This week's “shooting rampage” in the gUn-happy States of America

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

You might wonder why any in the US would shoot the police

Increasing Police Brutality: Americans Killed by Cops Now Outnumber Americans Killed in Iraq War

The increase in police brutality in this country is a frightening reality. In the last decade alone the number of  people murdered by police has reached 5,000. The number of soldiers killed since the inception of the Iraq war, 4489.

What went wrong? In the 1970’s SWAT teams were estimated to be used just a few hundred times per year, now we are looking at over 40,000 military style “knock and announce” police raids a year.

The police presence in this country is being turned into a military with a clearly defined enemy, anyone who questions the establishment.

If we look at the most recent numbers of non-military US citizens killed by terrorism worldwide, that number is 17. You have a better chance of being killed by a bee sting, or a home repair accident than you do a terrorist. And you are 29 times more likely to be murdered by a cop than a terrorist!

A hard hitting mini film by film maker Charles Shaw, properly titled RELEASE US, highlights the riveting and horrid reality of America’s thin blue line.

From the film:

500 innocent Americans are murdered by police every year (USDOJ). 5,000 since 9/11, equal to the number of US soldiers lost in Iraq.

In 1994 the US Government passed a law authorizing the Pentagon to donate surplus Cold War era military equipment to local police departments.

In the 20 years since, weaponry designed for use on a foreign battlefield, has been handed over for use on American streets…against American citizens.

The “War on Drugs” and the “War on Terror” replaced the Cold War with billions in funding and dozens of laws geared towards this new “war” against its own citizens.

This militarization of the police force has created what is being called an “epidemic of police brutality” sweeping the nation.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/increasing-police-brutality-americans-killed-by-cops-now-outnumber-americans-killed-in-iraq-war/5361554

[reality]

seems...its not the guns that kill innocents ...its  people


Teenager charged with murder of Christchurch baby

11:38 AM Wednesday Jan 14, 2015

A babysitter has been charged with the murder of a 1-year-old baby in Christchurch.

An 18-year old Fijian-Indian woman will appear in court later today charged with the murder of baby Aaliyah Ashlyn Chand last Wednesday.

Police say the woman was caring for Aaliyah at a Worcester St address last Tuesday before taking her to Christchurch Hospital with the assistance of a neighbour.

Aaliyah died in Christchurch Hospital's intensive care unit about 8.30pm the next day with her parents by her bedside.

"Baby Aaliyah's death is an utter tragedy for the family," said Detective Senior Sergeant Scott Anderson, who led the investigation.

"Her death has also affected the wider community and the team investigating this incident.

"Canterbury police will continue to support Aaliyah's family through the court process."


Mr Anderson said it was a good result in tragic circumstances.

No other charges were likely "at this point in time" and police were not seeking anyone else in relation to the death.

"Any death is difficult to deal with but I think it's particularly difficult to deal with when someone of that age is involved," Mr Anderson said.

The age of the baby and the injuries involved made it a "complex" investigation, he added.

Aaliyah's parents Anjani and Dev were "very upset", he said.

Police investigations are continuing.

"Just because you arrest someone, it doesn't stop. There's lots of background inquiries still going and it'll keep continuing right through to the court process."

Aaliyah's family post tribute
Aaliyah's family posted a tribute on the website Heaven Address on Friday.

"You grew up way too fast, before we knew it, it was your first birthday, a whole year had passed. You began to walk, talk, laugh and smile. You became the smartest girl I knew, your momma always teaching you new tricks to do," the tribute said.

"I never imagined what life would be without you here, so why did life have to play out this way? Early morning of January 7, 2014 we lost you."

"Without you here none of us know what to do. You were taken from our lives way too fast. Come back please, our little Munni we miss you. You were our little miracle, but now you are our angel in the sky watching over each one of us.

"Remember I love you, for forever and a day and nothing will ever change that."

- NZME.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

WOW.....Christchurch is in the United States of America (the place the thread is about)?

Or is it just that somebody is TOO STUPID to realise that Christchurch ISN'T in the Fascist States of America?


(I guess an intelligent person would start a This week's “shooting rampage” in the gUn-happy city of Christchurch thread)

[reality]

Sad though eh ...unlawful killing where ever it happens...and especially in NZ

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from the ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH....

Family members of shooter among 7 slain by Missouri gunman who then killed himself

By KIM BELL | 2:30PM CST - Friday, February 27, 2015


A home in the 18000 block of Highway H in the Tyrone area of Texas County, Missouri, on Friday, February 27th, 2015. The home was
one of several crime scenes. Police say a gunman killed seven people before killing himself. A woman believed to be the mother of
the gunman was also found dead, apparently of natural causes. — Photo: Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

TYRONE, MISSOURI — An urgent 911 call from a young girl who ran to a neighbor's home for help Thursday night led police to ultimately discover eight dead in four residences around a small community in south-central Missouri.

The lone suspect, Joseph Jesse Aldridge, 36, became the ninth to die when he shot himself in an apparent suicide inside his GMC pickup truck about 15 miles away, authorities said. His truck was still running when patrolling deputies found it.

One of the deceased was his mother, who apparently had died of natural causes.

In a news conference Friday afternoon, Texas County Sheriff James Sigman identified four of the victims as two married couples: Garold Dee Aldridge, 52, and Julie Ann Aldridge, 47; and Harold Wayne Aldridge, 50, and Janell Arlisa Aldridge, 48. The sheriff said the shooter was a cousin of the male victims.

Authorities declined to identify three other shooting victims, but a relative confirmed them as Darrell Shriver and Shriver's son and daughter-in-law, Carey and Valerie Shriver, all of the area. Darrell Shriver's wife, Martha, was wounded but survived and was taken to a hospital in Springfield, Missouri She is expected to recover, authorities said.

All of the residences are within a three-mile radius of Tyrone, an unincorporated community of about 20 people.

Sigman said he had not determined a motive for the killings. Earlier Friday, county Coroner Tom Whittaker said the shooter may have become angry in finding that his mother, who had been ill, was dead.

“We're speculating that he came home and found her deceased and then for whatever reason went on a rampage and started killing people,” Whittaker said. “This is just so strange. Right now, with the shooter dead, we don't know. Is there something that sparked this? We're still in the information-gathering stage,” he said.

A woman who survived being shot told police she knew who the gunman was and gave police his name. As word spread of the killings, some additional victims were discovered when worried family members went to homes to check on their well-being, Missouri Highway Patrol Sergeant Jeff Kinder said in an interview. Police also went door-to-door to check for victims.

Before the suspect was found dead, police went to the home home he shared with his mother, Alice Aldridge, 74, to see if he was there, the coroner said. They found her dead on the couch of apparent natural causes, Whittaker said. It appears she had been dead at least 24 hours, he said. She was under a doctor's care for an illness, and there was no visible sign of trauma, so Whittaker believes she died of her illness.

The woman has the same surname as some of the victims, he said. Investigators suspect her death may have sparked the man's murder spree.


A home in the 4100 block of Highway 137 in Texas County, Missouri, where Joe Aldridge, the suspect in a multiple homicide and suicide,
lived as seen on Friday, February 27th, 2015. The incident left at least 8 people dead, including Aldridge. His mother was also found
dead, though apparently of natural causes. — Photo: Christian Gooden.


Police tape surrounds one of the crime scenes in Tyrone, Missouri, on Friday, February 27th, 2015. Authorities say multiple people
were shot to death and one was wounded in attacks at several homes. The suspected gunman was found dead from an apparent
self-inflicted gunshot wound. — Photo: Jeff McNiell/Houston Herald/Associated Press.

‘WHAT HAVE WE GOT HERE?’

Whittaker, who has been coroner since 1997, said the county averages “maybe one” homicide a year. “We may go a year or two without any,” he said.

Whittaker said he couldn't believe it when authorities kept finding bodies over about a 3-½ hour period.

“At first I thought, ‘I have three victims’, then we keep finding more victims,” he said. “It's kind of like, ‘Oh gosh, what have we got here?’ It's spread over miles.”

Sergeant Paul Reinsch of the Missouri Highway Patrol said the first victims were discovered Thursday night. The Texas County sheriff's office was called at 10:15 p.m. Thursday to a disturbance involving a weapon at a home on Highway H in Tyrone. A young girl inside the home heard gunshots and ran to a neighbor's house to call police.

Deputies went to the girl's home and found two people inside who had been shot to death. Police later went to three other homes in Tyrone and found five more people shot to death and one person injured. Whittaker said the injured person who was shot was taken to a hospital for treatment; the condition wasn't available. Police then went to the suspect's home on Highway 137 and found his mother dead of apparent natural causes on the couch.

“The only reason she was found is that they had gone to her house to see if the shooter was there,” Whittaker said.

John Shriver, 72, who lives in Tyrone, said he received a frantic call Thursday night from Martha Shriver, a relative who asked him to check on her son. Shriver said he went to the son's home and knocked, but didn't get a response.

“I pounded on the door. I opened the door and hollered,” Shriver said. Entering a bedroom, he saw the man lying face down on the floor. Shriver said the man's wife was by his side.

“I though they were dead but I didn't know why, how or what,” Shriver said.

He said the couple's son had hidden in another bedroom and was safe. Shriver said he took the boy to his home until relatives came to get him.


Authorities respond to a house in Tyrone, Missouri, on Friday, February 27th, 2015. Authorities say multiple people were shot to death
and one was wounded in attacks, and the suspected gunman was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
 — Photo: Doug Davison/Houston Herald/Associated Press.


Authorities respond to a house in Tyrone, Missouri, at about 5:40 a.m. Friday, February 27th, 2015. Authorities say multiple people
were shot to death and one was wounded in attacks, and the suspected gunman was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted
gunshot wound. — Photo: Doug Davison/Houston Herald/Associated Press.

SUSPECT FOUND DEAD

The suspect was found dead in the neighboring county of Shannon County after apparently shooting himself inside a vehicle, police say. Police have not released his name. Shannon County Coroner Tim Denton said the man had shot himself in the head with a handgun. The man was slumped forward in his vehicle when police found it on a gravel road, off of Highway WW. That's about 15 miles southeast of the crime scenes in Texas County.

Joyce Ice, a Postal Service carrier for the Tyrone area, said she ran into the suspect a few days ago and asked him about his mother's health. Ice said the man told her she wasn't doing well.

Whittaker and Denton said autopsies will be performed by a pathologist in Springfield, Missouri. The autopsies will start over the weekend and perhaps extend into next week, Whittaker said.

Tyrone is about 140 airline miles southwest of St. Louis, and about 50 miles south of Rolla. Police set up a mobile command post at Highways 137 and H.

Seven investigators with the Highway Patrol's division of drug and crime control are working on the case, along with the sheriff's office. Kinder, of the Highway Patrol, said at a morning press conference asked that anyone with information about the killing spree to call police at 417-967-4165 or 417-469-3121.

When a reporter asked Kinder about the number of victims, he took a moment to count aloud, keeping track on his fingers. “There are ... Isn't that terrible? Lose count,” he said. “There is actually nine total victims here in this case, one of them being the shooter, the other one being the elderly woman, and then seven victims of gunshot wounds.”

Kinder said investigators were processing six scenes total — five homes, including the home where the woman died of apparent natural causes, and the suspect's vehicle.

Kinder said, “In our job, we see a lot of bad stuff. And this is bad. This is also hard on the police officers. It's not natural to see that sort of thing.”

Sigman, the sheriff, said during the news conference, “Start locking your doors. The world is changing. You got to be safe.”


Sergeant Jeff Kinder of the Missouri State Highway Patrol addresses a news conference at the Texas County Justice Center
in Houston, Missouri, Friday, February 27th, 2015. Authorities say multiple people were shot to death and one was
wounded in attacks, and the suspected gunman was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
 — Photo: Jeff McNiell/Houston Herald/Associated Press.


Grand Avenue in the business district of Houston, Missouri on Friday, February 27th, 2015. — Photo: Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The Houston Herald, a local newspaper in Texas County, reported that the staff at the school district in the town of Houston, Missouri, nearby had been told to arrive early for counseling sessions.

Houston, the county seat of Texas County, has a population of about 2,000 residents. Tyrone is a 20-minute drive southeast of the county seat.

Houston Mayor Don Tottingham said, “This is a terrible tragedy in a community that's real close-knit,” he said. “This is a great town, and this is why it's such a tragedy because it shows you're vulnerable to things.”

The mayor said he hopes the community pulls together and tries to figure out how this happened. He said he can't begin to understand what motivated this man to do what he did. The mayor doesn't know the gunman. However, the mayor used to be a letter carrier for many years, and the shooter's family was on his route.

“It's really a terrible shock,” he said. “I think it brings you a little closer together. I think sometimes tragedies like this pull everyone together to try and to try to figure out how to prevent this from ever happening again.”

• Jesse Bogan and Joel Currier of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/family-members-of-shooter-among-slain-by-missouri-gunman-who/article_ce9f62ae-77fb-5bc8-8acf-7528549a174b.html

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

It's a good job a lot of people in the us are armed and can protect themselves from bad people eh

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

All those victims of American gun nuts running amok shooting people didn't do a very good job of defending themselves in spite of all the guns everywhere.

Americans + rednecks + guns + god = mass shootings and plenty of dead bodies....on a regular basis.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

9 dead in ‘hate crime’ shooting at historic African American church in Charleston

By ROBERT COSTA, LINDSEY BEVER and J. FREEDOM DU LAC | 6:47AM EDT - Thursday, June 18, 2015


Scene of church shooting at 9 p.m. at 110 Calhoun Street, site of Mother Emanuel AME Church.
 — Photo: Matthew Fortner/The Charleston Post and Courier.

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA — Police widened the search Thursday for a gunman who opened fire and killed nine people during a prayer service at a historic African American church in downtown Charleston, in one of the worst attacks on a place of worship in the United States in recent memory.

At least one other person was injured in the Wednesday night assault.

“We believe this is a hate crime; that is how we are investigating it,” Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said at a dawn news conference.

Officers in fatigues, some with dogs, said they were searching “near and far” for the gunman, described as a clean-shaven white male in his early 20s with sandy blond hair and a slight build. Police said he was wearing a gray sweatshirt, blue jeans and Timberland boots. He is believed to be the only shooter.



At a nearby Embassy Suites, which was serving as an informal headquarters for church members, people began sobbing and screaming as they learned details about what had happened.

“We just left speaking to members of the families,” Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley (Democrat) told reporters. “It was a heartbreaking scene I have never witnessed in my life before.”

Though authorities did not release the names of the victims, the church’s pastor, Clementa Pinckney, who is also a South Carolina state senator, was missing after the shooting, and some members of the congregation feared the worst. Indeed, House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford said Pinckney was among the dead, and friends started posting “RIP” condolences on social media.

“Rest in peace my friend Senator Reverend Clementa Pinckney,” Representative Samuel Rivers Jr., wrote on Twitter. “When the name of the church dawned on me I tried calling Clementa.”

“Rest in peace to my friend and brother in public service, Senator Clementa Pinckney,” former state Representative Anton J. Gunn wrote.

Police said the victims had gathered Wednesday night in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, also known as “Mother Emanuel,” for a prayer meeting when the shooting occurred. The congregation, established in 1816, is one of the oldest African American churches in the United States.

“This is the most unspeakable and heartbreaking tragedy in historic Emanuel AME church, the mother church of the AME churches,” said Riley, the city’s mayor. “People in prayer Wednesday evening, a ritual coming together, praying and worshiping God. To have an awful person come in and shoot them is inexplicable. Obviously the most intolerable and unbelievable act possible.”

“The only reason someone could walk into a church and shoot people praying is out of hate,” he added. “The only reason. It is the most dastardly act that one could possibly imagine.”


Officers are searching for a suspect in shooting that happened at 9 p.m. at 110 Calhoun Street, site of Mother Emanuel AME Church.
 — Photo: Matthew Fortner/The Charleston Post and Courier.

Police said the shooting occurred at about 9 p.m. at the historic church, which is located between Henrietta and Calhoun streets near Marion Square in downtown Charleston. The Reverend Norvel Goff, a presiding elder for the African Methodist Episcopal Church who was interviewed near the scene, said the suspect “walked in, from my understanding, not so much as a participant, but as a brief observer who then stood up and then started shooting.”

When officers arrived, they determined that eight people had been killed inside the church, Mullen said. Two others were taken to a nearby hospital, where the ninth died, the police chief said. Officials said there were survivors but did not elaborate on their condition.

“It’s a very tragic situation,” Goff said. “Stressful. Grieving.”

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (Republican) said in a statement late Wednesday night that she was praying for the victims and their families.

“While we do not yet know all of the details, we do know that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another,” she said. “Please join us in lifting up the victims and their families with our love and prayers.”

After the shooting, helicopters swarmed overhead and heavily armed police wearing bulletproof vests fanned out across the city to search for the suspect.

“This was a very chaotic scene when we arrived,” Mullen said. “We were tracking this individual with canines. We were making sure that he was not in the area to commit other crimes. As all this was going on, we received information that there might be a secondary explosive device in the scene.”

Taxi driver Sheila Seagers, 60, heard the news on the radio and parked her Lincoln Town Car blocks from the scene. She stayed for hours, lingering and chatting quietly with friends. She called her state of mind a “ball of confusion.”

“I keep thinking of that big, beautiful church,” she said.

“We don’t want trouble but we keeping getting trouble,” she added. “I hate to say it, but what’s next? I pray that when morning comes there will be peace.”

Crisis chaplains rushed to the scene as people started creating prayers circles to pray for the victims and their families.

“I had to come, couldn’t sit home and watch my community on television,” said 59-year-old Ken Battle, a retired member of the U.S. Air Force. “But I can’t make up my mind about what has happened here. Being here helps me make meaning out of it.”

Johnny Brooks, 54, a retired electric worker, came with his wife. “Our backyard! Our city,” he said. “I am at a loss for words.”

The last major bloodshed at a U.S. place of worship occurred in August 2012, when an Army veteran and self-proclaimed white supremacist opened fire at a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee, killing six people and wounding four. The attacker, Wade Michael Page, killed himself with a shot to the head after being wounded in a shootout with police.

Mullen, the Charleston police chief, said authorities are investigating Wednesday’s incident as a hate crime. Local law authorities have joined forces with the FBI and  Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to track down leads, and Mullen said police are planning to announce a reward for information leading to the suspect’s capture.

“We will continue to do that until we find this individual who has carried out this crime tonight and bring him to justice,” he said.

“This is a tragedy that no community should have to experience,” Mullen said. “It is senseless. It is unfathomable that somebody in today’s society would walk into a church when people are having a prayer meeting and take their lives.”

A prayer vigil will be held at noon at Morris Brown AME church in Charleston.

• Robert Costa is a national political reporter at The Washington Post.

• Lindsey Bever is a national news reporter for The Washington Post. She writes for the Morning Mix news blog. Tweet her: @lindseybever.

• J. Freedom du Lac is the editor of The Post's general assignment news desk. He was previously a Local enterprise reporter and, before that, the paper’s pop music critic.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related news stories:

 • For Charleston’s Emanuel A.M.E. church, shooting is another painful chapter in long history

 • Jeb Bush cancels events in Charleston due to church shooting

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/17/white-gunman-sought-in-shooting-at-historic-charleston-african-ame-church

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

remember this guns dont jump up by themselves and kill people

http://www.infowars.com/charleston-shooter-was-on-drug-linked-to-violent-outbursts/

not sure how this mag cover ended up on this page but i kept it because of the strange symbology

[guest49]

Leighton Smiths talkback this morning.  In one year - 2011? - 10,000 odd people died from gunfire in the States, many of them suicides.  In the same year, 30,000 were killed by knives. 
Where is the wailing and breast beating over these deaths?  Where are the calls to ban the possession of knives?

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

(click on the picture to read the news story)

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

After Charleston, will America finally do something about guns?

By EUGENE ROBINSON | 5:20PM EDT - Thursday, June 18, 2015


Flowers left outside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, after Wednesday’s mass shooting.
 — Photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters.

MAYBE it was white rage that provoked a young man to kill nine innocent worshipers as they prayed. Maybe it was mental illness or some other twisted motivation. The one thing about which there can be no debate is that he had a gun.

The gun is what ties the unspeakable atrocity in Charleston, South Carolina, to the long and apparently never-ending list of mass shootings in this country. We know them by their place names — Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, Virginia Tech, Columbine, Navy Yard. They rivet the nation’s attention for days or weeks — then they fade, and we do nothing. Perhaps this time will be different. I want to be hopeful, but I’m not optimistic.

The man who allegedly made a killing ground of the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church was identified as Dylann Roof, 21, and described as a white supremacist. Charleston officials said from the beginning that this horror appeared to be a hate crime. A photo on Roof’s Facebook page shows him wearing a jacket with patches depicting the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia.

The target was one of the nation’s oldest and most storied African American houses of worship, known by Charlestonians as “Mother Emanuel”. The congregation was established in 1816 by free people of color. One of the founding members was Denmark Vesey, who in 1822 organized what would have been the biggest slave revolt in the nation’s history. The plot was discovered, Vesey was executed, and vengeful whites burned the original church building to the ground.

The church was rebuilt, but parishioners had to start meeting secretly in 1834, when all black churches were outlawed, until after the Civil War. The present church building, with its Gothic-style windows and its great soaring steeple, dates to 1891. Like other prominent black churches across the South, Mother Emanuel functioned as an organizational hub during the long struggle for civil rights. Booker T. Washington spoke there in 1909; the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. visited in 1962.

Among the victims of Wednesday night’s carnage was Mother Emanuel’s pastor, the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, a theological and political prodigy who began preaching at 13 and won election to the South Carolina House of Representatives at 23. After moving up to the state Senate, Pinckney became the most visible champion of a bill to require police officers to wear body cameras. He was eloquent, charismatic and effective. Now he is gone.

My mother’s side of the family came from Charleston. My great-great-grandfather, a man named Henry Fordham, somehow became a free person of color before the Civil War and established a blacksmith’s shop not far from where Mother Emanuel stands. So yes, this tragedy feels personal. I couldn’t sleep Wednesday night, thinking about the terror those innocent victims were forced to experience in their final moments.

Speaking from the White House, President Obama quoted King about the need for all of us to move “from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope.” I want desperately to believe the aftermath of this mass shooting will be different. But I have to be realistic.

“I’ve had to make statements like this too many times,” Obama said. The common factor in all of these incidents, he said, is that “someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hand on a gun.”

I wish we could eradicate racism and the delusion of white supremacy, but I don’t know how. Is there a difference between setting the church on fire in 1822 and spraying the pews with gunfire nearly two centuries later? The context is vastly altered, of course — today, a multiracial, multicultural city is united in grief. Yet the racist impulse, however diminished, endures.

I wish we could better address issues of mental health, too. Perhaps it should be easier for concerned family members to compel a troubled individual to seek help. But we are not going back to the practice of warehousing large numbers of people in hellish institutions.

What we can do, if we have the will, is make it harder for those who want to kill innocents to obtain firearms. After 20 young children and six adults were massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticuit, Congress took up two modest pieces of legislation: a ban on military-style assault weapons, which no hunter needs; and a requirement for universal background checks before buying guns. Both had overwhelming public support. Neither became law.

Can this time be different? Only if we hold Congress, Obama and the presidential candidates of both parties accountable. Only if we remember Mother Emanuel.

• Eugene Robinson writes a twice-a-week column on politics and culture, contributes to the PostPartisan blog, and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper’s Style section. View Archive.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related opinion pieces:

 • Jonathan Capehart: A black day in Charleston

 • Alyssa Rosenberg: Walking in Charleston

 • Colbert I. King: Wickedness in Charleston

 • Paul Waldman: Obama ‘politicized’ the massacre in Charleston. And that’s fine.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/remember-mother-emanuel/2015/06/18/def89714-15f3-11e5-9518-f9e0a8959f32_story.html

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

ktj's more victim logic lol


you want to disarm the people so only people that do not obey the law have guns leaving their victims with no way to protect their lives,homes or family's


Second Amendment - U.S. Constitution

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
2nd Amendment Annotations
Prior to the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller,1 the courts had yet to definitively state what right the Second Amendment protected. The opposing theories, perhaps oversimplified, were (1) an "individual rights" approach, whereby the Amendment protected individuals' rights to firearm ownership, possession, and transportation; and (2) a "states' rights" approach, under which the Amendment only protected the right to keep and bear arms in connection with organized state militia units.2 Moreover, it was generally believed that the Amendment was only a bar to federal action, not to state or municipal restraints.3
However, the Supreme Court has now definitively held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that weapon for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Moreover, this right applies not just to the federal government, but to states and municipalities as well.
In Heller, the Court held that (1) the District of Columbia's total ban on handgun possession in the home amounted to a prohibition on an entire class of "arms" that Americans overwhelmingly chose for the lawful purpose of self-defense, and thus violated the Second Amendment; and (2) the District's requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock also violated the Second Amendment, because the law made it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense.
The Court reasoned that the Amendment's prefatory clause, i.e., "[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," announced the Amendment's purpose, but did not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause, i.e., "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Moreover, the prefatory clause's history comported with the Court's interpretation, because the prefatory clause stemmed from the Anti-Federalists' concern that the federal government would disarm the people in order to disable the citizens' militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule.
Further, the Court distinguished United States v.Miller,4 in which the Court upheld a statute requiring registration under the National Firearms Act of sawed-off shotguns, on the ground that Miller limited the type of weapon to which the Second Amendment right applied to those in common use for lawful purposes.
In McDonald v. Chicago,5 the Court struck down laws enacted by Chicago and the village of Oak Park effectively banning handgun possession by almost all private citizens, holding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the Second Amendment right, recognized in Heller, to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense.
The Court reasoned that this right is fundamental to the nation's scheme of ordered liberty, given that self-defense was a basic right recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present, and Heller held that individual self-defense was "the central component" of the Second Amendment right. Moreover, a survey of the contemporaneous history also demonstrated clearly that the Fourteenth Amendment's Framers and ratifiers counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to the Nation's system of ordered liberty.


- See more at: http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment2.html#sthash.PIpCVvNy.dpuf

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

IDIOT........explain how countries such as New Zealand and Australia which have strict gun control laws have gun homicide rates per 100,000 population which are only a quarter of countries such as the mentally-ill USA where they allow virtual open-slather on gun ownership and carrying of guns?

Well? Sometimes you can be as silly as that reality clown.



Click on the above chart to reveal more.



BTW....I see the moronic NRA (National Rifle Association) are claiming the massacre was all the fault of the church's Reverend, because be refused to allow guns in his church. I guess if Americans are stupid enough to follow that sort of logic and fail to bring in comprehensive gun-control laws, then it serves Americans right when gun-nutters run amok killing heaps of them. In fact, one could go even further and state that it is nature's way of removing the citizenry of an idiot country from the world's gene pool, so on second thoughts, perhaps MORE guns might be a good idea in the USA so they can all wipe each other out and we can get rid of a STUPID nation.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

An NRA board member blamed the pastor killed in
Charleston for the deaths of his members

By CHRISTOPHER INGRAHAM | 10:31AM EDT - Friday, June 19, 2015


Reverend Clementa Pinckney speaks during the Watch Night service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston,
South Carolina in a December 31st, 2012 file photo. Pinckney was killed Wednesday night along with 8 other congregants
at a church service in Charleston, South Carolina. — Photo: Randall Hill/Reuters.

CHARLES L. COTTON is a National Rifle Association board member who also runs TexasCHLForum.com, an online discussion forum about guns and guns rights in Texas and beyond. In a discussion thread yesterday which has since been deleted, a commenter noted that one of the 9 people slain at a Charleston church, Clementa C. Pinckney, was a pastor and a state legislator in South Carolina. Cotton responded:

And he voted against concealed-carry. Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead. Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue.

The page carrying Cotton's comments seems to have disappeared from the site, but a screen shot is below:



In a phone interview from Texas, Cotton emphasized that his comments were made not in his capacity as an NRA board member, but as a private citizen who runs a gun discussion forum. “It was a discussion we were having about so called gun-free zones,” he said when asked about his remarks. “It's my opinion that there should not be any gun-free zones in schools or churches or anywhere else. If we look at mass shootings that occur, most happen in gun-free zones.”

If private citizens were allowed to carry guns everywhere, Cotton says, there will be fewer mass shootings because potential shooters would not be able to target gun-free areas. And if they did, “if armed citizens are in there, they have a chance to defend themselves and other citizens.”

Reached by phone, an NRA spokesman said that “individual board members do not speak for the NRA and do not have the authority to speak for the NRA.”

From a gun rights perspective, these are common arguments: the NRA has long maintained that the solution to gun crime is more guns, not less. In response to the mass killing of school children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre argued that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” He went on to propose putting an armed police officer in every school in America.

But research generally has taken issue with these arguments. More guns means more crime, according to a massive multi-year study released last fall. And this is especially true when it comes to homicide, according to the Harvard School of Public Health: “a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries.  Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.”

A recent report from the Violence Policy Center, a gun control advocacy group, analyzing FBI data found that “guns are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes.” In 2012, there were 8,342 criminal gun homicides, compared to only 259 justifiable gun homicides, according to the report.

And last year, an FBI report on mass shootings found that unarmed citizens were three times more likely to successfully stop an active shooter than armed private citizens. Armed civilians stopped only 4 percent of the mass shooting incidents in the FBI's study.

• Christopher Ingraham writes about politics, drug policy and all things data. He previously worked at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/19/an-nra-board-member-blamed-a-murdered-pastor-for-the-deaths-in-charleston-yes-really


from The Washington Post....

NRA board member blames victim for Charleston shooting

By MICHAEL GRACZYK - Associated Press | 6:24PM EDT - Friday, June 19, 2015


A November 22nd, 2010 photo shows the Reverend Clementa Pinckney at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Pinckney, a Ridgeland Democrat and pastor at Mother Emanuel AME Church, died on Wednesday, June 17th, 2015,
in the mass shooting at the church. — Photo: Grace Beahm/Associated Press.

HOUSTON — A Houston attorney on the National Rifle Association’s board of directors is blaming the deadly Charleston church shooting on one of the victims, saying the slain pastor had opposed concealed carry legislation as a state senator that could have saved him and his fellow worshippers.

In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, Charles Cotton confirmed writing that “innocent people died because of (Clementa Pinckney’s) position on a political issue.” The post appeared Thursday in an online discussion board about concealed handguns.

Nine people were killed on Wednesday night after a 21-year-old gunman opened fire during a Bible study at The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, where Pinckney was pastor.

Cotton told The Associated Press that he was expressing a personal opinion not reflective of the NRA. He also said he was “stumped” that his comments were still visible because he had deleted them after later deciding they were inappropriate.

Cotton said that Pinckney had voted against a concealed carry measure as a South Carolina senator, but a search of legislative archives could not immediately find any such measure. And he noted that the South Carolina law that bans guns in places of worship unless specifically allowed was the exact opposite of Texas law, which allows guns unless they specifically are prohibited. Cotton, a former police officer in Friendswood, south of Houston, said he carries a gun into church.

“That’s the thing that’s frustrating to me: Laws that disarm intended victims,” Cotton told The Associated Press. “How many more is it going to take when people realize there is no such thing as a gun-free zone?”

Mass shootings are “rare in the grand scheme of things,” Cotton said. But “almost every one of them (the mass shootings) happen in a supposed gun-free zone, like a church, a school, or a military base like Fort Hood,” he said, referring to the U.S. Army base in central Texas that has been the site of two mass shootings in recent years.

Larry Martin, the Republican chairman of the South Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee, called Cotton’s comments “outrageous”. He said South Carolina’s concealed carry law allows permit holders to carry a gun in church if the church has given authorization. But the law has never allowed permit holders to bring a gun into a church without such permission, he said. The original law, passed in 1996, predates Pinckney’s tenure.

Last year, Martin’s committee rejected a so-called “constitutional carry” bill that would have allowed people to carry guns in public without a permit. But Pinckney was not on that committee and therefore took no vote on it.

• Associated Press writer Seanna Adcox in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nra-board-member-blames-victim-for-charleston-shooting/2015/06/19/3c2a1d72-16cb-11e5-8457-4b431bf7ed4c_story.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from the Detroit Metro Times....

Detroit police chief pleads for tips on shooting that killed 1, injured 11

By RYAN FELTON | 3:52PM CDT - Sunday, June 21, 2015


Detroit Police Chief James Craig speaks on June 21st, 2015 about a shooting on the city's west side. — Photo: Dustin Blitchok.

DETROIT POLICE CHIEF James Craig on Sunday urged anyone with knowledge of what transpired Saturday before the city's largest shooting in years — an incident that left one dead and 11 injured — to speak out.

A festive atmosphere with upwards of 300 people turned violent around 8:30 p.m. Saturday, police said, when gunfire erupted during a neighborhood block party inside the basketball courts at Dexter and Webb on Detroit's west side.

So far, residents of the hard-scrabble neighborhood who witnessed the shooting haven't said much.

“This is a passionate plea for this neighborhood to step up and say something,” Craig said on Sunday while standing on the bloodstained basketball courts.

Police believe two suspects, who remain at large, were involved. The chief described one as a 20-year-old black male with light complexion who was believed to be carrying a silver handgun with an extended clip, and the other as a 20-year-old black male with medium complexion.


Detroit Assistant Police Chief Steve Dolunt (left) patrols the scene of a shooting on the city's west side. — Photo: Dustin Blitchok.

The annual party includes a basketball game between the Rude Boyz and Dexter Boyz, according to residents who spoke with the Detroit Metro Times; a pair of backboards on the court were spray-painted with the groups' names. In the hours before the shooting, children enjoyed an inflatable bounce house, families shared barbecue, while others celebrated a birthday party. Officers responded to the scene at 8:50 p.m., police said, about six minutes after the initial 911 call was received.

A clear motive is unknown and the police investigation remains ongoing, but Craig said the shooting is believed to be in “retaliation” against the fatal victim — 19-year-old Detroit resident Malik Jones, who is thought to have been involved in the gunfight. Jones was also injured in a shooting within the last month, Craig said. Efforts to reach Jones' next of kin Sunday were unsuccessful.

The chief couldn't say if the incident was gang-related, or who fired the first shot; he peppered his remarks with his description of the events as “urban terrorism.” An estimated 47 shots were fired from three handguns, police said.

“Are we going to let these urban terrorists take over Detroit's neighborhoods?” Craig said.

The 11 non-fatal victims included four females and seven males, ranging in age from 19- to 47-years-old. Four remain in stable condition at the hospital, said Craig, while seven have been released and are recovering at their homes. The shooting involved the most victims in a single incident of violence in Detroit since nine people were shot in a barbershop in 2013.

Residents visited the scene on Sunday and members of the Salvation Army Detroit Temple at Dexter and Chicago gathered nearby to pray.

Jordan Brooks, 8, came with his grandmother, Bernice Hardy. Brooks' father was at the basketball court Saturday but left before the shooting and was not injured, Hardy said.

Brooks looked at the basketball court through the fence. “I was scared that my dad probably got shot,” the 8-year-old said of when he learned about the shooting.


Jordan Brooks, 8, visited the shooting scene at Dexter and Webb on Sunday with his grandmother. Brooks' father
was at the basketball court Saturday, but left before the shooting. “I was scared that my dad probably got shot,”
Brooks said. — Photo: Dustin Blitchok.

Jerome Thompson, 65, said he lived in the neighborhood for years before recently moving to Warren. The block party is typically safe and provides a welcoming environment for a community that doesn't have much of anything, he said.

“It's sad,” said Thompson. “It's so dilapidated, and people here don't have anywhere to go.”

Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call 1-800-SPEAK-UP or 313-596-1616.

http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2015/06/21/detroit-police-chief-pleads-for-tips-on-shooting-that-killed-1-injured-11


from the Chicago Tribune....

Few clues in shooting at Detroit block party that killed 1, hurt 11

By CHICAGO TRIBUNE STAFF | 5:57PM CDT - Sunday, June 21, 2015


A woman is hugged by Sanford D. Miles near the scene of a block party where three men exchanged gunfire in Detroit on June 21st, 2015.
 — Photo: Tanya Moutzalias/Associated Press.

A WALL OF SILENCE surrounds a shootout at a block party in Detroit that left a 19-year-old gunman dead and 11 other people wounded, police Chief James Craig said on Sunday from the site where about 300 people had barbecued and celebrated hours earlier.

Standing on basketball courts where the shooting happened about 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Chief James Craig said officers are seeking two men believed to have exchanged gunfire with the victim, Malik Jones. So far, he said, witnesses and the injured haven't been much help.

“This is a passionate plea for the neighborhood to say something and step up,” Craig said, standing a few feet from a small child's chair and a table. “These are urban terrorists … We are fortunate we don't have any young children recovering from a gunshot wound.”

Residents have been reluctant to cooperate with police, the chief acknowledged, with witnesses apparently concerned that they may put themselves at risk.

“I understand the fear … but are we going to let these urban terrorists take over our city?” Craig asked. “This must end. We are fighting hard … but we cannot do it alone.”

He said officers were fanning out around the west side neighborhood Sunday.

“Speak up. Say something. Your silence is not acceptable,” Craig said. “Somebody is going to talk.”

Four women and seven men were injured, the oldest of them 47. All were either in stable condition at hospitals or back home on Sunday, Craig said.

According to the chief, the 19-year-old had been shot and wounded recently and Saturday's exchange of gunfire was believed to be in retaliation.

The double basketball court is run by the adjoining Dexter-Elmhurst Community Center, said Helen Moore, chairwoman of the private group that manages the center.

“It's a good community,” Moore said. “I know there are people in the community that know what happened and are afraid to speak up.”

“I'm not afraid of anything but God,” she added.

• Associated Press journalists in Detroit contributed to this report.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-detriot-block-party-shooting-20150620-story.html

[reality]

...good thing about killing people in NZ..ya dont get the death penalty...or perhaps not even do time..what a bonus


Kumar trial: Jury reaches unanimous verdicts

2:58 PM Tuesday Jun 23, 2015

Assault and Homicide
One boy has been found guilty of manslaughter in the death of a West Auckland shopkeeper but a second has been cleared of the same offence.

After about eight hours of deliberation, a jury found a 14-year-old who stabbed Arun Kumar in the neck at the Railside Dairy in Henderson on June 10 last year not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. His 13-year-old co-defendant was cleared of manslaughter.

Both verdicts were unanimous.

The pair, who have been on trial in the High Court at Auckland for more than three weeks, have interim name suppression.

From the start of the trial, there was no dispute the older boy stabbed Mr Kumar in the neck while his co-accused stood in the doorway.

But while the Crown argued the incident was an aggravated robbery that went wrong, defence counsel for the boys said there was a lot more to it.


The court heard evidence that the older defendant suffered a severe head injury after being hit by a car six years ago which landed him with a reduced mental capacity, particularly in "complex" situations.

According to one witness, who was with the boys before the incident, it had been the 13-year-old's plan to commit an illegal act that day.

His lawyer David Niven said the original idea was to break into a nearby shoe shop.

The change of plan to hit the dairy came at the eleventh hour, Mr Niven said, and they would have had less than three minutes to plan the theft.

CCTV footage played numerous times for the jury showed the younger defendant standing in the doorway of the dairy while his friend was inside.

Mr Niven said by the time the scuffle between the knife-wielding teen and Mr Kumar began, his client had run off.

He told the jury the boy reacted like that because he had never planned for or expected violence.

The jury agreed.

Video from inside the shop shows Mr Kumar's wife Anita walking in with a phone to call police. The 14-year-old swipes it out of her hand and immediately draws a knife. He backs the dairy owner towards the till at knifepoint and, when the man attempts to force him back, slashes and stabs at him with the knife.

When Mrs Kumar returns, having raised the alarm at a neighbouring business, the pair can be seen scuffling near the doorway and the teen plunges the knife into her husband's neck.

Seconds later he runs off as the man collapses on the floor.

Name suppression continues until a hearing on July 29, two days before the 14-year-old is sentenced.

The 14-year-old is one of about 10 children. It is understood his mother gave birth to her youngest child weeks ago.

A source close to the family said the children had a tough upbringing and most had been in and out of Child Youth and Family care.

"They have been through absolute hell, and then this happens ? it sucks. [The 13-year-old] is actually a little sweetheart that, with the right support in place, could have grown into a strong and contributing member of society.

"I feel absolutely devastated knowing that this could have been prevented. It's just horrible."

Arun Kumar's son Shivneel, speaking outside court, said they were "extremely disappointed" with the jury's verdicts.

"The heart and soul of our family was taken away," he said.

The family had attended court in pursuit of justice, Shivneel said, but instead had repeatedly "re-lived the worst day of our lives".

"We endured countless reruns of my dad's last moments. We tolerated all this to obtain justice for my dad," he said.

But the stories of the defendant's dysfunctional upbringing and an explanation of self-defence by the older boy made the family feel as though they were the ones on trial.

"We listened to the stories of abuse and crime and how they believed it should exonerate the children," Shivneel said.

"We listened to the horrific details and excuses."

He had been at court every day with his distraught mother Anita, who clung to him as he addressed reporters.

They felt like the process had all been for nothing, he said.

"Few can ever understand what we went through and continue to go through in our daily lives."

Despite the outcome, Shivneel said he hoped lessons were learned.

"We are now living in a society where kids are on drugs, roaming the streets with weapons at the ready," he said.

"My dad's death should not be in vain."

- NZME.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

So that killing in Henderson was a “shooting rampage” in the gUnhappy States of America?

'cause that's what this thread is all about.

Perhaps you're simply too thick to know the difference between Henderson in West Auckland and the USA?

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

3 dead, 1 wounded in shooting near the University of Maryland in Baltimore

By MARTIN WEIL | 3:10AM EDT - Wednesday, July 08, 2015

THREE PEOPLE were killed and one wounded late Tuesday in a shooting a few blocks from the Baltimore campus of the University of Maryland, according to a Baltimore law enforcement source.

In the incident, campus police said, two vans pulled to the side of the road. One person got out of each of the vans, and opened fire at a group of people on the corner.

Baltimore police said two of those shot were male and two were female.

The matter was under investigation early Wednesday.

According to the campus police, the shooting occurred just before 11 p.m. in the 900 block of W. Fayette Street, near Poppleton Street. The intersection is in a residential area of modest two- and three-story brick houses.

There was no immediate indication that any of the four were students at the campus, which provides graduate and professional education on a 71-acre campus in West Baltimore, near the Inner Harbor. During the academic year it enrolls more than 6,000 students.

It is in a neighborhood that lies about a half mile west of the campus, and separated from campus buildings by Martin Luther King Boulevard, a six lane thoroughfare with a wide median.

Homicides in Baltimore increased sharply in the weeks after rioting broke out in April following the death of Freddie Gray who was injured while in police custody.

However, there have been few if any recent occasions in which as many as three people were killed in a single incident.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/one-is-killed-three-others-wounded-near-the-baltimore-campus-of-u-md/2015/07/08/a2bbec12-2528-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html

[reality]

speaking of pointless death.....even worse...of innocent children..... ....this is very close to home
...america stupid...NZ more stupid?

'It's just so bizarre' - Neighbours shocked at baby's death

8:29 PM Wednesday Jul 8, 2015

A 31-year-old man appeared in Porirua District Court today charged with assault. He was remanded in custody until Friday.

Neighbours are shocked and confused after hearing a baby girl from a "lovely" everyday family died after being assaulted.

The 6-month-old girl died in Wellington Hospital last night after being airlifted from her Kapiti Coast home in a critical condition on Monday.

Friendly residents of the Raumati Beach neighbourhood were still struggling to absorb the news today and said nothing so awful had ever happened in the street before.

One neighbour, John Ivor, said he couldn't get his head around what happened.

"It's just so bizarre," Mr Ivor said.

"They're fine. They seemed like you and me, everyday nice people."

He believed the family had not lived at the house long, probably less than two years.


Mr Ivor said he was dumbstruck after learning why police cars arrived across the road on Monday afternoon.

He said he didn't know the family well, but they'd always greet him when he walked past.

He said his neighbour also had only good things to say about the family.

He said the family kept pets, including guinea pigs, and were friendly.

"They just seemed like really nice folk ... what the heck has gone on?"

Neighbours Gabriella Monaghan and Liz Boyd were also shocked to hear of the baby girl's death.

"There's nothing mean to say about them. They're so nice," Ms Boyd said.

She wanted to extend her condolences to the baby girl's family, who were always pleasant and never caused any trouble.

"They just must be suffering so much..."

Ms Boyd also had only good things to say about the family and was in disbelief.

Another neighbour said the baby's death was the worst thing that had happened in the 29 years he'd lived in the neighbourhood.

He said the family were "very lovely" and never caused trouble.

A 31-year-old man appeared in Porirua District Court today charged with assault. He was remanded in custody until Friday.

Interim court suppression orders prevent publication of the defendant's name.

The orders also ban publication of the girl's name, or of details that would identify her or her family to the general public.

A police scene examination was still underway at the Raumati Beach property tonight, with several security company vehicles on site and the house cordoned off.

A child's toy car was at the house.

Some distressed neighbours asked if the little girl's death was part of a wider social problem, following news of another baby dying violently in the past week.

Christchurch 15-month-old Ihaka Paora Braxton Stokes died after suffering injuries including broken bones on Friday night.

Detective Inspector Greg Murton said today that post-mortem results showed Ihaka died from multiple blunt force injuries and was the victim of an "extremely violent assault or assaults".

Police and St John were called to the house at Truman Rd, Bryndwr about 10.30pm on Friday. Ihaka was found unconscious with unexplained injuries.

He was transported to the accident and emergency department at Christchurch Hospital and died shortly afterwards.

Mr Murton said officers had spoken to "quite a large number of people", including the boy's mother and stepfather, who lived at the address.

He refused to say whether either of them were suspects.

Former Families Commissioner Christine Rankin said tonight it was clear not enough was being done to stop a "sickening" spate of child abuse.

Ms Rankin said New Zealand had made no headway on the issue, despite multiple cases of kids being killed.

She said New Zealand's child abuse rates were "embarrassing" and anti-smacking legislation had not addressed the problem.

"This is vicious, violent, regular beating. Unfortunately we've got a group of people in New Zealand who do it. It's getting worse."

Ms Rankin said if 20 politicians were killed each year, there'd be an unprecedented review and bout of soul-searching - but when 20 children were killed in a year, nothing was done.

She said lawmakers had tightened up penalties for child abusers slightly, but in some case tougher penalties were needed to keep violent adults away from kids.

"You hurt your child, you don't get it back," she suggested. "That doesn't happen in New Zealand."

- Additional reporting: Kurt Bayer

- NZME.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Hahaha.....some idiots think Kapiti Coast is in the Fascist States of America (otherwise known as the United States of America aka Jesusland).

It must be so when said idiots post stuff about Kapiti Coast in a thread about Americans killing each other with guns in America.

I guess some people are simply as dumb as dogshit, eh?

[reality]

Haha...some idiots are more concerned with the death of fascists in America ....than with babies murdered by their parents in NZ

...I guess some people are simply as dumb as pig shit, eh?

[Alicat]

Will you two children give it a bloody rest!

In my opinion you are both petty. In some way or another, the pair of you manage to spam a good proportion of the threads in your childish rantings and gibes at each other. It is this sort of rubbish that has contributed to the demise of what used to be an enjoyable message board.

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

they are the troll twins lmao