2 Sheriff's deputies shot & killed serving a warrant.

[sharesunited]

Innocent bystander wounded by stray gunfire.

How did this goof get a gun? Oh, that's right. Easily. This is America.

http://newsok.com/seminole-county-shoot-out-claims-2-deputies/article/3388295?custom_click=masthead_topten

[slackmaster]

1. Story contains two conflicting accounts of what happened

Did the cops knock and the guy answered, coming out shooting?

Or did the cops kick in the door and enter the house forcefully?

This is already being discussed in other forums. Posting it here is flame bait.

K&U

:kick:

[sharesunited]

2. Link to DU please?

[slackmaster]

3. LBN thread link here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3987774&mesg_id=3987774

[sharesunited]

6. IMO, this story merits a Gun Forum thread.

The fundamental problem is the availability of guns and ammo.

The discussion in LBN seems to be whether the cops deserved to get shot!

[TheWraith]

9. The United Kingdom would disagree with you.

Guns are very nearly banned over there, and their violent crime rate is still sky high.

[sharesunited]

12. Don't try to discredit the efforts in the UK. They are doing the right thing.

They are demonstrating the good sense which thus far we lack in the USA.

[slackmaster]

14. By sending a SWAT team to arrest a teenage girl with a non-firing toy gun

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[sharesunited]

17. You're smearing national policy with a ham handed enforcement tactic.

The objective is domestic tranquility. Something we will fall short of the longer we indulge gun love.

[TheWraith]

20. The UK has a violent crime rate far in excess of ours.

So much for domestic tranquility.

[sharesunited]

21. I show murder per capita rankings USA #24 and UK #46.

[Demoiselle]

23. Could you provide us with a source for this data? (nt)

[TheWraith]

25. US: 800 assaults per 100,000 people. UK: 1,200.

In this context, "assaults" refers to all violent crimes against a person, which includes attempted murder, rape, and muggings.

[sharesunited]

29. It also presumably includes punches in the nose.

Which is what people without guns might resort to when they are prevented from pumping rounds into each other.

[eqfan592]

33. Try knives, swords....

...and many other equally dangerous and deadly weapons. And these are often more easily concealable and have the advantage of being silent. Also, the attackers know their prey is unarmed, which gives them even further advantage.

Yep, Shares, you're promoting a great thing!

[SteveM]

32. You have strange attitudes toward "indulgence" and "love."

[TheWraith]

15. So making it impossible for citizens to lawfully own guns is the "right" thing?

Okay--what other rights are you willing to give up in exchange for the illusion of safety? How about the 4th Amendment? It would be a lot easier to toss those gang members in jail if we didn't need a warrant to search them.

[sharesunited]

16. Scalia and Thomas are your friends. Otherwise, militia would mean militia like the plain text says.

[TheWraith]

18. Try reading the law again.

First, the second amendment is not limited to militia service. Never has been. Second, the "militia" is every male US citizen and persons who've pledged to pursue US citizenship, age 17 to 45, all women in the National Guard, and such other individuals as state law includes.

[sharesunited]

22. Face it, even the militia reference is obsolete. With whom are you purporting to struggle?

If it is insurrection and civil unrest which your militia is theoretically responding to, you enable that problem with guns in the general population.

[TheWraith]

26. I, for one, don't think of the constitution as "antiquated."

You, however, are free to amend it if you can muster the support. You won't, because yours is an extreme fringe position.

[sharesunited]

28. Not every subject matter which the Constitution touches will come within the amendment process.

Careful with that one, otherwise you're parroting the so-called strict constructionists.

Otherwise you put Griswold and Roe in peril.

No, sometimes proper judicial interpretation works just fine to advance the progress of society.

[RaleighNCDUer]

27. Therefore, we may confiscate all weapons belonging to all persons

not in those demographics, right?

[slackmaster]

31. No, the federal government has no authority to do that

See Amendments 4, 5, 9, and 10.

[slackmaster]

13. I was referring to a specific news story from last week - this link may or may not work

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2549115/Teenage-girl-arrested-after-assault-rifle-found-in-room.html

[snappyturtle]

4. ???????????? flame bait nt

[slackmaster]

5. The person who started the thread has a long history of spinning every gun crime as a gun problem

A justification for banning guns. The real problem is criminal behavior, usually by people who are already legally disqualified from owning a gun.

[sharesunited]

7. No spinning required. The problem of availability speaks for itself.

[eqfan592]

36. This is sharesunited version of the "no spin zone." It's about as accurate....

...a description here as it is on BillO's show.

[snappyturtle]

42. Oh. nt

[slackmaster]

8. The warrant was issued in May "for a charge of domestic assault and battery by strangulation"

Why did the police wait until now to serve it? And why did they send two regular officers rather than a SWAT team?

In the UK they send SWAT teams to arrest people with non-firing replica firearms. Surely we can do better here.

[TheWraith]

11. That can't be accurate. After all, it was obviously the gun that did it, right?

It's not like somebody could POSSIBLY be violent, unless they're being affected by the magical field of a gun.

[dgibby]

19. According to the transcript,

the suspect was in his mother's house against her wishes. She called the police. My understanding of the May arrest warrent was that it was mentioned to demonstrate the suspect's history of violence, but I'm tired (3 hrs sleep), so may have misread or misunderstood what I read.:shrug:

[iverglas]

35. good info is so hard to come by

Why, the idea that it might be on the internet ...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5groqwe_UlKO2iHmehLUYZkFD7tIgD99MVKSO0

The warrant deputies were trying to serve was for failing to make a court appearance after Holbert was released on bond in a domestic violence case in February. In that case, his mother told police he tried to strangle her after he was inhaling paint thinner, court records show. According to an affidavit, "Ms. Holbert and her kids are in fear of Ezekiel's explosive behavior."

If something doesn't seem to make sense, maybe it's because it doesn't.

Are SWAT teams ordinarily sent to serve bench warrants where you're at?

[paulsby]

43. read some of radley balko's work (a firm critic of militarization of police)

at least in my agency, we do a risk assessment and only warrants that meet certain criteria get a SWAT team.

i've been on scores of warrant entries myself. some with SWAT others w/o

SWAT is not a tool you would want to use on every warrant.

[rrneck]

10. The "people go nuts when they get guns" theory seems

not to apply here. The willingness to kill somebody with your bare hands indicates a certain enthusiasm for hurting people.

Deputies were serving a warrant issued in May for a charge of domestic assault and battery by strangulation.

[Pholus]

24. Gun violence is a simple consequence of:

When you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

:)

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

38. My possession of a hammer doesn't cause me to hallucinate, if yours does you may need a doctor.

[yost69]

30. Well the story doesn't say

but i would bet that the guy is a criminal and could never have legally had possession of a firearm in the first place.

And the story also doesn't say whether the bystander was shot by the bullets of the criminal or the police.

[iverglas]

34. how much?

but i would bet that the guy is a criminal and could never have legally had possession of a firearm in the first place.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5groqwe_UlKO2iHmehLUYZkFD7tIgD99MVKSO0

Holbert's sister, Tamara Rodriguez, filed for a protective order against him in June 2007, claiming he threatened to kill her husband and her children.

"I'm so scared for my family that he is going to kill someone," Rodriguez wrote in the petition. "He has three guns in the house that he brags about that he is going to shoot my husband with."

The order was dismissed in July 2008 at Rodriguez's request. She said she had moved to Texas and had not had any problems with her brother for almost a year.

Holbert previously was convicted of a misdemeanor count of outraging public decency in Oklahoma County and was the defendant in a case in which a Shawnee man sought a protective order against him.

Huh. Sounds like he was "a criminal" all right. Just not a person with the criminal convictions that would bar him from legal access to firearms.

The warrant deputies were trying to serve was for failing to make a court appearance after Holbert was released on bond in a domestic violence case in February. In that case, his mother told police he tried to strangle her after he was inhaling paint thinner, court records show. According to an affidavit, "Ms. Holbert and her kids are in fear of Ezekiel's explosive behavior."

His estranged sister had withdrawn her application for a protective order. This was likely a smart move on her part, to sever all contact with him, once she personally felt that she was safe from him.

But public safety? The safety of other individuals?

Well, it seems that the onus for that rests on the shoulders of people like the family members of assholes like this. If they want protection from scum with guns, they have to expose themselves to the risks of privately-initiated legal proceedings. If they decide it is in their own best interests not to seek a restraining order (which would theoretically bar him from legal access to firearms), then life just goes on ... until it doesn't, for whomever the asshole kills.

In Canada, the obvious dangerousness of someone like this one would have resulted in a denial of a permit to acquire firearms.

What a horrific violation of rights that would have been ...



And the story also doesn't say whether the bystander was shot by the bullets of the criminal or the police.

Yeah. Undoubtedly the police were firing out of the house toward the street ...

[yost69]

41. Yeah. Undoubtedly the police were firing out of the house toward the street ...

It is possible. If they were being shot at while in the house, while shooting back their bullets could very well have missed the intended target and went through a window. Story states "They both were hit within moments of the door opening," Brown said. "I don't know if they even had the opportunity to return fire." And it mentions nothing as to who's bullet hit the bystander.

As far as the criminal part, I'm still not sure. Considering he was on bond for domestic violence the magistrate should have put a stipulation in there about possession of firearms. The story still doesn't state whether legally allowed to have one or not.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

37. My thoughts and prayers to the families of the Officers.

[iverglas]

39. so

Do they read your mind? Or is it that they read this forum? Or is it the sound of clanging cymbals again?

Get thee to the upper room. My gag reflex runneth over.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

40. You'll get over it.