Gun Control: Where are Optometrists on National Issues?

[Michael A. Langevin]

Ya just can't stop a true romantics expression of LOVE.

LOVE caused this pure and simple. If this guy hadn't fallen in love this would never have happened.

BAN LOVE!!!!!!!

[Paul Farkas]

Guns don't kill people ,blah blah blah...

A report in the 2/13/10 edition of the New York Times...

"Professor Said to Be Charged After 3 Are Killed in Alabama


By SARAH WHEATON and SHAILA DEWAN
Published: February 12, 2010

Three faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville were shot to death, and three other people were seriously wounded at a biology faculty meeting on Friday afternoon, university officials said.

According to a faculty member, the professor had applied for tenure, been turned down, and appealed the decision. She learned on Friday that she had been denied once again.

The Huntsville Times identified Dr. Bishop as a Harvard-educated neuroscientist. According to a 2006 profile in the newspaper, Dr. Bishop invented a portable cell growth incubator with her husband, Jim Anderson. Police officials said that Mr. Anderson was being detained, but they did not call him a suspect.

Photographs of a suspect being led from the scene by the police appeared to match images of Dr. Bishop on academic and technology Web sites.

Dr. Bishop had told acquaintances recently that she was worried about getting tenure, said a business associate who met her at a business technology open house at the end of January and asked not to be named because of the close-knit nature of the science community in Huntsville.

“She began to talk about her problems getting tenure in a very forceful and animated way, saying it was unfair,” the associate said, referring to a conversation in which she blamed specific colleagues for her problems.

“She seemed to be one of these persons who was just very open with her feelings,” he said. “A very smart, intense person who had a variety of opinions on issues.”

The shooting occurred in the Shelby Center at the university around 4 p.m., officials said. Few students were in the building, and none were involved in the shooting, said Ray Garner, a university spokesman.

Officials said the dead were all biology professors, G. K. Podila, the department’s chairman; Maria Ragland Davis; and Adriel D. Johnson Sr. Two other biology professors, Luis Rogelio Cruz-Vera and Joseph G. Leahy, as well as a professor’s assistant, Stephanie Monticciolo, are at Huntsville Hospital in conditions ranging from stable to critical.

Officials said the suspect was detained outside of the building “without incident.” The police said a weapon had not been recovered.

Andrew Ols, a senior at the university, said he had been in a biology lab in the Shelby Center less than five minutes before the shooting began. “Now that we realize that it was a faculty person that committed the crime, no students were injured and no students were targeted or anything like that, there’s more shock than there is fear,” he said.

The shooting came just a week after a middle school student near Huntsville shot and killed a classmate.

“This is a very safe campus,” Mr. Garner said. “It’s not unlike what we experienced a week ago. This town is not accustomed to shootings and having multiple dead.”

Nick Zivkovic, a senior, was filling his gas tank around 4 p.m. after finishing a lab in the Shelby Center. “Next thing I know, 40 to 50 police cars are flying by,” he said. Back at the building, emergency vehicles created an “ocean of lights” as police with SWAT gear and automatic weapons stormed into the building. A registered first responder, Mr. Zivkovic passed out blankets and tried to comfort the evacuated students who were trembling and mumbling in the parking lot.

“You just try to hand them some hot chocolate,” he said.

The university was put on lockdown “almost instantaneously,” said Trent Willis, chief of staff to Mayor Tommy Battle. But some students complained on Twitter and to reporters that they did not receive the university’s alert until hours after the shooting.

“The U-Alert was triggered late because the people involved in activating that system were involved in responding to the shooting,” said Charles Gailes, chief of the university police, at a news conference.

“We’re going to stop, we’re going to sit down, we’re going to review what happened,” Mr. Gailes said. “All of these actions are going to be learning points, and we’re going to be better for this.”

Erin Johnson, a sophomore, told The Huntsville Times that a biology faculty meeting was under way when she heard screams coming from the room.

According to the 2006 profile, Dr. Bishop and her husband tired of using old-fashioned petri dishes for cell incubation and designed a sealed, self-contained mobile cell incubation system. The system was described as reducing many of the problems with cultivating tissues in the fragile environment of the petri dish. The system was later marketed by Prodigy Biosystems, which raised $1.2 million in capital financing after winning third place in an Alabama technology competition."

Robbie Brown contributed reporting from Atlanta.

[Paul Farkas]

Breaking news as reported by CNN on 11/8/11...

"Arizona congresswoman among 12 shot at Tucson grocery

By the CNN Wire Staff
January 8, 2011 3:05 p.m. EST

(CNN) -- U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded Saturday in a shooting at a Tucson, Arizona, grocery store in which at least 11 other people were injured, officials said.

Darci Slaten, a spokeswoman for University Medical Center in Tucson, said Giffords was undergoing surgery Saturday afternoon for a gunshot wound to the head.
A federal judge from Arizona was among the 11 others shot in the incident, a law enforcement source told CNN.

The shooting happened shortly after 10 a.m. MST, Pima County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jason Ogan said.

AZ congresswoman among 12 shot in Tuscon Several shot at Tuscon grocery store

Giffords, 40, was holding a constituent meeting at the Safeway grocery store when the shooting occurred, according to a schedule posted on her website.

An FBI spokesman said the agency was sending agents to the scene, and two senior Obama administration officials said the White House is monitoring the situation. They said they believed that a congressional staffer may have been killed.

Pictures from the scene showed a Giffords banner hanging from the storefront.

At least two victims with gunshot wounds were transported at Northwest Medical Center, according to spokesman Richard Parker.

The conditions of the 11 others shot were not immediately known.
The motive for the shooting is unclear, Ogan said.
"We're just trying to sort this out right now," he said.

An employee of a nearby business, Jason Pekau, told CNN that he did not see the shooting, but heard "15 to 20 gunshots."

Giffords, a Democrat, was first elected in 2006. She has served as chairwoman of the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee and also holds seats on the House Science and Technology and Armed Services committees.

She won her third term in a closely contested race against a Tea Party-sponsored candidate and was one of three Democratic legislators who reported vandalism at their offices following the March vote on health care reform.

She is married to Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, a NASA astronaut who is scheduled to lead a space shuttle mission to the International Space Station.

House Speaker John Boehner said he was "horrified" by the shooting.
"An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve," he said. "Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society."

[Paul Farkas]

For ODs who feel more comfortable discussing this issue in a more private forum...

http://www.odwire.org/forum/threads/...US-Rep-Gifford

[Paul Farkas]

A disturbing report in the 11/14/11 edition of the New York Times...

"Felons Finding It Easy to Get Gun Rights Reinstated

By MICHAEL LUO
Published: November 13, 2011

In February 2005, Erik Zettergren came home from a party after midnight with his girlfriend and another couple. They had all been drinking heavily, and soon the other man and Mr. Zettergren’s girlfriend passed out on his bed. When Mr. Zettergren went to check on them later, he found his girlfriend naked from the waist down and the other man, Jason Robinson, with his pants around his ankles.


Enraged, Mr. Zettergren ordered Mr. Robinson to leave. After a brief confrontation, Mr. Zettergren shot him in the temple at point-blank range with a Glock-17 semiautomatic handgun. He then forced Mr. Robinson’s hysterical fiancée, at gunpoint, to help him dispose of the body in a nearby river.

It was the first homicide in more than 30 years in the small town of Endicott, in eastern Washington. But for a judge’s ruling two months before, it would probably never have happened.

For years, Mr. Zettergren had been barred from possessing firearms because of two felony convictions. He had a history of mental health problems and friends said he was dangerous. Yet Mr. Zettergren’s gun rights were restored without even a hearing, under a state law that gave the judge no leeway to deny the application as long as certain basic requirements had been met. Mr. Zettergren, then 36, wasted no time retrieving several guns he had given to a friend for safekeeping.

“If he hadn’t had his rights restored, in this particular instance, it probably would have saved the life of the other person,” said Denis Tracy, the prosecutor in Whitman County, who handled the murder case.

Under federal law, people with felony convictions forfeit their right to bear arms. Yet every year, thousands of felons across the country have those rights reinstated, often with little or no review. In several states, they include people convicted of violent crimes, including first-degree murder and manslaughter, an examination by The New York Times has found.

While previously a small number of felons were able to reclaim their gun rights, the process became commonplace in many states in the late 1980s, after Congress started allowing state laws to dictate these reinstatements — part of an overhaul of federal gun laws orchestrated by the National Rifle Association. The restoration movement has gathered force in recent years, as gun rights advocates have sought to capitalize on the 2008 Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to bear arms..."

For the complete story...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/us...lines&emc=tha2

[Harvey M. Rosenwasser]

I didn't know if I should post this here or in jokes, but....

Story from a Kansas State Highway Patrol officer :




I made a traffic stop on an elderly lady the other day for speeding



on U.S. 166 Eastbound at Mile Marker 73 just East of Sedan, Kansas.



I asked for her driver's license, registration, and proof of insurance.



The lady took out the required information and handed it to me.




In with the cards I was somewhat surprised (due to her advanced age)



to see she had a conceal carry permit. I looked at her and ask if



she had a weapon in her possession at this time.




She responded that she indeed had a .45 automatic in her glove box.



Something ---body language, or the way she said it---made me wantto ask if she had any other firearms.

She did admit to also having a 9mm Glock in her center console.




Now I had to ask one more time if that was all. She responded



once again that she did have just one more, a .38 special in her purse.

I then asked her what was she so afraid of?




She looked me right in the eye and said, "Not a fu$#ing thing!"

[Diane Boese]

Dr. Rosenwasswer,
I enjoyed your post! It reminds me of a news paper article recently sent to me by a friend. The article tells the story of an elderly grandmother in Florida that was authorized to carry a concealed weapon. As the woman was returning to her vehicle after grocery shopping, she noticed what looked like three young men getting into her vehicle. She dropped her groceries and pulled out her hand gun. She yelled at the intruders that she had a gun; she knew how to use it; and told them to get out of the vehicle. The young men got out and ran away. The woman was shaken, but picked up her bags and got into the vehicle. After several tries to calm down and start the vehicle, she realized it was not her car.
She picked up the grocery sacks, located her car and drove to the nearest police station to report what happened.
The police officer at the station couldn't stop laughing while she told him the story. Finally he pointed to a glass enclosed room where the three young men sat. They were reporting a car jacking by a grey haired elderly woman.