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Posted 10/23/11

THERE’S NO ESCAPING THE GUN

A prosperous community discovers that mass murder is an equal opportunity threat

For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel. A paunchy middle-aged man turned away from the grisly scene and headed for his car. Eight were dead or dying, including his ex-wife. Scott Dekraai had just set a record that would go down in infamy.

Acquaintances said that Dekraai, 41, had been a pleasant, easy going man until a 2007 tugboat accident that killed a shipmate and left him partly disabled. His life quickly unraveled. Within months a court order was filed directing him to stay away from his father in law, who claimed that Dekraai had beat him up. (The order, which required that Dekraai temporarily give up his guns, expired one year later.) Dekraai’s wife Michelle, a hair stylist, filed for divorce, and they became embroiled in a child custody dispute that would drag on for years. She told coworkers at a beauty salon that she feared he would kill her.

No one took it seriously. After all, this was Seal Beach, a tony Southern California coastal community of 25,000 where such things don’t happen. Who could predict that Dekraii would don a bulletproof vest, invade Salon Meritage and blaze away with three large-caliber pistols?

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But on October 12, 2011 that’s exactly what he did.

“He stopped to reload, and then continued gunning people down,” said Orange County D.A. Tony Rackauckas. “He was not satisfied with murdering his intended target, his ex-wife. For almost two minutes, Dekraai shot victim after victim, executing eight people by shooting them in the head and chest. He was not done. He then walked out of the salon and shot a ninth victim, a male, who was sitting nearby in a parked Range Rover.”

In addition to Michelle, who was first to be gunned down, Dekraai murdered the shop owner, Randy Fannin, stylists Victoria Buzo and Laura Elody, Christie Wilson, a nail artist, customers Michele Fast and Lucia Kondas, and David Caouette, 64, a passer-by whom Dekraai encountered in the parking lot. Laura Elody’s mother Hattie Stretz, who was visiting the salon, was gravely wounded but survived.

Dekraai (he quickly surrendered) wasn’t a criminal in the conventional sense. Neither was Orange County’s previous record holder. In 1976 Edward Charles Allaway, a 37-year old custodian at Cal State Fullerton, turned a semiautomatic rifle he bought at K-Mart on fellow employees, killing seven and wounding two. Allaway’s wife had just sued for divorce. Psychiatrists diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a mental hospital, where he remains to the present day.

Los Angeles County’s mass murder record is held by Bruce Pardo. He, too, was no ordinary criminal. On Christmas eve 2008 the 45-year old, freshly divorced engineer barged into the residence of his former in-laws with five pistols and a homemade flamethrower that he had concealed under a Santa suit. By the time he was done nine were dead including his ex-wife, her parents, a sister, a nephew, and two brothers and their wives. Like Dekaai and Allaway, Pardo had no criminal record. Unlike them, he had the good sense to kill himself.

Learning theory says that behavior is shaped by watching others. While America isn’t the only place where disturbed persons use guns to release their demons (keep in mind the recent massacre in Norway) the frequency of these events – what we’ve referred to as their “ordinariness” – suggests that there’s a lot of monkey-see, monkey-do going on in the U.S.A. In March we wrote about the Tucson massacre, where an college dropout with mental issues shot and killed six and wounded thirteen including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D - Ariz.) A post in August 2010 spoke of a disaffected truck driver who shot and killed eight co-workers after being fired for stealing beer. We took that opportunity to review six other multiple-victim shootings between January and July 2010 that seemed motivated by no purpose other than letting off steam.

Here is an update. Keep in mind that this is only a sample, as to list all such incidents would take a lot more than a blog post.

We’ve long argued that the availability of guns overwhelms our ability to prevent their misuse. According to the NRA there are nearly 300 million firearms in the U.S., including 100 million handguns, with about 4 million new guns entering circulation each year. That may actually be an underestimate. According to ATF in 2010 American gun makers produced a whopping 5,403,714 firearms. Only four percent were exported.

Here’s one old refrain: “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Here’s another: “Let’s enforce the laws we have.” Federal and state laws bar convicted felons, persons adjudged as mentally defective and individuals under active restraining orders from possessing firearms. But our examples aren’t about ordinary criminals. Our chronology of terror includes only one ex-con. True, some of the shooters were emotional basket cases, yet none had been adjudicated mentally ill, the threshold before laws kick in. And while three were under active restraining orders, trusting in a piece of paper to convince an embittered man (all the killers were male) to give up his guns seems a very, very long shot.

It’s for such reasons that the NRA promotes gun carry laws. Armed citizens, it insists, can keep shootings from happening in the first place. Well, good luck with that. An armed citizen was present at the Tucson massacre. He didn’t intervene, partly for fear that he might shoot an innocent person, and partly because responding officers might shoot him. As for the episode in Seal Beach, it would have taken snipers lying in wait to repel Dekraai’s attack. And what’s to be done about the many incidents that take place inside a home? Should family members pack guns to the dinner table? Should spouses always be armed? And when it’s time to go night-night, who puts away their Glock first?

Carrying pro-gun arguments to their inevitable, ridiculous conclusion highlights the profound intractability of America’s gun dilemma. But while we can’t rely on the law to work miracles, maybe we can promote the notion of watching one’s temper and using guns wisely.

Consider, for example, that the UCR attributes at least one in four homicides in 2010 to “arguments,” and that these led to the deaths of 323 wives, 60 husbands, 28 mothers, 62 fathers, 39 sons and 15 daughters. NIJ reports that about 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are assaulted by an intimate partner each year, and that as many as half of all female homicide victims (2,918 women were feloniously slain in 2010) were murdered by their partners.

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Domestic murder-suicide has become such a common occurrence that it merits its own NIJ page. As one might expect, virtually all are by gun: “More incidents of murder-suicide occur with guns than with any other weapon. Access to a gun is a major risk factor in familicide because it allows the perpetrator to act on his or her rage and impulses.” According to the Violence Policy Center there were 591 such deaths during the first six months of 2005. Three out of four involved an intimate partner, and three out of four happened at home. Researchers coined the category of “family annihilator” to describe men who go berserk and gun down everyone, including the kids and the dog. Nearly all (92 percent) of murder-suicides are done with guns, so their availability is thought crucial:

The most common catalytic component in murder-suicide is the use of a firearm. Firearms allow shooters to act on impulse...The presence of a gun allows the offender to quickly and easily kill a greater number of victims. If there had not been easy access to a firearm, these deaths may simply have been injuries, or not have occurred at all. Efforts should be made to restrict access to firearms where there is an increased risk of murder-suicide, for example where an individual has a history of domestic violence and/or has threatened suicide.

Well, good luck with that, too. We’ll instead peddle our favorite remedy, a national campaign to alert the public to the problems of gun violence. Let’s remind everyone that rage and guns are a lethal combination and that early intervention by friends, family members and mental health professionals is the best preventive.

Friends may not be able to keep angry friends from owning guns, but they can surely do something. In our gun-crazed culture there is really no alternative.

UPDATES (scroll)

6/10/22 A 23-year old employee opened fire with a pistol in a Maryland manufacturing plant, killing three co-workers and seriously injuring a fourth. He fled, then engaged in a shoot-out with State troopers, wounding one. He was also wounded. The unnamed shooter’s motives are as yet unknown.

12/31/21 The middle-aged Denver man whose armed rampage killed five persons was reportedly acquainted with four of his victims “through business or personal relationships.” He had apparently named them and written about his intentions in self-published “novels” that he posted online.

12/29/21 An armed 47-year old Denver man who was “known to police” but not wanted burst into two tattoo shops, a home and a hotel in Denver and Lakewood, killing five persons and wounding two. One of the wounded, a police officer, shot him dead. Lyndon James McLeod, who once owned a Denver business, reportedly preselected his victims, but his actual motive has not been released. Colorado has suffered a string of mass shootings; most recently, at a Boulder-area supermarket, where ten were killed.

9/24/21 In Collierville, Tennessee, “a prosperous community with a low crime rate,” the reportedly disgruntled employee of a vendor entered a Kroger supermarket brimming with customers and employees and opened fire, killing one and wounding twelve. He then committed suicide. In July Tennessee enacted a law that allows adults to carry handguns openly or concealed without a permit. Asked then about mass shootings, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who pushed the measure, said that stronger penalties for gun misuse, which also passed, “would help prevent gun crimes in the future.”

9/6/21 A “law-abiding” Marine Corps vet employed in security armed himself, donned body armor and burst into a home twenty miles from his Florida residence. Police said that Bryan J. Riley, 33, was high on meth and in the throes of PTSD when he gunned down four members of a family with which he was unacquainted. He then shot it out with police and surrendered. Riley had told his girlfriend that he was divinely inspired. He repeated that claim to persons in the neighborhood where he wound up.

8/16/21 An eleven-year old Orange County, Calif. conviction for a brutal murder was set aside after it turned out that authorities circumvented Paul Gentile Smith’s right to counsel by assigning him to a “snitch tank” where jailhouse informants were assigned to get defendants to confess. Last year an official report revealed how that procedure was also used to obtain a superfluous confession from mass killer Scott Dekraai, who murdered eight persons at a Seal Beach, Calif. hair salon in 2011.

7/21/20 A massive internal report by the Orange County District Attorney faults prosecutors for sending in an experienced jailhouse informant to extract a confession from Scott Dekraii after he was jailed, and for failing to disclose the informant’s role and past history to the defense.

9/3/19 A 14-year old Alabama boy admitted he shot and killed his father, stepmother and three siblings, ages six months, five years and six years, while everyone was home. He used a 9mm. pistol that, according to police, was “illegally” present at the residence.

8/31/19 In Mobile, Alabama, a 17-year old opened fire after a fight broke out at a high school football game. Ten teens ages 15-18 were wounded, five critically. Deangelo Parnell, the alleged shooter, was arrested on multiple counts of attempted murder.

2/16/19 Five years ago a faulty background-check process enabled a 45-year old man with a 19-year old aggravated assault conviction in Mississippi to buy a Smith & Wesson .40 caliber handgun at an Illinois store. His conviction came to light when he subsequently applied for a carry permit, but the gun was not seized. On February 15, as he was being fired from his job, Gary Martin, 45, used the weapon, which was outfitted with a laser sight, to kill five co-workers and wound one. He went on to wound five police officers before cops shot him dead.

9/14/18 Using what Smith & Wesson bills as the “most powerful production revolver in the world today [with a] massive .500 S&W Magnum cartridge - 2600 ft/lb. muzzle energy” a Bakersfield (CA) man shot and killed his estranged wife, the co-worker with which she was allegedly having an affair and three other persons. He then took his own life as police closed in.

6/29/18 A shotgun-toting computer engineer barged into the offices of the Capital Gazzette, a newspaper in Annapolis, MD, and opened fire, killing five and wounding two. Jarrod W. Ramos, 38, unsuccessfully sued the paper in 2012 for running a story about his harassment of a former classmate, an incident for which he was prosecuted and received a suspended sentence.

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Loopholes are Lethal All in the Family Coming Clean in Santa Barbara Three Perfect Storms

Turn Off the Spigot Homeless, Mentally Ill, Dead The Elephant in the Room Say Something

Gun Crazy Disturbed Person Safe at Home – Not! A Ticking Time-Bomb

RELATED ARTICLES AND REPORTS

Violence Policy Center on murder-suicide Gun buyer record checks miss many mentally ill

Posted 3/13/11

LETTING GUNS WALK

Pressed to make a really big case, ATF managers went for broke

For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel. “If you’re going to make an omelette, you’ve got to break some eggs.” That, said ATF special agent John Dodson, was his agency’s excuse for allowing more than 1,700 firearms, including scores of AK-47 clones and .50 caliber, armor-piercing rifles, to land in the lap of Mexican cartels. “The day I started, there were 240 guns they had [let out]...Guns they were purchasing were showing up on both sides of the border already. I mean...a guy comes in and purchases 10 AK-47s, and four of them he purchased last time have already shown up on the other side of the border? And you keep going?”

The flow of guns from the U.S. to Mexico is a long-standing problem. With laws that forbid private citizens from possessing handguns beyond .38 caliber and rifles beyond .22’s, our Southern neighbor has long been a favorite destination for American hardware. (For an English-language summary of Mexican gun laws click here.)

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Your blogger, a retired agent, worked on many such cases in Arizona during the 1970’s. (For an example, click here.) Then, as now, traffickers got local residents to act as “straw buyers” and buy large-caliber handguns and rifles at gun stores on their behalf. In the nineties, when Mexico moved in earnest against the cartels, wars for supremacy broke out and arms smuggling reached a fever pitch. Much of the flow turned to military-style rifles such as the WASR-10, a Romanian AK-47 clone that is apparently imported into the U.S. for the main reason that it’s such a desirable commodity in Mexico.

Most states, including the primary sources of guns smuggled to Mexico, Arizona and Texas, impose neither quantity limits nor waiting periods on gun purchases. Ordinary persons can walk into a gun store and leave with an armful of rifles in minutes. All they must do is show a local ID, pass an automated criminal record check and certify on a Federal Form 4473 that they are “the actual buyer/transferee of the firearm(s) listed on this form.” That’s right: no matter how many guns they buy, it’s all on the honor system. (For more about the ease of purchasing guns click here.)

Dealers don’t report long-gun sales to ATF, so it usually only learns of a bulk transaction when police or a foreign government trace a recovered gun. However, Federal regulations require that dealers who sell more than one handgun to the same buyer in a five-day period promptly report the transfer to ATF. Multiple sales are common, and by the time that agents learn of them it’s too late to intercede.

It’s not simple to prove that someone acted as a straw buyer. Purchasers are under no obligation to answer ATF questions. Neither are gun possessors, nor those to whom recovered guns are traced. Even when someone admits to falsifying an ATF form the penalties (a maximum 5-year prison term) are weak. “Lying and buying” is taken lightly by Federal attorneys, who often decline to prosecute, and by judges, who invariably impose lenient sentences. That’s not just the blogger’s opinion: it comes from no less an authority than the Department of Justice, whose November 2010 review of Project Gunrunner, ATF’s guns-to-Mexico interdiction program, declared the pursuit of straw buyers a dead cause:

Because there is no federal firearms trafficking statute, ATF must use a wide variety of other statutes to combat firearms trafficking. However, cases brought under these statutes are difficult to prove and do not carry stringent penalties – particularly for straw purchasers of guns. As a result, we found that [Federal prosecutors] are less likely to accept and prosecute Project Gunrunner cases. And when these cases are prosecuted and convictions obtained, Federal Sentencing Guidelines categorize straw-purchasing�related offenses as lesser crimes.

Since drug trafficking crimes are much more popular with prosecutors and carry far harsher penalties, auditors urged that ATF stop spinning its wheels on minor cases and partner with DEA to pursue the cartels. Forewarned that criticism was coming, ATF had already published a new set of guidelines, “Project Gunrunner – A Cartel Focused Strategy,” laying out the new approach:

While our strategy will remain multi-faceted and continue to include the inspection of licensed gun dealers and the targeting and arresting of straw purchasers, our revised approach will place greater emphasis on investigations that target specific cartels and the persons responsible for organizing and directing firearms trafficking operations in the United States. We have come to understand that we can best impact firearms trafficking to Mexico and Southwest border violence by linking our investigations to drug trafficking organizations and where possible to specific Mexican cartels. Our efforts will also be enhanced through increased coordination with our Federal counterparts.

Prophetically, the writers threw in a few words of wisdom along the way:

There are also practical considerations that may require bringing investigations to a conclusion or dictate a change in investigative tactics prior to the identification of persons directly affiliated with the [drug trafficking organizations.] Examples include high volume trafficking investigations in which numerous diverted firearms identifiable with one or more purchasers are being used in violent crimes and recovered by law enforcement, and high volume trafficking investigations in which over an extended period ATF cannot reasonably determine where or to whom such firearms are being trafficked. SACs must closely monitor and approve such investigations, assessing the risks associated with prolonged investigation with limited or delayed interdiction....

In the real, messy world of investigating gun traffickers the “egg-breaking” that agent Dodson spoke of is hard to avoid. When your blogger established a gun trafficking group in 1993 (yeah, that’s a ways back) the very first case demonstrated the difficulties of keeping track of small, lethal objects. Police caught a parolee with a gun. It was traced to a small, home-based dealer who had been buying dozens of handguns at a time from a distributor. We got the seller to let us know when the buyer returned. Alas, the first notice came late and the load was lost. But the next time we were positioned well in advance. We followed him from the premises and watched as he met with others, then trailed one of these third parties to a small restaurant. Later that evening, agents intercepted its manager – the fourth person in the chain – as he delivered five pistols (all that was left from an original load of thirty) to residents of a gang-infested neighborhood.

It wouldn’t be the only time that guns would slip through our fingers (for a published account of the years-long project, click here.) But the losses were usually small, and considering the fact that local cops were recovering north of 10,000 guns a year there was little choice but to plod on.

Well, back to the future. In October 2009, nearly a year before it formally adopted a cartel-centric strategy, ATF had implemented a pilot program in Arizona. In an operation dubbed “Fast and Furious” agents tracked the activities of a group of gunrunners who had already bought 200-plus guns from Phoenix retailers. Hoping to bring down a cartel, agents clued in the dealers, and with their assistance monitored and videotaped gun purchases for the next fifteen months, letting a stunning 1,765 guns pass under their noses.

Not everyone on the F&F team was a happy camper. Its most outspoken former member, special agent John Dodson, insists that four of the seven agents assigned to the project opposed letting guns “walk.” Objections were voiced by other ATF insiders, including the attach� in Mexico City. He was right to worry. ATF estimates that to date at least 195 F&F guns have turned up in Mexico. A furious Mexican legislator has claimed that these weapons have been involved in “150 cases of injuries and homicides.”

Mexico took the brunt of it. But F&F guns inevitably started turning up in the States. In May 2010 a Border Patrol agent recovered several during a tense confrontation with bandits. Then in December two F&F guns were found at the scene of the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry. While it’s not thought that they were used in his killing [but see 07/26/11 update] the recovery brought the ill-starred project to an end. In January 2011 Federal prosecutors indicted thirty-four suspects, mostly straw buyers and moneymen, on gun charges. Surprisingly, a few were also accused in a drug and money-laundering conspiracy.

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You see, “Fast and Furious” was never meant to be just a gun case. True to its ambitions, ATF had partnered with DEA to go after the Sinaloa cartel. It may be that the unseemly delay in shutting down the iron pipeline was influenced by hopes that, given enough time, agents could hook the big fish. Well, they got away, but there was apparently enough evidence, perhaps in the form of wiretapped conversations, to snare a few lesser players on drug charges.

So was waiting worth it? According to Attorney General Eric Holder the answer is a resounding “no.” As he recently pointed out, guns are different. “I’ve...made clear to people in the department that letting guns walk … is not something that is acceptable. Guns are different than drug cases, or cases where we’re trying to follow where money goes.” Well said. Now if the A.G. would only get Federal prosecutors to take ordinary gun cases more seriously, we’d be all set.

UPDATES (scroll)

1/29/22 A California man, Marco Antonio Santillan Valencia, 51, his 29-year old son Marco Jr. and several confederates face Federal gun smuggling charges after they were caught on their way to Mexico with 64,400 rounds of ammunition, ammunition belts, rifle scopes, and over $50,000 in cash. Large quantities of guns and ammunition were also seized at various locations. According to the indictment, the intended recipient was the “Jalisco New Generation Cartel” led by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka “El Mencho.” DEA has reportedly offered a “$10-million bounty” for his capture.

2/9/20 In a 2011 op-ed a Forbes contributor detailed retaliation against ATF agents who had objected to letting guns walk during Fast and Furious. A Washington Post reader recently compared these actions, taken during the Obama years, to Trump’s reassignment of witnesses who testified against him in the House during impeachment proceedings.

10/6/19 A Los Angeles Times investigation blames largescale gun smuggling from the U.S. for “stoking a homicide epidemic in Mexico.” According to ATF, seventy percent of the 132,823 guns recovered in Mexico between 2009 and 2018 came from the U.S., mainly border states in the southwest. Most smuggled guns - one estimate says more than 750,000 firearms went South in just two years - are reportedly acquired from U.S. gun dealers and at gun shows by straw buyers.

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America, Gun Purveyor to the Cartels Gun Show and Tell Where Do They Come From?

RELATED ARTICLES AND REPORTS

Los Angeles Times full coverage on Fast and Furious L.A. Times documents on Fast and Furious

Arizona Republic overview House Oversight Committee Report on Fast and Furious

Militarization of U.S. Civilian Firearms Market 2011 Senate report on gun smuggling to Mexico

Sources of Crime Guns The Iron River

Posted 1/11/11

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Restrict the possession of “ordinary” guns or get used to regular massacres

For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel. “I have a Glock 9 millimeter, and I’m a pretty good shot.” That’s what Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D - Ariz.) told a New York Times reporter last year. Only months later she would be fighting for her life, shot through the head with the same brand and caliber of pistol.

On January 8, Jared Loughner, 22, opened fire with a Glock 9mm. pistol during the Congresswoman’s “Congress on your Corner” event at a Tucson supermarket. The unemployed, sometime student – he got booted from college for disruptive behavior – killed six, including a 9-year old girl and a Federal judge. He wounded thirteen, including Ms. Giffords.

Loughner was tackled by citizens while reloading his pistol. A search of the home where he lived with his parents yielded a prior letter from the Congresswoman and several notes suggesting his intent to carry out the assassination.

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By any measure Loughner is a very sick puppy. His MySpace account was full of disconnected thoughts and delusional ramblings about off-the-wall subjects like government thought control. He wrote about returning to the gold and silver standards – with him in charge of the Treasury. “Mein Kampf” was listed as one of his favorite books, which might seem insignificant until one considers that his intended target, Ms. Giffords, is active in Judaism.

Loughner fits the archetype of the murderous loner to a tee. Past acquaintances described him as odd and reclusive. His in-class rants at Pima Community College frightened classmates and instructors. A video he posted about the college was the last straw. He and his parents were called in and told that Loughner couldn’t return unless he was psychologically cleared. In his one known run-in with the law police cited him for scrawling the letters “C” and “X” on a street sign, which he said symbolized Christianity.

Loughner might have been a very odd duck, but he was nonetheless qualified under Federal law to buy a handgun. He was a legal U.S. resident, over 21 years of age (the minimum to buy a handgun), not a convicted felon, not under indictment, and was never adjudicated (meaning, in court) as mentally defective. On November 30, 2010 Loughner walked into Sportsman’s Warehouse in Tucson and purchased a Glock 9mm. pistol. Arizona has no state waiting period or gun-training requirement, so Loughner left with the gun right after passing the criminal record check. Oh, yes. Thanks to a 2010 amendment to state law, as a legal possessor over the age of 21 he was also automatically entitled to carry the weapon either openly or concealed on his person, no permit required.

But it’s not just Arizona. Ordinary handguns like the Glock 9mm. can be purchased anywhere in the U.S. In California, which is considered the most restrictive state – magazine capacity is limited to ten rounds and a permit is required for concealed carry – buyers must pass a brief safety exam and wait ten days to pick up their gun. And that’s it.

It’s really quite convenient.

Actually, what most stands out about the events in Tucson are their ordinariness. In “Say Something” we pointed out that “shootings by purportedly ‘ordinary’ people have become such a common feature of American life that we seldom give them much thought.” Troubled young males who use guns to give vent to their demons are nothing new. Prior examples include the April 1999 Columbine (Colo.) High School massacre, where two male students killed 13 and injured 21, the March 2006 Capitol Hill massacre, in which a deranged 28-year old man opened fire at a youth party in Seattle, killing six and wounding two, and the April 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech, where a mentally disturbed 23-year old college senior killed 32 and wounded 25.

Virginia Tech has remarkable parallels to the Tucson massacre. Its perpetrator, Sung Hui-Cho, was armed with two pistols that he had recently bought at gun stores. One was a Glock 9mm (the other was a Walther .22). Cho also had mental problems; indeed, his were so serious that a judge had ruled him mentally ill. Unfortunately, Virginia’s procedure for entering that information into the database used to clear gun purchases was lacking, enabling Cho to buy guns.

Reaction to the Tucson shooting was swift. Many observers, including outspoken Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, laid blame on a “toxic political environment” that replaced reasoned discourse with posturing and threats. During last year’s Congressional races Sarah Palin’s political action committee televised ads to which Congresswoman Giffords objected: “The way that she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that.” Sheriff Dupnik and others also blame lax gun laws and the expiration of the assault weapons ban, which also prohibited high-capacity ammunition feeding devices such as the 30-round magazines used by Loughner.

But if we’re seeking to prevent wackos from going on a rampage, all the half-hearted “bans” and regulatory initiatives in the world would make little difference. Ordinary guns are the elephant in the room. Medium-caliber semi-auto pistols such as the Glock 9mm. are exceedingly lethal regardless of magazine capacity. And that’s to say nothing of the increasingly popular and even more deadly .40 caliber pistols (yes, Glock makes those, too.) Or the wildly popular “Big Boomer” handguns, whose projectiles pierce ballistic vests as easily as knives cut through butter.

What’s needed, of course, is a fundamental reset in our attitude about firearms. Unfortunately, guns, politics and ideology have become impossibly conflated. What’s more, in 2008 the Supreme Court decided in Heller that having a gun, at least in the home, is an individual right. While the Justices suggested that they would support “reasonable” regulation, their decision put proponents of gun control on the defensive. It’s no longer about moving forward: it’s about not losing any more ground.

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Bottom line: without severely restricting the kinds of guns that citizens can possess (which, by the way, isn’t going to happen) there’s no way – none – to prevent massacres. Don’t believe it? Read the posts linked below.

UPDATES (scroll)

8/6/22 Canada is planning to “cap” the number of handguns in the country by instituting a “freeze” on any further purchases, sales and transfers. Handgun importation will also be banned. Handguns must be licensed and will continue to be legal. As it is, most handguns used in crime in Canada were smuggled from the U.S. Canada banned assault rifles in 2020 following a massacre in Nova Scotia.

6/17/22 A 71-year old Alabama churchgoer opened fire with a concealed handgun at a church potluck, killing two elderly parishioners and wounding a third. He was physically restrained for police. Calling himself “Mr. Smith,” he had occasionally attended services but was otherwise a cipher. (Note: the wounded person, an 84-year old woman, succumbed to her injuries the next day.)

9/30/21 Until 2014, when a court struck down the law, the District of Columbia barred carrying handguns in public, whether or not concealed. Six persons who were arrested between 2012-2014 for violating the law sued for damages, and on Sept. 29, 2021 a D.C. court panel ruled the city liable. And there could be as many as 4,500 more “victims.” (A replacement law allowed concealed-carry with a permit. But to get one applicants had to show a “good reason.” This requirement amounted to a near-ban and was struck down in 2017. Permits are still required, but no special reason is necessary.)

9/23/21 Should eighteen-year olds be able to buy handguns from a dealer? Calling the present Federal law that sets the minimum age as twenty-one arbitrary and ineffective in preventing misuse, in July, 2021 two of three Justices on a Fourth Circuit panel said “yes!” But they just rescinded their ruling. Not because it was wrong, but because the plaintiff turned 21 before it was issued, making the case moot.

6/3/21 On May 9 a “jealous and controlling” boyfriend barged into a birthday party being held in a mobile home at a Colorado Springs mobile home park and opened fire. Teodoro Macias, 28, killed six members of an extended family, including his girlfriend. He then turned the gun on himself, inflicting a fatal wound. Macias has no known criminal record; his 9mm pistol had been locally purchased by a third party in 2014. It is said that Macias was angry at being excluded from the event.

3/26/21 On March 24 a 22-year old man lugged an AR-15 rifle and a satchel into an Atlanta grocery store and went to the restroom. A customer alerted police. Rico Marley, 22, was promptly arrested. Aside from the rifle, police found three pistols, a revolver, a shotgun and a tactical vest. Marley was booked for intention to commit a felony while armed. His mental health is being evaluated.

3/23/21 On 3/22 a man armed with an assault-style rifle opened fire in a Boulder (CO) market and murdered ten persons. Among his victims was Boulder police officer Eric Talley, 51, who was first to arrive. Boulder has an ordinance that prohibits assault weapons acquired after June 15, 2018 but a judge recently ruled its provisions invalid as the subject matter is preempted by State law.

3/17/21 Yesterday morning Robert Aaron Long, 21, bought a 9mm. pistol at an Atlanta gun shop. Georgia does not have a waiting period, so after passing an Insta-check he promptly left with the gun. Long soon visited three massage parlors. In each he opened fire, killing a total of eight persons. Long was arrested while driving to Florida, supposedly to continue his spree. He told police he was a customer of the parlors, calling them a “sexual addiction” and a “temptation he wanted to eliminate.”

3/3/21 Increased crime and fears of victimization are driving Black residents of Chicago to buy handguns for personal protection. A national gun trade association, the NSSF, reported that the Feds processed “a record 10.3 million firearm transactions” during the first half of 2020. That’s 95 percent higher than during the corresponding period in 2019. While nearly three out of four guns are bought by Whites, Blacks (they bought 14.7 percent) posted the largest year-to-year increase, a full 58.2 percent.

2/22/21 As of June 1 the long-standing right of Montana residents to carry concealed guns without a permit will extend to places such as banks, bars, State buildings (including the Capitol) and the universities. “Secure law enforcement facilities, federal buildings, courtrooms, and K-12 schools” will remain excepted. Montana is presently one of eighteen States that allow persons to carry concealed firearms without a permit.

2/4/21 Gun sales numbers, which increased substantially in 2020 as the COVID pandemic took hold and police-related rioting erupted, leaped eighty percent in January 2021. That’s been attributed to the assault on the Capitol and the election of an ostensibly less gun-friendly Administration. Also reportedly in the mix are “first-time buyers who say they no longer trust police.”

11/14/19 Two teens were killed and three others were wounded after a 16-year old student pulled a .45 caliber pistol from his backpack and opened fire at a suburban Los Angeles-area high school. Police later apprehended the gunman, who reportedly shot himself in the head.

5/19/18 On May 18 Dmitrios Pagourtzis, 17, stormed into his Texas high school and opened fire with his father’s pump-action shotgun and .38 caliber revolver, killing ten, mostly students, and wounding ten others, including the school police officer. Pagourtzis also scattered pipe bombs around campus. A good, well-liked student, he had made some disturbing social media posts and his diary contained written plans for the attack and his suicide. But he surrendered to police.

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