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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: 3, Informative) by gnuman on Monday July 27 2015, @04:40AM
This is why diminutive people need firearms.
I think the circumstances here prove the opposite. It wasn't her gun. It was his gun that was used to kill him. If she had a gun, maybe he would not not allow her a chance to grab his gun?
There is an old saying - if you live by the gun, you die by the gun. There are statistics that show up over and over again that you are much more likely to get shot if you own a gun, than if you don't. Yes, even if you ignore suicides.
In our screwed up society, a "sex worker" probably has an arrest record. No guns for her, right? Her life isn't valuable enough to defend.
Well, in US you can't even vote in many places if you are a felon, never mind own guns. And if you can't vote, then you can't affect public policy, so well, you get shafted and marginalized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#United_States [wikipedia.org]
In the national elections 2012, all the various state felony disenfranchisement laws added together blocked an estimated 5.85 million felons from voting, up from 1.2 million in 1976. This comprised 2.5% of the potential voters in general; and included 8% of the potential African American voters. The state with the highest amount of disenfranchised people was Florida, with 1.5 million disenfranchised, including more than a fifth of potential African American voters
So in Florida, you have 20% of black community that cannot vote. Talk about skewed elections!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @04:56AM
Interesting statistics. I hope you don't believe that those statistics "just happened". The whole "war on drugs", and the tactic of targeting the drugs favored by black people were designed with that specific goal in mind.
And, I'll note that gun laws are designed to achieve the same kind of goal. Criminalize ownership and common practices and activities that gunowners enjoy. Get them on a trumped up gun charge, so as to deprive them of the vote. It has worked so well with blacks, that it has been turned around against gunowmers - mostly "redneck" gunowners. I'm certain that most people have noticed that the well-to-do still have guns, even in the most draconian jurisdictions. The mayor of New York has a battallion of armed officers ready to defend his life - but he won't permit the man in the street to have a weapon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:25AM
Do you have any proof of that? There's multiple sources of drug laws being intentionally designed to be racist, from Nixon's mouth [suburra.com] and DEA agents told not to enforce drug laws [thefreethoughtproject.com] in white neighborhoods. Where is similar evidence that gun laws are intended to be solely as a method to destroy exclusively black lives?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @05:37AM
I invite you to do a search - gun laws are indeed racist, and the earliest gun laws in what would become the United States targeted black people specifically. http://www.georgiacarry.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/racist-roots-of-ga-gun-laws.pdf [georgiacarry.org] Just enter the search term into your favorite search engine: "gun laws are racist" then browse the results.
However, I did not mean to imply that current gun laws are racist, rather I meant that GUN OWNERS are being targeted. Mass brain-washing propaganda from the liberal media, coupled with draconian laws, and draconian sentences for minor "offenses" are intended to disenfranchise gun owners. That goal is only racist insofar as some gun owners are black.
These "concealed weapon" laws, for instance. It is generally foolish to carry your valuables in plain sight, and that applies to weapons as well as jewelry and money. Can you imagine a law that makes you a criminal for concealing your other valuables? Tucking ten $100 bills into your wallet where a pickpocket can't readily see them would be against the law. Instead, you would have to carry those hundred dollar bills taped to your shirt front.
It is just as insane to prosecute a person for carrying a concealed weapon. Likewise, it is equally insane to prosecute another person for OPENLY carrying a weapon.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:52AM
You're right, I absolutely should search for all the evidence that proves your position right [yourlogicalfallacyis.com]! What kind of crazy got into my head, thinking that you should be the one supporting your own position? Silly me.
So when you said that they were designed with the same goal in mind - to disenfranchise minorities, specifically blacks - you meant something totally different? Oh, ok. Sorry, I got confused there, I thought you meant what you said instead of something totally different. It was so obvious that you meant something other than what you said, I don't know how I missed it. My bad.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Monday July 27 2015, @04:43PM
Interesting statistics. I hope you don't believe that those statistics "just happened". The whole "war on drugs", and the tactic of targeting the drugs favored by black people
Well, I would not say that. I would say that "war on drugs" targets *poor* people. Poor people are the street-dealers - they are the ones that are most likely to get caught and prosecuted over drugs. Blacks are just more likely to be poor for various reasons.
turned around against gunowmers - mostly "redneck" gunowners. I'm certain that most people have noticed that the well-to-do still have guns ...
Ideally, no one should own guns. Not the people. Not the police. Guns cause more problems than they solve. Guns are tools people use to escalate confrontations that otherwise would not have escalated. They provide false sense of security. False sense of empowerment. Look at the UK, where police did not have guns. Now, they had reported 1 death over 2 year period from gun shot wound. Something like 50 people were killed by police (guns, beatings, etc.) since 1900.
http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documents/research_stats/Deaths_Report2012-13.pdf [ipcc.gov.uk]
Meanwhile, in the US, it's close to 700 police shooting deaths this year and we are not even half-way through,
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database# [theguardian.com]
So what is going on here? Why is nation of guns so unsafe? Is there no drug dealers in UK? No hooligans?
Seriously, gun death rates are higher in some US neighborhoods than in insurgency Baghdad with car bombs and everything. "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" - the same applies to guns.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @09:16PM
You and I are going to have to disagree on that. I think that every responsible adult should own a weapon or two. Further, every responsible adult should carry his weapon with him when he goes to court - it helps to keep the cops and the judge honest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:05AM
> There are statistics that show up over and over again that you are much more likely to get shot if you own a gun, than if you don't.
Beware the bias of self-selection. Without an actual citation to evaluate my expectation is that the reason they bought the gun in the first place is because they had reason to fear getting shot. A study that controlled for neighborhood and occupational safety (i.e. not drug dealers or gang members and not living in high crime neighborhoods) would be persuasive.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Monday July 27 2015, @07:39AM
Uhhh you DO know those gun laws was SPECIFICALLY written to keep blacks down, yes? That making felons unable to vote or own weapons helped in this goal, yes? Might want to look up the documentary "fear of an armed negro" and see for yourself, in fact this is why gun laws exploded right after the civil rights movement as you couldn't use Jim Crow to "keep them in their place". For just one example why do you think they made such a big deal over "Saturday Night Specials" by giving them such a name and rep? Because they were favored by poor blacks for home defense because they were both cheap and reliable.
But please don't take my word for it, watch "fear of an armed negro" where they have the words and in some cases even interviews with the ones who pushed those laws and they were quite brazen and made no bones about it, they wanted to make sure negros couldn't defend themselves from state brutality.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:37PM
Once again, lets see some proof. This is literally a repeat of a few posts above [soylentnews.org], even with you saying "look it up yourself"!
(Score: 2) by twistedcubic on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:15AM
Why don't you just look them up? Racism against black people was very overt and unabashed up until recently in this country. Apparently younger people have a really difficult time believing this. I'll make it even worse from you by giving you an anecdote: I'm black and from Alabama. My mother once told me about her father refusing to turn in his guns voluntarily when the government (local, I think) required all black people to give them up. I can't prove this to you, but doesn't it sound believable? Why in the world would anyone make this up, when racism was so prevalent? Please go to a library, sit down and read some primary sources. It will blow your mind, though it shouldn't, because you should know better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:51AM
Because I'm not the one making the extraordinary claim. The burden of proof lies with someone who is making a claim, and is not upon anyone else to disprove. This is the basics of the basics.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday July 28 2015, @06:48AM
Because ACs are apparently too dense to use teh Google? Since I don't want to be seen picking on dumbasses too ignorant to Google enjoy No Guns For Negroes [liveleak.com], which was called "fear of an armed negro" when it was on YouTube, who took it down, shock shock.
Sorry I can't find the complete documentary ATM, have a skull splitter. Perhaps you could find a link to elucidate the uninformed?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Monday July 27 2015, @10:24AM
>There are statistics that show up over and over again that you are much more likely to get shot if you own a gun, than if you don't.
That's an utterly pointless statistic. People who own cars are more likely to die in a car accident than people who don't. People who live in areas with more cars are more likely to die in a car accident than people who don't. People who own houses with stairs are more likely to die from falling down the stairs than people who don't. People who live in an area with a lot of stairs are more likely to die from falling down the stairs than people who don't.
No shit, Sherlock.
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