Another sad story:
A Pennsylvania woman who drew national attention for carrying a loaded handgun to her daughter’s soccer game has been shot and killed in an apparent murder-suicide, the Lebanon Daily News reports.
Meleanie Hain, 31, of Lebanon, Pa., and her husband, Scott Hain, 33, were found dead after a two-hour standoff with police Wednesday night, the AP reports.
Hain was dubbed the ‘pistol-packin’ mom’ after wearing her holstered 9mm Glock pistol to her 5-year-old daughter’s soccer match in 2008.
***The Lebanon Daily News says Lebanon police Chief Daniel Wright is providing little information aside from acknowledging that both were found dead and that he did not think anyone else was involved. The district attorney likewise refuses comment. The paper quotes several neighbors as saying they heard or saw the couple’s children’s running from the house screaming, “Daddy shot Mommy!” shortly before the 911 was called.
The paper also quotes one neighbor, Debbie Mise, as saying she feared something bad would eventually happen at the Hain home. “She just wasn’t right,” Mise said of Meleanie Hain, the paper reports. “You don’t bring a gun to a kids’ soccer game, and you don’t wear a gun when you go shopping at Kohl’s.”
I think the thing that annoyed me the most about the glibertarian defense this summer of gun nuts packing heat at town halls and Presidential events is that everyone is a law abiding citizen. Until they break the law.
Colette
Jesus Christ. Those poor kids.
And no one could possibly have seen this coming.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Say what you will, at least those two lived (and died) the NRA creed about prying guns from cold dead hands.
At least the kids dodged the proverbial bullet which is more than one can say in many cases like these.
me
If the kids had had guns, they could have stopped the whole thing!
Ajay
Cant imagine what would cause to bring a gun to soccer game. Having said that, this is just about home violence than anything else. Gun just happens to be the medium. He would have gotten her with a knife or something if gun wasnt present.
Terri
She was a flaming idiot anyway. Openly carrying a gun just gave her the attention she has probably sought most of her life.
Ed Marshall
I’m not a fan of gun control and I don’t see it as a panacea for curbing violence, but the people I know who would want to pack a gun all the time are dead last on my list of people I want to own guns.
Ajay
If the kids had had guns, they could have stopped the whole thing
Exactly what Faux would say. I would say guns should be mandatory. Hell, Obama should pay money to everyone to buy guns. There is nothing more important than personal security.
General Winfield Stuck
Oh yea Libtards. Guns don’t kill people, peoples kill peoples with guns. Duh!
Don
Gun extremism is tiring, and I say that as a law-abiding gun owner who is registered to carry concealed but choose not to. There’s room for debate about the trade-offs one makes when keeping a gun in the house and there’s room to debate how much training a person should be required to have before being allowed a firearm. (Though I do not understand how anyone with any firearm experience can comfortably advocate not requiring ANY training, even if it’s possible to read the 2nd amendment that way)
But most maddening of all the whacko positions has to be the claim that there’s not a statement being made by wearing a visible gun on ones hip. Being a gun owner means being very aware of the violence they can unleash. To claim that a conversation with someone armed isn’t impacted by that display is disingenuous at least and more typically a bold-faced lie.
It’s particularly indefensible in states like PA where you can get a concealed carry permit. At $20 per 5 years it’s more affordable than Starbucks. Opting to wear that piece so others can see it says “you can’t disagree with me without some concern for your safety.” If you don’t believe in the possibility of dangerous people, why would you be a gun owner?
aimai
I said this over at whiskey bar. We won’t know for a while but really, when a woman is so scared that she needs to bring a gun to a soccer game and is later shot and killed by her angry husband our first thought might be that she is
a) mentally unbalanced due to living in an abusive situation or
b) trying to protect herself against a dangerous husband
I didn’t follow this story as it was breaking originally. And clearly she posed as a mere “second amendment sister” and claimed to be doing it for its psychological and legal benefits against the modern state. But given her death its kind of likely that, in reality, she was carrying as a covert or overt threat against violent behavior from her husband.
Unless, of course, it is she who killed him without provocation. At any rate this is quite far beyond a mere “the possession of a gun in a household increases your chance of dying…” these two people were already in a very fraught and dangerous relationship which they both tried to mediate with guns.
aimai
Woodrowfan
I agree with Dogbert. I think people should be able to own any gun they want up to and including rocket launchers, but I think I am the only person that should have ammo, because I don’t trust the rest of you with anything more lethal than string…
Brandon
Not far off @Ajay. I think the defense would be though that if she was packing at the time, she could have defended herself. Obviously she should have been showering with a loaded weapon holstered at her side to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
Redshirt
“An armed society is a polite society”
One of my favorite Glibertarian quotes. Sure we’ll see used sincerely soon enough, if not already.
calling all toasters
Well, I guess she isn’t going to be Joe the Plumber’s running mate now.
thereisnorule6
thinning the herd, that’s all. move along.
Eric U.
This is one story that I just can’t think about in terms of the guns. What a tragedy. What a disaster.
General Winfield Stuck
Guns and marriage. what could go wrong?
Joshua Norton
but the people I know who would want to pack a gun all the time are dead last on my list of people I want to own guns.
My thoughts exactly. People who feel compelled to walk around packing heat 24/7 have emotional issues. Really bad emotional issues. And the rest of society shouldn’t be forced to deal with their batshit craziness and their potential for causing deadly harm to everyone around them.
ellaesther
@thereisnorule6: @me: @Terri: @calling all toasters:
God in heaven! Not ok!
The woman and her husband were clearly intensely fucked up, and now their children are fucked up for life! That kind of tragedy, while reasonably discussed as John did in his post in order to talk about our culture, is nothing to be laughed at or made light of! Holy God.
Polish the Guillotines
I have a dream — nay, a silly impractical fantasy:
In this fantasy, prominent gun owners take a cue from PG&E, Nike, and Apple leaving the US Chamber of Commerce over the USCC’s extreme stance on climate change. In this dream-that-shall-never-come-to-pass, these prominent gun owners — celebrities, politicians, business people — would make a very public spectacle of cancelling their NRA memberships until the NRA takes three steps back from the crazy-ledge.
The Second Amendment is what it is, and without a complete repeal (which I don’t particularly favor and know will not happen), guns are just gonna be part of the landscape of this country. Fine. But fucking compromise. All or nothing is the worst possible set of options.
The paranoid nutcases that have control of the debate right now view the Second Amendment as their 007 passport to whack anyone who looks at them sideways. They want impunity to shoot first, fuck the questions, and be free of any consequences — legal or otherwise.
And then shit like this happens. This is how it really goes down. No Turner Diaries, no Black Helicopters, no Jack Booted Thugs. Just sloppy, sad, domestic violence.
ellaesther
I just said the following directed toward 4 specific comments, and it’s caught in moderation, I’m guessing because I replied to too many people. So I’ll say it this way:
@ anyone who is making dismissive, derisive comments about this woman and her life (“thinning the herd” as but one example):
God in heaven! Not ok!
The woman and her husband were clearly intensely fucked up, and now their children are fucked up for life! That kind of tragedy, while reasonably discussed as John did in his post in order to talk about our culture, is nothing to be laughed at or made light of! Holy God.
Ash Can
As long as we remain a society that allows pretty much anyone to own guns, this kind of thing will happen. The only way to prevent it is to repeal or reinterpret the 2nd Amendment and take gun ownership out of the equation altogether. By maintaining the right to own guns, or at least the way that right stands, we’ve resigned ourselves to tolerating the occasional violence and massacres that result. Oh well.
Punchy
I have this much sympathy (squeezes pointer finger and thumb together) for a woman who feels so gunly about bringing a loaded gun to a fucking child’s soccer game.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Flame away.
The Moar You Know
@Redshirt: A quote from Heinlein, who the gilbtards adore. I find it best to make sure that they’re aware of the Heinlein connection, get them on record as being fans of his, and them slap them with “Heinlein also thought a daughter’s first sexual experience should be with her father. Do you subscribe to all of his insane beliefs, or do you pick and choose among them?”
Persia
@aimai: I’ve been wondering the same thing, aimai.
Ash
I bet if they got a dog and trained it how to use a gun none of this would have happened. They’d all be too freaked out that their fucking dog was using a gun.
C. Scyphers
Um, ::scratching head:: Isn’t that the point of the whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing?
Dean Wormer
What is the inverse of “secession”?
I’d like to force all these $&^%(*#$&%-ing gun states into their own fenced-off insane asylum (maybe we could call it Wolverinia) so the rest of us can get on with life, already. Such as.
Joey Maloney
@Woodrowfan:
I’m with Chris Rock. Gun ownership is fine, but bullets should cost $5000 each.
Libby
Very sad. I have to admit my second thought, after my heart broke for their children, was that some people aren’t emotionally equipped to carry guns. But unfortunately there’s no way to really screen for that and often what measures do exist, are based on arbitrary criteria that don’t screen out marginally unstable people but punish gun owners who are no threat instead. Thinking in particular of a case in MA where an old guy who lived in the country and had been a hunter all his life had his license revoked because of some teenage fracas where he was charged for disorderly where no guns were involved.
Not sure how to solve that.
Brick Oven Bill
Three people never to trust:
1. Anyone who says ‘trust me’;
2. A businessman who calls you ‘buddy’;
3. A politician who describes the 2nd Amendment as something to do with hunting.
CapMidnight
@Dean Wormer
“2nd Amendment Zone“
inkadu
This tragic event saddens us all and should remind us that human life is precious.
And what about the children? Why won’t anyone think about the children?
Bubblegum Tate
I think the proper response would have been to get a bunch of dark-skinned people in baggy clothes to openly carry at the town halls, then watch the wingnuts froth about “the Crips and Bloods coming to kill whitey! This must be stopped!” But hey, that’s just me.
Also, Steve Benen had a great post yesterday about a sting operation finding the extremely commonplace practice of illegally selling guns at gun shows. You think the wingnuts who were fapping like crazy to that stupid ACORN sting picked up on this? Of course not!
And on what is unfortunately both a somber and necessary note, this:
Seitz
You misspelled “predictable”.
handy
@C. Scyphers:
But the assumption in the gun-ownership-for-all thesis is everybody is a rational actor and won’t go around plugging people who pose no threat to them. The increase of the presence of guns in the general population making the world a safer place is begging the question.
Libby
Adding that animai makes a good point about the domestic abuse factor. We don’t know all the facts about this woman’s life, so none should be so quick to judge who haven’t been subjected to long term domestic violence themselves. It’s sort of like being a prisoner of war and people can develop peculiar coping mechanisms.
linda
Punchy
i couldn’t agree more. sorry for the kids; but, hey, mom and dad went out doing what they love. bang. bang.
Robertdsc-iphone
It just seems odd to me. When I leave the house, I make sure to have my wallet, pocket knife, keys, & iPhone. It would never occur to me to bring my M1911A1 along, even if I owned one.
Libby
Of course, I meant to say aimai. Cold in the house today and my typing fingers aren’t so supple today.
ChrisB
@Dean Wormer:
Nice add on to your post. More of a Miss Teen South Carolina flavor. I was getting a little tired of the Palinesque “also.”
shoutingattherain
Nothing to see here, folks. Just some 2nd Amendment collateral damage.
Comrade Darkness
If the kids’ witnessing is reliable and this is a straight up murder-suicide perpetrated by the father, then it’s very unfortunate that the NRA/2nd amendment instantly-heated rhetoric got in the way of correctly interpreting what was apparently a cry for help.
mac
One of my neighbors is a gun-toting, right-wing redneck. Believe me—that’s a species in northern VA. He told me he wished someone would break into his house so he could legitimately shoot them. He reminded me of Homer Simpson daydreaming about a donut.
Face
I guessing that woman’s kids got to start every soccer game and play the entire 90 minutes at any position on the field they wanted.
Michael D.
You know what they say:
When guns are outlawed, only
outlawsGlenn Beck dittoheads will have guns.LD50
Okay, let’s start the betting here on how exactly Makewi will use this news to cobble together an attack on ‘libs’ for supporting gun control.
Dean Wormer
@ChrisB:
I tend to alternate. “Also” for Frontierland. “Such as” for the Bear Country Jamboree.
Zifnab
@Bubblegum Tate:
The answer to that is more LAPD.
Bring a bunch of armed and impoverished black youth to a wingnut rally, and you’re basically asking for Klansmen with badges to show up inside 10 minutes. It wouldn’t encourage disarmament. It would just encourage a, “Shoot darkies on sight!” policy.
Zifnab
@Michael D.: I thought that when guns were outlawed we’d still be allowed to buy them at gun shows.
Jack
@Ed Marshall:
Seconded.
freelancer
@LD50:
He’ll just say they are.
SATSQ.
Bwah-da Bap Badap Bomp! Boing!
Paul L.
@Bubblegum Tate:
I noticed progressives have found the narrative that they used to defend Acorn, of entrapment and a conspiracy of deep pocketed rightwing media types to be no longer operative.
I guess New York City/Bloomberg do not count as deep pocketed for the purpose of stings.
Media Matters O’Keefe reportedly received donations from conservative activist
Crooks and Liars Village Voice: ‘Independent’ Filmmaker James O’Keefe Has A Right-Wing Sugar Daddy
BTW if it turns out that the woman who carried the gun was killed by her husband, will John C apologize for implying that because she carried a gun, she perpetrated the murder-suicide.
Or will John do a Media Matters and use the excuse that he did not say that outright.
parksideq
@aimai: This.
It’s tragic, but I doubt that the guns were the underlying issue. Domestic violence is awful whether it’s verbal abuse or physical carnage. If anything, the guns were just a convenience; it would have been something else if not a firearm.
Note to GOP: this is what happens when you say that women should be put in their place. That place far too often ends up being a grave.
Dean Wormer
@CapMidnight:
Flyoveristan
Jack
@Ash Can:
Your argument can be applied to anything which human beings can heft, poke, prob, stab, smoke, eat, drink, move, shift, toss or otherwise do something with, alone or in groups.
Which is why it’s a really silly argument.
TenguPhule
I notice Paul L can’t tell the difference between a sting operation and conservatives selectively editing a false flag op that failed many many times before it got a bite.
handy
Cole shouldn’t have to apologize for your lack of reading comprehension. But you know, he’s his own man and I’m sure will do what he thinks is right.
Jack
@Ash Can:
Your argument can be applied to anything which human beings can heft, poke, prod, stab, smoke, eat, drink, move, shift, toss or otherwise do something with, alone or in groups.
Which is why it’s a really silly argument.
freelancer
@Zifnab:
I thought we already saw this happen. But the teabagger mob is afraid of bike cops.
LD50
Is it just me, or is Paul L. by far the most boring troll BJ has? He lacks the unpredictable dadaism of BOB, or the pompous self-assumed victimhood of Makewi, or the crazed belligerence of Right Wing Extreme. That whole “I know you are but what am I?” routine gets real boring.
TenguPhule
Bullshit.
Guns are essentially killing weapons for dummies. It allows even a moron without any training to injure or kill many people easily at a distance with little or no way to avoid or counter.
Punchy
@Paul L.: I’m with Paul here. If the Duke Lacrosse team all had guns, those filthy hookers wouldn’t have stood a chance. It woulda been textbook murder-necrophilia.
Homer
Clerk: Your gun and permit will be ready in five days.
Homer: Five Days!! But I’m mad now!
TenguPhule
And yet its normally a lot harder to kill someone with a knife, bat or other improvised weapon of rage then a gun when they don’t want to be killed.
Kevin @ The Liberty Handbook
This has nothing to do with guns. It has to do with crazy ass people. If they didn’t have a gun, the dad would probably have just stabbed the mom.
This isn’t a gun issue, it’s a stupid people issue.
Pasquinade
Glock-toting Amish country soccer mom shot dead
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/63763252.html?cmpid=15585797
The husband was a cop?
nitpicker
See this study:
Jack
@TenguPhule:
The underlying logic of his/her argument is, well, illogical. It’s a classic if/than assertion, with no actual argumentation or case presentation.
Which is why, as usual with those sort of emotionalist sentimental verbal bouts of diarrhea, it’s just silly.
And whilst I agree that a gun is a tool designed to punch holes into bodies, it does not follow on assumption alone that the repeal of the 2nd amendment, or the curtailment of the possession of firearms would necessarily result in less human violence, nor the human proclivity towards the same.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“The woman and her husband were clearly intensely fucked up, and now their children are fucked up for life!”
It’s awful for the kids, but most kids that young (about 85%) are more resilient to emotional trauma than you might think, provided they end up in a supportive home with a relative or good adoptive/foster parent. [About 15% are more affected by stress hormones and are more susceptible to long-lasting effects.]
In general, the older kids are going to have stronger memories of their parents and have a harder time adjusting than the younger kids.
However, if the rest of the family are as screwed up as the parents, for if Child Protective Services screw up and send them to a bad foster home or keep them in limbo switching between relatives and foster homes, then they are going to be seriously messed up.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Beat me to it. Baggy clothes not required though. If I wore a gun over anything from surgeon’s scrubs to a priest’s robes any fRighty in the vicinity would see a 12 foot tall, bling-draped gang-banger.
TenguPhule
Corrected for accuracy.
Let people own all the guns they want.
Restrict, regulate and tax ammunition up the yin yang.
LD50
@Kevin @ The Liberty Handbook: Has anyone else noticed that the word ‘liberty’ is pretty much the exclusive province of rightwing nuts nowadays? I think the process began with the Birchers in the 1960s.
Jack
@TenguPhule:
How’s that working for marijuana? Cocaine? With Iranian sanctions? The fifty year “Cuban democracy project”?
Flukebucket
The husband was a cop?
things are beginning to get a little clearer now.
Shell
Yup, just like living in Deadwood.
Paul L.
@TenguPhule:
Which is why the NY Times had to edit a quote from Acorn.
NYT Reporter Scrubbed ACORN Quote Report Because He Didn’t Want To Imply They Were Lying
Ash Can
@Jack:
Because, of course, all those myriad other things you mention and refer to have the exact same correlation of ease of use and deadly force as do guns.
Don’t tell me, let me guess — you copied your entire post verbatim from an unabridged dictionary definition of “false equivalence.” Am I right?
LD50
@Jack: Marijuana and cocaine are legal but “restricted, regulated and taxed up the yin yang”??
Demo Woman
What a sad story.
LD50
@Shell: Somalia’s another nice example.
Jack
Canada, Finland, Norway and Switzerland all have less gun restrictions that the US – and significantly lower gun crime percentages.
Because the issue is not the tool. It’s the people willing to use it. It’s culture.
Both the glibertarian and gun-banner arguments are houses built on sand, during a sea swell…
…at high tide.
GregB
Another great moment in politeness.
-G
Jack
@Ash Can:
Nope. I merely noted that your underlying arugment was not in fact an argument. It was a breathless assertion, devoid of case presentation.
That doesn’t mean I agree or disagree with you. I just think your emotional appeal is silly, on its own terms.
Make a case. Then there will be merits to judge.
Dean Wormer
I can haz noo tag? “polite society”
gnomedad
OT, Rush goes there with H1N1 conspiracy talk. Watch the video — I think he’s feeling pressure to out-crazy Glenn Beck.
Just Some Fuckhead
At least they darwinned themselves before someone innocent was killed.
I’m prolly gonna have to do another peformance comment series on solving everyday problems with gun violence.
handy
Good grief, ACORN again? Must be a slow poutrage day for our friendly troll.
sv
@ellaesther: Thank you. (& nice to see a fellow Coates-er here.)
Jack
@LD50:
Effectively banning, or providing legal sanctions, does not automatically curtail the (a) desire to possess (b) nor the opportunity to obtain.
If the desire persists, and there are those willing to meet it, it’s objects will be met.
And we are discussing glibertarian go-it-alone neo-confederates and cold-dead-handers (and weapons manufacturers) who already do end runs around the law with gun shows, no?
The market exists. The buyers are motivated. Raising the price of bullets, via regulation, taxation or outright banning won’t eliminate that market. It might only alter the mechanism by which the buyer obtains his goods.
It will – if the many other examples provide some metric – perhaps only drive it “underground.”
Michael D.
@Zifnab: Only in New York.
Wile E. Quixote
@The Moar You Know
Bubblegum Tate
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
“BNBG” in the parlance of The Wire.
ericblair
@Bubblegum Tate: I think the proper response would have been to get a bunch of dark-skinned people in baggy clothes to openly carry at the town halls, then watch the wingnuts froth about “the Crips and Bloods coming to kill whitey! This must be stopped!” But hey, that’s just me.
Reminds me of the news coverage of the 2nd Amendment case in DC. Even though the plaintiff was black, I never saw any stock gunowner footage where the subject wasn’t pasty white.
The “armed society is a polite society” quote is just insane. We do have countries in the world with minimal governments and widespread gun ownership. They have names like Somalia and Afghanistan.
Jack
Ash Can,
In brief, kindly show those countries where the (a) banning of guns has reduced incidents of violent crime and (b) where reduced regulation, restriction or lack of bans results in higher percentages of violent crime.
Thank you, in advance.
~ Jack
GregB
No one get on Limbaugh’s case with his anti-vaccine talk.
Let his propaganda sink in to the masses.
I’m not a big fan of pandemics, but if we are going to have one and there’s a whole bunch of ditto-heads willing to take one for the team…..
-G
Just Some Fuckhead
I can’t understand why people who wish to be perceived as a threat to others chafe at the idea that they may be a threat to others.
cmorenc
@ajay
I’ve been refereeing soccer games at both recreational and competitive levels for thirteen years now, a half-dozen to a dozen games per week in season. Passions of not just coaches and players, but interested spectators (ESPECIALLY PARENTS WHOSE KIDS ARE PLAYING) can get very elevated (to put it mildly), and while I’ve got very plenty thick skin and confidence in my abilities to calmly let quite a bit of the upset side of people’s passion run harmlessly off my back, the fact that some of these folks might now be packing is EXTREMELY disturbing. People get really cranked up about incidents (or series of incidents) where they think their precious kid is getting fouled and the ref isn’t calling it, or is making critical calls (or no-calls) contrary to what they think the ref should be doing.
CHEESUS-K-REIST having people with guns at games is a colossally bad idea. Even in the hispanic adult leagues I work (which can get pretty rowdy, but the soccer’s very good) – the overwhelming majority of them think someone packing at the game is a really, really, terrible idea.
These NRA types are toxically dangerous lunatics. Someone shows up with a gun at one of my games, and THE GAME WILL STOP AND NOT GO FORWARD UNTIL THEY LEAVE, AND I’M CALLING THE COPS BECAUSE THEY’RE BEING DISRUPTIVE TO THE SAFETY OF PLAYERS AND EVERYONE PRESENT. DAMN THE PUBLIC CONCEALED CARRY LAWS – NO ONE HAS A RIGHT TO PUT MY LIFE OR ANY PLAYERS OR COACH’S LIFE IN DANGER WITH THIS SHIT.
Jay B.
Violence? Probably not. Deaths? Almost 100% true. It’s really that simple. Fewer guns wouldn’t reduce assaults, hell, the argument would be they’d increase without the threat of death (which I think is dubious, but whatever), but the homicide rate would plummet. Guns make killing people ridiculously easy. Every other way is MUCH harder and has a lower success rate.
Moreover, there are other non-lethal deterrents that could conceivably work like guns without having the obvious kill rate — mace, pepper spray, tasers.
Now those things are also being abused, especially by the cops, but there is a wide gulf between those forms of self-protection and violence and a gun fight.
And sanctions or outlawing firearms doesn’t seem to be what TenguPhule is advocating, but strict taxing and regulating, which is a pretty normal government response. I personally think if we took that approach with pot and coke, gun violence would go down too.
Librarian
My, my, so many guns around town and so few brains. – Philip Marlowe
Deborah
@Don: I do not understand how anyone with any firearm experience can comfortably advocate not requiring ANY training, even if it’s possible to read the 2nd amendment that way.
This. When I teach my daughter to drive in a couple of years I plan to stress that I’m giving her control of a deadly weapon, that driving too fast or carelessly if she’s mad or upset is as dangerous as running through a crowded park carrying an automatic with the safety off when she’s mad or upset. So if we’re keenly aware of the need to educate drivers, test them, and make all the high school kids watch a simulated crash, why not the same for guns?
I do have the impression that Don is a fairly typical gun owner–knows how to use a gun safely, values education for anyone before shooting, doesn’t carry just to make the point–just not the loudest. And as someone said upthread, the sort of person who openly carries to a kindergarten soccer game just to make a point (as opposed to Mom the cop just got off duty) is last on my list of people who should be carrying.
Cain
@Robertdsc-iphone:
That’s because you don’t understand the 2nd amendment THRILL of packing HEAT. That cold steel against your balls as you walk around knowing that you are SAFE. More than safe, you’re Dirty Harry! Yep.. nothing like cold steel against your balls. You should try it. Excuse me, I got to go masturbate.
cain
Joel
@Jack: I assume you’re asking because there’s no such clean-cut case? I mean, even the Swedish monarchy instituting heavy restrictions on alcohol consumption in the 19th century didn’t have effects on alcoholism for generations.
I do agree that the issue isn’t the guns, it’s nuts with guns.
Calouste
@Jack:
In Switzerland everyone who has completed mandatory military service has to keep an army rifle and 50 rounds of ammunition in their house until they are officially taken off the active duty list around age 30.
LD50
@Jack: This seems like an awful lot of verbiage to mask the fact that your analogy made no sense.
Mike in NC
Don’t forget “Freedom”, as in FreedomWorks and Freedom’s Watch and other winger organizations. Dubya’s dismissal of his foreign policy critics with a glib “Freedom’s on the march”. Also.
Jay B.
And Jack, you can pick out countries like Norway and Canada who have fewer regulations and fewer gun deaths — I’ll pick out the UK, Germany and France which have strict gun regulations and have much lower death rates from guns.
LD50
@cmorenc:
Some NRA type will assuredly claim that is a violation of his Constitutional rights, the same as the ‘right’ to carry loaded weapons to Obama speeches.
Martin
If memory serves, the husband was a corrections officer (parole officer, I think) and licensed to carry concealed. She was carrying because she was afraid that this situation would happen and because the husband was effectively unreachable due to his job. That is, he could walk into the grocery store with his gun without really raising much attention.
She might have been a nut, but if the husband was the shooter here, it would seem that she had the right read on things. Now, carrying to a soccer game might not have been the right social approach – better recognition of domestic (or potential domestic) abuse, more uniform treatment of these situations when they involve law enforcement, and so on might be the better approach, but she can’t affect those things.
What bothers me about the 2nd amendment folks is that given a choice between free access to guns everywhere and social policy that doesn’t result in a shootout, they side with the shootout almost every time.
inkadu
@ChrisB: I was getting a little tired of the Palinesque “also.”
Someone has a nice pastiche the other day: “Wolverines, also.”
It’s not too tired for reformulation.
Itinerant Pedant
I had very concrete thoughts when I saw that, as follows (I will not blogwhore though…):
“I will emphasize this for the “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” folks out there. The presence of a gun in any highly emotional situation immediately raises the stakes to life and death. Instantly. Am I saying that the gun in this caused the violence? No. Did the gun make it lethal? You are fucking-A right it did. Were her fellow soccer game attendees unreasonable in being worried (batshit upset, more like) at someone carrying a gun to events that time and again in this country devolve into shouting matches or violence between coaches, refs and parents? Abso-fucking-lutely not.”
Origuy
@Calouste: And those boxes of ammunition are sealed and inspected regularly to make sure that they haven’t been used improperly.
Persia
@GregB: Greg, nice thought, but babies are too young to get vaccinated no matter how smart their parents are, and I wouldn’t want them suffering because some Limbaugh-loving asshole sneezed on them.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Darkness:
I just wanted to make sure this got highlighted before the instantly-heated rhetoric gets going in this thread. It’s quite possible that this woman was carrying a gun to the soccer game to protect herself from her husband, but it was more important to the gun nuts and the NRA to make her a poster girl than it was to find out why she might want to carry her gun around kids.
Jack
@Joel:
For the most part, yes.
I’m neither a glibertarian or a “gun grabber,” so I don’t really come to the issue with a lot of the package deal memes that accompany those broad outlooks.
Where I live (Northern New England, esp. Vermont and NH) there isn’t much in the way of gun regulation, and there aren’t a lot of gun crimes, or much violent crime in general. But per capita gun ownership is relatively high.
NH and Vermont also – and this may just be correlation, and not at all causative – have the highest “social capital” in the nation.
We have low population density, relative affluence, town meeting style local government, cities which would barely qualify as such elsewhere, few large industries which dominate the economy, and relatively unobtrusive state governments.
The populations of both state have trended very liberal and Democrat, over the last generation – and yet the attitudes towards guns have not, perhaps because those factors which make gun crime a problem in high density environments simply don’t obtain in most of this region.
Which leads me to believe, perhaps as a starting point only, that the “clear cut” case just doesn’t exist. That “no guns, no violence” and the “armed polite society” are fictions people tell themselves, to reaffirm their own worldviews.
And are not, in fact, models constructed from available data.
Jack
…It should perhaps also be noted that the divorce, teen pregnancy, and other “social woes,” numbers are lower in these two states as well – which may explain why the Values Crusade never really caught on, locally (our Republicans still resemble Kempites and Eisenhower Goppers).
I think, referring back to an argument made elsewhere, on another topic – that people tend to project their local problems onto the national stage.
So that in regions where drug addiction, teen pregnancy, divorce, domestic violence are higher (and I would think that there’s a causative correlation between economic conditions and those symptoms, especially in regions dominated by single industries, or company towns) politicking tends to be the search for answers to those symptoms (and rarely, given the money besotted incest that is politics, the cause…).
vanya
The fact that both Germany and Switzerland have low levels of gun violence despite very different restrictions on ownership goes a long way towards demonstating that it’s the culture and demography of the US that’s the problem, not the gun laws. It’s not an accident that gun violence in Live Free or Die New Hampshire is more like Canada than it is like Arkansas.
Comrade E.B. Misfit
I’m licensed to carry. Most of the times I don’t. Sometimes I do. I see it as my choice.
A couple of decades ago, in a state that then did not permit concealed carry (now does) I knew a woman who escaped from a violent relationship. She had a restraining order out on him and he routinely violated it by coming closer and closer to her.
Her choice was to carry a weapon. Eventually he was picked up by the cops and jailed for a number of charges, so she didn’t have to shoot him. But it gave her considerable peace of mind to know that if he did try to hurt her, that she had a reasonable chance to defend herself from a man who was 7″ taller and about 90lbs heavier.
Jack
@Jay B.:
I’m not suggesting one or the other, Jay. I think that the number of factors involved is larger than most proponents of the two broad positions care to calculate.
The Moar You Know
I read the linked story. Sorry to say this, she seems kind of crazy; I’m willing to bet there’s an excellent chance she went after dad, who then shot her.
Catsy
@The Moar You Know:
Okay look, Heinlein had plenty of fucked-up opinions and misogyny to weigh against the good stuff, but unless you’ve got a quote from him saying this, I’m calling foul. Claiming that this repugnant idea follows from–I’m presuming–some of the plot elements in his later books makes about as much sense as arguing that Heinlein was pro-cannibalism based on Stranger in a Strange Land.
Don
He should really move to my ancestral state, Florida, then. It has a law on the books explicitly saying that you don’t have to retreat from aggression in your own home before using deadly force. Virginia doesn’t have any such thing, though I’d fall over dead of shock if a typical Virginia DA would prosecute someone who shot an intruder.
I think that’s probably true in almost any case where there’s a spectrum people fall along. The whackos at the edges are the loudest – because they have no doubts or caveats regarding their beliefs – and get the most press because they’re the most dramatic. However that doesn’t mean they should be ignored or discounted.
That extremism also means they’re driven in a way we more moderate folks can never match. I’m simply not going to drive ten hours to march around with like-minded folks who think gun ownership is okay but should require a few hours of practical handling training. They’ll move heaven and earth to shout out against that kind of limit, though. I’m not skipping work to call for serial numbers on ammunition but they’ll risk their job to protest limiting its sale at Toys R Us.
As Nate from 508 said about the Teabag nuts – you ignore their voices at your peril. They are motivated and have some people’s ear. Probably strung onto a necklace and hidden under their bed.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
unpredictable dadaism
would make a great band name.
Rathskeller
These stories are terribly sad, but I try to shake them off. At this point, I have no hope that any meaningful gun control will ever be instituted in the United States. I try not to hope, because it just hurts too badly otherwise. There are too many people who are in love with guns, can never see a reason not to have them in any situation, and can glibly dismiss life-searing tragedies like this with foolish analogies. There are so many, many examples now. It’s just part of America, our love of guns. I don’t believe that will ever change, and I shudder to think of the crimes that would be committed even to persuade people it should change. What has happened so far is just so awful.
Politicians like Clinton believe that he lost the house in 1994 in part because of his advocacy of gun control, and the subsequent targeting of specific House members by the NRA (pun intended). Other politicians are certainly aware of this, and try to say as little as possible about guns. Obama has enough on his plate, he’s not going anywhere near gun control. Reid & Pelosi don’t have their act together enough to manhandle their guys into following up. Conceivably, if Chuck Schumer makes it into the top Senate position, he might have the inclination to make gun control a priority. It’s unlikely, since he would only be in that position if 2010 is a disaster for the Senate Dems.
Ultimately, two people are dead, a fraction of the overall cost from our love of guns. Nothing will happen about it. It’s a goddamned shame.
ellaesther
@sv: Dude! Hi! This, the TNC-Balloon Juice, is a good place to be!
Seanly
From the AP story:
Most folks from Central PA are pretty used to guns so people worried about a packing neighbor probably have reasons other than fear of guns. Sorry to disparage the dead, but a responsible gun owner could keep a handgun in their vehicle at the soccer game, striking a balance between whatever motivation to carry and common sense & courtesy.
I was a non-native who lived in Central PA for 8 years. It is a very insular setting. I saw a lot of overblown fear of crime, thinly veiled rascism and an almost xenophobic fear of outsiders. I now live in SC and would swear that I see less rebel flags here than I did in Central PA. Maybe Mrs. Hain did carry out of fear of her husband, but my first take on this story is that she probably harbored a lot of paranoid fears.
And as wonderful as guns are (apparently the greatest tool evah), without them chances are very good that there would not have been a murder suicide in Lebanon last night. Regardless, there are now 4 children (one report mentioned a step daughter plus their 3) without parents.
Eric S
@Ed Marshall: THIS!
wasabi gasp
Chicago’s alibi that it spent all day yesterday in Illinois is pretty solid.
celticdragon
Exactly. I’m not a fan of gun control…but I can think of some folks I would rather not be armed.
Mike G
The woman and her husband were clearly intensely fucked up, and now their children are fucked up for life! That kind of tragedy, while reasonably discussed as John did in his post in order to talk about our culture, is nothing to be laughed at or made light of!
The fact that she openly carried a loaded weapon to a kid’s soccer game was a major clue that she was mentally unbalanced. Yet the simpleton media and the rightards turned her into a 2nd Amendment Hero with Wolverine Oak Leaves based upon that action, not knowing anything else and not wanting to know anything else about her life or mental state.
HyperIon
@Ajay wrote: He would have gotten her with a knife or something if a gun wasn’t present.
and then he would have slit his own throat?
Deborah
Okay, unless someone has evidence that the parents were separated and he had moved out of the house and she had a restraining order, I am calling bs on the assumption that she carried to protect herself from her husband. If they’re living together she presumably showers, sleeps, etc–the idea that he’d go for her at the soccer game but not in the shower is stretching.
HyperIon
@aimai wrote: trying to protect herself against a dangerous husband
well, if so, she failed totally.
why not let the facts come out?
HyperIon
@ellaesther wrote: That kind of tragedy, while reasonably discussed as John did in his post in order to talk about our culture, is nothing to be laughed at or made light of!
I agree with you mostly; IMO the thinning the herd remark is deliberately cruel.
But doesn’t Cole make light of it with his post title?
The all-snark-all-the-time approach gets old….but evidently not for some.
HyperIon
@Seanly wrote: I was a non-native who lived in Central PA for 8 years. It is a very insular setting. I saw a lot of overblown fear of crime, thinly veiled rascism and an almost xenophobic fear of outsiders.
Me, too. I spent 4+ years in Bloomsburg and hardly knew I had left my native south.
ellaesther
@HyperIon: Well, you know, if the post hadn’t been reasonable, I would have argued with John, too, but I felt that in the context of the post, the post heading actually sounds like the kind of pained things we say when something terrible has happened and we’re so deeply frustrated — that is, not snark at all (and yes, I did think about it that much!). Also, and not for nothing, but if I thought that our hosts fostered an atmosphere of “all snark all the time” in these parts, I wouldn’t be here.
Bob
@inkadu:
I think it is possible that the kids are better off moving in with Aunt Mary.
Obama Death Panel Chairman (formerly glocksman)
A few thoughts:
I am the holder of an Indiana lifetime CCW permit. Despite this, I rarely carry a gun, and when I do it’s usually a Smith .38 Special Airweight.
I used to carry more often years ago when I tended bar and ran the short order grill at a bowling alley on weekends and didn’t leave work until 2AM.
I also carried when I worked part time 3rd shift at a local convenience store, and company policies to the contrary be damned.
Luckily I never needed to draw my gun, but that may have been because I’m a man who was 6’0 and 250 lbs.
The week after I quit my 3rd shift part time job, the girl who replaced me was held up by some schmoe with a knife.
Would he have pulled it on me? I don’t know.
I do know that if all he wanted was money or merchandise, I’d have co-operated fully with his demands.
The $100 or so in the register and/or cases of cigarettes weren’t worth shooting someone over, no matter how ‘legal’ the shoot would have been because only a sociopath could shoot someone to death and not have any regrets or self doubt about the situation.
Though if he told me to lay on the floor or otherwise acted to harm me or a customer, I would have drawn and shot him.
The only time I ever came close to drawing my gun was when I was at a stoplight and a car literally screeched to a stop in the parking lot at the corner closest to my car.
A guy jumped out and pointed a gun straight at me.
I literally started to dive under my seat while drawing the legally carried Smith 3913 I owned at the time when I realized that the ‘gun’ had an orange tip.
Once I realized that the asshole was playing ‘laser tag’ at a fucking public intersection, I holstered my Smith while literally screaming at the asshole that I could have legally shot him to death in apparent* self defense.
It took over an hour for the adrenaline shakes to calm down and then the crying jag started.
This episode proved two things to me.
One is that I could if necessary shoot someone in defense of myself or a third party.
Two is that I’d probably have a near breakdown from the stress and guilty feelings, no matter how justified in the eyes of the law the shoot was.
A gun is not a self defense weapon for everyone.
If you honestly do not believe you could potentially kill an attacker no matter how legally justified the shoot would be, a gun is not your weapon of choice.
If you think you could use one, then I suggest both practice with the weapon and consulting with an attorney or a licensed CCW instructor in your state about the circumstances that justify drawing your weapon.
Personally I’d sacrifice *some* money in preference to shooting someone, but if given a choice between giving up a year’s wages to an armed robber or shooting him, I’m probably going to draw my gun while hoping I’ve had more practice than he has if it looks to me as if I can resist successfully.
*If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it’s guilty of impersonating a duck during duck season.
IOW, a reasonable person under the same circumstances would have reacted similarly.
Little Dreamer
If this woman was carrying a gun to defend herself from the husband, then I can only say that she’d still be alive if she had gotten away from this man, which is exactly what a domestic violence counselor would have advised her to do. Packing a gun doesn’t even qualify on the list. She sounds like she was an idiot no matter which way you look at it.
ZoeChastain
The most life threatening threat of all is a firearm threat. A lot of people teach you that you have no chance of surviving against a firearm.
Honus
A few facts:
1) There is no basis for considering the 2nd Amendment in terms of personal safety, (as Scalia did in D. C v. Heller). There is no mention of personal safety in the Constitution, and the 2nd Amendment expressly conditions thr right to own guns on the existence of a state militia. The Conservatives that propounded the line of argument invented non-existent rights in the Constitution and engaged in judicial activism of the type that they constantly vilify.
2) Jesus said it, I believe it, and that’s that: “Put away your sword. He that lives by sword will die by the sword.”
signed,
A third generation, life long West Virginia gun owner, who never allows a loaded gun in the house
Honus
at Martin 109:
If memory serves, the husband was a corrections officer (parole officer, I think) and licensed to carry concealed. She was carrying because she was afraid that this situation would happen and because the husband was effectively unreachable due to his job. That is, he could walk into the grocery store with his gun without really raising much attention.
I don’t know, Martin. I seems pretty crazy to carry a gun to protect yourself from somebody you live with, and sleep in the same bed with. If it’s that close, carrying openly at the soccer game is just further manifestation of the insanity. Of course, the wingnuts made this out to be a completely rational freedom instead of the manifestation of insanity it was. Just like the fools carrying AR15s to presidential events.
rick
Worlds most ignorant phrase “gun don’t kill people, people kill people” Idiots!!!! How responsible of a gun owner are you, when you get mad, jealous or vengful. Live by the sword die by the sword. The only problem with that is that sometimes commen sense people get caught in the crossfire. If the Hains could have done the same thing with a knive, why did’nt they? Because knives are too messy and too much work. Its way easier to be spineless and pull the trigger. Melanie carried a gun for her own protection. How did that work out for her? I would publish my name and address, but i’m quite certain someone out there wants to shoot me.