Posts Tagged ‘TX’
Going Hog Wild in Texas
Competition to kill the most feral hogs starts
A competition among participating Texas counties to kill the most feral hogs and to educate the most residents about the animals starts Monday, and Hays and Caldwell counties are getting ready.
Both have offered a $2 bounty per feral hog tail to encourage people to participate in the program, a grant competition administered by the Texas Department of Agriculture.
Counties can collect points during the Hog Out County Grant Program from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 for the number of feral hogs taken and the number of people who participate in an educational course to learn about the animals.
I think we’ll be seeing more programs like this.
It’s hard to believe that there are people this stupid
Soldier Kills Pal Trying to Cure Hiccups
Seems Spc. Patrick Edward Myers and friends were watching football—and unsurprisingly, drinking—on Sunday when the victim developed a case of hiccups. In an attempt to scare him out of them, Myers pointed a gun, which he says he thought was loaded with dummy rounds, at the man’s face.
They weren’t dummy rounds.
Bubble
Saw this story: Texas ‘stand your ground’ shooter headed to prison
A Texas man convicted of shooting and killing his unarmed neighbor during a dispute over loud music received a 40-year prison sentence on Wednesday.
Raul Rodriguez, 47, faced a minimum of five years and a maximum of life in prison. He claimed he shot schoolteacher Kelly Danaher in self-defense under Texas’ version of the “stand your ground” law.
But prosecutors argued Rodriguez provoked the incident by confronting Danaher, 36, and his friends with a handgun and demanding they quiet down at a late-night birthday party in May 2010.
The ruling is based on the fact that Rodriguez went to Danaher’s house to confront him initially and, while he had a legal right to be there, he was basically the instigator of the conflict. He picked the fight and refused to back down when it escalated.
At least from the news story, this seems correct. I don’t know many details of the event, so I’m taking it on faith that the court and jury have judged correctly and that the news account is more or less accurate.
This is the part of the story that caught Murdoc’s attention:
But veteran attorney Andy Drumheller told Yahoo News that the Houston jury appeared to draw a line with Rodriguez leaving his home and going down the street.
“The law is not designed to create this bubble that you can carry with you everywhere you go,” said Drumheller, a former prosecutor now practicing criminal defense in Houston. “The jury’s verdict is a cautionary statement on the limits of this defense.” [emphasis Murdoc's]
A “bubble that you can carry with you everywhere you go” is exactly what “stand your ground”/”no duty to retreat” means. If you have a legal right to be there, you have a “bubble” where self-defense is legal.
The ruling wasn’t that there isn’t a bubble in which to stand your ground. The ruling was that it wasn’t a case of self-defense because he sought out the fight.
‘This law, like the Florida law, is a license to kill, especially brown or black people’
Houston lawmaker wants to amend Castle Doctrine
“This law, like the Florida law, is a license to kill, especially brown or black people” Rep. Garnet Coleman, an African-American, said of the bill the Texas Legislature passed overwhelmingly in the 2007 session.
“I knew it was a bad legislation for the people I represent,” said Coleman, one of only 13 legislators — all House Democrats — to vote against Senate Bill 378. “Brown and black people are born suspects, and this law, like the Florida law, allows people to shoot first and ask questions later.”
Um, Rep. Coleman, the questions always come after the shooting. Questions like “was this a legal shooting?” If the answer is “Yes,” there’s your answer. I don’t think it matters what anyone’s skin color is.
It’s almost like he’s trying to make it a racial issue, or something.
Why Would Anyone Ever Want a Gun in a National Park?
Mountain lion snatches Leander boy in Big Bend; child survives
Taking all the recommended precautions wasn’t enough to keep a mountain lion from snatching a 6-year-old Leander boy from his mother’s hand and clamping its jaws on his face at Big Bend National Park on Sunday night…”This attack did not happen on a trail. We were not hiking,” Harris said. “We were on a paved walkway in between a restaurant and a hotel, and this cat grabbed my child from me.”
The cat grabbed the boy from a group of four from a well-traveled paved walkway in an area of human habitation. They had to jump on it and finally managed to stab it with a pocket knife.
‘It was a freak accident’
Man holding pit bull when shot, son says
A neighbor’s pit bull apparently jumped the fence and threatened some kids, but then it got weird:
[Robert] Walker Sr. threw a brick at the dog while his wife quickly escorted her grandchildren into the house. She retrieved a .38-caliber revolver and returned outside, where she found her her husband holding the barking pit bull with both hands. Walker Sr. and the pit bull were face to face with the dog’s back to Betty Walker.
Betty Walker fired two shots, the first striking her husband in the upper right chest. The second bullet struck the dog’s left front leg.
Walker died of his wounds.
According to the story, the threat to the kids was “pulled on a shirt tail.”
Why would you shoot at a dog being held by your husband?
This whole thing, at least from this coverage, seems a bit fishy.
Tear Gas BBQ
A veteran Houston police officer participating with a cooking team at the Houston rodeo’s Bar-B-Que cook-off has been relieved of duty for reportedly tossing a tear gas canister at booth opponents during the popular event, apparently sickening several patrons.
Seems the guy has a bit of a track record with trouble.
Pastor with a Pistol
A Texas Pastor had a different kind of holy trinity backing him up when two teenagers broke in to his church–God, Smith and Wesson.
Campus Carry
New legislation in Arizona, Texas, Florida, Nebraska, New Mexico and Oklahoma would legalize the “concealed carry” of weapons on college campuses, and many student governments in those states are mobilizing against the bills. Meanwhile, the few other campuses that already allow weapons are waiting to see whether this year marks a real shift in gun policy, or is just another short-lived reaction to a tragedy.
Knee-jerk reactions are rarely good in the long term. And knee-jerk reactions that restrict freedoms are, IMHO, practically indefensible. And critics who try to use Virginia Tech as an example of why concealed carry should be banned on college campuses are either clueless or lying, because concealed carry was banned on the VT campus at the time of the shootings.
Hunting Hog with Night Vision and .30 Rem AR
Via Richard Mann:
Bill Wilson on the Circle WC Ranch in Texas. More info on the .30 Remington AR here.
Ho, Ho, and Ho
Houston store owner kills 3 would-be robbers
Two men were in an east Houston jewelry store Thursday afternoon pretending to be customers when a third man burst into the store and stated, “This is a robbery,” Houston police spokesman Kese Smith said.
All three men then pulled out pistols, tied up the store owner’s wife and took her to a back room, Smith said.
As they were trying to tie up the store owner, the 52-year-old took out a handgun from his waistband and fatally shot one of the suspects, Smith said. The store owner then grabbed a shotgun and shot and killed the two other suspects in the ensuring gunbattle, Smith said.
Remember, not all gun violence is bad.
The owner was wounded in the shootout and a fourth suspect, a possible getaway car driver, is still at large.
‘It was a very ill-conceived plan’
Father killed in failed plan to get custody of child
Dwayne Lamont Moten wanted custody of his child. So he devised a plan with another man to get the new boyfriend of the child’s mother out of the way, according to Dallas police.
Jacob Wheeler would shoot to wound Moten. Then Moten would call 911 and pin the shooting on the third man.
Except instead of shooting Moten in the thigh and shoulder, Moten ended up somehow shot in the chest and dying of his wounds.
The shooter was arrested on an unrelated charge and was later charged with murder.
It sounds like something out of a Coen Brothers movie.
