Reporter And Cameraman Shot To Death Live On The Air In Virginia
A reporter and cameraman for a local television station were killed, and a third person wounded, live on the air this morning.
What was supposed to have a short piece on local news regarding tourism in the Roanoke, Virginia area as a reporter and cameraman for CBS affilibe WDBJ were shot and killed live on the air this morning:
BEDFORD, Va. — A man described as a disgruntled former employee of a Virginia television station shot and killed two of the station’s journalists Wednesday morning, recording the act on video himself as the journalists were broadcasting live and then posting the video online.
The filmed shooting marked a horrific turn in the national intersection of video and violence. What appeared to be the gunman’s own 56-second video, briefly posted online, showed him deliberately waiting until the journalists were on air before raising a handgun and firing at point-blank range. He appeared to take particular aim at the reporter, Alison Parker.
The video was posted on social media accounts, since suspended, identified as belonging to Bryce Williams. Both the police and the station, WDBJ identified the gunman as Bryce Williams, who had been a reporter at the station, and whose real name is Vester Lee Flanagan.
The Virginia State Police said Mr. Williams had shot himself after a chase.
Mr. Williams’ Twitter account, which has been shut down, said, “I filmed the shooting see Facebook,” and mentioned grievances against the two journalists.
WDBJ confirmed that Ms. Parker, 24, and Adam Ward, a 27-year-old cameraman, had been killed.
The Twitter account of Mr. Williams, who is black, referred to a complaint he had filed against the station with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claiming to have been subjected to racist comments in the workplace.
Jeffrey A. Marks, president and general manager of the station, confirmed that the complaint had been filed, but said it was dismissed as baseless. Of the racist comments, “none of them could be corroborated by anyone,” he said. “We think they were fabricated.”
He described Mr. Williams as someone prone to angry outbursts without much provocation.
“Eventually, after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him,” he said. “He did not take that well, and we had to call the police to escort him from the building.”
Discussing Ms. Parker and Mr. Ward on the air, Mr. Marks said, “I cannot tell you how much they were loved.”
Both victims were romantically involved with other members of the station’s staff, he said. “We have other members of the team here today, holding back tears, frankly,” he said.
Ms. Parker and Mr. Ward were covering a story for WDBJ at Bridgewater Plaza, a shopping and recreational sports plaza on the shore of Smith Mountain Lake, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. They were interviewing a local Chamber of Commerce official, Vicki Gardner, at 6:46 a.m. when the shooting began.
The station’s own disturbing video of the shooting shows Ms. Parker and Ms. Gardner talking. As shots ring out, Ms. Parker screams and jumps backward, and amid jumbled images, the camera falls to the floor. Eight shots can be heard before the camera cuts back to the stunned anchor at the station, Kimberly McBroom.
The video of the shooting – which you can watch at YouTube, although you may not want to — has been making the rounds on social all day, and while the audio of the event is quite jarring the video doesn’t really show very much because everything went out of frame shortly after the first shots rang out. Where the whole event took a bizarre turn, though, was later in the morning after the suspect had been publicly identified when Twitter and Facebook accounts apparently set up by this person started sending out a series of bizarre messages followed by two videos, both apparently shot with a GoPro camera or something similar that showed the shooting from the shooters point of view. In the first video, you can see the shooter approaching the area where interview was taking place without anyone noticing him largely because the cameraman had his back to him and the reporter was engrossed in a discussion with the person she was interviewing. The second video showed the beginning of the shots being fired, which you can also see on the station’s video. There was no doubt whatsoever that these were videos of the shootings themselves and that they had to have been posted by the shooter, or someone who knew him.
While all of this was going, there were all of the usual reports about the search for the suspect, most of which ended up being wrong. What does seem to have been true, though, is that the suspect left the Roanoke area heading north shortly after the shooting because by the time the police caught up with him he was roughly three hours north of Roanoke and within an hours drive of the District of Columbia. The fact that he was apparently able to post things to Twitter and Facebook during this time would seem to suggest that the police really didn’t know where he was until the end of pursuit when his car had been identified. In any case, it appears that this individual was disgruntled former employee who had previously made claims of racial discrimination against the station in general, and possibly these two individuals specifically. After those complaints were dismissed for lack of merit, he apparently became abusive enough to his co-workers that he was fired. An important question, of course, will be whether or not there were any advance warnings that this person could be violent, whether he was under any kind of treatment for mental illness, and whether or not he had made any threats prior to this.
The manner in which this crime unfolded seems to be unique in American history. Unless I’ve missed it, there have been very few examples of reporters being shot live on the air in this manner outside of a war zone, and there certainly haven’t been any examples of killers posting first-person videos of their murders on social media. Watching those particular videos was kind of like watching a first-person shooter video game, except of course it wasn’t a game. The one fortunate thing is that Twitter and Facebook seem to have acted quickly in taking the videos down so hopefully they won’t spread too far. On the other hand, this could end up being the start of a sick new crime trend. What a horrible mess.
Update: The Virginia State Police have informed the press that the shooter, Vester Lee Flanagan a/k/a Bryce Williams, has died from his injuries.
No thanks. Having witnessed a shooting in real life, I feel absolutely zero need and even less desire to watch a snuff film. And yes, you can fully expect the filming of mass shootings and every day murders to become the new normal. We are a sick society.
Why would anybody elect to watch this?
Daily Mail has a couple of screen grabs of the shooter’s video that will give you all the perspective you want. None of actual discharges but one with the women reacting.
The shooter accused her of saying something racial and have had an EEOC complaint before she was hired, and the cameraman of, gasp, reporting him to HR after they worked together. Not details on either.
So, another Dylan Roof with racial and social grievances commits what could arguably be called “workplace violence” since he targeted news personnel.. What symbol will now be banned?
This is simply an extension of the ‘Polar Bear Hunting” videos that have become so infamous. He gets his 15 minutes of fame and then we flush him, like the turd he is.
ABC has released the content of the 23-page manifesto he sent them.
Williams said that the shooting was in retaliation for the Charleston church murders committed by Dylan Roof, and that he had carved the initials of Alison Parker and Adam Ward on the hollow point bullets he used.
He bought the gun on June 19 and apparently had been planning the murder since then. He also claimed to have been attacked by black men and white women for being gay.
http://www.abcnews.go.com
#blacklivesmatter
@CSK:
Well, obviously the mandatory background check and waiting periods that anti-gunners want to implement would have prevented this. Uh, wait, ….
@Modulo Myself:
There’s a song by Tool that answers this question:
People kill people with guns in this country because they can.
@James Pearce: And morbid curiosity is a thing too.
Those poor people. May they rest in peace.
@JKB:
The point about Williams’s accusation that Alison Parker said something racist is that he was fired from the station in 2013 and she was hired in 2014, so the chance that they crossed paths before the shooting is remote. The station manager said that the accusation was “probably fabricated.”
This guy, who’d been fired by all his previous employers, was obviously a demented loser. Not unlike Dylann Roof, come to think of it.
@Mikey: @James Pearce:
It’s like the difference between information and pornography. I know exactly what I’m getting into if I look at porn. I was just curious is not a compelling cause.
In the same vein I’ve seen horrible things before, so I can easily imagine what a horrifying double murder is like. There’s no information there that might explain anything.
@CSK:
I’ve encountered enough 40-something men in my life whose grievances seem to fixate on young attractive and together women and their stuck-up/snooty/entitled behavior. I’m not surprised this guy found his enemy in a young woman he did not know.
@CSK: She had worked as an intern at the station, presumably before graduating in December 2012.
@ernieyeball:
Based upon the situational awareness displayed by the cameraman, reporter, and reportee, he could have clubbed them to death with a rolled up version of the Wall Street Journal.
@ernieyeball: People kill people because they can. The tool is fairly irrelevant in the vast majority of murders including this one.
@James Pearce: Vicarious
Certainly this fellow is a nutcase..
@Jack:
You’re right. If one type of gun control can’t stop every murder, it’s useless.
So we should be advocating for even stricter gun control than background checks.
@Pinky:
Thanks for pointing that out. But given this guy’s history of taking offense at nearly everything anyone said to him–at least, that is what his former employers contend–it seems unlikely she subjected him to a racial insult. For one thing, any intern who did that would be canned forthwith, and certainly not hired back after graduation.
@Neil Hudelson: Yes, make murder illegaller. That will do the trick.
Eyeroll.
@Jack:
Indeed, an in-depth background check that went into his mental history and employment background, safety training by an instructor trained to spot crazies, a requirement that three people vouch that he is a responsible person , plus having to answer questions such as why he needed to have a gun quite possibly might have prevented this killing. But of course gun cultists like you bridle at even cursory checks, so…
@Matt:
Nonsense. Guns make it very easy to kill people. That’s what they are designed for. That’s why they’re used. He would likely not have killed two people and severely injured another with a chisel or a hammer.
@stonetools:
Yes, because all of these things are needed to exercise a right.
You want to vote, pray, talk, not self incriminate, get all the above done before you exercise your rights.
You seem to be confused between a right and a privilege. I have a right to own a gun, I have the privilege to call you a douchebag.
The killer’s faxed manifesto and comments about other mass murderers oddly reminded me of “The Frighteners” (film, 1996)
Of course that’s not what he did. He killed them with a gun…because he could.
If the gun is the tool then the cause of death is the bullets. People kill people with bullets shot out of a gun (the tool) because they can.
@Jack:
Oh. Cool. Which organized militia are you part of?
Or are you just a puffed up douche bag with a gun fondling fetish?
.
Face it: if 7 years with President Obama did not reduce gun owner rights… carrying on about your right to own a gun after a live broadcast shooting of a pair of innocents kind of sums up being the king of douche-baggery … wouldn’t you say?
Just go away.
@Jack: So it is now everyone else’s responsibility to be aware of gun owners so they don’t shoot us? That seems to what you are saying here. It only surprises me that you would put it in writing that we have to assume the people around us have guns and bad intentions.
Being terminated from every job you ever held might be a sign to not sell that person a gun. Maybe require some type of evaluation or at least wait period. But I know something like that would lead to a decline of the United States into utter chaos and totalitarian state and be a slap in the face to our forefathers who wholeheartedly felt every walking human being should keep and bear arms. The ridiculous reaction we have to gun control is literally insane.
“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.”
Just for the record this is a statement that Mr. Mataconis wrote on another thread today.
Not like anyone here thinks that you give a damn about civil discourse.
@Jack:
Could you be a bigger @sshole? Seriously, I’m curious.
@Liberal Capitalist: The rights mention in the 2nd amendment are in no way limited by participation in a militia.
I’ll repeat myself: You seem to be confused between a right and a privilege. I have a right to own a gun, I have the privilege to call you a douchebag.
@ernieyeball:
You seem to fail to realize the difference between me explaining what my privilege is and my actually calling someone something.
Learn the difference, then get back to me.
@Grewgills:
Awwww, Cupcake, aren’t you cute. If you so heartily disagree you should have just shaken your head, and moved on….instead of compulsively vomiting stupidity all over the internet. No one cares what you think, and I certainly didn’t instruct you to whine like a little b1tch.
Regardless of what happens in Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, or anywhere else that may seem shocking to you, the freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil and Constitutional right — subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility.
Shorter version: I don’t care about your opinion.
@Jack: @Jack: @Jack:
Well, your “privilege” ends at your fingertips. Sadly, you seem to have found a keyboard and are trying to extend beyond your reach.
Survey says: It’s not working.
@Jc:
If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get gay marriage.
If you don’t like abortion, don’t get an abortion.
If you don’t like gun ownership, don’t get a gun.
No one is suggesting that every walking human being should own a gun.
@hey ya jerk:
No, my privilege is not dependent upon your say. Do you own this site? No. Then step the fwck off.
@Jack:
If only they had the kind of situational awareness you possess… you know… too terrified to leave the house without a gun.
@hey ya jerk:
No, my privilege is not dependent upon your say. Do you own this site? No. Then step the fwck off.
@Jack:
If you don’t like the insane number of gun deaths in America, ummmmm, errrrrrr, ahhhhh….
@anjin-san:
Maybe if the reporter was interviewing a gun carrier, the douche killer would have been stopped in his tracks.
@anjin-san:
Worry about something within your control.
@Jack:
Actually, Grewgills is a thoughtful, respected member of the OTB group. When he talks, people listen.
Why don’t you take your projection and toddle along?
@Jack:
Other nations control this. Are you a member of the conservative “America cant’ get it done” crowd?
@Jack:..You don’t seem to know the difference between a rolled up newspaper and a firearm.
@anjin-san: I’m a member of the freedom to own and carry the weapon of my choice beings a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil and Constitutional right — subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility–crowd.
@ernieyeball: You don’t seem to understand the fact that this guy was going to murder people whether he had a gun or not. You cannot make murder illegaler.
@ernieyeball: You don’t seem to understand the fact that this guy was going to murder people whether he had a gun or not. You cannot make murder illegaler.
@Jack:..Maybe if the reporter was interviewing
a gun carrier, someone with a rolled up copy of The Wall Street Journal the douche killer would have been stopped in his tracks.@ernieyeball: Maybe if the reporter was interviewing anyone with a sense of self defense the douche killer would have been stopped in his tracks.
@Jack:
Actualy.. that is kind of the position of the NRA, since they partnered up with the gun manufacturers…
Everyone gets a gun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yITkp8GqNCI
I’d say your psychic powers to predict human behavior would be alot more help to prevent killings than any heat you might be packing. You should share your gift with law enforcement.
Oh. Wait. You did not predict anything. Your speculation is all after the fact. You just aren’t any help at all are you.
@ernieyeball: In his own words he said he’s been a walking powder keg. He had a silly straw gene and the best you can hope is to not be around people like him when they go off.
@Jack: The problem with gun nuts is that I really doubt most of us want to live in a world where everyone has to go armed because of fear and self-defense. If that’s the world you live in, and you expect to need to whip out your, ahem “gun” to protect yourself, why shouldn’t the rest of us assume that you are a hair-trigger idiot who presents a measurable risk to everyone around you and should be constrained for our defense?
@Liberal Capitalist:
No. That is not the NRA position. But please, continue to delude yourself.
@grumpy realist:
The moment I threaten someone with my gun, act in a threatening manner towards someone, or break the law…then and only then can you legally assume anything. Up until then, leave me be.
My gun equips me to be a murderer in the exact same way your vagina equips you to be a prostitute. Yes, honey, you sound that stupid.
@Matt:
This is why we see so many mass murders committed with soft fluffy pillows, little girl’s bonnets, and wiffle bats.
@Rafer Janders:
More murders are committed with knives, blunt objects and bare hands than with rifles/shotguns, but please, tell us more. Should we outlaw hands next?
@Jack:
From the 2012 homicides statistics, via the FBI–
Of the homicides for which the FBI received weapons data in 2012, most (69.4 percent) involved the use of firearms. Handguns comprised 71.9 percent of the firearms used in murder and nonnegligent manslaughter incidents in 2012. (Based on Expanded Homicide Data Table 8.)
Guns are awesome and now here’s a hundred lies to prove it!
@Jack:
.
Correct every walking human being should not own a gun – that’s called gun control, gun laws. So for you it is okay for a crazy person, no matter how crazy that person is, to lawfully purchase a firearm. Crazy be damned, to me that is damn crazy, just as crazy as your reading of the 2nd amendment as an absolute right to gun ownership. If you don’t like gun laws, don’t try to buy a gun.
@Modulo Myself: I stated…”More murders are committed with knives, blunt objects and bare hands than with rifles/shotguns, but please, tell us more. Should we outlaw hands next?”
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8
You can have your own opinion, not your own facts.
@Jc:
Show me anywhere, anywhere I have stated that. Please. I’ll wait.
Do you not understand the difference between every and some?
When you tell all the people, good, evil, crazy, and stupid; to leave their guns home, only the good people comply, leaving the crazy, stupid, evil people as the only ones armed.
@Jack:
Weird how you left out handguns. Almost like you adore the fact that guns are dangerous and that they make you so and then when challenged by your betters enjoy talking about freedom and rights like you are in it for that.
@Jack:
The bottom line is everybody here has you nailed. It’s easy to do so. You’re a loser whose fantasy life involves cosplay with very dangerous appliances.
@Jack:
No. That is not the NRA position. But please, continue to delude yourself.
Glenn Beck Calls WDBJ TV News Shooting God’s ‘Final Warning’ Before the Apocalypse (Video)
https://www.yahoo.com/tv/s/glenn-beck-calls-wdbj-tv-news-shooting-god-213439546.html
Gotta’ wonder why this killing beckons god’s wrath and not all the other human slaughter since קַיִן killed הֶבֶל?
@Modulo Myself: Modulo, I was responding to the fact that anything can be used as a weapon. I know that handguns are the largest group of weapons used to commit murder, just like they are the largest group of weapons in acts of self defense. But there are also OTHER weapons. That is my point.
@Modulo Myself: So everyone who has an opinion on guns counter to yours is simply a loser. Typical libtard attempting to shut down opinions you disagree with.
@ernieyeball:
Gotta wonder why this killing gets so much more attention than the killings by gang bangers in Detroit, Chicago, DC, and LA. Because #Blacklivesmatter.
@Jack:
Since Jack has no coherent response, he lashes out with an ad hominem. Typical gun nut right there.
Of course, as anyone versed inn constitutional law knows, there are no unlimited rights-even 2nd Amendm. rights . Don’t believe me, Jack ? Then believe Justice Scalia in your favorite case:
Since the regulations I mentioned are aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, it’s certainly possible even Scalia would uphold such restrictions ( I think it likely that Roberts and Kennedy would. They’re conservatives, but intelligent conservatives, and they most likely think that the gun nuts ran with Heller and went too far).
Sadly, the Virginia legislature are full of Republicans, and they’re beholden to the gun nuts, if they’re not gun nuts themselves, so I don’t anticipate anything but “prayers ” for the deceased for people who desecrate the name of the man of peace they pray to.
@stonetools: Every murder tears apart the myth that government is the answer.
FACT: Mayors Against Illegal Guns (Bloomberg’s group) member mayors are far more likely to be arrested – and convicted – than NRA members.
We have DEA agent Lee Paige to thank for helping birth the term “Only Ones” in reference to police officers being the only ones professional enough to have firearms.
“I’m the only one in this room professional enough that I know of to carry this Glock .40,” he told a roomful of school kids in an anti-gun/drug lecture, before shooting himself in the foot in front of the horrified class while trying to holster his weapon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKjYlpex4OM
Police officers are twice as likely than the general public to commit rape, twice as likely to commit lewd acts against children and twice as likely to beat their spouses. But to liberals, these are the “Only Ones” that should have access to guns.
Charles C.W. Cooke relays a story of a Colorado woman who had a firearm taken by police after she was involved in a serious car accident. So far so good, I would hope if I’m involved in a bad car accident the police would take care to secure the firearm so I could retrieve it at a later date. But that part ended up being the problem.
Given that Colorado law doesn’t make any exception for someone picking a firearm up from police custody, the police weren’t sure how to go about it, so they just kept the gun.
Remember that this crap about Universal Background Checks has nothing at all to do with background checks. It’s about making gun ownership complex and risky, and trapping unwitting gun owners like this woman. The police can easily run a check on her to ensure she’s not a prohibited person. In fact, they probably did this early on. But yet they can’t return the gun to her easily because the law is stupid and incomprehensible, and was written by people who didn’t care what kind of burden they were forcing on ordinary Americans.
This woman didn’t know they had passed these laws, but once she found out, she got angry, and got active. I keep saying this 90% figure is completely bogus. People will tell pollsters anything they think sounds good. When you explain what the actual consequences of the law will be, people suddenly stop supporting it.
Wow, I am led to believe that Jack didn’t come in here to debate the issue honestly. Who would have believed?
Making gun ownership complex and risky? Sign me up.
Taking away guns for the vast majority of cops? Sign me up for that too.
But for me, I’m cool with rifles and shotguns. Hunting stuff. Enough to flatter yourself with grandiose delusions of leading the second American revolution.
We should melt down as many handguns as we can. They make it too easy to kill your brother and sister Americans. (Again, same rules for cops.)
@Jack:
What does all that spew have to do with Virginia’s immorally loose gun laws allowing a nut case to buy a gun and kill two people? I’ll answer that-nothing, except to show you’ve mastered cut and paste on your computer(Congratulations, I didn’t know you could that).
Meanwhile, I’m all for completely disarming cops a la the UK. But first you have to disarm the population. I could live with that too.
@Jack:
Gun nuts always say stupid things like “should we outlaw X?”, but never respond when it is pointed out that knives, blunt objects, and bare hands aren’t designed for the SOLE PURPOSE OF KILLING.
According to his former news channel, “He was also censured for wearing an Obama sticker while recording a segment at a polling booth during the 2012 US Presidential Election – a clear breach of journalistic impartiality.”
Another, Obama liberal. They’re all alike right? Racist, mass shooter loving, murdering liberals? No? I love it when people paint with a broad brush. Suck it libtards!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3212142/The-human-tape-recorder-TV-murderer-criticized-bosses-appalling-journalistic-standards-reprimanded-wearing-Obama-badge-report-elections.html
@Franklin:
I guess my vast arsenal is broke then.
LOL, when I saw the title of this piece, I thought to myself “Jack will be engaging in his usual display of verbal diarrhea on this thread.”
I wasn’t disappointed in that regard.
A lion named Cecil gets killed in Africa and liberals everywhere lose their mind blaming the shooter. A man in Virginia kills a reporter and videographer but liberals everywhere blame the gun.
@Keith:
Jack is one of those “the 2A means I can carry anything I want anywhere I want anytime I want and you can’t stop me” gun fetishists – as a result, he tends to lose it whenever this particular topic comes up.
Usually he’s just your typical less than bright Teatard. Where this topic is concerned, he’s Looney Linda.
@Jack:
Thus far I’ve interpreted that reply in four different ways, but I suspect I haven’t necessarily found the intended one yet. No real need to explain, as I’m going to bed now.
The psychologist in me is only fascinated at what a bizarre crime story this all proved to be. A former reporter who went insane murders on live TV as well as posts on Facebook his own cellphone video. Even the most outlandish crime writer couldn’t have written such a bizarre story without being laughed at. Just watch, LAW & ORDER:SVU will rewrite this story somehow into an episode to fit their concept…
@ernieyeball: Glenn Beck seems to be on a “last days” kick right at the moment is my guess.
@stonetools:
Have you ever bought a gun in Virginia? My guess is no. Typically, you fill out the 4473 — a six-page form from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that cannot have even one minor error or wrong answer.
According to federal law an individual may purchase a long gun (rifle or shotgun) at age 18 and a handgun at age 21, as long as the purchaser is not any of the following:
• Anyone currently under indictment for a crime punishable by more than a year in prison
•Anyone who has been previously convicted of such a crime
•A fugitive
•User of any controlled substance
•Anyone who has been committed to a mental institution or deemed mentally defective
•An illegal alien
•Anyone who has been dishonorably discharged from the military
•Anyone who has renounced his or her U.S. citizenship
•Anyone who currently has a restraining order against him or her from an intimate partner or child of said partner
•Anyone who has been convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor
The form list the specific firearm, type, and serial number. You then undergo a federal and state background check. You have to show ID and a second form of ID that matches the address on you primary ID and if you are buying a handgun, that address must be in Virginia. Then, if everything checks out you get your gun. These same rules are followed whether it’s a handgun, shotgun, or rifle from an FFL.
Federal law does not require you to undergo a background check when purchasing a gun from an individual, nor does it require individuals to notify them of a private gun sale. However, the seller is still prohibited from selling a gun to anyone who is otherwise prohibited from buying a gun by federal law.
That’s what you consider immorally loose?
@Jack: Yeah, but it’s a great object lesson for kids about how much to trust the “gun experts.” We can get out that youtube film from Burgers and Bullets where the gun expert’s head disappeared in a puff of pink, too.
@Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker: By the way, Jack, I hold your expertise on this topic with the same esteem. Please feel free to continue to be a bad example for gun owners throughout the US.
@Jack: Oh, please. I bought a gun in Virginia a couple years ago and it took me about two minutes to fill out the form and a few minutes to wait for the dealer to put me through instant check. I had to do more to buy my new smartphone.
@Jack:
Little dishonest there, Jack. The 4473 IS a 6 page form, IF you count the 2 pages that have to be filled in by the seller, or the three pages of instructions. Using your logic, a 1040 tax return is 106 page document.
The person buying the gun has to fill in a single page, over half of which is check boxes.The federal background check is fatally flawed because it depends on states self-reporting the pertinent information to the FBI for inclusion in the NICS database. More than a few states are egregiously behind or just plain lax in that reporting, and even under the best of circumstances there will always be a lag and missing data.
Yes, I consider that immorally loose. EVERY transfer of a firearm, without exception, should be subject to a background check, and EVERY firearm should be licensed and tracked at the serial number level, with associated civil liability for the registered owner if a gun licensed to him/her is subsequently used in the commission of a crime.
And that’s just for starters.
@Modulo Myself:
With all due respect, I doubt it. Picking up screaming, broken, newly orphaned children off the street is far more horrifying than the blood, the brains in the gutter, or the last rasping breaths of a dying man. Their pain cuts thru you like a hot knife thru butter. Those screams haunt you forever after.
Even when you adjust the statistics for income, status, mental fitness, etc. USA still one of the tops in the world in gun homicides. I think the problem is cultural frankly. Im not against Gun Control…but honestly that’s the obvious easy way out. We really need a national effort similar to what took place with smoking to get people to change their attitudes about conflict resolution.
Ive been dealing with a Home Owner Association civil war in my community and the conflict has become so intense that my otherwise sweet elderly neighbor remarked to me in the yard one day that he was glad he didn’t have a gun at the last HOA meeting. When the fixation on shooting people is that pervasive….I don’t believe gun control will have the effect people will want it to have. Most people that shoot other people aren’t career criminals…and people are shocked that they could do such a thing. These people are going to pass most types of controls that can be put in place. It’s very hard to create policy that addresses the exception over the rule–being shot and/or killed IS the exception. The odds for most people being a victim are less than getting struck by lightning. The odds goes up if you are engaged in high risk activities or are in an abusive relationship. This is not to say we should do nothing….but without a cultural revolution in attitudes–my gut says gun control advocates will be disappointed with the performance of their initiatives when put in practice.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I guess I meant seeing a double murder on youtube. That kind of horror–seeing someone shot on my computer screen–I can imagine. There’s nothing to be curious about. People are kidding themselves if they think that they’re watching out of honest curiosity, as if watching was like being a witness or a reporter.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I guess I meant seeing a double murder on youtube. That kind of horror–seeing someone shot on my computer screen–I can imagine. There’s nothing to be curious about. People are kidding themselves if they think that they’re watching out of honest curiosity, as if watching was like being a witness or a reporter.
@Franklin:
Jack really needs to understand that comparing guns with knife, cars, “newspapers”, etc. as so many gun nuts typically do is a boneheaded response to a debate. I read a comment on another website just the other day that dealt with this dumb debate. I told myself the next time I see someone using this argument I would post that comment verbatim. It’s a great read and I couldn’t have said it better myself;
Then it is followed up with another comment;
@Pharoah Narim:
Steven Pinker the Harvard intellectual has argued that the reason that there is less gun violence in Europe is that the civilizing process has gone on longer in Europe than it has the US, and the reason there are differentials across the US in the rate of gun violence is due to the fact that people in the North of the USA came from the more “civilized” parts of Europe, whereas the people from South came from the less civilized parts, where a man had to defend his honor and his assets through personal violence rather than rely on the State. Looking at the statements of Jack, he does seem to take it for granted that it should be up to him to defend his reputation and his assets through the use of gun play, rather than rely on the state to settle disputes. I guess there is a certain logic to this, if you are raised that way, I guess. He seems blind to the logical end point of such thinking, which is that more disputes are resolved through gun violence, but there you go- like many of us, he can’t see past his upbringing.
@stonetools: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/wright-mare-massacre-frank-lloyd-home-article-1.1591522. You might wish to reconsider your statement.
@LaMont: Is that second argument saying that if guns were outlawed, they’d disappear and there would be no gun deaths anymore?
@Jack
Yes, I do. Not only is the one page form simple to fill out, but the gun seller isn’t obligated to verify many of the answers. This means that I can walk out of a mental asylum tomorrow, walk into a Virginia gun shop, answer “No” to the mental health question, and be on my merry way with the weapon of my choice, plus ammunition, in minutes.
Beyond that, there is this:
What that means in practice is that I could be the murderous, child molesting, clinically insane cousin of Osama bin Baden, and I could still buy guns off a Virginia seller on Craigslist, no questions asked, and have them make delivery on the parking lot of the Pentagon Center Metro, all without the feds knowing a thing about it, since the seller doesn’t have actually verify the buyer’s info. I can then go on to launch a terrorist strike on any of a dozen soft targets within a hour’s drive of the Capitol.
The fact is, from a national security point of view, Virginia gun laws aren’t just morally loose: they are worse, they’re monumentally stupid.
@Pinky:
I took it as an extreme hypothetical. That is, what if all guns could be eliminated from the equation if it was within our power to do so. Then there would be no gun related deaths. Yet that decision should not hinge on the fact that there would still be car accident, knife, swimming pool, etc. related deaths. I mean, even for a gun nuts who like to use this argument, that much should be apparent!
@LaMont: Both of those passages you posted are referring to other arguments, but I can’t figure out what those arguments are. (I rarely participate in gun control arguments.)
@Rafer Janders: Over 400 people were killed in California last year with just hands and feet. That’s pure punching and kicking as strangulations and such are listed separately. Over half the murders committed in this country involve no guns.
So you’re nuts if you think banning guns would suddenly solve the murder problem.
If you avoid associating with the criminal element (such as gang bangers) and avoid engaging in crime your odds of being murdered with a gun are lower than getting struck by lightening. See the vast majority of gun murders involved some form of crime and 70% knew their murderer.
@stonetools: Bullshit you can’t pretend the NICS doesn’t exist. You have to provide legal ID for such a check to occur so you can’t just write down whatever you want.
@stonetools: So how do you propose the government know that a private sale has gone down involving osama’s crazy cousin?
Are you really proposing a massive expansion in domestic spying so that everyone can be individually tracked?
Interesting article… Laughing all the way to the bank.
http://www.businessinsider.com/smith-and-wesson-obama-was-good-for-gun-sales-2015-8
S&W stock is up 600%
Gun sales are massively up, increasing 7% annually per year (that is just the new registrations).
Great job, NRA, ginning up the easily riled base. As the article observed: “To be clear, gunmakers don’t benefit from tighter gun control. They benefit when there are talks of tighter gun control but those talks go nowhere.”
As S&W told their stockholders: “”[W]e experienced strong consumer demand for our firearm products following a new administration taking office in Washington, D.C. in 2009”
So far, 8,555 gun deaths this year (http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ ) heading to outpace last year’s number of 12,557 last year.
People have guns. People use guns. ‘Meruca. F^ck yeah!
Interesting: America doesn’t have more crime than other rich countries. It just has more guns.