Video of Russian boy's murder

[SRMohawk]

Gentlemen (& Ladies),
However loosely related to firearms issues this thread may be, I just had to post it here because I generally respect the people at this forum so much and hold your opinions in high regard.

A friend of mine whose a police officer out on the West Coast recently sent me an e-mail containing a video reel titled "Candid Camera: Russian Style". This fairly good quality video, which was shot in 1995, was of the last moments of a 20 y.o. Russian boy who, for Russian TV, volunteered to get inside a postal kiosk to procure for a hidden film crew some yards away the reactions of various area residents as they watched their mail go into the slot at the top of the kiosk and then pop right back out. At first, a pretty young woman walks up and promptly starts laughing as she gets into 'playing catch' with the boy inside the mail receptacle. Then a dark-skinned young man (probably a foreigner in that country) happens along and reacts in pretty much the same way. Good, clean, no-one-gets-hurt fun with video, right? Well, at length, this large fat man in his 50s comes along and throws a letter-sized envelope into the slot at the top of the kiosk. And like the other two before him, starts laughing when it pops right back out. Suddenly, however, the humor in his face disappears as he very casually produces what looks like a .45 ACP from under the windbreaker-type jacket he was wearing, sticks it in the slot of this mail receptacle and, with deliberate calm, empties its magazine. The video reel stops and a photo of the boy is shown under which his years of birth and death are printed.

Have any of you seen this video? And if so, please share your comments/opinions. For my own part, I'm having great difficulty with it. It ruined my night, in fact, prior to which the only thing bothering me was Texas' defeat at the hands of Ohio State. The thing is, I don't understand why I'm so upset about it. It happened in a distant land, after all, more than ten years ago. Nonetheless, I found myself saying to my wife as I laid down next to her for the night; "Kitty, should I get rid of all our guns?". Am I just being oversensitive? Am I getting soft as I age?

 

[Rumble]

Fortunately, the video turns out not to be real. As discussed at http://www.snopes.com/photos/advertisements/mailbox.asp, it's actually some sort of advertisement for a graphic arts and print production company in Brazil, and nobody is actually harmed in the making thereof.

Assuming, of course, it's the video you're describing.

 

[SigfanUSAF]

Keep in mind, the vast majority of those kinds of videos are staged.

 

[Justin]

The video is available via YouTube, in the context of a "Hidden Camera Show" and I'd bet money that the entire thing was staged.

 

[geekWithA.45]

A friend of mine whose a police officer out on the West Coast recently sent me an e-mail containing a video reel titled "Candid Camera: Russian Style". This fairly good quality video, which was shot in 1995, was of the last moments of a

I find it fascinating that west coast LEO's are circulating this bit of fiction as evidence that guns in the hands of civilians are baaaaad.

:banghead:

 

[hso]

Am I getting soft as I age?

You just got played is all. A little more scepticism might be in order.

"Kitty, should I get rid of all our guns?"

That one you might want to do a little soul searching over. A bad person does something bad with a thing and you're concerned about the thing instead of the bad person?

 

[SRMohawk]

Whew! Well then, there it is! That was indeed the same video reel. Thank you all!!! I feel so much better that the embarrassment probably won't set in for a few days.

As for why I bought into it so readily, that's probably attributable to the fact that one of my cousins was shot to death up in Canada some years ago. His killer was never apprehended. Later, his mother (my aunt) told me he had gotten mixed up in shady business dealings with the Russian mob.

 

[XavierBreath]

I find it fascinating that west coast LEO's are circulating this bit of fiction as evidence that guns in the hands of civilians are baaaaad.

Agreed. Each civilian who receives it should forward it on with the snopes link debunking it.

 

[mattw]

Am I getting soft as I age?

Some times I think that after all the things we deal with (especially you being a nurse) probably builds up and then something stupid like that video that should have no effect on you just puts you on emotional edge.

Get rid of all your guns? That would just be stupid.

 

[torpid]

Rule #463 of the internet:

Initially assume a video clip is either a hoax, demo reel excerpt, or viral marketing before verifying its veracity.


.

 

[SRMohawk]

Ya know, Matt W., your comment there made so much sense I'm gonna have to explore it in much greater depth.

Reminds me, in fact, of when I was a boy, when my dad used to do alot of volunteer work with homeless Vietnam vets (There were alot more around back in the 80s, too.). He even started taking me along when I turned 13. After just a few of these outtings, however, I ended asking him; "Dad, why are these guys so strange and so dysfunctional?" And he answered by saying; "Because they've seen and experienced things that weigh heavily on the human mind and heart."

Alot of nurses are REALLY weird that same way, especially the ones that do critical care work. I don't know a single emergency or critical care nurse that isn't either currently struggling with acoholism and/or drug abuse, or hasn't struggled with it at some time in their career. This includes myself! And the only thing that got me sober was when my ex-wife and I had our little boy.

The birth of my little boy is also, curiously enough, what prompted my gravitation to guys like you High Road boys !

 

[rangerruck]

I dont know if it is real or not. Whatever the case , you just saw something that your soul was never meant to see, the cruelty of man, the total disregard, the death of another, and a gruesome one at that. it is much like the Daniel Berg beheading video. The idiots in the video are shouting joyously , while Daniel screams for about 10 seconds. then they are lifting his head. this tears at my heart every time i even think about it. So this video is the same. It is done for two reasons , real or fake. One is ,to get you to have the reaction you had, and lay down any weapons , or will to fight. Two is to make you question whether or not you could even be a 'man of real will', or to hesitate. In some countries , this type video is shown over and over, to not only desensitize the viewers to gruesome death, often showing them to children, but to actually make them more "steely" , to want that situation, with those probabilities to arise, so that there will be no hesitation.
So you must do something different, not one of the things you are 'supposed' to do . whether it is a choice of being over run internally, confronted by islamic invaders, whether it is gangs, or drug dealers, or someone wiped out on smack, you have to make your mind clear. These types of people will have no mercy on you or your wife there, and what you do next is justified, to you , and your morals. You did not ask for this type of evil to face you in the world, but baby it is out there in Spades! I remember one trip I made in particular, while in the Army. It was a deployment to the Philipines, during the time after the the Marcos were going out of office, and the commies were trying to take over the show. Lets just say I saw the callousness some people have towards human life , up close.
We just happen to live in America, and don't see too much of it, only glimpses in the media. And they will never show it in real time. ( like they never show the people jumping from the towers, allthough there is tons of footage of this)
This does not mean you have to make yourself hardcore, or jaded, just to be prepared, so that your actions take over for you. You can grieve later.

 

[Banta]

"I dont know if it is real or not. Whatever the case , you just saw something that your soul was never meant to see, the cruelty of man, the total disregard, the death of another, and a gruesome one at that. it is much like the Daniel Berg beheading video. The idiots in the video are shouting joyously , while Daniel screams for about 10 seconds. then they are lifting his head. this tears at my heart every time i even think about it."


Very true. It is sad and disturbing when we look at videos and pictures of people being killed and/or maimed all in the name of macabre "entertainment".


"For my own part, I'm having great difficulty with it. It ruined my night, in fact, prior to which the only thing bothering me was Texas' defeat at the hands of Ohio State. The thing is, I don't understand why I'm so upset about it."


Yes SRMohawk, it's good that it disturbed you. You should only be worried when stuff like that stops disturbing you.

 

[Low-Sci]

I saw that video a while back, had me going for a little while too.

The first time I saw it, I thought "You've gotta be kidding me," but it was in shock and horror. It turned to disbelief pretty quickly; something like that would have gotten serious attention. I wouldn't have randomly run across it on the internet.

Those kind of videos do bother me. But I guess when I think its fake, I get over it a whole lot faster than if its real.

 

[gunsmith]

my BIL was shot dead in NYC 30 years ago

I never once thought that guns were to blame, I was angry that he couldn't carry one to shoot back

 

[razorburn]

I saw that video. It's on youtube and a number of other places advertised as hidden camera prank. Since it was labeled as fake from the time I saw it, I never took it seriously and thought it was kind of funny.

 

[coyote_jr]

Since when is a 20 year old guy a "boy"? That sounds like Bradyspeak to me

 

[Erebus]

Since when is a 20 year old guy a "boy"?

When you are playing on irrational, emotional responce you have to increase the emotional shock value. Saying a child was shot achieves that emotional shock. Saying a grown man was shot does not. You have to get people to react instead of act. People who act think. People who are reacting aren't thinking. That's the only way to get people to blame an inanimate object for the behavior of the person using it. We don't blame the presence of cars on the highway for accidents do we? No, we blame one or more drivers. But often we blame the presence of the gun for the shooting. The trigger puller is barely taken into consideration if at all.