Sorry, I got busy again this week. Here’s your semi-weekly round-up of Tennessee GunFAIL.
I pulled this screenshot from Nashville’s Midtown Precinct Community Report. Note the gun idiot who left their handgun in an unlocked car. It takes a special kind of stupid to leave your gun in an unlocked car and yet, this happens all the dang time. I just have to wonder: if your neighborhood is so safe that you can leave your car unlocked overnight, what the hell do you need a gun for? This kind of negligence needs to be prosecuted.
This report has two accidental shootings, one a 3-year-old fatality, and one by a CCW holder.
• March 9, 2016:
In a rare moment of sanity, the Senate Judiciary Committee failed to advance a proposal that would eliminate gun permits in Tennessee.
• March 8, 2016:
1- Thefts from licensed gun dealers are on the rise in Middle Tennessee, according to the ATF.
I’ve long maintained that licensed gun dealers need to be held to a higher standard where gun storage is concerned. Lock up your damn stock, people. There are ways to do it, roll-up doors over the shelves, other ways to secure the stock. The problem is that, in rural areas, a lot of “gun dealers” are mom and pop operations. Federal storage requirements would probably put them out of business and, you know, respect the culture, blah blah.
2- An incident over a crumpled Trump For President yard sign escalated with a gun being flashed. This is going to be a fun campaign season.
• March 5, 2016:
1- A man accidentally shot himself in the leg outside the West Town Mall in Knoxville. He’ll be okay. The shooter was one of our safest, most responsible citizens EVAH.
• March 4, 2016:
1- Guns in cars, such a smart idea. I’m sure this licensed concealed carry permit holder was just standing his ground. This tragic story is out of Johnson City:
When a state prosecutor asked 14-year-old Jesus Mijares during a preliminary hearing Thursday what his father’s name was, it was too much for the teenager to bear. He broke down in sobs before he could answer, “Jose Mijares.”
Young Mijares’ testimony came during the preliminary hearing for Michael Young, 45, No. 4 Lambeth Court, who is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Jose Mijares, 45. Mijares lived next door to Young at No. 4 Lambeth Court.
The morning of the shooting, he and son Jesus Mijares were headed to a nearby Roadrunner market for coffee, the younger Mijares testified.
He saw a green vehicle pull out from Young’s driveway and get behind his father’s vehicle and drive up very close to their bumper. Then the green vehicle, later determined to be driven by Young, went around the Mijares vehicle and “cut in front of us,” the teen testified.
At the stop sign at Lambeth Drive and North Roan Street, Mijares said his father got out of the vehicle and approached the car ahead of them.
“He was going to talk to the dude…why he cut in front of us,” the teen said in response to a question from Young’s attorney, Rick Spivey.
Mijares said he didn’t hear his father say anything, but saw the man in the green truck shoot his father.
“He tried to get back in the car but he fell,” the teenager testified. “I got out of the truck and went to go check on him. I opened his jacket and there was a blood stain.”
The boy waved down a passing motorist for help, he said.
[…]
Kirkman, who said he had his legal carry permit, called 911 and then retrieved his weapon from his vehicle and stood guard after EMS arrived to provide medical assistance. The medics loaded Mijares into an ambulance and took him to the hospital where officials said he later died.
Another motorist had also arrived prior to EMS getting to the scene.
That person, Melanie Hungate, testified she is a nurse and wanted to render aid to the victim, but was warned about the shooter still being on scene and still having a weapon. She took Jesus Mijares to her car to get him out of the cold and let him use her cell phone to call his mother, who arrived within minutes.
Seriously, WTF was this guy thinking, “standing guard” with his gun — after just shooting a man in front of his 14-year-old son?
Who thought guns in cars was a good idea? Oh, right, Tennessee Republicans.
2- And yet another guns-in-cars incident, which appears to be a case of road rage, this one in Memphis:
MEMPHIS, TN (WMC) – A woman was shot while in a car on Interstate 240.
The man in the car with her pulled over on I-240 westbound near Airways Boulevard and called police.
Memphis Police Department sent more than half a dozen cruisers and an ambulance to the location. The shooting victim was taken to Regional Medical Center in critical condition.
Police shut down the right lane of traffic on the interstate as they investigated the shooting. All lanes are back open at this time.
Police said the shots were fired from a red four-door vehicle. That vehicle has since driven away.
Freedom to get shot while a passenger in a car, that was smart!
3- Chattanooga kids just being kids I guess:
Students Arrested At 3 Different County Schools On Threats To Shoot School Personnel, Students
An East Ridge High School student was arrested on Friday after authorities said he assaulted a teacher and then threatened to get a gun and shoot several people at the school.
[…]
In the second incident, the Sheriff’s Office said on Friday afternoon, a note was found on the floor in the hallway at Washington Alternative School.
Officials said, “The note indicated a threat to shoot the school in general, the majority of teachers, and school administrators.
[…]
In the third case, a note was discovered written on a bathroom wall in a girls restroom at Ooltewah High School on Friday morning.
Officials said, “The note indicated a threat to shoot students at the campus along with a reference to the previous note found in a boys restroom last week.
What the hell? Welcome to modern America. I can’t even think of something comparable from when I was in high school.
• March 2, 2016:
A Murfreesboro high school senior was expelled after a gun and pot was found in his car.
• March 1, 2016:
1- A Chattanooga area 3-year-old shot himself in the head while playing with a gun in the family van, which was parked at home. Mom was outside the car yakking on her cell phone. The child died.
Since we passed guns-in-cars we’ve had how many kids find a gun in a car and shoot someone? UPDATE: Mom has been charged with negligence and child endangerment.
2- I’m not sure “peeved” is the word I’d use to describe this Nashville teen’s reaction to being told to get up and go to school:
Teen, peeved at getting up for school, shoots family
An argument over getting out of bed for school Tuesday morning led a teenage boy to open fire on four family members, including his grandmother and two young children, in an East Nashville home, Metro police said.
Nashville police spokeswoman Kris Mumford said that shortly before 7:17 a.m. a relative was attempting to wake up the 16-year-old boy inside his home at Berkshire Place Apartments on Porter Road when an argument broke out.
“There was a quarrel about getting up and getting ready for the day when (at some point) the 16-year-old ran to a closet, got a 9 mm handgun and started firing,” Mumford said.
Kids today ….
• February 26, 2016:
I’m sure this sends the right message:
Tennessee’s new official state rifle is so powerful it can ‘destroy commercial aircraft’
The Barrett .50 caliber rifle is a powerful gun. Widely used in the military, its rounds can “penetrate light armor, down helicopters, destroy commercial aircraft, and blast through rail cars,” according to a report from the Violence Policy Center, a gun safety group. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence describes .50 caliber rifles like the Barrett as “among the most destructive weapons legally available to civilians in the United States.”And as of Wednesday, the Barrett .50 caliber is now the official state rifle of Tennessee, joining an illustrious roster of other state symbols including the raccoon (state wild animal), the tomato (state fruit), and Tennessee cave salamander (state amphibian).
The gun’s inventor, Ronnie Barrett, is a Tennessee native and NRA board member who was referred to as “the rock superstar in the world of weapons” at a 2014 birthday bash attended by politicians Mike Huckabee, Lamar Alexander, Marsha Blackburn and others. The rifle bearing his name is manufactured in Christiana, Tennessee.
Tennessee is the seventh state to declare an official state firearm of some sort. If the idea of an “official state gun” seems a little strange, that’s because it’s a recent development. There weren’t any state firearms until 2011, when Utah adopted the Browning M1911 pistol as its state gun.
Ah yes, the gun derp, it runs strong. Very, very strong.
• February 24, 2016:
A five-month-old baby was nearly shot as she slept in her crib when a stray bullet came through the walls of the house:
Brynn, a five-month-old baby was sleeping in her chipped wood-covered crib when her parents Sarina and Brian Manifold heard gunshots in their daughter’s nursery. The couple immediately ran into the room and found the crib littered with wood fragments. “Fear, terror, grateful that she’s OK… As soon as I hung up the phone with 911, I think that’s when it hit me, and I just started hugging her and sobbing,” Sarina Manifold said in an interview, according to Little Things.
The bullets were believed to be shot a few blocks away from the Manifold’s residence which entered through the side of their house, then baby Brynn’s crib headboard, through the bedroom wall lodging to their guestroom wall. Knox county police are looking at the possibility of at least 10 rounds being fired that night for nine shell casings have also been recovered near the area.
These high powered rifles are just not a smart idea.
• February 23, 2016:
In Lenoir City, a man was arrested for being intoxicated with a gun in a restaurant.
I’m so shocked. When they passed guns-in-bars they told us this would never happen!
