Crime and Punishment: Oklahoma (& Texas) style!

[GIThruster]

A Wyoming Story

A guy walked into a crowded bar, waving his 1911 Colt .45 with a 7-round magazine plus one in the chamber and yelled, "Who in here has been screwing my wife?"

A voice from the back of the bar yelled back, "You need more ammo."

Just another example of why you need to own high-capacity firearms.

[Diogenes]

11 Year Old Girl Shoots Man Who Attacked and Stabbed Her Mother, Saves Her Life

Heroes come in all sizes and all ages, as illustrated by this story. An 11 year old girl in Oklahoma has certainly earned that title after her brave actions to defend her mother yesterday.

After a violent ex-boyfriend came to Brandy Moreno’s home (who she had a protective order against), he attacked and stabbed her. Fortunately, her 11 year old daughter knew just what to do.

http://gunssavelives.net/self-defense/v ... -her-life/

[GIThruster]

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/10/185377- ... e-invader/

[GIThruster]

Interesting twist. . .

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/10/191840- ... ok-photos/

[GIThruster]

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/10/191930- ... attackers/

[williatw]

Do Black People Have Equal Gun Rights?

Until around 1970, the aims of America’s firearms restrictionists and the aims of America’s racists were practically inextricable. In both the colonial and immediate post-Revolutionary periods, the first laws regulating gun ownership were aimed squarely at blacks and Native Americans. In both the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies, it was illegal for the colonists to sell guns to natives, while Virginia and Tennessee banned gun ownership by free blacks

CONVENTIONAL wisdom holds that firearms are the preserve of conservative white men. You would never know this at my local shooting range, which happens to be in a majority African-American area, and has a clientele that reflects that fact. There, as a white man, I’m often in the minority; just one more guy who likes to fire weapons — another person to chat to and share stories with. It is, I’d venture, how things should be.

By rights, the Second Amendment should serve as a totem of African-Americans’ full citizenship and enfranchisement. For centuries, firearms have been indispensable to black liberation: as crucial a defense against tyranny for Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. as for Sam Adams and George Washington. Today, however, many black Americans have a decidedly mixed relationship with the right to bear arms.

In August, as the outrage over the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., dominated the news, an African-American group calling itself the Huey P. Newton Gun Club took to the streets of Dallas, rifles in hand, to protest. Local businesses were supportive, and the city’s police chief confirmed in a statement that his department “supports the constitutional rights of all.” On Twitter, the hashtag #blackopencarry prompted a warm response from conservatives.

The Cheetum family in Doerun, Ga., in 1950. Credit Bettmann/Corbis

And yet, that same month, a 22-year-old black man named John Crawford III was shot dead by the police in an Ohio Walmart after a white customer claimed excitedly that a man was pointing a gun at his fellow patrons. Later, the store’s security footage revealed that Mr. Crawford had been holding a BB gun that he had picked up in the sporting goods department, and that the caller’s testimony had been wrong. Ohio is an open carry state. That didn’t make much difference for Mr. Crawford.

Until around 1970, the aims of America’s firearms restrictionists and the aims of America’s racists were practically inextricable. In both the colonial and immediate post-Revolutionary periods, the first laws regulating gun ownership were aimed squarely at blacks and Native Americans. In both the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies, it was illegal for the colonists to sell guns to natives, while Virginia and Tennessee banned gun ownership by free blacks.



In the antebellum period, the chief justice of the United States, Roger B. Taney, wrote a grave warning into the heart of the execrable Dred Scott decision. If blacks were permitted to become citizens, Taney cautioned, they, like whites, would have full liberty to “keep and carry arms wherever they went.”

White Southerners would eventually be forced to accept blacks as their fellow citizens. But old habits died hard. After the Civil War, many Southern states enacted Black Codes to prohibit ownership of guns by blacks. The measures served their purpose. In her remarkable 1892 disquisition on the evils of lynching, the writer Ida B. Wells noted that “the only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense.” Wells offered some blunt advice: “a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.”


At the height of the civil rights movement, black freedom fighters took Wells’s counsel seriously. Although he was denied a concealed-carry permit, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had what his adviser Glenn E. Smiley described as a veritable “arsenal” at home.

Far from being a digression from the principle of nonviolence, this willingness to defend oneself was heir to a long, proud tradition. Considering in 1850 what he believed to be the best response to the Fugitive Slave Act, Frederick Douglass proposed: “a good revolver.”

The first major ban on the open carrying of firearms — a Republican-led bill that was drafted after Black Panthers began hanging around the State Legislature in Sacramento with their guns on display — was signed in 1967 by none other than Gov. Ronald Reagan of California. The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 was primarily a reaction to the scourge of “Saturday night specials” — cheap handguns owned by the poor and the black. The National Rifle Association opposed neither law.

So the fact that one of the seminal Second Amendment cases in American history is named for a black plaintiff is a beautiful and moving thing indeed. McDonald v. Chicago, argued in 2010, was brought by Otis McDonald, a 76-year-old black man tired of watching his neighborhood give way to crime and gang warfare. The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that the Second Amendment applied not just to all people, but to the states as well as to the federal government, and that Chicago was therefore not permitted to prohibit Mr. McDonald from keeping a handgun for his defense.

Yet African-American activists typically refrain from involvement in the issue of gun rights. In October 2013, Shaneen Allen, 27, a black single mother of two, was arrested in New Jersey for carrying a firearm without a license (she was under the impression that her Pennsylvania concealed-carry permit was accepted across state lines), and threatened with a prison sentence of up to 11 years for her mistake.

But it was conservative publications, such as my own National Review, and the N.R.A. that came to her defense. The N.A.A.C.P. and the usual champions remained unusually quiet. (There was no news conference featuring the Rev. Al Sharpton.) They have been largely absent, too, from the case of Marissa Alexander, a black Florida woman given a 20-year sentence for firing a warning shot near her abusive husband.

It’s a problem of perception, an assumption that the Second Amendment is the province of whites, that cuts both ways. In 2009, as the first Tea Party rallies swept the country, Contessa Brewer of MSNBC showed a video of a man at an anti-Obamacare rally with a pistol on his hip and suggested that “there are questions about whether this has racial overtones ... white people showing up with guns.” Later, it came out that the man in the video was actually black.

At least 15 percent of African-Americans report that they own guns — about the same rate as all other “nonwhites.” But as anybody who has attended an N.R.A. convention can attest, there is a gaping hole in the organization’s membership. Look around the convention center and you will see plenty of women, a good number of Asians and Hispanics, and even a smattering of children. Blacks? Not so much.

This is a tremendous shame. It is one thing for the N.R.A. to celebrate black Second Amendment advocates such as its spokesman Colion Noir, and Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. of Milwaukee County, but it is quite another for Wayne LaPierre to inveigh against “home invaders, drug cartels, carjackers, knockout gamers, and rapers, and haters,” and for the camera to then pan around a sea of white faces clapping in unison.

Malcolm X may have a deservedly mixed reputation, but the famous photograph of him standing at the window, rifle in hand, insisting on black liberation “by any means necessary,” is about as American as it gets. It should be celebrated just like the “Don’t tread on me” Gadsden flag. By not making that connection, the movement is losing touch with one of its greatest triumphs and forsaking a prime illustration of why its cause is so just and so crucial.

If supporters of the right to keep and bear arms want their pleas to be heard in their proper context, they might consider talking a little less about Valley Forge and a little more about Jim Crow — and attempting to fill their ranks with people who have known much more recently what tyranny really looks like.


Charles C. W. Cooke

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/opini ... type=Blogs

[williatw]

Teenager stops home burglary





Police say Michael Roberts, 26, broke into a residence on Bunker Hill Woods Road in Reily Township (Photo provided)

BUTLER COUNTY, OH (FOX19) - A man is caught breaking into a Butler County house, escapes from the police cruiser, then tries to break into another nearby home.

In the end, a 15-year-old is the one who comes to the rescue.

Both burglaries happened in a span of about four hours, and two men are responsible for bringing this 26-year-old into custody.

Brian Hiner woke up to his dogs barking this morning and while checking to see what was going on, he heard some commotion.

"I hear something behind me because the basement doors are right behind me and I hear somebody and it's him, he's right behind me coming up the staircase,"said Hiner.

Hiner says Michael Roberts, 26, broke into his home through a small window in the backyard. He says during the confrontation, it was so dark
he couldn't see anything so he quickly called 911, and grabbed a gun to keep Roberts cornered.

"More panicked, I wasn't really scared," said Hiner.

Police arrived and apprehended Roberts. but while officers were talking to Hiner, Roberts got out of the cruiser, and bolted.

"This other cruiser pulled up and saw that he got out and started running towards the cornfield and that's when they panicked. They didn't even know how he got out of the cop car, they just knew he got out and the chase was on," said Hiner.

Roberts eventually ended up at this home off of Decamp Road where 15-year-old Justin Kugler was sick, and home alone.

"I was home sending an email to my teachers about homework when my dogs started barking and I looked out the window but I didn't see anybody there so I went to the top of the stairs with the gun to make sure there wasn't anybody downstairs and then that's when the door opened and I saw him," said Justin Kugler.

Kugler says he was pretty scared because he noticed Roberts had a knife on him, but he was armed and ready for Roberts at the top of the stairs.

"I told him to get out of the house or I'm going to shoot you," said Justin Kugler.

"Guns have always been an important thing in our family and he knew what to do when the problem came up," said Jarrett Kugler.

Roberts was then apprehended for a second time just outside of the Kugler's home.

"I feel pretty good about it that I could have saved other people's houses and their property," said Justin Kugler.

It's unclear how Roberts was able to escape from the cruiser the first time. Neighbors say there's been a rash of burglaries in that area recently,
but it's unclear if Roberts is responsible.

Roberts is in jail facing several charges including aggravated burglary.

http://www.fox19.com/story/26879752/15- ... p-burglary

[GIThruster]

A gun is faster, but this might be more satisfying:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... arges.html

[williatw]

Elicia's Pizza Owner Shoots Armed Robber in Buttocks, Recovers Stolen Money



You don't want to rob this Elicia's Pizza.

The owner of an Elicia's Pizza shot one, maybe both, of the gunmen who tried to rob the south St. Louis city restaurant early Sunday morning.

The thieves announced a robbery at 12:20 a.m. in the pizza chain's Boulevard Heights location, at 6656 Gravois Avenue. One of the robbers kept a gun pointed at the owner while the other, a 28-year-old man, walked behind the counter and stole money from the register, according to St. Louis Metropolitan Police.

See also: Two Sentenced to Prison for Killing Imo's Pizza Delivery Driver

Even with a weapon trained on him, the restaurant owner -- who has a valid concealed carry license, police said -- managed to retrieve his own gun and start firing at the robber at the cash register, striking him in the leg and buttocks. The suspect collapsed outside the restaurant trying to flee.

And if that weren't enough, the owner says he also struck the second suspect during the gunfight, but police couldn't find any evidence he was injured. Police said the escaped robber fled east on Gravois Avenue and possibly entered a maroon minivan.

Police recovered the shot suspect's gun and the money taken in the robbery.

Here's the full report from police:

Incident: Robbery 1st/Assault 1st (Shooting)
Location: 6656 Gravois

Date/Time: 11/02/14 @ 0020

Victim: Elicia's Pizza

Suspect #1: 28-year old black male

Suspect #2: Black male wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt

The two suspects entered the business, both displaying handguns and announced a
robbery. Suspect #1 walked behind the counter and began removing money from the
register while Suspect #2 held a gun on the business owner. The owner, who has a valid
CCW permit, was able to retrieve his own gun and exchanged gunfire with Suspect #1 before both suspects fled the business. Suspect #1 collapsed outside of the business after sustaining gunshot wounds to his leg and buttocks. Suspect #2 fled east on Gravois and possibly entered a maroon minivan. Suspect #1 was conveyed to the hospital where he was listed as stable. The owner believes that he also shot Suspect #2, however, no evidence was located that confirms the suspect was shot. Suspect #1's gun along with currency taken in the robbery was recovered at the scene. The investigation is ongoing.

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyr ... obbery.php

[GIThruster]

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/11/204381- ... d-carrier/

[GIThruster]

http://www.tpnn.com/2014/11/28/an-intru ... er-family/

[williatw]

Russia Legalises Guns for Self Defence with Murder Rates Among Highest in World



Russian president Vladimir Putin fires a Kalashnikov assault rifle

Russia, which according to official figures has the fifth highest murder rate in the world, has relaxed its gun ownership laws.

Previously, Russians were only allowed to own firearms for hunting or target practice, but under the new laws they will be allowed to carry them for self-defence as well.

Though Russia's murder rate has fallen since the 1990s, when organised crime flourished, figures show the country still has a high murder rate.

In the most recent year for which statistics are available, 2009, there were 21,603 murders in Russia.

This gives it one of the world's highest murder rates, according to a 2011 UN report.

In the same year the US, which has a population almost twice as large, had 13,636 homicides.

More than 80% of the killings in the US were gun related.

Pro-gun ownership campaigners however point to US statistics as proof that ownership of firearms could keep them safer.

Some Russians blame corrupt police for the high crime rates.

Opposition politician Alexander Navalny, who supports gun ownership, quipped to the New Republic magazine in 2012 that firearms could help keep Russians safer from the law enforcement officers charged with protecting them.

"We have a huge homicide rate, most of these murders are unsolved, and many police officers are among the criminals," he told the magazine.

"In America, the argument works that there are professionals to protect us. Here, the police are the main criminals, and they're armed."

Others from the pro-gun ownership lobby said that firearms would help keep Russians safer from criminals.

"A person may decide not to commit a crime if he thinks he may be shot or may encounter resistance," Maria Butina, founder of the Russian Right to Bear Arms organisation, told the magazine.

Currently, Russians own 13 million forearms, in comparison with the 310 million owned in the US.

In February, 15-year-old Sergei Gordyeyev killed two teachers with his father's rifle at his school in Moscow and took 20 students hostage before being arrested.

Under the new laws, gun licenses in the country will still have to be renewed every five years, and applicants will be required to undergo background checks and take a safety course.

Weapons that Russians will be allowed to carry in self-defence include pistols, revolvers and shotguns.

It will remain illegal to carry weapons in educational establishments, in bars and nightclubs, and at public gatherings such as street demonstrations and protests. It will also be prohibited under the influence of alcohol.

As if to underscore his belief in the virtues of being armed, Vladimir Putin, echoing Al Capone, this week told a meeting of the Russia United People's Front: "You can get a lot more done with politeness and a weapon than with politeness alone."

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/russia-legalis ... ld-1475681

[Diogenes]

To williatw re Russia: When everything else doesn't work, why not try common sense?

[krenshala]

the Russian Right to Bear Arms organisation

Aren't they actually the "Russian Right to Arm Bears" organization?

[ladajo]

Yep, that they are. Armed Bears used to be a large problem regarding Russia, or should I say Soviet Union. Looks like they are headed on that track again. Shame. I enjoyed my time in Russia.