https://www.yahoo.com/news/parishion...055010284.html
Authorities: Hate against Taiwanese led to church attack
Jeez back to back hate crime mass shootings.LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. (AP) — A gunman in a deadly attack at a Southern California church was a Chinese immigrant motivated by hate for Taiwanese people, authorities said.
The shooter killed Dr. John Cheng, 52, and wounded five others during a lunch held by Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, which worships at Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, authorities said at a Monday news conference.
Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said the motive of the shooting was a grievance between the shooter, identified as a Chinese immigrant and U.S. citizen, and the Taiwanese community. China claims Taiwan is a part of its national territory and has not ruled out force to bring the island under its rule.
The suspect was identified as David Chou, 68, of Las Vegas. He been booked on one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder and is being held on $1 million bail.
Chou is expected to appear in state court Tuesday and it was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf. A federal hate crimes investigation is also ongoing.
Chou's family was among many that were apparently forcibly removed from China to Taiwan sometime after 1948, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said. Chou's hatred toward the island, documented in hand-written notes that authorities found, seems like it began when he felt he wasn't treated well while living there.
Barnes, the sheriff, said Chou drove from Las Vegas to the Orange County church, where he was not a regular attendee, secured the doors with chains, super glue and nails and started shooting. The gunman had placed four Molotov cocktail-like devices inside the church.
Barnes said Cheng, a sports medicine doctor who is survived by a wife and two children, heroically charged at the shooter and attempted to disarm him, allowing others to intervene. Cheng probably saved the lives “of upwards of dozens of people,” the sheriff said.
A pastor hit the gunman on the head with a chair and parishioners hog-tied him with electrical cords. But Cheng was hit by gunfire.
“I will tell you that evil was in that church,” Spitzer said, who added that Chou had “an absolute bias” against Taiwan and its people.
A former neighbor, meanwhile, says Chou's life unraveled after he was nearly beaten to death several years ago.
Chou had been a pleasant man who used to own the Las Vegas apartment building where he lived, Balmore Orellana told The Associated Press.
But Orellana said Chou received a head injury and serious body injuries in an attack by a tenant and he sold the property. The neighbor said that last summer Chou fired a gun inside his apartment. No one was hurt but he was evicted.
Orellana says Chou’s mental ability seemed to diminish in recent months, he was angry that the government didn’t provide comfort in his retirement, and he may have been homeless.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/25/11011...banned-houston
Once again the NRA is hosting their annual gathering. Once again, firearms are banned from the convention about "gun rights".
Kinda a neat little contradiction there.
Well then get your shit together.
Get it all together. And put it in a backpack. All your shit. So it’s together. And if you gotta take it somewhere, take it somewhere, you know, take it to the shit store and sell it, or put it in a shit museum, I don’t care what you do, you just gotta get it together.
Get your shit together
Weird that it remains the most powerful gun lobbying group in the US, then. I mean, I've heard all about how it went full extremist and shit decades ago and whatnot, but weird that it's still got enough membership to be the juggernaut it is.
Also, my joke is directed at the NRA proper, and the "pro-gun" folks in attendance at the event, especially the "strong Second Amendment" speakers who will not be allowed to carry their guns into the convention.
Why aren't they drowning out the NRA's horrible lobbying with their own much larger war chest from donations, pushing for responsible gun control measures, then?
"Silent majority" stuff is garbage. Silence is complicity. If you're not pushing to have a bigger voice than the NRA, you're letting the NRA speak for you. And that's if we presume your unsourced claim that there is such a majority out there to be factual, when I repeat; you've given no reason to believe that to be true.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61615236
Armed female bystander kills man firing at party in West Virginia
Dear Uvalde police, this is what you should of done, instead of cower and hold back the feds that wanted to go in right away when they arrived.Dennis Butler, a 37-year-old with an extensive criminal history, was killed after he targeted a group of around 40 people attending a birthday party.
Police spokesman Tony Hazelett said the woman's quick reaction saved lives and may have prevented a mass shooting.
It comes amid a national debate over guns after a school shooting in Texas.
Butler had driven by the area earlier on Wednesday evening when he was warned to slow down because children were playing.
He returned armed with an AR-15-type rifle and opened fire from his vehicle on the birthday-graduation party outside the apartment complex in the city.
Mr Hazelett told a news conference that the woman who fired back did not have any law enforcement background. She has not been identified.
"She's just a member of the community who was carrying her weapon lawfully," he said. "And instead of running from the threat she engaged with the threat and saved several lives."
The woman remained at the scene after the shooting, and is co-operating with investigators.
Charges will not be filed against her, police added.
Butler was found dead at the scene from multiple gunshot wounds, police said.
Mr Hazelett said it is not yet clear how Butler obtained the weapon - which he was not legally allowed to carry as a convicted felon.
The shooting comes after a teenage gunman killed 21 people at a Texas primary school with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle that had been purchased legally.
The attack, America's worst school shooting in a decade, reignited the debate over private gun ownership, which is enshrined in the US Constitution.
Oh good, this is going to be presented as an example on how good guys with guns save lives. Of course, nobody will question how he got a gun in the first place, or if anything should be done about it. This potential mass murder situation had a "good" ending, and that's enough. No need to do anything, the issue is solved.
or what happens when X fires off his gun and starts killing people and Y shoots X, but then Z steps in and thinks Y is the shooter and shoots Y.....then the cops show up and think Z is the shooter...
now imagine everyone had guns.
it's not like it hasn't happened before.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...lice-shooting/
Buh Byeeeeeeeeeeee !!
"More children die by gunfire in a year than on-duty police officers and active military members."
I guess the most dangerous job in the US is being a child.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...l-saves-lives/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/canadas-t...205940685.html
Canada's Trudeau announces plan for national freeze on handguns
I dislike the halting of being able to get a handgun, and the wiretapping will need some strict rules around it so it does not get misused. I do however like the stricter punishment for smuggling/trafficking and people convicted of domestic abuse getting their license yanked.OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday his government was introducing new legislation to implement a "national freeze" on handgun ownership and prevent people from buying and selling handguns anywhere in the country.
"The day this legislation goes into effect it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns in Canada," Trudeau told reporters.
If passed, the freeze on handguns is expected to come into force in the autumn. Canada's public safety minister has tabled regulatory amendments in parliament to ensure it can be implemented swiftly, according to a ministry statement.
The killing last week of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas in the United States has fed concern about gun violence worldwide. Canada already has significantly stronger gun ownership restrictions than its neighbor to the south.
Canada banned the sale and use of some 1,500 models of assault weapons, like the AR-15 rifle, two years ago. Speaking alongside Trudeau, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino confirmed the "imminent launch of the initial phase" of a program to buy back and compensate owners of such weapons.
The new legislation, Bill C-21, also proposes taking away the firearms licenses of those involved in acts of domestic violence or criminal harassment, such as stalking.
The legislation proposes stricter sentences for gun smugglers and traffickers, and aims to provide law enforcement with new tools like wiretapping to stop gun crime, Mendicino said.
The government will also require long-gun magazines to be permanently altered so they can never hold more than five rounds, and will ban the sale and transfer of large capacity magazines.
"Other than using firearms for sport shooting and hunting, there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives," Trudeau told reporters at a briefing.
Canada's rate of firearm homicides is 0.5 per 100,000 people, compared with the U.S. rate of 4.12, according to a 2021 analysis by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
“You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”― Malcolm X
I watch them fight and die in the name of freedom. They speak of liberty and justice, but for whom? -Ratonhnhaké:ton (Connor Kenway)
It does, technically. If you're convicted of domestic abuse (doesn't have to involve a service weapon, or any weapon for that matter), you becomes a prohibited person and can't possess firearms, so a cop who is convicted of domestic abuse will also lose their job.
The problem is that cops who get accused of domestic abuse are often shielded by the DA's office and allowed to plead down to a lesser crime that doesn't result in the loss of their job and right to possess firearms.
That's the thing that should be corrected.
"The difference between stupidity
and genius is that genius has its limits."
--Alexandre Dumas-fils