Mall shooting in Omaha

omaha.com is still down, which is kind of weak. Time to replace those 386 computers up there guys!

 

What's that you say? Omaha.com still down?

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2007/12/flat-footed-in-omaha.html

And some pretty brutal feedback from our friends at Poynter.

http://www.poynter.org/article_feedback/article_feedback_list.asp?user=&id=134033

 

Guy's father had an AK-47 that he ripped off and used to kill nine people. Other than the military and perhaps - perhaps - the police, who needs an AK-47?

I'm sure those dead people would be thrilled to know they perished with their Second Amendment "rights" unabridged.

 

The gun control debate gets kicked to death every time something like this happens.
America is saturated with firearms. All kinds. They're not going to go away.

I might be wrong, but it appears that a trend is being established. You don't see law-abiding citizens doing this. People who do this are FUCKING NUT CASES. No firearm has ever sprouted legs, loaded itself, walked out the door and gone on a shooting spree.

There is, you know, a certain bit of human element involved.

 

Regarding Omaha.com

And yet some editor will certainly write a glowing tick-tock on how the paper's news managers ripped up their pages and mobilized their entire staff (maybe even the sports staff!) and gathered hundreds of accounts and photos from witnesses to cover this urgent story.

 

I love this comment:
Get with it, OWH. The Internet: it's not just for child predators anymore.

 

If by "today" you mean "every day," then yes.

The OWH being found wanting is less than surprising.

 

I HATE this fucking argument. If psycho doesn't have access to the gun, he can't spray a mall with bullets and kill several innocent people over his lost McDonald's job and being dumped by his girlfriend. Why is this so hard for gun lovers to grasp?

And as someone already asked, who the fuck needs an AK-47 anyhow? Give me one reason why ANYONE needs to have that around their house?

Any answer other than "the gun owner thinks its cool" is unacceptable.

 

But, Bubbler, who are you to dictate to anyone what they can and cannot possess?

If not a gun, this guy probably would have used a crude, home-made explosive. He could easily buy a few boxes of nails at the Home Depot for shrapnel. The guy could have easily bought a few gallons of gas and decided to burn a couple of random houses down. The gun is just one of many tools used to kill.

By bitching about the tools or how we should start profiling moody emo people, all we do is cloud the fact that the asshole killer is the only truly responsible party.

Shit just happens.

 

Plat

Maybe you watch different shows than I do, but I haven't heard jack about gun control in the aftermath of this. In fact, a CNN anchor yesterday cut off an Omaha woman who began to talk about it saying. "He got a gun somewhere, we know that."

And, Rex. How many people have actually done what you say they would do if guns weren't so easy to obtain? When was the last mass murder by arson?

 

But none of the methods you mention is particularly efficient, swift or predictable. Assault rifles are fantastically efficient tools for killing. That's why we give them to soldiers - instead of gas cans or buckets of fertilizer. This is the same weak argument that tries to conflate baseball bats with machine guns.

As to the gun control argument, if America on the one hand is going to insist it be allowed to own any kind of gun it wants, does it not make sense to license those who seek to possess them? To hold owners to a minimum standard of safety-training? In exactly the same way we license drivers?

If this weapon had been locked away in a gun safe, those folks might still be alive.