zW2Ig~~60_7.JPG "brandeentertainment"){kind=avatar}
A 15-year-old Chicago girl who performed at President Barack Obama’s inauguration last week was shot to death in a city park in what police think was a case of “mistaken identity” related to a gang turf war.
“Mistaken identity — wrong place at the wrong time,” Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said at a press conference on Wednesday, a day after the shooting that killed Hadiya Pendleton and injured another teen. The press conference was broadcast by CLTV.
McCarthy said police have been interviewing witnesses who were standing near Pendleton in a park on the city’s South Side. He said police were making progress in the investigation.
“I don’t want this to be a three-week or a three-month investigation,” said McCarthy, who was in Washington earlier this week addressing gun control. “I want this closed now ... I want that kid off the street,” he said, referring to the killer. Police believe a handgun was used.
Pendleton, a sophomore at Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep, had performed at the inauguration with her school band, according to local media reports. News of her death near Obama’s old home in the Kenwood neighborhood came before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee began hearings on gun control on Wednesday.
Gun violence in Chicago has been in the national spotlight over the past year, with 506 murders in 2012, an increase of 17 percent over the previous year. So far in January, there have been 42 homicides and 157 shootings, according to Chicago police.
Obama spokesman Jay Carney was asked about Pendleton’s death Wednesday. He said the prayers of the president and the first lady were with the girl’s family.
“The president has more than once, when he talks about gun violence in American, referred not just to the horror of Newtown or Aurora or Virginia Tech or Oak Creek, but to shootings on the corner in Chicago and other parts of the country,” said Carney. “And this is just another example of the problem that we need to deal with.”
Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, shot in the head in a 2011 mass shooting, made an emotional plea before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday for action to curb U.S. gun violence, but a National Rifle Association executive said new gun laws have failed in the past and would fail again.
Giffords opened testimony at the first congressional hearing on gun violence since the Dec. 14 massacre in which a gunman shot dead 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.
Responding to outrage across the country following that incident, Obama and other Democrats have asked Congress to pass the largest package of gun restrictions in decades.
Speaking at the news conference in Chicago, Father Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest known for his activism against gun violence, compared the Chicago shootings to Newtown.
“This is Sandy Hook. This is Connecticut. This is Newtown, right here. We have to be just as outraged,” Pfleger said.
Typical American story, the result in large part of Americans right to carry firearms based on the Second Amendment to their Constitution, passed in 1791.
A few words were written over two hundreds years ago, in a totally different context, different world, having a meaning at the time that may be totally different or irrelevant today, yet most Americans insist that the rights given to them in their amended Constitution should be respected, regardless how irrelevant the original text is today.
When some people can’t logically discuss firearms …..they try diversion.
"some people can’t logically discuss firearms"
How can Canadians discuss logically the consequences of the US Constitution Second amendment passed over 200 years ago?
We can't discuss Canadian "stuff" that happened around that time. 😞
We can't discuss Canadian "stuff" that happened around that time.
Well you do have a point. I suppose the difference is the 2nd Amendment is short and easily focused on. It is always noticeable that the NRA and others who believe in owning anything short of a cannon always promote only ‘part’ of the 2nd Amendment. My view is the rest of the second amendment is passed over because it shows that a ‘militia’ is an intricate part of owning guns. Also the technology and design to create rapid fire killing machines had not generally invented at that time. The Winchester style Rifle (aka ‘The Gun that Won the West) wasn’t in design until the late 1840’s and the first Winchester rifle was model 1866. And why did they call it the “Gun that Won the West”?……because it was the firearm that defeated the Native people, the firearm that allowed the white man to steal the land and the firearm that allowed the white man to murder the Native people. ‘Won the West’?……..more like ‘Slaughtered the West’.
Interestingly Oliver Winchester’s wife considered the family cursed because of her husband’s rifle that had been used to kill so many innocent people.
When it comes to Canada ….there are many treaties, many types, much more complicated. The founding fathers of the USA never envisioned the types of personal firearms that exist today that could have the firepower to kill so many in a short period of time. With Canada and the Crown and the treaties, both the Canada as representatives of the Crown had no idea that the country would grow as it has, nor have resources that would prove to be as important in the world and worth a lot of money. So now they want to change the agreements to benefit themselves. Ain’t happening.
The fear is not about protecting themselves against intruders it's all about protecting themselves against the government. That's the general concencus I got from Americans.
That is just another excuse found by taking the words from other writings such as Thomas Jefferson. For me this is where it gets complicated because I believe in that ‘right’ in theory. The problem is…..will it ever happen?…..who knows! In the meantime there are hundreds of thousands of innocent people dying for the fear of something else. Which leaves us with the question……..’is it worth it’?
Maybe ban weapons powerful enough for mass murder but still let citizens keep their firearms that are meant for protecting themselves and hunting.
That is exactly what Obama is proposing……the end to private ownership of assault rifles and the end of private ownership of massive capacity clips in guns. Unfortunetly the NRA and people who support their views do not want to give an inch no matter how many bodies are in the streets. As a matter of fact….they are very vocal about it, even to those who have lost children…… http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/grieving-newtown-father-jeered-pro-gun-activists-155624057....
Also pay special attention to the last highlighted link in the article “this much firepower”.
People should have means to protect themselves and/or stand up against corrupt government and today,
Look at the US military and the police and all their toys. Anyone who truly stood up to the government in a true firefight would be squashed in a milli-second. Meanwhile in the US there is on average 87 gun deaths a day and on the same daily average 183 people wounded, many often seriously. So for a war against the government that may never come.....there are sure a lot of people paying for it....year, after year, after year.
perhaps the 50 are winning that fight.... one step at a time....
You have a good point. Same as gay rights......one State at a time.
It’s not just the NRA, it’s also the industrial complex. The largest arms manufacturer in the world is the USA and I mean rifles, shotguns and handguns (not just military arms). A huge industry worth Trillions. Ordinary rifles and shotguns are well………for the most part……boring. In the firearms industry it is like any other industry from automobiles to clothing…people want the ‘fashion’ items and those are assault rifles and shotguns. They want what Rambo had in the last movie or what some other movie hero carried. After the movie Dirty Harry came on the screen there was a massive surge in the new 44 mags. A really horrible gun for the average person but nonetheless they ‘had to have it’! Go back in history and at the turn of the century is was the Colt revolver that was king. Later after WW2 it was the Browning semi-automatic. Bottom line…….life revolves around our movies and our heroes (even if they’re not). Even after the murders in Newtown there was a massive rush of people who wanted the same rifle that the murderer used. Many stores ran out of stock.
All the hype about assault rifles used for defence and the ‘possibility’ of having to defend yourself against the government is just that…..hype. Gun owners in the US like them because the guns make them feel powerful. Hold that gun and they’re Rambo or Dirty Harry. It’s also a status symbol and they become one of the boys and automatically are invited into the herd.
All people really need for survival or protection is a good rifle and a good shotgun. The only difference would be for those who live in States with a fairly easy ‘carry’. 39 States allow ‘shall permit’ carries…..meaning as long as the person passes certain qualifications (and they are not that difficult) such as no criminal record, you can carry a gun. Has that cut down on the gun violence?….not at all.
The poliferance of guns makes it easy for illegal owners to get guns. Where do they get them?…….well from theft most often. Also believe it or not from gun manufacturers themselves. Manufacturers who have a lot of guns in stock will sell them to anyone, even those who deal in guns out of a trunk of a car. There are also gun stores and people who go to gun shows who will sell a gun to anyone, under the table. Paperwork in most States is so poor or easy to manipulate it’s laughable.
In the end like most other things in life……….it’s all about money.
If gun manufacturers lost their US ‘fashion business’ it would be the loss of a LOT of money…..and that loss of money would mean jobs.
Well, Taliban or Vietcong were fighting US army with rifles against tanks, jets, napalm bombs and satellite seekers and they did not get squashed in millisecond. Actually, it did not feel like US military prevailed at all.
Absolutely you have a good point. However there are always differences when it comes to military conflict. When the US goes to another country there are factors to be looked at. First of all the costs to be in a war somewhere else……massive costs. Secondly when they go to another country they are isolated. When the US went into Baghdad they acted like it was a done deal. Cheney said it would be over in a month. Even in chatrooms Americans were saying they………won. I’m sitting here laughing and wondering if they teach history at all in the USA. Going into another country, especially a country where the people have had centuries of fighting enemies ……the reality is the invaders become the fly…..welcomed into the web by the spider. They go into countries and form bases and they become instantly vulnerable. Another aspect are the people. No country wants to be occupied by people from the outside…..they don’t trust them…..history has shown that. (WW2 was the major exception to the rule due to Germany and allied forces coming in to defeat invaders already there). Then when the invaders kill innocent people it just adds more people to their enemies forces. The USA forgets the great military leader Sun Wu. His strategy is not only experience in warfare but also life.
But would there be a war against the government in the US? Short of a major catastrophe I doubt it.
Here’s a concept for some to think about. Let everyone in the US own assault rifles. Let them have as much ammo as they would like. Let them all carry handguns. Now the NRA and all the gun lovers and the manufacturers will be happy. Now lets see how the murder rates soar…both intentional murders and ‘collateral damage’.
Sometimes in life you have to take people into the abyss so that the abyss can look back at them.
And it only gets more strange..........
MIDLAND CITY, Ala. — A tense standoff closed in on its third day Thursday as police negotiated with a U.S. man suspected of boarding a crowded school bus, shooting the driver dead and taking a 5-year-old boy at random with him into a rural underground bunker. The talks continued, police said, through a ventilation pipe.
Multiple neighbours identified the suspect as Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver who had moved to the Alabama neighbourhood on a rutted red clay road more than a year ago. It didn’t take long before he developed a frightening reputation as a volatile man with anti-government views who threatened his neighbours at gunpoint and was vicious to wandering pets.
More information: http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/31/alabama-kidnapping-standoff-closes-in-on-third-day-as-killer...
Next thing they"ll be saying is that Treaties signed 200 years ago don't have a different context today.
Could you expand that further?
