Ohio Authorities: (10) Shootings May Be Linked (I-270)

[DUreader]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3440629,00.html



COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The fatal shooting of a
woman through a car door was not an accident
and may be linked to at least one other shooting
along the same road, authorities said Friday.

Authorities have been investigating 10 shootings
since May on or near the stretch of Interstate
270, the highway that circles Columbus.

On Tuesday, Gail Knisley, 62, was killed after a
bullet ripped through the driver's door of her best
friend's car, narrowly missing the driver.

[Maeve]

1. This is on my stretch of road

And it took a fatality to make random shootings of cars and truck a "story". General opinion is that someone is getting his kicks hunting out of season (and the wrong species).

[Papa]

5. I live in Columbus

and I'm I shocked that the first 9 shootings didn't make the news, or if it did it was a blip and I missed it. Missed all nine of the shootings. It really pisses me off that some ass is shooting at cars for months on end and it's not a story, the public is not infomrmed, the area was not being staked out, the public in that vicinity was not notified to be on the lookout for suspicious activities, anything. It makes my blood boil.

[0007]

2. Another sniper on the prowl?

:freak:

[Lady President]

8. Can't use "sniper"

The local news keeps stressing that we can't call this person a sniper because that indicates that the person has special training. :eyes: We are so afraid to say anything that might sound even a little bit anti-military that reporters can barely tell a story.

We have heard the 911 call a couple dozen times where the driver of the car blames herself because she took a wrong turn. The coverage of this story is horrific.

[area51]

17. sniper

armatt said:

"The local news keeps stressing that we can't call this person a sniper because that indicates that the person has special training. :eyes: We are so afraid to say anything that might sound even a little bit anti-military that reporters can barely tell a story."

Interesting. I think the people on the local news need to do a little more dictionary checking. According to def. 2 of The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, a sniper can be "One who shoots at other people from a concealed place."

[MrBenchley]

3. NRA-abetted terrorism

This sort of thing shows why gun control is desperately needed in this country...there's no reason gun owners shouldn't be licensed and guns registered and accounted for.

[Maeve]

4. They have a couple or three bullets

It would be nice if they could match them with a gun.

[MrBenchley]

6. It would at least give them

somewhere to start...

For that matter, a ballistic fingerprint database was proposed, and the NRA knocked that down...wouldn't want to give sane people a chance to catch this guy....

[NickB79]

7. 250 million guns in the US, with a million more sold every year

Each one brought in for registration and fingerprinting to the tune of billions of dollars a year. Guns would then have to be re-fingerprinted every few hundred rounds or so to compensate for the gradual wear of the barrel as it is used, costing billions more. It addresses nothing if the gun used is stolen, in which case they could only track it so far as its last legal owner; there the trail would go cold. It also fails to address how easy it is to change the rifling pattern by filing the barrel. It also fails to detail what would compel criminals to register and fingerprint their own guns, unless those are some really stupid criminals.

Canadian officials have taken major hits over the gun registration program this past summer, with over half the provinces threatening to no longer even participate or enforce any longer. The program had overrun from the original several million dollars/yr projected to over a billion, with no end is sight. This is to register 6 MILLION guns in Canada, whereas we have 250 million. Can anyone honestly expect the US government to do better?

http://canadaonline.about.com/library/issues/bligunreg.htm
http://www.cbc.ca/news/features/firearms_act.html

Furthermore, a 2001 state-funded report released by California state ballistics experts found that computer-matched ballistic fingerprints failed 38-62% of the time. The rate goes up when you use ammo from different manufacturers, so that if the gun is fingerprinted with Remington ammo, the fingerprints may not be caught if the criminal uses Winchester ammo, and so forth.

The money used on setting up and running a gun registration/fingerprinting system would be far, far better spent on improving our police forces, hiring more officers, and providing better training, IMO, as you would see much more return for your money in crimes solved and prevented. Ballistic fingerprinting has nothing to do with NRA-abetted terrorism, as you call it. It simply has too many variables to be successfully implemented. It is the Star Wars Program of gun control: it looks great on paper but falls apart in the real world.

[ConcernedCanuk]

9. Remember - MOST criminals wouldn't use a "registered" gun anyhoo!!

.

[MrBenchley]

12. So why not let the gun industry cash in, eh?

[MrBenchley]

11. Too frigging funny....

"Each one brought in for registration and fingerprinting to the tune of billions of dollars a year. "
So let's have "law abiding" gun owners pay for it....a small price for them to pay for their fetish.

"It addresses nothing if the gun used is stolen, in which case they could only track it so far as its last legal owner"
Which they are utterly unable to do now...so that if this gun has not been stolen, we're in the dark.

[NickB79]

13. Very funny indeed

"So let's have "law abiding" gun owners pay for it....a small price for them to pay for their fetish."

I love paying for using my Constitutional rights, don't you? Thanks for reminding me, I have to send out my free speech check tomorrow or the thought police will come arrest me. Oh, and I better pay so that the police don't unlawfully search and seize my possessions, or so that I can vote next year, etc.

So, if a gun owner is so law-abiding that he brings in his gun to have it fingerprinted and registered, how likely is he to commit a serious crime with that gun? Not very likely at all: most guns used in crimes are already possessed illegally. Most gun deaths caused by lawful owners are usually from accidents, which fingerprinting and registering doesnt effect one way or the other. But this lawful gun owner is supposed to pay for a system that is in effect despite him having broken no law or doing nothing wrong? Yeah, you'll attract a lot of supporters to the Dem. side with that argument.

"Which they are utterly unable to do now...so that if this gun has not been stolen, we're in the dark."

So, tracking the gun back to the last person who legally owned it helps them so much how? "Yes officer, I can't give you a description of the man who took my gun, but I'm sure just knowing its stolen will be a big help." Seeing as how rapidly a gun can change hands once in criminal use, what good is knowing the original legal owners to begin with when it could have cycled through a half dozen guys in the time it takes to trace it? Is it worth billions of dollars that could be used for better police training instead?

All this still assumes that they could even trace the gun, which is in serious doubt based on how easily it is to alter the gun's barrel profile and how poorly the current software can match up the gun to the bullet (the California study I mentioned).

Again, I repeat: ballistic fingerprinting is the Reagan Star Wars Program/Bush Missile Defense Shield of gun control.

[Old and In the Way]

15. You are right about this.

"most guns used in crimes are already possessed illegally"

I think we need to hit the gun manufacturing/distribution system heavy on this point.

Again, make them pay for the costs of law enforcement to monitor that guns don't fall in the wrong hands. True, they may pass the costs on to the consumer, but that seems a small price to pay for the privilage of owning guns.

[Old and In the Way]

14. Have the gun owners pay for it.

I say charge gun owners $1000.00/year per gun to maintain the privilige of owning guns. That should cover the costs of enforcement. And if it requires an annual testing to accommodate wear, that's OK too. And if you sell a gun and don't document the sale, that should be a huge fine and a criminal offense, too.

[54anickel]

16. Do it for cars, don't we?

[Maeve]

10. Update--Link shown between two of the shootings

Ohio Police Link Two Highway Shootings
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The fatal shooting of a woman through a car door has been linked to at least one other shooting along the same road, and the incident was not an accident, authorities said Friday.
Police won't use the term "sniper," but they say more of the nine other reports of shots fired at vehicles along about a five-mile stretch of a freeway ringing Columbus could be connected.