Tag: Firearms

Crime, Firearms, Gun violence, Human rights, Police brutality, Safety, Security, Violence

National Park ranger shoots, kills unarmed young Fruita man in Carlsbad Caverns National Park

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Gage Lorentz, 26, was killed by National Park Ranger Robert Mitchell during a traffic stop for speeding on a dirt road in Carlsbad Caverns National Park March 21. Gage was unarmed and had no alcohol or drugs in his system at the time he was fatally shot. The family is calling for the arrest and prosecution of the park ranger who murdered him.

Police murdering unarmed citizens in cold blood doesn’t just happen to people from other places.

A National Park Ranger murdered a young Fruita man last March in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, as he was headed home to Fruita from Texas.

The murder was covered locally in March, but has taken on renewed significance after George Floyd’s brutal murder in Minneapolis shined a spotlight on the unchecked police brutality going on all across the nation.

Gage Lorentz was unarmed and had no drugs or alcohol in his system when he was pulled over for going too fast on a dirt road.

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Advertising, Democracy, Embarrassing Republicans, Firearms, politics, Violence

Mesa County residents and Mad Dog PAC put up gun control billboard in G.J.

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Mesa County residents fed up with the national epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. are teaming up with Mad Dog PAC of Washington, D.C. to run a billboard in Grand Junction aimed at pressuring congressional Republicans to address the national epidemic of gun violence and rampant mass killings happening around the country.

The billboard targets Colorado’s Republican Senator Cory Gardner in particular, who is up for re-election in 2020 and is known for taking no action and offering only prayers, platitudes and condolences after every mass killing that occurs.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives has already passed effective gun control legislation, but Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican, KY), Majority Leader of the Senate, has blocked the bill from coming to a vote to appease the National Rifle Association which works to stop legislation aimed at making Americans safer from gun massacres.

The anti-Cory Gardner/gun control message will be on the billboard on I-70B in front of Sprouts and Rimrock Marketplace, on the board facing west, where it will be visible to drivers coming into Grand Junction. The message will be up for one week starting next Tuesday, August 20, and will stay up longer if donations are received to keep it up longer. If enough funds are received the message will also go up on additional boards around town.

Contact Anne Landman for information on how to donate to the billboard campaign.

 

Activism, Firearms, Health, politics, Public health, Safety, Violence

One good thing Trump has done: Banning bump stocks

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Trump banned bump stocks last December by executive action, and the new law is effective NOW.

Watch out, local gun nuts. President Donald Trump is coming for your guns.

Last December, President Trump issued an executive order banning bump stocks (pdf), devices that use the recoil energy generated from each shot of a semi-automatic rifle to increase the firearms’ rate of fire. The new rule amended the definition of “machine gun” to include bump stocks.

The ban went into effect three days ago, on March 26, 2019, exactly 90 days after it was published in the Federal Register.

On March 28, 2019 the U.S. Supreme Court refused an effort by gun nuts to block the ban, so Trump’s new rule is currently in full force, making anyone who owns a bump stock a felon.

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Gun violence

More case for gun reform, and fast: Firearms cause massive blaze in Basalt

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The Lake Christine fire in Basalt last night, with Whole Foods Market in the foreground. Photo credit: Colorado State Patrol/CBS.

As if firearm massacres occurring regularly throughout the U.S. isn’t enough of a red flag that we need enact gun reform and fast, investigators have found that the massive wildland fire currently raging in Basalt was caused by the illegal use of “tracer bullets” at a firing range.

Tracer bullets have a small pyrotechnic charge  in the base that cause the bullets to leave a bright, burning track of smoke along their trajectory so that when fired, the path of the bullet is visible to the naked eye. The pyrotechnic charge is basically a firework.

Two people shooting tracer rounds at the Basalt SWA firing range caused the Lake Christine fire that is now wreaking havoc in Basalt. It is illegal to use tracer rounds during the current fire ban. The shooters were cited, but that does little to stop the damage their irresponsible use of firearms is causing.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has closed the Basalt shooting range indefinitely.

Massive damage

As of an hour ago, the Lake Christine fire had burned over 2,000 acres, three homes have been destroyed, 500 people have had to evacuate their homes and the fire remains completely uncontained.

Tracer fire at night on Finnish-Soviet border in 1939. (Source: Book Suomi Sodassa, Valitut Palat Oy 1973)

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun illegally shooting pyrotechnic bullets at a firing range during a fire ban is tens of millions of dollars and thousands of firefighters putting their lives on the line to fight the massive fires they cause.

No further proof is needed that gun ownership rights are misused in a multitude of irresponsible ways on a massive scale in this country. It’s long past time we  did something about it.

To fight efforts to roll back the widespread irresponsible use of firearms in this country and the horrific damage it causes is to be a fake patriot and say you don’t care about America at all.