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A Minnesota woman has been charged with manslaughter after she shot and killed her boyfriend as part of the pair’s attempt to become YouTube celebrities.
According to court documents, Monalisa Perez called 911 on June 26 at around 6:30pm local time to say that she had shot Pedro Ruiz III. The two had set up two video cameras to capture Perez firing the gun at Ruiz while he held a book in front of his chest. Ruiz apparently convinced Perez that the book would stop the bullet from a foot away. The gun, a Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol, was not hindered by the book.
[...] A video filmed the day before the shooting features Perez excitedly imagining what would happen when the couple reached 300,000 subscribers on their YouTube channel.
According to a Star Tribune report citing a nearby television station in North Dakota, the shooting took place near the couple's home as their three-year-old daughter was nearby. An aunt of Ruiz, who was not named by WDAY-TV, was quoted as saying that she knew what they planned to do and that she tried to talk them out of it.
The aunt said Ruiz replied, "'Because we want more viewers. We want to get famous.'"
Perez, 19, was released on bail on Wednesday. She is pregnant with the couple's second child.
Further details from The New York Times:
Ms. Perez told investigators that she had shot Mr. Ruiz from about a foot away while he held a 1.5-inch thick book to his chest, the authorities said. She described using a firearm that matched the pistol that was found at the scene.
Mr. Ruiz had been “trying to get her” to fire the gun “for a while,” Ms. Perez told investigators, according to court documents. They state that he had set up one camera on the back of a vehicle and another on a ladder to capture the stunt.
To help persuade her to pull the trigger, Mr. Ruiz had even shown Ms. Perez a book that he had previously shot himself, she told investigators. In that case, she said, the bullet had not gone all the way through the text.
See also: CNN.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @04:27PM (16 children)
Huh?
I'm wooshing. There are plenty of responsible gun owners right here on this site.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Lagg on Monday July 03 2017, @05:23PM (14 children)
Yeah. That's the issue. On sites where there are thinking people there are going to be thoughtful gun owners. Nerd hangouts aren't the rest of the US. I owned one for a while, might be again. Know for a fact I'm responsible because I RTFM and observe safety. Everyone I know is responsible.
Meanwhile, these people think a round won't go through paper. Also, don't immediately interpret this as a call for a gun ban. People are talking like this because the cults have exhausted them. Read it in the spirit it's meant to be.
Also, like most things it's the idiots running rampant that ruin it for the thinking people. It only takes one dumb gun owner as this proved. I know (or shall I say knew, for good reason) two people that were dumb. They knew how to strip and clean, they knew how to stance, knew the safety rule. Yet they failed to check the chamber and keep it pointed down range before waving it across my fucking torso and that's all it takes for me to not want to be near them with a gun anymore.
This is a less extreme example than the people that can't seem to figure out that you don't put your fucking finger on the trigger until you're ready to kill what you're pointing at. See what the post means now? It's a level of irresponsible a level or two above failing to observe trigger discipline. That's pretty shitty.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday July 03 2017, @06:27PM (8 children)
Lots of stupid people kill themselves and others with cars. We should ban cars.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Monday July 03 2017, @06:47PM (4 children)
Again not a call for a gun ban. But for what it's worth I'd be okay with cars going away. Haven't driven for years because of a surgery that wrecked my range of motion on the pedals. Cars are a waste of efficiency and environment. They're also artificially imposed by real estate developers pulling out sidewalks in suburbs and other such crap. Also people can't carry cars in behind-belt holsters. Though cars are lethal weapons that's for sure. Was a passenger in an accident. Neck wrecked. Have almost gotten ran over on more than one occasion because people don't know how to handle a blind spot in a truck.
Good point though. My brother actually died (later in hospital) by flipping his truck. Killed his friend (instantly) too. Happened as quick as a gun would. I know your intent wasn't to express that they're equal to each other in lethality despite guns being 100x smaller. But that's what always happens when you bring out that argument. Also a box of rounds and a 45 are cheaper than a car.
Like I said, I don't particularly advocate gun bans. But I don't think people that are too dumb to do their homework should be anywhere near them. I have a serious dislike for my fellow murikans flipping the fuck out at gun rights. Nobody cares because the government will drone their asses the moment martial law is activated. As someone that's never had trouble getting access to guns - as a responsible human being - I can tell you right now no matter what legislation they do I'll always have access. I also won't do stupid shit like try to dodge a background check. Which is another thing I don't understand. You get checked for your goddamned apartment application.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @07:33PM (3 children)
You'd understand it if you were principled about the Constitution, which simply does not give the government the power to require background checks before you're allowed to purchase guns.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 04 2017, @02:04AM (2 children)
Did the gun possibly effect interstate commerce, even if only because your choice of that particular gun would affect market prices? The commerce clause applies.
:-(
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 04 2017, @02:24AM (1 child)
As far as I can tell, from past judicial decisions, if anyone, anywhere, anytime, ever purchased anything, then the commerce clause applies to allow the government to do whatever they want.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday July 04 2017, @04:44AM
You need to dig deeper. It's well established that nothing needs to have even been purchased for the commerce clause to apply. See Wickard v. Filburn. Growing wheat that never leaves your own property is 'commerce' because if you had not grown it, you would have to buy some wheat, or some wheat substitute, from someone else; and it's 'interstate' even if you would have bought it from a neighbor in the same state, because he might have sold it to someone out of state if you hadn't bought it.
If they'd just go down and grab the Constitution out from behind the glass and defecate all over it at least we could say they were honest.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 04 2017, @01:23AM (2 children)
Difference: the only purpose of a gun is to kill. But I target shoot only, you say. OK, let me amend my statement: you can also *practice* at killing.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday July 04 2017, @03:58AM (1 child)
Yes, the purpose is to kill. A free person has the right to keep and bear weapons designed for killing. If you don't have that right you're not free.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:52AM
Free people have the right to murder me with their freedom (penis-substitute) gun when I am busy going about my daily activities, maybe taking my kid to the store, maybe with my back turned. That's not freedom. That's giving the crazies access to convenient deadly weapons. Gun nuts do nothing for my freedom.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday July 03 2017, @07:23PM (4 children)
What do you mean by "the cults"?
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Monday July 03 2017, @07:42PM (3 children)
I mean literally what I'm saying. They're cultists exhibiting cult mentality instead of objective critical thinking. Look at the responses (that aren't obvious scripts I mean, be fair about it) to any given post by this guy on Twitter. That's just the start of the rabbit hole too. Try gab.ai or any number of frankly disgusting sites that they get their "news" from. The comments are absurd.
Like this guy's base are just about as close as it gets to the current consensus of "cult". Up to and including forceful persuasion, chanting and repetition until a "truth" is formed, viciously reactionary to any and all criticism about the cult and its leader, incredibly isolationist, shut down when confronted with facts and cited sources (going back to step 1, persuasion and repetition). Some people - though I currently believe it's satire - are even calling the guy familial affectionate names like "dad". Also the nature of his supporters is evident on video. Namely the cringeworthy fucker that claimed to have a cardboard cutout that he saluted every day.
And no, these are not things that I've seen from past presidents. This is another thing they're trying. Revisionist history. Which pisses me off in particular. I loathe Obama and Clinton, but I will not call "obamacare" "hillarycare" in desperation. I also won't claim the democratic party is the one asking for voter data - which I have also seen. Also, it's impossible for me to accept asking for voter data and people's utter willingness to discard their privacy all of the sudden as anything but cultists feeding off their leader and vice-versa. Because that's what they do.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 04 2017, @02:37AM (2 children)
Three paragraphs and you didn't answer butthurts question. 'What do you mean by "the cults"'?
"They're cultists, this guy, they, their, this guy, the cult, some people, the guy, his supporters, cringeworthy fucker, he."
That's a whole lot of unreferenced pronouns and generic labels without once specifying who the fuck you are talking about. What's the matter, if you say his name does he appear and steal your soul or something?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday July 04 2017, @05:03AM
The comparison to past presidents was enough for me to catch the meaning.
The fellow with the cardboard figure is named Gene Huber.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-3IdNPr1Sg [youtube.com]
http://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/02/18/donald-trump-supporter-gene-huber-intv-nr.cnn [cnn.com]
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Tuesday July 04 2017, @07:24AM
I'm cognizant of the fact that using this his name too much results in arguments falling on deaf ears before they even start because of what the usual expectation for discourse is now. Which I don't help by repeatedly calling him an insane idiot, but if it looks like a donald duck. Also I vent frequently because trying to get into this guy's mind is in itself an insane endeavor and it confuses me to the point of frustration so it leaks through when I try to discuss the topic.
You won't see me naming gun models much either, because even if I had the knowledge to know I was correct in what I remembered. Certain gun names are going to insta-wreck your argument even if they're completely irrelevant. e.g. "How bout them AR-15s?"
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @06:31PM
Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get some books for these folks! STAT!