Reprehensible!
Chicago baby, shot 5 times
with father during a diaper change, dies
In Chicago, certain names have become synonymous with a specific type of tragedy for girls, which can be recalled with bleak and brief synopsis:
Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old majorette, shot in the back after coming home from President Obama's inauguration;
Janay McFarlane, 18, gunned down while walking with friends -- her 14-year-old sister had just heard the president give a speech about gun violence.
Now there is another name to add.
Six-month-old Jonylah Watkins died at a hospital Tuesday morning after being shot while getting her diaper changed by her father, who was shot too.
She is survived by her 20-year old mother -- who had once been shot in the leg while eight months' pregnant -- and her father, Jonathan Watkins, 29, who remained in the hospital in serious condition, officials said.
"This is another tragedy, because no child, and certainly not an infant, should be the victim of gang violence," Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said at a televised news conference. "Which, by the way, at this point, although there's a lot of angles that we're pursuing, there are very strong gang overtones to this particular event."
Police said Watkins had parked his van on the street to change his daughter's diaper when the gunman approached from behind and fired several shots into the van. The shooter then ran through an empty lot and into a blue minivan, speeding away.
"Based on the ballistics and the position of the father and the baby in the car, he was shooting at the father," McCarthy said.
He added, "Right now, we don't have one real good witness at this point."
The death comes a day after McCarthy started a push for a "broken windows" law-enforcement strategy in Chicago that would punish more small crimes in the hope that the effort will prevent bigger crimes -- the idea being that allowing just one broken window will lead to many more broken windows.
According to the latest available mortality data kept by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 20,033 women and girls were killed in gun homicides between 2000 and 2010, with gun homicides against women at its lowest rate in 2010.
Black women and girls were 3-1/2 times more likely to have been killed in a shooting than white females, according to the data, with their deaths most likely coming in their 20s.
SOURCE: L.A. TIMES
This shooting screams of a hit, and not of a random act. This seems to have little to do with any gun law.
This shooting screams of a hit, and not of a random act. This seems to have little to do with any gun law.
This is not to take the innocent life lost lightly. But the use of a gun in this instance seems to be a tool, not the predicate offense.
These shootings are the result of prohibition, IMO, and not just because some have access to firearms. Now seems to be no different than during prohibition.
Since you disagree that a gun is an inanimate object with no volition of it's own, maybe you can tell us why the gun killed the child?Yeah, I know F.A.Y.; the Gun didn't kill this baby;
a hitman did it
the prohibition did it
unequal access did it
anything, but the gun
.
I can't, he's dead because the arbitrary limitations on people's lives, that you support, killed him.You know, you have a real habit of putting words into the mouths of others.
But, since you believe the minimum wage law is the source of the problem, why don't you explain that theory to Jonylah Watkins.
.
I can't, he's dead because the arbitrary limitations on people's lives, [the minimum wage law] that you support, killed him.
Are you done now?
If you weren't done, then you should have explained the motivations of the gun to target a child.. . . the Gun didn't kill this baby;
a hitman did it
the prohibition did it
unequal access did it
the minimum wage law did it
anything, but the gun
.
But I am done, with the silliness.
Yeah, I know F.A.Y.; the Gun didn't kill this baby;
a hitman did it
the prohibition did it
unequal access did it
anything, but the gun
.
I was riding with you here but then you had to steer right into political/philosophical nonsense...
How would the father possessing a gun (I didn't see it say he was unarmed) have changed the outcome here?
The gun did not aim itself, nor pull it's own trigger. But actually, what I'm saying is that this was the instance of someone looking to do someone else harm.
No matter what weapon they had at thier disposal (Gun, Knife, Bat, Car, objects from roof...), they were looking to do that guy in and they had ZERO concern for the child. The tool they used to carry it out with would not have changed that.
The prohibition I am talking about is the one on certain drugs. The vast majority of gun violence is the result of the drug trade.
And much of the other beef comes about indirectly from the drug trade (beef over money owed...).
What we are seeing is no different than what went on during the enforcement of the Volsted Act. Right down to the argument of gun availability, what to do about young hyperviolent offenders, keeping the impressionable away from such perils, etc.
It will not end. There is a lucrative business out there with millions of willing customres with billions of dollars they wihs to spend. Prohibitionists are just trying to ice skate uphill.
Perhaps, F.A.Y. But I think its a real streetch for you to conclude that the result would not have been different, had the criminal in this case used some other instrumentality.
As we saw during the Great Drive-By Era, many if not most of those injured/killed were innocent by-standers and passersby. In almost every drive-by there were stories that followed of who the shooters we're "really trying to hit."
In this incident, neither of us know what was in the mind of the attacker, i.e., we don't know who the attacker wanted to harm, we don't know why the attacker wanted to cause harm, and we certaintly don't know whether the infant was an intended victim. We do know, however, "the gunman approached from behind and fired several shots into the van"; and that the baby could not have testified to anything that she saw, hence, it takes more than a leap to conclude that the attacker intentionally targeted the baby. Thus, it could reasonably be argued that had the attacker used something other than an instrument notorious for bringing the innocent within its wrath, had some other instrument been used, they infant might be fatherless, but alive.
'
Perhaps, F.A.Y. But I think its a real streetch for you to conclude that the result would not have been different, had the criminal in this case used some other instrumentality.
As we saw during the Great Drive-By Era, many if not most of those injured/killed were innocent by-standers and passersby. In almost every drive-by there were stories that followed of who the shooters we're "really trying to hit."
In this incident, neither of us know what was in the mind of the attacker, i.e., we don't know who the attacker wanted to harm, we don't know why the attacker wanted to cause harm, and we certaintly don't know whether the infant was an intended victim. We do know, however, "the gunman approached from behind and fired several shots into the van"; and that the baby could not have testified to anything that she saw, hence, it takes more than a leap to conclude that the attacker intentionally targeted the baby. Thus, it could reasonably be argued that had the attacker used something other than an instrument notorious for bringing the innocent within its wrath, the infant might be fatherless, but alive.
'
I hear what your saying, but I am not in the camp of looking at the symptom (people using guns), but at the problem (people intentionally hurting other people).
It's possible to fight a battle on more than one front.
I was hoping you would have adopted here what I thought was an excellent response to this question in the Affirmative Action thread:
. . . where you stupendously! noted:
FIghting inanimate objects makes about as much sense as the"war on terror"
No one is fighting guns but the irrational, nearly unchecked availability of them.
"irrational, nearly unchecked availability"?
Gee, I wonder who is making guns available........Wasn't our govt (ATF) just involved in a scandal that allowed guns to "walk" to our friends south of the border.
And yes, our govt is fighting guns, stop being naive
A mostly right wing media "scandal"? Yes, they were.
But it's not our government flooding cities with firearms (unless you know something no one else knows), it's gun sellers, buying guns legally on one hand and selling them illegally with the other.
William Casey - CIA DirectorWe’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.
Is this an admission the govt allowed guns to "walk" across the border?
How do you know it's not the govt flooding the cities with guns?
I don't have one bit of energy to waste trying to prove/disprove negatives.
Fact or Fiction? Can you prove it?
Gun control laws were originally promulgated by Democrats to keep guns out of the hands of blacks. This allowed the Democratic policy of slavery to proceed with fewer bumps and, after the Civil War, allowed the Democratic Ku Klux Klan to menace and murder black Americans with little resistance.
In 1640, the very first gun control law ever enacted on these shores was passed in Virginia. It provided that blacks — even freemen — could not own guns.
Starting in late 1988, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) and the Chicago Police Department (CPD) enacted and enforced an official policy, Operation Clean Sweep, which applied to all housing units owned and operated by the CHA. The purpose of Operation [Page 98] Clean Sweep was the confiscation of firearms and illegal narcotics. Operation Clean Sweep consisted of an official policy of systematic, warrantless searches of all CHA housing units in Chicago, and also of a visitor exclusion policy severely limiting the right of CHA tenants to associate in their residence with family members and other guests.[132]
The warrantless search policy consisted of indiscriminate random sweep searches of the CHA tenants' residences, any furniture and personal effects found therein, and searches of any residents and guests in the CHA buildings. Such searches were conducted on a building by building basis, without a warning and without probable cause or reasonable articulate suspicion of any crime by any specific person in any specific home. The homes of the CHA tenants were entered whether or not they were present. Persons found on such premises were detained and searched, while the apartment was searched, including all enclosed areas, personal effects, bureau drawers, clothes, closets, mattresses, kitchen cabinets, refrigerators, freezers, and medicine cabinets. The CPD officers and CHA officials used metal detectors in order to discover firearms. CHA tenants who objected or attempted to interfere with these warrantless searches were arrested.[133]
While such searches were occurring, all persons who were not on the lease were ejected from the building. Following the search of each building, the police closed the unit to all visitors for forty-eight hours. After the initial forty-eight hour period passed, tenants were allowed to have visitors only from the morning until 12:00 a.m. and were not allowed to have overnight guests. Tenants were forced to sign in and out of the building and, upon entering the building, had to produce to the police officers or CHA officials photograph identification. Relatives, including children and grandchildren, were not allowed to stay over, even on holidays.[134]
Of course all of the CHA tenants were poor, and the vast majority of them were Hispanic or black. Once again, the very same police and security forces that were supposedly in existence to protect citizens were used to harass, intimidate, and deprive the residents of CHA of their constitutional rights. And once again, oppressive firearms laws were used to facilitate the deprivation of the constitutional rights of those minorities.
The history of gun control in the United States has been one of discrimination, oppression, and arbitrary enforcement. Although the purported legislative intent behind gun control statutes was to decrease crime and violence and thereby ensure public safety, the primary purpose was to keep blacks, immigrants, and native Americans in check. If, as the white establishment believed, blacks and other minorities generally could not be trusted, they certainly could not be trusted with arms and ammunition. Those in power wielded gun control laws in efforts to preserve their monopoly on the instruments of force.
To argue against gun control, such as discriminatory permit schemes, is not to assert that every man and woman should arm themselves before leaving for work in the morning. However, if citizens decide to purchase a gun for whatever reasons and continue to be subjected to permit laws, they have the right to be treated in a nondiscriminatory manner.
By prohibiting the possession of firearms, the state discriminates against minority and poor citizens. In the final analysis, citizens must protect themselves and their families and homes. The need for self-defense is far more critical in the poor and minority neighborhoods ravaged by crime and without adequate police protection. Enforcing gun prohibitions, furthermore, will only lead to vast increases in civil liberties violations, including illegal searches and seizures. Unfortunately, the tenants of the Richmond and Chicago housing projects have become second class citizens; their rights to defend themselves and to be free from warrantless searches have been circumscribed. These excesses and other policies and statutes which unduly infringe upon second and fourth amendment rights should not be tolerated by courts or a free citizenry.
Starting in late 1988, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) and the Chicago Police Department (CPD) enacted and enforced an official policy, Operation Clean Sweep, which applied to all housing units owned and operated by the CHA . . .