If he had it all to do over again, he wouldn’t have carried a loaded firearm in his vehicle. 😦
Jordan Russell Davis, a 17-year-old African American high school student, was fatally shot by Michael David Dunn, a 45-year-old software developer from Brevard County who was visiting the city for a wedding.
The incident began when Dunn asked Davis and his companions to turn down the loud music that was being played in the vehicle in which Davis was a passenger …
After Dunn shot up the teen’s car, he ordered pizza. Did not call the police. 😦
The film is getting good reviews. I definitely want to see it.
It is based on Chris Kyle’s autobiography American Sniper …
The film stars Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller …
I’ve enjoyed all the Clint Eastwood directed movies, so assumed I’d like this one.
I did. Most people do.
It wasn’t as good as Unforgiven (1992) or Million Dollar Baby (2004), but I’d recommend you see it. Unless you have an aversion to violent films.
American Sniper received positive response from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a “Certified Fresh” rating of 73%, based on 203 reviews from critics …
The highlight by far was Bradley Cooper. His performance is subtle and nuanced, unlike the movie which is very Eastwood. Too many cliche lines and story points.
It’s a Hollywood moviebased on a true story. Not a documentary.
I don’t find the criticism I’ve read at all valid.
(It is fair to point out that Kyle was inspired after terrorists from Yemen and Saudi Arabia attacked the USA. Yet he was sent instead to fight in Iraq. Saddam Hussein didn’t want anything to do with Bin Laden.)
War is Hell. I’m against war. I wish Kyle had stayed home. If he had been Canadian, he would have. Canada did not join in the coalition of the willing, one of the smartest decisions ever for my nation.
If you don’t like snipers. Don’t like war. Blame Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, not Chris Kyle. He was simply following the orders of his President.
American Sniper is as much an anti-war film as one glorifying war.
I did find it surprising that Eastwood included one scene: Kyle pointing an (unloaded) gun at his wife, in jest. And then setting the weapon carelessly on a ledge with his children in the room. To me it foreshadowed something was going to happen.
Perhaps that scene was in the script. But Eastwood didn’t change it. It seemed unlikely to me that a firearms expert like Chris Kyle would be so nonchalant with weapons in his family home.
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I wasn’t surprised to learn that the real Chris Kyle suffered mentally. I wasn’t surprised to learn he had died from gun fire.
“Live by the sword, die by the sword.”
If you spend enough time around firearms, you stand a higher percentage chance of accident, suicide or murder than if you don’t.
Eddie Ray Routh, then 25, shot and killed Chris Kyle, 38, and his friend Chad Littlefield on Feb. 2, 2013, at a shooting range in Erath County, Texas. Kyle often took veterans, such as Routh, out on shooting ranges to work with them and help them cope with PTSD and related problems.
Oklahoma police released a video Friday from the body camera of a cop who fatally shot a suspect earlier this month.
Muskogee Officer Chansey McMillin, responding to a domestic abuse complaint, approached 21-year-old Terrance Walker outside the Old Agency Baptist Church on Jan. 17, according to local media. (Reports were that Walker had threatened his girlfriend with a weapon.)
The video shows Walker run away and McMillin give chase. The suspect then stops to bend over and pick up something he has dropped in the street.
From the video, it is not clear what he is attempting to retrieve, but police say it was a loaded semiautomatic pistol.
McMillin fires five shots at Walker, who had set off running again, which strike and kill the young man …
HAYDEN, Idaho – A 2-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his mother after he reached into her purse at a northern Idaho Walmart and her concealed gun fired, authorities said Tuesday.
…. Her family had come to the area to visit relatives, he said.
The woman was identified as Veronica J. Rutledge, 29, of Blackfoot, Idaho. Authorities said she had a concealed weapons permit. …
(MSF) or Doctors Without Borders, is a French-founded (now international and federal) humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. …
In 2007 over 26,000, mostly local, doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, logistical experts, water and sanitation engineers and administrators provided medical aid in over 60 countries. These doctors and nurses decided to volunteer their time to solve issues of world health. Private donors provide about 80% of the organization’s funding, while governmental and corporate donations provide the rest, giving MSF an annual budget of approximately US$400 million. …
A slight majority of Americans still defend the rights of everyone, including the mentally ill, to own and even stockpile firearms with a minimum of regulation.
That will change, I believe.
Tea Party extremists and other gundamentalists are less and less vocal on public social media. They don’t like answering questions like this:
Two years after the Newtown shooting, the gun-rights lobby still holds the edge when it comes to gun policy in America.
On the federal level, gun-rights groups, led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), spent roughly twice what gun-control groups spent on national political campaigns and nine times what they paid to lobby Congress, according to data from the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics. …
Don’t Call It “Gun Control”
Advocates have also started to rethink the way they talk about their goals. Today, none of them actually use the term “gun control.” “That’s a phrase that was pointed to as divisive, or didn’t have the right tone or implications,” said Shannon Watts, who founded Moms Demand Action.
They talk instead about “gun safety,” “common-sense gun laws,” or more simply, “keeping guns out of the wrong hands.” They underscore that even as Americans support firearm ownership, 91 percent also want mandatory background checks.
“This framing of pro-gun versus anti-gun, or pro-restriction versus Second Amendment rights, is not a healthy way of looking at this issue if our goal is to save lives,” said Dan Gross, head of the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence. “We need to look at the opportunities that clearly exist to prevent gun deaths and crime while being consistent with the Second Amendment and the desire of law-abiding citizens to own guns.”
Quebec has twice had a referendum on whether to split from Canada.
The proposal was to have a primarily French Canada and a primarily English Canada. Some regions – First Nations, for example – would decide which to join.
There are pros and cons to a separate French Canada.
There are pros and cons to dividing the USA, as well. It wouldn’t be easy, but WHAT IF you suddenly had a Red USA and a Blue USA. The other coloured States would have a referendum as to which they want to join.
Texans might vote to form a 3rd nation.
At any time, a State might vote to move from Blue to Red, or Red to Blue.
Personally, I feel it is an insanely stupid idea where almost everyone would be worse off in a very few years.
Rick McCharles 