Detroit mayor, calls for more gun control, after Detroit police, shoot a little girl in her bed.

[virginia mountainman]

No joke...

He starts out, with this...

Mayor Dave Bing expressed outrage and sadness over the death of little Aiyana Jones but said the community must not forget other victims of gun violence.

"As a community we need to come together. It can't be just the mayor's office. It can't be just the police department," Bing told reporters today. "Our entire community has to be outraged at this and come together in a very positive way to use this tragedy as something that can bring us together so that that we don't have to continuously go through this."

Then goes on to call for more gun control....Even after HIS police department shot and killed a sleeping girl in her bed..

"We've got to really take a hard look at gun control."

I wonder, if he is calling for the Police to "turn them in"??

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100519/METRO/5190396/1361/Bing--Fieger--in-this-to-make-money-#ixzz0oQkbAO00

I wish I could SPIT, in his face....

[Crabby Appleton]

1. Fuck dave bing

what a POS.

[tblue]

2. Why are 1) Guns, 2) the Military, and 3) War sacrosanct?

Don't get it. What does that say about we as a people?

[gorfle]

3. What it says about we as a people.

What does that say about we as a people?

What it says is that man is a violent, warlike creature and that the veil of civilization is tenuous at best.

[virginia mountainman]

4. Ok then, why are the Police immune??

After all, he would NOT have been having the press conference if his police, had not opened fire on a house in the dark, and killed a little girl in the process??

Why does HE want to take away the guns from everyone else BUT the Police??

From my chair here, it seems like the people of Detroit need to arm themselves, to PROTECT themselves from the mayor's police force.

Also, just to let you know, as a life long Democrat, ALL my civil rights are sacred and "not negotiable" that included my guns....This is not open for discussion...

I, unlike some, will NOT let my civil rights be restricted one at a time...

[PavePusher]

5. Since when is the military "sacrocanct".

I see my my military comrades maligned here on D.U. just about every day.

What is your point? Off topic much?

[tblue]

6. I'm talking about military budget, meanie.

Testy much? Chill, baby, chill.

[PavePusher]

8. My apologies, you weren't very clear.

As far as testy goes, yeah, I suppose I am.

There is a significant remnant of people here who still sling some pretty outrageous accusations against military people in general. So that really hits a button with me. Thank you for the clarification.

[tblue]

31. No, sweetie. No offense intended at all against military people.

My apologies, too. Have a good night!

[Katya Mullethov]

18. Great save

Not

[tblue]

30. Thanks!

Same to you!!!

[Tejas]

9. They're not, but they are irrelevant to this thread n/t

[proteus_lives]

11. Guns aren't sacrosanct.

Rights and choices are.

[Caliman73]

15. None of those are sacrosanct

As noted by the debate and continual struggle between people on opposing sides of each issue.

Guns are subject to legislation in regards to their manufacture, sale, and use. They have been vilified as much as praised, especially since they are a useless hunk of metal, plastic, and wood without human beings operating them. What people on the pro ownership are promoting is the choice to exercise the right defend yourself as well as engage in other lawful activities like hunting and target shooting using firearms as they are effective for those purposes. The control side seems to want to decrease crime and violence by restricting one implement which people use to commit such acts rather than attacking the root causes of violence and crime.

Though it may seem the the military is sacred, the military is readily subject to regulation, scrutiny, criticism, and protest. That the military seems immune to budget cuts is more a factor of the impact on several economic sectors and the lobbying efforts of military contractors, than on the sanctity of the armed forces. The military is a job, yes a job that is wrapped in service to the country, but a job nonetheless. You don't see people serving for free do you? People who choose to serve in the military usually do so out of a sense of wanting to be useful to the country and to defend it. For that those of us who have not served should be thankful that people are willing to risk their lives in defense of the rest of us. That the government has repeatedly misused the armed forces not for defense but to exploit other nations for financial gain or to secure resources says more about us than your belief that you cannot criticize the military.

Finally, War... Only a few deranged individuals truly think that war is a good thing. Sometimes it is necessary, though most of the time it is not. Again, war is profitable for some. The populace is usually thinking mainly of their own security and thus, does not object to military action in the name of security, though the military is rarely used to that end these days.

I think you need to rethink this word "sacrosanct". The issues are way too complicated to discuss in terms of calling them "holy" or "above criticism".

[Callisto32]

20. It shows that we are a bunch of statists, as a group.

Guns are not sacrosanct. My right to own and do what I wish, so long as I do not harm others, is sacrosanct. Your delusional power to tell me what I may and may not do by mere majority vote is a fantasy.

I'm sure I'll be treading on thin ice with this but:

War, and service to the state (the monopoly on violence) have been lionized. It's the "If you love your freedom, thank a vet!" mentality.

No. Sorry. Thank a person who decided to go into the service of the entity MOST responsible for the removal of my freedom? How much of my freedom have "islamofacists" taken away? None. How much as the federal government removed....

This occurs because the state, as an institution is nothing but the use of violence upon people with a thin veneer of legitimacy.

The ultimate expression of coercion is war, so it only makes sense that the state would use it's propaganda arm to pump up the support for such things, and heap laurels upon those that are the agents of the destruction.

Constant use of war, and fear of "the other" allows states to keep people in a condition of fear, and thus to pretend they are the protectors, when in reality they are the cause of most of what the people may have to fear.

Personal rant:

I hate it when people flash the "cred." "I was/am in the service of X state organization for Y years.

The predictable chorus: "Thanks for your service." We should be responding "What? You want a cookie or something?"

[Katya Mullethov]

23. "Thank you for your service "

"So.....uhh.... lemmee guess .....you fucking hunt too ? " lol

[PavePusher]

24. Please tell me which of your freedoms have been curtailed by the U.S. military.

They bear no blame and deserve no reprobation for government infringement on your civil rights.

O.K., on second thought, maybe some blame in Katrina gun confiscations. However, as I recall, those were local National Guard, under state/local control at the time, and given orders they thought were legit. Hopefully they know better now...

[freebrew]

27. Kent State, Jackson to name 2.

During Hoover's term, the military fired upon their own.

The rednecks of the coal mine days.

Union organizers were dealt with by gov't forces.

Do I hate the military? No, but I don't like the idea that those in the military think they deserve some praise for defending us.

The military has not defended us since 1776.

In WWII, it was not the military, but thousands of civilian volunteers that won the war.

I was in one of the military service academies. The first day of 'orientation', we were exposed to a group of 'hippies'.
The entire audience(except me) booed them for merely exercising the right of free speech because the military doesn't like free speech if it's against them. I left soon after. Joined the Y.I.P. and radical ever since.

My thanks to the military for that, though.

[PavePusher]

29. "In WWII, it was not the military, but thousands of civilian volunteers that won the war."

By joining the Boy Scouts, I suppose?



"The military has not defended us since 1776."

War of 1812. The Civil War (who was defending what is debateable). WWI & WWII were not in our defense? Find a remaining vet and tell them that to their face. I dare you.

Viet Nam was argueably not a defensive war in any way. But the blame lies not with the troops, but with the politicians and a few high-ranking officers playing politics with the troops lives. We learned a few more bitter lessons there, may I point out.

Gulf War I was in defense of some allies. Should those people have been our allies is, again, a point of contention. Afghanistan was quite certainly a war of defense, if poorly handled. Iraq II/Gulf War II, is, in my view, a situation we should have left alone, or handled entirely differently, but no-one asked me then (I was involved in Afghanistan at the time).






And may I ask how the troops today bear the guilt of things that happened 40, 60 or 100 years ago? Those days and people are long gone, and a lot of changes have been made to prevent reoccurances.





May I ask what period you were briefly in a service academy? Sounds like it was Viet Nam era, or shortly thereafter. When a lot of those so-called "hippies" were spitting on troops and tossing out vicious accusations (a few warranted, the majority, not so much).





You seem disconnected from logic and reality.

[jimlup]

7. I understand your frustration

Detroit cops are so corrupt though that I don't know that we can pin this on Bing. He's just a propaganda mouthpiece for a sad/dying city.

[Euromutt]

13. Bing has what's known in the war crimes investigation business as "command responsibility"

Essentially, he's responsible for the people under his command, even if he's not directly culpable for ordering their actions. Even if we can pardon the fact that he doesn't have the police department under control, we can still blame for the chutzpah of bad-mouthing the lawyer representing the dead girl's family and tossing in the red herring of criminal firearm violence.

[jimlup]

17. Thanks

Yes, I have to admit I have not followed this story that closely. Once I heard that a 7 year old had been shot by an "accidental discharge" I know enough about the Detroit cops to know it was probably not the "whole" truth so I stopped following the story because it was just too painful.

[X_Digger]

10. That takes some brass cajones, right there. n/t

[Euromutt]

12. Of all the fucking nerve

Yet another big-city mayor who doesn't deserve to be addressed as "your Honor." When your taxpayer-funded public servants fuck up and kill an innocent, you don't get to invoke some false equivalence to other gun violence that isn't committed by agents of the state; you know, the ones who are supposed to protect the public, not fucking kill them. And you don't get to bad-mouth the lawyer representing the victim's family either.

Fuck Bing, short, back and sideways.

[jazzhound]

14. Where's the emoticon that reflects

the emotional junction between snorting rage and crushing sadness?

:grr: + :cry: = ?

[shadowrider]

16. Let me get this straight

HIS police open fire, kill a little girl and he's calling for gun control on the population?

Oh yea, that makes sense :crazy:

[Callisto32]

19. I'm sure whatever regulation he wants would exempt the state.

They always do.


This is just another example of using a tragedy that has NOTHING to do with "gun control" to push the anti-freedom agenda.

It's disgusting.

[Katya Mullethov]

22. This wouldnt happen

If they only had the funding for the training that they so badly need . But the greedy voters wont let them raise taxes,and so they get what they deserve . Well..... that's basically how I'd paint it . I would also try to at least appear quite somber with a smattering of feigned indignation if one of these taxpaying parasites flew a light aircraft into the towering sheets of glass and glass steel erected as a monument to my own special creativity .

[dmallind]

21. They SHOULD rethink gun control

As the admittedly trite bumper sticker says "gun control is hitting what you're aiming at"> Assuming (Koresh I hope we can) that the cops were not aiming at a sleeping seven year old intentionally, then true gun control is exactly what is needed to avoid a repeat of this.

A badge doesn't make the four rules go away. It just makes it more likely a)bad things will happen if you break them (as cops are in more fraught situations than most) and perhaps even more sadly b) you'll more likely get away with it at least in the legal system.

Gun control guys. Live it.

[yay]

25. What the god damn fuck?

So The police shoot a girl, while searching for a murder suspect, who, IIRC, didn't use a gun but stabbed his victim. Then he wants gun control for the GP.

Really? what the fuck.

[caraher]

26. Since I have no reason to believe Dave Bing is an idiot...

I looked for more context and found this:

The chain of events that led to the police shooting of a sleeping 7-year-old may have begun with an argument over dirty looks in an east-side liquor store parking lot....

Chauncey Louis Owens, 34, of Detroit will be arraigned today on charges of first-degree murder, being a four-time felony offender and gun charges in connection with Friday's shooting death of 17-year-old Southeastern High School senior Jerean Blake.

"The death of Jerean Blake is as senseless as it can get," Worthy said. "The allegations are that the defendant killed the 17-year-old high school student because he looked at the defendant the wrong way."

Blake was shot in front of numerous witnesses in a parking lot on Mack Avenue near St. Jean.

Bing's point is that, while the police raid was inexcusably bungled, it took place against the backdrop of violence caused by people who have no business carrying deadly weapons using them utterly irresponsibly. His remarks were in response to that context. What's clear is that there's something wrong with the overall environment when a four-time felon has no trouble obtaining (legally or not) a gun he's clearly unfit to carry and publicly take a life on the flimsiest of excuses.

Now there's no doubt he's also being defensive as mayor, hoping to deflect some of the scrutiny away from the tragic blunders of his police department. But that doesn't mean he's not also right that there should also be outrage against the random killing perpetrated by people other than the police.

I also have to question the proposition that anybody could "protect their family" against the kind of botched raid that took a girls life by owning firearms. You could have anything you like in your personal arsenal, and the girl would have been dead before anyone had a chance to exact revenge. I'm not questioning your right to own guns for self-defense (or for any other lawful reason); I'm just pointing out that the only ways to keep police from killing innocents in raids like this are to change the conduct of the police in raids (possibly in ways that expose them to more risk in an effort to hold down accidental shootings) or to make them less frequent. I don't think more armed citizens will ever deter such raids; indeed, they conduct them like military operations precisely because they must assume the occupants are armed! As for the conduct of raids, clearly that is a case where the mayor will certainly call for more gun control in the sense urged by the NRA: gun control means hitting your target. This girl was not the target of the raid, and the fact that she was shot indicates a lack of the one kind of gun control we can all agree on!

[one-eyed fat man]

28. Racism and thug culture!

Two potent ingredients in the destruction of a city, a culture, a group or a nation.

http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/conscious-music-artists-news-views/14337-racism-n-thug-culture.html

Is this why the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made the ultimate sacrifice? Is this why Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat? Did countless civil rights veterans put everything on the line so that, someday, a handful of black men and women could make a fortune encouraging young blacks to lawlessness?

The popularity of thug culture is among the most serious of modern-day threats to black America, far more dangerous than any lingering institutional racism. Its mores mimic prison culture: the ubiquitous droopy-pants look drew its inspiration from jail procedures, where men are stripped of their belts upon arrest. It romanticizes casual violence, helping to ensure that black fratricide will go on unabated.

Thugs that value life so cheaply should be an affront to the community.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

32. He wants gun control now because he's scared people are gonna go out and buy some