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Mall shooting in Oregon
Just exercising his Second Amendment rights!
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A gunman opened fire in a suburban Portland shopping mall Tuesday, killing two people and wounding another as people were doing their Christmas shopping, authorities said.
Witnesses described a scene of chaos and disbelief as a gunman wearing some sort of camouflage outfit and what looked like a hockey mask fired rounds fire from a military-style rifle near the food court at Clackamas Town Center.
Parents with children joined other shoppers rushing to stores' backrooms for safety as teams of police officers began entering the mall to find the shooter.
Clackamas County sheriff's Lt. James Rhodes said later that the gunman was dead, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A shopper told KATU-TV he saw a man lying on the floor with a gun next to him.
Authorities went store-to-store to confirm that there was only one shooter and to escort hiding shoppers outside, Rhodes said.
Austin Patty, 20, who works at Macy's, said he saw a man in a white mask carrying a rifle and wearing a bulletproof vest.
He heard the gunman say, "I am the shooter," as if announcing himself, Patty said. He then fired several shots paced seconds apart.
A series of rapid-fire shots in short succession followed. Patty said he ducked to the ground and then ran.
His Macy's co-worker, Pam Moore, told The Associated Press the gunman was short, with dark hair, and dressed in camouflage.
"I heard about 20 shots and everyone hit the ground," Moore said. "That's when we all just ran."
Witnesses said the mall's Santa Claus was among those who ducked for cover.
The mall is one of the Portland area's busiest. It's in a middle-class area that has become popular with families as falling real estate prices have put its homes just a few miles from downtown Portland within financial reach.
The mall has about 185 stores and a 20-screen movie theater among anchor tenants that also include Nordstrom and J.C. Penney. Sheriff's deputies said it would remain closed during the investigation of the shooting, but it wasn't clear how long that would take.
Shaun Wik, 20, from Fairview, said he was Christmas shopping with his girlfriend Tuesday and opened a fortune cookie at the food court. Inside was written "live for today, remember yesterday, think of tomorrow."
As he read it, he heard three shots. He heard a man he believes was the gunman shout, "Get down!" but Wik and his girlfriend ran. He heard seven or eight more shots. He didn't turn around.
"If I had looked back, I might not be standing here," Wik said. "I might have been one of the ones who got hit."
Kira Rowland told KGW-TV that she was shopping at Macy's with her infant son when the shots started.
"All of a sudden you hear two shots, which sounded like balloons popping," Rowland told the station. "Everybody got on the ground. I grabbed the baby from the stroller and got on the ground."
Rowland said she heard people screaming and crying.
"I put the baby back in the stroller and ran like hell," Rowland said. "It was awful. It was shots after shots after shots like a massacre."
Holli Bautista, 28, said she was shopping in the Macy's for a Christmas dress for her daughter when she heard pops that sounded like firecrackers.
"I heard people running and screaming and saying 'Get out, there's somebody shooting,'" she told the AP. "It was a scene of chaos."
She said hundreds of shoppers and mall employees started running, and she and dozens of other people were trying to escape through an exit in the department store.
Bautista said the Macy's opens into the food court area, where it was reported the shootings took place. Bautista said it sounded like the shots were coming from that direction.
Tiffany Turgetto and her husband had exited Macy's through the first floor when they heard the gunshots coming from the second floor of the mall.
"People in front of us people were dropping, finding covering," she told the AP. "People were yelling screaming and gasping, yelling to get out.
"The lady next to us, she threw a chair and started running. We couldn't run because the chair was there."
Turgetto and her husband and other people were able to quickly leave through a Barnes & Noble bookstore before the police arrived and locked down the mall.
"I had left my phone at home. I was telling people to call 911. Surprisingly, people are around me, no one was calling 911. I think people were in shock."
Kaelynn Keelin was working at two stores down from Macy's when the gunfire began and watched windows to another store get shot out.
She and her Made in Oregon co-workers ran to get customers inside the store to take shelter, Keelin said.
"We got lucky we stayed in," she said. "If we would have run out, we would have ran right into it."
I'm sure this will change absolutely nothing. Just another shooting and multiple murder in a public place, no big deal. Certainly no reason to change any laws or anything. We definitely wouldn't want to interfere with people's right to shoot up Christmas shoppers.
Re: Mall shooting in Oregon
I flucking hate guns. For some reason in our backass country we let anyone walk into a Wal-mart and buy a gun. All evening on Facebook I've seen "how sad" and "what a loss". What's sad is that we allow people to purchase a machine capable of taking multiple lives without so much as a mental health check.
I don't give a rats ass about rights. What about the rights of the people that were killed in my town tonight? Sometimes I really hate this country.
And my boss and a few people I know happened to be at the mall today. Thank god they are all okay.
/rant
So much this.
Something like this is a scary thing and even scarier when it happens in your own community, I'm sorry Jeni. *hugs from Oklahoma*
I had to stop reading the 2nd Amendment thread after a point. When we start comparing fatal car accidents to weapons of mass murders, I just can't take it anymore. When someone uses a car to kill 30 students in a classroom after chaining the doors closed to prevent escape, I'll consider the point.
So sad. I have no idea why people think that gun laws have nothing to do with our homicide rates.
Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people.
also wanted to correct that this man was NOT excercising his Second Amendment rights by shooting these people. You do not have a right to shoot and kill someone who is not threatening you.
Most walmarts do not sell guns. They got rid of them completely in 2006 then brought them back on a limited basis at the end of 2011 but they are very few and far between.
Incidentally the two highest places for gun violence are Washington DC and New York who have either 100% complete gun bans or pretty much the strictest laws against gun ownership in the country.
I'm shocked that the DC ban did not stop guns from being "imported" from a few miles away. Simply shocked. I'm sure size/scale are not issues for this example whatsoever.
I didn't participate much around here when the Fast and Furious hearings were going on, but I can tell you that in general I was very frustrated by the lack of a presence, be it via commentary, protest, editorial, etc. from the anti-gun lobby calling for the ouster of those people involved in the program. It seems that the only people flapping their arms about ILLEGAL gun sales that were not only condoned but actually arranged by our government were the people who are traditionally in favor of more relaxed gun laws. Well, and the Mexicans because it has caused a huge outbreak of gun violence and there are something like 47 confirmed deaths and 150 reported deaths from guns directly sold as part of the program. I'd call that a mass killing of sorts and think that those involved should at the very lest leave their posts if not face criminal charges. As it stands, I believe Holder has been held in criminal contempt over failure to release documents which really the person who would enforce that is Holder himself. That's sort of like asking Ann Coulter to teach classes on sensitivity.
That was precisely my point about scale being an issue. If I'm in DC and I want a gun, I can drive 10 minutes to a place where guns are legal. Most people don't have a 10 minute drive to Mexico. And even if we did. Getting a gun into DC is a matter of driving a car down the street. Getting a gun into the US has to get past border officers, random checks, passable documentation, the willingness to possibly be charged with bringing a gun into the US, etc..
I'm not saying it would never happen, but I bet my car that you wouldn't see as many semiautomatics on US streets. I just don't see how you think those are the same thing when there are such major differences.
Yes, because if guns were illegal, no one would have them. Not even the most evil people in the country. Not even the insane. The moment they're labeled illegal, everyone is going to turn in their weapons. So, problem solved...no more shootings.
You don't actually believe this, do you?
...I don't think anyone is really advocating that. I think we all are at least smart enough to realize that we've collectively already dug ourselves in too deep on this one.
Granted, apparently people are stocking up on weapons in case big mean Obama takes away the 2nd amendment, so someone somewhere must think the gun control lobby has more than longer waiting periods and stricter background checks on its mind.
Just for the record, DC no longer has a handgun ban. You can legally own one in DC now and have been able to for a few years.
Nope.
http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/homicide-rate-in-new-york-is-near-historic-lows-ray-kelly-1.4063235
Homicides in New York City have plummeted 18 percent in 2012 over the same period last year and, with three months left in the year, are at a rate among the lowest seen in the post-World War II period, records show.
There were 319 homicides in the city, compared with 389 in the same period last year, as of Sept. 30, police officials said Monday. If the trend continues, the city may have just over 400 murders this year.
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said homicides could come in at a number not seen in 50 years since the Kennedy administration. But privately, police officials think that the murders may actually drop below what occurred during the waning days of President Dwight D. Eisenhower?s tenure.
Straw man, party of one!
This is exactly what is f'ed up about our country.
The rifle used in this shooting was stolen. People intent on harm will find a way and a weapon, laws be damned.
I agree that it would still happen. But at a lower rate. So, this guy stole the the rifle, that means someone had to lawfully own a semi-automatic rifle to begin with. The fewer people that own these things, the fewer ways there are to get them - regardless of if the route is legal or otherwise.
I have a feeling that if any of the posters on here were ever facing a life or death situation for themselves or their loved ones, they'd be singing a different tune about gun laws if some law-abiding citizen(s) saved their lives and prevented them from injury or death. I highly, highly doubt if someone pulled a gun to kill you and someone else jumped in to save you that you'd turn tail and still promote anti-gun laws or limitations. Or, maybe some guy who comes to your aid should ask you first, "Do you support me owning this gun and carrying it in public? If yes, okay I'll help you, if not, sorry lady your SOL." Would you be okay with that, knowing in 5 more seconds you could risk a bullet in your back?
I think it's pretty crappy that you assume what the posters on this board have or have not been through. And I think it's even crappier that you attribute our beliefs to your assumptions.
I don't disagree. It's basic math.
And I have a feeling you'd be singing a different tune about gun laws if you were watching Finding Nemo with your kids in a movie theater and someone burst in and shot them to death and you had to watch them bleed to death in front of you.
And don't even TRY to give me that bulllllshiit about "well if someone in the movie theater had a gun, they could stop him!" There were THREE armed citizens with CCW permits at the Gabby Giffords shooting in Arizona, and not a single one was able to stop him. In fact, one of them almost shot the wrong person.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41018893/ns/slate_com/t/armed-giffords-hero-nearly-shot-wrong-man/
Zamudio was in a nearby drug store when the shooting began, and he was armed. He ran to the scene and helped subdue the killer. Television interviewers are celebrating his courage, and pro-gun blogs are touting his equipment. "Bystander Says Carrying Gun Prompted Him to Help," says the headline in the Wall Street Journal.
But before we embrace Zamudio's brave intervention as proof of the value of being armed, let's hear the whole story. "I came out of that store, I clicked the safety off, and I was ready," he explained on Fox and Friends. "I had my hand on my gun. I had it in my jacket pocket here. And I came around the corner like this." Zamudio demonstrated how his shooting hand was wrapped around the weapon, poised to draw and fire. As he rounded the corner, he saw a man holding a gun. "And that's who I at first thought was the shooter," Zamudio recalled. "I told him to 'Drop it, drop it!'"
But the man with the gun wasn't the shooter. He had wrested the gun away from the shooter. "Had you shot that guy, it would have been a big, fat mess," the interviewer pointed out.
Zamudio agreed:
"I was very lucky. Honestly, it was a matter of seconds. Two, maybe three seconds between when I came through the doorway and when I was laying on top of [the real shooter], holding him down. So, I mean, in that short amount of time I made a lot of really big decisions really fast. ? I was really lucky."
DH, is who trained extensively for combat and reactive shooting, said he would have not taken a shot in a crowded dark movie theater.
IMHO, if he isn't comfortable with that field of fire, an average citizen who trains at a stationary target at a range shouldn't.
I was involved in a discussion on a different board about the Aurora shooting shortly after they happened. One of the people in the discussion has a husband who is an LEO and several other people have husbands in the military.
Every single one of the husbands, who have extensive training in the use of guns, said that people would not have been safer if some random joe blow in the theater had been carrying a gun. In mass shooting situations, it is safer for yourself and the others involved to run as far as possible in the opposite direction instead of engaging the shooter. It is entirely possible for the joe blow dude to just start shooting randomly in the direction of the original shooter and injure or kill someone.
Michigan's house just passed a law that allows people to carry guns in formerly banned places, you know, places where you might need a gun, like sports stadiums and day care centers. I was just thinking DS' day care center could use a few more guns!
http://m.freep.com/localnews/article?a=2012121213076&f=1232
Let's just pray that the senate doesn't pass it.