Followup MN: Permit Holder Charged with 2nd Degree Murder, Claims Self Defense

On Wednesday, Weiss was charged with second-degree murder in the case and was held on $200,000 for unconditional bond and $75,000 for conditional bond just after 11 a.m.

According to the criminal complaint, Weiss told police in the moments just before the shooting that Rahim “got in his face” and spit on him before Rahim “grabbed at Weiss’ gun.”

Weiss said after that, he shot Rahim once.
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NC: Shopkeeper Pulls Shotgun on Armed Suspect (video at link)

"My late father taught me many times, you have to protect yourself, you have to protect others, you have to be a good guy, you have to respect yourself. If that guy had gotten the money, I don't be able to respect myself," said Ahmed.

So as the man was distracted by someone outside, Ahmed pulled out a shotgun of his own, and the man bolted. He says that decision could have cost him his life, but at least he would have known he did the right thing. Even now, he says he would do the same thing.
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MO: Armed Homeowner Shoots at Man Attempting Break-in

Officers say the homeowner shot at a man who tried to get into his house.

The man did suffer some injuries related to the break-in, but officers say he was not shot.

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NY: Investigation of Police Illegal tactics on Gun Arrests

Some cops could be indicted for perjury and official misconduct, police sources said. The NYPD may transfer others or bring them up on departmental charges, the sources said.

“Our Public Integrity Bureau is investigating the allegations,” DA spokeswoman Patrice O’Shaughnessy confirmed.

The investigation focuses on the tactics cops used to recover guns. It has already had an impact on several criminal cases, with prosecutors dismissing charges against defendants or offering sweetheart plea deals.

“All of a sudden we were seeing heavy cases, felony cases, and right away the DA’s office is offering pleas to misdemeanors,” said a defense lawyer who asked not to be identified. “We knew something was up.”

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CO: Bill Introduced to Repeal Colorado Restrictions on Magazine Capacity

Republicans in the Colorado Senate have introduced a bill to repeal the limits placed on magazine capacity in 2013. Here is the summary of SB18-052:

The bill repeals statutory provisions:

• Prohibiting the possession of certain ammunition magazines; and
• Requiring each of certain ammunition magazines that are manufactured in Colorado on or after July 1, 2013, to include a permanent stamp or marking indicating that the magazine was manufactured or assembled after July 1, 2013.

The magazine limits were heavily contested by the Colorado Sheriffs who sued Governor Hickenlooper over the law. 

The lawsuit was eventually dismissed, because no one had been prosecuted under the law's provisions.

After the passage of the law, retailers and firearms owners quickly found ways to circumvent it, as opponents had predicted.

As of 2016, there were no prosecutions under the law, according to David Kopel, a firearms law expert. From the denverpost.com:

But Kopel also said no one has yet been prosecuted under the laws.

“The laws are unenforceable, and they haven’t been enforced,” he said.

The Colorado ban on magazines with a capacity of over 15 rounds only applies if the magazines were manufactured after 2013. Firearms magazines do not generally have serial numbers or dates of manufacture stamped on them. There are hundreds of millions of magazines in the United States in private hands.

Large numbers of modern firearms come with standard capacity magazines of more than 15 rounds.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

AZ: Armed Business Owner Shoots Armed Robbery Suspect.

PHOENIX - The Phoenix Police Department says a business owner shot a robbery suspect and held him at gunpoint until police arrived.
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DE: CCW, Domestic Defense, Man Points Pistol at Rival, Is Shot, Killed

UPPER DARBY >> A township man who was shot in the abdomen during an apparent domestic-related incident Monday night died a short time later in surgery, one week before his 25th birthday, Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said Tuesday.

While circumstances involving the death of Seifuddin Collier remained under investigation, Chitwood said they have identified the alleged gunman and he is claiming self-defense. The superintendent did not release the name of the alleged 21-year-old gunman because he has not been charged with a crime.
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Followup TX: Accomplice Charged with Murder in La Bell Pizza Defensive Shooting

When the felony murder rule is invoked, the homicide will be coded as a murder, not a justifiable homicide, in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports

On January 9th, an employee shot and killed a man during a robbery.

During the investigation, detectives found 29-year-old Ruben Ryel Rios was also involved in the robbery.

Rios is in the Potter County Detention Center on a murder charge. Texas law allows people to be charged with murder if they take part in a crime in which another person is killed, even if they did not take part in the killing.
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TX: Armed Homeowner Shoots two Teen Robbery Suspects

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Two juveniles are recovering from gunshot wounds after Dallas police say they tried to rob a homeowner.
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British Gun Turn-In: Heavy on Air Guns, Low on Ammunition

Some nice antiques on the table

Image from bristolpost.co.uk
 England promoted a national firearms amnesty/turn-in during 2017. In Bristol, 313 "guns" were turned in, along with a whopping 120 rounds of ammunition!

That is one round of ammo for every 2.6 "guns". I put "guns" in quotes, because only 186 of the 313 items were actual firearms. Most of those had no ammunition for them.  Here is the breakdown. From bristolpost.co.uk:

A breakdown of the guns handed in...

• Flare 3
• Shotgun 80
• Rifle 25
• Air weapon 96
• BB gun 14
• Pistol/Revolver 81
• Starter pistol 11
• Slaughtering gun 2
• Stun gun 1

More than 35% of the guns (110) are air-guns (BB guns are air-guns).  That is a higher percentage than what I observed in Australia during the 2017 gun amnesty., in that country. The number of air-guns I saw during the Australia amenesty amounted to a bit more than 25%.

The ammunition turn-in at Bristol was underwhelming. I wonder how many actual firearms turned in might have been kept if the owners had ammunition for them.

The article shows how significant the lack of ammunition is. To create a scary hypothetical, the author has to dig deep.

A .38 revolver was turned in.

Separately, a bag of .38 ammunition was turned in:

“For example, a .38 revolver was surrendered and, separately, a bag of live .38 bullets. The two combined would have been a lethal weapon that could have fallen into the hands of criminals and caused significant harm or death.

The implication is that almost none of the guns turned in had ammunition turned in with them. That fits the given numbers.

The U.S. has over 400 million guns. No one keeps track, but during the four years of the .22 ammunition bubble, approximately 20 billion rounds of .22 ammunition was sold in the United States.  Most was stored, not shot. I do not have an estimate for centerfire ammunition, but it would be in the multiple billions of rounds.

It is not unusual for a single firearm aficionado to have 50,000 rounds of ammunition.  Private gun owners in the United States could easily possess a 100 billion rounds of ammunition or more.

The United States will not be following Australia or England anytime soon.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

WA: Gunfight Outside Bar, Attacker Killed, Customer Wounded

Snohomish County sheriff's investigators say a 29-year-old man left the bar, retrieved a gun from his vehicle and began firing shots in the parking lot, hurting one of the customers.

A 28-year-old employee at the bar who was armed and working at the time shot and killed the suspect.
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SC: Legally Armed Customers Stop Attack at Car Dealership

ROCK HILL, S.C. —

A pair of legally armed customers at a car dealership stopped an attack in which a man threatened to kill employees and smashed vehicles with a pipe wrench, according to the Associated Press and a report in The State newspaper.

Aaron Hayes,16th Circuit assistant solicitor, said Alonzo Seegars was unhappy with the service at a car dealership in Fort Mill, and armed himself with a pipe wrench.

The State reported that Seegars threatened to kill a female employee and smashed three vehicles with the wrench Dec. 21 before two customers with concealed carry permits intervened and held him at gunpoint until deputies arrived.

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TX: Gunfight,Employee Shoots Man who Fired at Bartender

Officers determined that a customer who became upset when the bar announced last call, got into an argument with a bounce, pulled out a handgun and fired several rounds, sending the bouncer running for cover.

Another bar employee witnessed the shooting, retrieved his own weapon, and shot the suspect repeatedly.
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Followup CA: Philp Norwood found not Guilty of Murder in Michael Davis Killing

A Kern County jury has found a 68-year-old Ridgecrest man not guilty of murder in the fatal shooting of a part-time employee who refused to leave his property.

The jury acquitted Philip Norwood of a charge of first-degree murder on Friday, and he has been released from custody, according to court records. He had faced 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

The trial began Jan. 2, after an earlier trial resulted in a hung jury, court records show.

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ATF Arrests for 2014,2015,2016; Four Crimes, Tiny Numbers

In a recent Government Accounting Office report to Congress, most have focused on the firearm owners who refuse to commit crimes or fall for stings created by the ATF.  Buried in the report is a chart showing how incredibly few legal gun owners are arrested each year for gun violations.  

The chart shows the number of arrests made in three years, 2014, 2015, and 2016, for four crimes. The number of arrests are tiny, showing how law abiding gun owners are. 

The four crimes are these:

Dealing firearms without a license

Unlawful interstate transfer of firearms

Sale to prohibited individual

Prohibited person in possession of firearm

The chart below shows the numbers.

   

Dealing firearms without a license averages 107 arrests a year.  There are about 125,000 federal firearms licenses in the United States of various types. There are about a hundred million firearm owners (30% of the U.S. population).  The chances of a firearm owner being arrested for dealing without a license is roughly one in a million per year.

Unlawful interstate transfer of firearms averages about 18 a year. It is hardly noticeable.

Sales to prohibited individuals are in between, about 68 a year. Far less than 1 per million firearms owners.

These are only Federal arrests, not state arrests. Most states have a number of categories of prohibited possessors. These categories may differ significantly from the Federal categories.  Some states will mirror the Federal rules, some will not.

My suspicion is the vast majority of prohibited possessor arrests and prosecutions are done at the state level, but almost no state prosecutions are done for dealing firearms without a license or unlawful interstate transfer of firearms. Most states do not require a license to sell firearms.

There may be a significant number of state prosecutions for sales to prohibited individuals.  Some states have a prohibition on those sales. But the offense is hard to prove, while illegal possession is relatively easy.

Firearm dealers and legal firearm owners are extremely law abiding.

The numbers draw into question the rational for the gun control act of 1968. The large number of violations occur with people who are prohibited possessors, and that is a crime in most of the states, without federal law. 

When the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA 1968) was passed, crime increased. It was only after states started implementing shall issue carry permits that crime rates started to drop. Today, crime rates are back to the levels they were before GCA 1968 was passed.

Maybe we do not need a BATFE to regulate firearm sales. The ATF did not exist before 1972. They have a built a bad reputation since then.

Focusing on the weapon used is based on false assumptions about reality.

Weapons do not create crime or motives. It seems the number of guns in society have little to do with the number of crimes in society. To reduce the number of crimes, reduce the number of criminals, or keep them locked up and separate from the rest of the population.


Keeping weapons out of the hands of those prone to violence may do some good. As the arrests show, the most effective way to do this is to focus on the offender, in this case, the prohibited possessor.

Several programs have shown the removal of a small but very violent number of career criminals, can have a dramatically lower the homicide rate. Project Exile is an example.  David Kennedy is worth reading to show how it can be done.

©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

More on FL: Saintelus Shooting (car burglar in Broward County)

Saintelus was taken to Broward Health North medical center where he was pronounced dead.

Detectives were canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses and security camera video.

“We have found a number of residents whose vehicles had been burglarized,” Concepcion said. “[Saintelus] was found to be in possession of some stolen property that he retrieved from some of those vehicles.”
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MN: Violent Confrontation after accident, 17-Year-Old Muhammed Rahim, Shot, Killed

A confrontation then ensued. Police say that according to eyewitness accounts, Rahim and the other 17-year-old got out of their vehicle and confronted Weiss. There was "some posturing and words exchanged," Sherwin said, and Rahim approached Weiss.

Weiss, who police say has a permit to carry a handgun, reportedly told Rahim that he was armed and suggested that they wait for the police.

At some point during the confrontation, Rahim was shot once. The weapon was a 9 mm handgun.
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FL: Brother and Son of Resident Shoot, Kill, Burglary Suspect

Major crimes detectives interviewed Robert Jones Sr., who said after receiving a call from his sister about a possible burglary, he and his son — both carrying weapons — responded to the home and found an unknown male in the living room. He said Tackett was shot during that confrontation, the report states.

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FL: Car Burglar Attacks Owner, is Shot, Dies

Concepcion said Johnston then went inside his home and called the police, but when Saintelus moved on to his car, Johnston confronted him.

Johnston and Saintelus got into a fight, which ended with Johnston fatally shooting Saintelus, Concepcion said.
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WV: 82-Year-Old Shoots, Kills Home Invader

Deputies with the Kanawha County Sheriff's Office tell WSAZ that in the early morning hours Saturday, an 82-year-old man was working in his garage.

Coker allegedly broke into the garage through a window and threatened the homeowner.

The homeowner shot Coker, according to deputies, killing him.
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