Posts Tagged ‘guns’
NYPD developing portable body scanner for concealed weapons
You have to feel sorry for the police officers who are required to frisk people for guns or knives – after all, if someone who doesn’t want to be arrested is carrying a lethal weapon, the last thing that most of us would want to do is get close enough to that person to touch them. That’s why the New York Police Department teamed up with the United States Department of Defense three years ago, and began developing a portable scanner that can remotely detect the presence of a gun on a person’s body. The NYPD announced the project yesterday.
The device uses infrared light rays to image radiation being emitted by a person’s body. Wherever a solid metal object such as a gun is blocking those rays from reaching the body, a silhouette of that object will appear on the scanner’s screen. So far, the technology only works from a distance of about 1 meter, although NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly hopes that its range can ultimately be extended to at least 25 meters.
The plan is for the scanner to be mounted on a van, then used on suspects who would otherwise have to be physically searched.
Har. Long way to go, folks.
Picture some gangbanger who’s up for a battle because he’s armed in the first place. Think he will step lightly “over here in front of this here device”.
At the other end of the discussion – consider more and more advanced systems like this – and a police department which would like nothing more than running right past the Brits when it comes to surveillance of the body public.
Coppers will not only follow your every step – they’ll count the number of zipper teeth on your fly.
A lawsuit filed in Georgia to require allow guns in church
A legal battle is brewing in Georgia over whether licensed gun owners should be allowed to carry firearms to churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship.
The United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, heard arguments last week on a lawsuit brought by a central Georgia church and the gun rights group GeorgiaCarry.org claiming that a state law banning firearms in places of worship violates their constitutionally protected religious freedoms.
State lawyers said it was a small price to pay to allow others to pray without fearing for their safety. The panel of judges roundly criticized the suit after hearing arguments but did not immediately make a ruling…
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of the Baptist Tabernacle of Thomaston, where the Rev. Jonathan Wilkins said he wanted to have a gun for protection while working in the church office. The judges also questioned how banning firearms in a place of worship violates religious freedoms…
“I think that by continuing to arm ourselves, we’re perpetuating this cycle of violence that only ends up hurting the whole society,” said Bradley Schmeling, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta. “And faith communities in particular should have the right to say no weapons in this place.”
I laugh over the crap ideology that prompts reactionary nutballs to prate about their opponents having a “hidden agenda”.
Seems to me it’s rightwing ideologues who say they’re only defending the 2nd Amendment – who end up trying to drag firearms into churches and bars. A parallel to the liars who say they’re defending life though they never seem to show up for anti-war demonstrations – who end up trying to restrict any number of rights including that of choosing to use birth control.
Hypocrites all.
Over 100 gangbangers busted in agricultural central California
Gonzalo Esquivel said to be a leader in Nuestra Familia cops a free ride
The authorities in California announced…the arrest of more than 100 people suspected of being gang members in the largely agricultural Central Valley, the latest sweep by law enforcement to stem what they call a growing — and international — menace in the nation’s most populous state.
The announcement, made by California’s attorney general, Kamala D. Harris, capped raids on Tuesday in six towns, many of which have long struggled with gang-related crime.
“This operation was a success,” said Ms. Harris, standing at City Hall in the small farm city of Los Banos, about 120 miles southeast of San Francisco. “And this operation will bear its fruit in terms of public safety for the Central Valley and throughout the state of California.”
The investigation, called “Red Zone,” was conducted over several months and aimed at the leadership of two gangs: Nuestra Familia, a Mexican-American prison-based gang that operates in detention facilities across the state, and the Norteños, which the authorities say often acts as the Familia’s street-level arm…
“This is part of what we’re seeing in terms of the changing face of crime,” Ms. Harris said, adding that the emphasis was going from “purely drug enforcement” to being “equally about gangs, equally about guns, equally about drugs.”
Large amounts of narcotics, firearms and cash were seized in the Central Valley raids, including methamphetamine and crack cocaine and five assault rifles. Charges included assault, mayhem, gun possession and attempted murder.
Throw away the key!
Pillheads putting pharmacies under siege
Less than two hours after picking out a man in a police lineup who held up his drugstore, pharmacist Mike Donohue was being robbed. Again…
Like the other five robbers who had held up Donohue’s store before, the man demanded OxyContin, a popular painkiller known for its high abuse potential.
“My technician came back and showed me the note that said, ‘Give me your OxyContin. I have a gun,’ ” Donohue said.
Instead of handing over the drugs, Donohue unholstered the Glock 19 handgun he wore beneath his white lab coat and sprinted to the front of the small pharmacy…
The would-be robber dashed out the door, with the pistol-packing pharmacist giving chase. Surveillance video cameras captured the entire incident.
The man got away, only to be arrested that day. He later pleaded guilty to attempting to rob Donohue’s store and to robbing another drugstore…
On the front window of his pharmacy, Mike Donohue lists the names of the men who have robbed him of drugs.
They were all eventually caught, he said, because of a simple truth: They couldn’t stop. But that’s little solace for the pharmacist who fears he is pitted against a new, more dangerous strain of criminal…
When he started his career two decades ago, Donohue said, he never imagined having to wear a gun or put bullet-resistant glass on his store windows to keep any shots he fires at robbers from breaking through and hitting someone walking by.
The pharmacist’s methods may be unorthodox but he says they are working: Since Donohue pulled a gun, the robbers have not come back.
RTFA. There are more tales of robbery and violence committed against the neighborhood pharmacist. Even if it’s a chain store, the guy dispensing prescriptions is still the same.
Taco Rage in Texas
SAN ANTONIO, TX — A Taco Bell drive-through customer who became enraged because of a price increase on Beefy Crunch Burritos fired a BB gun through the window at a manager on Sunday, police said.
No one was hurt from the shots fired by the man, who also waved a pistol and an assault rifle in the parking lot, Police Sergeant Chris Benavides said.
As the restaurant’s employees and customers hit the floor, the manager called police, and when officers arrived, the angry patron fired several shots at the police cars, Benavides said.
The man then barricaded himself inside a nearby motel room, sparking a standoff that lasted until police lobbed tear gas inside and the man surrendered.
Benavides said the burritos had been sold for 99 cents each as a promotion, but the man was apparently angry that the promotion had ended, and the price had gone up to $1.49.
Like, if you get this much of a reaction over the end of a special on burritos, how about something truly important like – say – the Dallas Cowboys moving to Los Angeles?
Where do gangsters get their guns?
A decade ago, politicians and the press routinely reported on gun stores across the nation that had the most traces for firearms recovered by police. In 2003, under pressure from the gun lobby, Congress passed a law that hid from public view the government database that contained the gun tracing information.
The Washington Post has obtained the names of the gun dealers nationwide with the most traces over the past four years…
Topping the overall list with about 2,390 traces is Vance Outdoors in Columbus, Ohio. Owner Todd Vance said his that grandfather started the business on Cleveland Avenue in 1938 and that the store is a top source for shooters, hunters, anglers and boaters in central Ohio.
“We are one of the higher-volume gun dealers,” he said. “We sell thousands of guns.”
Vance said that he and his employees are “very vigilant” about straw purchases, in which someone buys for a person prohibited from owning a gun, and that they turn down 10 to 20 suspicious sales a week. He said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives conducts a month-long inspection annually…
Of the more than 60,000 guns recovered in Mexico and traced back to the United States, the ATF is able to link only about 25 percent to the dealers who first sold the weapons and the purchasers who bought them. In the United States, on average, 65 to 70 percent of the weapons recovered are successfully traced back to dealers and buyers…
Of the leading stores with Mexican traces, Lone Wolf, eighth on the nationwide list, is No. 1 on the Mexico list. Over the past two years, it had 185 of its guns recovered and traced south of the border. Geography is a prime factor in those traces…
Everyone has the same excuses. Given the laws and the gun lobby that maintains “reasonable” excuses for guns used in crimes – there are no surprises.
RTFA. Especially if you live in a border state. The examples mount – even though it’s against the law for you or me to access the database that the Post managed to get into.
Transparency doesn’t apply to the gun industry and their retailers as far as our politicians are concerned.
2 cleared, 1 guilty in white supremacist grenade and gun deal
A federal jury on Wednesday acquitted two men and convicted a third in what prosecutors said was a conspiracy by white supremacists to sell grenades and guns to a purported national supremacist group member, who was really a government informant.
The jury at the U.S. District Court in Bridgeport found Kenneth Zrallack, 29, of Ansonia and David Sutton, 46, of Milford not guilty of conspiracy charges. Alexander DeFelice, 33, of Milford, was convicted of several conspiracy and weapons charges.
Federal prosecutors said Zrallack is the leader of the Connecticut-based Battalion 14 white supremacist group, formerly known as the Connecticut White Wolves. Officials said DeFelice is a Battalion 14 member who knows how to make explosives, while Sutton, who is black, has known DeFelice for years but isn’t a white supremacist…
The informant, convicted felon Joseph Anastasio, wore hidden recording equipment that captured hours of what prosecutors said were incriminating conversations on video and audio. Many of the recordings were shown to the jury.
Anastasio portrayed himself as a member of a national supremacist group, the Imperial Klans of America. He testified that he bought three grenades and some guns from the defendants and gave the weapons to federal agents.
Anastasio also testified that he was not a white supremacist and was “sick” and “upset” when he joined Zrallack and others as they waved Nazi flags near an outdoor Jewish menorah lighting ceremony in Fairfield last year…
An expert on white supremacist groups, Robert Nill, told prosecutors that the Connecticut White Wolves claim to have been founded on April 20, Adolf Hitler’s birthday, in 2002, and Zrallack formed the successor Battalion 14 in 2009. Court documents also say defendants in the case talked about their desires to kill President Barack Obama and leave an explosive-filled basketball at a New Haven playground so blacks would be killed.
If you haven’t lived and worked in Connecticut you probably aren’t aware of the pride felt in being the “Arsenal of America”. Every major city has some factory or other that got its start manufacturing weapons or ammo.
Add to that the lasting history of rightwing nutballs like the John Birch Society and DePugh’s Minutemen in southern New England and their antecedents like Father Coughlin’s National Union for Social Justice.
Tie together the ideology + job skills and you’re ready to arm our garden-variety fascists.
Feds link Arizona, New Mexico buyers to drug cartels’ guns
In a sweeping operation aimed at uncovering “straw buyers” blamed for funneling high-powered guns to Mexican drug cartels, federal agents have arrested dozens of Arizonans and seized a large amount of weapons.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says its successful investigation is just the beginning of ramped-up efforts to stop the illegal export of American weapons and is aimed at nailing the middle men who buy weapons on behalf of others for use in major crimes.
Arizona’s status as a guns-and-drug hub for the rest of the country has created an industry that brings tons of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States and sends cash and guns back to Mexico, according to federal agents…
“We have a huge problem here,” said Dennis Burke, U.S. attorney for Arizona, “We have now become the gun locker of the Mexican drug cartels…”
Agents worked the newest operation in Arizona and New Mexico from May until early August as part of the ATF’s Gun Runner Impact Team. It seized about 1,300 weapons and more than 71,000 rounds of ammunition.
Although the effort was deemed a success, agents admit there is no reliable way to track the number of weapons from the U.S. being used in Mexico’s ongoing drug war…
The dozens of arrests that agents made in the course of the operation will likely not do much to cut off those supply routes…
The operation required the cooperation of Mexican authorities, who supplied ATF agents with information on firearms seized at crime scenes there.
Court records indicate the guns purchased in Arizona came from federally licensed firearms dealers throughout the state, including some who sell them at the Arizona State Fair.
RTFA.
Most of the straw buyers for the guns play like it’s some kind of a game: “Us” against the Feds, getting paid to cop a few guns for over the border where gun control is more stringent. Or tries to be.
When you know you’re fronting for murderers, you are no different. Ignorance is a pretty flimsy alibi in this day and age.
USA central to all sides of Mexico’s drug violence?
Unused ammo seized from gang after 10-hour shootout
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
As Mexico approaches its bicentennial, Mexico’s president says his country is fighting significant security problems — many of which are fueled by U.S. policies.
“We live next to the world’s largest drug consumer, and all the world wants to sell them drugs through our door and our window. And we live next to the world’s largest arms seller, which is supplying the criminals,” Mexican President Felipe Calderon told CNN en Español…
He said many of America’s leaders have acknowledged a shared responsibility in drug violence.
“But I think in American society, there is still not a sense of sharing responsibility, unfortunately,” he said.
The 2004 end to the U.S. federal assault weapons ban gave criminals new resources, he said. “They gained access to powerful firearms that they didn’t have before,” he said…
“It’s not only guns; it’s weapons, it’s arsenals of all kinds that come south,” Hillary Clinton told the Council on Foreign Relations Wednesday. “So I feel a real sense of responsibility to do everything we can. And again, we’re working hard to come up with approaches that will actually deliver…”
But still, Calderon said he was optimistic about Mexico’s future. He claimed the country had made significant headway combating poverty, and that he planned to work toward improving its economic competitiveness, education systems and national security.
“Even in this terrible moment of insecurity that we are living, I know that we are taking the firm steps that tomorrow will make Mexico secure,” he said.
The parallel analyses of the United States as primary customer for drugs traveling through Mexico – and as primary source for cartel weapons – is impossible to dispute unless you’re one of the clan of nitwits whose ideology overrules all evidence, the realities confronting police on both sides of the border.
Decriminalization of drug use takes extreme profits and gangsters out of the consumption side of the equation. The weapons side is much more difficult given the American love affair with things that go bang – and our craven politicians fear of the NRA.
Dad started teaching son to be burglar at age 7
COWETA COUNTY, Ga. — Coweta County officials confirmed to Channel 2 Action News that they arrested a man who they believe forced his own 11-year-old child to help him steal items from people’s homes.
Police arrested James “Jamie” Frank Jordan III, 38, of Moreland and charged him with 15 counts of burglary, four felony thefts, four counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, 15 counts of cruelty to children and one count of cruelty to animals.
Coweta County sheriff’s investigators said Jordan had forced his now-11-year-old child to participate in burglaries for the past four years. Officials said the child was not receiving any formal education.
Authorities said some of the stolen items they recovered included firearms, jewelry, tools, boots, knives, decorative items for the house and live animals – such as peacocks, chickens and dogs.
Peacocks?
