Shooting first, asking questions later

[captainsblog]

Our town covers a lot of territory- in both the literal and metaphorical senses. Virtually all of Amherst falls into one of three school districts, all of which I've lived in at one time or another: one named for the town, one for the wholly-subsidiary village, and one, well, for a Skynyrd song.  It's this latter one that contains within it a neighborhood of fairly (in)famous proportions:



Known among the demographers as Amherst's prime shotguns and pickups sector, the Sweet Home part of town, just the other side of Sheridan from where we now live, lived up to its lunacy in the wee hours of last night with the following News Of The Weird Yet Still Very Sad:

Amherst Police are investigating the death of an Albany school teacher who was fatally shot by a homeowner who claimed the teacher had broken into his home.

David W. Park, 31, who taught at an Albany elementary school and was a Little League baseball coach, was shot inside a Millbrook Court residence shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday and was later pronounced dead in Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital.

As of late Sunday night, no charges had been filed against the homeowner. Police have not publicly identified him, but two sources close to the case today identified him as David D'Amico.

D'Amico is listed in town property records as the co-owner of the home where the shooting took place, with his wife, Julie.

Police said Park had been visiting friends in Amherst. His sister told The Buffalo News that Park was attending a "diaper party" for a close friend whose wife is expecting a baby soon.

According to law enforcement officials, detectives are investigating reports that Park had attended the party at another home on Millbrook Court, had left the party for awhile, and then entered the wrong home.

"I don't [know] why he ended up in the house," Amherst Assistant Police Chief Timothy M. Green said of Park. "Right now, it's a mystery to us."

Hardly. Although this news dispatch doesn't use the words, there can be little doubt that, on one end or the other of the transaction, "police suspect alcohol was involved."

More troubling is the parade of comments, where the teabagger contingent defends, to the death it would seem, the right of the homeowner to use lethal force even if, it is assumed, (a) the doors were unlocked, (b) the victim did not act aggressively after coming into the wrong home, and (c) police had already been called. It took all of about an hour for the first "GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE" comment, followed in short order by another Nuts Running America parroting of "IF GUNS ARE OUTLAWED ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE GUNS."  Plus, a few really sensitive invididuals, responding to other possible strategies, with gems such as this (for the capitalization and punctuation, I add my own [sic]; for the content, I put a "k" on the end):

warning shot comments are a joke and the same goes for shoot at a leg. All intruders should be treated the same. If they are too drunk too realize it is the wrong place..... OH WELL!! This couple sounds like the perfect law abiding couple who would never think that this could happen but were properly prepared if it did. Shoot to kill not to wound! (Only if justified and there is no question here that they were)

And aim for the head, especially if they're federal agents.

----

This all scares me, far more than a drunken diaper-partier in my house would. Palin and that lot are turning this country back into a Wild Wild West where any amount of provocation, real or perceived, results in trigger-happiness. Throw in shite like this, allegedly done in the name of Christ, and I'm about ready to abandon hope in the religion AND the political system I've been brought up in and which I love.

You teabaggers can HAVE your country back, mmmkay? Just leave me alone in mine.

And th-th-th-th-that's all, folks.

Comments

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

Robert Heinlein famously wrote "An armed society is a polite society." He was wrong. There are only two kinds of people in an armed society, the quick and the dead. This is why Dodge City had an ordinance against carrying guns during the time of Wyatt Earp.

Personally, I want all the Second Amendment lovers to observe the first part of the amendment and join the State Militia for Saturday morning drills on the Common.