Fatal Road-Rage Shooting In Maryland

Shooter was New Jersey police officer. He is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter and is being held on $1 million bond.

Link.

Where Form 4473s Go To Die

Caption: "Cindy VanDyne scanning records from a gun retailer in 2010 at the A.T.F.’s National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, W.Va"

NYT.

Texas Man Pulls Gun On Line-Cutter

Black Friday news:

A shopper who brandished a handgun during a Black Friday scuffle at South Park Mall was within his rights, according to San Antonio police.

Link

Sent from my iPhone

NYPD Siezes Billionaire's Guns

The police have confiscated two guns belonging to a New York billionaire and are weighing whether to revoke his handgun license after officers responded to an incident this month at Trump Tower, according to a police official and two people familiar with the matter.

Link

Sent from my iPhone

Rule No. Five: Keep Your Foot Off The Trigger

Comic book cover, from Boing-Boing.

What Color Is The Boathouse At Hereford?

There seem to be many different possible answers to that time-honored question.

But first, what is this Big Round Thing?

And what is this Little Round Thing?

They've got their own orchard, we know that.

And some sort of Big Square Thingy. Avec flagpole.

Nice antenna.

What say you, Bobbi? Appears to me to be a broadband ten-element high-frequency Yagi. I'd love to own one.


There's a double fence around the whole place, with camera towers every hundred meters or so.

And a bit farther down the road we see the antenna in the distance. More like twelve to fifteen elements, I'd say. Like the one at the Pentagon. Maybe they talk to each other: "dit-dit-dit-dit-dit..."

They've got lots of stuff, but I don't see a boathouse. Musta been one of those trick questions.

Hey, what's that weird tower on the horizon? How'd I miss that?

OK, there it is. Maybe that's the mysterious boathouse.

"'ello, 'ello, 'ello! What's all this, then? That's as far as you go, Yank. Nothing to see 'ere. Just turn your fancy camera car around and get yer arse back to Cupertino."

"You think we're barmy? Get lost!"

"Um, Constable, is there a boathouse around here?"
"Bloody git!"

See for yourself here.

The Terror Of La Porte, Indiana

Fascinating account of a female serial killer who was responsible for at least 25 murders and possibly twice that many. And who may have escaped justice.

Neatorama.

"I'd Do Worse."

Youssouf Drame displayed scars from a gun battle in which he was shot seven times and killed two men trying to rob his Brooklyn store.

I started at the New York Daily News report of the "Bloody Weekend" in NYC. Mayor Bloomberg, true to form, calls for tougher gun control laws.

That led me to a 2008 NYDN editorial called "Wake Up, Mike", which chided hizzonor for, among other things, "abandoning Youssouf Brame."

Who?

Google reports that his real name is Youssouf Drame. So much for the "first, rough draft of history." But I wondered what happened to Mr. Drame, and why he was "abandoned."

Fortunately for us, the Gray Lady is on the case. The 2009 article, "Scars Linger..." recounts the experiences of several people who fought back against armed robbers. Most had some regrets and emotional baggage, some of it severe.

But for Youssouf Drame, who shot and killed two of the four men who tried to rob his Crown Heights electronics store last November, the pain is mostly physical: In the gunfight that broke out after he grabbed one of the robbers’ weapons, Mr. Drame was shot seven times. His left hand is permanently damaged, and scars remain where his body was pockmarked with bullet holes. But if he had it to do again, Mr. Drame said, “I’d do worse.”

His is the other face of the shopkeeper’s rage, the one that draws cheers from crime-weary citizens and business owners. At his store last week, Mr. Drame watched on the dozens of televisions on display as Mr. Augusto spoke about the Harlem shooting. “How are you going to rob an old man like that?” Mr. Drame said in disgust.

He opened his store nine years ago, after stints working as a fishmonger, a parking attendant and a cleaner of vendors’ carts.

“I worked so hard, and they wanted to take what is mine,” Mr. Drame, 35, said of the men who tried to hold him up.

Mr. Drame, who has five children, grabbed the man’s gun and started firing. When it was over, one of the robbers was dead, and another died in the hospital. The other two men fled.

Mr. Drame spent a few weeks in Kings County Hospital Center, then went back to work, installing security cameras that cover every approach to his store. If anything, the shooting gave him new strength, he said: “I didn’t come to America to die.”

Unarmed, he challenged four armed robbers, disarming one, killing two, and taking seven bullets, he nonetheless survived and has no regrets.

Bravo, Mr. Drame.

P.S. NRA News has a video essay here.

D.C. Gov't May Help Residents Buy Guns

For several months, the only FFL in the District of Columbia, a man named Charles Sykes, has been without a business location, having lost his lease. He has been unable to find a new lease.

Sykes said Thursday that city regulations have made it very difficult for him to find a new place of business. Zoning rules demand that he locate no closer than 300 feet from schools, libraries or certain other landmarks.

“I wish the District would assist me more with trying to find an office,” he said. “I’m just a little disappointed that I’m not getting any encouragement or support.”

Sykes says he has proposed several addresses to the city, but to date they have all been rejected. “I thought [finding a location] was going to be the easy part,” he said. “This has been a stumbling block.”

He said he has no estimate on when he might return to business.

Three hundred feet?! Dude, in Chicago they require 1,000 feet!

While Sykes’s business in on hiatus, D.C. residents have been prevented de facto from buying guns, which has opened the city to lawsuits. In late May, Virginia lawyer Alan Gura sued the city in Alexandria’s federal court on behalf of three District residents who have purchased guns legally but are unable to transfer them into the city.

God bless Alan Gura!

So D.C. City Council is considering a bill to allow the city government to operate as an FFL.

Details in WaPo.

Big Second Amendment Decision

In Ezell vs Chicago, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision and instructed the lower court to issue an injunction to prevent Chicago from banning private indoor pistol ranges within the city limits. Interesting that that there are already eleven pistol ranges in Chicago: four federal, five CPD and two for private security guards.

Some excerpts from the decision, and it's a doozie:

p41:

The City urges us to import the “undue burden” test from the Court’s abortion cases, but we decline the invitation. Both Heller and McDonald suggest that First Amendment analogues are more appropriate, and on the strength of that suggestion, we and other circuits have already begun to adapt First Amendment doctrine to the Second Amendment context...

p48:

As the record comes to us at this stage of the proceedings, the firing‐range ban is wholly out of proportion to the public interests the City claims it serves. Accordingly, the plaintiffs’ Second Amendment claim has a strong likelihood of success on the merits.

and:

Properly regulated firing ranges open to the public should not pose significant threats to public health and safety. On the other side of the scale, the plaintiffs have established a strong likelihood that they are suffering violations of their Second Amendment rights every day the range ban is in effect. The balance of harms favors the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs asked the district court to enjoin the enforcement of Chicago Municipal Code § 8‐20‐280—the prohibition on “[s]hooting galleries, firearm ranges, or any other place where firearms are discharged.” They are entitled to a preliminary injunction to that effect. To be effective, however, the injunction must also prevent the City from enforcing other provisions of the Ordinance that operate indirectly to prohibit range training. The plaintiffs have identified several provisions of the Ordinance that implicate activities integral to range training: CHI. MUN. CODE §§ 8‐20‐020 (prohibiting the possession of handguns outside the home), 8‐20‐030 (prohibiting the possession of long guns outside the home or business), 8‐20‐080 (prohibiting the possession of ammunition without a corresponding permit and registration certificate), 8‐20‐100 (prohibiting the transfer of firearms and ammunition except through inheritance), 8‐24‐010 (prohibiting the discharge of firearms except for self‐defense, defense of another, or hunting). To the extent that these provisions prohibit law‐abiding, responsible citizens from using a firing range in the city, the preliminary injunction should include them as well. Similarly, the injunction should prohibit the City from using its zoning code to exclude firing ranges from locating anywhere in the city.

Finally, because range training is required for the issuance of a Chicago Firearm Permit, a registration certificate, and ultimately, for lawful possession of any firearm, the firing‐range ban implicates not only the right to train at a range but also the core Second Amendment right to possess firearms for self‐defense. Accordingly, the preliminary injunction should include sections 8‐20‐110(a) and 8‐20‐140(a) to the extent that those provisions operate to prohibit otherwise eligible persons from “carry[ing] or possess[ing] a firearm” at a range without a Permit or registration certificate while they are trying to complete the range‐training prerequisite for lawful firearm possession.

Those are the bounds of the proposed preliminary injunction, which should be entered upon remand.

And Judge Rovner concurs:

Stung by the result of McDonald v. City of Chicago, 130 S. Ct. 3020 (2010), the City quickly enacted an ordinance that was too clever by half. Recognizing that a complete gun ban would no longer survive Supreme Court review, the City required all gun owners to obtain training that included one hour of live‐range instruction, and then banned all live ranges within City limits. This was not so much a nod to the importance of live‐range training as it was a thumbing of the municipal nose at the Supreme Court. The effect of the ordinance is another complete ban on gun ownership within City limits. That residents may travel outside the jurisdiction to fulfill the training requirement is irrelevant to the validity of the ordinance inside the City. In this I agree with the majority: given the framework of Dist. of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), and McDonald, the City may not condition gun ownership for self‐defense in the home on a prerequisite that the City renders impossible to fulfill within the City limits. The plaintiffs have a strong likelihood of success on the merits of that claim and the district court should have granted an injunction against the operation of the ordinance to the extent that it imposed an impossible pre‐condition on gun owner ship for self‐defense in the home. There are two obvious ways for the City to remedy this problem: it may either drop the requirement for one hour of live range training or it may permit live‐range training within the City limits.

Wow!

h/t to Days Of Our Trailers and Of Arms And The Law.

Sonic Booms?

At 3:00 I was leaving my car when I heard a deep, loud "boom-boom". Sonic boom, I thought, but don't they usually come in pairs? Then fifteen seconds later, another one.

No sirens. CNN clear. Off-course plane? Drill? I dunno.

The Tottenham Outrage

I missed the one-hundred-and-second anniversary of the Outrage, which was last Sunday.

On January 23, 1909, two armed robbers attempted a payroll heist (a "wages robbery" in Anglospeak) in the Tottenham neighborhood of London. The two unarmed victims resisted and the robbers opened fire. Hearing the gunshots, two constables ran to the scene, only to come under fire themselves. A civilian came to the rescue, and he was shot twice. The robbers fled on foot, pursued by half a dozen constables and several civilians.

Thus began a wild, almost comical, pursuit and shootout all over Tottenham. The police, being unarmed, rushed back to the station house to get the two .450 Webley gate-load revolvers stored there, but "the key to the firearms cupboard had been mislaid." Nevertheless the police continued their unarmed pursuit as the robbers fired at them. One robber was armed with a 6.5mm model 1894 Bergmann pistol and the other with a .32 Browning, both autoloaders.

Passersby joined the chase and produced their own pistols from pockets and cases. One officer, Constable Bond, borrowed a revolver from a passerby and returned fire. Other officers did likewise. A motorcar was brought into the pursuit, but as it closed on the robbers they turned and fired and "a fusillade of shots" disabled the car. It was here that the first fatality occurred: ten-year-old Ralph Joscelyn was hit in the chest and was dead on arrival at the hospital.

The officers guessed correctly that the robbers were heading for the Tottenham Marshes, and two constables, Newman and Tyler, sprinted ahead to cut them off. When they confronted the robbers and demanded their surrender, Tyler was fatally shot in the head.

As the superintendent's report later put it, "The chase which had now become most desperate was continued with splendid determination." Two duck hunters from Tottenham Marshes now joined the pursuit, using their shotguns to fire at the fleeing robbers. Several other civilians used their own pocket pistols to fire at the robbers as they ran through a gypsy camp and on to Chingford Road. Here they hijacked the Number 9 tram and forced the conductor to drive with a gun to his head.

"By Gad, sir! There will be a letter about this in tomorrow's Times!"
"Just drive, Eengleesh peeg!"

Sargeant Hales stopped the tram traveling in the opposite direction and ordered the conductor to reverse and follow. Many of the pursuers boarded the tram and there was a prolonged (and ineffective) exchange of gunfire with the robbers.

Leaving the tram, the robbers commandeered a horse-drawn milk cart, then a horse and van. The pursuers by now had brought several automobiles into the chase and were closing the gap. The robbers abandoned the van and continued on foot. At this point one of the robbers, apparently exhausted and having only a few more rounds of ammunition, decided to kill himself with a shot to the head. His accomplice entered Oak Cottage, the home of the Rolstone family. From here he traded shots with the crowd until three armed constables entered the house and cornered him, whereupon he, too, shot himself.


In all, two were killed and twenty-five wounded. During the two-hour, six-mile pursuit the robbers were said to have fired over 400 rounds.

On January 29th, funerals were held for both of the victims. Half a million people and 3,000 police officers lined the funeral route. Both victims were buried in Abney Park Cemetary, just a yard apart.


Ralph Joscelyne's mother kept the shoes that her son had been wearing on the day he was killed. When she died fifty years later, in accordance with her wishes, the shoes were buried with her.


The reason that this story should interest us today is that it shows that one hundred years ago many Londoners routinely carried handguns as they went about their daily business. In fact, the civilians were much better armed than the police. And yet there were very few murders in England and Wales. The first gun control law in Britain was the Gun Licence Act of 1870, which was a revenue-generating measure (10 shillings a year) but since there was no gun registration, it could not be enforced - and it wasn't. The fact is that the murder rate in the UK today - the number of murders per 100K population - is higher now than it was one hundred years ago.

Supreme Court Declines Case

Greg Revell, flying from Salt Lake City to Allentown, Pennsylvania, was stranded at the Newark, NJ airport with his unloaded, locked, cased, licensed (Utah CHL) handgun in his checked baggage. He spent the night in a hotel but when he went to the airport the next morning to catch the next flight out he was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm. Revell pointed out that he was legal at home and legal at his destination and that the gun was unloaded and locked up. The cops said that because Revell had the key to the lockbox (as required by TSA) he was "in possession" of the gun. He spent ten days in jail before he could post bond. Charges were eventually dropped and three years later his gun was returned.

Revell was seeking permission to file a civil suit against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He lost every step of the way and today the U.S. Supreme Court denied his petition.

Pity. But there will be other battles.

Yahoo News.

Obama Restores Felon's Gun Rights

Stranger Than Truth!

Then, in 2005, he applied for a gun permit and found out for the first time he had a felony conviction. He applied for a presidential pardon, which was officially granted Friday, in the first round of pardons during Obama's administration.

CNN.

Just Like In The Movies

Cop shoots gun out of perp's hand.

At least ONE cop in the NYPD can shoot. And well!

h/t Say Uncle.

Guns Stolen From Mexican Police Arsenal

Six thieves wearing police uniforms entered the compound, drove directly to the radio room, tied up the staff, then proceeded to the armory. They took 43 H&K G36 rifles, 26 9mm pistols plus bulletproof vests and grenades. The guards offered no resistance. The State Attorney General's office has arrested the guards.

Love Quadrangle

Robert Wone

Ripped from the sordid pages of the Washington Post:

From the beginning, this has been the most unusual of cases because no one is charged with killing Wone. But prosecutors tried to prove in D.C. Superior Court that Joseph R. Price, 39, Dylan M. Ward, 40, and Victor J. Zaborsky, 44, who allowed Wone to stay with them on the night of his death, know who killed their friend and conspired to stage the crime scene and cover for the killer.

It boils down to this: Did an intruder kill Wone, as the defendants say, or was it someone the housemates know? Prosecutors say the killer was someone the three men know, probably Price's younger brother.

The housemates, who say they are in a committed three-way romantic relationship, waited 17 minutes before calling police so they could plant the murder weapon, alter the crime scene and scrub Wone's body of blood, prosecutors say.

Words fail me.

From Bad To Worse

It seems that those Google Street View trucks rolling all over the surface of our planet weren't just taking pictures. They were also running wireless packet sniffers, looking for unencrypted personal wireless networks and recording any fragments of data they could as they passed by.

Now the governments of Germany, Spain and France are demanding that Google turn over the data, over 600 gigabytes of it, to them.

Beautiful!

Remember in Casablanca?

Captain Renault: "I'm shocked, shocked, to find gambling going on in here!"

Croupier: "Your winnings, sir."

Captain Renault: "Thank you. Everybody out immediately!"

P.S. I moved yesterday after a busy week of packing. Now I have a mostly empty house to clean and prep for sale and, 80 miles to the west, another house to unpack and make a new home. The movers thought they could move my safe with three guys and no handtruck! Au contraire! It's a good thing that the safe has a removable door, otherwise it would still be in the basement! So blogging will return to normal (the usual dull roar, anyway) in about a week. The new place has Direct-TV satellite internet, which is very fast but has high latency (delays), but it's free and is much faster than my tethered Blackberry connection that I have been using for nearly two years now.

Some Chicago Gun Control Supporters Now Thinking Of Breaking City's Handgun Ban

Violent crime in Chicago is getting so bad that even some gun control supporters there are thinking of carrying concealed handguns:

Coy Pugh, a former state representative and lobbyist for the Illinois Rifle Association, said he knows why even law-abiding citizens might arm themselves.

"In the community that I grew up in, they say it's better for the police to catch me with it than the robber to catch me without it," said Pugh.

Link.

h/t Days Of Our Trailers.

Travel Notes

I applied one of those rain-repellent treatments ("Rain Clear") to my windshield before setting out for Indy and the result was quite interesting. Even heavy rain beads up and rolls off the windshield. Worked pretty well. I recommend it.


When I asked Roberta X which was the most interesting key in this collection, she did not hesitate.

At the range Sunday, we had, among many others, a Colt Pocketlite in 380, a Colt Detective Special in .38 SPL, a Ruger Mk III in .22-LR and a Kimber Ultra CDP in .45 ACP.

At the corner of College Ave. and 53rd St, someone had renamed the street "Fingerbang Ave." I am informed that this is the name of a fictitious boy-band from the TV show "South Park".

Down the road a bit at Taste, they have the most delicious confection I have ever eaten: bread pudding with chocolate and caramel syrup, slivered almonds and whipped cream.

On the way home, the Garmin GPS routed me through the Cumberland Gap on Interstate 68. The speed limit here is 65. I have just been passed by a Maryland State Trooper, just visible in the fog ahead as a blurry dark shadow.

My crappy old '95 Toyota Corolla purred like a kitten for over 1500 trouble-free miles.