Cheshire Cat Photo Blog(...said the Cat: 'we're all mad here....')

I had to take a wait-and-see attitude while watching news coverage of the recent shooting in New York City. It could have been ANYTHING from terrorism to what it was, a person who apparently (and allegedly!) snapped a year after a layoff. I enjoyed watching the folks at CNN, an admittedly anti-Second Amendment rights group themselves, speculate about whether New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, (net worth of $22 billion in 2012 and the 11th richest person in the U.S.), a long-time gun-control advocate (Why not, if you are in the top 1%…? ), would further advocate stricter gun-control legislation.

For me the question boiled down to this: New York City has some of the strictest gun-control laws in the nation – did they WORK? 😉

For me, it is also a rhetorical question, because gun-control laws do not prevent violence, as shown in many places, including California, which nonetheless keeps trying to apply this failed “remedy.” Violence is a behavior and a characteristic of human beings (and most of our closest primate relatives), not something associated with an inanimate object.

Now, we find that ALL of those wounded (besides the gunman and the gunman’s intended victim, who were killed) were hit by whole bullets or bullet fragments fired by NYPD officers.

Don’t get me wrong – I cannot imagine myself in the shoes of the two police officers in the sights of a man with a .45! Police officers have one of the toughest jobs in the world, and I am glad that there are people courageous enough to take that job.

Officer Craig Matthews shot seven times, and Officer Robert Sinishtaj fired nine times, police said. Neither had ever fired their weapons before on a patrol.

The volley of gunfire felled <the alleged assailant> Johnson in just a few seconds and left nine other people bleeding on the sidewalk.

I think that the facts that the initial, intended shooting apparently resulted from an ongoing work dispute and that ALL of unintended shootings resulted from the actions of police officers, SHOULD put a cap on Mr. Bloomberg’s babbling about gun control in relation to this incident.

I DO think that it is reasonably likely that NYPD officers will receive additional firearms training with regard to a cardinal rule of gun handling (even archery): Always know what lies beyond your target.

It will be up to investigations and evaluations of the records of omnipresent surveillance cameras (which ALSO don’t prevent crimes, just DOCUMENT them!) to see whether police had options with regard to that cardinal rule, or not.

Like you, I’ll have to wait and see.

-Bill at

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