Anniston store clerk charged with firing gun at customers

[jpak]

http://www.annistonstar.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Anniston+store+clerk+charged+with+firing+gun+at+customers%20&id=14116466&instance=recentComments

A disagreement at a convenience store on the 1600 block of Front Street in Anniston turned into a shooting when the clerk followed three customers outside and fired into their car, Anniston police said.

The clerk, Mahmoud Masa, 24, was arrested at 8:58 p.m. Thursday and charged with three counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle.

The three victims reported being hit with glass during the incident.

One of the victims, a 20-year-old male, reported to Anniston police he had an argument with Masa about the amount of money exchanged between them Thursday at 8 p.m., Sgt. Fred Forsythe said.

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more gun stupidity

yup

[IntravenousDemilo]

1. The reason people shouldn't have guns is that people are people.

People in general are mean and irresponsible and cannot be trusted, and we can be trusted even less if we're armed. It's human nature. If we didn't have to figure human nature into the equation, if ours were a less repugnant species, then I'd say, sure, bring on the guns. But we're not. We'd be much better off if only we could uninvent them.

[PavePusher]

2. There should probably be some method of ensuring total control of all people....

all the time.

Then we could all be safe.

[Katya Mullethov]

3. That would be super wouldnt it ?

[IntravenousDemilo]

4. A little self-control would be nice for a change. n/m

[eqfan592]

7. Given how you think about humans in general...

...I'm surprised you think self control is even possible. You are an interesting study in contradictions.

[IntravenousDemilo]

8. That's the thing. Self-control is apparently very out of fashion.

Not, if history is any judge, that it has ever been much in fashion. People seem to think that any notion of self-control interferes with their rights and threatens their individuality. So they act out like spoiled, immature, likely destructive children who shouldn't be let near a gun.

I shudder to think what will happen once our species manages to perfect nuclear fusion. Fission was bad enough.

[eqfan592]

9. Lol, I would really love..

...to hear your explanation on THAT one! You think people standing up for their rights are acting out like spoiled children? Or do you have specific extreme examples that you are simply applying to all gun owners as a whole? Do you paint with a similarly broad brush when it comes to other subjects, or just this one?

And lets be honest, it isn't self control we are talking about. This is about controls being placed ON people from external authorities, which is the opposite of self control. Why you keep calling this "self control" is completely beyond me.

[IntravenousDemilo]

12. I have a general misanthropy through which I view events.

Are you suggesting that Mr Massa, in following these people out to their car and firing into it, was merely standing up for his rights? People like him are the reason I'm a misanthrope.

My misanthropy isn't reserved exclusively for gun users, but our species as a whole. And I have seen no evidence that human beings deserve to command the rapid and destructive power of firearms, or nukes, or anything beyond the blunt-ended scissors they give kids in kindergarten for arts and crafts.

Einstein's quote, "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking," could apply to all weapons, not just atomic ones. I also agree with him when he said, "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."

[eqfan592]

13. The evidence...

...is the defensive use of firearms that occur thousands of times a year. Taking away the guns won't suddenly make the criminals toothless, but it will make the victims much more likely to be defenseless.

I was suggesting no such thing about Mr Massa, and I don't believe I even made mention of him in my post.

To be honest, I find your attitude disturbing, but it's your right to have it. But if you think giving everybody kindergarten scissors will suddenly make the world a better place, you are greatly mistaken IMHO.

[IntravenousDemilo]

15. The case of Mr Massa was the basis of this thread.

I thought you were referring back to the story. Sorry about that.

Don't be disturbed by my thoughts. You may very well be one of the small handful of people who are ready for guns. More power to you if you are, but you are in a tiny minority.

The reason I alluded to kindergarten scissors is that one doesn't put big, sharp shears in the hands of little kids who haven't proven they can handle them.

[eqfan592]

17. But is that not one of the accepted dangers of a free society??

Any one of our freedoms can be and are abused for nefarious purposes on a regular basis, but does this mean we should then restrict heavily the freedoms of all because of the actions of a few, or do we accept these consequences and enjoy the benefits of the freedoms? I guess depending on who you are you can go either way on the issue. But I've always thought it better to treat people as though they CAN handle civil liberties (and the responsibilities that come with them) until they have proven otherwise.

No worries about the misunderstanding. I do realize the story was originally about Mr. Massa, but I was indeed speaking in more general terms and could have made that more clear in my post.

[Euromutt]

11. I have one question

Why on Earth would you consider yourself a Democrat, liberal and/or progressive? It seems hard to marry such a political view with such a deep-seated distrust of mankind in general. Wouldn't you be happier advocating benign despotism, perhaps?

[IntravenousDemilo]

14. First of all, I'm Canadian...

... so I'm not a Democrat. I am a social democrat, though, which isn't the same as being a liberal.

I do know that democracy is imperfect because of an imperfect population, but it's the best thing we have simply because a benign despot can easily be replaced by a malignant one as soon as not. Oddly enough, although individually people can be pretty nasty, especially the psychopathic alpha people we have in charge, collectively there's a wisdom that naturally unfolds when more extreme opinions tend to filter themselves out of public discourse. But we cannot realistically blind ourselves to flaws in human nature. Pretty well all people are horrid, venal, self-serving, and dishonest at various times in their lives, and at times have to be saved from themselves. Sometimes that takes a little bit of state intervention.

[gejohnston]

18. Say what?

Tommy Douglas must be spinning in his grave, I never read such authoritarian bullshit in my life.
I don't think all people are horrid at one time or another. Self serving and dishonest yeah, but not venal and horrid.
Yes sometimes state intervention is required. But the cops tend to show up kind of late, if they show up at all. That is expecially true if you are in rural SK and the nearest RCMP detachment is fifty miles away (or the OPP in Onterio). But then, you live in the land where the Crown sometimes can't tell the difference between someone defending their lives and homes from violent attacks from a lynch mob taking the law in their own hands.
Here, as our courts have ruled many times, the state has no obligation to keep you from or rescue from being raped or murdered. Sometimes individual intervention is the only possible solution.

[IntravenousDemilo]

20. Mine is a very typical social democratic position.

Also, I was named after Tommy Douglas and used to live in rural Saskatchewan. And I live in a country founded on "peace, order, and good government" rather than "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". It's bound to colour my thinking.

[gejohnston]

21. and color my thinking too.

No offense, but it sounds like a left wing version of Harper's faction of the Tories. I have a good friend that lives in the London, Onterio area. I am guessing the Social Dems have few seats in parliment.

[IntravenousDemilo]

23. Well...

In the federal election last month, the social democratic NDP increased its number of seats from 38 to 103 and is now the Official Opposition. We've basically traded places with the Liberal party. It will take a truly committed and hard-headed left-wing party like the NDP to yank Canada back to the centre. Fire has to be fought with fire.

[gejohnston]

27. I did not know SDP merged with NDP.

While I agree with NDP on some things, some I do not. Actually, there is no Canadian party that I can agree on with all or issues. Since I am not Canadian, that is kind of a non issue. What I am courious about, is how the communitarian views of todays NDP flying? Like here, the Liberals are screwing themselves with the stupid and pointless long gun registry. From what I understand, the NFA and gun rights activists have no problem with the 1977 law (other than machine gun collectors), why Liberals insist on wasting their capital on a law that only lines the pockets of Honeywell and some smaller IT companies. Is Harper that far to the right? As an outsider I see two problems with the left in Canada:
Liberals won before partly because there were two conservative parties. They wised up and merged. You and the Liberals need to figure out how not to split the vote.
Second, the gun issue in Canada is an urban and rural issue not a left/right issue. The same is true here to a smaller degree. Even the Greens figured that out. Most ridings are rural. Ditch support for the 1995 law. So it will piss off some urban voters, so what. Are they going to vote Tory? Maybe, they may be Tory on other issues anyway.

[IntravenousDemilo]

29. We don't have an SDP here.

I'm a social democrat, not a Social Democrat. The NDP are Canada's social democratic party.

You're quite right, the gun issue isn't left/right, but urban/rural. The reason why the Liberals championed the long-gun registry is that almost all of their MPs lately have been urban. The NDP has quite a few rural seats. In the last vote, the LIberals whipped their caucus to vote for the registry, while the NDP did not. It did not prevent the Liberals from losing most of their urban ridings. Some of them went to the NDP, but some "liberals" voted Conservative on May 2 (there's not a lot of difference between them that I can see) because they would rather see Harper remain in power than give the government to scary socialists.

I think the Liberals may be a spent force. Their seat count has gone down in every election since the beginning of the century, while that of the NDP has gone up. I hope the NDP can keep their noses clean, but we are of course dealing with politicians with all the normal failings of human nature PLUS larger than usual ambition.

[Euromutt]

22. Okay, another question

There's a question I tend to ask my acquaintances who are of a libertarian bent, which is that "if, as you believe, people, when left to themselves, will generally gravitate towards doing the Right Thing, even if it's only out of enlightened self-interest, why do you seem to believe that these same people, if placed into public office, will suddenly become authoritarian wastrels?"

My question to you is the reverse: if "pretty well all people are horrid, venal, self-serving, and dishonest at various times in their lives," then how is state intervention going to benefit anyone, given that the apparatus of government is composed of these same people?

[friendly_iconoclast]

24. +1 I, too, want to know how a state run by "horrid, venal, self-serving, and dishonest" humans....

...is supposedly better than these same sorts of humans on their own?

[IntravenousDemilo]

25. Because...

... people aren't ALWAYS horrid, venal, self-serving, and dishonest. We have some moments of light amid the darkness; the light makes the dark seem blessedly temporary, and the dark makes the light worth waiting for. In properly functioning societies, if democracy is allowed to flourish, the lighter bits tend to become the more permanent parts of public policy because of the weeding out of extremist ideas that I mentioned elsewhere. People do eventually manage to compromise on things, simply because it's easier and because really, really new ideas take some time to get used to, so most change tends to be incremental. This is mostly, but not completely, a good thing.

Essentially, I think people are improvable, if not perfectible, and that's where the state can be effective, by rewarding the angels of our better nature. But in order to improve, we have to admit that we have human flaws that need correcting. Civilization is the process of rising above our baser instincts to become something more as a society than the sum of our parts.

[gejohnston]

28. sorry, it sounds even more like a left wing version of

Calvinist authoritarianism. I see things as the inverse. People are mostly good but stray because of imperfection or as the situation dictates. There are a few that are just plain evil or sick.

[IntravenousDemilo]

30. Then I imagine you are much happier and less frustrated than I am.

Must be nice.

[eqfan592]

6. Yeah, because conflict was so much cleaner...

..back before the gun was invented....

[RSillsbee]

10. People in general are mean and irresponsible and cannot be trusted

I can't think of a better reason to be armed

[IntravenousDemilo]

16. You would put guns in the hands of mean and irresponsible people? n/m

[RSillsbee]

19. The mean and irresponsible people already have guns

all I want is a fair break

[IntravenousDemilo]

26. Fair enough. n/m

[ileus]

5. another person that dones't understand how important his 2nd rights were.

Sad......