Deadly Shooting At Central Mall In Fort Smith

[sarisataka]

A man is killed after he confronts his estranged wife and two other men at Central Mall, according to Fort Smith Police.

Fadi “Frankie” Qandil, 34, died of injuries sustained from multiple gunshot wounds to the upper torso in a parking lot between the Malco Theaters and JCPenny Saturday night (May 10), according to Sgt. Daniel Grubbs.

Bethany Nelson was working the night of the shooting.

“A few minutes later we saw the fire trucks and all the cops and then people started standing on top of vehicles in a circle,” Nelson said.

http://5newsonline.com/2014/05/10/police-shooting-at-central-mall-in-fort-smith/

First-Do reporters take writing classes anymore? My 10 yr. old could have written this story better.

Second-Funny, despite all of the claims we have heard, the two carriers did not shoot each other and everyone in a mile radius. The police were able to identify the good guys and not shoot them upon arriving at the scene.

Third-how did a mall shooting avoid being breaking news on every network?

[SheilaT]

1. Oh, yes. The rights of gun owners everywhere.

It's so bizarre when it ends in a shooting death, isn't it.

There is not a sufficiently massive irony glyph to express how I feel here.

Take the guns away. It's that simple. They did it in Australia. We could do it here, if we actually believed that guns are evil and do not belong in the hands of everyone. Instead, we worship to the Death by Guns God. We offer up about 30,000 human sacrifices every year. Apparently it's not enough.

[sarisataka]

3. Just to be sure I understand

you think it would have been better that the estranged husband killed his wife rather than the outcome that did occur?

[friendly_iconoclast]

5. Apparently, without guns this would have ended peacefully

The G-rays emitted by firearms cause people to be violent. Without them,
the parties involved could have settled their differences over
a nice cup of tea.

(That's my interpretation of that post- it wasn't exactly clear about the mechanisms
supposedly involved beyond "the guns caused it"...)

[SheilaT]

7. Maybe, just maybe, had he not had such easy access to a gun

none of this would have occurred.

But that's apparently not something the gun apologists can wrap their minds around.

Most other countries just don't have bullshit like this happening. Or when they do, it's a huge big deal because it happens so rarely. We live in a country where nearly a hundred people die from guns every single freaking day. And it's presented as normal, as just a trivial sort of thing.

Well, in my mind this shouldn't be normal, and it certainly isn't trivial.

[gejohnston]

8. or he would have used a knife

Mexico has a higher murder rate than we do, guns are used in 15 percent of our murders. She may not have been shot, but she would have been stabbed or beaten to death. Maybe not there, but someplace else.
Strict licensing and bans keep the streets of Chicago, DC, USVI, Mexico, Oakland, and Jamaica safe; oh wait.
The FBI and CDC agree that 800K people deter criminal attacks each year with a gun. All of the maybes don't change that.

[sarisataka]

10. Without access to a gun none of this would have occurred

that is obvious.

But maybe a man who is willing to confront his wife in a public parking lot over a custody issue might also have confronted her there with a knife. Or at her home with a baseball bat or possibly just greater mass and strength. This country and others face that bullshit each and every day.

What I cannot wrap my mind around is the faith that if guns somehow magically disappeared all violence involving guns would also vanish.

I never consider the end of a life to be trivial, however if a life must end I would much rather it be the aggressor than the victim.

[SheilaT]

14. But isn't it just strange that in countries where

guns are not readily available, people don't die from guns? And that in most such countries, real first world countries, their overall murder rate is a whole lot less than ours?

[gejohnston]

15. During the so called "research ban"

"From available statistics, among the countries surveyed, it is difficult to find a correlation between the existence of strict firearms regulations and a lower incidence of gun-related crimes. In Canada a dramatic increase in the percentage of handguns used in all homicides was reported during a period in which handguns were most strictly regulated. And in strictly regulated Germany, gun-related crime is much higher than in countries such as Switzerland and Israel, that have simpler and/or less restrictive legislation."

(Library of Congress, "Firearms Regulations in Various Foreign Countries, May 1998&quot

[sarisataka]

16. No more strange than saying

the US has few deaths from machetes. In many African and Asian countries that and axes are common murder weapons. A person set on a path to commit murder will usually choose the most effective weapon available.

When you compare the US to any other country it is never a straight comparison. The US is a unique mix that is different from every other. Also unfortunately our violence is higher than most, even when guns are removed from the equation.

While on paper if we erased all gun deaths we would join many European countries murder rates, we would be on the high end. It is extremely naive to believe none of our murderers involving guns would not still happen by other means, so we would still take our top position.

Guns, like any dangerous item, should have regulations as to proper sale, use and storage. One thing guns are not is the cause of violence in our society. Gun control is focused on the symptom not the disease.

[Jenoch]

17. What is your plan to remove all guns from the U.S.?

What have you done to reach this lofty goal?

[SheilaT]

18. Personally, if I were in charge I'd go door to door and just take them.

Clearly that's not going to happen. And so long as so many buy into the myth that more guns make us more safe, there will continue to be too many guns.

I'm just never particularly surprised every time I hear of another shooting. Apparently, for too many people, there is simply no threshold of gun deaths that will make them say, Enough! No more guns!

I just sincerely wish that the only ones who were ever affected by the gun violence would be the gun supporters. Of course, that does happen every time a toddler gets an unsecured gun and shoots someone.

[blueridge3210]

19. Given that crime in general is decreasing

as well as accidental firearm deaths it would seem that the problem is not the number of firearms but who has them. I don't buy into any allegation that "more guns make us more safe"; for me it is enough that an increased number of firearms in private hands has not resulted in "blood in the streets". If the government cannot show that a particular behavior is causing increased risk to public safety I feel it has little business regulating it in general. I do not consider any threshold of gun deaths as "acceptable"; but I will not let my legal ownership of firearms be used to hold me responsible for the criminal misuse of a firearm by another.

[friendly_iconoclast]

20. Would you have the people that did that be armed while they did so?

I don't doubt your sincerity, but your vision is somewhat lacking in practicality...

[Jenoch]

21. So if you 'were in charge' you would go door to door

and confiscate guns and start a revolution?

[spin]

22. Would you personally go door to door to confiscate guns? ...

I know a number of street cops who would be unwilling to participate in such raids. First they say that they see no reason to take firearms away from honest and responsible people and then they mention that such efforts would be extremely dangerous and they see little reason to risk their lives for such a foolish idea.

If the skyrocketing sale of firearms is indeed a problem than why has the crime rate dropped to levels last seen in the late 1960s. It seems logical to me that our violent crime rate would be at an all time high if more guns = more crime.

We do agree that gun confiscation is unlikely to ever occur in the United States. That does't mean that we can't improve our current gun laws to help insure that only responsible, sane and honest people can buy firearms.

[Jenoch]

23. I am quite sure that many of the guns used in crimes

are straw purchases made by the women in the life of criminals.

If gun retailers asked the hard questions about why a woman is in a gun shop buying a handgun, or multiple handguns, I can foresee that some people may accuse the gun seller of profiling their customers.

Frankly, I believe there are gun sellers who recognize a straw purchase in action, but if the NICS check comes back clean, they sell the weapons.

[spin]

24. You bring a valid point. ...

Still more women are buying firearms today than was true in the past.

It would be hard for a gun store to tell the difference between a woman straw purchasing a firearm for her criminal other or a woman purchasing one for her own use.

I do feel we should increase the penalties for the straw purchase of a firearm significantly as well as put more effort into enforcing such laws. Public service announcements dealing with the punishment for straw purchasing a firearm might also be a good idea.

[Jenoch]

25. I agree with you 100%.

I don't think most straw purchasers for criminals realize they are breaking the law.

I read somewhere that stolen guns, as in burglaries, are only 10% to 15% of the guns used in crime.

Personally, I think many of the guns used in crime are used in other crimes. I mean that a first time criminal action is used with a gun used in many past crimes. The only point I am attempting to make is that it is not always guns bought at gunshows, or the 'gun show loophole' that are used in crimes.

[gejohnston]

26. question I have is

is it only 10-15 percent stolen, or just the number that comes up in NCIC as reported stolen? Given the number of guns stolen each ear, something like 500K, and the time to crime is an average of about 12 years, I have to wonder if the number isn't really more.

[Jenoch]

27. You might be on to something.

I remember reading a report about the 10% to 15% stolen guns that are used in crime as opposed to straw purchases and other ways criminals acquire guns.

[Straw Man]

28. Interesting.

I'm just never particularly surprised every time I hear of another shooting. Apparently, for too many people, there is simply no threshold of gun deaths that will make them say, Enough! No more guns!

Is there a threshold of drunken-driver deaths that would make you say "Enough! No more alcohol!"?

I just sincerely wish that the only ones who were ever affected by the gun violence would be the gun supporters. Of course, that does happen every time a toddler gets an unsecured gun and shoots someone.

So some deaths are OK with you? Some people deserve killing, in your estimation? Very interesting. I've heard the same sentiments voiced when a perpetrator is killed in the commission of a crime. How do you feel about that?

[friendly_iconoclast]

4. Why is it that gun control attracts animists?

I'll point out that if the Second Amendment and every gun in the
US were to disappear (along with any killings comitted with them) , we'd still have a higher murder rate than most other economically adavced nations.

America has a violence problem, and always has. It's not due to inanimate objects.

[gejohnston]

6. Actually, they didn't take all guns away in Australia

only licensed and registered Semi automatic and pump long guns. Those guns have been replaced and the number of gun owners and privately owned guns are not only back to pre NFA levels, there are more of them. Crime was falling before NFA, and continued to fall at the same rate. Granted, there has not been another mass shooting on the level of Port Author before or since. However, since NFA, there have been a few mass murder by arson that has come close. Since Port Author was one of a kind, there is no evidence to suggest one would have happened without NFA.
BTW, criminals still get their guns, be they pistols smuggled in or machine guns made in basements. The Hell's Angels and Mongols have been using the later in their recent war.

[ileus]

11. EEEEvil mean guns...

[SQUEE]

12. So, Women only deserve martyr status?

This would have made you happy had he just beat the ever loving shit out of her? i am sure she would feel much better laying in a hospital, the victim of violence, assuming he stopped at just beating...
the cognitive dissonance that guns bring about in some people... and just keep dreaming, guns are going nowhere, this is not Australia, or Japan not even Norway or any other gun control wet dream people want to dream up. This is a country where an abuser takes a bullet and a woman goes home to her children.

I am A-OK with that.

[sarisataka]

13. Cognitive dissonance

that is what allows statements like this

The victim raised his shirt and showed a weapon within his waistband, began to pull the weapon.

The man brings a gun to the parking lot to confront his wife, draws the weapon, but HE is the victim?

Why are people so able to twist their minds into pretzels to say that if guns vanished he would have sat at home watching TV or if rude, bigoted toters were not there the couple would have had an epiphany and reconciled, are completely unable to admit that in this case, a victim was saved by civilians carrying guns... If the two men were not armed, the off duty police would have ran to the gunshots to see a dead woman, maybe other civilians dead and possibly get in a shoot out themselves.

[shenmue]

2. ...

[Eleanors38]

9. How did this avoid being "breaking news?" One possibility...

is the shooting might be considered justifiable homicide, carried out by two citizens qualified to carry arms. In some circles, this would not fit

The Narrative™.