Man kills woman and himself at a North Carolina Target store.

[sharesunited]

A gun and bullets solved this man's problem. Thanks for nothing, willful judicial misinterpretation of the Second Amendment.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/30/north.carolina.shooting/index.html?hpt=T2

[Taverner]

1. Why would you want to do that at a Target store?? A Wal Mart I could see...

JUST KIDDING

Laugh in the face of death

Seriously - why kill someone?

"Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another." ~ Carl Sagan

[supernova]

4. Even money says domestic violence

Usually it's the woman who is shot at her workplace.

Wait, lemme look.

Yep.

From the article on local news:

Stephens said Rosas and the shooter had been a relationship that ended in 2005. The two had stayed in contact since then.

Rosas had been working at Target for about two years and is survived by a daughter and two grandchildren.

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/7694832/

So sad.

:cry:

[Taverner]

11. Why kill??

I never got that - why kill when you could take a number of other options to solve your problem..

[Euromutt]

21. It's a matter of "honor"

Intimate partner homicides are almost always a matter of the man's self-image (how he sees himself, and how he wants others to see him) not allowing him to accept rejection; doing so would make him a quitter, a loser. So he'd rather kill her than be "the kind of guy who lets a woman walk out on him."

In a very real sense, every intimate partner homicide is an "honor killing." Funny how often "honor" requires killing women.

[BrklynLiberal]

8. i am embarrassed to admit, something like that crossed my mind too..

:blush: :spank:

[Shadow Creature]

2. well, it has targets

Target practice?

I'm sorry, That was real bad.

[Pavulon]

3. Has nothing to do with my right to own a firearm.

anymore than the drunk fuckers who killed slews of people last night have anything to do with my ability to drink a beer without using my car to kill people.

[LaurenG]

5. The gun was used to kill them, the sick person who shot the gun did the killing

My gun has never killed anything, I never let it out alone. :eyes:

If there were no guns he would have found another way to murder his victim and kill himself.

[Euromutt]

6. Textbook intimate partner murder-suicide

These happen by means other than firearms all the time. Attributing this to the availability of a firearm is facile, and an obvious attempt to exploit a tragedy for political purposes. Unrec.

[Hoopla Phil]

27. Well said.

[onehandle]

7. Women are often the victim of a gun owner they know, or knew. nt

[Euromutt]

9. Women are often the victim of someone they dated or were married to

Firearms aren't a causal factor here; what is a causal factor is the murderer's inability to accept rejection.

[onehandle]

13. Women are often the victim of a gun owner they know, or knew. nt

[Euromutt]

17. You're repeating that like it means something

The premeditated murder of a single person--and intimate partner killings are almost always premeditated murder, the claim of "crime of passion" is bullshit--is a fairly easy thing to accomplish, once you've mustered the will to do it. It doesn't require a firearm, and it wouldn't not happen absent a firearm.

[onehandle]

18. Women are often the victim of a gun owner they know, or knew. nt

[Euromutt]

22. Less often than they are the victim of someone they dated or were married to...

...who may or may not be a gun owner.

You seem to be employing the "insignificant cause" fallacy (http://www.onegoodmove.org/fallacy/insig.htm) in conjunction with (to quote Goebbels, speaking of the British) "the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it <...> even at the risk of looking ridiculous."

(A principle to which Goebbels was no stranger, especially in the latter half of the war, but I digress.)

[Callisto32]

32. For your viewing pleasure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_eYSuPKP3Y

[friendly_iconoclast]

37. Women are often the victim of a murderer they know, or knew. FTFY

[Lint Head]

10. Ironic. He hit the target.

[sandnsea]

12. Bang Bang! Shoot 'em up! Yeehaw!

When people are raised to believe guns are required to solve problems, well by golly, don't be surprised when they use guns to solve their problems.

[Euromutt]

19. Or alternatively...

...when people are raised to believe that persistence pays, and that "a winner never quits and a quitter never wins," it's not entirely unpredictable that they may decide--when faced with romantic rejection--that it's better to be a killer than a loser. Whether or not they have a gun doesn't matter. Men beat, strangle and stab (ex-)wives and (ex-)girlfriends to death as readily as they shoot them.

Frankly, I don't anybody who seriously thinks a firearm is the answer to every problem; that sounds like a bullshit straw man to me.

[Callisto32]

33. While it may not be entirely unpredictable, it still makes no sense.

The kind of mental gymnastics required to convince yourself that its better to be a killer than a loser would be impressive if not so tragic. Almost as impressive are those that lead people to think that all of society should be governed according to the craziness of the few...

[BJ10]

14. Oh yeah...two lives would have been saved....

if only there were no private ownership of guns.

:sarcasm:

Unrec

[proteus_lives]

15. I assure, men killed themselves and others over relationship BS before firearms.

You continue to blame inanimate tools for human flaws.

Why are you so scared of the truth?

[Warren Stupidity]

16. guns do make it easier.

I agree you have a constitutional right to your gun, you should try to be honest about the problem we as a society have with gun violence.

[proteus_lives]

20. Knives make it easier too.

I'm honest about gun violence.

But SU isn't honest about it. He places the blame squarely on the tool. He always ignores the human factor and uses incidents like this as justification to strip the rights from everyone.

[Warren Stupidity]

34. no really knives do not make it easier than guns

As long as you fail to address the gun violence issue in our society you are arguing from a position of intellectual dishonesty. Nonsense like "knives make it easier too" are just that, nonsense, and yet another example of intellectual dishonesty.

[Euromutt]

30. In this context, it's largely irrelevant

Take, for example, the abstract of this study: http://www.springerlink.com/content/mw745335u0468647/

Adjusted homicide data suggest that Russia has a higher spousal homicide rate, more female victims, and fewer shootings than the United States. Women in Russia may be two and one-half times more likely to be killed by their spouses or lovers than their counterparts in the United States.

Fewer shootings, but up to 2½ as many dead wives and girlfriends. When it comes to intimate partner killings, the specific weapon used is pretty much irrelevant.

[Warren Stupidity]

35. Gee I'm not really impressed by a 1997 study

comparing near failed gangster state Russia circa 1997 with the US. As the abstract notes "The break-up of the Soviet Union and contradictory status of women in Russia may contribute to these findings."

Is that the best you can do?

Try being honest about our problem with guns and murder.

[friendly_iconoclast]

36. The disparity is even *more* pronounced today than 1997

IIRC, the murder rate in Russia has remained about the same, while the murder rate in the US has gone down since 1997.

To qoute Philip K. Dick: "If something keeps happening after you quit believing in it, it's scientific."

[Travis Coates]

39. our problem with guns and murder.

Are you willing to elaborate on that statement? There are more firearms in private hands that at any other time in our history yet violent crime rates plummet. Can you explain that?

[Euromutt]

40. The findings illustrate that firearms are not the cause of intimate partner homicide

When Russian men kill their (ex-)wives and girlfriends at over twice the rate of American men, but use firearms less often to so, it tells you that the cause of the homicides isn't the old "fit of rage and had a gun available" bullshit (with equally bullshit implication "if only he hadn't had a gun, he wouldn't have murdered his wife"). In the United States, 75% of intimate partner homicides are known to occur after the woman leaves, or threatens to leave, and over 50% are known to occur after the man has stalked the (former) partner (source: Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear). Note that "not known to have occurred" is not synonymous with "did not occur"; quite a few others occur after the man is served with a restraining order, for instance.

In short, the overwhelming bulk of intimate partner homicides involve an element of premeditation; they don't occur in the heat of argument. The fact is that nobody "just snaps"; there is always a process leading up to the killing incident, and it's identifiable to those who allow themselves to look for it.

And once the would-be killer has made the decision that he will kill if certain circumstances arise, he will gather the available means to commit that killing. Not having a firearm available will not stop him. Yes, firearms are the most common weapon in IPHs in the United States (averaging ~60% of IPHs, though male victims are shot relatively more often than female ones), but that's because they're available. They are not the reason IPHs occur. To compare, an analysis of IPHs in Massachusetts in 2009 (http://www.mass.gov/Eeops/docs/eops/Publications/070909_SHR_analysis_DV_incidents_April09.pdf) found that knives were the most commonly used weapon (39% of incidents), with firearms coming second (28%).

When it comes specifically to intimate partner homicides, the firearm is incidental; what matters is the deliberate intent to kill.

[Euromutt]

45. By way of further illustration, 74 year-old man murders woman with hammer

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011976439_twodead29m.html?prmid=obinsite

In what police are saying was a murder-suicide, a 74-year-old man beat a woman to death with a hammer and then jumped to his death from an apartment building Thursday night in Ballard.

Evidently, the guy's age didn't stop him from inflicting a fatal beating. And it's not like Washington state's firearm laws are particularly stringent. I also happen to know there's a gun shop less than a mile and a half from the scene of the crime.

[sandnsea]

25. Why don't they do it in other countries? n/t

[cowman]

26. Ummmmmmm

they do do it in other countries with or without guns. In the middle east it is legal for a husband to murder his wife if she's been unfaithful and in some latin countries is is considered an honor to kill an unfaithful wife.

[sandnsea]

28. Comparing US men to ME men, brilliant

We're supposed to be a bit more civilized than that, don't you think? Why don't you try a comparison to a country with a culture more similar to our own.

[Euromutt]

29. Ah, it's the old "guess which country I'm talking about" game

How often have we seen this routine played out in this forum? Some anti-RKBAer makes some claim about how the United States is "the most violent country" in some way, which prompts pro-RKBAers to point out other countries that have worse records in that particular aspect, to which the counter-response is "well, I don't mean that country!"

It's essentially a bait-and-switch; if you were honest, you'd state explicitly that what you mean is that the United States has a higher rate of certain types of homicide than certain other countries; certain other countries which you have selected by the criterium that they have a lower rate of that particular type of homicide than the United States, discarding the various other countries that don't meet that criterium, even though those countries may have stricter gun control laws than the U.S.

At this point, I can point out that a study (http://www.springerlink.com/content/mw745335u0468647/) stating that "adjusted homicide data suggest that Russia has a higher spousal homicide rate, more female victims, and fewer shootings than the United States" and that "women in Russia may be two and one-half times more likely to be killed by their spouses or lovers than their counterparts in the United States" (emphases in bold mine), or that domestic murder-suicides occur daily in Japan (http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/social_trends/20040107_trends_s65/index.html), in spite of fairly restrictive firearms laws in both countries. But I suppose the cultures of those countries are insufficiently similar to the United States' as well.

The problem with such a claim is that the United States, with its immigrant population, has representatives of just about every national culture on the planet. The grandmother of a friend of mine immigrated from Croatia, had some trouble with her husband, and in spite of the fact that they were living in Tacoma, WA at the time, she dealt with the problem the way she would have back in Lika: she killed him with an axe, and claimed he'd had an accident chopping wood. But even if we disregard that example because it's a first-generation immigrant, the fact is that American culture is broadly descended from four waves of English migration in the 17th century, as described by David Hackett-Fischer in his book Albion's Seed. There were the Puritans, who originally came mainly from East Anglia and initially settled in New England; Royalists from south-western England who left during the Cromwellian period and settled in the tidewater areas of Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia; the Quakers (and assorted Dutch, German and Swiss Mennonite hangers-on) who settled in William Penn's grand experiment in the Delaware river valley; and the people from the English-Scottish border marches who settled into the hinterland of the Piedmont Upland and the Appalachians. Even subsequent waves of immigrants who have been assimilated into American society have essentially been assimilated into one of these four "folkways" (as Hackett-Fischer calls them).

But that touches on another thing about the United States, which is that successive waves of immigrants were people who, for whatever reason, preferred not to stay in their countries of origin, and in doing so, removed their input on the subsequent development of that country's culture. And insofar as they and their descendants retain the culture of their respective countries of origin, it is the culture as it existed at the time they emigrated. I encounter this myself, as a recent (2002) immigrant from the Netherlands; when I encounter people who immigrated from the Netherlands in the late 1940s or early 1950s (there's a fair number in the Skagit river valley), or their descendants, I observe that the way they speak Dutch, and the cultural attitudes they've retained, are those of around sixty years ago, when they first immigrated. It's like talking to my grandparents, if my grandparents been trapped in amber circa 1950.

As a result, American society as a whole retains a lot of cultural trappings that have mutated or been discarded in the countries from which they were originally imported.

[benEzra]

23. If only Target had posted a no-guns sign,

the murderer would have been rendered powerless and unable to cross the sanctified threshold. Or something like that.

[Travis Coates]

24. Shares has a right to his religious beliefs

You really shouldn't mock them it's intolerant

:sarcasm: And I figured out the sarcasm thingy

[Callisto32]

31. Your posts make the BEST bedtime stories.

I'm so bored, I can barely keep my eyes open!

In short...INTERNET MEME!:

[Greyhound]

38. And you use General Smedley Butler as your avatar?

[Spoonman]

41. willful judicial misinterpretation of the Second Amendment.......

You are so funny, and constitutionally uneducated.

Your law degree would be from what university?

[RamboLiberal]

42. Domestic Violence - If he wanted to kill her and he couldn't get a gun

There are a lot of other ways women (and sometimes men) have been harmed in cases like this. Take this horrific case.

Family of the woman set on fire by her estranged husband testified before Congress today. Their goal is to help reduce domestic violence nationwide.

Yvette Cade's story made national headlines when her estranged husband attacked her at the cell phone store where she worked. He was found guilty of dousing her with gasoline and setting her on fire.

The attack came just three weeks after a judge refused to issue a restraining order against Yvette's husband, even though she told him she was afraid for her life.

http://wjz.com/topstories/Yvette.Cade.Roger.2.422407.html

You sure are damned persistent shares. I don't think though you've convinced one person in this forum.

[rrneck]

43. He only has to convince himself

by venturing into the lions den of evil gun owners.

[east texas lib]

44. I admire someone that sticks to their guns...And you do...

But I scincerely hope that you never have to test your theories on disarmament in a situation where your continued existence hinges on the outcome. How deep does your faith go?