Multiple people dead in western Michigan shooting, police say

[Tripper11]

Source: CBS

Cedar Springs, Michigan -- Multiple people were killed during a shooting Monday near the western Michigan town of Cedar Springs, reports CBS affiliate WWMT. Four people are believed dead, WWMT reports via Twitter, citing the Kent County Sheriff's Office.


Anna Giles
@AnnaGilesTV
The Kent County Sheriffs Office confirms 4 people are dead in a shooting near Cedar Springs @wwmtnews

1
1:55 PM - Feb 18, 2019 · Michigan, USA
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The Kent County Sheriff's Office tweeted, "We do not believe there is an active threat to community safety."

MLive reports deputies responded to a report of shots fired at a home around 3 p.m. Monday afternoon.

The identities and ages of the victims weren't immediately known.

First published on February 18, 2019

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michigan-shooting-today-multiple-people-dead-cedar-springs-2019-2-18-live-updates/?fbclid=IwAR3hShI0c_q9gz-4ji0-Pn45RLSlb-KKWIdeXfBJ3CJ5wKpg-4g36dMhzDs&ftag=CNM-00-10aab6a&linkId=63761052

[ZeroSomeBrains]

1. When will this gun violence epidemic end?

When will the Republican party show any sense of shame for their complicity in this gun violence epidemic? The last mass murder happened miles from where I work and everyday there's a little fear in the back of my head that the next place will be where I work. And it will never go away until we take this actual national emergency seriously.

[kwolf68]

2. Guns don't kill

or something. Lets put 1 billion, 2 billion guns into circulation, celebrate them, fetish them, they need to be ubiquitous. Hell, they should be. Because they are guns and we love them so.

Oh, you're concerned for the safety of innocent people? Cliche' coming: I prefer dangerous freedom to safe slavery.

[atreides1]

4. The Republicans are evil incarnate!!!

When 26 children were murdered and the Republicans offered "thoughts and prayers", it was pretty clear then that they had no shame!

[Archae]

6. When humans end.

face it, even if every gun was outlawed, criminals would still make and/or use them, and people will go off their nut and shoot, stab, use a baseball bat, crowbar, anything that can be used as a weapon, will be.

[ZeroSomeBrains]

9. There would be less death with a bat or knife

There are ways to defend against a bat or a knife. You can't dodge bullets. Other countries don't have the number of deaths from these attacks than we do with guns. I refuse to believe there's nothing that can be done.

[ManiacJoe]

15. A common misconception.

The weapon used tends to be one of convenience. Can't get weapon A, then use weapon B.

The murder rate of London now exceeds that of New York City due to all the knife attacks in London.

[Whiskeytide]

19. I don't think that's correct. Do you have a reliable source for ...

... the claim that London has more murders than NY?

[ManiacJoe]

20. For what my memory is worth,

I remember it from a few months back in one of the major news papers (online). I don't recall which one.

I do remember that the article pointed out that the ranking change resulted more from the bigger drop in murders in NYC than from the smaller rise in London's murders.

[Whiskeytide]

22. From what I've been ...

... able to find, it appears to have been a one month anomaly in Feb 2018.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43628494

One expert said that it was more a function of NY having a “slow” murder month than an increase in London. Cold weather may have played a role.

But London is trending up. Just not higher than NY.

[maxsolomon]

25. Guns allow killing at a distance.

You don't have to do it PERSONALLY. Less visceral, less difficult. Point and click.

"Just use a different method" is not what we see in America. It's nearly always guns.

An experiment is probably in order. Let's seize all firearms for the next 10 years and see what happens to the homicide and suicide rates. If they don't decline, everyone gets their guns back!

Yep:

[fleabiscuit]

29. That's quite incorrect.

Guns help facilitate all violent crimes, such as assult, robbery, and rape.

It's interesting for me to note that London and New York are compared. They are arguably two of the most safe cities to live in the world.

[oldsoftie]

12. you're sadly right. 300 million guns are here. The genie is out of the bottle.

They're not gonna be outlawed. And as you say, even if they were, people simply wouldnt turn them in. And this country is NOT going to approve of house-to-house searches.

[Cold War Spook]

30. If Trump wins his court cases,

the next Democrat to be in the WH might declare a national emergency on gun violence.

[oldsoftie]

32. The problem there becomes the Constitution & specificity.

The argument over the wall is about many things, but none are a direct violation of an Amendment.
Although one could say taking the power to disburse funds away from the Congress rises to that level
We'll see.

But if you declared one for gun violence, how would it be done? Or implemented? Nationwide or just in the areas where it occurs the most? Dont have much of it in my area, would a Dem president say i have to give up my gun? Or would that even BE the order?

[Cold War Spook]

39. Probably not one of my best ideas.

How about Medicare for all since we do have a big healthcare emergency. Just something the Republicans have to think about.

[Demsrule86]

36. Eventually Americas will have enough...and guns will be outlawed and confiscated...I have no doubt.

If those who want to keep guns support common sense solutions...outlaw big magazines and war like weapons such as the AR 15...they might have a chance...but if they don't...guns will go-only a matter of time.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

38. Unrealistic

I think the cost of a house to house would be tens of billions of dollars. That doesn't include sheds, garages, vacation homes, boats, businesses or VEHICLES. I think the country's 800,000 sworn officers could be busy for years doing nothing else but hunting for guns.

I would be a good idea to hire another 800,000 cops just to hunt for guns.

But first you would need to eliminate the Fourth Amendment.

[Demsrule86]

43. Easy peasy...make the consequences of owning one so severe that now one will risk it...

Follow the gun laws (will be much stricter) or pay and enormous fine ...perhaps lose your house.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

44. FYI: I don't own a gun

But if the R&R bunch succeed in repealing the 8th Amendment, I would happily get one to do my part in the ensuing revolution.

Trust me, guns are here to stay.

Addressing the real problems in society won't be easy but IMHO Democrats are more up to the task than Republicans.

[Demsrule86]

45. Trust me. they are not. I refuse to live in the wild wild west and I know there are others

who think like me...so gun folks...get your act together and support reasonable gun control now or lose it all. Not you...a general comment.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

47. To specifically address a few of your points

"...make the consequences of owning one so severe that now one will risk it."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/20/supreme-court-states-cant-impose-excessive-fees-fines-forfeitures/2919411002/
The decision, which united the court's conservatives and liberals, makes clear that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "excessive fines" applies to states and localities as well as the federal government.
...
"The protection against excessive fines guards against abuses of government’s punitive or criminal law-enforcement authority," Ginsburg wrote. Quoting in part from the court's ruling in 2010 that Second Amendment gun rights apply to the states, she said, "This safeguard, we hold, is 'fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty.' "

Clearly, it would be rendered unconstitutional in the very first court decision and every decision after. Without respect to what laws may be enacted, the US government does not hold that the legislative body is supreme. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty There are countries which do but the US isn't one of them. A SCOTUS decision on the constitutionality of any law ends the matter. The process beyond SCOTUS to change the framework upon which laws are based is another Constitutional Convention.

"...it [AR-15] is a weapon of war and it will in end be confiscated..."

In the strictest sense, all weapons are weapons of war in that in the worst circumstances, any weapon will be used when faced with imminent death. Generals and their civilian superiors will follow the Geneva agreements when selecting weapons for mission critical use but an individual warrior in a safety critical situation will resort rocks and shovels if needed. No military I know of issues ARs as a main battle rifle. AFIAK all militaries issue rifles capable of burst or full-auto fire.
Many rifles and pistols and improvements to design have their beginnings with military applications. Lever action rifles 150 years old fire almost as fast as a AR.

The really useful direction for government would, as a first step, to begin to legalize drugs that are often smuggled and sold illegally. Street gangs and career criminals with established violent records deal in these. Drying up their profit motives removes their business incentive to protect and expand their geography. Attacking the slave trade, human trafficking and certain prostitution markets will help more than trying take away everyone's ARs. After those work on limiting the social causes for hate and jealousy to allow the good people to flourish. Stop feeding evil by removing arbitrary prohibitions.

[oldsoftie]

41. Except too many own one. And an AR15 isnt a weapon of war. It just LOOKS like one.

There are 100s of rifles that operate the same way; they just dont look the same. The military has rifles that fire bursts with one trigger pull

We may be able to get a large majority to agree to better sales control & outlawing accessories that upgrade them though. Along with a next-gen back round check

[Demsrule86]

42. Nonsense...it is a weapon of war and it will in end be confiscated ....agree to reasonable

gun control now or lose it all. I am not willing to sacrifice kids to please gun worshipers....not saying that includes you....just a general comment. It is a voting issue for me now and that is what will happens...it becomes a voting issues.

[oldsoftie]

48. Well, you can look at it that way, but no one in the military has an AR15.

And all you have to do is make cosmetic changes to it and it becomes something totally different with the same ability. There are about 10 million of them in the US. And that doesnt even include the weapons that are exactly the same as the AR, but are made by different companies with different model names.
I still think the best thing going forward is stopping things like bump stocks & the like. And developing a better backround check system. Also these newer laws where signs of mental issues would require you give up your weapons.
But simply banning them wont work, because no one will turn them in. And the government is NOT going to go house to house. We all know the history of those actions.

[Demsrule86]

49. I am not wasting time posting stuff that you know about...read the history of the AR-15.

No weapons like this should be allowed outside of the military. Bump stocks and mental health...exactly what Trump did...and it won't help. There have already been a number of shootings since this. We can regulate magazine size and automatic weapons...criminalize the process of transforming a single shot gun into a an automatic weapon...30 first graders were gunned in less than 30 minutes ….killer used an AR-15...the kids were vaporized and couldn't be identified accept by DNA (my friend who is a cop told me-still traumatized)...we don't need weapons that can do this in the hands of civilians. How many folks shot in Vegas and Florida...the movie theatre? How about the Black church in South Carolina or the school in Florida...I am sick of it. It is a voting issue for me. I agree with the background checks system...but mental health is a disaster now and the GOP won't fix it. They destroyed it after all...but the we simply don't need all these guns. I am now a voter who values this issue. No candidate gets my vote in a primary unless he is for gun control or whatever you call it.

[EX500rider]

54. Outlawing all rifles would prevent less then 400 murders per year.

Most likely less as someone could just use a pistol. Handguns however kill 7,000+

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls

[DBoon]

13. When we do what Australian did after their horrific gun massacre

It takes political will, but it can be done and the effect is far fewer gun deaths

[ELO_73]

24. Most Americans incorrectly think gun-murder rates have gotten worse, not better

Most Americans incorrectly think gun-murder rates have gotten worse, not better

By Philip Bump
February 14

On the first anniversary of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., NPR, “PBS NewsHour” and Marist released a poll exploring views of various approaches to gun ownership in the United States. Many of the findings are what we’ve come to expect: broad support for expanded background checks in the purchasing process; split views by party on the necessity for new restrictions on gun ownership. The extended advocacy of the surviving teenagers in Parkland notwithstanding, opinions on guns remain fairly fixed.

At the end of that poll, though, was an interesting question. The pollsters asked respondents a question about a matter of fact: Did they think that the rate of gun murders in the United States was higher or lower than it had been 25 years ago?

Twenty-five years ago was 1994, the year that President Bill Clinton signed into law a sweeping crime bill targeting violent crime and a ban on assault weapons. It was a response to a surge in violent crime that had occurred over several decades.


This history was probably not immediately at hand for respondents. So how did the poll respondents view gun violence now as opposed to then? Most believed that the rate of gun murders now is higher than it was at that point.

More at https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/14/most-americans-incorrectly-think-gun-homicides-have-gotten-worse-not-better/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0b292f569d53

[Eliot Rosewater]

27. Stupid to have more guns than people, REALLY REALLY stupid.

[ELO_73]

28. That's as may be, but how is that a response to the WaPo article? nt

[uppityperson]

31. Why does it matter? Too many are too many.

[oldsoftie]

33. Yep. Because of the 24 hr news cycle. We hear about EVERY shooting these days.

Its like kids missing, today you'll hear about a kid that goes mising 2000 miles away. 30 yrs ago it would have never made the news, so people think kids are being snatched up everywhere, all the time.

[lagomorph777]

52. Welcome to DU. Thanks to the NRA and its Russian sponsors we have more gun deaths

than any other nation on Earth, by far. You won't find many friends here for pro-gun insanity.

[EX500rider]

55. Not really, the US is ranked 10th in firearm fatalities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

And 90th in overall homicides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

[DVDGuy]

56. Woohoo, safer than Venezuela, Colombia!

Per your link, the U.S. is indeed 10th in firearm fatalities, but 10th behind the likes of Honduras, Venezuela, El Salvador, Eswatini, Guatemala, Jamaica, Brazil, Colombia and Panama is not something to be proud of.

While the US is 90th in overall intentional homicides, it's 16th in firearm homicides (again, per your first link), behind the same countries as above plus a few other safe havens such as South Africa and the Philippines. 90th out of 230 isn't something to be too proud of either - it makes the U.S. slightly safer than Afghanistan and only a little bit more dangerous than Sudan - again, from your links, it seems most of the homicides in the U.S. are firearms-related.

The huge discrepancy between non-firearms related homicides (very little, comparable to most of the developed nations) and firearms-related homicides (not very little) may actually say a lot. Unsafe countries mostly seem to have a relatively high level of non-firearms homicides in addition to high firearms-related homicides, something that's not true in the U.S.

So the question is, is the U.S. a country made safer by guns or a (relatively) safe country made more dangerous by them?

(And I haven't even talked about gun suicides)

[Blackjackdavey]

34. Mass murder will end when

or be greatly curtailed when we ban domestic violence. Most mass shooters have a history of domestic violence. A domestic incident report should lead to the immediate revocation of someone's ability to bear arms. We would see fewer mass shootings -- and probably fewer domestic incidents. Then we need to require firearm liability insurance as a requirement for ownership. We would see far fewer "accidental" gun deaths and many more responsible gun owners. These things should be simple and wouldn't infringe on anyone's ability to legally own firearms.

[Jedi Guy]

35. One of your proposals would infringe on that right.

A domestic violence incident report is not a conviction in a court of law, and thus does not give the accused due process. It's the same as suggesting that those on the no-fly list be barred from owning guns.

[Blackjackdavey]

37. "A domestic violence incident report is not a conviction in a court of law"

True, but domestic violence being what it is, incident reports have to be actionable. Maybe build a threshold -- make it three reports and a handgun suspension. Lose your handgun after one such incident get it back after 12 months clean. Make a conviction permanent. The options are unlimited but some variation of the above will have an impact on mass shootings while keeping people who haven't demonstrated that they are a threat to others unhindered.

[Jedi Guy]

40. What you're proposing would be almost instantly struck down as unconstitutional.

Without a conviction following a trial, you can't infringe on a person's Constitutional rights. There is a right to due process for exactly this reason. Incident reports shouldn't be actionable because they are an allegation, not a finding of fact. I can allege anything I wish in an incident report; that doesn't mean that what I allege is accurate, or even true.

By your logic, if incident reports have to be actionable, I can make an incident report that you threatened me with your gun and get your gun taken away, no proof required. A simple allegation, with no other corroborating evidence, cannot and should not result in someone's rights being impacted.

[Blackjackdavey]

46. Okay

Then it sounds like we can agree that a good place to start is that any conviction for a domestic violence charge leads to an immediate, life long loss of firearms.

I guess we'd still have work to do around protecting the rights of women who are threatened with death if they report domestic violence, file a statement or testify to obtain that conviction but, we need to protect the rights of gun owners first and foremost.

[JI7]

3. if we only had the wall

[hibbing]

5. Every day n/t

[riversedge]

7. #neveragain.

[Canoe52]

8. so tired of this...

[Darson]

10. It's a Beautiful Fucking Day in the Neighborhood!

[AllyCat]

11. We get to celebrate Second Amendment Martyr's Day again today!

And on Friday last week...and so many other days. It's the American holiday that we get to celebrate all the time!

[catbyte]

14. Horrific. Three victims elementary school age & younger & and an adult woman.

https://www.woodtv.com/news/kent-county/deaths-reported-in-northern-kent-county/1792002879

[ManiacJoe]

16. The article is suggesting murder-suicide by the mother.

That is not a common occurrence.

[Apollyonus]

17. The scariest part is

how people are gradually becoming numb to such stories ...

Such shootings are becoming everyday occurrences ... like fender-benders and the outrage from them is becoming less intense.

Something has to be done.

[turbinetree]

18. While the traitor........was golfing this weekend, the country has had this shit.......of fear......

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

[KY_EnviroGuy]

21. Thanks for the link. Especially sobering when seen on a spreadsheet.

...........

[doc03]

26. This is the national emergency Trump you f---g moron! nt

[ck4829]

50. Kick

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

51. Three children and one adult dead, and there is no search for a suspect.

Sounds like murder-suicide. It may feel good to blame the gun, but there is a mental/social illness component here that did not get addressed.

And we don't have a good medical infrastructure to deal with this kind of illness.

[jcgoldie]

53. "may feel good to blame the gun"

When do you ever see a murder-suicide scenario or even multiple murder victims with any other sort of weapon?