Friday, December 25, 2009
From full article at findarticles.com:
Remember the officers’ appreciation of Rory Vertigan’s actions the next time you hear some anti-gunner saying, “The cops don’t want private citizens to carry guns.”
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
From full article at GOA:
Texas state Rep. Suzanna Gratia-Hupp is recognized worldwide as one of the leading advocates for an individual’s right to carry a concealed firearm. Several years ago, while testifying in opposition to additional gun control legislation, she related the emotional account of how she lost both of her parents to a lone gunman in 1991. At the time of the attack, Texas did not allow private citizens to carry concealed.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
From full article at Seattle PI:
Seattle knew Edward McMichael by sight or sound, the bespectacled guy with the wispy beard and floppy Uncle Sam and Dr. Seuss hats. For decades he breathed life into his shiny brass instrument, outside city sports venues.
On Oct. 25, police say, McMichael, 53, was near a bus stop in the 500 block of Mercer Street when thugs attacked, beating and robbing him after midnight. He was taken to the hospital for head wounds and was home recovering. But he died sometime Sunday or early Monday.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
In March 1982, 27 years ago, the small town of Kennesaw – responding to a handgun ban in Morton Grove, Ill. – unanimously passed an ordinance requiring each head of household to own and maintain a gun.
Prior to enactment of the law, Kennesaw had a population of just 5,242 but a crime rate significantly higher (4,332 per 100,000) than the national average (3,899 per 100,000). The latest statistics available – for the year 2005 – show the rate at 2,027 per 100,000. Meanwhile, the population has skyrocketed to 28,189.
By comparison, the population of Morton Grove, the first city in Illinois to adopt a gun ban for anyone other than police officers, has actually dropped slightly and stands at 22,202, according to 2005 statistics. More significantly, perhaps, the city’s crime rate increased by 15.7 percent immediately after the gun ban, even though the overall crime rate in Cook County rose only 3 percent.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
From full article at CNN.com:
Four teenagers have been charged in connection with the incident early Sunday morning along an isolated dirt road in Mont Vernon, a town of about 2,000.
In a news release Tuesday, the New Hampshire Department of Justice identified the victim as 42-year-old Kimberly Cates. The medical examiner determined that she died from “multiple sharp injuries to the head, torso, left arm, and left leg.”
The victim’s 10-year-old daughter sustained serious knife injuries that required hours of surgery.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
From full article at CNN.com:
Yale University graduate student Annie Le, whose body was found in the basement wall of an off-campus medical research building, was strangled, a spokesman for the Connecticut medical examiner’s office said Wednesday.
The cause of death was “traumatic asphyxia due to neck compression,” the spokesman said. The office would not release the spokesman’s name.
Le, 24, a pharmacology student, was last seen alive September 8, the day she appeared in a surveillance video entering a four-story lab at 10 Amistad St., about 10 blocks from the main campus.
Her body was found Sunday, on what was to have been her wedding day.
Monday, September 7, 2009
In Warren v. District of Columbia (1981), the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled, “official police personnel and the government employing them are not generally liable to victims of criminal acts for failure to provide adequate police protection . . . a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular citizen.” In Bowers v. DeVito (1982), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, “[T]here is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen.”
Saturday, September 5, 2009
From full article at Las Vegas Now:
Christian, a University of Tennessee student, and Newsom were on a date Jan. 6, 2007, when her sport utility vehicle was carjacked at gunpoint by several people in Knoxville.
The attackers blindfolded and bound the couple and took them to a rundown rental house. Police concluded Newsom was soon taken away, sexually assaulted, shot in the back of the head, set on fire and left beside some railroad tracks.
Christian was beaten and repeatedly raped over the next 24 hours. An autopsy said she died of suffocation after she was choked, wrapped in plastic bags and dumped in a trash can.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
From full article at NY Times:
The men, the authorities say, had already strangled Dr. Petit’s wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and in short order would also kill the couple’s two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. The elder suspect, Steven J. Hayes, 44, had poured gasoline on the girls and their mother, according to a lawyer and a law enforcement official involved in the case, in hopes of concealing DNA evidence of sexual assault. He had raped Ms. Hawke-Petit, and his partner, Joshua Komisarjevsky, 26, had sexually assaulted Michaela.
Moments after Dr. Petit escaped, as the house was being surrounded by police officers, the men lighted the gasoline. The girls were tied to their beds but alive when the gas Mr. Hayes had spread around the house was set aflame.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
From full article at Seattle Times:
A 17-year-old Kirkland resident who prosecutors say stabbed a man to steal his iPod “apparently for the fun of it” was charged Wednesday as an adult.
Michael J. McMahill-Dearmond, who lives in the 13000 block of 105th Avenue Northeast with his mother, was charged with first-degree assault and first-degree attempted robbery, according to the court documents.
McMahill-Dearmond is accused of attacking Michael Woolson, 48, near a parking lot at Carl Sandberg Elementary School in Kirkland about 1:30 a.m. Monday.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
From full article at KIRO TV:
According to Seattle police, they have arrested a suspect in the stabbing death of 31-year-old Shannon Harps in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood on New Year’s Eve.
Shannon Harps, an organizer with the Sierra Club, was killed outside her apartment building on Capitol Hill.
Seattle police announced Friday that they have arrested 48-year-old James A. Williams of Seattle in connection with Harps’ slaying.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
From full article at WSB TV:
Authorities have said they believe Emerson was kidnapped in Union County and killed in Dawson County.
Her body was found nearly 50 miles from where she vanished during a New Year’s Day hike near Blood Mountain in Union County. An autopsy report says Emerson was beaten to death and then decapitated.
Hilton was the last person seen with Emerson on the hiking trail and had tried to use her credit card, according to his arrest warrant.
Hilton has been named as a suspect in the murder of two other women and the disappearance of a man in North Carolina.
If you could have teleported one object to Meredith at her final moments, would it have been a legal defensive gun or a note that said “Sorry, but you shouldn’t have one”? Now look at her picture and say that out loud.
Friday, September 4, 2009
From full article at Seattle PI:
A mother and daughter slain this week while hiking a popular trail in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest were shot, a Snohomish County Sheriff’s spokesman said Thursday.
Deputy Rich Niebusch provided few other details about the killings of Mary Cooper, 56, a librarian at Decatur AEII Elementary School, and her daughter, Susanna Cooper Stodden, 27, both of Seattle. They were killed while hiking on the Pinnacle Lake Trail, about 20 miles east of Granite Falls.
Friday, September 4, 2009
From full article at CNN:
A Florida jury has recommended the death penalty for a plumber who kidnapped, raped and murdered a police detective’s daughter.
Michael King, 38, showed no reaction Friday afternoon as the jury’s 12-0 decision was announced in Sarasota. Jurors deliberated for nearly three hours.
King was convicted a week ago of first-degree murder and related offenses in the January 17, 2008, death of Denise Lee, a 21-year-old mother of two boys.
Would you rather a woman get raped and murdered than a criminal get shot?
Friday, September 4, 2009
Self-defense is a human right. Countries around the world — “civilized” and otherwise — have stripped their citizens of their rights to defend the one and only life they have. Those of us who live in the United States are lucky enough to have a constitutional amendment guaranteeing our rights to possess and use a firearm in defense of ourselves and those we care about.
Still, the Second Amendment is constantly under attack by those who would tell you that you should have no such right, essentially saying that your life isn’t important enough. They’d say that, statistically, the chances of your being the victim of a violent crime are low. They’d ask why you’d need a gun without an established threat picture — you’re not a politician or celebrity. I’m quite certain that the very real, everyday people who are brutally attacked aren’t especially concerned with statistics — that theirs is just one life out of millions — while they’re being murdered or raped. The one and only thing they care about at that moment is their life. Their one life. One.
Isn’t self-preservation at the very core of our beings and isn’t it a fundamental human right?
This blog aims to capture stories where a defensive gun could have changed the outcome of an attack and perhaps saved an innocent life. I hope to motivate people to take charge of their personal safety, take a good training class, get a concealed carry permit, purchase and carry a firearm that makes sense for them, practice and stay alert. It sounds like a lot but it soon becomes second nature, like grabbing your keys before heading out. You’ll overcome the mystery and fear surrounding guns and look at them as lifesavers.
You’ll have to decide what your one life is worth to yourself and those who rely on you. You’ll have to decide whether “Oh shit!” is going to cut it when he comes at you with a knife.
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