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

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Here's another interesting article to read....it explains a lot about the American psyche and its relationship to guns, killing, etc....


Tom Engelhardt: Alien Visitations

posted 10:08am, January 18, 2011 | TomDispatch.com

In the Crosshairs

Tucson-Kabul

By Tom Engelhardt

“Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it.  Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire.”

“Then, by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and falling, and their supporters turning to run...”

That, as H.G. Wells imagined it in 1898, was first contact with a technologically superior and implacable alien race from space, five years before humanity took to the air in anything but balloons. And that was how the Martians, landing in their “cylinders,” those spaceships from a dying planet, ready to take over ours, responded to a delegation of humans advancing on them waving a flag of peace and ready to parlay. As everyone knows who has read The War of the Worlds, or heard the 1938 Orson Welles radio show version that terrified New Jersey, or watched the 1953 movie or the Stephen Spielberg 2005 remake, those Martians went on to level cities, slaughter masses of humanity using heat-rays and poison gas, and threaten world domination before being felled by the germs for which they were unprepared.

Germs aside, Wells’s Martians did little more than what earthly powers would do to each other and various “lesser” peoples in the 112 years that followed the publication of his book. Now, a group of scientists writing in an “extraterrestrial-themed edition” of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A in Great Britain warn us that we should ready ourselves for the possibility of alien contact. We should, in fact, “prepare for the worst” which, according to contributor Simon Conway Morris, could be summed up this way: thanks to neo-Darwinian laws of evolution assumedly operative anywhere, such aliens, should they exist, would probably be more or less like us.

Long before Morris, Wells understood that the most dangerous aliens weren’t in space, but right here on planet Earth, and concluded that he lived among them. When he wrote his ur-alien-invasion novel, he was evidently using the British “war of extermination” against the Tasmanians as his model.

Of course, we in the United States have few doubts about who the aliens on this planet are: Them! (the title of a classic 1954 sci-fi movie about monstrous mutant ants that infest the sewer system of Los Angeles). In my childhood, “them” was “the commies,” of course. Now, it's certainly Muslims or jihadists or Islamo-fascists.

When one of them commits some nightmarish act, whether a slaughter at Fort Hood in Texas, the planting of a car bomb in New York City's Times Square, or the donning of an underwear bomb for a flight to Detroit on Christmas day, our response is a shudder of fear and loathing, followed by further repression. After all, each of those acts is imagined as part of a barbaric and fiendish pattern inimical to our safety. Perhaps because it’s assumed that they are mentally ill (“fanatic”) en masse, that being “a loner” isn’t part of their culture, and that individuality is not one of their strong points, the heinousness of the act is focused upon rather than the potentially damaged nature of the individual who acted.

It’s only when a Timothy McVeigh or a Jared Loughner emerges from the undergrowth that problems arise and reactions change. (Keep in mind that McVeigh’s crime, the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City which killed 168 people, was initially blamed on Arab terrorists and that, had Loughner gotten away from that Safeway in Tucson, similar warnings might have been raised.) It’s only then that the bizarre individuality, even the twisted humanity, of such acts comes to the fore and so mental illness becomes a possible explanation. It’s only then that, instead of fear and panic, we “grieve” as a nation and engage in a “conversation” about the state of ourselves.

Not surprisingly, the police mug shot of Loughner featured on the front-page of my hometown paper (and probably every other paper in America) was the equivalent, for the American conversation, of manna from heaven: a smiling maniac, the Grim Reaper gone bonkers, someone who had visibly absorbed left, right, and every kind of fringe into his dream world and conveniently come out a “nihilist”.

In the Crosshairs

Whether it’s obvious or not, all of this avoids a different kind of conversation about slaughter and mania. After all, thought of from a Wellsian perspective, it’s always possible that the Martians could actually be us (or us, too, at least) — and not just the madmen among us either. Welles was a rarity on this issue.  When it comes to thinking of ourselves as “them,” normally it just doesn’t come naturally.

At a moment when a single horrific incident, the killing of six Americans and the wounding of 13, including a member of Congress, looms so much larger than life and has for days become “the news,” when our world has been abuzz with media discussions about civility in U.S. politics, crosshairs and where they were placed, the president’s role as "national healer," and various profiles in courage among the living and dead, when the focus, in other words, is so overwhelming, you have to wonder what’s hidden from sight.

One out-of-sight matter to consider might be those crosshairs — not on a symbolic political map but over actual humans beings, resulting in multiple deaths. I’m talking about our war in Afghanistan.

To give an example, on January 10th, according to a New York Times report, a “team” (whether American or NATO we don’t know) “conducting a patrol” in the village of Baladas in central Afghanistan "spotted ‘nine armed individuals setting up what appeared to be an ambush position’." That team called in a helicopter strike, killing three Afghans and wounding three others. According to a statement from “a coalition spokesman,” the six casualties turned out to be “innocent people... mistakenly targeted.” According to local Afghan figures, they were members of “a local police team... on their way to meet a unit of the American Special Forces for a joint patrol.” Condolences have since been offered and a NATO “assessment team” was sent to the site to “investigate.”

Classified as a case of “friendly fire,” the incident represents one small-scale slaughter that got no attention here. Like almost all such reports from Afghanistan, the names of the dead and wounded were not recorded (undoubtedly because there was no reporter on the ground to ask). And it goes without saying that no one in our world will grieve for those dead, or praise them, or offer “healing” words about what their example should mean to the rest of us. About their fate, there will be no TV reports, no conversation on underlying issues, not a shred of discussion, not here.

Tucson-Kabul

A week ago, it’s reasonable to assume, 99.9% of Americans had never heard of Congressional Representative Gabrielle Giffords; even fewer knew of federal judge John Roll who died in that Safeway parking lot; and none (other than family and friends) had heard about nine-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, tragically shot down while learning firsthand how U.S. politics works, or Daniel Hernandez, the congresswoman’s intern, who ran towards the gunshots to offer help. Now, we all “know” them as if they were neighbors or friends. Victims of a nightmare, they have been memorialized repeatedly, giving us the feeling that there is something better to American life than Jared Loughner.

In the process, the coverage of the Tucson massacre has been, to say the least, unrelenting. From a media point of view, it’s also had its ghoulish side: Think of it as the OJ moment — the discovery that focusing on a high-profile nightmare 24/7 glues eyeballs — meets the more recent massive downsizing of newspapers and TV news. All of this makes "flooding the zone" (covering a single, endlessly reported event) cheaper, less labor intensive, and far more appealing than blanketing the world.

On the other hand, the coverage of the “friendly fire” incident in Afghanistan has been, to put it politely, relenting.

Close to 100% of Americans knew nothing about that incident when it happened and close to 100% know nothing about it now. Of course, in the fog of war tragic mistakes are made, intelligence gets screwed up, targeting goes awry, deadly mishaps occur. So six local Afghan police mistakenly killed or wounded by a helicopter hardly turn us into slaughtering maniacs (though imagine the attention, had six policemen been shot down anywhere in the United States).

To put this incident in perspective, however, consider five similar “friendly fire” incidents reported from Afghanistan in the five weeks preceding January 10th, none of which got significant attention here.

On December 8th in Logar Province, two missiles from a U.S. air strike “mistakenly killed” two Afghan National Army soldiers and wounded five as they were moving to help NATO troops under attack. The Afghan Defense Ministry “condemned” the strike. (“As a result of a bombardment by international forces... two soldiers... were martyred...”)

On December 16th in Helmand Province, another air strike killed four Afghan soldiers as they were leaving their base, yet again a case identified as mistaken targeting. Typically, an investigation was launched (though the results of such investigations are almost never reported).

On December 23rd, “in an attempt to intercept suspected insurgents,” a “NATO helicopter” reportedly strafed a car in a convoy heading for “an event hosted by the head of a local council in [Faryab Province in] northern Afghanistan.” A policeman and the brother of former parliament member Sarajuddin Mozafari, a local politician, were killed. Two policemen and a civilian were reported wounded. The governor of the province, Abdul Haq Shafaq, was among the guests and aided the wounded. Associated Press reporter Amir Shah quoted the governor this way: "‘We are so angry about this’, Shafaq said, describing the dead as innocents. He called for an investigation into the incident by the attorney general.” (Said U.S. Air Force Colonel James Dawkins in response to the event: "While we take extraordinary care in conducting operations to avoid civilian casualties, unfortunately in this instance it appears innocent men were mistakenly targeted... we deeply regret this incident.")

On December 24th, there was a “night raid” in Kabul. (The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai regularly condemns such American night raids.) Evidently thanks to mistaken intelligence, two private guards were killed and three wounded when commandos from coalition forces raided the headquarters of the Afghan Tiger Group, “a supplier of vehicles to the United States military.” (From the New York Times report on the incident comes the following quote: "‘It was murder’, said Colonel Mohammed Zahir, director of criminal investigations for the Kabul police, who arrived at the scene shortly after the raid began and said both victims had been shot in the head.”)

On January 5th in Ghazni province, another night raid resulted in the deaths of three Afghans whose bodies were paraded through Ghazni City by angry fellow tribesmen shouting “Death to America.” Local officials indicated that the three were indeed innocent civilians; the Americans claimed they were “insurgents.”

Massacres like the one in Tucson are more common than Americans like to imagine, but still reasonably rare. The repetitious deaths of “innocents” in Afghanistan are commonplace in a way that Americans generally don’t care to consider. Add up the casualties from all six of these incidents between December 8th and January 10th and you get 16 dead (and 13 wounded).

Next, put together the mistaken targetings, the American denials or expressions of condolence, the predictable announcements of investigations whose results never seem to surface, as well as the minimalist coverage in the U.S., and you have a pattern: that is, something you can be sure will happen again and again on as yet unknown days in 2011 to as little attention here.

And keep in mind that such “incidents” have been the norm of our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Pakistani tribal borderlands for years. There have been hundreds or (who knows?) even thousands of them (not that anyone is counting). And yet, let’s face it, if we were to look in the mirror, one thing is certain: we would not see a grinning, demented monster staring back at us.

Identifying Barbarians

Here's a question: Why don't the dead of our foreign wars register on us, particularly the civilians killed in numbers that, if attributed to our enemies or past imperial armies, would be seen as the acts of barbarians? After all, when a Taliban suicide bomber kills 17 Afghans and wounds 23 in a bathhouse, including a senior police border-control officer, we know just what to think. It wouldn't matter if those who sent the bomber claimed that he had made a “mistake” in targeting, or if they declared the other deaths regrettable “collateral damage.” When we attack with similar results, we hardly think about it at all.

I can imagine at least three factors involved:

Tribalism: Yes, we consider them the tribal ones, but we have our own tribal qualities, including a deep-seated feeling that what’s close at hand (us) is more valuable than what’s far away (them). The valorizing of your own group and the devaluing of those outside it undoubtedly couldn’t be more human. Who doesn’t know, for instance, that when it comes to media coverage, one blond American child kidnapped and murdered is worth 500 Indonesians drowned on a ferry?

Racism/The Superiority Factor: This subject is no longer raised in connection with American wars, and yet it’s obviously of importance. If 16 Americans had been killed and 13 wounded in six mistaken-targeting incidents even in distant Afghanistan, we would be outraged. There would be news coverage, Congressional hearings, who knows what. If there had been the same number of dead Canadians or Germans, there would still have been an outcry. But Afghans? Dark-skinned peoples from an alien culture in the backlands of the planet? No way. Our condolences every now and then are the best we have on tap.

The American Way of War: Once upon a time, we Americans responded to air war, especially against civilian populations, as barbaric and, shocked by its effects in Guernica, Shanghai, London, and elsewhere, denounced it. That, of course, was before air war became such an integral part of the American way of war. In recent years, American military spokespeople have regularly boasted of the increasingly “surgical” and “precise” nature of air power. The most impressively surgical thing about air war, however, is the way it has been excised from the category of barbarism in our American world. The suicide bomber or car bomber is a monster, a barbarian. Drones, planes, helicopters? No such thing, despite the stream of innocents they kill.

No wonder when we look in the mirror, we don’t see the grinning face of a maniac; sometimes we see no face at all, quite literally in the case of the Pakistani tribal borderlands where hundreds have died (always “militants” or “suspected militants”) thanks to pilotless drones and video-game-style war.

Blown Away

In a safe in Jared Loughner’s parents’ house, investigators from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department found documents with the words "I planned ahead," "My assassination," and "Giffords." The words of a madman. When a Taliban suicide bomber strikes, we know that we are staring off-the-charts brutality in the face. When it comes to our killings, it’s always another matter.

And yet, even if every one of those Afghan deaths was “mistaken,” there was nothing innocent about the killings. If something happens often enough to be a predictable horror, then those who commit the acts (and those who send them to do so, as well as those who have the luxury of looking the other way) are responsible, and should be accountable.

After all, week after week, month after month, year after year since September 11, 2001, the deaths have piled up relentlessly. Towers and towers of deaths. Barely reported, seldom named, hardly noted, almost never grieved over in our world, those dead Afghans, Iraqis, and Pakistanis had parents who assumedly loved them, friends who cared about them, enemies who might have wanted to target them, colleagues and associates who knew their quirks. We’re talking so many Safeways' worth of them that it’s beyond reckoning.

Civilians repeatedly killed at checkpoints; 12 Afghans including a four-year-old girl, a one-year-old boy, and three elderly villagers shot down near the city of Jalalabad when Marine Special Operations forces, attacked by a suicide bomber, fired wildly along a ten-mile stretch of road in April 2007; at least 12 Iraqi civilians (including two employees of Reuters) slaughtered by an Apache helicopter on a street in Baghdad in July 2007; at least 17 Iraqi civilians murdered by Blackwater contractors protecting a convoy of State Department vehicles in Nisour Square, Baghdad, in September 2007.

Any recent year has such “highlights”: a popular Kabul Imam shot to death in his car from a passing NATO convoy with his 7-year-old son in the back seat in January 2010; at least 21 Afghan civilians killed when U.S. jets mistakenly fired on three mini-buses in Uruzgan Province in February 2010; five civilians killed and up to 18 wounded when U.S. troops raked a passenger bus with gunfire near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan in April 2010; and 10 Afghan election workers killed and two wounded last September in a "precision air strike" on a “militant’s vehicle.”

And that, of course, is just to scratch the surface of such incidents. Wedding parties have repeatedly been obliterated (at least seven in Afghanistan and Iraq), naming ceremonies for children wiped out, and funerals blown away.

Bodies and more bodies. All “mistakes.” And yet, knowing the mistakes that have happened and assured of the mistakes to come, our leaders are still talking about U.S. “combat troops” staying in Afghanistan through 2014; our vice-president is pledging us to remain “well beyond” that year; one of our senators is calling for “permanent bases” there; our trainers are expecting to conduct training exercises in 2016; and in the meantime, our Afghan war commander is calling in more air power, more night raids, and more destruction.

Nowhere do we see the face of a madman grinning, but the toll across the years is that of a cold-blooded killer. It’s the mark of barbarism, even if we’re not fanatics.

______________________________________

Note: Let me offer a small bow of special thanks to three invaluable websites: Juan Cole’s Informed Comment, Antiwar.com (including the prodigious Jason Ditz), and Paul Woodward’s War in Context. Without them, it would be so much harder to follow the news about America’s distant wars.

• Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book is “The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s” (Haymarket Books). You can catch a Timothy MacBain TomDispatch video interview with me on our "stimulus" spending abroad by clicking here or download it to your iPod, here.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175343/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_alien_visitations

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

And here's a movie showing what happens to unarmed defenseless people

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDfp3H1Fsw8&feature=player_embedded

Below only goes to prove that America is ruled by a group of murderous corrupt evil thugs that attack and destroy innocent people worldwide and they keep the American public brain washed with help of their lying corrupted media.

A good reason for the common American people to be armed so they can defend themselves from all forms of criminal tyranny and oppression
and also from their out of control corporately controlled Nazi fascist police state government. 

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Pulp fiction that's all too real

“These 50 children were to symbolise the promise of America.”

By TRACEY BARNETT - The New Zealand Herald | 5:30AM - Friday, January 21, 2011


The six victims, from top left:
Christina Taylor Green, 9, Dorothy Morris, 76,
Arizona Federal District Judge John Roll, 63;
from bottom left: Phyllis Schneck, 79,
Dorwin Stoddard, 76, and Gabe Zimmerman, 30.
 — Picture: Associated Press.

IF YOU remember nothing about the mass shooting in Arizona that wounded 13 and killed six, including a 9-year-old girl who wanted to see her Congresswoman for the first time outside a grocery store, remember this: Christina Taylor Green was born on September 11, 2001.

She was one of 50 babies born that day, one representing each state, who were included in a book published shortly after 9/11. These 50 children were to symbolise the promise of America.

Like a sad parenthesis bookending the American decade, this girl's short life began and ended on a day of national terror, in what was to become America's Decade of Terror.

In one rare, over-indulgent rhetorical flourish in what was otherwise one of the most eloquent speeches of Obama's career in front of 13,000 Arizonans and millions of Americans, the US President said he hoped Christina would fulfil the wish written next to her 9/11 book entry. She will jump in rain puddles — in heaven.

Nobody can write fiction like America lives it in reality.

It is too impossibly cliched, too supersized — a pulp fiction.

At one point the First Black Lady — once an impossibility when Christina was born — reached out to hold the hand of the husband of the fallen 40-year-old three-term Jewish Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords.

Giffords' husband is a space shuttle commander and astronaut. His twin astronaut brother learned of the shooting while up in space.

Today media outlets update the condition of the Congresswoman who was shot point blank in the head, gesture for gesture, like a play-by-play of healing she has to win. She opened her eyes for the first time when three close friends, all Congresswomen, came into her hospital room and joked about getting pizza. It was the semi-conscious patient who tried to comfort her husband. She massaged his neck as he leaned close to speak to her, he reported this week to large headlines.

If astronaut and Congresswomen couples weren't American mythic enough, the murdered child's grandfather and father work in professional baseball. Christina wanted to be the first girl ever to play in the major leagues. Most unbelievable of all; Americans find a way to renew their belief in their country's innocence, despite the pain it inflicts upon itself.

Eulogising Christina in the closing minutes of his speech, Obama said, "I want to live up to her expectations ... I want America to be as good as she imagined it."

When Obama's voice rose and he told Americans they must do everything they can to make sure the country lives up to our children's expectations, the crowd stood and cheered for 51 seconds.

If you watched the cerebral, ice-cool President's body language closely, you would have seen him stop and very slightly compose himself. He took a deep, sighing breath and his shoulders visibly dropped as he waited. When the crowd wouldn't stop cheering, he nodded almost imperceptibly, as if acknowledging; This is how it should be. America's "better angels" don't get much press because Americans first and foremost don't see them.

Americans write about a grotesque fundamentalist Baptist Church that protests during fallen veterans' funerals with signs that preach that the dead soldier deserved to die for our sins.

Arizona officials scrambled to pass a law that would create a physical buffer from the same group threatening to protest at the little girl's funeral. Hallowed free speech got too ugly to bear against a dead child, its most undeniable innocent.

It is the depth of American contrasts that feel pornographic from afar. America is the country that brings us a television show about a serial killer who kills serial killers; while in reality, its richest man is spending the rest of his life figuring out the most effective way to give away his Microsoft millions.

America is the country whose gun sales in Arizona spiked by 60 per cent after the shootings; while straight-faced pundits wrote, "Public life can reflect our best selves."

Just when its national profile reverts to caricature, we listen hardest to a comedian, Jon Stewart, not a politician, tell us in faint yet damning praise, "We haven't lost our capacity to be horrified" and then add in wishful, fragile self-esteem, "and please let us hope we never do".

The unending irony of the American promise is that it is as ugly a fiction as it is a tangible, audacious, rubber hope.

My America is Jared Loughner, another mass murderer whose name we never wanted to know. My America is Gabrielle Giffords' hand against her husband's neck. My America is the audience who stood on their feet in that Arizona arena and wouldn't stop clapping for 51 seconds. My America is a local Mariachi band that stops outside the Congresswoman's hospital window each day to play because they believe music heals.

The first decade of a new millennium is over and my America is afraid of itself.

My America is six dead, and 300 million wounded — again.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10700945

[Lovelee]

An argument that started when a Mississippi man's dog defecated in his neighbor's yard escalated to a shootout, sending a man to the hospital and the dog owner to jail, authorities said Friday.

Terry Tenhet, 52, was mad at Jerry Blasingame because Blasingame's dog went to the bathroom in his yard, Washington County Sheriff's Assistant Chief Deputy Billy Barber said.

The argument Wednesday evening got out of control and the neighbors began shooting at one another, police said. Tenhet was hit in the chest, arm and hip with a shotgun blast. His injuries weren't considered life threatening.

Blasingame, 60, was charged with aggravated assault. Tenhet could also face charges.

Blasingame didn't respond to a phone message. His stepmother, Norma Blasingame, told The Associated Press he was defending himself after Tenhet threatened him with a gun. She declined to answer any other questions.

Barber said the shooting was senseless.

"Homeowners and property owners need to respect each other's property. Don't let your dogs do that on other people's yards," Barber said. "Then, at the same time, if a dog did do that in your yard, call the law. Don't take make matters into your own hands."

Barber didn't know what kind of dog Blasingame has, and Tenhet's number was unlisted.

http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/54828a5e8d9d48b7ba8b94ba38a9ef22/Article_2011-03-25-Dog%20Spat%20Shootout/id-7dbc36fc898746468cb05526c39605b9

[akadaka]

Gunmen kill 56 in grisly Iraq hostage siege

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/4824720/Gunmen-kill-56-in-grisly-Iraq-hostage-siege

seems the yanks are mere amatures compared to a good ole fashion arab shoot out

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Chicago Tribune....

Michigan shooting spree leaves 7 dead,
including 2 children; suspect in hostage standoff

By TOM COYNE - Associated Press | 10:40PM Central Daylight Time - Thursday, July 07, 2011


SHOOTING SCENE: Grand Rapids Police and the Kent County Sheriff's Department are on scene outside
a home in Grand Rapids, Michigan where three bodies were found Thursday, July 07, 2011. Police say
seven people have been fatally shot at two locations in the western Michigan city and the victims
include a child. — Photo: Cory Morse/Associated Press.

GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan (Associated Press) — A gunman opened fire in two Michigan homes Thursday, killing seven people before leading police on a high-speed chase through downtown Grand Rapids, crashing his vehicle and taking hostages, authorities said.

Within hours, dozens of officers with guns drawn had cordoned off a neighborhood near a small lake in the northern part of the city and shut down nearby Interstate 96. With the man surrounded, state police warned some residents to stay in their homes and evacuated others.

"All the resources we have are there," Grand Rapids Police Chief Kevin Belk said. "Our goal, right now, is to get him into custody. We have him cornered, if you will, in one house."

Authorities did not have a motive for the suspect, 34-year-old Rodrick Shonte Dantzler, or disclose his exact relationship with the victims.

After negotiating with officers, Dantzler released a 53-year-old woman unharmed, Belk said. Two hostages remained inside.

Police believed the suspect remained agitated. They said shots had been fired when he entered the house and during the standoff, though apparently no one was injured.

"It's a very tense situation. Our officers are obviously in harm's way," the chief said.

The manhunt for Dantzler began after four people were found dead in one home and three were found in another across town. Two of the dead were children.

The names of the victims were not immediately released. Autopsies were scheduled for Friday.

"We believe there were prior relationships with at least one person at each location, so we think there were some difficulties there," Belk said.


BULLET HOLES (left): A Grand Rapids police car that was both hit and fired upon sits abandoned in Grand Rapids after
suspect Roderick Dantzler led police on a high speed chase. | SUSPECT (right): Rodrick Dantzler, who police are
searching for in connection with shootings at two homes in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that left seven dead,
including a child. | — Photos: Associated Press.

Records show Dantzler was released from state prison in 2005 after serving time for assault less than murder. A spokesman for the prison system said he had not been under state supervision since then.

At one point during the police chase, the suspect crossed a wide grassy median on the interstate and drove the wrong way down the highway while more than a dozen squad cars pursued him. Belk said he crashed the vehicle while driving down an embankment into a wooded area of the highway, which remained closed hours later.

Two other people were shot when the suspect fired at police during the chase, but their wounds were not considered life-threatening. One man was wounded in what Belk described as a "road rage" attack after the suspect fired through the rear window of the vehicle. A woman was hit in the arm in a separate shooting.

Carrie Colacchio lives a little more than a mile away from the hostage situation and said she was driving in the area when the suspect's vehicle blew through.

"I looked in my rearview mirror and see this big white SUV coming up behind me," she said. "The only way to get out of it was to push the gas pedal."

She couldn't turn off the road or slow down or go any other way and reached about 85 mph.

"I almost got smacked," she said. "I had to go up on the curb."

Sandra Powney lives across the street from one of the homes where the shootings happened and said she had seen Dantzler at the ranch house, where a couple has lived for more than 20 years with two adult daughters.

Powney said she had been at home all day and did not realize anyone had been killed until police arrived at the cul-de-sac in the midafternoon.

"For a while we couldn't come outside," she said. "They didn't know if there was someone still inside the house."


ANGUISH: A man who claimed his daughter was inside the house where three bodies were found
collapses in the street Thursday, July 07, 2011 in Grand Rapids, Michigan Police say seven people
have been fatally shot at two locations in the western Michigan city of Grand Rapids and the
victims include a child. — Photo: Chris Clark/Associated Press.

Neighbors said police congregated at Dantzler's home a few miles away after the shootings.

Sonia Bergers said Dantzler lived with a woman she assumed was his wife and their daughter, a girl who appeared to be about 10 years old.

Mary Lahuis and her husband had just returned home after having coffee at a nearby fast-food restaurant when police began running down their street with guns, yelling at people to get in their homes.

Of Dantzler she said: "You would see him going up and down the street. And you'd hear him going up and down the street."

Lisa Schenden lives with her husband and their children two blocks from the home where four people were killed. She said the homeowners are a couple whose daughter has a daughter with the suspect.

Schenden said she did not hear the shooting either, but she saw the suspect and his daughter drive up to the house earlier in the day.

"Just last night, my kids went over there swimming, and I went over with them," she said.

Outside the two-story, wood-sided home where the three people were killed, neighbors stood in clumps Thursday evening, quietly talking as investigators scoured the house. As officers left, people disappeared indoors and a single police car remained on the block.

The only indication of anything unusual was three bouquets of flowers on the porch steps.

• Associated Press writers John Flesher and Kathy Hoffman in Grand Rapids and Corey Williams and David N. Goodman in Detroit contributed to this report.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-us-michigan-shooting-spree,0,4889318,full.story

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Did Trayvon Martin die because he was black?

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM - Friday, March 23, 2012



TRAYVON MARTIN was a 17-year-old kid walking back to his father's house after buying a package of Skittles at a convenience store. George Zimmerman was an overzealous block watch volunteer carrying a gun. Zimmerman may have been carrying something else around with him: an attitude about black kids and where they belonged.

Martin had the bad luck to cross paths with Zimmerman. It was raining. Martin's hoodie was up. He was on the phone with his girlfriend and, according to her, was getting nervous about the big guy following him. The guy was Zimmerman.

Zimmerman considered Martin a suspicious character -- at least that's what he was telling the 911 dispatcher he had on the line. He also told the dispatcher that "these ... always get away," according to a recording of the call that has been released. Then he took off running after Martin and uttered to the dispatcher a word that some listeners heard to be a racial epithet.

Martin, of course, was African American and, even though this gated neighborhood in Sanford, Fla., happened to be where his dad lived, in Zimmerman's eyes, he did not belong there.

Then came a confrontation, cries for help and a gunshot.

Trayvon Martin was dead. The police who came to the scene took his body away and held it in a morgue for three days without checking out his cellphone to find someone who knew who he was. The police let Zimmerman go at the scene, saying they could not charge him since he claimed self-defense because, in Florida,  a "stand your ground" law protects people who shoot first and later claim to have been threatened.

This killing a month ago has now become a national cause with demands for Zimmerman to be arrested and put on trial. A grand jury has been invoked. The Justice Department has stepped in. The Sanford police chief has taken a temporary leave.

Sybrina Fulton, Martin's mother, told a rally in New York City that this tragedy was not a matter of white and black, but a matter of right and wrong. That's generous. But it's hard to believe Trayvon Martin would be dead today if he had been just a white kid on his way home in the rain.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trayvon-martin-20120322,0,5521159.story

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

• 14 killed, 50 wounded at Aurora, Colorado movie theater

(Denver Post — Friday, July 20, 2012)

[guest49]

• 14 killed, 50 wounded at Aurora, Colorado movie theater

(Denver Post — Friday, July 20, 2012)

Its Batmans fault......

[Crusader]

Another great reason to support watching pirated movies. At least you don't get shot doing so.

[Newtown-Fella]

• 14 killed, 50 wounded at Aurora, Colorado movie theater

(Denver Post — Friday, July 20, 2012)

Its Batmans fault......

no no no The Joker did it

[ssweetpea]

The voice over on TV blamed "woefully lax American gun laws".

12 dead, 71 wounded because a bright boy grew up couldn't get a job anywhere but McDonalds with a degree in Neurobiology and was able to buy the weapons to go postal.

No doubt the USA will be blaming anything and everything but their precious, deadly gun laws.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

No doubt the USA will be blaming anything and everything but their precious, deadly gun laws.

Well.....the NRA (and the rednecks) will.

[guest49]

Just think though - if his victims had bothered to carry a firearm, most would be walking round today and the scrote would have needed 5 men to lift him due to the weight of lead inside him.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Just think though - if his victims had bothered to carry a firearm, most would be walking round today and the scrote would have needed 5 men to lift him due to the weight of lead inside him.

Hmmmmm.....I could just imagine 100x as many bullets flying around in a darkened theatre.

The death toll would probably have been 50 or more, perhaps even 100!

[Crusader]

Something doesn't sit right with me about this case. How can an out of work college dropout afford all the kit he had? Why would someone so intent on killing others give up so easy? Why would he disclose his apartment was booby trapped?

It seems a mighty coincidence that this occurred right about the same time the U.S Government was trying to push through tighter gun control laws.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

Why Guns are needed in USA

[Crusader]

What amazes me is so many people go on about the number of shootings in America, yet South Africa has a whole lot more.

[Calliope]

What amazes me is so many people go on about the number of shootings in America, yet South Africa has a whole lot more.

Show me the statistics please

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Los Angeles Times....

Despite Colorado theater massacre, a discussion of guns is off limits

By DAVID HORSEY | 6:38AM - Tuesday, July 24, 2012


The NRA cares about guns, not Colorado massacre victims.
 — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times/July 24, 2012.

JAMES HOLMES, the alleged shooter in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater massacre, was lucky to be living in the U.S.A. People who want to kill people find guns are very handy and, thanks to America's gun lobby, they can buy them easily in this country, along with all the ammunition needed to get the job done.

If the alleged gunman had been living in Norway, a place with much stricter gun regulations, he would have had to work harder to amass an arsenal. Still, there is the inconvenient fact for liberals that Norway's tougher laws did not deter right-wing racist Anders Breivik from gunning down 69 young people at a leftist youth camp last summer.

So, as much as I am variously amused and appalled by paranoid gun enthusiasts who see black helicopters and totalitarian oppression in even the most modest efforts to regulate guns and ammo, they are probably right to argue that tough gun laws will not stop these aberrant killings that emerge from a darkness no one can penetrate. As former FBI agent Peter Ahearn said to the Associated Press, "There's no way you can prevent it. There's absolutely no way."

Authorities have indicated that Holmes gave no clue to anyone about what he was planning. When he bought his guns and ammunition, a background check would have indicated that he had no criminal record, no history of mental illness. He may have been socially awkward, but he was not a weirdo outcast. Until very recently, he was a reasonably successful student on course to a graduate degree. Yes, his academic career suddenly stalled, but dropping out of grad school does not raise suspicions that a person is planning a horrific slaughter.

"It was random; it happened," Ahearn said. “There was nothing that could have prevented that unless someone saw him loading his car with guns."

Sure, an assault weapons ban might have kept the gunman from procuring an assault rifle, and some limit on buying ammunition online might have restricted his capacity to kill. But there is really no combination of laws and regulations that can prevent these outliers in our communities from going off the rails and finding a way to kill innocent people. That is the dismal truth.

Yet, though there may be no defense against the terror of the killer who comes out of nowhere, that does not mean that, as some conservatives are arguing, "this is not the time to have a discussion about guns." After all, many gun-rights supporters say there is an answer to random killers and that is to arm everybody. If someone in that Aurora theater crowd had been packing a weapon, they argue, that person might have stopped the gunman (that is, if the full body armor the shooter was wearing had somehow failed to work).

So, let's talk about it. Let's look at how many times crimes have been prevented by honest citizens bearing arms. Let's also consider the statistics that show deaths caused by guns, including suicides, are more common in regions of the country where gun laws are the most lax. Let's have a reasoned discussion that acknowledges the right to bear arms and also recognizes that every one of our liberties has a limit. Let's try to craft sensible gun regulations that promote public safety in circumstances we can predict, even if they cannot stop the unpredictable, random horror of a gunman who has slipped past the boundaries of civilized life.

Why do conservatives not want to have that discussion now? I'll tell you why: Because they have let the most extreme elements of the gun-rights community dictate gun policy for the entire country and now they are afraid to cross them. For conservatives, this is not the time for a discussion about guns because, no matter how much blood is spilled, even in preventable circumstances, it is a discussion they never plan to have.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-theater-massacre-20120724,0,6143128.story

[Crusader]

What amazes me is so many people go on about the number of shootings in America, yet South Africa has a whole lot more.

Show me the statistics please

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-crime-murders-with-firearms

[nitpicker1]

What amazes me is so many people go on about the number of shootings in America, yet South Africa has a whole lot more.

Show me the statistics please

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-crime-murders-with-firearms

from the same link,  life expectancy      South Africa: 49.33 years   2011     (place # 221 of 227 countries) 

yeahbut
 
They seem to be in a perpetual state of civil war

[guest49]

Absolutely nothing to do with the topic in hand, but this statistic from NPs site brings no credit on NZ.
click