Desertdog
Member
http://www.sierratimes.com/07/05/02/74_60_255_75_74202.htm
Once again, nobody had a gun
Carl F. Worden
Once again, nobody but the killer had a gun in that state-imposed “Gun Free Zone” called California, and this time the dead were all known to me.
One of my long-term clients is the County of Santa Cruz, California. On April 27, 2007, Steve Smith, a supervisor at the Santa Cruz County Sanitation Facility on Lode Street in Santa Cruz, walked into a fellow supervisor’s office and shot him to death. Smith then went after his own estranged wife, Tamara, who was trying to drive away and crashed into a Eucalyptus tree. Smith shot her four times in the head and then turned the gun on himself before police could respond.
Calling 911 just doesn’t cut it at a moment like that. If you don’t have the means to immediately defend yourself with the same means your assailant has, the best you can hope for is a quick and painless death – you know, like all those kids and faculty at Virginia Tech.
Fellow Sanitation Supervisor, Mike “Mikey” Sotelo, was one of the nicest and most considerate human beings I’ve ever met in this life. Smith’s estranged wife, Tamara, worked with Mikey at the facility and had recently moved into an apartment with him after Mikey and his wife separated. It sounds like a classic love triangle gone very wrong, but that is pure speculation on my part.
Santa Cruz County, where I once lived, is one of the most gun-phobic places in the entire United States. A lot of the people who live there start shaking like a wet poodle at the mere sight of a firearm, thinking it can just jump off the table and take pot-shots at them.
I know. One time, I was on my way to a shooting range in the mountains above Boulder Creek and had my unloaded rifle in the rack of my pick-up truck. A Santa Cruz Police Officer I knew stopped me and said three people had called in, all hysterical, thinking it was illegal to transport my rifle that way, and would I please be kind enough to move it out of sight onto the seat next to me. (Read, they didn’t think I should have a rifle at all, and called the cops).
The officer was just as sympathetically disgusted as I was, and I complied with his request.
Unlike over half the states, California does not have a “Shall-Issue Law” on the books, and most of the county sheriffs have total discretion on who can be issued a concealed gun permit. When one person has that much authority to abuse, they often do it by letting close friends and relatives get permits, while those not so connected get told at the front desk they are wasting their time applying for one.
When I inquired, the counter people at the Sheriff’s Office made it clear they didn’t want me to waste their time filling out an application for a permit that wouldn’t be issued for any reason anyway.
“Any reason”, might be a woman who has a credible and imminent threat against her, usually from a demonstrably violent former partner who has vowed that if he can’t have her, nobody will. In most cases, it wouldn’t matter if there was a long history of domestic abuse to back it up. She’s often given the very worst advice any cop could give, and that is to seek a restraining order against her former partner.
Hey, and if he violates it, just call 911.
If you want to get an abused woman killed or severely mauled, tell her to get a restraining order. If anything will put a violent domestic abuser over the edge of sanity, getting served a restraining order has proven time after time to be just the ticket.
As the recent slaughter at Virginia Tech proved once again, a “Gun Free Zone” is a place where everybody there is “gun free” except the psychopath with the gun, and Steven Smith had every reason to believe nobody but he would have a gun when he entered that sanitation facility with murder in his heart.
Yes, it was premeditated. Smith had written out a will leaving all to his daughter before leaving for “work” that morning.
All three people were known to me, but I got to know Mikey Sotelo more than the others, and Liz and I are just devastated by the news. I’ve worked with the employees of Santa Cruz County for 30 years, providing supplemental insurance to them, and when you’ve been associated with people that long, they are more like family to you than just clients.
Mikey was just an all-around decent, kind, giving and considerate person, and this world is diminished by his untimely passing.
The Santa Cruz Sentinel story can be found at:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/May/01/local/stories/01local.htm">http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/cg...archive/2007/May/01/local/stories/01local.htm
Carl F. Worden
Once again, nobody had a gun
Carl F. Worden
Once again, nobody but the killer had a gun in that state-imposed “Gun Free Zone” called California, and this time the dead were all known to me.
One of my long-term clients is the County of Santa Cruz, California. On April 27, 2007, Steve Smith, a supervisor at the Santa Cruz County Sanitation Facility on Lode Street in Santa Cruz, walked into a fellow supervisor’s office and shot him to death. Smith then went after his own estranged wife, Tamara, who was trying to drive away and crashed into a Eucalyptus tree. Smith shot her four times in the head and then turned the gun on himself before police could respond.
Calling 911 just doesn’t cut it at a moment like that. If you don’t have the means to immediately defend yourself with the same means your assailant has, the best you can hope for is a quick and painless death – you know, like all those kids and faculty at Virginia Tech.
Fellow Sanitation Supervisor, Mike “Mikey” Sotelo, was one of the nicest and most considerate human beings I’ve ever met in this life. Smith’s estranged wife, Tamara, worked with Mikey at the facility and had recently moved into an apartment with him after Mikey and his wife separated. It sounds like a classic love triangle gone very wrong, but that is pure speculation on my part.
Santa Cruz County, where I once lived, is one of the most gun-phobic places in the entire United States. A lot of the people who live there start shaking like a wet poodle at the mere sight of a firearm, thinking it can just jump off the table and take pot-shots at them.
I know. One time, I was on my way to a shooting range in the mountains above Boulder Creek and had my unloaded rifle in the rack of my pick-up truck. A Santa Cruz Police Officer I knew stopped me and said three people had called in, all hysterical, thinking it was illegal to transport my rifle that way, and would I please be kind enough to move it out of sight onto the seat next to me. (Read, they didn’t think I should have a rifle at all, and called the cops).
The officer was just as sympathetically disgusted as I was, and I complied with his request.
Unlike over half the states, California does not have a “Shall-Issue Law” on the books, and most of the county sheriffs have total discretion on who can be issued a concealed gun permit. When one person has that much authority to abuse, they often do it by letting close friends and relatives get permits, while those not so connected get told at the front desk they are wasting their time applying for one.
When I inquired, the counter people at the Sheriff’s Office made it clear they didn’t want me to waste their time filling out an application for a permit that wouldn’t be issued for any reason anyway.
“Any reason”, might be a woman who has a credible and imminent threat against her, usually from a demonstrably violent former partner who has vowed that if he can’t have her, nobody will. In most cases, it wouldn’t matter if there was a long history of domestic abuse to back it up. She’s often given the very worst advice any cop could give, and that is to seek a restraining order against her former partner.
Hey, and if he violates it, just call 911.
If you want to get an abused woman killed or severely mauled, tell her to get a restraining order. If anything will put a violent domestic abuser over the edge of sanity, getting served a restraining order has proven time after time to be just the ticket.
As the recent slaughter at Virginia Tech proved once again, a “Gun Free Zone” is a place where everybody there is “gun free” except the psychopath with the gun, and Steven Smith had every reason to believe nobody but he would have a gun when he entered that sanitation facility with murder in his heart.
Yes, it was premeditated. Smith had written out a will leaving all to his daughter before leaving for “work” that morning.
All three people were known to me, but I got to know Mikey Sotelo more than the others, and Liz and I are just devastated by the news. I’ve worked with the employees of Santa Cruz County for 30 years, providing supplemental insurance to them, and when you’ve been associated with people that long, they are more like family to you than just clients.
Mikey was just an all-around decent, kind, giving and considerate person, and this world is diminished by his untimely passing.
The Santa Cruz Sentinel story can be found at:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/May/01/local/stories/01local.htm">http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/cg...archive/2007/May/01/local/stories/01local.htm
Carl F. Worden
