Texas Representative Amando “Mando” Martinez was struck on the head by a bullet or bullet fragment just after midnight on new year’s eve. It seems most likely that the culprit was celebratory gunfire.
The incident, which is being investigated by the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office, reportedly occurred just after midnight Sunday, when Martinez was celebrating the New Year with family and friends outside a residence located north of Weslaco in the 5400 block of Sago.
The sheriff said Martinez felt something on top of his head and was rushed to a local hospital after the representative’s wife observed a small hole on the top left side of her husband’s head.
A deadly conduct investigation has been launched in reference to the incident, the sheriff said.
Looking for more information on the injury, I found that the bullet had penetrated the skull, but only barely. That’s a very serious injury, and not to be made light of. Usually bullets that retain enough force to penetrate an adult skull are fired at relatively low angles.
To further complicate the case, it was reported that a bullet fragment was removed, not a complete bullet. If the bullet were falling at terminal velocity, powered by gravity alone, it’s far less likely that the bullet would fragment.
The bullet went through Martinez’s skull, but didn’t cause any brain damage.
“Truly the hand of God, you know,” said Martinez, a Democrat who represents the mid-Valley.
Doctors at Knapp Medical Center in Weslaco transferred him to Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen, where surgeons removed the bullet fragment.
Celebratory gunfire can be practiced safely. People could use blanks or fire bird shot into the air (and only in areas where discharging a firearm is legal). The terminal velocity of bird shot is so low that it will not even damage car paint.
The major problem is the same as with any activity. Drunken idiots who engage in it are unlikely to follow basic safety rules. While tragic and unnecessary, the number of fatalities from celebratory gunfire is very low, in the low single digits per year.
They could all be prevented if people used a little common sense. But in a nation of 300+ million people, there will always be those who make very stupid mistakes that cost other people their lives. Whether it’s taking your eyes off the road to text while traveling at freeway speeds or firing a rifle or pistol into the air in a densely populated urban environment, it will inevitably happen.
Staying under a roof at midnight means your chances of getting hit are so close to zero as to be meaningless.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
We need to license and tax News Years eave. We need holiday control. Do it for the children. No one should be able to celebrate a holiday without a background check.
Holidays are dangerous things.
Another Democart shot in the head and lives, what does this tell you about them as a group?
Maybe they lack a brain to damage.
God you sound like Hitler.
This happens all the time…in Iraq.
Hitler had more of a German accent, but yes, he thought the evil (D) were brainless too.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Hitler was Austrian. However, for over 70 years, the Austrians have been selling the notion that Hitler was German, while Richard Strauss was Austrian.
According to Obama Adolf Hitler spoke with an Austrian accent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1diNthezRk
Why not let Arnold sort it out?
Henry, you beat me to it, I was gonna make that same comment… 🙂
Same here! Bwahahaha
“Celebratory gunfire can be practiced safely. ”
Not without violating three of the firearm safety rules, it can’t. It’s a stupid-ass practice, and it is rightly illegal.
Blanks?
i prefer firecrackers.
Shoot in the dirt?
“Blanks?”
Then, you’ll just have some drunken dumb*** shoot himself in the head with their last phrase being “Hey! Watch this!!”
If you’re dumb enough to fire a live non-blank round into the air like these idiots, you’re too damned dumb to own a gun and make the rest of US look bad.
If you shoot almost straight down into soft dirt/grass and shooting is legal, then there is nothing improper about such celebratory gunfire.
Obviously, shooting bullets up into the air is a no-go. And no one is advocating for such a practice.
“People could use blanks or fire bird shot into the air”
Direct quote from Dean in the article. If that’s not an endorsement for shooting in the air, I don’t know what the hell is.
I shoot some celebratory shots right into the dirt where I live, no need to shoot into the air.
37mm, lume rounds, unless it’s during high winds or high fire conditions, or you’re swimming up to the scintered magnesium floating dock in the middle of a fuel farm.
Warren,
Well, I was referring to shooting bullets into the air … shooting bullets into the air is a definite no-go.
As for shooting birdshot into the air, when it returns to Earth, it has zero ability to cause any injury to anyone with one possible exception: eye injury. Even a tiny #8 shot falling at terminal velocity could cause serious irritation if not outright injury if it struck someone’s eye … although that person would have to be looking up for that to happen. And yet bird hunters shoot birdshot into the air all the time and it seems to be fine. Given that you can just as easily shoot into the ground, I cannot condone shooting birdshot into the air over any neighborhood, village, town, suburb, or city.
If you’re on a shotgun range, on a clear enough day, and you fire your birdshot into the air above the range, I’d say that’s okay. But yeah…that’s bad advice. It’s not quite Joe “Double Barrel” Biden bad, but it’s pretty bad.
Where I grew up, we had about 12 sq miles of empty plowed ground. No houses, no barns, empty, nothing to hurt.
45 ACP tracers looked great.
Even if I’d fired my 300 H&H or 7mm RMag, at 45-50 degrees the trajectory would be less than 1/2 a mile.It has been about 50 years since I moved from that place.
Our neighbors used Dynamite to celebrate 4th of July. It was less expensive than fireworks and could removed stumps and deepen the pond, too.
The Texas politician is terribly wrong-headed about this. He seeks to make illegal the natural, civil and human right of an American to own a gun and do as he damn well pleases with it. Freedom isn’t free, life isn’t riskless, the constitution does not guarantee health, wealth, safety or comfort. This Texan needs to wake-up, smell the roses and come along with the enlightenment. Laws that will not be enforced are a pointless exercise in theatre of the absurd. No one has a constitutional, civil, natural or civil right to be safe from irresponsible, reckless gunplay.
So he’s a Democrat? This could have happened to anyone. Stupid mofos shouldn’t be shooting off guns willy-nilly. Most places already have laws against discharging firearms in city limits without good cause (self-defense, hunting pests, target practice at a range), and laws that do that and only that are probably the only gun laws we really need to have. Or would you prefer some PSAs telling everyone to stay inside or wear Kevlar if they leave the house on a holiday?
Registering as a Democrat should place you on the terrorist watch list, the no-fly list, and the no buy list. So obvious! Who could argue!?
You are correct. You do not have a right to “be safe” sorry to burst your bubble. Now do suck on a tailpipe.
Erudite, as always.
*Sets the straw man on fire* You have the right to own a gun, you don’t have the right to do whatever you please with it.
Reggie,
A person does have the right to do whatever they please with their firearm as long as their activity does not harm someone else, damage someone else’s property, or put someone else at extreme risk.
One person’s rights end where another person’s rights begin. Firearms are no exception.
Yes. That’s true. But the provision “as long as you don’t put anyone at extreme risk or cause property damage” means that you can’t do just whatever you please with a firearm. That was the straw man I was setting on fire.
No strawman (derisive sarcasm, maybe). If the gun owner believes that the probability of damage is so insignificant (like 500 deaths by mishandled guns) as to likely not happen, the the owner is apparently fully and properly exercising his right to do as he pleases with a firearm.
Okay, now that one definitely is a straw man. I didn’t say “As long as you don’t think you’re being reckless.” I said, in short “as long as you’re not being reckless.” what you just proposed is absolutely stupid. “Der, I’m going to get drunk an play wit ma gunsh. I dun’t think nobody will get hurt cuz I’m drruun *Barf*”
The thing is, we believe that gun ownership should not be restricted, but there is responsibility that comes with that ownership. Laws regarding the dangerous use of firearms are fine, but laws regarding mere ownership or possession are not. If your actions cause death, injury or damage to another person’s property then you deserve to be criminally and civilly charged. And actions which are likely to cause injury, death, or property damage of another person, such as firing a gun into the air in a densely populated city should be illegal as well.
See, people here, in general are concerned with one thing. That is, their right to defend themselves and their families (From both criminals and the government.) If you tell them that they can not possess a firearm, then you’re denying them the ability to defend themselves and their family. They are not going to complain if you tell them they can’t perform certain reckless behaviors. In fact, judging by the comments on this very page, they would agree that certain behaviors are unacceptable.
” If you tell them that they can not possess a firearm, then you’re denying them the ability to defend themselves and their family. ”
It is utterly amazing how gun owners deny the reality of defense using other than firearms. Please consult a dictionary and Thesaurus. “Defend” and “Firearm” are not interchangeable; they are not the same. One is an action, the other is a tool (to borrow from TTAG blog). There are so very many other tools that serve quite satisfactorily as weapons of defense.
It is also curious that gun owners believe a baseball bat, or tube of steel, or knife can be considered deadly in the attack, but only guns are deadly in defense.
Yes. A baseball bat is quite dangerous…. if you’re a healthy, 20 something man…. Not so much if you’re a 58 year old man, or a woman, or disabled, or obese, or out of shape.
The implied statement remains, “Everyone is incapable of successfully defending themselves, at all times, without possessing and using a firearm.”
You suck, you are a moron.
The strain of commentary here is generally, “I got my gun, and nobody tells me what to do with it.”
Nnnnooooo…. That’s a lie. I don’t think anyone here has ever advocated for being allowed to be reckless with their guns..
Maybe you’re thinking of “I got my gun and nobody tells me where I can and can’t take it.” that would be honest. But that is different from “I got my gun and I can do whatever I like with it.”
Smells suspiciously like a distinction without a difference.
“The strain of commentary here is generally, “I got my gun, and nobody tells me what to do with it.”
Actions have consequences. I won’t necessarily tell you what to do with your gun, but if you point it at me, I’ll shoot your ass.
And if you go “celebratory gunfiring” around me and mine, I will light into you and tell you just exactly what an ass you are and demand very, very insistently that you stop. And if you don’t? If I think you’re posing an imminent threat to me and mine, I’ll stop you, one way or another.
You have the right to keep and bear arms. That does not give you consequence-free license to do whatever you want with them.
“If I think you’re posing an imminent threat to me and mine, I’ll stop you, one way or another.”
Does that imply finding and complaining to authorities I am presenting a clear and present danger, or merely “slapping leather” (love those ole westerns).
So you’re not bright enough to see the difference between a specific action, possessing a gun and an unspecified action, anything you want with a gun? That’s kind of like saying four and infinity is a distinction without a difference.
Usuk, you sounds like a moron.
Hi Larry, looks like you received a dictionary for Christmas. Seems you have upped your vocabulary to a new personal best.
Well, then your statement that everyone is always capable of defending themselves without a gun still stands?
Well, then your statement that everyone is always capable of defending themselves without a gun still stands?
2Asux,
No one is advocating for a right to offensively harm anyone. Period. Whether that offensive harm takes the form of a person swinging a club into someone’s head or some jackass shooting a firearm into the sky is irrelevant.
Kapish?
I remain quite certain the shooter had no intention of being offensive; just having fun. Gun safety is in the eye of the gun owner, and if that owner feels safe, that is the end of it.
2Asux,
Responsible living and righteous governing are the same with respect to all rights. No matter how many people would use any right in a negligent or criminal way that directly caused harm to others, that would never justify laws that burden or prohibit good people from exercising the right. Whether or not the right involved is speech, jogging, painting your home, or owning/using firearms is irrelevant.
Furthermore, ignorance or absence of malice does not excuse negligent activity that harms others. It simply means the penalties for the activity are less than penalties when malice is involved.
Finally, the righteous answer to prevent/solve problems of ignorance or negligence is EDUCATION. The non-righteous answer to prevent/solve problems of ignorance or negligence is TYRANNICAL LAWS. Again, this is responsible living and righteous governing for ALL rights, firearms included. Anything else is heinous and evil.
All your vaunted constitutional rights are constrained, abridged, infringed. Why does the populace persist in allowing “heinous and evil” governance?
Usuuuuk! I remain quite certain that you are a moron!
Now, don’t become tiresomely repetitive. Open the gifted dictionary and learn a new word.
We’ll be here, waiting.
2Asux,
“All your vaunted constitutional rights are constrained, abridged, infringed. Why does the populace persist in allowing “heinous and evil” governance?”
By and large, our human rights (not including ownership, possession, and use of firearms) are not constrained, abridged, and infringed to the point of being utterly ineffective. So-called limits on free speech, for example, do not prevent us from being able to communicate effectively with our community or government. For that reason, no one is raising a big stink about limits on free speech. However, laws which prevent us from being able to defend ourselves effectively (with or without firearms) are heinous and evil and We the People should not tolerate them.
Why do We the People tolerate such heinous and evil governance on self-defense in certain regions of the country? In some cases We the People oppose said heinous and evil governance and carry firearms anyway. In other cases We the People have no awareness or concern about self-defense and governance that prevents it so they are silent and have not acted. In still other cases We the People have bought into the deranged idea that effective self-defense is bad and such people tolerate heinous and evil governance that prohibits effective self-defense.
And before you try to tell us that laws which only ban firearms allow for effective self-defense, I will tell you that a 65 year old woman with a club cannot defend herself effectively from a 20 year old gang banger with a crowbar. A 30 year old father with a knife cannot defend himself, his wife, and his daughter effectively when facing two young, fit attackers with knives or clubs. And on and on I could go. In other words laws which ban firearms ensure that the strongest, fastest, and most ruthless among us will use, abuse, and exploit everyone else. If that doesn’t illustrate that banning firearms renders our right to self-defense ineffective, I don’t know what does. As it turns out, the only self-defense item available today that enables a 70 year old male victim to stop a 20 year old attacker, a petite woman victim to stop a hulking rapist, a chemotherapy patient victim to stop a gangbanger, or a 25 year old body builder victim to stop a car full of young, fit punks … is a firearm. Thus, laws which forbid the carriage of firearms condemn such victims to serious bodily injury or death. And that, by definition, is heinous and evil.
” I will tell you that a 65 year old woman with a club cannot defend herself effectively from a 20 year old gang banger with a crowbar.”
This is an old saw, and inappropriately applied. Yes, there are some circumstances when one might only be able to resort to deadly force with a handgun (but a person unable to defend themselves any other way are not ipso facto magically able to effectively use a gun. Using extreme cases to justify a general concept is one that can be easily turned against you.
We can use the rare case of whatever undesirable behavior we dislike to justify a general prohibition. Thus, because there are at least 500 people killed each year by negligent gun owners, that justifies severe restrictions of “gun rights”. You see, using the case of the rare attack of disparate force to justify everyone having a gun, works the other way round.
To the other point, if you accept any legislative curtailment of any rights, you are agreeing that the curtailment is legitimate (which it is). From that point on, you are arguing price, not principle.
2Asux,
“Yes, there are some circumstances when one might only be able to resort to deadly force with a handgun …”
Correct, firearms are the most practical and universally effective tool currently available for self-defense. That is why governance which forbids the ownership, carriage, and use of firearms for self-defense is heinous and evil.
“Using extreme cases to justify a general concept is one that can be easily turned against you.”
First of all, gun-grabbers and general proponents of tyrannical governments use extreme cases to justify tyrannical laws all the time. If we used “extreme” cases of self-defense to justify passing/repealing laws in support of our right to keep and bear arms, we are simply using the same standard as those who wish to infringe on our right.
More importantly, violent crime victims who cannot defend themselves effectively without a firearm are not “extreme” or “rare” but exceedingly common. If everyone is somehow limited to melee weapons, by definition all criminal attackers who are strong, fast, and ruthless will prevail over victims who are not strong, fast, and ruthless. Since the overwhelming majority of attackers are strong, fast, and ruthless, and the overwhelming majority of our population is most certainly NOT strong, fast, and ruthless, the overwhelming majority of victims cannot prevail without a firearm.
Finally, even if all violent crime victims were somehow strong, fast, and committed to using a melee weapon for self-defense, a violent crime victim who uses a knife or club to defend themselves from an attacker with a knife or club is virtually guaranteed to suffer serious bodily harm during the attack even if they ultimately manage to drive away their attacker. Did you catch that? Without firearms, nearly 100% of even strong and fast violent crime victims would suffer serious bodily harm if attacked. That is NOT effective self-defense.
Rather, firearms are effective because they not only enable weaker and slower victims to defend themselves from stronger and faster attackers, firearms also enable victims to fend off attackers at a distance before their attacker is close enough to stab, slash, or impart blunt-force trauma. Since firearms enable weaker, slower victims as well as stronger, faster victims to prevail over most attacks without serious bodily injury, righteous governance must never prohibit firearms for self-defense.
Game, set, match.
Given the billions upon billions of minutes that pass each day (1440 minutes per day, multiplied by the entire number of people on the planet) without someone being attacked reduces the risk of attack infinitesimal (lightning kills too, but we don screw lightning rods onto our heads) for a given person. Hundreds of millions of guns walking about the nation are an unnecessary and fairly useless guardian. Sometimes a gun is successfully deployed by an innocent victim of attack. Not enough to justify the risk to people at large. The number of guns in the country, or even in the possession of an individual do not deter attacks or crime. If criminals feared that all those millions of guns were being carried daily by tens of millions of people, we might begin to develop a valid correlation. Violent crime is down from 1993, but no one of substance asserts a direct connection between annually increasing gun sales, and falling crime rates.
You again? You have been so consistently and thoroughly punked on this website, I can’t help but think that you’re just some kind of masochist.
A number of us here in TTAG believe 2Asux actually isn’t an anti.
He doesn’t clip and paste his comments like the other twit has been doing recently. Most of the time he will debate your comments point-by-point.
In my opinion, Mr. 2Asux is exactly the kind of troll TTAG needs. He’s putting some serious hours on TTAG and is providing excellent practice for honing 2A debate skills…
Is that a subtle way of saying he’s a TTAG employee who is trolling his own site so it will get more clicks and more attention? Wouldn’t that be some shit. I know he’s not copying/pasting his comments, but I don’t feel the need to hone my skills. I’ve already punked so many anti-gunners on other websites. I don’t like really like digging into a debate on this site because I never know if I’ve been replied to or anything.
That brings me to my next point… If anyone from TTAG reads this: have you considered having your comments hosted by Disqus? I’m not a huge fan of the comment interface on this site; it’s not really conducive to a good back and forth. I’m not taking a shot at you guys (you’re at the very top of my RSS news feed), but with Disqus, you get a much cleaner interface that saves your discussion, gives you notifications of replies, will take you directly back to the webpage in one click, and it’s all in one spot. Plus… Guns.com has it. Hahahahaha. Still, they’re only second place in my news feed.
“Is that a subtle way of saying he’s a TTAG employee…”
No, not at all.
I think he dipped his toe in the water and found it to his liking…
“…I can’t help but think that you’re just some kind of masochist”.
Sorry, I just don’t do French.
So you do Greek?
Naughty boy.
Whoopsie!
2Asux logged in on the wrong name! You’re supposed to troll us on that one – not be logical or correct.
No snark symbol on my keyboard, mate.
If you read carefully, you will note the internal conflict in the statements.
I’d love to hear your tune when someone does what “he damn well pleases with” his gun while acting stupidly and you lose an loved one or friend.
If it happens, just remember, nothing is guaranteed to protect you from idiots. Or perhaps some drunken dumb*** will take out you, your loved ones or friends… but by gosh its their car, their booze and you better suck it up buttercup…
*SMDH*
Please re-read the original statement; this time more slowly, and with feeling.
I used the common gun owner refrain to mock those who believe gun rights are absolute (or nearly so). Personally, if it were possible to identify gun idiots (irresponsible owners) by looking at them I would be most happy to point them out to authorities.
…this is why it’s hard to have nice things.
“Double dumb-ass” on the one that pulled the trigger.
While it is possible to find a place where there is no one within the three plus miles that projectiles can travel when fired at an angle they are rare. Shooting straight up is pretty much impossible without special jig.
Add alcohol and I am amazed at times how few people are hurt or killed by accidental gunfire.
As DLJ says it is these idiots who help the antis
Stop… Stop…
I can only take so much schadenfreude in a three month period…
Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving asshole.
PWR, my thought on it was “Karma, for being a liberal”.
I’ll point out that the velocity that the bullet comes down at is determined by it’s flight path. If the bullet is indeed fired straight up then it will come down at terminal velocity less wind resistance. That resistant will probably be high because the bullet will almost certainly be tumbling.
If it’s not fired straight, and I do mean straight, up the will retain significantly more energy on the downward portion of it’s parabolic path. There are a couple reasons for this. Not to nerd out about the physics of this but if the bullet was fired in a perfect vacuum it would come down at the same speed it went up. We don’t live in a vacuum though so the bullet will lose a fair amount of energy as is travels. However, it still has forward velocity on the downward portion of it’s path and it’s gaining energy to a point thanks to gravity accelerating the bullet down towards the ground.
Long story short, a bullet fired into the air, unless it goes directly upwards and loses all of it’s energy at the top of it’s flight path, will come back to earth with significantly more energy than if it was just dropped. How much energy it has will be affected greatly by wind resistance and the distance traveled before hitting whatever it hits. However it’s pretty well guaranteed to hurt a lot worse if it hits you than it would if it fell out of a plane. A higher BC rifle bullet will retain more energy than a pistol round but both will have more energy than if they were dropped. A lot more.
“Not to nerd out about the physics of this but if the bullet was fired in a perfect vacuum it would come down at the same speed it went up.”
Well, the round hit a near-perfect vacuum, a Democrat’s head… 🙂
Double ouch.
“terminal velocity less wind resistance.”
Without wind resistance, there is no terminal velocity.
Untrue. In a vacuum there is no resistance but energy is finite and thus the maximum velocity is limited. Therefore there is a terminal velocity.
When all potential energy is converted into kinetic energy acceleration will stop. Were this not the case light speed would be easily breakable.
Ah, the things I learned in Kindergarten….actually, from being in a High School classroom that also taught hunter safety.. A poster showed us this was stupid. BTW, I graduated in 1976.
But, hey, Joe Biden says it’s okay, although not to celebrate New Year’s Eve.
Playing stupid games with stupid people late at night will often win you stupid prizes.
Will this dumbocrat go after gun rights because some idiots boo-lit hit him in the head? Jus’ sayin’…
News overnight is/was that he intends to introduce federal legislation making the use of gunfire in celebrations illegal. That should do it.
A little common sense, eh?
Sorry to say, you can’t legislate against stupidity, or even against stupid behavior, and stand a chance of having it work. If WAS possible to successfully legislate against stupid actions, then there would be a LOT fewer people voting for liberal politicians.
It’s already agin’ the law furinier…even in Texass. Unlawful discharge …
Well then, a new law tightening things up so as to address the trouble separately, completely and distinctly should put things right, again.
2asux
And that law would say what exactly? Please entertain us with your insight on this matter.
Perhaps we could word it this way,
“Any person who discharges a firearm into the air, into the ground, into a crowd (3 or more persons, or into open space is guilty of a felony. The particular felony will be attempted murder. Upon conviction, the guilty person shall permanently give up the ownership or use of any firearm, under any circumstance (including self-defense). The convicted person shall serve a mandatory (without any hope or means of reduction) sentence of 10 years, followed by supervision of the relevant parole board for a period of 15 years.”
But that is just spur of the moment. We have proper barristers who can create a more robust, enforceable statute.
@2Asux
The short answer is no. No one is going to pass that nonsense.
Pretty much all shotguns are discharged into the air. You provided no details on bullet weight, velocity, intent, etc. in regards to a rifle or pistol. You did not provide detail where the setting occurs, rural or urban? There are legitimate reasons to shoot into the ground. I believe it is already illegal to shoot into a a crowd of persons, regardless of how many people are in the crowd.
With exception to the crowd statement above (which is already illegal). It’s not attempted murder. Me shooting into the ground certainly isn’t attempted murder. You don’t get to dictate the English language to mean what it actually doesn’t mean.
What if they say no? What if they say come and get it? (Insert chuckle here). Are you going to go and get it? Why would you ask a police officer to go and get it – when you are not willing to do it yourself?
For shooting into the ground? Punishment doesn’t fit the crime. There is no victim, except of the accused by means of the state and the minds of totalitarians with distorted delusions of justice.
Yea, except it’s not enforceable. If a guy shootings a 300 win mag in the air in a rural setting nobody is going to know where that shot came from. Is that guy a inconsiderate ignorant dbag? Yes. Can it be “enforced” as you put it – absolutely not. You’d need a police officer to follow around every gun owner at every minute of the day. Not going to happen.
I did mention that my proposition was instant, not carefully considered. However, so many gun owners are superficial in all their thinking. Looking at only the most direct and narrow possibilities. In short, my intent was to fashion a law that would make it extremely hard to use a firearm, while appearing to be addressing only a single happenstance. Which politician would want to publicly declare that a law that criminalizes irresponsible gun handling is not in the public interest? Such a law might not soon get even a first reading, but once the public becomes aware, it would significantly pressure politicians to “do the right thing”, and protect the public from dunderheads.
As to enforcement, there are many fine laws that cannot be enforced in many, maybe most, or sometimes any events. However, when they are enforced, the results are quite beneficial to the public. For people shooting into the air in celebration, when another person is injured someone almost always knows who fired the shot, saw the person, can describe the perpetrator or escape movements. So, when such individual is arrested and convicted, that person is relieved of their firearms, permanently branded as a criminal, restricted in how they interact with society. All good outcomes. There would be also an incalculable deterrent effect in the local community. If only one person is deterred from putting lives at risk…..
On the other side of the universe, liberals are mocking and celebrating the death of a 2A supporter from a negligent discharge.
http://heatst.com/culture-wars/liberals-mock-and-celebrate-shooting-death-of-conservative-columnist/
It’s a vile, disgusting, low-class way to react to a tragedy. And those commenters above me who choose to ridicule the victim in this case are no better. If you want to help the cause of gun rights, grow up a little.
+1
+1
Meh, no harm done. After all, look at James Brady and Gabby Giffords – both are proof that you can shoot a liberal in the head and utterly fail to hit anything vital!
Every New Year’s eve every radio station should play a certain old song frequently:
“What goes up
must come down….”
On the rare occasions I feel the need to fire off a round just to make noise, I fire it straight into the dirt.
While I’m not going to shed any tears over somebody shooting a politician , especially a democratic , this is avoidable. Although the kinds of drunk-think that get people
To shoot off guns in the air don’t lead to using safe ammo, that’s not the only reason people don’t use blanks. Try to buy them! No place sells them that I know of.
A Dem rep down in Dem country got hit by a falling bullet. Where’s his outcry against his own peeps? No R’s to blame down there.
Celebratory gunfire hit a politician in the coconut? Now that what I call a magic bullet.
Wikipedia: “Between the years 1985 and 1992, doctors at the King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, treated some 118 people for random falling-bullet injuries. Thirty-eight of them died.”
32% is a pretty high mortality rate.
The study cited in wikipedia says “This is a case report of rare cardiac and abdominal organ injuries sustained by an innocent bystander from a New Year’s Eve celebratory gun shooting. ” . I call BS, they were possibly direct shootings, açidental or intentional that the bystanders reported the shooting as from the sky etc to deflect blame. I wnt to trade school with guys from the city that would tell stories about people they knew that would have accidental shootings and tell the hospital that it was a “drive by” and they didn’t know the person. Even the main story of being hit in the head, presumably from the sky doesn’t quite mesh with the bullet fragment description..
More info is needed.
Maybe, but bullet wound channels would presumably say something about the trajectory in most cases. A majority of the wounds attributed to falling bullets are hits to the top of the head, shoulder, or foot, which are the primary surfaces exposed from a falling bullet, rather than horizontal wounds in the torso, arm, or leg, for example.
The boy killed here in Virginia on July 4th, 2013, named Brendon Mackey, was struck in the top of the head by a .40 cal bullet traveling downward, while walking with his dad.
probably another anti-gun LIE
I am accustomed (and not aggrieved by) the name-calling, despicable language, and general cyber-bullying on this forum. It is to be expected where schoolboys are allowed free reign. However, is it beyond the pale that the TTAG staff tolerates postings that endorse, support, or celebrate the injury of someone whose only error was to be outdoors during a celebration where irresponsible gun owners caused that person a near-fatal injury. Perhaps, for financial reasons, the purveyors are only allowing others to post what the staff dare not.
TTAG is not government. They are not constrained by any 1st Amendment considerations. TTAG, as an entity, should disavow and remove (maybe ban the commenters) comments that reflect pleasure that another American was shot for no defensible reason. (fabled “Four Rules”, and all)
While the average maturity level among commenters on this blog usually exceeds that found on any liberal or gun-haters’ site, I am disappointed in this thread. Screenshots will soon be seen on anti-gun blogs and Facebook pages to demonstrate how hateful we are.
” However, is it beyond the pale that the TTAG staff tolerates postings that endorse, support, or celebrate the injury of someone…”
TTAG is *far* more tolerant in its comment section than the average website ‘Gun Safety’-driven comment section by vast margins. Post a contrary opinion on ‘Moms demanding safety’ and see how long it takes before it evaporates, never to be seen again. That speaks to lack of their character, and is common in totalitarian regimes.
Those who hate the 2A are *notorious* for deleting and banning commentators that don’t toe their line.
Each individual who comments in TTAG is responsible for their contributions to the forum.Do you know what qualifies as truly vile? Folks from your side that were *cheering* when a mass shooting happens, because that will advance their sick and twisted ’cause’ to disarm the the good people while doing *nothing* substantial about the evil people…
Free speech, and all that.
However, no serious, rational blog host should allow postings that recommend murder, laugh at murder. Neither side of the gun debate should be using loss of life as call for celebration. People who clamor for “gun sense” have no excuse for ghoulish behavior, and deserve to be called-out by the pro-gun crowd.
My comments were an appeal for TTAG to be better than the average. TTAG risks losing credibility for not officially rejecting posts as we have seen today. (I know you have no regard for “anti-gun” internet residents anyway)
They are called jokes. Yes. I’m sure they are offensive to some people. Maybe we should legislate thicker skin?
“Maybe we should legislate thicker skin?”
I really can’t say. These are your “peeps”. If you don’t disavow, you own them. They are the face of the pro-gun lobby.
More like pimples on the face of the gun lobby.
Anybody got some Oxy-10?
I don’t own anyone but me. I’m not into groupthink.
plain no excuse here. fine thuh shooter an’ charge everthin’ they kin think uv. an’ doan negotiate er plea bargin none of it. person who duz this is way too stupid an’ dangerass tuh be walkin’ free, ever.
When you write your comments, are you trying to set the record for the longest squiggly red spell check line?
“Well, then your statement that everyone is always capable of defending themselves without a gun still stands?”
Not at all. Stating that the myth that because someone, somewhere might be attacked with disproportional force does not mean a gun is the only means of defending against attack. Gun lovers simply believe that while other weapons may be deadly in the attack, only a gun is deadly, under any circumstance, in defense. Nonsense.
Have seen x rays of people’s heads in Brazil hit by falling knives, truly bizarre.
Stupid people (demtard) stupid places (New Years “party”) stupid time (nothing good happens after 11pm).
Keep it simple stupid, firing a firearm into the air just for the hell of it? Don’t. Don’t let an arrow loose into the air, don’t let a slingshot loose into the air, don’t fart in church, don’t let blind friends skydive, scares the dog. Do not pay attention to socialists, walk away and leave them talking to themselves. If you love your firearms, get professional help, sex with inanimate objects is just too kinky. Remember, if only you would disarm, you might save the life of someone trying to take yours. A disarmed populace is a peaceful populace, under the one with the gun.
Don’t buy it. Someone was probably just shooting at him.
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