Back to Basics

It is difficult for me to understand how recognizing that police won’t immediately be there when a victim is facing a criminal is controversial.  Nor is it clear why advising that the most effective way to defend themselves when they face a criminal is with a gun is also controversial.  But surely there is a huge difference between self-defense a criminal who is attacking a person and vigilantism?  From Fox News:

A sheriff who released a radio ad urging Milwaukee-area residents to learn to handle firearms so they can defend themselves while waiting for police said Friday that law enforcement cutbacks have changed the way police can respond to crime.

In the 30-second commercial, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. says personal safety is no longer a spectator sport.

“I need you in the game,” he says.

“With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option,” he adds. “You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. … Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there.”

The ad has generated sharp criticism from other area officials and anti-violence advocates. The president of the Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, Roy Felber, said it sounds like a call to vigilantism. . . .

As the article says, this is the reason why people carry concealed handguns.

Supporters of Wisconsin’s concealed weapons law insist it will save lives – and that might have been the case during a road rage incident in Wausau. . . .

Police said an 49-year-old Appleton man was driving into town from the west, when his SUV passed a van – and the van started ramming the SUV from behind. The Appleton man called 911, and a dispatcher told him to wait in a parking lot for an officer.

In the meantime, the attackers followed the man – and police said the couple got out and started beating him and stabbing him with their vehicle keys. The man pulled his concealed gun, and the two backed off. . . . .

The SUV driver had a legal state concealed carry permit, and police say he will not be criminally charged.

Credit goes to Michael Sears for this picture.  A larger, clearer version of the picture is available at this link.

I have to give real credit to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper.  I have been covering these attacks for years, and I haven’t been able to the news media to write these types of news stories.  Yet, finding out this fact has been probably the easiest fact to check out about these attacks.  Sarif Durhams has this piece in the Journal Sentinel:

A sign on the door of the Azana Salon & Spa in Brookfield bans those entering from carrying concealed weapons. That means customers or employees who were following the law would be barred from having weapons. Radcliffe Haughton entered the salon Sunday and killed his wife and two other women and shot four others before killing himself. . . .

I hope that Mr. Durhams get the response that he deserves for writing this story (sdurhams@journalsentinel.com).

Only five states are currently scheduled to have Photo IDs and the only state where it is likely to make a big difference is Pennsylvania.  Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, and Tennessee are safely Republican states this year.  For that matter, despite the legal appeals regarding Texas and South Carolina, they are also not really contested.  The only other state besides Pennsylvania where the new law could make a big difference is Wisconsin.  This is from Real Clear Politics:

Jennie Bowser of the National Conference of State Legislatures classifies nine of the measures as “strict photo ID laws,” meaning that prospective voters who show up at the polls without required identification have little recourse. They can cast a provisional ballot, but it won’t count unless they make a subsequent visit to the elections office with the required identification.

Five states will use these strict laws in November: Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Two state judges have blocked Wisconsin’s law. Laws in Texas and South Carolina were denied pre-clearance by the Department of Justice under the Voting Rights Act and are awaiting action by a D.C. federal court. A Mississippi law is in the early stages of pre-clearance. . . .

The court decision in Pennsylvania this week was thus a major victory.  As the WSJ wrote:

Voters who show up at their polling place without an ID will be allowed to cast a provisional ballot and present proof of identity within six days. Indigent voters may also cast a provisional ballot and sign a statement saying they couldn’t obtain the necessary documents. Does all of this plausibly add up to voter suppression? . . .

Where Wisconsin stands on its Photo ID law is available here. Democrats are fighting hard in Texas and South Carolina, not because they think that it will dramatically alter those state’s elections, but because they worry that if more states have these laws, it will be harder for them to claim that Photo ID laws have the bad effects that they claim.

The dead gunman in the horrific Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting has been identified. He is Wade Page, an Army veteran with white supremacist tattoos.

I’ll leave the vulgar politicization of this evil massacre to others. The usual suspects are in full-blown Blame Righty Syndrome mode. They are as ghoulish and galling as the disgusting Westboro publicity hounds.

As we did with the Aurora movie theater shooting just two short weeks ago, we will keep the focus hereon the victims:

One of the priests who died in the massacre was identified by a temple-goer as priest Parkash Singh, a 30-something father of two.

Worshipper Manminder Sethi told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Mr Singh was ‘a good guy, a noble soul’.

He added that the priest’s wife, son and daughter had only recently moved from India to join him in Oak Creek, where Mr Singh had been living for several years.

…The temple’s president, 65-year-old Satwant Kaleka, was shot dead by the attacker after trying to fight back.

His son Amardeep said that the community leader had attempted to ‘knife and tackle the shooter’, but was unsuccessful and died of his wounds while trying to hide in the temple.

Mr Kaleka’s nephew Gurmit Kaleka told the Journal Sentinel that the victim was a father of two who had presided over the religious community since 1996.

Another nephew, Jatin Der Mangat, spoke of his grief at hearing of the shooting.

‘It was like the heart just sat down,’ he said. ‘This shouldn’t happen anywhere.’

Another victim sent to hospital by the gunman was a police officer, a 20-year veteran who was ambushed by the attacker and was shot multiple times.
He is undergoing surgery for his injuries, but is expected to survive.

According to Oak Park (WI) police at a briefing held this morning, the victims “range from ages 39 to 84 years old. Five men and one woman.”

Update 12:10pm…Hero: Lt. Brian Murphy identified as officer shot in Sikh temple shooting; In critical condition.

Update: The 6 Sikh temple shooting victims identified; Satwant Singh Kaleka died trying to fight off shooter

***

Sikh activists are raising money to support the temple shooting victims. Please donate here if you can.

A lone male suspect shot and killed six people and critically wounded another three during Sunday services at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Responding police officers were successful in shooting and killing the gunman, according to a police official.

According to police, the attack is being treated as a domestic terrorism incident, although no one could answer why this shooting is labeled “terrorist” but not the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater massacre in which 12 died and dozens were wounded.

The suspect is identified as 40-year-old Wade Michael Page, who is said to be a white supremacist with a military background.

According to a police department public information officer (PIO), Page entered the kitchen at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in a suburb of Milwaukee Sunday morning as women were preparing a Sunday meal for after temple services. The gunman, described as a while male, immediately opened fire indiscriminately killing and wounding occupants.

Because of their appearance, Sikhs are often mistaken for Muslims, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is overseeing the probe into shootings. The Sikh faith originated in India in the 1400s and male followers wear turbans and women wear head scarves.

During the British Raj in India, many Sikhs were recruited as soldiers and they were known to be excellent horsemen for the British cavalry.

According to the PIO, four people were shot to death inside the temple and three, including the gunman, were shot and killed outside. “We’re treating this as a domestic terrorist incident,” said the PIO.

Page ambushed and shot a police officer several times when that officer responded to a 911 call and was assisting one of the shooting victims. A second officer shot the gunman dead. The wounded a veteran cop, was taken to a nearby hospital and is expected to survive, the PIO said.

In a press statement released by President Barack Obama’s White House staff, he said he was “deeply saddened” by the deadly shooting rampage that occurred Sunday at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.

He promised all concerned that his administration will “provide whatever support was needed to respond to the incident and investigate it.”

“Our hearts go out to the families and friends of those who were killed and wounded,” Obama said in the statement. “As we mourn this loss which took place at a house of worship, we are reminded how much our country has been enriched by Sikhs, who are a part of our broader American family.”

It will begin with calls for “reasonable” gun controls, banning all new sales of semi-automatic weapons, bulk gun purchases, or magazines with a capacity greater than an arbitrary number determined by gun control advocates inside of the beltway. It will end very badly.

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” Those are the words directly from the mouth of Rahm Emmanuel, uttered in 2009 while he was Barack Hussein Obama’s Chief of Staff. Although Emmanuel is gone from the White House, that sentiment, or perhaps more accurately described as a tactic, remains.It is likely that the shooting at the Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee yesterday, two weeks after the shooting in Aurora, Colorado will trigger an onslaught of calls by elected officials for “reasonable” gun controls. It is also likely that it will facilitate the implementation of other prohibitions as well, including but not limited to criminalizing any form of critical speech of certain religions perceived to be victimized by discrimination. Indeed, both issues have been on the agenda of Barack Hussein Obama and his globalist cohorts since the 1990′s.

Preliminary media reports suggest the perpetrator of yesterday’s shooting to be both a U.S. military veteran and a “white supremacist,” designations clearly identified by previous bulletins issued by the Department of Homeland Security as national security threats. Despite the fact that the identity of perpetrator has not yet been released, the establishment media is leading with these characterizations.

Additionally, the FBI has taken the lead in the investigation, and has already classified the incident as “domestic terrorism” and a “hate crime.” The elements absent in the Colorado shooting are conveniently present in this shooting, and will likely act as catalysts to redefine and limit our present rights under the facade of reason and tolerance. Despite calls by the very people to avoid exploiting this tragedy for political gain, that process is already in full swing.

Anyone who cannot see how things are lining up to implement broad, sweeping changes to the freedom and liberty of every American citizen is either blissfully ignorant or a party to the agenda. One has to look no further than the numerous freedom limiting executive orders issued by Obama, the new lexicons of the Department of Homeland Security, and the militarization of municipal police agencies to understand that the enemy of the state is being redefined according to a political agenda dedicated to the destruction of our nation and her people.

It is important to connect the proverbial dots and not be impaired by the myopic rants of those who are either oblivious to the larger agenda, or succumb to the emotional pleadings of the “well intentioned.”  Things are often not as they appear, especially when one looks at the methods such incidents serve to institute the fundamental changes desired by Obama and his globalist associates. The agenda to disarm Americans is an important step in the fundamental transformation of America. It is but one step, albeit a major one, that has always existed, needing just the right time and the correct set of circumstances to accomplish.

This is awful.

At the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal, “At least 7 dead, including shooter, at Sikh Temple.”

At least seven people were killed, including one shooter, just after 10 a.m. Sunday at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, police said.

Four of the dead were inside the temple at 7512 S. Howell Ave. and three of the dead, including a shooter, were outside the temple.

A police SWAT team entered the building before noon and brought uninjured people out of the building at 7512 S. Howell Ave.

They started removing injured people from the temple’s prayer room.

SWAT team members were still sweeping the building about 1 p.m. and an explosion was heard from the building at that time. It was unclear what the explosion was.

About six gunshots were heard at 2:30 p.m. in the area. The shots appeared to be coming from the temple.

The first officer on the scene Sunday morning encountered an active shooter and exchanged fire with him, according to Greenfield Police Chief Bradley Wentlandt who briefed media on the scene.

The shooter went down and is believed to be dead, said Wentlandt. He said authorities had no evidence of a second shooter.

Check the thread at Memeorandum as well.

So far progressives haven’t blamed the tea party, but … Oh wait, here’s Kathleen Geier, at The Washington Monthly:

No details have yet been been released about the gunman, but it seems reasonable to suspect that the shooting was racially motivated. I’d say the odds are good that the shooter was some idiot who believed that Sikhs are Muslims (and that Muslims, of course, are all terrorists).

Right. No details. Just like Brian Ross had no details on the Aurora shooter, but went ahead anyway and fingered the tea party. And who would be most likely to attack Muslims? Why, conservatives, of course. Because progressives just love them some Islamofascism!

Also at Blazing Cat Fur, “Reports of shooting at Sikh Temple…”

Expect updates…

2:26pm Pacific: At The Other McCain, “‘It’s Pretty Much a Hate Crime’ — Seven Reported Dead in Sikh Temple Shooting UPDATE: Act of ‘Domestic Terrorism’.”

2:39pm Pacific: At The Lede, “Reports from the Scene of Shooting at Sikh Temple.”

2:41pm Pacific: And from the comments at Raw Story:

They should arrest Michelle Bachmann, Frank Gaffney, Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Thomas Rooney, Lynn Westmoreland, John Bolton, and Glen Beck as accomplices.

2:48pm Pacific: Still little is known about the shooter, but here from Sarah Betancourt at Liberaland:

Online forums are rampant with racist comments about Muslims. Sikhs don’t practice the same religion as Muslims, but their long beards and turbans often cause them to be mistaken for Muslims, advocates say. According to a CBS report, “Sikh rights groups have reported a rise in bias attacks since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Washington-based Sikh Coalition has reported more than 700 incidents in the U.S. since 9/11, which advocates blame on anti-Islamic sentiment.”

5:35pm Pacific: At Lonely Conservative, “Sikh Temple Shooting Already Being Blamed on Republicans.”

6:10pm Pacific: At Sooper Mexican, “How to Politicize a Tragedy.”