Bloodbath in Alabama

 

1. The news this morning kept saying “semi automatic weapon”. I’m trying to find out what he actually had.
   It couldn’t have been a rifle caliber because he shot the chief of police in the chest and his soft body armor stopped the bullet.

   Posted by single stack       03/11/2009  at  11:36 AM  



2. One article said “machine gun”. Another article said “assault weapon”. Another article said “rifle”.

   One article said he fired a “30 round burst” at the police. Another article said “at least 15 shots”. Looks like 12 or more shell casings are flagged in the picture I posted.

   Newspaper people are dreadfully poor at identifying firearms. And I gather this guy had a whole assortment of guns with him.

   Either way, this isn’t going to do the remaining 65 million of us who own firearms and DIDN’T kill anyone today (as usual) any good. And if it does turn out he legally owned a genuine Class III weapon ... kiss that right goodbye.

   Posted by Drew458       03/11/2009  at  12:38 PM  



3. This was just released to a local paper:

   “McLendon was armed with two assault rifles, an SKS and a Bushmaster, using high-capacity magazines taped together; a shotgun; and a .38-caliber handgun. At this time we believe that he fired in excess of 200 rounds during the assaults.”

   Posted by Bamaben       03/11/2009  at  01:51 PM  



4. This active shooter possessed a formidable arsenal. When you’re a cop armed with a .45 and maybe a shotgun this is when you wish the Department had allowed you to carry something with a little more uumph. The response to a threat like this is not to disarm. Quite the opposite.

   Posted by sig94       03/11/2009  at  04:13 PM  



5. Well sure, Sig, for the cops. But most of them would be happy if all the alleged perpetrators citizens were unarmed, and quietly sat at their brightly lit kitchen tables by the big bay window with their hands out in the open.

   One man with as many guns as he can carry plus ammo can wreck an awful lot of destruction. 2 rifles, 2 pistols, a shotgun and several big magazines would be about as much as you could carry and still move around a bit.

   I don’t see how you can legislate crazy people from getting their hands on weapons. It’s going to happen, even if they have to steal them. But I am getting very, very tired of these “I’m taking everybody with me” suicides.

   Posted by Drew458       03/11/2009  at  05:06 PM  



6. Here’s the part I can’t figure.  It’s the same part that I wonder about from Columbine, the German shooter or any of the other murdering loonies who have emerged in recent decades.  Before this, ANY multiple murder was rare enough to draw a great deal of notoriety and comment.

   Jack the Ripper was a little more prolific than Lizzie Borden, with an estimated 17 victims around 1888.

   Lizzie Borden killed exactly 2 people and remains infamous to this day.  That she followed Jack the Ripper by only 4 years undercuts my premise, but then, they were in different countries. 

   The infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre killed 7 and is still notorious. 

   The killers in Truman Capote’s book, “In Cold Blood”, killed 4 people in what was actually a robbery gone bad, in 1959.

   Charles Whitman, the Texas Tower Sniper, was considered an incredibly unique person, committing a completely unique and insane act.  That was 1966.

   I’m not even sure how we would class something like Jonestown.  I just can’t think of anything similar in the last century although I’m sure some BMEWS member can.

   Each of these events was separated from the others (save Jack and Lizzie) by a decade or more, until the late 1950’s/early 1960’s when the pace began to pick up with only 7 years between the “In Cold Blood Killings and Whitman.  Each multiple killing so unique that decades later we still comment on them.  Now, in the last 25 years or so, multiple killings have become so common that a year doesn’t seem to go by without at least one.  We don’t even remember them all anymore.  From Whitman to Richard Speck to Michael McLendon, the pace has gotten faster.

   So, what’s changed?  We can look at the increasing use of psychoactive drugs as an interesting indicator, but we also have to wonder how did people deal with stress, depression, assorted neuroses and such in the old days?  Whiskey, marijuana, cocaine and opiates were freely available, but I’m not sure we can say they kept individuals from committing mass murder fifty to one hundred years ago.  (If they did, we need to change some laws and fast.) What has created the insanity that has emerged?  We can look at the changes in society, especially how most people value themselves and their society.  We can look at a lot of things, yet there seem to be few common threads that can account for the increasing pace.  So back to my question, what changed?

   Posted by Dr. Jeff       03/11/2009  at  11:28 PM  



7. You left out Manson but interesting too that his killings (with his sicko group) did not seem to have some sort of social anger thing. They were out having grotesque ‘fun.’

   I think life is seen as greatly undervalued by the crazies.

   Interesting about Lizzie Borden. You’re right. Two dead there, where’s the story that would make it last all these years?
   The Poem about it.
   Lizzie Borden took an ax ... remember?

   Had nobody written that, would the world remember?

   She was acquitted, wasn’t she?

   Doc ... the world at large has developed a very course culture since the 50s. It can only get worse.
   Look for more calls for gun control, while the nutters as Drew says, still manage to get guns.

   Posted by peiper       03/12/2009  at  04:21 AM  



8. That’s what gets to me, that the 12 in Alabama are a “mandate for tougher gun laws”.... but how about the 15 in Germany? The folks who claim that gun control will lower crime rates are strangely silent.

   Posted by GrumpyOldFart       03/12/2009  at  09:58 AM  

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