Michigan woman pulls out firearm during altercation over school supplies in Wal-Mart. But don't worry, she has a valid conceal carry permit.

Courtesy of Slate:  

Back-to-school shopping can be stressful but shoppers at a Walmart in Michigan saw that stress take a violent turn after an argument over a notebook ended with a gun being drawn. It all happened on Monday afternoon as two pairs of women were shopping in the town of Novi, near Detroit. One of them reached for the last notebook on a shelf as did another woman. That invariably led to arguments about who was the rightful owner of that precious notebook and some pushing and shoving ensued. When two women, one aged 46 and the other 32, moved on to hair pulling, the mother of the 20-year-old who was involved in the altercation pulled out a loaded gun.

“She pulled out her firearm and tells them to stop attacking her daughter while pointing the gun at them,” Novi Police Detective Scott Baetens said. “It was a senseless act of violence all the way around.” Police are now working with prosecutors to try to determine whether the woman’s actions could be classified as self-defense. She had a valid concealed gun license. 

Of course the woman who pulled the gun ended up with the notebook because that is how you get what you want in America these days. Apparently.

I can't believe that police are trying to determine whether this is an act of self defense or not.

The woman introduced deadly force into a hair pulling fight.

It should ALWAYS be against the law to threaten to end a person's life over a fucking back to school notebook. Period!

New video emerges that apparently shows Donald Trump tirade against top advisor Steve Bannon.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail: 

Footage has emerged of a heated row in the Oval Office on Friday that saw Donald Trump erupt into a 'ballistic' tirade against Steve Bannon and other senior advisors. 

The president reportedly unleashed his anger on Bannon and chief of staff Reince Priebus for failing to fight off the firestorm surrounding attorney general Jeff Sessions' recusal amid links to Russia. 

A furious Trump told Bannon and Priebus they weren't flying on Air Force One with him to Florida before reportedly storming out and heading down to Mar-a-Lago. 

Now, video has emerged of what appears to be the exchange during the fiery meeting inside the Oval Office, CNN reports. 

Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Sean Spicer were spotted in the background of the footage. 

Trump had accused his staff of fumbling the situations with Sessions after the attorney general recused himself from all FBI investigations regarding Russia on Thursday. 

The president is said to have then taken it out on his senior staff the following day. 

I reported on this yesterday, but that was before this video had emerged. 

The first thing I thought when I saw this is who in the hell was in a position to film this?

It would have to be somebody on the staff, right?

I mean I don't think they have reporters simply hanging around outside of the Oval Office filming what goes on through a window.

And then I thought of how much money a video of President Obama like this would have been worth to the Right Wing media.

Except we know that no such video would ever have been taken during the Obama Administration, because that was back when we had grownups running the White House and not petulant, tantrum throwing, toddlers.

Ray "Banana man" Comfort is rescued from embarrassment after D.C. police bar him from trying to evangelize Atheists at the Reason Rally.

Courtesy of the Christian News Wire:  

Filmmaker and author Ray Comfort has to revise his outreach plans to atheists, according to Washington, D.C. police, or face arrest. At the June 4 Reason Rally in the National Mall, where an estimated 20,000 atheists will gather to hear speakers such as Johnny Depp and Penn Jillette, Comfort had planned to give away 5,000 copies of his new book about atheism, along with $25,000 worth of Subway gift cards to atheists, as a gesture of Christian love. 

After announcing the D.C. outreach, and plans to film open-air preaching for his TV program ("The Way of the Master" -- broadcast in 190 countries) he had over 1,000 Christians officially register to join him. "To the D.C. police," Comfort reported, "that constituted a protest and therefore we needed a permit to gather. We would have to stay at the other end of the National Mall, and they said that if we persisted to approach atheists to speak with them we would be arrested." 

The best-selling author then decided to cancel the outreach event, though they would still be filming at the Washington Monument. 

I mentioned in a previous post that Comfort was apparently helping to train Christians to approach the Atheists attending the Reason Rally and attempt to convince them of the error of their ways.

Now personally I would have enjoyed an exchange like this because I really like seeing superstitious people cry, however I totally understand that it could have proved really annoying to people who were hoping to engage in intelligent conversations.

Later in the article Comfort claims that he has a "good relationships with Atheists." Which is probably fairly accurate as most Atheists see him as a non-threatening buffoon after viewing his now famous "banana argument" against Atheism.

A classic in every sense of the word. 

Video shows white commissioner pulling gun on black former commissioner during argument in Arkansas.

Courtesy of the Arkansas Times:

Here's video of a confrontation at a Jefferson County Election Commission meeting last week at which Republican Commissioner Stu Soffer pulled a derringer from his pocket because he felt threatened by former Democratic commissioner Ted Davis. 

The video was provided by Lawrence Walker, attorney for Davis, who has said he's considering legal action. Soffer has said he didn't point the gun at anyone, but retrieved it from his car to have when matters grew contentious and pulled it from his pocket when Davis approached him. The Republican-controlled commission had moments before adjourned the meeting while a Democrat was speaking. 

Soffer is shown showing police his concealed carry permit and saying he never pointed the gun at anyone.

he may have not pointed the gun but you can hear him on the video telling the police officer (2:44 mark) that he held the gun at his side and the next step would have been either "pulling off" or "going off," which both sound like he would have fired the weapon.

To be clear he took out a gun during a non-violent discussion with other professionals at a public venue, and did so because, as he said, "He felt threatened."

You know if everybody who ever simply felt threatened whipped out a firearm in a fearful response we would be dragging dead bodies off of the streets of America, and loading them into body bags, every damn day.

What am I saying. We already do.

Utah man shoots and kills girlfriend in fight after Superbowl.

Jenna Spinya

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

A Utah man shot and killed his girlfriend during an argument Sunday night after the Super Bowl. 

The 41-year-old man called police shortly before 11 p.m. to report that he had shot his 30-year-old girlfriend after she pulled a knife on him, reported KSL-TV. 

Police found the woman dead from multiple gunshot wounds when they arrived at the couple’s Riverdale apartment. 

The woman has been identified in news reports as Jenna Manuel or Jenna Spinya, the mother of an 8-year-old daughter and longtime employee at an Ogden bar. 

Investigators said the couple began arguing shortly after one of them returned from watching the Super Bowl with friends.

Okay first off "multiple gunshot wounds" does NOT sound like self defense to me. 

Second this is yet another illustration as to why guns are the very LAST thing that should be purchased for self defense purposes.

There is such a thing as an "appropriate use of force." We teach this in self defense classes to educate students as to when they should use physical force and how much force should be applied to any given situation.

But with guns there is only one setting on the weapon, and that is death.

Contrary to what you might have learned from television Westerns guns are designed to kill, and if somebody gets wounded in the arm or the leg that usually means the shooter missed their initial target which is the torso. You know, where all of the vital organs are located.

 Not only that but the death which rushes from the barrel of a gun is indiscriminate in that it can kill, not only its intended target, but anybody within a certain radius depending on its caliber and the environment in which it is fired.

That means that a person, even a child, minding their own business in another part of a house, or in the neighborhood, or even driving by on the street could be the victim of a billet fired in anger or out of fear.

Now I'm not saying that this man was not in imminent danger of being injured or even killed, but grabbing a gun to fend off a knife attack by somebody you are supposed to care about is a complete overreaction in my opinion.

And before you jump on me for not understanding the danger you should know that I have actually faced off against knife wielding combatants more than a few times, and in fact have a small scar right below my bellybutton and another on my hand.

In none of my situations, as scary as they might have been, did I pull out a gun to defend myself, and every one of the people who threatened or attacked me are still walking the earth to this day.

They did not have to die, they only had to be stopped, and I was able to manage that without taking a life, or really even doing a great deal of injury to my assailants. 

That is what is meant by an appropriate use of force.

A father and son are killed in a shootout with another father and son in a gun store in Mississippi. Everybody feel safe yet?

Courtesy of the Sun Herald:  

A father and son were killed in a shootout with another man and his son at a gun store Saturday in Pearl River County's Henleyfield community. 

Pearl River County deputies responding to the shooting on Mississippi 43 about 3:15 p.m. found the store owner and his son dead in the store, Chief Deputy Shane Tucker said. 

The owner's wife was working at the store when two customers, a man and his son, entered to pick up a firearm that had been repaired. 

"There was some contention about a $25 fee," Tucker said. 

In an attempt to clear up the dispute, the woman called her husband, who later arrived with his son. An argument ensued between the owners and the customers. 

"During this argument, we believe there might have been some pushing and shoving," Tucker said. "One of the customers and one of the owners produced firearms. We don't know who shot first." 

All four men were shot. The two customers were airlifted to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, Tucker said.

Boy there's nothing like the presence of firearms to turn a simply argument over money into an opportunity for homicide.

Just another day in the NRA's America.

Waitress asks Biloxi man to put out cigarette, man responds by shooting her in the head. Just another day in the NRA's America.

Courtesy of WLOX: 

A woman is dead and a man is behind bars charged with murder after an argument over smoking turned deadly at a Waffle House in Biloxi. It happened around 1am Friday morning at the restaurant on Hwy 90, near the Coast Coliseum. 

According to Biloxi police, the fight started when Johnny Mount, 45, refused to put out a cigarette he was smoking inside the restaurant. Mount then pulled out a handgun he had concealed under his shirt and shot the female employee once in the head. 

Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove said the 52-year-old woman was taken to Merit Health Biloxi where she later died from her injuries. 

Mount was arrested as he was leaving the restaurant, and charged with 1st degree murder. He's now being held at the Harrison County Adult Detention Center on a $2 million bond.

I guess the only way to stop a bad waitress with an opinion on smoking, is by an even worse guy with a gun and no respect for human life.

We now live in a country where even asking somebody not to smoke is a risk to life and limb.

(H/T to Raw Story.)

When Fundamentalists argue with Atheists.

This reminds me of an epic debate I got into when I was in college.

My roommate was planning to enter the priesthood, and had an honest to goodness eidetic memory.

He was able to quote line from line almost every book he had ever read, which of course included the Bible.

This put me at a distinct disadvantage, until I proclaimed that since the "facts" in the Bible had never been backed up by independent sources, and many if not all of them were disputed by other sources from those time periods, that I would treat them as mythologies, much like the Greek and Roman mythology I had studied in high school.

He still did pretty good even with his primary source material removed, but ultimately it ended in a tie.

(Of course that is what I led him to believe, however there was really no doubt that I crushed him. No, really.)

Did you feel a seismic shift in the internet the other day? Well this picture may have been the reason why.

Apparently you will either see a blue and black dress when you look at this picture, or a white and gold dress.

Arguments became so animated the it even threatened some marriages.

For the record I see a blue and black dress, which as it turns out is exactly what it is.

However scientists have weighed in as to why some people's eyes have played them for a fool.

Open Carry advocate kills husband and stepdaughter. Then drives herself to a mental hospital.

Veronica Dunnachie supporting Open Carry in Tarrant County

Courtesy of The Dallas Morning News:

An Arlington woman faces a charge of capital murder Wednesday after two people were discovered dead in her home, police said. 

Officials said they were treating the slayings as a domestic homicide. Veronica Dunnachie, 35, is being held in the Arlington City Jail, said Sgt. Jeffrey Houston, a police spokesman. Bail had not yet been set. 

The victims had not been identified and the cause of death had not been released.

Since this article the bodies were identified as her estranged husband Russ Dunnachie and his adult daughter.

After the slayings the suspect drove herself to Millwood Hospital, a mental health facility, where she was taken into custody. She was uninjured.

Separations, divorces,  child custody battles, happen everyday in this country. Usually there are harsh words, recriminations, and lawyer fees.

But when you see the world as a dangerous place, and carry a gun on your person for protection, a verbal confrontation can escalate into something far more dangerous than simply hurtful words.

Despite what the NRA might want all of us to believe, in this case at least the presence of a gun is directly responsible for the taking of life, not the protection of life.

The equation is simple; no gun = no death.

Drunken argument between two officers results in shooting death of New Mexico Sheriff's Deputy.

Deputy Jeremy Martin

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A New Mexico sheriff’s deputy shot and killed another deputy during a drunken argument after transporting a prisoner out of state. 

Police said two Santa Fe County deputies were returning from the transfer when they rented a hotel room at 4 p.m. Monday in Las Cruces, reported the Albuquerque Journal. 

The deputies later went to Dublin’s Street Pub, where they began arguing after drinking alcohol. 

Police said the argument escalated when the deputies returned to their seventh-floor hotel room, and one of them attempted to flee to an elevator. 

Deputy Tai Chan fatally shot Deputy Jeremy Martin several times in the back and arms with a semi-automatic gun, police said. 

The 29-year-old Martin was pronounced dead at an area hospital.

You know the NRA is always saying that gun deaths are the result of criminals getting access to guns and not something that "good guys" with guns are ever involved in.

Wrong!

After all these are trained individuals who are suppose to be the very definition of the "good guys with a gun."

The fact is that reasonable people sometimes get unreasonable, especially when drinking, and the presence of a firearms can often mean that a simple shoving match, or exchange of punches, can instead become the taking of a life. 

Man "accidentally" shoots his pregnant girlfriend in the face during argument.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

Doctors in central Pennsylvania delivered a baby during emergency surgery on a pregnant woman shortly before she died from a shotgun wound. 

Police said 25-year-old Denver Blough told them he had accidentally shot his girlfriend, 23-year-old Caressa Kovalcik, during an argument Saturday at the Windber apartment they shared with their 11-month-old son. 

Kovalcik died after delivering the child she had been carrying for nine months, reported The (Johnstown) Tribune Democrat, and the baby was flown to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh for additional care. 

“What’s going to happen to my baby?” Blough asked state police as they took him into custody. 

Blough, who worked for an asphalt company, was charged with criminal homicide, attempted criminal homicide, aggravated assault charges, and other charges.

Blough claimed that he broke his 20 gauge  shotgun into two pieces and went to show his girlfriend, and that the weapon fired hitting her in the face.

That seems highly implausible to me, if not outright impossible.

I would think it more likely that he shot his girlfriend, panicked, and then broke his gun into pieces.

I think the police might be making a similar assumption which explains why he was charged with criminal homicide instead of manslaughter.

The NRA is always talking about how weapons keep us safe, but it only takes a cursory knowledge of gun deaths to recognize that the vast number of people shot in this country are shot in similar domestic squabbles, where one person becomes angry and there is easy access to a weapon.

And now this poor child has been robbed of both their mother, who is now dead, and their father, who may not get out of prison until the child is an adult. 

Why it often does not pay to have conversations with Fundamentalists.

I think that this point was made incredibly obvious during that recent "debate" between Ken Ham and Bill Nye.

The smoke and mirrors that Ham threw up to obfuscate the weak points in his argument were stunning.  And it served him well in throwing up an intellectually dishonest force field that repelled the logic of Bill Nye's rebuttals.

"Be a man." Perhaps one of the hardest to follow directions we ever hear.

As I think most of you know I was raised by a single mother and did not have a father figure around for most of my formative years.

My male role models were Mannix, Little Joe Cartwright, and Captain James T. Kirk.

I learned that men did not show emotion, treated women like something temporary to be used and then cast aside, and that violence was the solution to just about everything.

On the other hand my mother's instruction was to not grow up to be like her most recent boyfriend who broke her heart or turned out to be an asshole.

That did not give me much to work with in the real world.

I did the best I could, but boy did I screw up a lot. Especially in high school.

However, after many missteps and wrong turns, I eventually grew up to be a more or less sensitive guy, who likes movies, working with kids, and talking about religion and politics.

I do not hurt women, I do not drink to excess, and I do not carry a gun (Or a phaser) to make myself feel masculine.

In the end my mom turned out to be my best role model simply by demonstrating that strong women should not threaten the egos of strong men, that raising children is not something that only woman can do well, and that our self worth should not be measured by what we have, but rather by what we give to others.

No way am I perfect, but I am far better than anybody ever thought I would turn out to be when I was a young boy. And today when I teach young boys what it is to be a man, there is no talk of competition or violence, but rather of responsibility and respect toward others.

So MUCH better than the other Ten Commandments.

Source

Have you ever read the Bible's Ten Commandments?

The first three are all to stroke God's humongous ego, the fourth tells us not to work on Sunday which millions of people break every week, the next three seem fairly reasonable, and essentially EVERY OTHER religion has them as rules too, and the last one flies in the very face of what it is to an American. 

I tell you after reading the Ten Commandments as a kid I realized right away that only a douchebag would ask human beings to follow those rules.

Two men argue over the existence of God. One man shoots the other. Gold star if you can guess who was the shooter and who was the shootee.

"Go ahead. Say you don't believe in me...one...more..time."

Courtesy of CBS:  

An Oakland man has been found guilty of first-degree murder for shooting and killing his friend during an alcohol and cocaine-fueled argument over the existence of God. 

33-year-old Douglas Yim was also found guilty Tuesday of assault with a firearm and mayhem for shooting a second friend in his living room two years ago. 

Yim killed 25-year-old Dzuy Duhn Phan after a night of partying and playing video games. Another friend, Paul Park, testified the two men had engaged in a heated discussion about God. 

Yim became enraged and grabbed his gun after Phan asked Yim where God was when Yim’s father died of a stroke several years earlier. 

Yim shot Phan at least six times. Park was also hit by a bullet.

Okay that remark about his father was certainly ill conceived, bu still SIX times?

You know the thing is that when somebody clings so desperately to a belief, and you challenge it, things can get very, very ugly. 

I still find it interesting that the person who believes in God, and therefore believes that they will be judged,  felt justified in taking a gun and murdering his friend.

I guess the only thing that stops a bad atheist with an opinion, is a good Christian with a gun.

So much for the idea of religion having a positive effect on morality.

If you think about it this is an almost impossible feat. But then again thinking about it, would undoubtedly prove its undoing.

A while back I mentioned that I had a discussion with a Catholic priest which sent him on a three day drinking spree.

Somebody asked exactly what I had said to him, and to be honest I don't remember the entire conversation. 

However I do remember that at one point he called me arrogant for suggesting with certainty that there was no God. And my rebuttal to that was to suggest that true arrogance was believing so firmly that, out of hundreds of possibilities, YOU had discovered the one true religion, and were so positive in that belief that you felt empowered to construct buildings dedicated to indoctrinating people into your faith, frightening children into accepting your faith, and even traveling to foreign lands to disrupt the cultures of the indigenous people to tell them that THEY were stupid and ignorant for not believing in YOUR fact free religious faith instead of their own fact free religious faith.

It was somewhere around then that he erupted from his chair all red in the face, called me a Philistine, grabbed his coat, and disappeared into a whiskey bottle for several days,

Ah the memories!

Rachel Maddow cleverly destroys the NRA's newest argument against gun control legislation.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

That was beautiful!

I really need to aspire to be more like Carl Sagan.

In my defense I am much, much better at not picking fights and trashing people's belief systems.

When I was younger I once sent a young newly "reborn" Christian college student fleeing from my dorm room in tears and sent a Catholic priest on a three day drinking binge.

However I do recognize that I can sometimes be more than just a little condescending in my discussions about religion and that it may turn some people off from hearing the truth.

Wait, did I just do it again?

Man with concealed carry permit attempts to put gun in man's mouth during argument.

Courtesy of  Kitsap Sun:

Bremerton police responded to a call about an incident involving a gun at about 1:15 a.m. Sunday at the business. With help from witnesses, an officer found the suspect, who had fled. 

The suspect, Kainen S. Mattison, 26, of Seabeck, told the officer that he had tossed a gun in a nearby backyard and that he had a concealed carry permit. Officers found the gun, a .40-caliber Ruger, with a full magazine and a round in the chamber. 

A witness told police an argument over “nonsense” started between Mattison and another man. The bartender told everyone to leave, because it was near closing time, and the argument continued outside. 

The victim said Mattison continued to yell at him outside, then pressed a gun against the victim’s face three times, holding the gun to the victim’s head for at least 30 seconds each time and trying to stick it in the victim’s mouth. 

Police confirmed Mattison had a concealed carry permit, though he wasn’t carrying it with him. An officer issued a request that the permit be revoked. 

Mattison was arrested and charged with first-degree assault. Bond was set Monday at $15,000. 

You know the argument used by the those in favor of lax gun control laws is that responsible gun owners, i.e. those that could pass a background check, are not the ones that resort to gun violence, only criminals do that.

Really? This incident took place in Washington, where the guidelines strictly state that a person applying for a concealed carry permit must pass a background check, be 21 years of age, and have NO criminal history.

Clearly this gentleman easily passed that background check and was issued his permit which allowed him to walk around the city with a loaded weapon on his person, including when he was in bar drinking alcoholic beverages.

It only takes a second for somebody to use poor judgement and make mistake.  And a mistake made unarmed is almost always less life altering than a mistake made with a gun within easy reach.

But you know what, at least in THIS incident nobody died. A young man in Duluth was not quite so lucky:  

The 22-year-old Duluth man shot by a Lilburn resident Saturday night after he accidentally pulled in the wrong driveway was struck just as he was driving off the 69-year-old retiree’s property, according to the incident report released Tuesday. 

Officers said they arrived to find Rodrigo Diaz, 22, slumped over the steering wheel of his red Mitsubishi, parked at the end of Phillip Sailors’ driveway, heading east. Blood covered his face and, the report states, his breathing was labored. 

Sailors’ lawyer said the retiree, home with his wife at the time, acted in self-defense. 

“He is very distraught over the loss of life from the defense of his home,” attorney Michael Puglise said Monday. “This incident happened late in the evening hours when he was home with his wife and he assumed it was a home invasion and he maintains his innocence.” 

The 22 year old victim never even got out of his car, but the homeowner was so worried that he might be under attack that he took his gun and shot at the car, EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BACKING AWAY!

Once again without the gun, two lives would not have been altered forever.

"But it's my constitutional right to have a gun."

Yes, but the question is, should it be?