though, I do support other people to have that right if they choose. So I guess I am still pro-guns in that respect. However, I think that there ought to be a lot more required in the screening and licensing process than is currently done in most places, and they need to do everything they can to keep track of these firearms and eliminate the black market for them, because it seems that as a society we've shown that we're certainly capable of abusing that right. We need to be a lot more responsible about it.

Maybe they could put a large deposit requirement on bullets which you could be refunded if you returned the spent shell casings or entire bullets without criminal activity or something. I'm not sure what the best method for maintaining the right and curbing the violence would be.

 

[baron]

If we would for a moment pretend that we lived in a world where it was possible to have absolutely 0 access to guns in this situation, that is to say that the police would not have them, nor would the criminals / insane / upstanding and honorable citizens, how would that have changed this outcome?

In my mind, with the way this unfolded, you would probably have fewer killed here, perhaps 2-3...

I would say that's the worst-case scenario, yes. Far more likely is that it wouldn't have happened at all. A gun makes the weilder feel invulnerable. I have no evidence to hand and I'm not sure such evidence exists, but I'd be very surprised if this guy would have had the balls to try to kill a roomful of people had he not been carrying a gun.

As far as my own personal stance on guns and gun ownership, it's complicated. I do not own a gun, nor do I ever plan on owning one again. I used to have a small-gauge shotgun for hunting, which I did on occasion as a teen, but I stopped enjoying it and sold it to my dad, who does still enjoy it. He also owns a .22 caliber marksmanship-style rifle.

Even though I don't ever plan on exercising my right to bear arms again, though, I do support other people to have that right if they choose. So I guess I am still pro-guns in that respect. However, I think that there ought to be a lot more required in the screening and licensing process than is currently done in most places, and they need to do everything they can to keep track of these firearms and eliminate the black market for them, because it seems that as a society we've shown that we're certainly capable of abusing that right. We need to be a lot more responsible about it.

Maybe they could put a large deposit requirement on bullets which you could be refunded if you returned the spent shell casings or entire bullets without criminal activity or something. I'm not sure what the best method for maintaining the right and curbing the violence would be.

I don't know what the solution is either, but for options to be considered people need to realise there's a problem, and sadly many not only don't see the need to reduce gun access, they want to increase it.

 

[littlehulkster]

Why does no one seem to care that the vast majority of crimes are commited with illegally obtained firearms?

Do you like throwing around meaningless sensationalism that much?

 

[quixotecoyote]

I'm still boggling about this. Less than 1000 population? We call that a village, here, and not a very big one at that. This prompted me to consider the size of the settlement I live in. Census data for 2001 record 4,054 for the village "and district", which actually includes a number of smaller villages and hamlets. Another document examining the role of rural post offices (case 2.1 in that document) records 1,459 for the vllage itself and 3,768 for "and district", apparently based on the same figures.

So even my village is bigger than your town.

...

Your society seems to me to be a very scary place to live.

Rolfe.

I think you have yet to appreciate how rural America is arranged. I used to deliver furniture and appliances to little towns in northeast Missouri. Some of the towns were so small they wouldn't be on the map. A lot of them were truly insular and scary. I saw several signs on gas stations, one in particular stands out "If you ain't a local, don't be asking fer air." I kid you not.

These were towns where 200-600 people was common, very insular and isolated. They're also dirt poor, with the average income being below $25k. Drug abuse is common, especially meth. The prevailing attitude is suspicious, resentful, and insecure. There's usually some effort involved in community building, especially around churches, but the idea that you work together as a community for the common good is a foreign concept. I was a little surprised at how dystopian it all seemed to be.

I think that's what fuels that psychological need for guns. There were guns everywhere, gas station guy had his visible behind the counter. Virtually every house I delivered to (mostly the upper classes) had gun cabinets. I think that when you perceive your society as hostile and dangerous, owning a gun helps balance things mentally.


That said, I see parallels in that mentality in other social groups. People in the suburbs who have no idea who their neighbors are because theirs no social mechanism to introduce yourself. Urban dwellers who have to call the police to make their neighbors turn the music down because they fear getting shot asking themselves. I see guns as a band-aid on the psyche of society.

America lacks a group identity right down to the town level. Sure people are happy to wave a flag and downright pleased to ostracize people who don't support the troops, but the idea that our governments are forums for communities, states, and the nation to come together and advance the common interest is dead. Government is, not altogether unreasonably, seen as one more danger in an already hostile and broken world.

That's why America is scary, not because everyone has guns, but because of the individual fortress mentality which drives the demand.

 

[baron]

Why does no one seem to care that the vast majority of crimes are commited with illegally obtained firearms?

Because it's not relevant. Did those guns magic themselves into existance or were they once legally sold or at the very least manufactured to be legally sold?

 

[fuelair]

. However, I think that there ought to be a lot more required in the screening and licensing process than is currently done in most places, and they need to do everything they can to keep track of these firearms and eliminate the black market for them, because it seems that as a society we've shown that we're certainly capable of abusing that right. We need to be a lot more responsible about it.

Maybe they could put a large deposit requirement on bullets which you could be refunded if you returned the spent shell casings or entire bullets without criminal activity or something. I'm not sure what the best method for maintaining the right and curbing the violence would be.

I have no problem with the first of these paragraphs, but the second would require me to buy bullet loading equipment or a lot of bullets before it went into effect. As I did with Black Talons before they stopped being made due to planned laws on their production.

 

[littlehulkster]

Because it's not relevant. Did those guns magic themselves into existance or were they once legally sold or at the very least manufactured to be legally sold?

Right, and they're just going to magic themselves out of existence the second more restrictive laws are passed?

 

[Rolfe]

That's why America is scary, not because everyone has guns, but because of the individual fortress mentality which drives the demand.

That may be the single most illuminating observation on the subject.

I just wrote a few paragraphs about this illumination, but I've deleted than as I don't want the usual suspects on my case even more. I'm used to the idea that the smaller the community, the more cohesive, and the less need there is to lock your door. Big cities, OK, lawless and anonymous places sometimes. But villages - they look after you.

I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed now.

Rolfe.

 

[Mobyseven]

That may be the single most illuminating observation on the subject.

I just wrote a few paragraphs about this illumination, but I've deleted than as I don't want the usual suspects on my case even more. I'm used to the idea that the smaller the community, the more cohesive, and the less need there is to lock your door. Big cities, OK, lawless and anonymous places sometimes. But villages - they look after you.

I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed now.

Rolfe.

Indeed. I always sort of assumed that rural America was, for the most part, like rural Australia. It seems, from the post above, to be pretty much the exact opposite.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Indeed. I always sort of assumed that rural America was, for the most part, like rural Australia. It seems, from the post above, to be pretty much the exact opposite.

One man's opinion only, of course. It's quite possible that others have seen genuine community stick-together-ness. It may be mine is a unique view, but I've gotten a sense of general isolation and disjointness both when I was living in mildly shady parts of KC and when I was out in the boonies. They know each other better in small towns, but it doesn't mean they trust each other any more.