I-90 AK-47 Shootout Video Released

[onehandle]

Authorities have released dramatic video of a highway shootout that left one dead in January.

Footage from the dashboard camera of a state police cruiser shows Darrel O. Brown, a 23-year-old member of the Bloods gang, firing an AK-47 on officers out the back window of a taxicab.

Brown, who is thought to have been high on PCP at the time, put bullets in several police and civilian cars but luckily no one suffered injuries.

After a two-hour standoff on Interstate 90, Brown was taken down by multiple officers, including a sniper's bullet to the head.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/18/i-90-ak-47-shootout-video_n_397399.html

[GreenStormCloud]

1. He fought the law, and the law won. (Abrupt end of song.)

Very doubtful that was a real AK. Real ones are really expensive.

Contrary to the article, an AK clone is NOT easy to convert to full-auto.

[rd_kent]

2. You are right, criminals suck.

or did you have another point?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

3. Doesn't seem to be an AK to me.

Looked like a semi auto rifle.

[Euromutt]

11. I concur; semi-auto-only and avtomat are mutually exclusive

AK stands for Avtomat Kalashnikova - Kalashnikov's automatic rifle. If can't fire on automatic, it's not an avtomat.

[benEzra]

15. oops, wrong place, dern it... (n/t)

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

4. One fewer criminal on the street, one fewer illegally possessed firearm on the street.

This should make everyone happy.

[rd_kent]

5. onehandle, did you have a point you were trying to make? Or is this ANOTHER hit and run?

[aikoaiko]

6. I wonder if that first shot inside the vehicle left him deaf?

Stupid criminal.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

7. Was the meter still running during the shoot-out?

[iverglas]

8. no, this did not happen

The attraction of AK-47ish objects for drug dealers and gang/organized crime members is their simple beauty, and how good they look hanging over the fireplace.

Nothing to see here, folks. Nobody was in possession of an AK-47ish thing for unpleasant purposes, and nobody tried to kill cops with one.

[aikoaiko]

9. And whats with the yellow cab?

Another tool/machine used by criminals?

:shrug:

[benEzra]

12. Oh, don't play dumb.

You know full well that 0.2% or even 1% is not zero. A small percentage of gun crime does indeed involve AK lookalikes, just as a small percentage of robberies involve black Trans Ams with eagles on the hoods; that doesn't mean it's not a very rare event compared to, say, crimes involving .357 revolvers or .22/.380/.9mm pistols.

Even if you assume very generously that ~1 in 3 rifles used in crime is an AK lookalike (doubtful), then you're looking at a maximum of 0.9% of homicides and 0.2% of other violent crimes, based on the FBI breakdown of rifles vs. other guns used in homicides and other violent crimes.

You also know full well that this clown didn't manage to hurt anybody, because (again) long, heavy, bulky rifles with sharp protrusions are hard to wield effectively from inside vehicles, and slow to deploy when exiting. Are rifles in the hands of criminals a good thing? No, of course not. Are they a significant problem in this country? Nope.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_20.html

What was it that the head of the U.S. gun-control lobby said a while back, when rifle crime was far higher than it is now? Oh, yeah...

"(O)ur organization, Handgun Control, Inc. does not propose further controls on rifles and shotguns. Rifles and shotguns are not the problem; they are not concealable."

--Nelson T. "Pete" Shields, head of what is now the Brady Campaign 1978-1989, Guns Don't Die--People Do, Priam Press, 1981, pp. 47-48 (emphasis added).

That is even more true NOW than it was then, as rifle violence has declined significantly since then (as have all forms of U.S. criminal gun violence). And of course, "assault weapons" were just as available then as now, and had been for decades.

In retrospect, when Josh Sugarmann decided to expand the issue of gun prohibition from handguns to modern-looking rifles too, he shot the gun-control lobby in the foot. The parable of the boy who cried wolf comes to mind...

[iverglas]

13. I know lots stuff

1. Homicide statistics are not the measure of bad stuff in a society

2. Firearms are used for lots of things without being fired, and in particular by individuals engaged in drug trafficking and other gang/organized crime activities to intimidate and enforce and generally to enable them to carry on their activities with impunity

3. In this instance, individuals and the public were endangered, the public was certainly rather inconvienced, and public resources were wasted

Of course, you know all this too.

I actually don't give much of a shit what brand or size or colour firearm are used for this purpose. But the FACT is that AK-47ish firearms are very commonly found in the possession of individuals engaged in gang/organized crime activities, and I really don't believe they buy them for decoration.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=173134&mesg_id=173134

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=170633&mesg_id=170633

and so on and on and on.


http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20091216man_who_opened_fire_with_ak-47_held_without_bail/srvc=home&position=recent

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

LYNN — A New Hampshire man facing 15 assault with attempt to murder charges for allegedly opening fire with an AK-47 assault weapon inside a Lynn restaurant has been ordered held without bail.

... Gobbi’s court-appointed attorney requested a mental health evaluation for his client, which was granted by the judge.

Authorities allege an intoxicated Gobbi went in to the China Lion restaurant in the early morning hours of Dec. 5 and asked for a beer. When staff refused to serve him, he allegedly left in a huff, returned with the weapon, and opened fire.

Fifteen people were inside at the time, but no one was hurt and a customer wrestled the gun away.

But hey, he was too drunk to hurt anybody, so it's all cool!


http://www2.counton2.com/cbd/news/crime/article/texas_man_opens_fire_with_ak-47_during_road_rage_incident/94113/

A Texas man is facing charges after allegedly firing an assault rifle from his truck during a road rage incident.

Bradley Dungan, 19, of Giddings was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after police found him with an AK47 and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in his truck.

The shooting happened of Highway 290 just west of Elgin on December 4th.

... “Apparently the passenger in the SUV made an offensive hand gesture at the pickup truck,“ said Walker.

Next Police said Dungan pulled out an AK47 which was sitting on the seat next to him, sticking it out the window of this truck and firing it at least once at the victim’s SUV.

No CCW for him! And of course he had this thing for deer hunting or summat.


http://www.whiznews.com/content/news/local/2009/12/11/three-men-with-ak-47-rob-bank

Friday, December 11, 2009

The Cambridge Police Department says that three men robbed Wesbanco on Wheeling Avenue in Cambridge around 9:30 AM.

"From what I was told by the Cambridge Police Department, they were wearing dark clothing, hoodies and I believe may have been wearing masks," says Sgt. Clark Felix with the Zanesville Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

Sgt. Felix also says one of the men had an AK-47 that he left behind at the bank. No one was injured in the robbery.

Whew, nobody killed! Keep moving, folks! No need to worry about this AK-47ish rifle, or any rifles!


http://news.google.ca/news/search?pz=1&cf=all&ned=ca&hl=en&q=ak-47

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

A 23-year-old Sycamore Township man was so angry the Grand Valley Preserve in Indian Hill revoked his park privileges for setting fires to keep warm while fishing – despite being warned against it– he destroyed the gate of the preserve with an assault rifle and ax, according to village police.

... Rosenbaum is accused of buying an AK-47, arming himself with an ax and then heading to preserve on State Route 126 at about 8 p.m. Nov. 24.

Once there, Makin said, Rosenbaum used the ax to destroy the card reader and wooden gate at the preserve’s entrance. Then he fired four rounds into the metal box that controls the gate, Makin said.

... Rosenbaum is being held in the Hamilton County jail without bond. He has a prior trafficking in drugs arrest, but was going through a drug court program which meant that if he successfully completed treatment that charge would be dismissed.

Hmm. I guess you don't have to say you've been *charged* with drug trafficking when you buy yourself an AK-47ish thing.


AK-47ish things ... the tool of choice for drug traffickers and dangerously nutty people, it seems.

[benEzra]

18. You still don't seem to grasp that a few dozen anecdotes in a nation of 300 million

and fourteen thousand murders a year does not constitute "relatively common". 400 murders a year are committed with rifles, so I'll bet a minimum of 4,000 criminals a year try to use them in some sort of crime. That's a minuscule proportion of the whole, though (even 10,000 / 1,000,000 = 1%). The incident we are discussing here happened a full year ago, with a rifle that was imported nearly a quarter-century ago, and it's still in the news; car accidents are common, shootings are common, but "criminal using scawwy looking rifle has shootout with police" is exceedingly rare.

Again, we have hard data from the FBI and BATFE on total rifle use, and not just for homicide. Rifle use in violent crimes other than homicide, as a percentage of total violent crime, is rare (~0.6%). Rifle use in homicide is rare (less rare, but still rare, ~2.6%). And the "b-b-b-but they're SCAWWY!!" argument doesn't hold water in light of those proportions.

Are false accusations of rape common, or rare? Is plotting terrorism by Muslims in the USA common, or rare? Is dying during a legal abortion common, or rare?

All of the above are RARE in the United States, and finding a few dozen anecdotes of each wouldn't make them common in a nation of 300 million people.

[Euromutt]

19. And, of course, rarity contributes to newsworthiness

The fact that long guns of any kind are used relatively rarely in violent crime, and scary-looking rifles even less so, ipso facto makes them more interesting when they do occur, so they're guaranteed to garner more attention.

There are probably more crimes committed with .30-30 lever-actions than with so-called "assault weapons," due to a large extent to that type of rifle being very prevalent (mostly for hunting whitetail deer), but precisely because those rifles are so common, and comparatively innocuous in the public perception, their misuse is less sensational. Similarly, it's not seen as an item of major interest that a crime has been committed using a .38 Spl revolver.

[benEzra]

22. That brings to mind the differing media approaches to the Patrick Purdy and Gang Lu shootings.

Both were "mentally unbalanced loser goes to educational institution and shoots unarmed victims" stories. Both shooters killed 5 victims. Purdy used a civilian AK lookalike (Norinco, as I recall); Gang Lu used a generic .38 caliber revolver that he reloaded multiple times. The Purdy story was front-page fodder for a week or two, and his choice of firearm was the subject of editorial angst for years (far more so than the way he was released to commit that massacre in the first place). When a while later Gang Lu killed the same number of people with a .38, USA Today didn't even bother to report the type of gun used, as I recall; I was looking. Most stories didn't even specify whether it was a long gun or a handgun, and it took me a long time and a bit of digging to find out that it was a .38 revolver. There was no editorializing about the evils of .38 Specials, no pushy interviews with grieving families, no push polls about whether "deadly high-powered .357's that out-gun police and gun down children" should be banned. None.

I believe the term for this is the Von Restorff effect or Von Restorff bias.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Restorff_effect

[iverglas]

27. yeah, that's right

Why, that incident on I-90 would never have been reported if they guy had just been shooting at the cops with a handgun.

If somebody holds up a bank with a handgun, you won't read about it in the papers.

If somebody kills a couple of dozen people in a classroom with a handgun, the police and the media will just hush it up. That doesn't sell papers.

Oh wait ...


Man, I do expect better nonsense from you.

Yeah, the people who read the papers and watch television news are just so blasé about crimes committed with handguns, but they perk up their ears when they hear about crimes committed with rifles.

:eyes:

Reality check on aisle three. Please.

[benEzra]

28. They are certainly more likely to report make/model/style if it's a civilian AK

as opposed to a lever-action rifle, a shotgun, a revolver, or a single-stack pistol. Like I said, look at the differing media response to the Purdy and Lu shootings; many outlets didn't even bother to report that Lu used a revolver, and I STILL have not been able to find out what make, model, or style.

If criminal A used an AK-type rifle, criminal B used a Remington 870 type shotgun, and criminal C used a Smith & Wesson K-frame revolver, typical reporting (in my experience) would cover the stories as "AK-47", "shotgun", and "handgun". Certainly there are exceptions, but that appears to be the trend; in addition to Von Restorff effect, I also suspect that having "AK-47" in the story makes it more attention-grabbing.

And I won't even get into all the situations in which an alleged criminal uses a Hi Point 9mm carbine with a 10-round magazine, or a Colt M1911 style pistol, or a shotgun, or whatever, and some bystander tells the police/media that the bad guy had an "AK-47."

[rd_kent]

40. You are 100% right, for once, iver.

Why, that incident on I-90 would never have been reported if they guy had just been shooting at the cops with a handgun.

If somebody holds up a bank with a handgun, you won't read about it in the papers.

If somebody kills a couple of dozen people in a classroom with a handgun, the police and the media will just hush it up. That doesn't sell papers.


Your weak attempt at sarcasm failed, but you are, unfortunately, absolutely correct.

[Euromutt]

41. I don't know about "100% right"...

...but I'd still say it's a safe bet that a crime committed with a Kalashnikov derivative is going to get reported further afield, and in more detail (particularly explicitly mentioning the type of firearm used, even if it's incorrectly reported as an "AK-47") than a crime committed with a less sensational weapon.

I notice from the quoted segment that iverglas is still wielding her double standard of berating others for supposedly attacking a straw man, while having zero compunction about doing the same thing herself. Apparently, it's only a mortal offense when others do it. In short, I'm not missing anything interesting by keeping her on "ignore."

I used comparative terms like "more attention" and "less sensational." With the sentence "it's not seen as an item of major interest that a crime has been committed using a .38 Spl revolver," I meant that while the crime itself might be deemed newsworthy, the weapon involved is less likely to be receive mention if it's a .38 Spl than if it's a Kalashnikov derivative.

Take the incident under discussion; it occurred a year ago, and the only person who got hurt was the perp, but the release of the dashboard cam footage is still considered newsworthy. Does anyone think it'd be considered anywhere near as interesting if the weapon hadn't been an "assault weapon," and especially an oh-so-scary Kalashnikov derivative?

[safeinOhio]

23. Even rarer

I can't find any case were a AK47 was fired to defend anyone from a crime. All most all self defense gun use comes from hand guns and shotguns. I know some like to target shoot with them. Other than that they are useless to me.

[benEzra]

26. It happens; I've seen a few reports, but the national media rarely pick them up

or report the type of gun used. For one thing, a lot of reporters may not realize that a "Saiga" or "SAR-1" or "WASR" or whatever in a police report is a civilian AK (or especially if the police report just says the AK-wielding homeowner used "a rifle" or "a 7.62mm carbine"), so absent a big press conference with the homeowner's gun displayed prominently for the media (which generally wouldn't happen in a defensive shooting) the media probably (1) don't realize an AK was involved, (2) don't consider the gun type interesting enough to report, or (3) don't want to validate/encourage it.

Even so, a few incidents still get reported. Here's one:

http://www.wftv.com/news/2029476/detail.html

I've heard of a few more via the gun boards. I do know that if someone broke into this house, they'd have a fair chance of facing a civilian AK if I had a few seconds' warning...



...though 9mm's are primary for both my wife and I, for accessibility and storage reasons. I do shoot IPSC/USPSA with that carbine, though, so I know my way around it under stress.

All most all self defense gun use comes from hand guns and shotguns.

This was true twenty years ago, but much less so today. Lightweight .223 carbines have displaced a whole lot of shotgun use in both police and home-defense roles (and for similar reasons), and I suspect that the SKS and civilian AK are two of the more common defensive long guns in U.S. homes as well. Ammunition choice, home construction, and forethought are probably somewhat more important for a 7.62x39mm than for a .223/5.56x45mm, though.

[Euromutt]

29. That's the result of something of a vicious circle

When Kalashnikov derivatives are used in crimes, it gets a lot of publicity. Throw in dozens of movies in which Kalashnikov derivatives are used by terrorists and communist forces, and you get a widespread perception that the Kalashnikov is a "bad guys' gun." Accordingly, many gun owners--often at the advice of defensive firearm instructors (like Marty Hayes of FAS http://www.firearmsacademy.com/)--steer away from keeping Kalashnikov derivatives as home defense weapons because the gun's image may prove a liability in court (a process known as "jury-proofing"). As result, defensive shootings with Kalashnikov derivatives become more or a rarity, so there's less to counteract the Kalashnikov's image as a "bad guy's gun," which in turn results in fewer people being inclined to use them for home defense, and so on and so forth.

But as benEzra says, that's not to say it doesn't happen. It just isn't very widely reported that the weapon in question was a Kalashnikov derivative. And some schools, like Gabriel Suarez', actively promote the Kalashnikov derivative as an effective HD weapon, offering a range of classes in the platform: http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=27 (it's actually kind of ironic that the guy kneeling in the top picture isn't actually holding a Kalashnikov; it a Czech Vz. 58, which looks similar but it mechanically quite different).

[paulsby]

49. kalashnikov's have been thought of as a "bad guy's gun"

ever since vietnam

[iverglas]

24. you don't seem to grasp that gangs/organized crime

do not place classified ads detailing the firearms in their possession.


400 murders a year are committed with rifles

Baaaaaa. If you bleat it often enough, maybe nobody will notice that bank robberies, road rage shootings, attempts at mass murder in bars and restaurants, etc. etc. etc. ARE committed with rifles.

I wish you'd get us some meaningful data. Firsthand. Primary source.

Go ask the drug traffickers found with AK-47ish and other rifles in their possession what the fuck they are wasting their money like that for. They're never going to be able to actually USE those things for anything. There's some kind of invisible angel that comes with them, that stops them being used for criminal purposes.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=drugs+guns+seized&btnG=Search&start=0

Google images result for drugs guns seized.

No rifles there. No sirreee bobaroo.

Not in Buffalo, New York
http://www.bpdny.org/Home/Press/Current/BPDContinuesAttackonGangs


Not in Kingsport (Tennnessee?)

http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9018129

Not in Decatur, Illinois
http://legacy.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/070626/drugs.shtml


Not by punk celebrities ineligible to own firearms
http://www.tmz.com/tag/T.i.


Not in San Bernardino, California
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/10/23/us/23bust_CA1.html


Not in West Volusia, Florida
http://www.beacononlinenews.com/news/daily/2127


or Fort Myers, Florida
http://www.winknews.com/news/local/70102532.html
(nice pic but copies huge, so check it out)

Not in Seattle, Washington
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/49704427.html


or Burlington, Washington
http://www.goskagit.com/home/article/weapons_cache_discovered/


Not in Falmouth, Massachusetts
http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2007/02/09/suspect_sought_after_drugs_fireamrs_seiz?blog=80


... ... ...

(And of course certainly not in Canada, the UK or Australia, where police seem to be more likely to display their finds in the media, as the search results suggest.)

Nope. Nothing there, folks.

[GreenStormCloud]

31. Don't you get tired of throwing out strawmen?

Nobody here says that zero rifles are used by criminals. We do say that rifles are used less for criminal activities than other types of guns. In looking at your pictures one notices that there are lots more handguns than long guns, and that about half of the long guns are shotguns. Some of the long guns are impossible to make out due to the picture being out of focus or the long gun being too far away to make out details.

[benEzra]

32. There's also the issue that having a gun confiscated from your house

because you've just made yourself legally ineligible to possess it, and using that gun (or threatening to use it) in the commission of a violent crime, are two entirely different things.

I'd hazard a guess that one in four U.S. households contains rifles. If anyone in that household decides to supplement their income by, say, running an illegal pot or Oxycontin distribution ring (as in one of iverglas' anecdotes), and they get caught, those guns will be confiscated. Heck, someone in the household might even keep a gun loaded for (otherwise lawful) defensive purposes. Those guns will then be displayed for the media along with the drugs and cash seized, per standard practice. That does not mean that the drug offenders were violent criminals who were committing or intending to commit rifle crimes; some undoubtedly are, but the majority are probably simply a cross-section of households. That probably goes even more for so-called white-collar crimes, but the most common seizures are probably drug related.

The relevant statistic isn't what guns were seized at the residences of people whose crimes disqualified them for possession of same, but what guns are actually used to kill, maim, or coerce people. And we do have stats on those, and they are overwhelmingly handguns for reasons of portability and speed of deployment.

[iverglas]

34. I know I know I know

If it's in your house, it's there for decoration.


The relevant statistic isn't what guns were seized at the residences of people whose crimes disqualified them for possession of same,

You're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, and the strange and wonderful thing is that I DIDN'T SAY IT WAS.

"guns seized at the residences of people whose crimes disqualified them for possession of same" is a very convoluted and possibly painful way of saying DRUG TRAFFICKERS, GANGS AND ORGANIZED CRIME GROUPS COMMONLY HAVE LONG ARMS AND USE THEM IN THEIR CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES, and your own funny story about grandma's purse pistol getting confiscated because junior was selling a bit of E is just the latest in your long and extraordinarily tedious efforts to get everybody to LOOK OVER THERE!! when what's over here is DRUG TRAFFICKERS, GANGS AND ORGANIZED CRIME GROUPS COMMONLY HAVE LONG ARMS AND USE THEM IN THEIR CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES.

They don't keep them for decoration, and they don't just happen to live in a homestead where grandpa keeps his grandpappy's varmint blaster.

[iverglas]

33. blah de blah de blah

Nobody here says that zero rifles are used by criminals.

Nobody here said anybody did.

Don't choke on that big wad of straw, now.

[TheWraith]

36. Interestingly, almost everything you displayed was a conventional hunting rifle/shotgun.

I see a couple AR-15s, but that's it. Everything else is "Fudd guns," typical non-threatening rifles and shotguns. There's even some bolt-action rifles in there, a Mosin and a Mauser looks like.

[iverglas]

43. indeed

But the hobbyhorse ridden by BenEzra, to whom I was speaking, is ALL rifles / long guns.

Bad people don't use them to do bad things, you see.

Protecting a criminal organization's activities by the use of force and threats of force is not a bad thing.

[GreenStormCloud]

45. But benEzra doesn't say that. You claim he says that.

He says that they are used in less than 3% of murders, and about the same percentage in other gun crimes.

[eqfan592]

46. She reads what she wants to read.

The gun control reality distortion field turns "3%" into "zero" in order for her to pull off her sarcastic responses. It's amazingly, shocking disingenuous and just downright stupid, especially in a forum where people can easily just scroll back up and read what he said, but she does it anyway. What's funny is that her behavior hurts her cause more than anybody else around here, especially among the rational and open minded.

"You have hard numbers by the FBI? Those won't possibly stand up against my anecdotal evidence, intellectually dishonest misrepresentations of your point, and lots of pictures found using google!"

[TheWraith]

52. Statistics don't lie.

The vast, vast majority of crimes involving a gun (the FBI reporting term) use handguns, for obvious reasons. They're easy to transport, concealable, easy to use, and the advantages in power and accuracy offered by a long gun are wasted at the short range where most such crimes take place. Yes, long guns are preferable to some people (both law-abiding and not) for defensive purposes. For that reason, when you raid X drug operations, you'll find a certain number of long guns, with the larger the operation making it more likely to have them.

But again, stats don't lie: Only about 3% of crimes involving a gun include a rifle of any description. A slightly higher share is taken by shotguns due to their advantages. But over 85% of all instances where a gun is used illegally in the US, it's a handgun. In terms of weapons seized in connection with drug busts, chances are you'd find ten handguns or more for every rifle. Nobody ever said that long guns were never used in an illegal way, but the plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

[tburnsten]

53. The funny thing about you using those particular pictures

Is that there is not a single AK-derivative in any of them. I see lots of very vanilla shotguns and rifles though, and a few run-of-the-mill handguns, but not a single rifle that is anything like what you are attempting to demonstrate.

Interesting, but I see several single shot shotguns in there. Great job picking out totally irrelevant photos.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[iverglas]

25. aww

What did I miss?

Sniff.

[Katya Mullethov]

42. first post

Threats as to your safety and public taunts questioning the pleasantness of your plumbing . I almost alerted myself , but have nary a single snitch atom in me .

[rd_kent]

39. So what? What is the problem?

Big fucking deal that drug dealers like to use AK-47ish rifles. Maybe they like to use a certain type of phone. Maybe they even like to wear a certain type of clothing? Hey, maybe we should do something about that! Ban a certain type of phone, or restrict what type of clothing people can wear.



So what if they prefer a certain type of gun? Getting rid of that one will only force them to another. Get rid of that and they move to another. Next thing you know, there are no guns and they are using knives and we have to worry about who is buying what knife and why. Would that be neat? They do that now in Britain where guns are banned and now you need an ID to buy cutlery at the kitchen store.

Thanks, but no thanks. I will take stricter enforcement of the laws we already have and serious jail time for those that violate the law.

[gorfle]

48. Creeping away from the data, one debate at a time.

1. Homicide statistics are not the measure of bad stuff in a society

We've been down this road before, Iverglas.

Once presented with the staggeringly-low incidents of rifle homicide in this country, you, as per usual, then go off no the tangent of, "Well, I guess they aren't used in murder very much, but they are used for lots of other bad stuff!"

So then you have been presented with firearm confiscation data that goes beyond just homicides, and you have been presented with the number of all violent crimes, and we can see that rifles STILL don't account for much use in violent crime.

[rd_kent]

38. Wow, you're bored today, aren't you?

What does your post have to do with jack or shit? Well, I guess it has a lot to do with shit......

[Euromutt]

10. I-90 runs from Boston to Seattle; can we be more specific as to location?

Okay, so evidently this incident occurred near East Greenbush, NY, slightly south of Albany, but the the late (and not particularly lamented) Mr. Brown was from Hartford, CT.

So we've got a guy who's apparently a known gang member, who hijacks a taxi, flees across state lines, and engages in a shootout with police. Does anyone seriously think he possessed the firearm--whatever it was, because I sure can't tell from the video--legally?

[iverglas]

14. of course he didn't possess it legally!

Nobody ever did! It sprang fully formed from the forehead of Zeus!

[GreenStormCloud]

30. Hey, you used a quote from "Guns of the South".

Are you a Harry Turtledove fan?

[iverglas]

35. I did what now?

I alluded to a foundational tale in Greek mythology, and I'm quoting something about guns in the south?

I must google that, I guess.

[TheWraith]

37. "Guns of the South" is an alternative history novel by Harry Turtledove.

It's about an alternate timeline in which time traveling white supremacists supply the Confederate States of America with small amounts of modern weapons and supplies to help them fight off the north. I've never read it, but I have read some of his other novels. Even when working with a strange premise, they're good. I read the "Worldwar" series, which postulates an alien race reconnoitering Earth in the year 1100 for an invasion, then due to a lack of understanding about how fast our culture grows, they start dropping troops in the spring of 1942.

[iverglas]

44. ah

I read the "Worldwar" series, which postulates an alien race reconnoitering Earth in the year 1100 for an invasion, then due to a lack of understanding about how fast our culture grows, they start dropping troops in the spring of 1942.

Sounds like that Voyager with the star fleet people stuck above a planet and the people on the planet moving in hugely fast motion compared to Voyager, until they progress from primitive civilization to having the technology to blast the evil starship out of the stratosphere, all in the space of a couple of weeks start fleet time. ;)

Have to admit to not keeping up with science fiction after some early Joanna Russ and Ursula Franklin ... did read everything old Bob Heinlein ever wrote, though!



typo

[GreenStormCloud]

47. Turtledove is a historian.

He mainly writes alternate history novels. His novels are meticulously researched and are a delightful blend of fact and fiction. In the "Guns of the South", an engineer is examing an AK-47 and makes the same comment that you used.

His earlier works have been original and delightful, but lately has keeps doing WWII over and over, with different points of divergence.

[TheWraith]

51. Despite the odd premise, the Worldwar books were extremely good.

(Far superior to Voyager, although I thought that was an unusually good episode for them.)

Roughly half the story in the "Worldwar" books is told from the perspective of the aliens, a lizardlike species suffering from a bad case of manifest destiny who refers to themselves as "The Race." To them we're the "Big Uglies," dangerous savages who display unheard of brutality in the form of regicide, genocide, and racism. The other half of the story is told from the perspective of many various human characters all around the globe, highlighting the best and worst of the cultures at the time. It's strikingly well crafted and well researched, and goes far beyond the typical "alien invasion" theme to explore issues of morality, guerrilla warfare, geopolitics, the lesser of two evils, and what actually constitutes evil after all.

My favorite Heinlein books would be The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and Double Star.

[benEzra]

16. More details in this older article from local news:

http://www.troyrecord.com/articles/2009/01/12/news/doc496bdb63065e1442034224.txt

Do keep in mind this happened a year ago.

It took him a while to get the rifle out of his duffel bag (no easy task, as I can attest since I own a similar rifle) and engage the police, by which time the cab driver and police officer had moved to safety.

Interestingly, the rifle used was apparently imported 20-25 years ago; it was apparently a Norinco model 84S-1, which is a Chinese non-automatic AK derivative chambered in .223 Remington/5.56x45mm and set up with a Yugoslavian-style underfolding stock. Quite a rare bird, and probably stolen since they are worth a thousand or more due to collectibility.

I see there's one on Gunbroker right now, for a "Buy It Now" price of $1,875.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=149759529

(For those unfamiliar with U.S. gun laws, the sale has to go through a Federally licensed dealer in your state who conducts a background check; this is not eBay.)

[iverglas]

17. "probably stolen since they are worth a thousand or more"

And I'd say: probably stolen since some asshole failed to secure something obviously of considerable interest to dangerous individuals for use in just such adventures as this.


(edit: I am not suggesting that you said the value was the reason for the presumed theft, although your statement could be read that way out of context; it was the reason you presume it stolen)

[benEzra]

20. Quite so; I suspect the criminal had no fricking idea the rifle was worth eighteen hundred bucks.

As I recall, it had been rather ill treated (if it's the one I am thinking of, it was rather rusty at the time it was recovered). He was probably doing well to figure out what caliber of ammunition it took, since this one wasn't your run-of-the-mill 7.62x39mm.

I haven't seen any stories on where it came from, but it shouldn't be too difficult to find out who it was presumably stolen from (I suspect that was one of the first things done, and it may have been returned by now). It's not like that particular variant was being sold in huge numbers. I had actually never seen a Chinese-made underfolder until reading an article on this incident, and prior to that had no idea they even existed.

[one-eyed fat man]

50. Crooks are sometimes pretty clueless

A few years back, some idiot stole a gun from his uncle and proceeded to hold up a bank in Toronto.

The gun used was a Colt Model 1911 45 ACP manufactured by North American Arms in Quebec under license to Colt Manufacturing during First World War, only 100 pistols ever made. The war ended and the contract was canceled. Nothing like using a $20,000 gun to commit a two-bit holdup.

And of course, since it was now a "crime gun" it was dutifully melted down by the RCMP.

[tburnsten]

54. Some douchebag used a chopped up double barreled shotgun to rob a store

Got under a hundred out of it, but guess what the shotgun was? A Purdey and Sons if I remember correctly, valued at $120,000.



What a dick.