Kid Shot for Playing a Prank

There was an ugly incident recently in Kentucky. Apparently a group of kids were going around at night ringing doorbells and then running away, as a prank. But when they approached one man's house, he came out with a shotgun. Despite the fact that they ran away, he proceeded to fire, hitting a 12-year old in the back.

"From the base of skull and jaw beyond his lower back and into his right arm as well," ... "He has 50 pellet wounds. That is only one that was removed during surgery. He is going to be carrying around buckshot for the rest of his life."

Luckily, it looks like he's going to be okay. The reason I'm posting on this story is that it was also picked up by the Huffington Post. Check out the comments. There are a significant amount of people actually defending the shooter, or basically saying that even though he went too far, the kid had it coming.

I'm about as pro-gun and pro-self defense as you can get, but this guy gives gun owners a bad name. I've read multiple accounts of this story and find no information that these kids were doing anything other than ringing doorbells and running away. I don't care how annoying it is, you can't shoot them -- especially when they run from you. There's no defense for this idiot's actions, and it's a travesty that he was released on only 10,000 dollars bail. Someone that would do such a thing is a clear and obvious threat. He's apparently unable to distinguish the difference between an irritating but harmless situation, and one justifying lethal force. What's next, attempting to kill some kid who cuts across his lawn?

Rooster Strikes Back

It's usually the roosters who are injured and killed, but a fighting rooster in California killed a man who was part of an illegal cockfighting ring.

A 35-year-old Lamont man died Sunday after being stabbed in the leg by a sharp blade that was attached to a fighting bird, ... "I have never seen this type of incident," said Sgt. Martin King, a 24-year veteran who noted the major arteries that could have been severed. "People have been known to bleed out from those injuries if medical attention is not obtained immediately."

According to the article, another man was killed by a rooster last month in India.

Get Ready For A New Round of Smears

Construction equipment at the site of a planned mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee was set on fire last night in an apparent act of arson. A project sign was also vandalized.  The determination of arson was a preliminary ruling and an investigation is ongoing. Nothing is yet known about who might have set the fire. Will this stop left-wingers from smearing anyone opposed to the Ground Zero mosque as accessories to the crime? Of course not. 

The last smear campaign, launched immediately after the stabbing of a Muslim NYC cabbie, quickly fizzled when the perpetrator turned out to be a member of a liberal, pro-mosque organization. But that won't stop the usual suspects from doing the exact same thing. Check Memeorandum. They've already started. Smearing opponents is all they know. 

Defenders of the Ground Zero mosque are horrified at the notion that -- as they see it -- all Muslims are being lumped together with a small minority of extremists. But they are perfectly happy to smear all opponents, even those who offer the most mild objections to a mosque in one specific location, as promoting violence and bigotry against Muslims in general. Guilt by association, even of the most utterly illogical variety, is quite alright as long as they are the ones assigning the guilt. Let's pretend that the person responsible for this arson is exactly what they are hoping for, a rabid bigot who hates all Muslims, opposing all mosque-building anywhere, and is the ultimate caricature of a so-called "Islamophobe." Even if that were true, committing an act of arson would also make him a violent extremist -- by definition a member of a tiny minority. There is simply no connection between an arsonist in Tennessee and the majority who just think the Park51 project near Ground Zero is in poor taste and should be located elsewhere -- none whatsoever. 

It shouldn't even need to be pointed out, but there is also a huge difference between peaceful protest -- for whatever reason -- and violence. People peacefully protesting a mosque in Tennessee or anywhere else, even if their motives really are based on dislike of Muslims, are not in any way equivalent to arsonists or other perpetrators of violence. Those conducting the smear campaigns are not defending freedom, or standing up for the Constitution as they like to claim. They are in fact trying to suppress free expression and free speech that they disagree with, as is often the case with the left. Smears, name-calling and ridiculous attempts at guilt-by-association are not debate, they are a form of ad-hominem in an attempt to delegitimize and silence opponents. They can keep trying, but it's not going to work.  

Smearing People As Accessories to Murder

Some maniac attempted to kill a Muslim cab driver in New York City. His vicious attack appeared to be motivated by hatred of Muslims. As soon as I saw this story, I wondered how long it would take left-wingers to start smearing critics of the Ground Zero mosque project as accessories to the crime. Since smears are a standard leftist tactic, I figured it wouldn't take long, especially since it has happened pretty much any time some nutcase with arguably anti-government or right-wing views has committed a crime. The story has been up for only 20 minutes on Memeorandum, and already the leftists are swarming. Here's left-wing propagandist Juan Cole, a member of what Robert Gibbs called the "Professional Left."

The slasher was apparently “very drunk,” but what does being drunk do to a person? Makes them suggestible, lets primal emotions come to the fore. Newt Gingrich and Rick Lazio may as well have kept Enwright in their basements in chains and whipped him into a frenzy as to spew their hatred on the airwaves.

One guy in a city of millions attacks a Muslim, and suddenly we have "pogroms" according to Cole. Leftists love the "blood on your hands" smear, regardless of how utterly illogical it might be. Cole libels the entire Republican party for good measure.

A New York cabbie came close to dying for the sake of the G.O.P. Tuesday night. ... Shame on you, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Lazio, and Sarah Palin, and all the other hatemongers. You have blood on your hands,and will have more if you go on this way.

If you've ever read any of Juan Cole's garbage, you'd be aware that he's much more of a "hatemonger" than any of the people he's attacking. And it's pretty funny to write a post practically seething with hatred while calling others "hatemongers." But then again, people who want reasoned, logical analysis don't read blogs by people like Cole.

When you constantly demonize your opponents as racists & bigots over any political disagreement, it's not much of a leap to start pretending that they are somehow responsible for the crimes of random lunatics. After all, you've already built them up in your own mind as monsters.

It's About Time

Murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed last night by firing squad. The execution was punishment for crimes committed in 1985. That's right, it only took a mere 25 years to carry out his sentence. The execution attracted attention because it's the first time the firing squad method has been used in fourteen years.

The executioners were all police officers who volunteered for the task and remain anonymous. They stood about 25 feet from Gardner, behind a wall cut with a gunport, and were armed with a matching set of .30-caliber Winchester rifles. One was loaded with a blank so no one knows who fired the fatal shot. Sandbags stacked behind Gardner's chair kept the bullets from ricocheting around the cinderblock room.

That's one murderer who won't be able to kill anyone else. It took way too long to get him executed, but better late than never. On a side note, Gardner's last meal was "steak, lobster tail, apple pie, vanilla ice cream and 7UP."

Killer Gets Life. It Should Have Been Death.

Scott Roeder, who murdered late-term abortion specialist Dr. George Tiller was sentenced to life in prison. Here's a guy who deliberately stalks his victim and plans a killing, walks into a church full of people and shoots his target -- putting other lives at risk as well. He's not only completely unrepentant, he takes proud ownership of the murder. In my opinion there is no good reason to keep such a person alive and in prison. He should get a speedy execution instead -- and by speedy I don't mean ten years from now.

When Witches Go Bad

As religions go, Wicca is usually pretty inoffensive. Wiccans are a small minority of the population, don't proselytize, and generally don't bother others. But they just got some major bad publicity.

A woman who claims she was going to perform a Wiccan celebration of spring is accused of using a ritualistic dagger to kill a man she invited to the ceremony.

She's claiming self-defense, but police don't believe her story of attempted rape. And apparently her account was inconsistent. 

What are the odds that some Christians will use this incident to reinforce and promote superstition about witches, Satan worship, and human sacrifices? This woman didn't just kill someone, she may have done considerable damage to Wiccans all over, who already have to fight against the superstitious view of witches popular with many Christians.

Good Riddance

Murderer and rapist Paul Warner Powell was executed today in Virginia, in a well-deserved use of the electric chair. He was convicted way back in 2000 for murdering a sixteen year old girl, and for raping and attempting to murder her fourteen year old sister. There was no question of his guilt. After his first conviction was overturned,

Powell wrote a taunting letter to prosecutors detailing the crime. He was convicted again in 2003.

He should have been executed years ago, but bettter late than never. 

Child-abusing Irish Nuns

It appears that Catholic priests and male members of religious orders weren't the only elements of the church involved in massive, systemic child abuse in Ireland. An order of Catholic nuns, the apparently misnamed Sisters of Mercy, agreed to pay 128 million euros to "compensate child abuse survivors."

The Congregation, exposed along with 17 other orders for imposing physically and psychologically abusive regimes in state-run institutions, said the offer was an attempt to be faithful to values of reparation, reconciliation, healing and responsibility.

Well, better late than never I guess. But with the extent of the abuse uncovered in Ireland, you have to wonder if the abusive treatment of children wasn't somehow the result of church policy. After all, it wasn't just one group or one school, but eighteen separate orders including nuns. It's pretty hard to believe that all those different organizations were running abusive schools without the knowledge and at least tacit approval of the Catholic church in Ireland.

Catholic Priests and the Rwandan Genocide

There is an article up at CNN about the arrest of a Rwandan Catholic priest, wanted in connection with the 1994 genocide.

The Rwandan government alleges that Uwayezu sowed the seeds for ethnic hatred at the school by blaming the nation's troubles on the "inyenzi," a term meaning cockroach, used by Hutu extremists to describe Tutsis. The government says the priest then alerted security forces, trapped the students and organized their killing at the nearby College of Arts on May 7, 1994.

Four other priests have been indicted by the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. But human rights groups say the " the small number of indictments do not accurately represent the church's role in the genocide." They argue that the church not only failed to condemn the massacres, but refused to try to save lives. And if the allegations about these priests are correct, some apparently took an active role in the genocide. I know the Catholic Church is a huge organization, but even so, the amount and variety of misconduct by its priests is still disturbing.

Why Hate Crimes Laws are Dangerous

One of the main problems with hate crimes laws is that they allow prosecutors to charge someone as if  he or she committed a far more serious crime than what the person actually did. The argument against creating thought crimes is often downplayed by supporters of hate crimes legislation, but a recent incident in Illinois illustrates the problem.

Two days after the rampage by an alleged lone wolf jihadist killed 13 in Texas, a Tinley Park, Ill., woman grumbled about the massacre and tugged the headscarf of a US-born Muslim woman, Amal Abusumayah, standing in line at a local grocery store.

So here we have a situation where some moron apparently blames all Muslims for the shooting, spouts off in public, and pulls on a Muslim woman's scarf.  Stupid and obnoxious, but no actual harm done. This is disorderly conduct or misdemeanor assault, right? Wrong.

The alleged scarf-puller, Valerie Kenney, is charged with a hate crime, and she could face three years in prison and a $25,000 fine if convicted.

Three years in prison for pulling someone's scarf and making nasty comments. Sure, that sounds reasonable, doesn't it? By creating hate crimes laws we empower prosecutors to categorize the thoughts behind people's actions, and impose greater penalties based solely on those thoughts, not on the action. Can we rely on the common sense and judgment of prosecutors? No, unfortunately we can't. Their job is to prosecute, and the more serious the charge, the more important the case. There's no glamour or advancement in prosecuting disorderly conduct. But hate crimes, well, that's a different matter.