New York Firefighters Ambushed on Christmas Eve

From the BBC

Two US volunteer firefighters have been shot dead and two injured while responding to an emergency call in the town of Webster in New York state. Police said the four were fired upon in an "apparent trap" as they arrived on Monday morning.

The blaze broke out just before 06:00 local time (11:00 GMT) and officers had to evacuate nearby residents in an armoured car. A gunman was later found dead at the scene, the police said. The man was 62-year-old William Spengler, Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering told media. Spengler appeared to have shot himself in the head, Mr Pickering said. He had previously served a 17-year jail sentence after being convicted of beating his 92 year-old grandmother to death with a hammer. Spengler's sister is unaccounted for and police fear she may have died in the fire, which engulfed seven houses.

The two dead firefighters were named by police as Tomasz Kaczowka and Mike Chiapperini. Mr Pickering told reporters: "It does appear it was a trap. "These people get up in the middle of the night to go put out fires; they don't expect to be shot and killed." The two injured firefighters were named as Joseph Hofsetter and Theodore Scardino. They are being treated for gunshot wounds at the Strong Memorial Hospital and are expected to recover. Another passer-by was also injured in the shooting.

Police spokesmen said the area was "an active crime scene" but that no more shooters were believed to be present. Roger Vercruysse, described as a friend of William Spengler, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that the shooter "couldn't stand" his sister, who lived with him. Mr Vercruysse said that Mr Spengler "loved his mama to death", adding that he "went crazy" after she died in October.

Tomasz Kaczowka, one of two volunteer

firemen shot to death in Webster, New York

Two of the firefighters had arrived in a fire engine and two in their own vehicles, police said. Spengler immediately opened fire using an assault rifle, which he possessed illegally. Other weapons may have been used in the shooting. One wounded man managed to escape but the others were pinned down until the armoured car could be sent in.

Police evacuated residents and firefighters were then able to return to tackle the blaze. Chief Pickering said: "Webster is a tremendous community. We are a safe community, and to have a tragedy befall us like this is just horrendous."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement: "All of our thoughts and prayers go to the families and friends of those who were killed in this senseless act of violence."

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said: "The contributions made by the fallen and injured officers in Webster will never be forgotten. As this investigation unfolds, we stand with our partners in law enforcement to ensure that lethal weapons are out of the hands of dangerous people, so that the brave New Yorkers who risk their lives every day to protect us are not exposed to additional danger."

There were also two separate incidents of on-duty police officers being shot dead on Monday.

A policeman was killed in the city of Houston, Texas, after the driver of a car he pulled over opened fire on him.

In the midwestern state of Wisconsin, a policewoman on early morning patrol was found shot dead in the town of Wauwatosa.

The debate on gun violence in the US was rekindled earlier this month by the shootings at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 20 children and six adults dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It was one of the worst mass shootings in American history.

Among the guns used by Spengler was a Bushmaster .223 calibre rifle with flash suppression. The same make and calibre rifle used by Adam Lanza in the murder of 20 children and 6 teachers at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut

on 14 December 2012.

"There's a heightened awareness to this kind of violence in light of what happened in Connecticut," said Maggie Brooks, leader of the local administration in Monroe County, the area which includes Webster. "We have first responders and we have families who are in pain and crisis today and we need to, as a community, keep them in our thoughts and prayers," Mrs Brooks said, adding that it was a "very, very difficult day".

President Barack Obama has promised to push for action on gun control while the National Rifle Association (NRA) has called for armed security in all American schools.

We are sorry we didn't do more to save you

- Emilie Parker, 5/12/06, female
- Charlotte Bacon, 2/22/06, female
- Daniel Barden, 9/25/05, male
- Rachel Davino, 7/17/83, female.
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- Dylan Hockley, 3/8/06, male
- Dawn Hochsprung, 06/28/65, female
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- Catherine V. Hubbard, 6/08/06, female
- Chase Kowalski, 10/31/05, male
- Jesse Lewis, 6/30/06, male
- James Mattioli , 3/22/06, male
- Grace McDonnell, 12/04/05, female
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- Victoria Soto, 11/04/85, female
- Benjamin Wheeler, 9/12/06, male
- Allison N. Wyatt, 7/03/06, female

Aurora, Colorado Changes No One's Mind

"No one cared who I was until I put on the mask"  (Bane, in The Dark Knight Rises)

For two evenings in late June of this year I participated in a forum hosted by our local paper, the Tri-City Herald. Termed a "Community Conversation," the focus was on the Second Amendment and Gun Control. About a dozen people showed up for the facilitated discussion. My impression was that participants were evenly split between strong gun rights advocates, and proponents of greater gun control. I am a member of the latter group.

After the event, I was asked, along with others, to contribute an article describing my impressions of the conversation. I was just sitting down to do this when I heard the news of the shooting in a multiplex theater in Aurora, Colorado. My feelings on hearing of yet another case of senseless gun violence were a mix of shock, sadness, and anger. I had to step away from my keyboard to give myself time to decide how what happened in Aurora, would color what I was about to write.

I decided that rather than write about my own feelings, I would asked myself what the twelve people in that June “Community Conversation” would have to say if faced with one of the worst mass shootings in US history. Based on what I heard last June, here is what I think.

Gun control proponents would call for stronger restrictions on gun ownership, including re-instituting the 1994 ban on assault weapons (which expired in 2004). They would call for closing the loopholes on gun show sales, and on private sales. And they would want  restrictions on where guns could be carried.

Gun rights advocates would argue that there are already enough regulations. One participant in the June discussions stated angrily that there were already over 20,000 U.S. gun laws. According to a study published by the Brookings Institute, the 20,000 figure is a fiction popularized by the NRA, but in any case, gun control proponents would say that the sheer number of laws (probably around 300 major state and federal laws) tells us nothing about their stringency, breadth, or effectiveness.

I would hope that face-to-face with a parent or loved one of a victim of the Colorado shooting, one of our gun rights advocates wouldn’t parrot the NRA’s palliative, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” But as pointless as that phrase is, that’s what they stand by. Gun control proponents would argue that it begs the question of what guns the public should be permitted and what measures are necessary to ensure that the guns they are permitted don’t get in the wrong hands.

But the gun rights advocates in our conversation last June would bristle at the very thought of being “permitted” to own guns. They firmly believe that, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,” and encouraged by recent Supreme Court Rulings, they see very little if anything they’ll accept as limiting that right.

Gun control proponents would argue that at the very least, private citizens should not own assault weapons; they are considered impractical for hunting (especially the .223 AR-15 used by the Colorado shooter), and are lethal in the hands of a deranged killer. This is where gun control proponents miss the point.

Gun rights advocates see themselves as the “well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.” They are extraordinarily protective of their rights, and they are convinced that given the chance, our government would rescind those rights and confiscate their guns (if you doubt this, do an Internet search using the terms, “gun,” and “confiscation”). Some members of the gun community are of the opinion that the time for taking up arms against this "overreaching" government might be approaching.

Gun control proponents have difficulty imagining the violent overthrow of a freely elected American government, but until they come to grips with what they see as the paranoia of gun rights extremists on this issue, they will always and forever fail to convince the gun community of the need to limit arms sales. 

Finally, gun rights advocates believe that self defense is a “God given right,” and reject the notion of gun control proponents that “stand your ground laws” are an unnecessary and dangerous extension of that right. Faced with the Colorado massacre, they would have argued that if some theater patrons had been armed, they might have shot the gunman and saved lives.

The thought of this firefight in the darkened confines of that crowded, smoke-filled theater, against a heavily armed gunman wearing body armor and a ballistic helmet, would boggle the mind of most thoughtful people. But the gun rights blogosphere is full of articles, posts, and discussion forums promoting this very thing, right down to the type of weapons participants in the discussions own and would have been carrying.

In the final analysis, it is my belief that had the Colorado shooting occurred before we had our "community conversation," the same opinions and beliefs would have been voiced -- no one's mind would have been changed.

In my own opinion, with respect to the Colorado killings, both sides of the issue are wrong. Stricter gun laws would not have stopped James Holmes. He would have found some way, somewhere, to act out whatever crazed notion he had of revenge, renunciation, death, or redemption.

But gun rights advocates are wrong to use that as an excuse not to accept reasonable safeguards on the ownership and use of guns. To argue that because you can't stop the determined, suicidal individual from killing with a gun, you shouldn't do everything possible to prevent the spread of the most lethal of those guns in our society, is worse than pigheaded, it's criminal.

Finally, the vigilante ethos of a large segment of the gun community is one that any law-abiding person, especially anyone who argues we are "a Christian nation," must reject.

Batman, "No guns, no killing" 

Catwoman, "Where's the fun in that?"

(The Dark Knight Rises)