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The Washington Post reports that an internet escort in Charleston, W.Va., may have saved her own life and the lives of many other women, when she shot and killed an alleged attacker who showed up at the woman's home on July 18 after answering an escort ad she had placed on Backpage.com. Neal Falls showed up with multiple pairs of handcuffs and a Subaru full of weapons and tools, including a shovel, knives, a bulletproof vest, a machete, bleach, trash bags, sledgehammers and axes. In Falls's pocket, police said, was a list of names of potential future victims, all of whom are sex workers who advertised on Backpage. Investigators are trying to determine whether Falls is responsible for a string of slayings targeting sex workers in Ohio and Nevada. "We are entering his DNA profile into CODIS, which is a national crime DNA database, to see if it matches any previous submissions from anywhere in the United States," says Steve Cooper, the Charleston Police Department's chief of detectives. "If his DNA has been located in any other crimes and his profile was entered into CODIS, there will be a match."
From the moment Falls showed up at the home of his latest alleged victim, he turned violent. "I knew he was there to kill me," says the victim who asked not to be identified. Falls pulled a gun on her and began strangling her. "When he strangled me he just wouldn't let me get any air. I grabbed my rake and when he laid the gun down to get the rake out of my hands, I shot him. I just grabbed the gun and shot behind me." Local authorities are treating the shooting as an act of self-defense. According to Cooper, "when we find multiple sets of handcuffs, a machete, an axe, a bulletproof vest and container of bleach, the first thing that comes to an investigator's mind is, 'This is a serial killer kit.'"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:22AM
So John Houser shouldn't have been denied weapons because he could've been victimized by a home invader too, right? And the same goes for the South Carolina church shooter.
Everybody deserves and needs to carry around multiple sacks of automatic weapons! USA! USA!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @04:33AM
I believe that the authorities have already admitted that they screwed the pooch with Houser. He wasn't permitted to have a weapon.
HOWEVER - I think that Houser should have had access to weapons - but I also think that the theater goers should have had access to their own weapons. House stands up, pulls out a weapon, and takes a shot - and five people return fire.
We don't shoot dogs down in the street - unless and until they start attacking poeple. Then, we kill them wherever we find them. Crazy shooters should be treated just like rabid dogs. They're free to do anything they care to do, UNTIL they start using a weapon.
Yes, USA! USA! I hear the condescension in your voice. Can you hear it just as plainly in mine? Freedom isn't free - and if you're not willing to defend your freedom, then you are undeserving of that freedom.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:40AM
> House stands up, pulls out a weapon, and takes a shot - and five people return fire.
Because in a theater everybody is paying attention to what is going on behind them.
> Crazy shooters should be treated just like rabid dogs. They're free to do anything they care to do, UNTIL they start using a weapon.
The thing about 90+% of mass shootings is that the shooter is suicidal. Getting killed in the process is part of the plan even if they've haven't articulated it. Killing them after they've killed a bunch of people is no deterrent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @04:49AM
House was not suicidal. He planned for a getaway. He only returned to the theater when he heard the cops outside.
And - so what if the shooter is suicidal? If five people shoot back at the shooter, he gets his wish BEFORE he murders ten, or fifty other people. I say, "Justice served."
Paying attention to what is going on behind them? People WERE paying enough attention to flee the scene. If SOME of those people had been armed, they might have put paid to House before he killed a second, then a third person, then . . . .
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:59AM
> House was not suicidal.
I soooo knew you would say that. Remember the 90% number and the part about not being articulated? Just because he had a half-baked plan doesn't mean that was his goal. The half-baked part is a pretty clear give away there.
> If five people shoot back at the shooter, he gets his wish BEFORE he murders ten, or fifty other people.
The number of cases of mass killings exceeding 10 victims can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Your solution is essentially no different from current results.
> I say, "Justice served."
Fuck justice say all the dead people.
> Paying attention to what is going on behind them? People WERE paying enough attention to flee the scene.
AFTER he shot up a bunch of people. If you read the reports you'll see that lots of people thought it was a sound effect from the movie. Your mental contortions only reveal the weakness of your position.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @05:19AM
My mental contortions? What of your own? You KNOW that there are dangerous poeple out there, but you are content to deny the average person any opportunity to protect himself from those dangerous people.
Do you always win this game? http://evenementnieuws.nl/wp-content/themes/evenementnieuws/old-newsitem-images/Twister.jpg [evenementnieuws.nl]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:38AM
> You KNOW that there are dangerous poeple out there, but you are content to deny the average person any opportunity to protect himself from those dangerous people.
Actually I haven't said one thing in favor of gun control, in fact, in at least one other sub-thread here I've taken apart a pro-gun control argument.
What I have done is show how weak all of your arguments are. I'm under no illusions that there are dangerous people out there. It's just that you've sincerely failed to show that your solution makes a meaningful difference in outcomes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:42AM
You have not shown any such thing. He does not believe you, I don't believe you, and looking at the rest of the responses, no one else believes you. You have taken arguments that are qualitative and have treated them qualitatively without actually refuting them in either form partially or as a whole. Take a logic 101 class kid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:49PM
Making your opponents' argument out to be something other than what it actually is is called a straw man [yourlogicalfallacyis.com].
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 27 2015, @12:10PM
Which anti-depressant or similar medication was he on? This is a pretty standard question for mass shootings, they're almost universally on one or the other. Its not unheard of to have a non-medicated mass shooter, but its more of a once in a decade thing than a once a month thing like medicated shooters.
Its not culturally possible to discuss this in mass media because lots of corporate money is made selling anti-depressants just think of the TV ads alone.
However, were it possible to discuss the topic, its an interesting moral / ethical debate that we've apparently decided that, say, for every million who get a year of treatment (aka medication) (of some varying level of success below 100%) we seem to tolerate about one dead body in a mass shooting.
Some day it'll probably all be looked back on like those currently shocking tobacco company exec statements from the old days. "Well sure it kills people and we stack the bodies like cordwood but we make lots of money so its all good."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @12:35PM
Good point. Very good point, VLM. Drugs, drugs, drugs - drugs are evil, unless a corporation stands to make a profit off of those drugs. The cops will shoot you in a dope deal gone bad, but they're happy to see you "medicated" with good corporate drugs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @03:22PM
Which anti-depressant or similar medication was he on? This is a pretty standard question for mass shootings, they're almost universally on one or the other.
Dude, you are confusing cause and effect. It should be no surprise that nearly all mass shooters are on anti-depressants, because they are fucking depressed! If anti-depressants actually caused people to become mass shooters, then we'd have hundreds of mass shootings every day because over 10% of the population is taking them.
If you want to get worked up about corporate conspiracies you ought to be focused on the well-established fact that anti-depressants don't actually work. [scientificamerican.com] That except for the most severe cases, they don't improve outcomes any better than placebo (mostly because placebo works amazingly well).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:55AM
House stands up, pulls out a weapon, and takes a shot - and five people return fire.
And everyone shoot at everyone and a lot of people die from stray bullets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:45AM
It doesn't happen. Go ahead and try to find stats on it. There aren't any because your scenario has yet to exist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:51PM
It can and does happen. That walls don't stop bullets is exactly why the military doesn't use the "spray and pray" method of clearing houses anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:11AM
OR, OR, here's a insane, delusional thought pulled from lala land - we prevent the entire situation from ever occurring by not letting homicidal nutjobs easily obtain tools that allow them to murder large numbers of people in mere seconds! TOTALLY FUCKING CRAZY IDEA, I KNOW!
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Monday July 27 2015, @05:48AM
ummm, I'm not sure that I disagree with you, but the "tools [to] murder people in mere seconds" also includes common objects like knives, hammers, rocks, glass, pencils, etc.
Yes, in an ideal world, "nutjobs" shouldn't have access to anything dangerous, but "non-nutjobs" shouldn't be denied tools for self preservation / defense.
BTW - did you know a news magazine can be easily used as a lethal weapon? I learned that decades ago, from a Special Forces instructor. He explained the lethal use of DOZENS of commonly available objects.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @06:03AM
> BTW - did you know a news magazine can be easily used as a lethal weapon?
You have a different definition 'easily' than most people. I'm confident that the average person can kill much more easily with a gun than with a rolled up magazine. If that weren't the case, nobody would bother with guns, we'd all just walk around with magazines in concealed holsters.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:48AM
It is a one step method to turn any glossy magazine into a lethal weapon. The only thing stopping people from doing it more is ignorance. Would you like to bad literacy too? After all, words like "declaration of war" have killed orders of magnitude more people with less effort than any other weapon in recorded history.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:24PM
So then why aren't those used for mass murders? Could it be, I don't know, that guns are somehow different from other tools that could potentially be lethal if used in a certain way in that they're specifically created for murder and let you kill with a tiny movement of a single finger, significantly less effort than any other commonly available tool? That other tools can be used for murder is not a counterpoint to the fact that guns are specifically designed to murder many people in mere seconds. Comparing guns to knives, hammers, etc, is a false analogy because they are in no way analogous.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:59AM
Just as long as we don't do it by implementing a massive background check infrastructure that is easily co-opted for all kinds of other uses. But that seems to be the direction we are heading down.
My solution for reducing gun deaths is not popular with many -
(1) Improve mental health services - 2/3rds of gun deaths are suicides, while over 90% of failed suicides are still alive 10 years later, so most of those ~20K gun suicide each year are mistakes. And then there is the fact that practically all mass shootings are a form of suicide too. Help people (without stigmatizing/criminalizing them) before they feel hopeless enough to pull the trigger and you'll save more lives than anything else.
(2) End the war on drugs. My belief, for which I have no proof other than gut feel, is that 90% of gun homicides are drug related - either gang activity (which is fueled by drug money) or in conjunction with property crimes by addicts looking to fund their addiction.
My belief is that those two things in conjunction are far and away the most effective way to reduce gun deaths. But (1) is expensive and idealogical unpalatable to a large number of people and (2) faces opposition from the billion dollar drug-war industry (DEA, cop unions, prison guard unions, for-profit prison industry, etc) and is idealogically unpalatable to many of the same group as #1.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Monday July 27 2015, @03:17PM
You have my vote, AC...
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:32AM
Agree. One reason for people refusing to seek help is that they can be essentially criminalized for it. Your right to bear arms can be permanently revoked. You can be imprisoned, drugged against your will, and essentially tortured. It wasn't all that long ago that you could also have pieces of your brain forcibly removed.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday July 27 2015, @04:37AM
So John Houser shouldn't have been denied weapons because he could've been victimized by a home invader too, right? And the same goes for the South Carolina church shooter.
Which is a correct point. The "anyone could be a mass murderer" argument fundamentally fails because anyone actually trying to be a mass murderer is already breaking more serious laws. And people don't lose their rights now just because at some point in the future they do bad stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:16AM
I'm curious, which laws would those be? Which laws are they breaking before they start murdering, or is murder the "more serious law" to which you're referring?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:50AM
Planning to commit murder is a crime and it is more serious than obtaining a gun illegally.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 27 2015, @01:32PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:32PM
There is no crime until you actually act on it. "Attempted murder" requires actually attempting. How do you prove that somebody was planning a murder before they actually commit it? Mass surveillance? Thoughtcrime? The point is, while technically there may be "breaking more serious laws" before mass-murdering (in that they commit the murder of one person before they can kill masses of people), there is no way to actually catch or stop somebody until they actually begin their mass-murder spree. Thus, khallow's point about the "anyone could be a mass murderer" argument failing is not true, because there's no way to catch a potential mass murderer before they start murdering. Nobody is a mass-murderer until they become a mass-murderer, but everyone could potentially be one.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:38AM
In theory you are correct, however real life doesn't work that way. You can be convicted of "intent" to commit any number of crimes. Possession with intent to sell, for example, carries a significantly harsher penalty than just possession. They simply assume that if you have over a certain amount you must be intending to sell.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:42AM
"Possession with intent to sell" is just bullshit nonsense form the ridiculousness of prohibition. Do you have a non-prohibition example of somebody being convicted of intending to do something but not actually doing it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:44AM
I should include further proof for this. "Intent to sell" does not have anything to do with showing intent to sell, if you have over a certain amount, you're automatically guilty of "intent to sell". There is no intent ever proven, just that if you have over a certain amount, you obviously must be intending to sell it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:08AM
You do know that people from the US don't call it the "USA" and certainly don't chant it any more than every German is a Nazi or every person from the UK is a genocidal imperialist, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:47AM
You've obviously never been to the USA. They certainly do call it the "USA" and chant it like genocidal imperialists.
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Monday July 27 2015, @05:54AM
uhhh... "They", as in "Everyone"? I call "shenanigans".
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @06:08AM
Don't be obtuse.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @06:04AM
I call bullshit. The only place I've ever heard people chanting "USA USA" is on Youtube.
Of course, I've only been in the US for about 55 years or so. I spent the other 4 years overseas, so I can't really claim to know a whole lot about the USA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @06:33AM
> The only place I've ever heard people chanting "USA USA" is on Youtube.
It is everywhere. Sporting events, political rallies, political protests, when bin laden was killed, 4th of july, etc.
The fact that you see it on youtube is proof of that, not counter-proof.
When I do a search for "usa chant" on youtube, I get 149,000 hits. Even if half them are dupes or something else, that's still a fuckton of jingoism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:53AM
Search Germans are Nazis. You will get more hits.
Search English war crimes. Same result.
Search 911 was an inside job.
See the pattern?
Now please stop making a fool of yourself. Obviously you lack higher education and know nothing of Americans but choose to be bigoted about your views anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @03:38PM
> See the pattern?
The only pattern I see is that none of your examples are recordings of those actual things happening. Don't confuse people talking about something on camera with people actually doing it on camera.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:36PM
Yep. Repeatedly confirmed bigot. Don't even bother to listen to this idiot that can't even figure out markup language.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:55PM
Where did that happen? Is there a bunch of missing posts I can't see? Nice ad hominem btw, real classy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @09:47PM
A bigot is a person that refuses to change beliefs, prejudices, and hatred when evidence to the contrary is provided. Person A makes a claim. Person B refutes them. Person A ignores evidence and continues their claim. Person A is a bigot. No ad hominem, in fact the opposite. I am saying that he is so hatefully irrational, he does not even recognize (or worse, accept) when proven wrong.
This has happened several times in a row just on this thread. Note the lack of knowledge in markup language and "quoting" people with a ">". A clear signature as that is not a social norm on news sites. Using markup language is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:15AM
And where are these claims, contrary evidence, refutations, and ignorings of claims? This is not an example of Poe's Law, I assure you. All I see is you attacking the other person because they disagree with you, in which case the term you're looking for is "SJW" not "bigot".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:41AM
> Person B refutes them. Person A ignores evidence
You seem confused by the definitions of "refute" and "evidence." Random points that fail to address the issue aren't refutations or evidence, they are red herrings.
Show me one video on youtube of a 9/11 conspiracy. Not a discussion, not reporting, not a re-enactment, a video of actual people committing conspiracy.
Here's ten videos of crowds of people actually doing the USA chant, not re-enactments, the actual events. There are literally thousands more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7IoQ-qI81s#t=0m30s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrl7a6p7P5U#t=0m7s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpMxF20x5wk#t=0m8s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1YQDjpuY_U#t=4m50s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw-axGnkX1g#t=2m18s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw4Q96tCc5U [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35pfllMiLag [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0N58djs1HM#t=0m31s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8eUuBUOnjE#t=20s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_cu-Eyh-k0#t=40s [youtube.com]
So, who is the one refusing to change their beliefs in the face of actual evidence to the contrary here?
> Using markup language is.
Assburger FTL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @11:26PM
I saw it after gay marriage was legalized. I saw it when Bin Laden was killed. Etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:56AM
Again calling it the USA. It is the US. I live here. I was born here. Don't even pretend to understand our culture more than us. Clearly I hit a sore spot with the comment on the UK. It was your nation that started the slave trade. It was your nation that caused genocide. It is your nation that has been calling for the US to be more militarily active in the world for an entire century.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:59PM
Wow, me too! But unlike you, I'm smart enough to know that the USA is a big enough place that people have different dialects in different states and don't all act exactly the same everywhere; 319 million people is a lot of people, and 3.8 million mi² is a really big area. Maybe you're so isolated you've never seen the psychotic "USA, USA!" chants, but the USA is a big fucking place. Try going outside of your mom's basement every now and then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @09:52PM
Such anger. Much projection. All lies.
Again with quintessential non-american behavior, or should I say behaviour. Nobody that lives here needs to lookup wikipedia to know the population or size of the US. (hint, Americans don't use "million miles square" they use "across" as in 3000 miles across. and nobody here believes the official pop count. It was over 330 mil fifteen years ago.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:17AM
No real American would ever speak like that, right [yourlogicalfallacyis.com]?
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday July 28 2015, @11:17PM
So John Houser shouldn't have been denied weapons
Correct. The second amendment lists no exceptions, as far as I can tell.
That doesn't mean I think it's a good idea for everyone to own guns. I just think it should be allowed.