Warbird Information Exchange

Not airplane stuff, but the mall shooting in Omaha really bothers me with the amount of violence, the random and blameless victims and the despair the young man must have felt to do this. It must have been awful to have been 19 years old and not have anything good to hope for in your life. He's had a tough time as a kid, estranged from his family, in foster homes, dropped out of school his senior year, lost his girlfriend, had a minimum job at McDonalds and lost that. The he tried to enter the Army and was turned down again. I wish someone could have been able to reach out enough to help him. I don't understand why these types of people seem to take their frustration out on strangers,either. Each person killed probably has a number of family members, friends. etc. so that the sorrow spreads wide. Same with the football player shot in Florida; one young man dead and 4 more who have thrown their futures away; and brought sorrow to a lot of parents and friends I am not trying to make a pro gun or anti gun point, just sorry it happened.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Uh, I may be way off base here, but I feel a whole lot worse for the families of the 8 innocent people that he murdered.

-Pat Brown

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Trust me, I know what I'm doing.

I hope the kid has a fire under his butt about now.

Interesting that his suicide note said he wanted to be famous. So what does the media do? Why make him famous of course. They should have reported the incident, but left out his name and his picture. If anyone else thinking of this sees that they won't get the recognition, maybe they'll think twice.

BDK, your wording is a little different than the version I read in the paper. It said he would be famous,("wanted" was not written) and was that he felt he would be
thought of some kind of "monster". In summary, the reason he gave was that he did not want to be a burden on anyone, but he did not say why he attacked that particular store. In any case I don't think leaving out someone's name in the media, even if possible, is going to affect a person who is desperate enough to take such an act.
As for the 4 in Florida, I haven't seen any background description of them, except they are all Black, all under 21, one is 17. In both cases a lot of sorrow brought to dozens or hundreds of families and friends for senseless acts.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

I don't remember ever shooting anyone in the service of my country, and having his family write me a ltter telling it was the bestthing anyone ever did for them

Every senseless act of violence disturbs the people intimately connected with both victim and perp. It's never a two body tango. It leaves ripples of destruction through the ives of everyone who loved them, to say nothing of the two originators. I do not believe the death penalty can do anything but cause more damge in the long run to murderers, but I also don't see any other way in the world we live in. I don't bnlame the victims. But I can sure as hell see how a young kid could be driven to this.

That others cannot saddens me. It feels sort of like duriung the Vietnam era when people would say "You shouldn't run to canada, it
's more wrong than going to Vietnam and killing innocent chidren and women and watching your friends die, and maybe dyiig yourself," when they had no idea what it was really all about. It feels like a willful ingorance of reality, in order to ensure a useless and empty revenge.

I'm all for revenge, mind. But we ought to be trying harder to make it a useful, sane revenge. What happened to that kid to make him act that way is a tragedy. What he did to his victims is a horror. thrre is a difference, you see.

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

Did you all know the mall was a gun-free zone like VirginiaTech?

and that has what to do with anything? Every bar in the country is a gun free zone. So are most campuses. So are all federal buildings. So are all gradeschools, airports and shopping malls.

You're making a false corralation between people being allowed to carry weapons in public places, and increased safety due to it. No valid scientific study has ever been made which supports this idea. Instead, we HAvE had valid studies which point oput that the more weapons you introduce into a society, the higher the rate of violence in that society, and the more likely that violence is to intrude into places where we want it to happen the least.
In other words, the more guns, the more crazies who will get access to them. The more crazies with guns, the more dead chilldren in high schools and colleges and McDonalds. And Luby's. Half the patrons in that restaraunt were armed. Not one pulled it out and used it.

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

All I said was "it was a gun free zone". The perp also carried the rifle concealed with out a license.

Please provide your source for that data. I have never heard such a thing.

Clay, I have no idea where you got your information, but I haver NEVER heard that half the patrons at Luby's were carrying concealed weapons. Please tell us where you got your information. Texas didn't even have a concealed weapons permit until 1995; the massacre happened in 1991. A woman who was having lunch with her parents that day, Suzanna Gratia Hupp, left her handgun in her car, because she was a law abiding citizen. Both of her parents were killed in the ensuing massacre. She went on to become a state representative (R), and was instrumental in getting the concealed handgun license bill passed.

-Pat Brown

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Trust me, I know what I'm doing.

Guys, the story about the mall killings is about a 19 year old kid who apparently felt there was no place in this world for him, and his response was to kill other people. I don't think the direct cause was guns, nor were guns the solution. Maybe he was not the all American kid in that he did not have his own assault rifle, but he was able to get one easily. This is a sad event, not some Rambo movie, or video game.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

My squad used to eat there every week (I think it was Friday fish day) when I was stuck "training" the 256th Inf Bgd from Louisiana. Believe me. Patrons of that restaraunt were armed. We certainly were, as were our friends who ate there. I doubt seriously that we were the only people there that one day that week, in an Army town, in TEXAS for god's sake, where men weren't carrying. It's like saying you walked out into a thuderstorm and only got hit by one raindrop
After the massacre we laughed about the new law. Everybody we knew carried anyway at the time. We were military of course, but you think our friends, families and neighbors were as well? Of course not. They carried. As I said, it's an Army town. Only place you didn't was in a bar, for obvious reasons. Sure that lady left her gun on her carseat. What a nice law abiding idiot. She was great propaganda though, I am sure the gun lobby loved her. And made sure she had plenty of cash to run for office later. But you can bet a number of customers were armed and hid, ran, or simply pissed in their pants that day. He got over 40 people, more than 20 dead, and the only guy who had any balls at all put himself through a plate glass window so other people could get out. Lot's of macho texans there THAT day, I tell you what. That lady['s daddy bull rushed the shooter and got put down. I always thought he was the only real man in the building that day.

As for the connection between higher violent crime rate and higher private gun ownership, I couldn't name one off hand, but there have been a number of studies comparing states with stricter gun control laws and lower violent crime raes (specifically gun deaths and shootings) as well as many international comparisons including countries where EVERYONE is trained such as Korea or Switzerland but civilians may not own, or guns are not allowed (Japan, UK, Aus, Etc.) and people are not trained (no conscription). And then there is us here in the US: high training rate, high gun ownership rate. And high gun casualty rate. Ye Haw.

Mind, I own a handgun, and am well trained in how to use it. I am also license to carry concealed in the Great State of California (and maybe still louisiana). I own a number of shotguns, and as you would expect, a good number or long rifles. I own an M16A2 and an AK47 (yes they are real). I own an SKS, several 9mm handguns an old Colt Navy revolver, and an M1 Garand which are at my fathers (outside Tyler, Tx),. I like guns, believe in every American's right to own them, and an obligation to be trained to use them. I probably will never hun t again, and most of them will stayed in my gun cabinet until I die. But there you are. I'm a shooter.

However, I think it is downright stupid, bordering on criminally insane, to claim that arming college students will do anything but increase the number of shootings you'll see on campus. Same reason for guns in bars. You don't hand a weapon to a drunk, cause he's more likely to shoot somebody when they sing a song he hates. 19 years old are not the smartest, nor the most stable of people. Why in the world would you wont to put firepower into the hands of one unless he was in a controlled, stable environment where he only got to play with it under safe conditions the army)?

What we need is proper protection provided to them, instead of fat out of shape part time security guards who don't want to get out of their cars. VT's problem was a crappy security force, not a need for guns in everybody's hands. To claim otherwise is just plain silly, when the school security force didn't even repsond to the shootings or close the campus, or even the area where the shootoings occered KNOWING THE SHOOTER WAS STILL OUT THERE!

The answer is real trained police. Not idiots with handguns under their coats who have no training and no experience in a classroom full of other armed isiots with no training or experience. The whole idea is ludicrus, when you think of it. First time we have some nubag fart worng, you'll end up with pimple faced geeks blowing the snot out of each other until the room is filled with smoke, everybody is dea, and the poor proffesor will still be standing at the chalkboard, which has been shot to hell, wondering if he should crap his pants or run lol!

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

I won't believe you because you are making an unfounded assertion and representing that as fact. I have read numerous reports of that incident and never once saw anything indicating that anyone besides the shooter was armed.

Muddy, It Looks like some fat out of shape part time security guard got out of his car and put a azz hole in a renegade shooter's HEAD today


COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A gunman killed one person and wounded four others before being shot dead by a security guard at a busy Colorado Springs megachurch on Sunday, authorities said.
The shooter, who was not identified, was shot dead in the parking lot by a church security guard Colorado Springs police chief Richard Myers said at a news conference.

The attack started when a gunman in a black trench coat and a high-powered rifle entered the church's main foyer about 1 p.m. and began shooting, according to a source who was locked down at the church Sunday afternoon, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the police department had asked that it release all information.