Springfield Armory Daily Digest: Shannon Resurfaces, The Dilemma of ‘Stun Guns’, and Efficacy of Restraining Orders

In a previous post, RF was doing the Where’s Waldo thing for Shannon Watts. Here she is, getting a big wet kiss from Fortune: The Mom Who Started a Gun Control Movement With a Facebook Page – “In its four years, the group—which Watts says is is not anti-gun, but pro-gun control—has ballooned to ‘an army’ of moms across the country. It has helped stop almost 200 ‘bad gun bills’—that is, bills allowing guns on campus or expanding Stand Your Ground laws—and helped passed ‘good bills’—including ones closing the ‘background check loophole’ in six states. Plus, it partnered with Michael Bloomberg’s like-minded group to form an umbrella organization, Everytown for Gun Safety.”

The pros and cons of stun guns: An embattled matter of safety for both cops and civilians – “Until very recently, the NYPD kept all so called “conducted electrical weapons” (CEWs) out of the hands of its men and women in blue out of concern for previous scandals. As police departments across the country began embracing stun guns on a large scale roughly 15 years ago, the NYPD allowed only some sergeants and specially trained units to wield them. The reluctance stemmed from the department’s controversial use of an earlier version of the electrical weapon, perhaps most notably in 1985 when four Queens officers were arrested for torturing three prisoners with handheld stun guns.” Maybe the problem back in the day was the officers, not the stun guns.

Washington Murder Case Results In Gun Charge Under 2014 Background Check Law – “’The focus of the law enforcement officers was they wanted to get the pedigree of the gun and find the gun so that it could be used in the murder prosecution,’ (Island County Prosecutor Greg) Banks said. ‘But it occurred to us that, ‘Hey this is also a gun that was transferred illegally and our job is to prosecute crimes when they are referred to us. And so we are.’”

Los Altos Hills shooting: Wounded stalking suspect identified – “Authorities have identified a Georgia man who was wounded in a home shootout after he broke in and attacked a woman he was reportedly stalking, only to be sent away by her relative who returned fire. William Brady III, 43, remains at a local hospital and is expected to survive multiple gunshot wounds he sustained in the Friday confrontation on Oak Knoll Circle, according to the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office. Brady was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and is expected to be booked into jail once he is released from the hospital.” Somehow he wasn’t stopped by a restraining order. So Santa Clara County issued another one.

How guns get into films – “The film industry as a whole has become increasingly gun-friendly, according to the Internet Movie Firearms Database; their crowd-sourced data suggests that the median number of weapon models featured in films has increased by 11% from 1995 to 2015. Researchers also found that gun violence in PG-13 films has more than tripled since 1985; in recent years, it has even exceeded the violence of R-rated films.” Friendly, maybe. Accurate, not so much.