4 children dead in Texas mass shooting

[Dennis Donovan]

Source: CNN.com

(CNN) -- All four of the children wounded in a mass shooting in east Texas have died, police confirmed Thursday.

Lt. Andrew Lewis, a Bay City Police spokesman, said the deceased children were 2, 3, 4 and 5 years old. He did not identify them. The 2-year-old was a girl and the 4-year-old a boy, he said.

The children's mother was wounded in the shooting Wednesday afternoon and airlifted to a hospital in Houston, according to police. Her condition was not available Thursday evening.

The apparent gunman, who killed himself at the scene, was identified Thursday as Jose Avila, 24, the mother's husband. His relationship to the children, if any, was not disclosed.

The shooting occurred at a mobile home in Bay City, about 65 miles southwest of downtown Houston. Police responded at 3:18 p.m. (4:18 p.m. ET) Wednesday to a call that a woman had been shot.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/01/justice/texas-mass-shooting/index.html

---

Jesus...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Oh, those poor babies...

My heart goes out to the mom...

[auntAgonist]

2. My heart aches for those poor defenseless children..

what on earth possesses people?

thoughts going out to the children's mother tonight.

An all round tragedy :(


:cry:

aA
kesha

[apocalypsehow]

3. Another senseless tragedy, thanks to the United State's lax gun laws. The 'gun rights' crowd in this

country are absolutely shameless in their indifference to the widespread carnage and mayhem their immature, deadly little hobby causes.

Edit: typo.

[PSPS]

5. Yes, but that's just the way it is. We must endure these things to accommodate their gun fetish.

[apocalypsehow]

6. What's saddest about your spot-on reply is that's basically what the "gunz rulz!" crowd's arguments

boils down to: We want to own them, so to hell with the social costs!!! It's extended fit-throwing as a political argument.

Excellent post. :thumbsup:



Edit: duplicate word stricken.

[hack89]

12. Since gun violence is at a 50 year low and steadily declining

I don't understand the angst against gun ownership. Over the past two decades gun violence has steadily decrease while gun ownership has skyrocketed.

[apocalypsehow]

14. Quote your irrelevant statistic to the mother of those four dead kids in Texas - I'm sure she'll be

greatly comforted.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LanternWaste]

23. How large must the number of deaths be before "angst" is justified?

How large must the number of deaths be before "angst" is justified?

[hack89]

24. We calmly accept many other things that kill many more people

If your only concern was to save the most lives, guns wouldn't even be in the top 10.

Guns seem to elicit a response well out of proportion to the actual threat. The odds of you being shot have never been lower - you have never been safer. And that is even before you consider how much the gun death rate is skewed by the drug trade and the resultant violent criminal gang activity. Most gun violence is criminals shooting other criminals. Stay out of certain neighborhoods and your very low probability of getting shot gets even lower.

[apocalypsehow]

27. That's nonsense, but putting that aside, we take positive steps to reduce/mitigate the deadliness of

things that are likely to cause large numbers of deaths. That's why seat belts are mandated in cars, and the BAT is legally .08% in all fifty states.

So your argument is really not for less regulation of guns, but more, along the lines of what we now do with cars: you must be licensed to drive a vehicle; must register to drive your vehicle with the state; and you must pay a yearly fee to the state to keep that vehicle in your possession; and you must report to the state whenever that vehicle goes out of your possession to another licensed driver.

Hey, I'm all for even that minimum level of government scrutiny being levied on guns! The NRA, however, would go sky-winding if such common sense laws were to be proposed. Their right-wing agenda precludes giving the slightest care of the mayhem their fondness for deadly toys is wreaking on this society. Right-wing scum is usually like that: selfish and non-civic minded.

[hack89]

29. Let's discuss the flaws in your logic.

Just like guns I do not need a license nor do I need to register a car if I keep it on my property and do not drive on public roads. Just like a drivers license, a concealed carry license is required to carry a gun in public.

So present gun laws are just as you want - why are you unhappy?

[apocalypsehow]

33. Find some flaws, and we'll discuss them. I don't reply to non-responsive fictions. n/t.

[hack89]

36. So guns are regulated like cars - got it. nt

[apocalypsehow]

38. So popcorn is sugared like cotton candy - got it. Meanwhile, #54 awaits. n/t.

[hack89]

39. I laid it out in black and white- show me where I am wrong. nt

[apocalypsehow]

40. You've been shown, but refuse to heed. This is a common feature of obfuscation. n/t.

[hack89]

42. I showed what you wanted is existing law. Not complicated at all. nt

[apocalypsehow]

44. You showed no such thing, but rather asserted it without the slightest evidence to substantiate the

claim made.

[hack89]

45. So you maintain I need a driver license and registration for a car I never drive on a public street?

really? How many cars have you seen parked on a lawn or driveway for years?

[apocalypsehow]

48. *Yawn* Is the phony rhetorical question, like, the only reply you know when you're back into a

corner in a debate?


:boring:

[hack89]

49. I got it now - sorry I didn't catch on earlier

have a good night.

[apocalypsehow]

50. Your concession is duly noted. n/t.

[hack89]

51. I love a good sense of humor. nt

[TorchTheWitch]

52. In my state such cars still need to be registered and insured

Even if it has no engine or wheels and is clearly not drivable.

Frankly, I'd like to know what state allows people to own functioning cars to sit in a driveway or on a lawn for years while unregistered and uninsured.

[hack89]

54. Perhaps a better example would be farm vehicles

they don't need to be registered and you don't need a license to drive on the farm - my 12 year old nephew drives an old pick up all over his parents farm.


Some cities do have laws like you mention - but they are anti-blight laws designed to prevent their streets becoming junk yards.

My city does not do that - my neighbor is a cancer patient who has not driven in 3 years. His truck has not moved in that time and its tags still read 2008.

[Gringostan]

56. With all due respect

With all due respect can we not leave the gun argument out of the discussion and grieve for the children; the issue is important, but do we need to bring it up at this time???

[hack89]

13. Gun violence is at a 50 year low and steadily declining

the only indifference here is you indifference to the facts.

[apocalypsehow]

15. Your talking point really doesn't impress me - tell it to the mother of those four dead kids. n/t.

[hack89]

18. So tell me exactly what law would have prevented this? nt

[apocalypsehow]

26. Oddly enough, in most civilized countries on this planet earth they have laws that prevent these

kinds of massacres - which are something of a routine in the Unites States - on a daily basis.

Imagine that! Sensible gun control laws, keeping firearms out of the hands of folks who really don't need them. Funny how we haven't heard about a lunatic with a gun going on a rampage that kills anybody lately out of places like Japan, Australia, Canada, the UK...gosh, a pattern emerges!

Anticipating the deluge of nonsense:

1. Would be delighted with Switzerland's gun laws, that would require a citizen (a) to be a trained, enrolled member of the equivalent of the American National Guard to store a weapon at home, (b) safely store, locked up, firearms and ammunition separately, with only 50 rounds of the latter available on hand, (c) the firearms is registered and in a database, i.e., traceable to a person responsible for it, and (d) liable for unannounced compliance checks by authorized government agents into the home of the firearm possessor to make sure the storage laws are being complied with.

So you might as well spare me the "what about Switzerland?" business: I say, bring on Switzerland's gun laws! The NRA would hate it.

2. Don't care what they do in a state that makes up less than 1% of the total aggregate population of the United States, so not interested in hearing about Vermont.

3. Not interested in hearing how Japan, Australia, Canada, the UK, etc., etc., all happy, safe, prosperous democracies, are somehow failing in their job to keep their citizens from being slaughtered by gun mayhem because someone in London got knifed with a switchblade. It's a bogus argument.

4. Comparing industrial democracies comparative rates of gun violence, or lack of, is not an "apples and oranges" argument: Google it and find out what one is before you assert.

Gosh, this preemptive list could go on and on and on, as the reams of Gungeon "logic" that gets brandished whenever someone is flying to the defense of the NRA's right-wing agenda is always long, especially in a thread about four kids dead partly as a result of that agenda.

But I'm sure you'll fill in the blanks...

[hack89]

30. None of those countries have insane drug laws and the resulting violence.

most gun violence is criminals shooting criminals - let's fix.the real problem.

[apocalypsehow]

34. Non responsive dodging & obfuscation. Also, false: drugs are illegal in every one of those countries

Please try again.

[hack89]

37. They they have extensive gang violence in all their cities? Really? nt

[apocalypsehow]

41. Non responsive. n/t.

[hack89]

43. I said that most gun violence is drug and gang related?

don't you think that comparing the level of gang violence is very relevant?

[apocalypsehow]

46. It's "relevant" only in the sense that if we had gun laws like Japan's & Europe's, there'd be whole

lot less of it. But that was not your initial assertion, in any event: having been proven wrong in one instance, you attempted here to change the subject and move the goalposts. It's a no-go, I'm afraid.

[hack89]

47. So what was my initial assertion? I think you are confused.nt

[Fair Witness]

58. When Susan Smith murdered her children, did you launch a vendetta against cars?

Just curious...

[Gringostan]

55. Think of the loss

Can we not leave the stupid gun argument out of the discussion and grieve for the children for now. With all due respect the gun issue is important, but do we need to bring it up at this time???

[msanthrope]

57. I would be interested in knowing how an undocumented person got a gun.

I'd be interested in knowing how this gun was obtained.


November 22, 2011, police said Gonzales filed an assault report and was taken by officers to a crisis center.
But later, she refused to press charges.
SNIP

It was not clear why the family reunited Wednesday, but Elizondo said that after the November 22 assault report, Gonzales told him she and Avila were afraid to get the police involved because of their immigration status.

"She was scared she didn’t have papers, that he didn’t have papers. They were both scared that they were going to get deported," Elizondo said.

Police did not confirm whether the family was in the country illegally, but investigators on Thursday said they were looking into it.

http://www.kens5.com/news/Police-All-4-children-shot-by-father-have-died-mom-still-critical-134868443.html

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Sickening on so many levels

What a fucked-up society................

[Auntie Bush]

7. That's one of the saddest things I've heard!

That's what happens when everyone has guns and a permit to use them. Any irresponsible fool can buy a gun in Texas and many other states. I'm frankly surprised there haven't been more killings. Maybe there have and they keep it a secret at the "request" of the IRA.

[coalition_unwilling]

9. The IRA? Do you mean the Irish Republican Army? If so, the

cultural reference seems a bit antiquated.

Am I missing something?

[hack89]

19. I think the poster meant NRA.

that evil organization that is part of the secret government that hides the facts about crime, guns, unemployment, inflation, etc etc.

[coalition_unwilling]

22. Duh! Of course! I don't know how I failed to catch that it was a

typo.

Must be the flu and cold meds I've been taking.

Thanks for the clarification. Mystery solved. :)

[oneshooter]

11. Check your own states requirements for firearm ownership,

before complaining about another's.

[slackmaster]

32. That's an interesting comment from someone in a state that allows concealed carry with no permit

Unlike Texas.

:argh:

[PavePusher]

59. You can cite to where this murderer had a permit?

Or are you merely greatly confused on how this works?

[Swede Atlanta]

8. What a tremendous tragedy..........

My thoughts and prayers go out to them. What provoked him to commit this horrible act? Was he under severe stress? Was he mentally ill? How did he come to possess a firearm? So many questions that will probably never be answered.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

10. For a while in South Florida there were a lot of men who, before shooting themselves...

would first shoot the wife and kids. This began to happen when the economy turned bad. Psychologists were all over TV explaining why so many men didn't just commit suicide and call it a day, without first shooting the wife and kids. It's a phenomenon that happens all too often, and it even has a name, Familicide, and it happens almost exclusively with men (95% of the perps are men).

Despondent dads driven to kill loved ones:
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-05-19/justice/murder.suicide.families_1_mental-illness-suicide-wife-and-three-children?_s=PM:CRIME

Familicide: The Killing of Spouse and Children:
http://psych.mcmaster.ca/dalywilson/FamilicideSpouseChildren.pdf

Inside the Mind of Family Annihilators:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/02/10/inside-the-minds-of-family-annihilators.html

Murder-Suicide in Families:
http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/intimate-partner-violence/murder-suicide.htm

Fathers Who Kill:
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/fathers_who_kill/3.html

Familicide: a comparison with spousal and child homicide by mentally disordered perpetrators:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19072934

Familicide - Evolutionary Origins:
http://www.bizarrebehaviors.com/2009/09/familicide-evolutionary-origins.html

[Rhiannon12866]

16. How horrible!

;(

[neovente]

20. That poor mother...

The kids are not suffering. That poor woman has to face everyday the rest of her life without her children. I don't know how I'd survive something like that.

[coyote]

21. I will never understand something like this.

How could you ever recover mentally from something like this?

Simply horrible.

[midnight]

25. Great sadness. I hope this mother can explain to the rest of us what triggered this

killing...

[kiranon]

28. Wonder if the number of children killed by guns has gone up?

[slackmaster]

31. Here's a site where you can structure the question any way you want, and get real data to answer it

http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html

The answer to your question will vary depending on how you define "children," what kinds of incidents and intent are included, what years you choose to consider, etc.

Generally the answer is that firearm-related deaths have been trending slowly downward for many years.

[potone]

35. How horrifying!

And just imagine the emotional pain that mother has in store for her if she even survives the shooting. It doesn't bear thinking about. I am sure we will know more soon about the circumstances, but once again the NRA defenders will find a way to say that guns were somehow not part of the problem here.

[AverageJoe90]

53. One of the saddest things I've heard on here, concerning happenings in Texas.

Heartfelt condolences to all the surviving family members. :(