Two dead in shooting near the Empire State Building

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... 82626.html

NEW YORK — A disgruntled worker who had just gunned down a former colleague was fatally shot by police officers in rush hour gunfire that injured nine bystanders outside of the Empire State Building, authorities said.

Jeffrey Johnson, 58, who had been laid off by apparel company Hazan Import Corp. a year ago, shot a 41-year-old former co-worker three times with a semiautomatic handgun at 10 West 33rd St. around 9 a.m., killing him, said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

As Mr. Johnson fled east on West 33rd Street, dressed in a suit and tie with his gun inside a black bag under his arm, a construction worker followed him and alerted nearby police, Mr. Kelly said. He was shot dead just north of the Empire State Building entrance, according to Mr. Kelly.


Even though it seems more like personal score settlement than someone wanting to be a mass shooter, that kind of stuff might be happening a bit too often.

When any of this stuff happens once, it's happening a bit too often

I'm a fan of the understatement

Joy more anti gun fuel.
If he didn't have a gun he would have used a knife or a bat or something else.

I love how the cops shot more people then the guy did.
Bad Guy - shoots 1 dead
Good Guys - Shoots 1 dead 9 wounded.

I'm supposed to trust my life to these guy's?

Seems that most of the victims were shot by the police...

If the police injuried this many bystanders in a shoot out, that would be something I wouldn't understand and something that would be bother.

I would want to see other news items.

This one is vague, doesn't say who did most of the shooting. And for better or worse, seems like there would be plenty of eye witnesses.

Last edited by AardvarkGoodSwimmer on 24 Aug 2012, 5:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It's called 'spray and pray'. It will be interesting to learn how many shots were fired and by how many cops...and how many fewer gunshot wounds (in both the suspect and bystanders) there are than total shots fired.

That's the thing, it wasn't a shootout, they aren't even sure if the guy even shot once.

"We have on tape the perpetrator pulled his gun out, tried to shoot at the cops.
Whether he got off any shots or not is to be determined," Mayor Bloomberg said.



A cop should NEVER "spray and prey" let alone in a busy populated street.

Just to get some of my cards on the table (even though I might be a minority here!), I do support what I view as sensible gun laws such as:

1) closing gun show loophole,

2) instaneous background check for such things as criminal background or domestic violence. Pinging a system but not keeping a record.

3) taking a good hard look at assault weapons and large ammo clips. It's not for hunting. It's not really for self-defense. Seems like it's main purpose is mowing down human beings.

I've been looking into gun laws more in depth lately and I have seen some discussion on these topics and will pass along some of the information to you.

The "gun show loophole" doesn't exist.
To buy a gun at a gun show from a distributor you still need to fill out the forum and get a background check.
The "loophole" anti gun people are making a big deal over is private transactions between people.
However, it is illegal to sell a gun privately to someone in another state.
So the only private transactions "legally" going on are in the same state.

I can't say I know how deep the background checks go, but I do know that for a store to legally sell you a gun you have to fill out a forum and they have to make a background check.
I also know that if you have a criminal record you can not get a gun, unless you work with your local police department to regain the right.
I don't know the specifics of that however.

On the matter of assault weapons, I was against them as well until I found out that civilian assault rifles are only semi-auto, and are not capable of full auto fire, or conversion into full-auto.
I still have mixed feelings on larger magazines, but I do know that having to switch a clip a few shots earlier doesn't make a large difference as it only takes the time of 1 or 2 shots with practice to reload.

AardvarkGoodSwimmer wrote:

Ah yes! The old "sensible gun laws" mantra as if there are no gun laws already.


The what? I've been to lots and lots of gun shows and I don't know about any "loopholes".


We've had that since the mid 90's. It's called NICS.


And what would an "assault weapon" be and how would you legally define it. If someone stoved your head in with a claw hammer wouldn't said claw hammer become an assault weapon? Do we ban claw hammers now? How about tire irons?
And those things you call "clips" are correctly called magazines (mag for short).

It would certainly be sad that the police had ended up injuring more people than the shooter. Let's see the conclusions from the investigation.

And by "assault weapons", he probably meant "assault rifles". Those things are very powerful, from the little I know about guns, and I don't really see why would someone want to own one.

And I'm sure someone has come up with this already, but now it's my turn. Would there be something wrong with doing a mental balance test on someone before he's first allowed to buy a gun? In theory all the stable minded people who use them for hunting, target practice or self-defense would be ok, while potential killers would be left out. There is the issue of false positives and false negatives, but the power to kill several people in minutes should not be bestowed lightly.

Actually, an AR-15 round breaks up very easily in normal house walls from what little I know.
So a shotgun is actually more destructive, but I can just pick that up at walmart.



That's such a slippery slope though.
What stops people from lying?
Who decides who is and isn't an "acceptable" gun owner?
Is the man in that news story an acceptable gun owner?
Sure you say no now, but he had that gun for 21 years before he shot anyone with it.
So do you then make people take the test every year?
What about those cops who somehow managed to shoot 9 people and through sheer luck didn't kill any of them?
Are they acceptable gun owners?

If you pass it with guns then what?
Do I need to take a test to buy a bow? You can kill plenty of people in minutes with a little practice.
Or how about cars? Do we start testing a persons "mental balance" when they buy a car?

Say you do limit the gun sales to people who pass a test.
They put restrictions on buying cough syrup to stop people from making meth, has that stopped criminals from making meth?
They made laws that say you can't rob people, has that stopped criminals from doing that?
They put "no gun" signs up to stop people from bringing guns into a building and shooting everyone in it, has that stopped criminals from doing just that?
Yah, it gets ridiculous.

For the record, I personally have no problem with requiring people to register and get a license for guns just like with a car.
Take a class, take a test, get a license.
The problem is that history shows every time a government requires registration, confiscation follows.
Even this country has done that in a few states.
So you wont find a lot of gun owners cooperating with that plan anymore.


There really is no "right" solution to the problem because of the ability for all sides to abuse their given solution.

Well, my father had to attend victims of the internal conflict during his residency, and he has talked me about how nasty assault rifle bullet wounds are, compared to regular ones. They go into the body spinning and liquefying everything, then creating a vacuum that makes things collapse. Death and grievous woulds are much more likely to come from an assault riffle, those things are made to kill even more so than regular guns. They have a longer effective range than shotguns too.

I do wonder, is it easier to get a car or to get a gun over there? The slippery slope argument is strong, but there must be something that can be done to make it harder for unbalanced individuals to get a gun. Yeah, it won't be impossible, but if it's harder that would be something.

I honestly don't know enough about the bullet to construct an argument 1 way or the other but I do know a bullet from a hunting rifle will kill you just as dead as a bullet from an AR.

As for getting a car, you can buy one on the side of the road. I don't believe you need a license to buy one at a dealership either.
Driving the car legally on the other hand.
So its much harder to get a gun, let alone a license to holster that gun in public.
In fact with my diagnosis of depression I may never be able to get a gun, even though I have never raised a weapon against another person or animal nor harmed myself.
I have a car though.
There's a thread I read on here about people diagnosed with aspergers finding it fairly difficult to get a gun as well.