Florida man arrested after shooting woman in the head during "freaky sex" and killing her.

Courtesy of WTSP: 

A man has been arrested after accidentally shooting a woman in the head while they were engaged in sexual activity. 

Just before 2 a.m. on Nov. 7, Tampa Police responded to a 911 call from Tyrone Fields who said he shot the victim in the head at the Regency Inn and Suites on Church Avenue. 

When police arrived they were met by Fields and saw Meagher on the bed with a gunshot wound to her head. She was transported to St. Joseph's Hospital where she later died from her injuries. 

Fields admitted to shooting the victim but said it had been during "freaky sex" with the woman and that he had only know her for two days. He said they were involved in a role-play scenario in which he put a gun to her head. 

Fields said he removed the magazine from his handgun but forgot to remove the bullet from the chamber so when he intentionally pulled the trigger as part of the role-play, he fired a single round into the her head.

The article goes on to explain that the woman was seen entering the room of her own free will and that the sex appears to have been consensual.

This is what happens when people start to see guns as harmless household items. 

Shooting at Mississippi university leaves one professor dead and one active shooter still at large. Update!

Professor Ethan A. Schmidt

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

A professor was shot and killed on Monday at Delta State University in Mississippi, a county coroner said, and the school remained locked down as authorities searched for a possible active shooter on campus. 

The university, located in Cleveland, Mississippi, confirmed the fatality on its Twitter account and asked those on campus to stay inside and away from windows. 

The shooter remains at-large, the Bolivar County Sheriff's Department said, adding it had no immediate description of any possible suspect.

Here is more from NBC News:

Bolivar County Deputy Coroner Ted Ray identified the victim as Dr. Ethan Schmidt. The school's website lists Schmidt as a professor of American history.

I have been watching this for much of the morning. So far no motive has been identified, and the identity of the shooter remains unknown.

I will update as more information becomes available.

Update: Okay now we are learning that there is another victim linked to the shooter, and that she works at the university as well.

Update 2: They now have a suspect.

Arkansas state senator kinda sorta threatens to kill his constituents if they ask him a question in public.

Later out of curiosity Mr. White visited Senator Rapert's Twitter account and found this:

 Soooo, to be clear this legislator is suggesting that talking to him in public, or let's go ahead and say "harassing him," is reason enough for him to shoot you?

With bullets and everything? 

Later the Senator attempted to convince Mr. White that HE was not the one who he was threatening to shoot:

Well good to know that Mr. White wasn't the guy that Senator Rapert considered important enough to almost shoot in the face.

However that means that somewhere in Arkansas is some poor schlub who just barely escaped with his, or her, life and doesn't even know it.

And I guess for future reference if you want to confront Senator Rapert about some legislation he introduced or how he voted, probably best to do so when he is stepping out the shower at the gym.

That way you know he is not armed.

And I imagine nothing else about him will seem terribly intimidating either.

(H/T to the Arkansas Times.)

P.S. And oh yes, Rapert is a Republican. But then you knew that already, didn't you?

New study reveals that simply having a gun does NOT make you safer.

Courtesy of the Washington Post: 

In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting, the National Rifle Association proposed putting more guns in schools. After a racist shot up a Charleston prayer group, an NRA board member argued for more guns in church. And now predictably, politicians and gun rights advocates are calling for guns in movie theaters after a loner killed two people at a theater in Louisiana. 

The notion that more guns are always the solution to gun crime is taken seriously in this country. But the research shows that more guns lead to more gun homicides -- not less. And that guns are rarely used in self-defense. 

Now a new study from researchers at Mount St. Mary's University sheds some light on why people don't use guns in self-defense very often. As it turns out, knowing when and how to apply lethal force in a potentially life-or-death situation is really difficult. The study was commissioned by the National Gun Victims Action Council, an advocacy group devoted to enacting "sensible gun laws" that "find common ground between legal gun owners and non-gun owners that minimizes gun violence in our culture." 

The study found that proper training and education are key to successfully using a firearm in self-defense: "carrying a gun in public does not provide self-defense unless the carrier is properly trained and maintains their skill level," the authors wrote in a statement.

I think this study only reinforces what should be an obvious recognition that guns are not a magical charm which provides protection simply by having it in your possession.

I would further argue that even trips to the shooting range will not adequately prepare a person to use a gun in a real life situation where they are frightened and under duress.

As we have seen even police officers quite often miss their target when firing at an assailant, fail to access their guns when needed, and panic when fired upon.

Once again in my opinion guns are one of the worst things to rely on for personal protection.

5 year old shoots baby brother in the head. Can you say "Free-dumb!"

Courtesy of CNN:  

The mother called 911 to say her 5-year-old boy shot his baby brother with a paintball gun. 

But it wasn't a paintball gun. It was a .22-caliber Magnum revolver. And the 9-month-old boy didn't survive. 

Authorities are trying to figure out what led to Monday's shooting in Elmo, in the northwest corner of Missouri. 

"At this point foul play is not suspected, and it appears at this time that the shooting was accidental," the Nodaway County Sheriff's Office said. 

Sheriff Darren White told CNN affiliate KCTV that the baby was in a playpen when his brother found the gun lying around a bed. 

When emergency crews arrived, they found the infant had been shot in the head. The child was flown to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was pronounced dead, the station reported.

Apparently the gun did not belong to the mother but instead to another unidentified relative.

The authorities are still deciding whether charges should be filed, which to my mind is just another reason to stay the fuck out of Missouri. Because as far as I'm concerned you leave a loaded firearm out on a bed, and a child uses it to kill a baby, your ass is going to jail.

Period!

Texas man accidentally shoots ten year old daughter while showing gun of to his friends. Boy I bet they were impressed!

Courtesy of The Dallas Morning News:

 A 10-year-old girl was injured late Saturday when police say her father accidentally fired a gun at their home in Colleyville. 

Colleyville spokeswoman Mona Gandy said the girl’s father was showing visitors his handgun at his home on Douglas Avenue when the gun discharged just before midnight. The bullet went through a wall and struck his 10-year-old daughter, who was in another room, in the hand, Gandy said. 

The girl’s mother drove her to a nearby emergency room in Colleyville and the girl was flown to the hospital for treatment, Gandy said. 

Police arrested the girl’s father, Steven Johnson, 53, on a charge of injury to a child, Gandy said. Johnson is at Keller jail.

Well I think this is clearly the girl's fault for not returning fire.

#Americangunculture

The myth of gun ownership and home defense.

Courtesy of Politico:  

In 1992, Gary Kleck and Marc Getz, criminologists at Florida State University, conducted a random digit-dial survey to establish the annual number of defensive gun uses in the United States. They surveyed 5,000 individuals, asking them if they had used a firearm in self-defense in the past year and, if so, for what reason and to what effect. Sixty-six incidences of defensive gun use were reported from the sample. The researchers then extrapolated their findings to the entire U.S. population, resulting in an estimate of between 1 million and 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year. 

The claim has since become gospel for gun advocates and is frequently touted by the National Rifle Association, pro-gun scholars such as John Lott and conservative politicians. The argument typically goes something like this: Guns are used defensively “over 2 million times every year—five times more frequently than the 430,000 times guns were used to commit crimes.” Or, as Gun Owners of America states, “firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.” Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum has frequently opined on the benefits of defensive gun use, explaining: “In fact, there are millions of lives that are saved in America every year, or millions of instances like that where gun owners have prevented crimes and stopped things from happening because of having guns at the scene.” 

It may sound reassuring, but is utterly false. In fact, gun owners are far more likely to end up like Theodore Wafer or Eusebio Christian, accidentally shooting an innocent person or seeing their weapons harm a family member, than be heroes warding off criminals.

The article points out a number of ways in which the criminologist misrepresented and extrapolated their data in order to reach such ridiculous numbers.

And then goes on to point out the following:

For example, guns were allegedly used in self-defense in 845,000 burglaries, according to Kleck and Getz. However, from reliable victimization surveys, we know that there were fewer than 1.3 million burglaries where someone was in the home at the time of the crime, and only 33 percent of these had occupants who weren’t sleeping. From surveys on firearm ownership, we also know that 42 percent of U.S. households owned firearms at the time of the survey. Even if burglars only rob houses of gun owners, and those gun owners use their weapons in self-defense every single time they are awake, the 845,000 statistic cited in Kleck and Gertz’s paper is simply mathematically impossible. 

Of course here at IM we have reported on the almost stunning number of times that guns purchased for protection instead killed or badly wounded the owner or a member of their families. 

Some of them are almost humorous, while others are tragically sad.

The facts are that owning a gun does NOT statistically make you safer than a non-gun owner, however it does dramatically increase the possibility that you yourself, or a loved one, will be shot with that firearm.

I have said it before, but it bears repeating, the best deterrent against burglary is a good dog.

And might I add that dogs are MUCH less likely to go off accidentally and take off somebody's finger. I am not saying it doesn't ever happen, just that it is much less likely.

Police officer suing gun shop after clerk handed him a loaded gun which he then accidentally used to shoot off his own finger.

 (Warning video somewhat graphic.)

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A former southern Kentucky police officer is suing a gun shop after he accidentally shot off his finger with a loaded weapon handed to him by a clerk. 

WBKO-TV reported that former Officer Darrell Smith asked to see a .380 caliber handgun when he visited the Barren Outdoors in March, according to a lawsuit filed Friday. 

The clerk retrieved a weapon from beneath the glass display counter and hands the gun to Smith, who was wearing his Glasgow police uniform at the time. 

Security camera video shows Smith examining the weapon, which the officer does not realize is loaded. 

He cocked the weapon, which then fired and blows off a portion of the officer’s left index finger.

How many times have we been told that EVERY gun should be considered a loaded weapon, and that people trained in the use of firearms always know that?

Well this is a police officer so one would think he would be trained, but apparently he dozed off during that portion of his training.

I actually think the cop has a good case here as one would usually not expect a gun in a display case to be loaded.

Actually it is lucky that the accident was not much worse.

There are several times in the video where the weapon is pointed in the direction of the other customers and it is sheer luck that it did not fire and hit one of them. Or an employee for that matter.

Couple faces charges after video found showing their baby putting gun in its mouth while they encourage the child to say "pow."

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

Indiana couple has been charged with child neglect after cell phone video obtained by authorities recorded the pair telling a one-year-old baby to put a gun in her mouth and instructing her to make sounds like the weapon was firing, police said. 

Authorities in Evansville said on Friday they found the video on the phone of Michael Barnes, 19, who was arrested Thursday after he agreed to sell a handgun to an undercover officer through a transaction made on social media, Evansville police said in a statement. 

During what police called a “follow up investigation,” officers looking through Barnes’ phone discovered the video of the one-year-old baby putting a gun in her mouth. In the background, two adults, identified as Barnes and the toddler’s mother, Toni Wilson, 22, encouraged the child to play with the weapon, police said. 

“Barnes can be heard telling the child to say “pow” on multiple occasions while the child plays with the gun,” police said. “The video also shows the child placing the muzzle of the gun in her mouth. At no point does Barnes try to stop the child from playing with the gun,” the statement said.

I quite literally do not know what to say here.

If you don't mind I think I will just sit here cradling my head in my hands for a little while.

Man brings home breakfast for his wife, she shoots him in the chest. Kinda ungrateful don't you think?

Courtesy of TPM:  

A woman in Fayetteville, N.C. allegedly shot her husband in the chest when he came home to surprise her with breakfast Friday morning, television station WTVD reported. 

Police said Tiffany Segule, 27, shot her husband, Zia Segule, 28, after he returned home to surprise her and set off their home's alarm system, the station reported. 

She had returned to bed after her husband left for work and thought there was an intruder, according to police. She fired a shot through her bedroom door, authorities told the TV station. 

The bullet hit her husband in the chest, but police told WTVD that he was able to walk and talk after being shot. He was released from the hospital hours after the incident.

As Wayne LaPierre  would say, "Just a good woman with a gun stopping a bad man with breakfast."

10 to 1 the husband bought her that gun for protection, and she then went and used it to put holes in him. Women!

Man buys gun, decides to test it out by firing it in parking lot next to preschool. Must be Florida.

Courtesy of WESH.com:  

Shots were fired Saturday afternoon at Whisper Lake Apartments off Semoran Boulevard. 

The shooting occurred in a parking lot next to a preschool. Orange County deputies said someone was trying out a handgun by firing into a wall separating the apartments from a business complex. 

“I heard between four and eight gunshots that way,” said Ricardo Gonzalez. “It’s awful. I don’t like it.” 

Some bullets struck nearby apartments.

Yeah, I really don't see why there is a need for mental health screenings fro gun buyers. Do you?

Here is my favorite part:

Deputies took a report but did not make any arrests.

Can't arrest the guy, right? I mean he was probably "standing his ground" against that attacking wall.

Thank you Florida for making me feel good about living in Alaska again.

Two year old accidentally shoots woman with her own gun. Sadly she was killed and therefore unable to return fire.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

A two-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed a woman after he reached into her purse at a northern Idaho Walmart and her concealed gun fired, authorities said Tuesday. 

The woman was shopping with several children, and it is unclear how they are related, Kootenai County sheriff’s spokesman Stu Miller said. Authorities originally said the boy was the woman’s son. 

The woman, whose identity was not released, had a concealed weapons permit. 

Miller said the shooting was accidental and occurred in the Walmart in Hayden, Idaho, a town about 40 miles northeast of Spokane, Washington.

First off a woman who carries a concealed weapon while out with a bunch of children deserves to be shot.  I know that sounds insensitive but since one of the alternatives is that a child is shot, I stand by my statement.

Secondly have you ever noticed just how many people are shot in Wal-Mart these days?

And thirdly this is just another example of having guns on your person placing you and your loved ones in more, not less, danger.

I feel badly for this two year old child, and the other children who were there to witness this.

But once again I am finding it impossible to feel badly for this woman.

3 year old shoots and kills man, because you know guns do that.

Courtesy of KXII: 

Family and friends are mourning the death of a former Stringtown and Murray State College basketball player. 

Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokespersons said the 23-year-old man was accidentally shot Friday by a 3-year-old. 

Family members were at a home on Wells Street in Stringtown, and were sighting-in a rifle, when one of the children reached over and pulled the trigger, shooting Brown in the neck.

Just a reminder that guns make perfectly harmless people incredibly dangerous.

And now this child has to live their entire live knowing that they killed a man even before they learned what death was.

What gun ownership looks like in America.

Courtesy of Slate:

 In early 2013, on a five-day assignment for the German magazine Stern, photographer Charles Ommanney traveled around the United States photographing Americans with their guns. Ommanney has built a career working as a political and documentary photographer and felt a responsibility to make a story that wasn’t just another “predictable NRA-bashing” type of series. He wanted to see “real” people to find out why they wanted to have guns in their homes. 

He also decided to shoot the project in a more engaged manner with his subjects instead of simply being a fly on the wall. Ommanney said the project took him to six states in the Southern and Western United States, where he met people who owned guns for protection, as preparation for when things go “horribly wrong,” or simply because they like the beauty of weaponry. Instead of photographing the gun owners at a firing range or at a National Rifle Association conference, Ommanney wanted to capture them in their homes to create a sense of “normalcy.”

Yeah I am not sure that I would use the word "normalcy" to describe that picture above.

There are some others that have less of a "Deliverance" vibe to them, but not by as much as I think this guy was, if you will pardon the pun, shooting for.

This one in particular really bothers me.

I cannot imagine the scenario where a father would think that an exchange of gunfire was reasonable while he had his child strapped to the same area where police officers usually strap their bullet prove vests.

Maybe it's just me.

Woman playfully slaps man, he shoots her dead. Just another day in the NRA's America.

Courtesy of The Florida Times-Union:  

A Clay County man was arrested early Saturday on manslaughter charges after allegedly shooting a woman to death after she jokingly slapped him across the face. 

Elliott William Orsborn, 26, is accused of shooting Jamie Lee Martin, 26, in the head after a night of friendly drinking at Martin's home at 2041 Ashton Street in Middleburg, according to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office. 

Witnesses told authorities Martin, Orsborn and several other friends had been hanging out in the garage throughout the night while Martin's two children slept in the house, according to the Sheriff’s Office. 

Orsborn had flashed his silver .22 revolver with electrical tape wrapped around the handle several times and kept playing around with it. 

The gun wasn't loaded earlier in the night because Orsborn took all the bullets out, the Sheriff’s Office said. 

As the night went on and the group drank more, Martin and Orsborn were sitting at a table talking when Martin said something Orsborn didn't like. Witnesses said Gavin Lamberth, Martin's boyfriend of about 5 months who lives with her and her children, told Orsborn to "just chill." 

Then, Martin "jokingly slapped the defendant across the face." 

Witnesses told authorities Orsborn pulled his gun out of his shorts pocket, pointed it at Martin's forehead and shot her, the Sheriff’s Office said.

You know perhaps times have changed, but I was raised to never strike back at a woman even if she was pummeling you with both fists, much less pull a gun and take her life.

Is this what living in a "gun culture" ultimately leads to?

So now we shoot teenagers in their cars for playing loud music, kill seventeen year olds on their way home from the store with a iced tea and Skittles, and shoot women in the face for slapping us with an open hand?

What in the hell happened to us?

Utah teacher injured terribly when her totally legal firearm goes off while she is on the toilet. Anybody feel safer?

Courtesy of the BBC:  

A teacher in the US state of Utah who was legally carrying a gun in her primary school was seriously injured when it accidentally discharged, police have said. 

The incident happened in a staff toilet before classes started and no children were in the building, officials said. 

The unidentified woman was in a good condition in hospital by the afternoon. 

Utah is among a number of states that allow people with permits to carry concealed weapons into primary schools.

Look I am going to bang this drum until everybody else picks up an instrument and starts playing along with me. 

More guns mean more danger.

And this bullshit idea that shootings happen on school grounds because they are designated "gun free" zones is pure unadulterated bullshit!

Shooters go there because that is where they will make the biggest impact.

And unless we want to assign armed guards to every one of our elementary schools, high schools, and universities it will undoubtedly happen again.

And if not there than a military base, packed theater, or shopping mall.

The problem is not a lack of guns, the problem is that society teaches people to associate guns with power and dominance, and then provides them the means for attaining that power much, much too easily.

New documentary on kids and guns in America.

Courtesy of the Mirror:  

There’s a clip early on in this film of a young boy opening his Christmas presents. “You’re crazy,” he tells his father as he sees what’s in the box. 

“I’m too young to have a gun!” He points it at himself and his little brother to prove his point. “I’m SIX and he’s THREE!” 

And already it would seem, he’s way smarter than his dad. 

Every year, 3,000 children in the United States are killed or injured in accidental shootings. 

And this disturbing film doesn’t even touch on the increasing number of incidents involving mass killings in schools. 

Instead, it shows us the TV commercials selling real guns to children and we meet the parents who encourage and even force their children to learn to shoot. 

Four-year-old Kaelyn Williams is in tears as the recoil from the rifle her daddy made her shoot has hit her on the chin. 

But her dad JD, who lost both legs and one arm when he stepped on an IED in Afghanistan, is trying to make his daughter see that shooting is fun. 

He can’t wait until he watches her kill her first wild animal. 

“She’s going to learn to shoot whether she likes it or not,” JD states grimly. “Part of the Williams’ life skills: No1. Learn how to shoot.” 

This is the kind of hard hitting documentary that the NRA would never allow to be shown in America.

Which is why I am making sure that we see it here. And what it tells us about America's gun culture, and the desire by some parents to make sure that the culture continues, is both shocking and embarrassing to us as a nation.

It is almost 50 minutes long, so if you cannot watch it all in one sitting, then just take your time and watch it in segments. But please make sure to share it with your friends and families.

P.S. Here is more coverage of this documentary from The Telegraph and The Guardian.

The Rise of Women's Gun Culture.

Courtesy Rolling Stone:

Over the last decade, the percentage of armed women in America has risen quietly: according to Gallup, the numbers went from 13% in 2005 to 23% in 2011. By last year, that rise wasn't so quiet anymore. Women's interest sites declared "The Rise Of The Female Gun Nut." A Girl and a Gun-type shooting clubs, like Babes with Bullets and The Well Armed Woman, bloomed. And a staunchly, proudly masculine industry at least attempted to keep pace. Walk around a gun show these days, and you're more likely than not to find at least one table piled wide with .223-caliber AR-15 assault rifles rendered in hot pink. 

The movement, as of now, is very much fledgling. AG&AG, its de facto hub, nearly tripled attendance since last year's inaugural event, with local chapters from Marietta to Lehigh Valley to Cheyenne represented; still, that means just under 300 people, attendees and instructors all told. But one thing is for sure: here, across the basement-level conference rooms of the serene, sleepy Waco convention center, with these gun-happy ladies, the spirit is strong. 

You know I feel somewhat ambivalent about this.

On the one hand I have nothing against a woman wanting to protect herself against the possibility of attack. 

On the other hand this "gun culture" talk really bothers me. Just like it does when it pertains to males.

It is one thing if you view owning a gun as a necessary part of keeping safe, and quite another if you view as some crazy version of female empowerment, or a method of self expression.

Years ago I decided to teach women's self defense because I believed that women were more likely to become victims of domestic abuse or crime and I thought self confidence and a self defense skill set could help to keep them safe.

I also believed that women were less likely to use what I taught them to hurt others unnecessarily or to dominate them through threat of injury. Which was one of the reasons that I refused to teach men.

And for the most part that turned out to be correct.

For the most part.

But as I learned to my great frustration SOME women can be just as big of assholes as men.

Women are not all dainty, feminine, non-violent nurturers. Some of them have short tempers, violent tendencies, and a desire to dominate those that are weaker than they are.

Just like men.

So as much as I don't have anything against women, who are more often victimized than men, finding a way to protect themselves, I really think this kind of thing might attract the kind of woman who ABSOLUTELY should not walk around armed.

Just my point of view.