Cynthia Quinn rushed to Henry Ford Hospital when she heard her son Sanchez Quinn had been shot. She called FOX 2 upset because she didn't know why she was not allowed to see her wounded son.
Reason why the cops wouldn't let her see her son was because he was shot while attempting an armed robbery ... against two men who were CPL holders (Concealed Pistol License).
The intended victims drew their weapons and shot the son and his cohort. (see video at the link above).
Some folks don't understand why innocent people "need" to carry a concealed weapon.
At least in Detroit, there are two sorry (and wounded) young men who now understand the rationale all too well.
For example, community residents recommended limiting access to guns by the small group of people at high risk of engaging in violence—sometimes no more than 0.25 to 1 percent of a city’s population. Rather than looking to greater penalties for handgun possession that could increase mass incarceration, community members emphasized universal background checks, mandatory reporting for lost and stolen firearms, and increased oversight of licensed firearm dealers. Each proposal was supported by over 86 percent of African Americans and Latinos in the survey research. These restrictions are seen as reducing rather than fueling mass incarceration. About three-quarters of both African Americans and Latinos agreed that “if we keep guns out of the wrong hands, we can also help decrease the number of people who are in prison.”
[emphasis added]
"That looks good on the video", as the saying goes but the question remains: what are 'community residents" doing to help limit access to guns?
Historically, members of 'at risk' communities are quick to decry the violence in their neighborhoods, but are not willing to step up and act as witnesses. Quotes from investigating officers typically sound like this:
"Everybody knows who has a gun. Everybody knows who did it.
Beyond the Bullet: The Cost of Gun Violence in Detroit: A child's fight after becoming a shooting victim Little 9-year-old India Williams was shot while riding her bike two years ago. Her family hangs out with us for an afternoon, talking about…
(This documentary can be found here.)
The video expose starts with an opening statement by the reporter. He speaks to how hard it is to cover this kind of story:
I've been on the streets for about 14 years, working nighst, going to a lot of these scenes. And the same question keeps coming up: "How do you do what you do? Don't you bring this stuff home with you???" Looking at the crying mothers, the crying brothers and sisters, those violent crime scenes throughout the city. The answer is, 'of course I do. I'm human like everyone else, I try to bury it in my subconscious, but it still eats at me and bothers me every day. I may go home and think about it for two or three days, but .. .unfortunately, it's 'on to the next story'.
Through the story, there are references to brothers mothers and sisters. But there are no references to fathers. At all.
The Gun Store owner Bob Irwin said some police officers have holsters available to them with fingerprint technology, but many don’t use them because they can be unreliable.
Irwin said the technology may not work fast enough in a life or death situation if the hand is sweaty, bloody or covered while using a glove.
“There’s all sorts of things that technology doesn’t allow for in the chaos of self-defense,” Irwin said.
This is terrific news!
No .. not the news that "smart guns" are about as smart as "smart phones" (we already knew that, and it's a canard on the word "smart"), but that a Saginaw Michigan news channel has picked up a FOX5 newsfeed from Reno and are running the story on their website.
Must be a slow newsday in Michigan.
Oh. Michigan. Right. Never mind. They love ANY story that doesn't come out of Detroit!
With a population of about 680,000, some 83 percent of which is African-American, Detroit's growing embrace of Second Amendment rights has a racial component that is not unique to the city. According to a recent survey from Pew Research Center, 54 percent of African-American residents nationwide now see legal gun ownership as more likely to protect people than to put their safety at risk. That figure was up from 29 percent two years ago. “If anyone should have the right or need to carry a gun, it should be the African-American community,” Philip Smith, founder of the National African American Gun Association, told Reuters.
Responding to encouragement by Detroit Police Chief James Craig, Detroit Denizens are applying for .. and getting ... licenses to carry concealed handguns.
It's almost as if someone is actually listening to the NRA, and discovered that time-worn bromide is exactly the right solution to the awful problem of unbridled violence: a good man (or men, or good women) with a gun.
America has come a long way since the Jim Crow laws, and it hasn't been easy. The first thing was to understand and accept that the whole race thing was a non starter, and get the most qualified candidates into the right job..
Maybe that's what happened to Detroit. And Chief James Craig may be part of the answer.
Whatever it takes, Craig has been encouraging the citizens of the near-bankrupt Motor City to assume responsibility for their own safety. How? By applying for permits to carry concealed weapons, and seeing to it that they get the needed training to be effective.
The city finds it hard to maintain as many police officers as it needs, so Craig has been working to get his fellow citizens to take some responsibility for their own safety ... Not least because the overburdened department cannot guarantee a rapid response to a call for help.
You won't find Craig on Wikipedia, but you'll find him in Detroit, making the tough decisions.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Ralph Nader’s book “Unsafe at Any Speed," in which the young Harvard-trained lawyer/activist did a serious hatchet job on what was a very interesting and unconventional American car. But the Chevy Corvair is clearly having the last laugh. Ironically, as the book turns 50, Corvair prices have reached an all-time high.
I owned a 1963 Corvair Spyder (the high-performance model) in College.
After I graduated, and after I came home from the Army, I bought a 1965 Corvair Corsa. Also the high performance model.
Both were the convertible models.
Both were hot, sexy, and when they ran right they ran with the power of the Elk and the grace of the Gazelle!
Unfortunately, they didn't run that well, that often.
Both had the endemic problem of the rear-mounted engine: when you pushed them too hard, it threw the fan belt and you had to stop RIGHT THEN and re-install the fan belt.
If you didn't fix that RIGHT THEN .. in the words of RoboCop ... "...There Will Be Trouble!"
I carried a 1/2" open wrench and a 5/16" socket wrench, which were the tools necessary to to loosen the idler wheel so I could put the fan belt back on track.
I also carried a spare fan belt, just in case; but it was never needed. The fan belt was not damaged by the experience; it just fell off into the rear-deck engine well.
The front end was the trunk. In the winter (in the 1960-1970 period) in Oregon, we got some fearsome winters with snows six inches or more. The snow lasted for weeks, to months. The front of the Corvair was so light, I couldn't steer the car. I had to put a hundred pounds or more of sandbags in the front-trunk of the Corvair so I could make it around a corner.
DETROIT, Mich. (WJBK) - Two people were shot to death on Detroit's east side Wednesday. Both victims were getting into a vehicle in the 4000 block of University Place near Mack Avenue at about 6 p.m. according to Detroit Police. Another vehicle arrived and opened fire, killing a man and woman in their 30s in a driveway of a residence.
Understatement of the year!
TV on-the-scene reporter's comment: "Not the way you want to celebrate the end of 2014."
And the "Top Commenter" (the ONLY commenter") has this to say:
