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Don't Get Mad, Get Elected
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Jul
13
Before the illogic of and unnecessarily wide open nature of the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment becomes obvious to the people in denial?
Twinsburg police are investigating the shooting death of a Twinsburg police officer.
According to police, 33 year old Joshua Miktarian was shot during a traffic stop shortly after 2 a.m Sunday morning.Mitkarian was transported to MetroHealth Medical Center by Life Flight where he was pronounced dead.
Police from surrounding communities and the SWAT team were called in to help in the search for the suspect. Some Twinsburg residents were evacuated from their homes during the search. Bedford Heights police confirm they did take a suspect into custody. That person has been transferred to Twinsburg for their investigation.
According to NewsNet5, the officer was an 11 year veteran and leaves behind a baby and a wife and the Plain Dealer says there’ll be a press conference at Twinsburg City Hall at 10am this morning.
I can hear the pro-gun lobby already:
The shooter was already a criminal and shouldn’t have had a gun in the first place (then why was in a car with a weapon? what did our law enforcement or justice system do that let him be in that position?).
The shooter was a law-abiding citizen and the officer must have done something to provoke him.
The shooter is an aberration.
Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.
This is the price you pay for a free country and protecting a constitutional right.
Tell that to the officer’s wife and kids.
Update: Well, here’s another one already. Love the comment left at the blog - “these cops sure are trigger happy.” Uh-huh:
Middlebug Heights police shot a man Sunday morning after he pointed a weapon at officers who had surround his home, Chief John Maddox said.
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Middlebug Heights officials said the man put down his handgun, but then pointed a rifle at the officers. Officers fired six times. It was unclear how many times the man was hit.
Police were called to the area around 9 p.m. by residents who reported a man outside waving a gun. Once officers arrive, the man had gone back into his home. He would not come out, but police could see him through an open window.
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Maddox said he refused to put down his weapon. Officers also learned he had several other weapons: two rifles and a shotgun.
Update x2: And oh look, another one, where a man goes to get a car, is told it’s been repossessed, gets into some other car anyway, he shoots a guy and a guy shoots him back. Lovely. One of them gets to say self-defense too, right?
Two Cleveland men shot each other during a Monday morning confrontation at A-One Motors on the city’s West Side.
Neonte Robertson, 18, and Stanley Drake, 31, were both treated at MetroHealth Medical Center for their injuries. Drake was listed in fair condition Monday. Robertson’s condition was not available.
According to police reports, Robertson went to the car lot at 3434 W. 25th St. about 10:45 a.m. where his car was being worked on. However, A-One Motors head mechanic Tony Brown said Robertson’s car had been repossessed.
According to police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho, Robertson argued with Drake [who worked at A-One] about his car and would not leave. Robertson got into his car and continued to argue with Drake.
Police said Robertson pulled out a gun and shot Drake in his abdomen. Drake then shot Robertson in his groin and left thigh. Robertson fled the scene and a passing police patrol car picked him up after they found him lying on West 25th Street near the car lot. Robertson’s gun was found next to a nearby utility pole.
When police searched Robertson’s car, they found a box with ammunition in it, Stacho said.
Brown said that Drake worked at the car lot for at least five years.
So - Drake had a gun on him at his workplace? Maybe? We don’t know yet. And Robertson got into his repossessed car and had a gun and ammo in it - even while it was being worked on? Or Robertson had carried all that on him? Also don’t know yet.
Update x3: Here’s one I think I missed - it’s a day or two old - my bad:
Cleveland police say they have arrested a 22-year-old man in the shooting death of his next-door neighbor. A bullet fired during a gunfight on West 73rd Street hit Carlos Rodriguez in his first-floor bedroom.
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“It was like a war,” she said. “There were so many bullets going. I counted at least 30 shots.”
Salazar moved into the house next door last month, but Mirtha Rodriguez said neither she nor her brother ever talked to him or the three other men who lived there.
Lt. Thomas Stacho, a police spokesman, said there was a fight on the block involving several people between 1 and 2 a.m. Dozens of shots were reportedly fired.
Rodriguez was found dead in his room Saturday afternoon when he didn’t report to work at the post office where he had worked as a mail carrier for the last three years.
Mirtha Rodriguez called her brother a funny, happy guy who worked hard, was dedicated to his job and was a great dad.
Whatever happened to felonious assault with a deadly weapon, you know, like a pitchfork or a tire iron or a frying pan? Who needs those when you can just whip out a gun. Who do you think has self-defense going for him in this case?
Sphere: Related ContentBy Jill Miller Zimon at 10:34 am July 13th, 2008 in Social Issues, Law, Breaking, Crime, Statehouse, Cleveland+, Announcements, Ohio, Politics
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38 Responses to “[update x2] How many traffic stop police officer killings will it take”
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When the first CCW bill was passed, Governor Taft said he would not sign a bill without the consent and approval of law enforcement including the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the FOP.
The final compromise was reached with background checks, required training, and a prohibition against having a loaded weapon in the car (the ammunition had to be stored in a trunk or glove box).
While this may seem like common sense to most of us, it was considered an affront to the pro-gun lobby. They hated the compromise and immediately worked to have it overturned.
As a complete ruse for what they really wanted, the pro-gun lobby used a red herring of defending yourself in your home as a way to overturn the restriction on carrying loaded guns in a car. This bill was passed and signed into law by Governor Strickland.
If the liberalization of concealed carry laws makes police work more dangerous, then why has the rate of police officers’ being killed in the line of duty gone down, even as the trend has been toward greater liberalization?
You are correct with your assumption of what the gun lobby( 2nd amendment lobby) would say. To answer all those questions with ask the dead cops wife is simply ignorant. Come on. He could have ran over the cop too. I want a gun for self protection and from an ever tyrannical government.
Count me as having a pro gun rights bias so feel free to discount my views. Among my many other biases is a reality-based bias.
We don’t even know anything about the shooter and the circumstances of his possessing a weapon in his car. I think opinions are rather useless without this basic information as a starting point.
When we find out about how he came to be in possession of a gun, we’ll also find out about his parole status, criminal record and many other things that factor into judging a situation like this.
I’d just like some facts before I am accused of being in denial.
Mary Anne - thanks for reading and commenting. I am aware of the more recent legislation that was signed. I didn’t support it, at all. I know I’m out of step with a vocal contingent of Americans and, I guess, Ohioans. But I was the same out of stepness with casinos too. It’s how I feel about these issues, I really can’t say much more than that. I mean, I have my reasons, and I understand the arguments made by others. I just don’t agree with their conclusions, based on the society we live in. And I know they’d say the same about me - not agreeing that is, based on the society we live in.
Jason - I trust you and your interpretations but unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to take the time to really analyze what you’ve linked to - thought I promise to try to get to it, I’m not hopeful at the moment.
As you know with my arguments against casinos, this isn’t a moral issue for me. This is an issue related to chaos theory and people’s minds. Did you read the NYT Sunday mag last week - about suicide and gun availability? And the impact of having something like guns - think instantaneous - so readily available?
People are willing to make arguments that these are all unfortunate side effects of what they believe the 2nd Amendment “really” says. Except some of us don’t believe that that’s what the amendment really says. And we will never really know what it “really” says.
But all this while, I will keep my dislike of guns, thank you.
When I watched the Capitol Fourth celebration? All I could think about was, there are 400,000 who can have guns in the middle of Wash., DC. Count me out.
James, I’m not sure he could have run over the cop.
The slippery slope of self-protection is giving people the discretion to decide what circumstances place you in adequate fear or danger that legally allows you to shoot off your gun. I’ll say it: I don’t trust my fellow Americans when it comes to that question to use that gun judiciously. Though I’d be happy to read some reports on that.
David, as I think Jason is the best to tell you, I would never discount your views. I argued why the casino-legalization amendment proposed in Ohio in 2006 was wrong for weeks on end, and Jason and I batted back and forth - but I never would dismiss him.
You make very reasonable points - I agree with them all. But I also always come back to the fact that now in Ohio anyone can have a gun and ammo in their car in plain view and ready to be used. And a case like this ends up being equal to supporting a presumption that regular citizens driving at night have a right to fear that a police officer will act first and incorrectly, in endangering a driver or passenger to the point where they need to use their gun.
That’s nuts. How you can you have a society of 300 million if those are the kinds of presumptions we foster? It’s bad enough that racial profiling is now being suggested as necessary for the “war on terrorism.” So should those same folks be sure to always have loaded guns with them and then use them?
It’s too out of control, David. This just isn’t the way it should be.
That, obviously, is how I feel.
Anyone who tries to make a political point out of this tragedy is truly despicable. Shame on you.
Hi Brian - Do you mean, like, the way the Bush Admin’s raison d’etre revolves around politicizing 9/11, or else there’d be pretty much nothing of note related to its actions for the last 8 years?
I lived in DC when it was the murder capital of the Country, or at least that was the tag they gave us. I don’t spend time being fearful that I am going to be shot. However, basic rights aside, why oh why is it anyone’s right to own an uzi? Or any other high powered gun for that matter, not that a handgun can’t kill you just as easily. I mean seriously, a concealed weapon or an uzi, why is it that unreasonable to want to ban them? After all the decades of argument, I still can’t figure it out.
Carole - that’s how I’d describe myself as well with the exception of having been mugged a long time ago and wondering, what if they’d had guns?
Jill–
What happened to not allowing deflective arguments around here? Hold yourself to your own standards please.
Brian - there’s nothing deflecting about my comment - I’m analogizing to show your comment as being hypocritical and obvious - of course this issue is political - there’s no actually politicizing it - it is on it’s face political. And if I were the Bush admin, or you for that matter, I’d argue the same back.
“I trust you and your interpretations…thought I promise to try to get to it”
Thanks, Jill. Please note that I’m not trying to argue that liberalization of gun laws actually makes police work safer; I know that correlation doesn’t imply causation.
“Did you read the NYT Sunday mag last week - about suicide and gun availability? And the impact of having something like guns - think instantaneous - so readily available?”
This one? I haven’t yet, but I will.
“People are willing to make arguments that these are all unfortunate side effects of what they believe the 2nd Amendment “really” says.”
I’m not. Of course they’re unfortunate, but I’m not convinced that they’re caused by our relatively liberal gun laws. Police work appears to be much more dangerous in Mexico than it is here. The suicide rate in Japan is much higher than in the U.S. And yet, gun laws in Japan and Mexico are much more restrictive than they are here.
“But all this while, I will keep my dislike of guns, thank you.”
That’s fine. I’m not too big on guns, either. I have a lot of dislikes, including mayonnaise, houses with brick on the front and vinyl on the sides, Crocs, blackjack games in which the dealer hits a soft 17, and many others too numerous to mention. The difference is that I don’t seek to use the government to force others to conform to my preferences.
“When I watched the Capitol Fourth celebration? All I could think about was, there are 400,000 who can have guns in the middle of Wash., DC.”
On the Fourth of July last year, I was in Seward, Alaska, where, according to the Seward Chamber of Commerce, “the population … swells from around 2,500 to a reported 40,000.” Alaska’s liberal concealed-carry law didn’t cross my mind, but if it had, I would have been pleased to know that the homicide rate is down slightly since Alaska began to allow unlicensed concealed carry in 2003.
the problem here is the teachings of black liberation theology, taught at obama’s church. black “leaders” teach black followers to hate white people because white people have an advantage over them. the fact is that white americans freed black people who had been taken into slavery by other black africans. my question is, what is it that they want to be liberated from? having to obey the law? going to school? raising their family? it’s all b.s. and it’s time for the excuses for these black pieces of chit to dry up. stop being suckered by these race pimps. white people are being played for fools by these race hustlers. if you’re black, i owe you NOTHING. if you think i do - I WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU. stay the hell away from me and if you attempt to harm me physically, know that i’m authorized to carry. bring it at your own risk.
What a tragic story.
I think Ben sums it up, even as I admit that my reaction, my very first reaction, and I’m admitting this, was, yup - guns in cars, how great. But again - this is similar to how I feel about casinos. I won’t blather on more about it.
Joe - I can’t allow that kind of racist comment. I’m leaving it this time but next time, I’ll remove it (the portion that starts with, “it’s time for…”).
This Friday, I am going to be at a 1000 person conference as part of a panel that will be addressing race and gender (it will be live-blogged by other people and I’ll provide links to it for anyone who wants to follow along; also, there maybe streaming video of it, but I’m not sure - I know it will be recorded for viewing later).
So Joe, if you want to express your fear, hatred etc. of people based on their color, you’re going to have to either state it in a less virulent way with some reasons behind why you fear or dislike people because of their color, or you are going to have to start your own blog. This blog will not be a repository for hate speech like that.
Next - this post has nothing to do with race, Joe. NOTHING. The individuals involved were both white. Yes - both white.
As for your rant about black people, I could not disagree more with what you wrote. This isn’t about owing or not owing. It’s about recognizing that by virtue of my skin being white, I automatically, in this American society, get privilege that people of color don’t get. Period. I don’t need to feel guilty about it (and I don’t), but I do need to recognize the power it gives me and the obligation to do something when I can (and opportunities exist ALL THE TIME for all of us) to help make this world a less racist place - it’s called living an anti-racist life.
I have a long way to go but I’m working on it. But this post is not about that. It’s about guns.
If you want to talk about race, I encourage you to check in on the live-blog of my session on Friday.
Joe - I stand corrected. I thought the suspect and the officer killed were both white. Apparently, that’s not the case. But that does not change anything I’ve written.
Actually, I see this, not as an indictment of a gun culture but one born out of the welfare state and drug culture.
Well don’t stop there, Gordon.
Anyone who wants to keep tallies too can go here.
This is an example of why I hate these debates. They get totally off the topic at hand. The pro-gun folks are masters of moving past the fact that a police officer was killed in the line of duty.
Jason - doesn’t Alaska have one of the highest suicide or alcoholism or both rates? I’ll check.
Also - I think you are just being cute in comparing a dislike of guns to a dislike of Crocs. But the important part is that Crocs and liking or not liking them, buying or not buying them, aren’t legislated in anyway. Guns are mentioned in the 2nd Amendment.
But you know that.
Mary Anne - I could not agree with you more. Thanks for noting the observation.
“The pro-gun folks are masters of moving past the fact that a police officer was killed in the line of duty.”
Ms. Sharkey, you’re kidding, right? Jill moved past that fact with her initial post. The pro-gun commenters here merely followed her.
My point on the welfare state is this.
I live in a neighborhood of about 100 homes. I’m going to bet that there are at least 50 homes in this neighborhood with some type of firearm. Yet there has never been anyone shot. I would like some anti gun person to explain, why?
This whole gun debate is delusional to the true issue at hand.
All you need to do is look at our prison population and you’ll see two common threads.
1) Fatherless homes
2) Drug and alcohol abuse (I would offer that this is actually a sub set of fatherless homes)
Our current welfare culture has diminished the importance of two parent families and has created an entire subculture of young males who have no respect for authority and no respect for their own lives.
So what if I pop a cap in your ass or you shoot me? When lives have no value, who cares?
We’ve spent trillions on the “war on poverty” and guess what? We have even more poverty today than we did in the 1960’s. Only this poverty is made up of “poverty of the soul” which is probably worse than financial poverty and why we have a serious group of men in this country who have no problems taking a shot at a cop.
Liberals are adept at putting salve on symptoms (such as taking away guns). When you want to get real and start dealing with the rot we’re breeding with our welfare state, we’ll actually begin to make some progress with this senseless violence.
Gordon, I don’t buy that for a minute. You’ve pushed this theory before - and many libertarians and conservatives do try. But while there may be correlations (and you’ve not sourced anything in that post), the causal connections time and again are shown to not be there.
Frankly, I blame George Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. They have people so messed up re: what we kill for that veterans are coming home completely psychically destroyed and then not treated for it. They want people to understand when it’s okay to kill and when it’s not - but they want to decide who can be killed indiscriminately.
Where’s your evidence that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are the cause for these killings?
A nice liberal stroke of amnesia. These shootings also occurred during the Clinton years but I guess that was a Karl Rove mastermind plan to discredit the democrats.
This is why liberals will never get it. Actually have a conversation with a cop that has to deal with these criminals on an ongoing basis and they will spell it out for you.
But you’ll never do that because it will spoil that nice, delusional “it’s Bush’s fault” fairy tale that you so want to believe in.
And that’s why we’ll be having this same conversation 20 years from now.
90 percent of solving a problem is accurately identifying the problem. Liberals only want to tackle a symptom and then they wonder why the problem never goes away.
I’m wasting my time here.
Gordon - please - go get tested for Commenting ADD. You are ALL over the place, friend.
“…doesn’t Alaska have one of the highest suicide or alcoholism or both rates?”
Suicide wouldn’t surprise me, as the population is disproportionately male, and men are much more likely than women to commit suicide. The long, dark winters probably don’t help matters either. It would be awfully expensive to be an alcoholic in Alaska. The tax on distilled spirits is $12.80 per gallon.
“I think you are just being cute in comparing a dislike of guns to a dislike of Crocs.”
I like to think that I’m cute all the time. But seriously, you dislike guns, and so you are free not to buy a gun. I dislike Crocs and so I’m free not to buy Crocs. I have absolutely no problem with your dislike of guns. Where you and I part company is in whether to try to use the law to impose our dislikes onto others.
“But the important part is that Crocs and liking or not liking them, buying or not buying them, aren’t legislated in anyway. Guns are mentioned in the 2nd Amendment.”
Well, I’m not sure that a Crocs ban would be able to withstand a substantive due process challenge, but there are plenty of things that are constitutionally protected that I dislike, and the same principle applies. I am free to choose not to partake in these things while respecting the right of others to make a choice that is different from the one I would make for myself.
reminds me of a bumper sticker i once saw on an automobile: guns are as responsible for crime as spoons are for rosie o’donnell being fat.
i have no problem following gordon’s points of view. ask any cop and they’ll tell you that they have arrested dozens of people for carrying firearms while they were still illegal to carry. please do. criminals have always carried handguns and will continue to do so regardless of what the law happens to be. that’s why they’re criminals. they don’t obey the law. doesn’t seem very hard to grasp that concept to me.
Yeah outlawing guns would make the world so much safer like outlawing drugs kept drugs off the street and away from children? People wanting to do harm will do harm regardless of weather it is legal or not so how would outlawing guns help at all? I personally carry and it saved my life when i was walking to my car one night after visiting my girlfriend and two guys jumped me at my car a pulled my gun out and shot one of them as he lunged at me with a knife. The other man ran away but was arrested along with his partner in crime. Without my gun i could have easily been a victim and ended up in a box six feet under.
FYI,
Officer Miktarian was pro-Concealed Carry. I interviewed him for my English Argumentative Thesis on Concealed Carry laws. I will forever hold onto that paper and the transcript. He had also asked where he could find a pro-Concealed Carry sign for his pizza shop. As a police officer, Officer Miktarian knew that criminals will always possess guns. License or no license, they will have them. Most police officers know this. I interviewed 5 other officers from different jurisdictions that all supported the Concealed Carry laws, and STILL DO after this tragedy. We do not have a gun problem, we have a social problem.
Thanks for commenting, Craig. That’s interesting. If you ever decide to turn that paper into a pdf for people to read, I hope you’ll let us know.
I don’t agree about not having a gun problem, but I do agree that it’s entangled with and enables social problems.
jill, your loveliness notwithstanding, i will not relent on this issue. you are wrong but that doesn’t mean that i don’t still think very fondly of you.