Columbia Mall shooter: Darion Marcus Aguilar, 19 YO, of College Park, MD

[brooklynite]

per Howard County PD news conference

Shotgun purchased in Montgomery County, MD.

[etherealtruth]

1. Just another good guy with a gun

... until he wasn't

[Raine1967]

2. Just listened to the press conference and had a thought about this piece of information.

The police said he used a shot gun and 8 bullets were fired. They mentioned the type of gun and I checked -- the gun he used has a 8 shot version.

I am convinced that Maryland changing their gun laws may have truly minimized the deaths yesterday. Had that gun had a larger and or faster shooting capacity many more people might be dead today.

[hack89]

3. That makes no sense

He could have simply carried a handgun in addition to the shotgun. Remember that the Va Tech shooting was done with a run of the mill pistol. Lanza had multiple weapons. So did the Aurora and Columbine shooter.

[bettyellen]

5. all things being equal, each weapon could have held more bullets… math.

[hack89]

7. It takes seconds to reload - also math

In this particular case he needed two shells.

[bettyellen]

8. and that's an argument for less bullets per gun, thank you.

[hack89]

9. Single shot guns are going to be a hard sell

Last edited Sun Jan 26, 2014, 01:28 PM - Edit history (1)

but if you want to.waste your time feel free.

[Raine1967]

10. The poster to whom you replied to has decided to ignore Maryland's new gun laws.

For myself, what I wrote makes perfect sense.

[seveneyes]

4. It's not common for a shotgun to carry eight rounds

Three to five is the norm. I highly doubt any capacity limits save any lives in this case. The POS killed who he was after and then took himself out. Standard over the top reaction to a love gone bad.

[Lex]

6. Standard reaction if it's easy to get a gun.

Not otherwise.

[Raine1967]

11. If you want, you can google the type of weapon used.

What you doubt and what I know about the gun are not debatable.

[Packerowner740]

26. I asked my brother who has a shotgun and he said most new shotguns hold eight

They are just set up for five rounds by putting in a short piece of wood doweling to reduce the capacity. Take out that little piece of wood and it will hold eight.

[Straw Man]

13. Eight is high-capacity for a shotgun.

I am convinced that Maryland changing their gun laws may have truly minimized the deaths yesterday. Had that gun had a larger and or faster shooting capacity many more people might be dead today.

This was a targeted killing of two people that he wanted dead. He killed them and then himself. He had more than enough rounds to do what he set out to do.

[Raine1967]

17. since no one seems to care enough about this I'm gonna tell you what gun the Howard County PD said:

He had arrived at the mall with a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, a large amount of ammunition and a bag in which they found two crude devices made of "flash powder and household items."

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/columbia/bs-md-columbia-mall-shooting-20140125,0,967893.story#ixzz2rYClQg2F

Mossberg has guns that fit this very description. Here...

Here a few changes to Maryland's gun laws:

On April 4, 2013, the Maryland General Assembly approved legislation imposing significant new restrictions on gun ownership. The bills ban the sale of certain semi-automatic firearms that they define as assault weapons, limit magazine capacity to ten rounds, require that handgun purchasers be fingerprinted and pass a training class in order to obtain a handgun license, and bar persons who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health institution from possessing firearms. Governor Martin O'Malley signed the legislation into law on May 16, 2013.

It might be high capacity for a shotgun -- but it does exist and the shooter used just that. I am not of the mind or will to discuss this point further.

My original point, if you would go back to it, was that this could have been far, far worse.

[Straw Man]

24. You're missing the point.

Eight-shot shotguns are already considered "high-capacity." It's not as if there were some larger-capacity shotguns that were scaled down to meet restrictions. A Mossberg 500 12-gauge in hunting configuration holds five in the tube and one in the chamber for a total of six. His held eight, meaning it was a "special purpose" defense/tactical model with a higher-than-normal capacity.

The point is that he was not carrying a capacity-limited firearm, so mag-capacity limits had nothing to do with this incident.

[JJChambers]

14. Wow

Way to distort a tragedy into a gun control victory. This was a case of domestic violence in which the shooter targeted his ex girlfriend and her new boyfriend before killing himself. This wasn't a mass shooter thwarted by new gun control measures. This case study should not be one to celebrate as some twisted victory in the gun control war. This is an abhorrent instance of domestic violence that would have played out identically regardless of the new gun laws.

And as others have pointed out, 8 rounds in a shotgun is fairly high capacity for that type of weapon.

[Raine1967]

15. The reason remains unknown.

Police ID assailant in Columbia mall shooting; motive remains unknown

Although one of the victims, Brianna Benlolo, 21, also lived in College Park, police have not established a connection between Aguilar and the victims, Howard County Police Chief William J. McMahon said at a Sunday morning news conference. The other victims was Tyler Johnson, 25, who had lived in Ellicott City but recently moved to Mount Airy. (snip)

As for unconfirmed media reports about connections among the gunman and the two victims — specifically, that Aguilar was an ex-boyfriend of Benolo and that he was jealous of a romantic relationship between Benolo and her coworker Johnson — Ulman said, “We have absolutely no information at this time that links the shooter to either of these victims.”

I distorted NOTHING. I never alluded that this wasn't a damn tragedy. I speculated that it is quite possible that more deaths could have occurred.

Nuance is your friend.

As I said above, google the weapon used. The police told everyone the specific weapon this morning. They also said how many shots were fired. I would suggest that you are twisting MY words.

Also, Welcome to DU.

[JJChambers]

16. /sigh

Are you simply unaware that the standard capacity for a 12ga pump action shotgun is 6 rounds and high capacity is 8 rounds, and that this has been the standard? Maryland's new laws were simply not a factor here. Stop trying to make this into something it isn't.

[Raine1967]

18. Sigh yourself.

Unless you can prove this statement to me:

Maryland's new laws were simply not a factor here. Stop trying to make this into something it isn't.

Don't assume that I am unaware. I myself said that that this was a particular gun with BOTH those capacities.

Are you really trying to say that gun control played NO PART AT ALL in this? If you aren't I;m sorry for assuming. I am simply trying to say that gun control may have actually played a part in saving lives.

you know, cause that would be such a terrible thing to hope for... <--- in case I needed to add that for my last sentence.

[JJChambers]

19. How?

The shotgun had this same capacity both before and after the law. How can the new law be a factor if weapon was unaffected by the law?

[Raine1967]

21. See my original post in this thread.

I'm not going around in circles with you.

Good day.

[BobR]

22. It matters because it was only a shotgun.

It was not an AR-15 with a 30 round mag, because those are not available in MD. Christ - this is so simple, I can't believe so many people aren't getting it. Thirty shots -vs- eight.

[Straw Man]

25. Simple?

It was not an AR-15 with a 30 round mag, because those are not available in MD. Christ - this is so simple, I can't believe so many people aren't getting it. Thirty shots -vs- eight.

You can still have an AR in Maryland as long as it doesn't have more than two military features. I don't think bayonet lugs and flash hiders are sine qua non for mass murder. Detachable magazines are limited to 10 rounds, but a spree killer could easily outfit himself with pockets and bags full of those.

Furthermore, an eight-shot tubular-mag shotgun can be "topped off" before it is empty. As long as the shooter has plenty of shells and the wherewithal to keep stuffing them in, the shotgun will never be empty. It's very quick and easy to just shove another shell into the tube or drop it into the open ejection port in between shots.

This shooter made no attempts to reload. He killed two people and then ended his own life. It appears that this is what he intended to do all along.

[crazylikafox]

20. As has already been pointed out to you, no one has yet established a relationship...

between the gunman & his victims. So stop trying to make this into something it isn't. /sigh

[JI7]

12. one of the people who was shot and killed

looking so full of life and then suddenly its over at 25. and this is just one of the victims.



http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1591438.1390695567!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/article-baltimore-0125.jpg

[bluestate10]

23. Racists on blogs and message boards are shitting their pants with happiness because of

the moron Aguilar. They are wondering whether he is a "dreamer", as they call it. Or wondering where his cute 12 year old picture is, a veiled reference to Trayvon Martin. Of course the term gangbanger is being thrown about liberally.

That anyone who call themselves progressives can boast about sitting at home on election day or voting third party with morons like the racists on the web who surely will vote republican and show up to vote, fucking astounds me.

[JI7]

27. oh, yes, these are people who think columbine and sandy hook were not that bad

because the killers were not some minority.

[The Straight Story]

28. Some will make it about race, others about guns

and in between all the mud slinging no one will care about the why because it is not germane, to them, to preventing such things in the future.

People will use it for their pet causes and ignore the reasons behind the crime because for reason that does not seem to matter at all.