The Pittsburgh shooter

[ellid]

I haven't commented on the horrific cop killings in my hometown because really, what was there to say? A dog pissed on a carpet, someone called 9/11 because an argument escalated, and three cops were dead. It seemed to speak for itself, that Richard Poplawski was dangerously unstable and never should have been allowed to own a weapon, let alone an AK-47.

But then...

Harlan Ellison once commented that every time a mass murder or serial killing took place, the media would find a neighbor or co-worker to say something along the lines of "he was such a good Christian boy. Worked down at the plant, took three sugars in his coffee. Kept to himself. Sent half his paycheck home to his mama (wife/kids/parents in another country. I have no idea why he killed 147 people, cut off their privates, and sent them in a mailing tube to his senator, but he's a good Christian boy, he is." It's inevitable. I'm sure Ed Gein's neighbors thought he was such a nice, quiet guy, and I wasn't surprised at initial media reports that Richard Poplawski was just an ordinary joe.

Then the template changed. Poplawski wasn't an ordinary guy. He was a right-wing conspiracy theorist who posted on Neo Nazi web sites and stockpiled guns because "the Zionist media" had taken over. Just like the Knoxville shooter, who was out to kill as many liberals as possible and decided to start at a Unitarian church during a children's pageant, Poplawski had gone well beyond the fringe.

And just like Jim Adkisson's hatred of liberals and dependence on right-wing hatemongers for his ideas has basically been lost (and the Knoxville church shooting disappeared off the front pagers as soon as it became clear that no, this *wasn't* a nice safe conservative Christian church, but Unitarian Universalist Welcoming Congregation that welcomed all comers, including Adkisson's abused former wife), so it's happening with Poplawski. There's been little mention in the national media of his Neo Nazi connections, or his best friend's bland comments about him hating the Zionist-controlled media, or how *of course* Poplawski was convinced the feds were going to take his precious guns. The fact that Poplawski was, to be blunt, an anti-Semitic gun nut who hated blacks and was about one step away from buying a truckload of fertilizer and blowing up the City-County Building as a way of igniting a Turner Diaries-style race war, is being buried.

I only hope that this doesn't mean we're headed for another spate of militias, domestic terrorism, and "citizen courts" over the next few years....

Comments

[mad_maudlin]

Partly that's just a function of what the media considers newsworthy. It's more shocking and thus more interesting when the motives are more obscure; "Neo-Nazi Wingnut Goes Apeshit And Kills People" elicits a "well, duh" reaction. But yeah, I really wish someone would take a more critical look at what's going on. These shootings are not just collateral damage in a culture war.

(And I don't know about Gein, but John Wayne Gacy was an active and well-liked union organizer and Democratic fundraiser; Ted Bundy worked for the Washington state Republican party, volunteered to supervise gas rationing lines and did his work-study at a suicide hotline; and Edmund Kemper was such good friends with his local police officers that when he confessed to being the Coed Killer over the phone, they refused to believe him until he started describing where to find bodies.)

[estela-dufrayse.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why anyone needs an AK-47...but then I am Canadian...

Why weren't his weapons confiscated the first time he was investigated for domestic violence? We do have guns here in Canada, and gun collectors, and if anyone has that kind of incident, they are all taken away from that person. They are also not permitted to ever own guns again.

I can understand owning hunting rifles, and maybe hand guns for protection. I can understand gun collecting. I cannot understand owning anything that is semi or fully automatic unless you want to kill people.

I shake my head...I just don't get it.

[baronessmartha.livejournal.com]

people here are talking about it. The whole city is tetchy. Yesterday I was in a house 30 minutes longer than I needed to be because there was a murder and a home invasion and SWAT was on scene half a block from where I was. I am sure they would not have been if Saturday had not been so horrific.

I have today off and it is a good thing because I worked the weekend and 2 incidents in 3 days is a bit much for this sheltered girl. East Liberty is a very mixed area. People are appreciative of the care we give, families are nice, people on the street make eye contact and say hello. I am not afraid when I go to work, just careful like I am anywhere.

[cluegirl.livejournal.com]

The thing you have to remember when talking about American gun law, is that the second amendment, guaranteeing us the right to keep, and bear arms, was written by men who had just fought a long, and terribly bloody war against the armies of their own government.

The British crown did actually try and disarm the colonies, and to restrict their access to things that colonists could use to protect themselves from British soldiers who weren't above exploiting their authority and abusing their power. (As some percentage of all policing forces does, after all,)

The second amendment originally read something more to the tune of "Congress shall pass no law restricting a citizen's right to keep and take up arms against his country." The amendment is there so that the American people won't ever become a slave state, at the mercy of its military. At least that's what the founding fathers intended when they wrote it.

So the question of using fully automatic rifles to kill people is not actually a swaying factor in gun ownership when you take into account that we are a nation grown out of revolution and open warfare against a colonizing power. The guns in question are supposed to be able to kill people -- just in case people who need killing begin to make problems, and ordinary citizens need to stand up and resist.

It's never quite as simple as extremists on either side of the argument make it, the gun issue.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

An Ak-47 is no different from a couple of hundred other guns. It fires one bullet for each pull of the trigger. It's not a machine gun (the cops have those, they're called MP5's, but civilians can't own them). Machine guns, fully automatic guns, have been illegal for private citizens to own since Al Capone and prohibition.

An AK-47, AR-15, M1, or any other "assault weapon" is a gun that shoots one bullet for each pull of the trigger. If you're "lucky" you can get a 30-round magazine for it these days instead of the 10-round ones that were all civilians were allowed for a while. But to shoot those 30 bullets, you have to pull the trigger 30 times.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

An AK-47 as available in the USA is NOT a "fully automatic" rifle. It's less powerful than a .303 or .308 caliber hunting rifle.

What it is, is one of the most reliable battle rifles ever made. It's a 60-year old design that is cheap and easy to make, reliable in almost all combat situations. It's a much better gun than almost anything in its class.

Fully automatic guns, aka machine guns, have been illegal for civilians to own (with a very, very, few exceptions for collectors and museums) since the days of Prohibition.

Registering and licencing guns and gun owners won't stop gun crime. Criminals break laws: it's what they do. So, breaking a law against gun ownership isn't going to stop a criminal intent on having a gun. Outlawing civilian gun ownership entirely won't stop it either -- there are plenty of people who are willing and able to steal guns.

They are also not all that difficult to make, if you've got a machine shop and a bit of knowledge, and there are plenty of people who'd be happy to custom make guns for ca$h -- in fact there already are.

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The other reason that the Colonial rebels were so adamant against giving up their guns was they needed them for self-defence and hunting. I don't know about you, but if I was a pioneer in a country with assorted large predators, I'd want a damned good rifle (and a shotgun, a varmint gun, and a pistol or two) within loaded and within reach at all times.

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As a slightly physically handicapped gay man, I'd like to be able to carry a concealed handgun right here and now in urban America. I recommend you check out The Pink Pistols

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

Right. The term is "semi-automatic", not "automatic" (or "full automatic").

I grew up with a semi-automatic rifle in the house, a .22 with a detachable scope. Tubular magazine, with the number of rounds depending on the round type (short, long, long rifle). Only the long rifle rounds could be used in the semi-automatic mode.

It was a small hunting rifle. It was not an assault rifle.

That being said, yes, the media has been reporting on Poplawski and his political views. You're just not reading the right media outlet. ;-)

[prince-hring.livejournal.com]

"An AK-47 as available in the USA is NOT a "fully automatic" rifle."

Yes. You are correct. It is only "semi-automatic".

It takes specialized knowledge and tools to convert one to fully automatic.

Say, a ten year old with a nail file.

[briony530.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* I read the first few sentences and thought "wait, isn't that the one that takes a drunken idiot like five minutes to convert?" Then I saw the last line. Heh.

[briony530.livejournal.com]

Hey Estela...All due respect to cluegirl, but I'm American, and I'm not by any means a gun control advocat, but I don't get it either.

[briony530.livejournal.com]

Let the conservatives spew on about liberal hatred, but I have yet to hear of a liberal taking a gun into one of those nice safe Conservative Christian Churches and firing away during the Christmas pageant.

I DID hear a story on CNN about the Binghamton shooter, and almost choked, they were so close to saying "quiet guy, kept to himself a lot".