Innocents take hits in gun culture

[Drizzt]

Innocents take hits in gun culture
By Jim Spencer
Denver Post Staff Writer

It would be interesting to hear violence-mongering simpletons like Ted Nugent explain to Anna Maria Moreno how guns keep you safe.

In Houston on Saturday, Nugent, a burned-out rocker and gun nut, told a cheering assembly at the National Rifle Association convention what too many of them already believe:

"Remember the Alamo! Shoot 'em!" Nugent shouted. "To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want 'em dead. Get a gun, and when they attack you, shoot 'em."

Moreno, 47, couldn't be reached for comment on this battle cry. She's still recovering from a stray bullet that landed in her neck the very day Nugent issued his NRA-sanctioned ode to killing.

Moreno ended up in serious condition at Denver Health Medical Center on Saturday. She arrived after one man pulled a gun and opened fire on another who supposedly tried to steal his motorcycle.

The alleged thief pulled his own piece and shot back, police say.

The combatants fired a total of seven shots. None hit their intended targets. Instead, a slug slammed into Moreno's neck and put the lie to Nugent's rant.

"The bad guys" aren't the only ones who end up dead or wounded when everyone is armed.

Moreno didn't try to steal anyone's motorcycle. She didn't aid or abet anyone who did. She didn't put herself in harm's way by knowingly going to a dangerous place.

The gunplay that wounded her didn't happen late at night. It happened in broad daylight.

The Wild West shootout that left her hospitalized didn't take place at a bar, social club or some other joint where people too often check their common sense at the curb.

This violence took place at the Jumbo Car Wash.

Young people frequent the car wash in warm weather, police said.

This apparently was meant to explain the gunshots heard between the soap and rinse cycles this time of year.

It's spring in America, when a young man's fancy turns to firepower.

Sounds like a lyric from Ted Nugent. He is, after all, the guy who gave us "Wango Tango" ("You got to pretend your face is a Maserati").

Trouble is, Moreno was not at the Jumbo Car Wash. She was shopping at a store across the street.

That's all she did to join the long list of innocent victims of America's guns- are-good culture.

Those people are legion across the country. But on this day, the sixth anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre, you needn't look out of state.

Like Ted Nugent, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold believed in the liberating power of firearms. They got one of the guns used in their killing spree via a legal loophole that made straw purchases of weapons easier. The NRA didn't want that loophole closed after Harris and Klebold gunned down 12 students and one teacher at Columbine.

The NRA's hands-off approach to gun regulation ensures that hundreds of millions of weapons remain in American society.

Therein lies the irony. Owning a gun for protection guarantees nothing.

Last month, a 9-year-old in Pueblo died after accidentally shooting herself with a handgun she found in her father's bedroom.

In October, a shot from a front-yard altercation at a high school party tore through a wall and killed an unarmed 17-year-old inside a home in Wheat Ridge. She'd have been just as dead if she'd held an Uzi in each hand.

The list goes on. It will grow as long as folks refuse to distinguish between Ted Nugent's fantasy and Anna Maria Moreno's fact.

In Nugent's dream, more guns mean more security.

In Moreno's world, more guns mean you can't shop on Saturday afternoon.

Jim Spencer's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or [email protected].

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~27772~2825605,00.html

pretty typical stuff for the Denver Post......

 

[Standing Wolf]

In Nugent's dream, more guns mean more security.
In Moreno's world, more guns mean you can't shop on Saturday afternoon.

Not a single word in the article about the root cause of violence with firearms: criminals.

Now you know why I don't squander money on that sorry excuse for a "newspaper:" it's just hate-filled leftist extremist gibberish.

 

[Crosshair]

So a few isolated incidents mean guns are bad?? Well then I better go out and cut out my seat belts. Opps, that air bag needs to go. While we are at it, lets get rid of blood banks so that people don't get bad blood. Talking about blood, those ambulances are too fast and crash sometimes, out with those. Lets get to the root of the problem and get rid of hospitals, thousands of people die needlessly in hospitals. Think of all the people that will be saved. It's for the children.

Some people need to realise that these are the exceptions, not the rule.

 

[P95Carry]

Much as I applaud Ted's main sentiments - sadly - the way he puts them over does rather open the door for this sorta trash writing.

OTOH - I guess even without Ted - the media circus would still make a meal of it! This is a sad story but - as ever - does the 99.9% of gun owners - sane legal folks, have to be punished for the transgression of the oh so few??? Seems so - every darned day nearly.

 

[Commissar Gribb]

Let's replay the incident with guns being illegal-

Man approaches bike thief to stop him

bike thief pulls illegal gun and shoots man.

bike thief leaves with motorcycle.

how is THAT any better? :banghead: :banghead:

 

[nico]

Therein lies the irony. Owning a gun for protection guarantees nothing.

noone said it does. Airbags, seat belts, home security systems, etc. don't guarantee anything either. Is that an argument to get rid of all those things? I'm pretty sure that if there were something out there that would guarantee that you wouldn't be the victim of a crime, EVERYONE would have it.

 

[Alex45ACP]

I hate it when people say "gun culture". It's just another stupid buzz-word that anti gunners like to use ("assault" weapon, "cop killer" bullet, etc).

I want to email this guy and ask him just what a "gun culture" is.

 

[TarpleyG]

But on this day, the sixth anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre, you needn't look out of state.

Why is it that every single one of these idiots brings up the Columbine incident in their editorials? What happend at Comlumbine was in now way similar to what happened to Morena. And, since when are straw purchases a legal loophole?

Greg

 

[ScottsGT]

See, if she had been at home cooking for her family instead of out shopping, this would have never happened to her.....
We need to ban shopping! No more sales! 10% off means that you are going to get shot!
OK, I know, I'm out of line here. But just an example of how you can twist any story any way you want to.

 

[Henry Bowman]

Here is how I define gun culture. And I'm proud to be a member of it.

 

[MikeIsaj]

This woman was shot because someone tried to commit a crime, not because of Ted Nugent's rant. The problem is not enough guns. The criminal thought if he pulled a gun, the sheeple would surrender his property. Problem is he wasn't dealing with a sheeple. He made that mistake because today, the odds are better that he will encounter a sheeple than an armed citizen. We need to change those odds.

A few people armed will not dent crime. The majority of the public armed will give the criminals something to think about.

That said, I think people like Ted Nugent hurt responsible gun owners every time they open their mouths.

 

[Preacherman]

Actually, folks, we need to take this sort of situation very, very seriously. I'm afraid the writer of the article DOES have a point, and a good one. Sure, guns did not cause this woman's injury, people did - but many people on the street are justifiably afraid of stray bullets flying around, and there are FAR too many gun owners who can't hit a barn from the inside! I'm afraid that even though this is, indeed, a limitation on RKBA and the 2A, I tend towards the view that says if you want to carry a gun, you should be trained and certified in its use on a regular basis, including having to attain a minimum "score" on a difficult and demanding course of fire on a regular basis (at least annually). If we, as gunowners, did this, and hit what we wer e aiming at more regularly, there would be a lot fewer situations like this one.

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people" - and as long as gun-owners are untrained, unpractised and inaccurate in their shooting, we're among the people who kill innocent people, too...

 

[Henry Bowman]

If we, as gunowners, did this, and hit what we wer e aiming at more regularly, there would be a lot fewer situations like this one.

Situations like this are already extremely rare.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I tend towards the view that says if you want to carry a gun, you should be trained and certified in its use on a regular basis, including having to attain a minimum "score" on a difficult and demanding course of fire on a regular basis (at least annually).

The problem being that until you change the underlying culture of America, all you are doing is creating the tool that will be used to disarm it.

Look at how the antis use "reasonable gun control" now to suggest that a .30-30 rifle is an "armor-piercing sniper rifle" suitable only for assassinating police officers. Can you imagine what the current crowd, which is the most pro-gun I've seen in many years, would do with the certification process mentioned above?

Rather than make it a formal goverment thing, we should be using peer pressure and disapproval on our fellow gun owners to help them understand the seriousness of such situations. We should be motivating others to better their skills. Of course to do this, we would actually need places that allow realistic practice - which is another battle altogether.

 

[MikeIsaj]

Well said, Preacherman!

 

[Mulliga]

including having to attain a minimum "score" on a difficult and demanding course of fire on a regular basis (at least annually). If we, as gunowners, did this, and hit what we wer e aiming at more regularly, there would be a lot fewer situations like this one.

I simply don't agree. What if the person who wishes to buy a gun for defense is paralyzed from the waist down, or is an older person and can't move around too well? Should we bar them from buying guns because they can't do an "El Presidente" fast enough? And if you say there should be exceptions for cases like this, what about people who can't afford lots of training or equipment - should they not be allowed to buy that Mak because they live an hour from the closest range?

Training requirements basically add another layer of unnecessary red tape to the whole process.

I'm pretty sure situations like this are incredibly rare. You have a better chance of being fatally hit by a stray baseball than a stray bullet.

 

[Hypnogator]

Preacherman is right, in some respects, but I, too, question the wisdom of making the exercise of one's Constitutional right dependent upon some standard of qualification. The courts have long ago thrown out "literacy" tests that used to be a requirement to exercise one's right to vote. Less educated voters were often turned away after failing to properly explain a passage of college level technical text.

This article is obviously slanted to make the "legitimate" gun owner the villain. I wonder (1) Who shot first -- the article makes it sound like the thief was defending himself when the owner started shooting at him; and (2) whose bullet wound up in the bystander -- again, the writer makes it sound like the it was the owners.

It is very unfortunate in any event, but if the writer is accurately portraying a situation in which a CCW holder shoots at a thief to protect property, missed, and hit a bystander, it's a legitimate argument for the other side.

 

[Standing Wolf]

...if you want to carry a gun, you should be trained and certified in its use on a regular basis, including having to attain a minimum "score" on a difficult and demanding course of fire on a regular basis (at least annually). If we, as gunowners, did this, and hit what we wer e aiming at more regularly, there would be a lot fewer situations like this one.

No way!

Keeping and bearing arms should never be subject to government approval, testing, and the like. Setting up such a mechanism merely makes it inevitable that government will raise the standards far beyond the capability of ordinary citizens. We've already seen what happened in the People's Republic of California when the state decided to establish so-called "safety standards:" at least half the hand guns the rest of the nation can buy are illegal for Californians to own.

Keeping and bearing arms does, indeed, necessitate accepting full responsibility for one's skills with arms—but the minute we let government stick its big ugly nose into our responsibilities is the minute we lose our rights.

The loss of our civil rights is a far greater calamity than the occasional injury inflicted by an incompetent law-abiding citizen with arms. The incompetent law-abiding citizen harms a small number of people, and can be taken to court for his negligence. The loss of the nation's civil rights injures us all, as well as future generations of Americans, and there is virtually no way ever to recover our rights.