It has been one of the more lingering questions surrounding the shooting of Sean Bell: How can anyone sustain 19 gunshot wounds and live to tell about it?
related { How far can bullets travel when fired into water? The general rule is that most ordinary guns and bullets aren’t tremendously effective when fired into the water, and if you can dive below eight feet, you’re probably safe from your run-of-the mill assassins. }
Officials are trying to determine whether to file charges against a man who fatally shot his wife while trying to install a satellite television system in their home. The wife, 34, was pronounced dead early Saturday evening after being shot in the chest with a .22-caliber handgun.
The wife was standing outside the residence while her husband was installing a satellite television system. The husband fired a shot from the inside of their home after several unsuccessful efforts to punch a hole through the exterior wall using other means.
related { Man fishing with a bazooka }
previously { My Uzi weighs a ton }
photo { Harold Edgerton with Kenneth Germeshausen, Dangerous Weapon, 1936 | scanned from American Photography 1890-1965 }
{ In 1987, Budd Dwyer, a Republican politician, committed suicide during a televised press conference. Facing a potential 55-year jail sentence for alleged involvement in a conspiracy, Dwyer shot himself in the mouth with a revolver. | Wikipedia | Continue reading | photo: Gary Miller/AP }
previously { Christine Chubbuck }
On Feb. 9, Oakland police offered to buy handguns and assault weapons for $250 each, “no questions asked, no ID required.”
The “One Less Gun” buyback program attracted so many eager sellers that the money quickly ran out, but instead of closing up shop, the police handed out IOUs good for a future buyback. The Oakland police are now stuck with a bill for $170,000. (…)
The Oakland buyback was especially absurd because of the high price offered: $250. Did no one running the program think to look at the price of a new gun?
In fact, the first two people in line at one of the three buyback locations were gun dealers with 60 [cheap] firearms packed in the trunk of their car.
Buying a few thousand guns in Oakland is not going to make it more difficult for criminals in Oakland to get a gun.
There are 150 to 200 million guns in the United States, so there are plenty of low-quality guns to be sold. An Oakland gun buyback is like trying to drain the Pacific — every bucket of water you take out is instantly replaced. Even large gun-buyback programs are unlikely to have significant effects. Australia spent half a billion dollars buying guns, with no significant effect on homicides by firearm.
Imagine that instead of guns, the Oakland police decided, for whatever strange reason, to buy back sneakers. The idea of a gun buyback is to reduce the supply of guns in Oakland. Do you think that a sneaker buyback program would reduce the number of people wearing sneakers in Oakland?
photo { Thanks Shampoo }
A woman advertised on the popular Internet site Craigslist for an assassin to kill the wife of a man with whom she’d had an affair, authorities said Saturday.
The ad by Ann Marie Linscott, 49, was posted in November as a generic request for somebody to perform a “freelance” job, court document said. Her true intention was only communicated to those who e-mailed her seeking additional information about the job, the Craigslist CEO said.
Linscott offered $5,000 for the hit, had the name and work address of the woman she wanted dead and she described successful candidates as “silent assassins,” according to agents and court documents.Agents arrested Linscott at her home. (…) She is accused of asking people who responded to her ad to “eradicate a female living in Oroville, California,” and she provided additional information on the intended victim, including her physical description, age and employment address.
photo { Elmer Batters }
An arsenal of weapons and explosive devices was found in the Brooklyn Heights apartment of a Columbia University professor yesterday morning after the professor’s roommate accidentally shot himself, police said.
Police said they removed seven homemade pipe bombs, a 9 mm shotgun, a rifle, a crossbow and arrows, a machete, ammunition, gun silencers, and several bulletproof vests from a small one-bedroom apartment at 58 Remsen St. that neighbors say is owned by Michael Clatts, an AIDS researcher at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health.
The arsenal was discovered after a man who also lived in the one-bedroom attic apartment, identified by sources as Ivaylo Ivanov, 31, shot himself in the hand.
A spokesman for the police department, Assistant Chief Michael Collins, said that police did not have any reason to believe as of yesterday evening that Mr. Clatts “had anything to do with this.” They said they believed that Mr. Clatts had a separate living area and bed inside the apartment.
It all happened in less than three hours on a cool September night — a prolific spurt of anti-Jewish vandalism at more than a dozen locations in the heart of Brooklyn Heights. On Monday, the police caught a break, arresting a man who they said had a trove of weapons inside a stately apartment building in the neighborhood. The man, Ivaylo Ivanov, admitted under videotaped questioning that he was behind the spree, which had mystified investigators for months, the police said.
photo { Square America }
related { Knife fight near Times Square }
State authorities have called for tougher national laws to counter increasing numbers of replica weapons. Police are concerned about the use of replica guns in hold-ups as well as criminals converting them into functioning weapons.
Since 1999, 34 replica weapons seized by police were found to have been converted, New South Wales Police Minister John Watkins said yesterday.
Replica weapons are mostly illegal and their use in crime often carries the same penalties as using real weapons, but not all Australian states are as strict, Mr Watkins said.
“In New South Wales we regard replica firearms as a prohibited weapon, but in Western Australia they are defined as a toy,” he told reporters.
photo { Retro/Ben Pearce }
related { Taser gun with built-in 1GB MP3 player }
In New York, many other municipalities and some federal agencies, guidelines instruct officers to shoot to “stop” — and in particular, to stop an assailant who poses a deadly threat to the officers involved or civilians.
“We do not train our agents to shoot to wound or to shoot the gun out of someone’s hand, we train them to shoot to stop the threat,” said William G. McMahon, the special agent in charge who heads the New York field division of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “In the milliseconds a law enforcement officer has to react during a life-threatening situation, aiming to wound is not an option.” (…)
In all shootings — including those against people, animals and in suicides and other situations — New York City officers achieved a 34 percent accuracy rate (182 out of 540), and a 43 percent accuracy rate when the target ranged from zero to six feet away. Nearly half the shots they fired last year were within that distance.
In Los Angeles, where there are far fewer shots discharged, the police fired 67 times in 2006 and had 27 hits, a 40 percent hit rate, which, while better than New York’s, still shows that they miss targets more often they hit them.
{ NY Times | Continue reading | Graphic: The accuracy of 540 shots fired by NYC police officers in 2006 }
related { America’s illicit gun-market is surprisingly inefficient }
artwork { Julia Ziegler-Haynes, Gun Flash, 2005 }
{ Audi Q7, confiscated in connection with a homicide investigation, parked on Henry and Union streets in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, with four bullet holes on the driver’s side back door marked with police evidence labels. | NY Sun | full story | Curbed }
also in Brooklyn { Beating on the A train }
The local music community was left stunned by the fatal shooting of a well-known musician who authorities say beat up his girlfriend and then tried to kick in a neighbor’s door in an apparent drunken rage.
{ Dallas News }
Jeffrey Carter Albrecht (June 23, 1973–September 3, 2007) was an American musician best known for his keyboard and guitar work in Edie Brickell & New Bohemians.
In the pre-dawn hours of September 3, 2007, Albrecht was shot and killed. After having some drinks with his girlfriend Ryann Rathbone at a Dallas bar, Albrecht became intoxicated. Rathbone drove him to her house, and they both took their dose of Chantix. A short while later, Albrecht began speaking incoherently, broke a drinking glass on a table, and hit Rathbone several times, something he had never done before. She ran outside, and Albrecht followed. Rathbone re-entered her home and locked the doors behind her.
Albrecht yelled and pounded on her front door in an unsuccessful attempt to reenter her house. He then went into a neighbor’s backyard, apparently mistaking their yard for Rathbone’s. The neighbor and his wife were awakened by the loud pounding and yelling at their back door. The husband told Albrecht to stop, but he did not; the man then claims he fired a “warning shot” through the door. The door was made a thick, opaque glass, and the porch was well-lit. The shot hit the 6′ 5″ Albrecht in the head, and he died at the scene. No charges were filed.
{ wikipedia }
The anti-smoking drug Chantix is to be investigated by the US Food and Drug Administration after reports linked it to suicidal and violent behaviour. It has been on the US market for 18 months.
The case of Carter Albrecht of Dallas, Texas, who was shot dead while trying to break into a house, has focused attention on the drug. Albrecht’s family say he was in a fit of rage at the time, which they link to his use of Chantix.
An autopsy showed that Albrecht had been drinking, and the FDA says that similar factors may explain the reports of violent or suicidal impulses from other users. Chantix is taken by smokers who have quit, and it has been claimed in the drug’s defence that the ensuing nicotine withdrawal symptoms may exacerbate any underlying psychiatric illness. But the FDA also notes that the side effects have been reported by Chantix users who have not stopped smoking and by users with no record of psychiatric illness.
{ New Scientist }
illustration { Niccolo Balce }
