More Pro-Gun Arming Of Schools Despite Objections From Teachers

Even in the hands of police, accidents happen at schools

(This post is UPDATED with additional instances since first posting -- see below)

Well, it's happened again.  Another school board with some pro-gun extremists sitting on it has declared that concealed handguns are allowed in its classrooms, including in the hands of its teachers.  This time in St. Helens, Oregon.  As usual, though, they have done so against the wishes of the very teachers they want to arm.

Back in March, 2013, a ban against guns was put in place in that school district after teachers and parents were polled.  The vast majority were against guns.  Wisely, the school board put the ban in place out of respect to the wishes of those they served.

Unfortunately, school boards are not necessarily made up of people who have children in their district or have any teaching experience at all. 

From an article and news video which quotes one of the teachers in that school district:

A teacher at St. Helens High School says the school board ignored teachers’ opinions when they repealed a ban on teachers and staff members carrying concealed weapons on campus. 

Amber Horn said the board knew how the teachers felt about the issue, but didn’t care. 

“Totally unvalued. Our opinion doesn’t matter,” she said. “A teacher’s worst nightmare is a gun in school. I have a toddler there. That’s the worst nightmare there is.”

Since the ban was put in effect, some new, more conservative school board members have come on the board and decided, on their own, that guns around kids in their school would be a great thing.

From another article:

Board member Ray Biggs and chairman Marshall Porter, in particular, think teachers should be able to have guns in the event of a school shooting. 

“I would say that the risk is more likely that somebody who isn’t following the law is a higher risk to your child coming on to school property than the one that is going to do it legally,” Porter said.

Really?  It would seem that Mr. Porter doesn't have his facts straight.  If he had bothered to look, he would have found that there has never been a school shooting stopped by an armed teacher or a citizen conceal-carry owner.  The closest case I ever found was of a school staff member (and Army reservist commander) who went out to their car and got a gun, but the shooting was over by that point, the shooter was out of ammo and was driving out of the parking lot (the only reason he was stopped was that the shooter crashed his car, allowing the staff member to get to him and hold him under arrest).

On the other hand, I know of at least SEVENTEEN instances where they have CAUSED incidents, including injuring themselves or children, just in the last couple years, including one by a police officer just the other day.  Here they are:

• February 28, 2018: A high school social studies teacher in Dalton, Georgia, barricaded himself in a classroom and fired a shot from a handgun. Luckily, no one was injured, and he was taken into custody.
• February 5, 2018: A police officer was at an elementary school in Maplewood, MN, "building relationships" with 3rd and 4th graders when one little boy reached over and pulled the trigger on the officer's holstered handgun. The gun fired into the floor. Luckily, no one was injured.
• September 13, 2016:  A school teacher at Cumberland Christian School, in Chambersburg, PA, left a loaded, unsecured handgun on a toilet in a bathroom. Four children, ages 6 to 8, went in the bathroom before one of the children reported the gun. Luckily, none of them fired the gun.
• February 19, 2015:  A school resource officer at Western Wayne School District in Pennsylvania unintentionally fired his handgun in the school.  Luckily, no one was injured.
• September 11, 2014:  A teacher was in the bathroom of a school in Taylorsville, Utah, when she unintentionally shot herself in the leg with her own handgun.
• January 18, 2014:  An armed security guard left his weapon unattended in the bathroom, fully accessible to K-8 students, despite being a retired police weapons instructor.
• October 24, 2013:  A police officer left his loaded assault rifle strapped to his motorcycle while visiting an elementary school.  A boy pulled the trigger, firing the weapon and leading to a shrapnel injury of three kids.
• August 24, 2013:  A SWAT police officer was giving a presentation at an elementary school in Lodi, California, when a 6-8 year old boy fired the officer's holstered gun, hitting the officer in the leg.
• May 14, 2013:  A school staffer with a conceal carry permit was offering a ride to a student, in the parking lot, when he unintentionally fired his legally concealed handgun, hitting the student in the leg.
• March 6, 2013:  A recently-started armed resource officer program at schools in Highland, New York, was suspended after one of the security guards unintentionally fired his weapon in school.  Children were present, but luckily no one was injured.
• March 1, 2013:  During a conceal carry training class, on school grounds, which was part of a new program to arm school staff, a school maintenance worker who was a student in the class unintentionally fired his weapon, wounding himself in the leg.
• January 17, 2013:  A charter school in Lapeer, Michigan, decided to start having an armed guard on campus.  Three days after hiring a guard, the man left his weapon in a school bathroom where kids could have found it.
• October 8, 2012:  A man with a concealed handgun visited an elementary school classroom in Moore, Oklahoma, to help the teacher with her computer.  His gun fell out and he left without it, only realizing it was missing after the media reported it.  Small children were present in the room at the time.
• March 22, 2012:  A volunteer track coach at John Mall High School in Walsenburg, Colorado, unintentionally shot himself in the leg with his new .40 caliber Glock handgun, nearly bleeding to death.  He was in his vehicle in the parking lot of the school sports complex.
• December 8, 2011:  A janitor with a conceal carry permit was working on ceiling tiles in a preschool classroom in Waterbury, Connecticut, when he took off his gun belt.  He then left the loaded gun in the classroom and forgot about it. Monday morning, teachers came in the room and found the gun, only moments before 3- and 4-year olds entered the room.
• September 12, 2011:  An armed security guard, patrolling schools at night in Salem, Oregon, unintentionally lost his loaded firearm somewhere during his rounds.  The gun was never found.
• May 12, 2011:  A school resource officer was cleaning his gun, while in the school building, and unintentionally fired the gun. The round went through the wall and into the nurse's room where there were two student, the nurse, and another adult. Luckily, no one was injured.

Totaled up, that's four children and four adults who have been wounded out of sixteen cases.

What's more, these extremist school districts are discovering that, upon making their ruling allowing guns on campus, their insurance companies are pulling their coverage or drastically increasing premiums.  You see, insurance companies actually pay attention to the facts and statistics.  They understand that guns and kids are a deadly mix.

Arming schools is an idea that is very unpopular with nearly every national organization representing parents, teachers, and law enforcement, as well as the citizens of Newtown, and has no merit with any historical context.  It’s time to listen to them and put this whole, dangerous nonsensical suggestion by the NRA to rest.  Support commonsense gun regulation to keep guns out of the hands of children and bad guys to begin with.

(10/29/13: corrected to read St. Helens, Oregon [not Washington])


UPDATE (11/5/13):  A group of teachers, parents, and concerned citizens of St. Helens, Oregon, got together to hold a public protest of the school board decision.


UPDATE (11/11/13): The shooting at a high school in Walsenburg, Colorado, was added to the above list.

UPDATE (1/14/14):  Incident in Michigan added to above list.

UPDATE (9/11/14):  The unintentional self-shooting of a teacher in a school in Utah was added to the list above. 

UPDATE (1/13/16):  Added the incidents from February 2015 and May 2011.

No Vacation For Shootings

Also one of the safest, and a gun-free zone

(Updated -- see below)

I took a little vacation from volunteering, including from gun violence prevention activities like this blog (though I did continue to read and share on social media) as well as any other sort of community work I do.

Facing down the specter of gun violence, reading so many articles about shootings, learning about victims, and meeting survivors all takes a toll on a person.  Instead, for a month, I focused almost completely on my family.

A week of that time was spent in southern California, taking the kids to Disneyland and Legoland and visiting with family down there.  I was thankful for Disneyland's policy against concealed handguns by visitors.  Despite the fact that over 40,000 people (sometimes up to twice that number) visit the park each and every day I was there, there were (gasp!) no incidents where someone had to defend themselves with a firearm in this gun-free zone.  No gangs jumped out at me from behind the yeti on the Matterhorn roller coaster; no drug fiends tried to rape us on the Tea Cup ride; no mass shooters went on a spree as we sailed through It's A Small World.  The worst I saw were some stressed parents with over-stimulated, tantruming kids.  Safety in the "Happiest Place On Earth" doesn't need gun-toting people afraid of their fellow man.  Of course, some gun guys purposely disobey.  They just can't keep their paranoia at home.  If they would stupidly take them into airport security (as over 1500 did last year, with a disturbing rise so far this year), they would take them anywhere.  Legoland, too, doesn't allow firearms.  Nope, didn't see anyone needing one there, either.

I was also thankful that California has such strong gun laws.  As has been shown many times, there is a strong inverse correlation between the strictness of gun laws and the number of shootings.  California is one of the states with the tightest gun regulations, and not coincidentally, is among the top ten safest states for number of per capita shootings.  Gun laws matter!  And California has now passed additional laws requiring long-gun buyers to earn safety certificates, banned conversion kits that can turn regular magazines into high-capacity magazines, locked storage of guns in homes where felons and other prohibited people live, extension of prohibition for gun purchase from six months to five years by people deemed to be violent, and a ban on lead-containing ammunition.

Sadly, the rate of gun deaths in the United States never takes a vacation.  During my stay in California, a mentally ill man, Aaron Alexis, who had a history of problems and had recently been reported as hearing voices and thinking people were microwaving his brain, was nonetheless legally able to purchase a firearm and go on a shooting spree in the Washington Navy Yard, killing 12 and injuring 4 before he was killed by law enforcement.  Sane voices understood that this was yet another example of how guns get into the wrong hands, and that action needs to be taken to keep it from happening yet again and again and again.  The NRA's response, predictably, is that there should have been more people with more guns.  No surprise there.  Ignorant and dangerous, it ignores the fact that America, despite having the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, also has the highest rate of shootings of any nation not at war (see a graph HERE).  If the NRA's self-serving line were true, we would be the safest country, not the worst.  The facts and the deaths of innocents are inconvenient to the NRA line that more guns make us safer.

And as I tried to vacation and keep my thoughts positive, the shootings just kept coming and coming, of children and co-workers and family members.  Some were mass shootings of four or more people.  One of those was at a pick-up basketball game in Chicago, where 13 people were shot and injured, including a 3-year old and two teens.  But most shootings were single-victim shootings, of all ages, in small towns and large cities.  A great many of these shootings would be national headlines in other countries.  Here, in blood-drenched America, they were lucky to make the front page of their local paper, and most people have already forgotten the name of the Navy Yard shooter, and likely haven't even heard about that Chicago shooting.  The Joe Nocera Gun Report continued to report on many of these shootings as they happen, cramming them together as best they can, too many to go into depth on any of them.

And so, it's time to get back to the cause of protecting our communities in my own small way.  This month, in addition to returning to blogging, I am serving on a county firearms safety committee, organizing an annual United Way donation drive, and taking part in other activities to help my town be a safer and more caring place to live.  We all have to work together to create a new trajectory for our communities away from gun violence.

UPDATE (10/11/13):  Updated, in text, regarding newly-passed laws in California.

Killer George Zimmerman Just Keeps Screwing Up

(UPDATED -- see below)

I’m mildly entertained by the massive FAIL that defines the ongoing, and still prison-free (for now), life of George Zimmerman, the man who stalked and shot to death unarmed teen Trayvon Martin.  It’s the same sort of mild entertainment I feel when I can’t help but watch idiots on those home-video TV shows who jump off of roofs onto trampolines and wind up racking themselves on their kids’ bike.

Since being acquitted of Trayvon’s murder, George can’t seem to stay out of trouble.  Shocking, since he’s such an upstanding, law-abiding citizen who was only defending himself, so says his gun nut supporters who continue to send him money for his defense, numerous times (examples HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE). 

Oops, but he’s been mis-spending that money.  Turns out he didn’t actually use it for his defense, and hasn’t paid his attorneys.  Instead, he’s mainly using it on his personal expenses.  So much so, in fact, that his lawyer, Mark O’Mara, has demanded he pay up, and has stopped representing him.  From the article:

It appears that George Zimmerman may have conned the cons. After his recent altercation with his wife, his attorney, Mark O’Mara told ABC News in a September 10^th  interview that he would no longer be representing Zimmerman. 

…. 

During the ABC interview, when O’Mara was asked if he had any advice for his former client, he said this: 

“Pay me.” 

Wait, Zimmerman never paid his defense attorney? What happened to all of the money he raised for his “legal defense fund?” It’s interesting, actually. If you visit Zimmerman’s Legal Defense fund web-site you can get a pretty good idea where the majority of the money was spent. 

…. 

Leaving that page, and moving to one titled “Moving Forward” which addresses how future donations will be spent, it gets even more interesting. The predicted future expenses include the Zimmerman’s living expenses and private security as the first two items on the page. A bit further down the page, under the heading “Case Related Expenses” it clearly says “Mr. O’Mara and Mr. West have not been paid for their services. Money has been used to pay rent on office space, for IT support, for staff dedicated to the case.” 

So by his own admission Zimmerman did not use the Legal Defense Fund donations to pay his attorneys. He spent the majority of the money on living expenses for himself and his wife, who was just paid more than $4,000 for one months living expenses out of the defense fund money. Wow. 

Wow is right. But should anyone really be surprised that he’s conning the gun guys out of their money?  After all, he and his wife plotted to hide their money from the judge to the tune of $85,500, for which his wife, Shellie, was convicted of perjury.

And he has the gall to demand that the State of Florida pays his legal fees!

But even if he had paid his attorney, who can blame O’Mara for dumping George?  Zimmerman just keeps screwing up and acting irresponsibly!

Consider the following screw-ups….

• July:  George fakes a rescue of a family in a car crash. Alerted to the crash by a sympathetic (pathetic?) officer, he zooms in to ask if they are alright, but then takes credit for rescuing them from a burning vehicle (the family was out of the vehicle and walking around when he arrived).  National news sites ran stories about his valiant rescue without investigating whether they were true.
• July:  George was pulled over for speeding in Texas, with a gun in his glove compartment.  He got off with a warning.  Said the officer to George: "Just take it easy. Go ahead and shut your glove compartment. Don't play with your firearm."
• August:  George visits a gun manufacturer, Kel-Tec, and poses for pics like some sort of celebrity.  If you just killed an unarmed teen, legal or not, would you be making celebrity visits and posing for cameras?  Sick.  His lawyer thought so.
• September:  George was pulled over for speeding again, this time in Florida.  This time he was given a ticket.
• September:  Finally, George was involved in a domestic violence call to police. 

That’s right, George got into a fight with his wife when, once again, she tried to leave him.  Then she called 911, saying that he was threatening her with a gun:

On the 911 call, Shellie Zimmerman is sobbing and repeating "Oh my God" as she talks to a police dispatcher. She yells at her father to get inside the house, saying Zimmerman may start shooting at them. 

"He's threatening all of us with a firearm ... He punched my dad in the nose," Shellie Zimmerman said on the call. "I don't know what he's capable of. I'm really scared." 

She also said he grabbed an iPad from her hand and smashed it.

She’s also quoted as saying on the 911 call, “I don’t know what he’s capable of. I’m really, really scared.”

But then, abruptly, Shellie changed her story, saying that no firearm was involved, and both she and her father, who was also attacked, refused to press charges.  It’s not unusual for women in domestic assaults to change their story, out of fear of the abuser.  That’s why police can still investigate the alleged abuser even if charges aren’t pressed by the spouse.  Now the police are trying to piece together footage from the damaged iPad, to see what the truth is, but the task may take months and may not work at all.

Perhaps George can claim he was just standing his ground?  Worked once before....

This recent violent behavior of George’s, too, isn’t shocking, given that George already has a history of domestic violence, not to mention other violent behavior and even allegations of child abuse!

The police chief of the town where Zimmerman now resides considers George a “ticking time bomb” and another “Sandy Hook” waiting to happen! 

But even beyond George’s bad behavior, questions continue to arise about Trayvon’s killing.  The medical examiner in the Trayvon Martin shooting case, Dr. Shiping Bao, has recently come out with some bombshell information that he says was squelched by the police at the time of the trial who were biased against the victim, and told Bao to “shut up” about the facts in the case.  Bao, who was fired from the job over this issue, is suing the state of Florida over it, as a matter of fact.

What facts were covered up?  According to Bao, Trayvon was actually shot in the back, so there’s no way he could have been on top of Zimmerman.  Also, the amount of marijuana in Trayvon at the time of the shooting was too little to have led to any change in his behavior.  These facts came to light between the time Bao made his initial investigation of Trayvon and the time he was actually on the stand testifying.  This, among the many other ways that prosecutors threw the case.

Is Dr. Bao lying because he lost his job?  Or did he lose his job because the prosecutors didn’t like what he had to say, as he claims?  Time will tell, but I’m guessing Bao has evidence to back up his claims.

I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of Zimmerman’s screw ups.  Eventually, he and his guns will be involved in yet another scandal.


UPDATE (9/14/13):  The Zimmermans claimed during the trial that they were living like "Gypsies" in a trailer.  Turns out it was a lie.  They were actually living in a two story, $240,000 home with a pool and spa, thanks to the generous donations given to them for their "legal defense" by the gun nuts.  From an article:

Shellie Zimmerman recently recalled living like gypsies during her husband’s trial for the shooting death of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin. According to GPS records at the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, the couple moved for the last time into a two-story $240,000 home on a landscaped cul-de-sac — wait there’s more — with a 2-tier pool and spa with four water jets shaped like lions’ heads in the backyard. A patio sits in backyard with a second-story deck. The Zimmermans had 2,500 square feet of living space to stretch their legs.  .... 

The Orlando Sentinel reports, “The house where George and Shellie Zimmerman lived during his trial – and for nearly a year leading up to it – was no trailer in the woods.”
If it is, I want to live in a trailer too. 

The house is not even 10 minutes from the Seminole County criminal courthouse where Zimmerman stood trial. 

In an interview with ABC News two weeks ago, Shellie Zimmerman said, “We lived in a 20-foot trailer in the woods.” 

But that was for a short period of time, according to the Orlando Sentinel. 

The home is reportedly owned by Shellie Zimmerman’s parents and it’s the same house where police took George Zimmerman into custody Monday after Ms. Zimmerman called police saying her estranged husband had threatened her and her father with a gun.

UPDATE (Breaking!) (11/18/13): Yep, Zimmerman has been arrested AGAIN, this time for allegedly assaulting his pregnant girlfriend and possibly threatening her with his shotgun.  Didn't I say this would happen??  From an article:

Victim, identified as Samantha Scheibe, indicated she and Zimmerman were having a verbal dispute where she alleged he broke a table before pointing a shotgun at her. Zimmerman was unarmed when police arrived.  However, he had barricaded the door and the police had to move furniture out of the way to get to Zimmerman.  Ms. Scheibe told police that she was “in fear of her life.”  The investigators are still meeting with her to get more information about the incident, while they obtain a search warrant to locate the shotgun.  There might be another gun in the house, according to the police. 

Zimmerman was arrested and booked at 1pm EST, charged with aggravated assault, battery domestic violence, and criminal mischief. There is no bond set until he sees the judge tomorrow morning.  The aggravated assault charge with a firearm is a felony punishable up to 5 years in prison. If gun is used there is a 3 years minimum mandatory.

.

Police Chief Mark Kessler Doubles Down With Video Threats And Pays The Price

(UPDATED -- Kessler has been officially terminated as police chief.  See below, at bottom)

I've blogged before about Mark Kessler, one-man police force of Gilberton, PA, who posted a series of YouTube foul-mouthed rants wherein he used full-auto assault rifles to shoot up targets that symbolized Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry.  "Shoot her in the face.  She will get the message!" he said.

What followed was a spectacle, wherein Kessler made an ass of himself with a large group of heavily-armed cronies standing around, brandishing their weapons as the Gilberton borough council debated what to do, then decided to suspend him for using his police-weapons for his threatening videos.  Gilberton is a laughing-stock of the nation and new symbol of violent, pro-gun, insurrectionist rhetoric, thanks to Kessler.

And it's not the first time he's made an ass of himself and even broken the law.  As I listed previously, Kessler has falsely-arrested a borough councilman before, and even had him strip-searched, because of noise complaints; Kessler was involved in a bar fight wherein he unintentionally shot himself in the hand, then conveniently lost his handgun; he threatened to abandon his oath of office if any gun legislation were passed; he has repeatedly promulgated ridiculous pro-gun conspiracy theories as a guest at infowars.com, and he is an organizer for a militia group, which he recruits for on his website, which is illegal in the state of Pennsylvania.  And all of this without even being accredited as a police officer!

He's so sorry of a loser, in fact, that even the extreme of the extreme, the Oathkeepers militia group, have distanced themselves from him.

Numerous petitions have been created calling for the firing of Chief Kessler, such as this one.

Since my last post, the Gilberton borough council has started to investigate and take inventory of the weapons that Kessler has purchased for himself through his role as police chief, and where they are stored.  And the borough's insurer has threatened to drop coverage of the borough if they don't discipline or terminate Kessler.  

Naturally, Kessler feels not one inkling of regret for his threats.  In fact, he's doubled down on them.  In a new online video, Kessler fires off another full-automatic machine gun at targets that symbolize the Gilberton council president and the council vice-president, calling them "libtard" and "tyrant."  He suggests that they are going to "molest" him and, after Kessler shoots them, they get their "mangina" hurt.

Screencap from Kessler's Facebook page

On his webpage, where Kessler begs for donations for his defense, he calls the county sheriff a "thug" and the district attorney a "tyrant," declares both of them an "enemy of the state," and calls the rest of the council "political hacks" and "scum polaticians" [sic].

Like pro-gun extremists everywhere, he sees himself as some sort of Second Amendment hero with his insurrectionist talk, and a figure of some growing revolution to overthrow the government.  On his Facebook page, Kessler is even vainly posting a graphic that suggests such a revolution that starts, naturally, in his home town (see screencapture image from his Facebook page to the left).  Says one of his supporters, in response:

 "let it begin with the citizens of Gilberton storming the town offices & dragging the idiots trying to fire Chief Kessler out in the streets & telling them that Gilberton no longer wants or needs their services."

and other such extreme language, none of which Kessler responds to or tries to calm.

Elsewhere on his Facebook page, Kessler poses in pictures with his armed buddies, assault rifles

Screencap from Kessler's Facebook page

and .50-caliber sniper rifles in hand, in front of a billboard that calls for him to be fired (see picture to right).  The implied threat is clear: if the borough finally acts with rationality and removes Kessler from his job, Kessler and his pals will respond with violence.


And in another Facebook post, Kessler states, 

MY father whom I see as a true american hero always told me , "you can only kick a dog so much before he bites" , I'm here to state this dog has been getting kicked, abused threatened long enough, May GOD be my witness, I shall fight till my last breath! for only God himself will judge me !

No, Mr. Kessler, the rest of America is judging you too, and deciding that you are insane.

Like all pro-gun extremists who are called out for their behavior, Kessler peppers his Facebook pages and website with statements that suggest that it is he, and not those he threatens, who is the victim in this whole affair.  Umm hmm.  Delusions won't save you, Kessler.

I'm not surprised, after all of Kessler's open threats, name-calling, and posturings, that the borough council is considering termination of Kessler.  It's about time.  Long overdue.  If they had done so before, after his past illegal and threatening behaviors, they wouldn't be in the national spotlight for this now.

Kessler and his attorney have drawn out the inevitable end to this sordid tale by refusing to meet with the council, delaying until at least next week, leading the council to extend the no-pay suspension.

Like watching an Indy 500 crash, it's fascinating and shocking at the same time to watch as Kessler's job and reputation implode.  We'll see what next week brings.


UPDATE (9/5/13):  Chief Kessler has been suspended indefinitely.  Since he is under contract, an outright firing isn't possible, apparently.  From the article:

But the council’s official decision on Kessler's fate is pending. Because of scheduling difficulties, a hearing could not be held and Kessler’s unpaid 30-day suspension was extended Friday, his attorney, Joseph Nahas, told the Associated Press. Nahas said the disciplinary hearing would probably be held next week. ... 

“He seems to want to take things into his own hands,” said Michael Morrill, executive director of Keystone Progress, adding that a termination could prove dangerous because some of Kessler’s supporters have called for violence as a retaliatory measure. ... 

You can’t have a police chief that intimidates at least half of the population,” Morrill said.

According to Kessler, on his Facebook page, the council will meet to decide on termination on September 19.  Kessler then comments, "Kangaroo court here we come". See screenshot, at right.

UPDATE (9/20/13):  Kessler has officially been terminated as Chief of police.  From the CNN article:

The borough council of Gilberton, population 750, voted 6-1 to fire him at a meeting Thursday night, said council chairman Daniel J. Malloy. 

Kessler was suspended July 31 at a council meeting that drew thousands of his supporters, including some openly armed, to the small town in Schuylkill County in eastern Pennsylvania
He will remain on suspension for 10 days to give him time to appeal, Malloy said. He would not comment further. 

"We knew it was coming," Kessler said after the vote, CNN affiliate WFMZ-TV reported.

UPDATE (10/9/13):  Kessler continues to call himself "Chief", and continues to be a magnet for insurrectionist extremist types.  Recently, these leadheads are using Kessler as a catalyst for a "truck-in" protest against the government.  See here:
http://penigma.blogspot.com/2013/10/keep-on-truckin-mark-kessler-posterboy.html

Kessler also continues to encourage such insurrectionist behavior, with anti-government and pro-militia nonsense posted on his Facebook page.

UPDATE (2/24/13):  This extremist has finally been terminated as police chief.  What took so long?  So what's next for this gun loon loser?  A reality show, of course, so that the world can continue to marvel at this magnet of our violent gun culture.  Making stars of ignorant, violent extremists is becoming a national past time.
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"All Aboard!" the Peace Train, 2013

I love engaging the public on the issue of gun violence and peace.  This is because the vast majority of citizens, including gun owners, support the main arguments of the gun violence prevention movement (hundreds of national polls show it, HERE).

One of my great joys each year is the annual Eugene Celebration parade, which makes its way through the heart of downtown Eugene, Oregon, and features nearly every aspect of our community and diversity.

One of the yearly entrants to the parade is the Peace Train: a brightly-colored, human-powered train engine followed by train cars, each of which bears the name of a local organization dedicated to peace and nonviolence.  This is the third year that I and Ceasefire Oregon have had a train car in the Peace Train (here is a link to information on last year).  Other organizations included in the Peace Train this year were Million Mom March, the Democratic Party of Lane County Peace Caucus, The Peace Center of Eugene, CALC, Veterans for Peace, and Beyond War.

The route, as always, was lined the entire way by throngs of area people.  This year the applause and cheering was deafening for the Peace Train, including shouts of encouragement for Ceasefire Oregon.  

See below for videos, posted on YouTube, taken by people along the route...

Here (at timestamp 19:08):

and here (at timestamp 3:09):

It warmed my heart to see and hear the response, but we need more than cheering.  Pro-gun activists work nonstop to make our communities less safe and undermine our attempts to reduce gun violence, in pursuit of their love of guns.  We have to work together to create a new trajectory for our nation away from gun violence.

If Gun Owners Fear A National Registration List, They Need Only Look As Far As The NRA

Earlier this year, President Obama attempted to pass, at the Federal level as part of a package of sensible gun regulations, a universal background check bill, which would have required a 5-minute background check on all gun sales, including those from private sellers and at gun shows, to help keep guns out of the hands of prohibited people, without infringing on the right of law-abiding adults to purchase their guns.  Background checks work.  From 1994 through 2008, background checks on guns purchased from licensed firearms dealers prevented 1.8 million prohibited people in the United States, including felons and the mentally ill, from buying guns (according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics).

A much more scaled-down bill, the  Manchin-Toomey background check bill, would have at least required background checks at all gun shows, but not for most private transfers.  The bill failed when a minority of pro-gun, NRA-sponsored senators threatened to filibuster.

Despite the fact that an amazing and nearly unprecedented (for any political topic) 90% of civilians, including 75% of NRA members, support universal background checks, the NRA nonetheless opposed them.  As usual, the NRA pushed its own extreme agenda instead of representing their own members.  After all, the gun manufacturers who fund the NRA make money from all gun sales, legal or not.

The really ridiculous part is that the NRA claimed, as justification for its opposition, that background checks would create a (evil!) registration list of gun owners (notice that the word "confiscation" usually fell soon after the word "registration").  LaPierre is quoted as saying:

[Y]ou're creating a registry of all the law-abiding people in the country that own firearms. I know the politicians say, "Hey, we'll never use that list to confiscate." That's a pretty darn tall order to believe a promise from people in this town right now.

He wrote in one opinion piece:

Imagine if the biggest step in their confiscation scheme—“universal gun owner licensing and registration”—were a reality. Acquisition, transfer or continued ownership of firearms could depend on the whim of federal bureaucrats—just like the IRS operation—in analyzing questionnaires that gun owners would be required by law to answer.

Elsewhere, he's quoted as saying:

“As if that would somehow make us safer from violent criminals and homicidal maniacs? Are they insane?” he said, referring to the idea of a federal registry of gun owners. 

Mr. LaPierre, who received a series of standing ovations, speculated that any federal database could be hacked by the Chinese or given to other foreign entities. He said the Mexican government had already requested such a list, and warned newspapers would print the names and addresses of gun owners “for gangs and criminals to access,” adding that’s already occurred. 

“In the end there are only two reasons for the government to create that federal registry of gun owners,” he said. “To tax them or to take them.”

Of course, it's all fearmongering.  No one in the government has actually suggested the creation of a gun registry.  In fact, as pointed out in a recent Media Matters posting, the Firearm Owners' Protection Act of 1986 makes it illegal for the government to do so, and all records in the background check system are destroyed within 24 hours.  He knows this, but prefers to lie about it in order to continue stoking the paranoid fears of his loyal followers in his little "circus of fears."  The NRA is no stranger to making up wild conspiracy theories.

And that false talking point about registration of guns has been used over and over again as justification for fighting any number of gun regulations, at all levels of government.

BUT HERE'S THE FABULOUSLY HYPOCRITICAL PART OF IT: It's not the government that has a secret list of millions of gun owners, but the NRA itself!

That's right: it was revealed this week by Buzzfeed that the NRA keeps a secret database of tens of millions of gun owners, without the gun owners' consent.

And how did they create such a list?  By mining data from government hunter records, pulling information from attendees of gun safety classes, gun shows, magazine subscriptions, and other sources, as well as counting its regular members who pay dues.  They feel no shame in paying to get names and personal information of gun permit holders from state departments of public safety.

From the Buzzfeed article:

That database has been built through years of acquiring gun permit registration lists from state and county offices, gathering names of new owners from the thousands of gun safety classes taught by NRA-certified instructors and by buying lists of attendees of gun shows, subscribers to gun magazines, and more, BuzzFeed has learned 

.... 

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam declined to discuss the group’s name-gathering methods or what it does with its vast pool of data about millions of non-member gun owners. Asked what becomes of the class rosters for safety classes when instructors turn them in, he replied, “That’s not any of your business.” 

.... 

The NRA won’t say how many names and what other personal information is in its database, but former NRA lobbyist Richard Feldman estimates they keep tabs on “tens of millions of people.” 

.... 

“We’ve been doing this since the old days,” Feldman said. “You could obtain from most states the listings of hunter licenses from the Department of Wildlife and Conservations. It was sort of amazing what we knew about people from that. There were early doe permit holders, black powder holders, so many different seasons. It was a lot of data.” 

Complementing this practice is the mining of data on the thousands who take gun safety classes from NRA-certified instructors. Arulanandam said there are 97,000 of them, a figure that impressed Quinn as a larger “army of organizers” than Obama had. 

In some states, those ranks are propelled by laws that specify that taking classes from NRA-certified instructors in order to obtain permits or licenses.

Naturally, the NRA isn't collecting this information on people for "safe keeping" or anything.  Follow the money.  They use this information to target gun owners for lobbying efforts and to push their own extremist lies and conspiracy theories -- such as government registration of gun owners.

And, I might add, there is nothing to keep the NRA from sharing or selling its secret database with whomever they choose, without consent from the people listed there.

Once again, it's not the government that gun owners need to fear, but rather the very lobby that purports to represent them.

Meet Rockne Newell: Another "Law Abiding" Gun Advocate Turned Mass Murderer

(UPDATED -- See below)

Monday night was the monthly meeting of the Ross Township council, in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.  But what would otherwise have been another quiet meeting turned into chaos and death.

In a scene repeated far, far too often in America, a deranged lunatic gun nut, armed with an assault rifle, burst in and opened fire.

Rockne Newell was about to have his land condemned because of the trash on his property (pics

Rockne Newell, gun rights proponent turned mass murderer
(Pocono Record/AP)

HERE), losing a longstanding feud with the Township.  Armed with a Ruger Mini-14 .223 assault rifle with scope (the same used in other mass shootings, including the one in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik), Newell stormed in and fired into the assembly, hitting four people, including at least one town official.  From an article:

“I heard more than 10 shots,” Pocono Record reporter Chris Reber said in a first-person account. “It was automatic, like a string of firecrackers.” ... 

Two people died at the scene, and a third person died after being flown to a hospital. Police confirmed that at least one of the dead was a township official but gave no details. A fourth person was undergoing surgery late Monday for undisclosed injuries. ... 

 “The thing that got my attention: plaster flying out, blowing out through the walls. Witnesses would later tell me they saw pictures exploding away from the walls,” [witness] Reber said in his account told to his editors, Marta Gouger and Chris Mele.

When the gun ran out of ammo or jammed, Newell then went to go back to his car to get a .44 Magnum Revolver and returned.  Luckily, another couple witnesses tackled him, then one of them got the gun from Newell and shot him twice in the leg:

Gunshots went off as Kozen struggled to restrain the shooter with the help of a second man, identified by police as local resident Mark Kresh. 

The victims were identified as David Fleetwood, Gerard Kozic and James LaGuardia, according to a criminal complaint, NBC Philadelphia reported. 

Eyewitnesses described the struggle between Kozen and the gunman to local newspaperThe Pocono Record.  

"I saw Bernie struggling with him. Bernie got the gun and shot him in the leg twice," Ross Township Supervisor Tina Drake told the paper. 

Kozen told the Record that he was assisting another man who had been shot when the shooter "walked by me into the meeting room, I guess to shoot more people."

Three victims have died so far. A fourth is in the hospital. And Newell was injured as well.

The really eerie thing about this shooting is its proximity to another, recent town meeting in Pennsylvania that involved another gun nut, only a little more than an hour's drive west of the Ross Township hall.  Less than a week ago, in Gilberton, PA, a borough meeting suspended the employment of Police Chief Mark Kessler, after he used police full-auto assault rifles in his inflammatory, insurrectionist, and threatening videos.

And outside the council meeting that day was a small horde of extremist militia members, assault rifles in hand, standing around, blocking entry into the building, and rudely shouting down anyone who dared to talk.  It was like some third world country there, and local residents testified how fearful they were of him.

Though that episode ended without shots fired, one can easily imagine it turning uglier.  What if the Borough council had chosen to terminate Kessler instead of just suspend him? 

But the message was the same:  Keep government out of my gun "rights" and my personal life or, if I disagree with you, I will shoot you to death.  That's what Kessler insinuated when he called a picture of a deranged murderous clown "Nancy Pelosi" and shot her multiple times.  Is it really a big jump to go from saying it to doing it?  Probably not in the minds of weak-minded individuals like Rockne Newell.

I wonder what Mr. Newell thought about Mark Kessler and the display of extremists just to the west of him there in PA?  

Like so many other gun nuts, he echoed the gun lobby's paranoia and "gun rights" talking points.  

screencap of a pro-gun post from Newell's Facebook page

On his Facebook page, Newell also posted a picture that suggested why people need guns, including an assault rifle for when "people try to take them away" (see screencapture pic).  "I love this!" he wrote about it.

Later, on March 5, he posted a link to a White House petition calling for elimination of armed guards around politicians.

On February 26, Newell posts a link to a news article about a 4-year old boy who shot and killed himself with his father's gun.  Did Newell show sadness or call for people to secure their guns?  No.  Instead, he states:

Think on this had his father stole an assault rifle this boy would still be alive because an assault rifle is too long for a 4 year old to shoot himself!

Also on his Facebook page he has a long diatribe, where he goes on about "gun control." In part of that, he states,

1. Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you. 2. If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck. 

He also wrote,

Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws adversely affect only the law-abiding citizens. Take note my fellow Americans, before it's too late! The next time someone talks in favor of gun control, please remind them of this history lesson. With guns, we are 'citizens'. Without them, we are 'subjects'.

That's right.  As I always say, lunatic gun nuts who go on killing sprees always think they are the sane ones who are defending gun rights as law-abiding citizens.

Yep.  Meet Rockne Newell, another "law-abiding citizen" gun owner... until he wasn't.

UPDATE (1/25/15):  In December, the main man who tackled and subdued Newell, township parks director Bernard Kozen, was one of 18 people from around the country who were honored for their heroism by the Carnegie Heroes Fund Commission.  **Please note that Kozen did not need a gun to subdue the shooter.**  From an article:

The parks director of a Pennsylvania township who helped subdue a gunman charged with killing three people at a municipal meeting last year is among 19 people being honored with medals and cash from the Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Heroes Fund Commission.

Bernard Kozen was the 56-year-old parks director of Ross Township when he tackled, disarmed and subdued 60-year-old Rockne Newell on Aug. 5, 2013. Newell is awaiting trial and faces the possible death penalty for allegedly killing three people in a dispute over his property. ....

Kozen, who had taken refuge in an office, could have run to safety behind Newell but instead tackled him and, with the help of another man, overpowered Newell, the awards commission said.

The hero awards honor those who risk their lives for others.

.