GUNS IN THE NEWS--June 10, 2004

[MrBenchley]

As CO Liberal sez:
Please try to adhere to the following voluntary guidelines, in order that we can have an orderly discussion of gun-related news topics:
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2 - Both pro-gun and anti-gun stories, editorials, and press releases are welcome in this thread, as long as they're current. Please do not post links to items from a few years back that support your position.
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[MrBenchley]

1. Gun owner sues over seizure of collection (ME)

"A Baldwin man whose extensive gun collection was seized by the Cumberland County Sheriffs' office has filed two lawsuits against police, prosecutors and news organizations.
William C. Bloomquist claims that his constitutional rights were violated by Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion, Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson, and 31 other individuals and organizations. He is seeking $66 million.
Also named in the suit are several news organizations, including the Blethen Maine Newspapers, the parent company of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, as well as individual reporters.
The seizure was a result of a conspiracy, Bloomquist claims, to further political "anti gun," and "anti-male" agendas."

http://www.pressherald.com/news/york/040610bloomquist.shtml

[NorthernSpy]

4. some background

Apparently, it all began when Katariina Pulkinen -- Bloomquist's then spouse -- spoke to police regarding several murders that Bloomquist had supposedly told her that he'd committed. Of course, it was quickly obvious to the sheriff's office that the homicide story was false; instead, Bloomquist wound up accused of domestic violence. The pot charges came when sheriff's deputies entered Bloomquist's house to serve a protection order and to accompany Pulkinen as she gathered her belongings. It was also at that time that his gun collection was confiscated:

From Our Maine:

Sheriff's deputies seeking to serve a protection from abuse order at an upscale home in Baldwin stumbled upon an arsenal of military weapons, including heavy machine guns and bazookas, in a booby-trapped basement, authorities said Wednesday.

(...)

The weapons were found in a hidden room in the basement of Bloomquist's two-story home on a high ridge in this rural community 30 miles northwest of Portland. The arsenal contained 81 firearms including several semiautomatic weapons and a recoilless rifle, more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition and several practice rockets and hand grenades.

A Maine State Police bomb squad that was summoned to the home determined that Bloomquist was licensed to possess the weapons, said Stephen McCausland of the state Department of Public Safety.

Andrews said Bloomquist is a federally licensed firearms dealers and works as an investigator for lawyers. Most of the weapons were inoperable and were used as display models, Andrews said.


http://www.ourmaine.com/index.cfm?mesg=art18.22860§ion=1


The marijuana charge has since been thrown out as the product of an illegal search, and Pulkinen has withdrawn her domestic violence complaint. Bloomquist's gun collection has been returned to him, but he complains that items have been damaged. He wants redress, not only from the government, but also from the press, who he appears to believe printed false and inflammatory things about him.

And to tell the truth, the article that I pointed to above does seem inflammatory and unfair.


Mary

[MrBenchley]

5. No doubt he needed the bazooka to fight off the anti-male conspiracy

"Capt. Kevin Joyce said there was a rolling gun mount on the front deck that could accommodate a .50-caliber machine gun and provide good fields of fire.
"This could have been our version of Ruby Ridge," Joyce said. "He had 20,000 rounds of ammunition. He could have been there a long time.""

Yeah, he sounds like just the sort of guy who ought to have a weapons collection...

[NorthernSpy]

6. he "could have" done this; he "could have" done that...

That's what I mean by inflammatory and unfair. The mere fact of his gun collection does not make it proper for newspapers and public officials to compare him to an infamous neoNazi (or maybe Weaver was just a neoNazi symp) who broke firearms laws, and then held a shootout with law enforcement when they tried to arrest him.

Bloomquist -- please note -- turned himself in to face charges, broke no gun laws, and hasn't shot anybody.


Not that I adore the guy, mind you. He sounds kind of, well, reactionary.


Mary

[MrBenchley]

7. He claimed to have killed some people

Frankly, I don't think this guy is getting any sort of raw break...he seems ilke a dangerous lunatic of the sort who should NOT have a gun...much less a FFL.

[NorthernSpy]

9. that part was ambiguous

All I know is that it was said of him that he had claimed to have killed some people. Whether he ever actually made such a claim is not apparent from the stuff I've read. Law enforcement says the claim is false, whoever may have made it originally.

Anyhoo, he thinks he's had a raw deal, and he estimates it'll take about $66 million to make it right.

I think that he may have been subjected to some unfair press, and I know he says some of his guns were damaged after they'd been seized, but I dunno that I'd say that his was a 60 million dollar ordeal.


Mary

[MrBenchley]

12. Only to those not in the anti-male conspiracy (snicker)

I can't think of a better argument for gun control than to point to bazooka joe and his arsenal.

[TX-RAT]

8. Not allowed to have weapons while under a protective order.

(The marijuana charge has since been thrown out as the product of an illegal search)
Would love to hear why that was thrown out.

[NorthernSpy]

10. I think...

I think that the pot charge was thrown out because the deputies didn't have a warrant to search some areas that they apparently did wind up searching when they came to serve the protective order.

Seems to me that I remember reading somewhere that when law enforcement come to arrest someone or serve him with a protective order, they may search the person's immediate surroundings (usually just the room the person is arrested in), but more extensive searches usually require a warrant. I dunno -- not an expert. :shrug:

When the domestic violence complaint went away, Bloomquist did indeed get his guns back. His beef is that some of them were damaged while the authorities were holding them.


Mary

[TX-RAT]

11. Not sure you can search on a protective order

Unless they were searching for weapons because of the protective order. In which case the drug charge should have held. As far as i can tell there was no search warrant.

[MrBenchley]

13. It's possible the search case hinged

on whether or not the woman he threatened had the right to allow officers to search the premises...

[TX-RAT]

14. Good point.

[iverglas]

32. "the domestic violence complaint went away"

Would it not perhaps require just a modicum of possibly unwarranted credulity to conclude that there had been no spousal violence in fact?

Not that I suggest you are suggesting this was the case.

I just don't think that we can conclude that no such violence occurred, and in fact, the odds are pretty good that it did. The police seem to have thought that there was sufficient evidence of such violence to take the action they took, and a protection order was apparently granted by a court.

Don't some of us here sometimes opine that there should be better enforcement of rules that prohibit people under such orders from possessing firearms, and complain that when such people shoot their spouses dead the real problem was the lack of said enforcement?

What, then (I say to those of us who are wont to so opine and complain), were the police here supposed to do, if not search the home for firearms in order to enforce the prohibition (that I assume was included in the protection order)? Ask politely?

If a protection order was made, presumably based on proper evidence, regardless of whether the complainant then chose not to pursue the matter, should this not have some bearing on the entitlement of the person against whom it was made to possess firearms?

The ravings about "anti gun" and "anti male" conspiracies themselves ought to be enough for a psychiatric evaluation to determine qualification to possess firearms to be required, it seems to me. Paranoid delusions would seem to make firearms possession contra-indicated.

[MrBenchley]

2. Teen fatally shoots younger brother after handling antique gun (SC)

"ANDERSON, S.C. (AP) - A 12-year-old boy has died after he was shot in the head when an antique gun his 14-year-old brother had been handling went off at their Anderson County home.
Anderson County Coroner Greg Shore said everything about Wednesday night's shooting appears accidental.
Shore said other, newer guns in the house were locked up with safety locks. However, the 3-foot long heirloom rifle passed to the boys by their grandfather, was stored in the older boy's closet, Shore said.
The gun was a double-trigger muzzleloader, which "had been loaded for years" without anyone knowing, Shore said."

http://www.heraldonline.com/scnews/state_regional_interest/story/3636473p-3238004c.html

[MrBenchley]

3. Police: Student Busted For Bringing Gun To School

"A student at North Miami High School is in serious trouble today.
Police say the 17-year-old student brought a gun to school Tuesday, saying he wanted to protect himself. "

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/kprc/20040610/lo_wplg/2242183

Say, which far right wing bunch of shitheels publishes a gun magazine for kids?

[MrBenchley]

15. Two Women Killed In Drive-By Shooting (FL)

"Miami-Dade police are looking for a group of suspects behind the murder of two women who were gunned down outside of an apartment at Northwest 60th Street and 20th Avenue on Thursday. Witnesses reported seeing four black men in a car drive up and unload on the women who were walking on a sidewalk. Police said the men may have been wearing bandanas that covered their faces.
One of the victims, Tammy Smith, 26, was 7 months pregnant.
Police are not certain if the women were the intended targets or if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The shooting may have been retaliation for a fight that one of the women was involved in earlier in the day, police say. "

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/wlwt/20040610/lo_wplg/2242120

[PopeyeII]

16. Crime world wide is becoming more and more bizzare

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/06/10/uk.body/index.html

Man making tea sees body in fridge

Thursday, June 10, 2004 Posted: 8:28 AM EDT (1228 GMT)

LONDON, England -- Police have
launched a murder inquiry after a
man found the dismembered
remains of his daughter-in-law
inside his son's refrigerator while
looking for milk, according to
police and newspaper reports.

According to a report in The Sun
newspaper, the man had gone to the
couple's £500,000 ($910,000)
three-bedroom house in Kingston,
southwest London and found no one
was home.

After letting himself in and making a cup
of tea, he opened the refrigerator to get
some milk and found his
daughter-in-law's dismembered body
wrapped in plastic bags on the shelves,
the paper said.

The man reportedly called police after
finding the body and was said to be
receiving counseling.

[MrBenchley]

17. Man Guilty In Woman's Death, Attack On Her Brother (FL)

Another family made safer by guns...

"TAMPA - A jury found William Kenneth Taylor guilty of murder Wednesday for killing a 42-year-old woman and attempted murder for trying to kill her brother.
``Yes! Justice!'' the brother, Billy D. Maddox, 43, said outside the courtroom when family members told him of the verdict.
On May 26, 2001, Maddox woke up in a pool of blood after having his skull fractured in numerous places. Detectives determined he had been beaten in the head with the butt of a shotgun.
That same shotgun, authorities say, was used to shoot and kill Maddox's sister, Sandra Kushmer, in the Riverview home of her mother, Renate Sikes."

http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBR7K3BAVD.html

[MrBenchley]

18. Man Fired in La. Kills Boss, Shoots Self

"ARCADIA, La. - A man fired from a chicken processing plant Wednesday returned with a handgun and shot the plant manager to death before wounding himself, authorities said.
Alleged gunman Carl "Rick" Coleman was hospitalized in serious condition Wednesday evening. The slain man was identified as Derrell McBroom of Ruston, said Sheriff John Ballance.
Coleman had been fired from his job as water treatment manager at the plant, where he had worked for several years. An employee who saw Coleman return to the plant asked him why he was there, Ballance said.
Coleman responded: "'I've worked hard for these people and I am going to take care of somebody,'" Ballance said. "

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040609/ap_on_re_us/plant_shooting_3

[MrBenchley]

19. Authorities say Belle Rose man kills girlfriend, himself (LA)

"DONALDSONVILLE -- A Belle Rose man shot and killed his girlfriend in a downtown social services office Wednesday before committing suicide with the same pistol, Ascension Parish sheriff's investigators said.
Annette F. Spurlock was working in her office about 9 a.m. at Sunrise Human Development Agency on Railroad Avenue when Brad Lemon entered while pointing a 9 mm pistol, sheriff's Lt. Col. Paul Robert said.
Lemon killed Spurlock, 45, 109 Burns Drive, Donaldsonville, by firing three bullets into her chest, Robert said.
Lemon, 29, 164 Daggs St., shot himself in the head after fatally wounding Spurlock, Robert said."

http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/061004/new_belle001.shtml

[MrBenchley]

20. Two teens charged after incident near Toll Road (IN)

"LaPORTE - Two Michigan City teenagers weren't using their heads when they decided to fire a rifle toward the Indiana Toll Road at close range, police said.
About noon Tuesday, a man who lives in the 1000 block of North Goldring Road near LaPorte heard several gunshots. According to LaPorte County Police, he saw a car occupied by three males driving away and then called police thinking they could be the same people who recently shot holes in a road sign near his home.
During a traffic stop, officers found a .22-caliber sawed-off rifle inside the vehicle occupied by the suspects, along with a box of ammunition, police said."

http://www.michigancityin.com/articles/2004/06/10/news/news07.txt

Quick...what far right wing lobbying group that has odious nutcase Grover Norquist on its board publishes a gun magazine for kids?

[MrBenchley]

21. Mom Fatally Shot Over Alleged Custody Dispute (MI)

"A woman called police to her home on Mina Drive around 6 p.m. Wednesday to report her daughter was lying on the kitchen floor suffering from a gunshot wound to the head, according to Sterling Heights police. The victim, Paulette Litzan, 39, of Warren, was taken to St. John Macomb Hospital where she was pronounced dead, police said.
Litzan's 8-year-old son was reportedly in the yard of the home at the time of the shooting.
Police are searching for the boy's father, Harry Stanley, 43, of Clinton Township, in connection with the shooting. The couple had a court order to exchange the child for visitation at the Sterling Heights home of Litzan's mother, police said. Litzan had recently obtained a court order to move the child out of state, police said. "

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/wdiv/20040610/lo_wdiv/2242637

[PopeyeII]

22. When guns are banned only cops and criminals will have guns.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1110&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20040610%2F1204441376.htm&sc=1110

NYPD Officer Surrenders to Face Charges

NEW YORK (AP) - A police officer surrendered Thursday to face a
manslaughter charge for the fatal shooting of an unarmed African immigrant
inside a storage building last year, authorities said.

A court hearing was expected later in the day for Bryan Conroy. The Manhattan
district attorney's office confirmed the officer had surrendered but gave no further
detail.

Conroy shot Ousmane Zongo when he came upon the officer in a third-floor
hallway of the building in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood on May 22, 2003.
The officer was at the storage building to guard bootleg CDs that had been seized
in a raid. Zongo used another unit in the same building.

Conroy, who was in plainclothes, shot Zongo in the chest, abdomen and upper
back after a winding chase through hallways. There were no witnesses to the
shooting and no surveillance cameras, so the case hinges on the officer's
testimony and forensic evidence.

[MrBenchley]

23. Yeah, but the RKBA crowd will still have an unlimited supply of bullshit

[PopeyeII]

25. What next a bulldozer ban?

[MrBenchley]

24. Two dead in shootings near New Haven school

"The body of a woman with four gun shot wounds was found outside a house in West Hazel Street at about 10 a.m., said police spokeswoman Bonnie Winchester.
The body of a man was found on an adjacent street a block away a short time later. He had one gunshot wound, Winchester said.
Both people were pronounced dead at area hospitals."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2004/06/10/two_dead_in_shootings_near_new_haven_school/

[PopeyeII]

26. Partial Reporting

It may have also been near the airport and near city hall and near the hospital. You really need to read how they manipulate what they write.

You'll also note that they rarely follow up with the motive behind the shootings, like drugs and gang related activities.

Benchly, you're going to have to take a time out until you smarten up.

[MrBenchley]

29. Honest reporting...

Tough titty that it doesn't read like an NRA press release...

[PopeyeII]

27. We need to ban deadly black high capacity magnum assault weapons

2 battery maximum capacity!

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/06/10/courtney.love/



A new charge for Love: Assault with a
deadly flashlight

Thursday, June 10, 2004 Posted: 11:32 AM EDT (1532 GMT)

Rebel rocker and courtroom
fashion plate Courtney Love is
expected to surrender to Los
Angeles authorities Friday to face
new charges of assault with a
deadly weapon.

Love, 39, is charged with attacking singer
Kristin King with a bottle and a metal
flashlight on April 25, 2004. The incident
occurred at the home of Love's former
boyfriend and manager, Jim Barber.
According to a source close to the case,
Love showed up unannounced at
Barber's home that morning and became
enraged to find King sitting on the couch.
She allegedly struck the woman with a
liquor bottle.

[MrBenchley]

28. Shot officer OK; search continues for suspect

"Dickinson Tucson police Officer Jobe Dickinson reassured callers yesterday that he was OK as fellow cops searched for the man who shot him Tuesday.
"I'm out of the hospital. I'm in pretty good spirits and I can walk around a little bit," Dickinson's voice mail message said.
Through his lawyer, Michael Storie, he declined an interview yesterday. He was released from University Medical Center at about 3 p.m., police said.
Dickinson, 25, who was shot in the left calf as he chased a stabbing suspect, is in good spirits and wants "to recuperate and get back to work," said his brother, Joshua Dickinson, 31."

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=061004a4_cop_shot_folo

[MrBenchley]

30. Three shot outside Las Vegas lounge

"Two members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang and a woman were shot in the legs this morning outside the Sand Dollar Lounge on Spring Mountain Road near Interstate 15, Metro Police said.
Several Hells Angels were drinking in the bar about 2 a.m. when they got into an argument with some non-biker gang members, Officer Jose Montoya said.
The fight spilled out into the parking lot where one of the non-bikers pulled out a handgun and shot two of the bikers and a woman in the legs. The suspects jumped in a vehicle and drove away, Montoya said."

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-crime/2004/jun/10/516998515.html

[TX-RAT]

31. Everybody was shot in the legs?

Sounds like Rustlers Rhapsody. Always shot everybody in the hand.