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Ear to the Ground

9 Dead in Shooting at Omaha Mall

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Posted on Dec 5, 2007

A gunman who opened fire at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Neb., Wednesday afternoon turned his gun on himself after killing eight people and wounding nine others, according to local authorities.  At a news briefing following the shooting at the Von Maur department store, Sgt. Teresa Negron of the Omaha Police Department said the person believed to be the gunman was dead and his identity had not yet been confirmed.


The New York Times:

Sergeant Negron said the police received a 911 call from someone inside the Westroads Mall on the west side of Omaha, and shots could be heard in the background. The first police officers arrived at the mall six minutes after the first call, she said, but by then the shootings were over.

KETV television in Omaha reported that the gunman left a suicide note that was found at his home by relatives. The television station, quoting a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the shooting, said the note indicated that the gunman wanted to “go out in style.”

The shootings broke the usually banal routine of holiday shopping. The gunman was said by some witnesses to have fired about 20 shots into a crowd at the Von Maur department store. Some customers and workers ran screaming from the mall, while others dived into dressing rooms to hide from the shooter.

“Can anybody make sense out of this?” one shopper tearfully told MSNBC after running out of the mall.

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By Dr. Knowitall, PhD, PhD, December 6, 2007 at 1:47 pm Link to this comment

I’ve been trying to get malls banned for years. I say Mall Control.

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By tomack, December 6, 2007 at 1:24 pm Link to this comment

Gomer, using your logic we might as well hand out bazookas. Because, you know, bazookas don’t kill people, people kill people.

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By Frank, December 6, 2007 at 9:01 am Link to this comment

An average of 114 people die every day in the US from fatal car accidents. How many made CNN headline news yesterday? More than that die each day from heart disease and smoking. All of these things are more deadly to Americans than firearms.

We could forcibly limit the top speeds of all cars to 55mph and ban cigarettes and fast food to eliminate most of these deaths.  If you are for more gun control, you would logically support these measures also.  Neither cigarettes nor Big Macs are used very often to save lives or serve as a crime deterrent either, so the case for strict regulation there is better than for guns.

But of course, the media doesn’t often make national news of deaths from cars, heart disease or smoking, do they?

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By QuyTran, December 6, 2007 at 7:46 am Link to this comment

This poor guy left a note that said :“I’ll be famous”. And our media systems have to be blamed for a such saddened story.

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By cyrena, December 6, 2007 at 12:18 am Link to this comment

#118337 by RIRedinPA on 12/05 at 4:40 pm


Gun fucking control now. It’s just insane to deny it’s needed.

===========================

But, deny, deny, deny they will. AND, that’s the reason why the statistics will continue to climb. Why more and more people will take this option out of the despair that this country has become for so many.

How different is this guy, from the one who went into Clinton’s office with the flares, and held the hostages? Well, we don’t know, since they only said he wanted to ‘go out in style’, so we can assume that more intelligent, (yet still desperate people like that guy in Clintons office) had enough presence of mind to KNOW that he needed help, and hadn’t been able to get it, because he couldn’t afford it. Still, he didn’t have a gun.

Meantime, we’ve got this guy in Omaha, (far more of a gun culture) who just ‘wanted to go out in style’ taking 9 people with him, because he didn’t care.

And, that’s the gun loving culture for you. They really DO NOT care, and that was most evident to me, after that castastrophe at Virginia Tech. The gun lovers were still wanting to celebrate their gun loving culture, right there in the same spot, (raffling off a rifle) within a week after that. They said they felt sorry about it and all, but hey…they love their guns.

And, while one would imagine that they might change their minds if it was finally one of their own that died, I’ve learned that it doesn’t. So, I’ll never be able to figure that out.

And rest assured, that’s one of the PRIMARY reasons why there are so many Ron Paul supporters. He’s promised to let them keep their guns, no bothersome controls, and nevermind that pesky bureaucracy, a man’s gotta have his guns.

Now there are more reasons for folks to take their lives than ever before, and more people doing it, and still…zero gun control. Gotta keep the weapons manufactures happy to ya know. It’s our MAIN export.

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By KenDen, December 5, 2007 at 9:35 pm Link to this comment

I can’t mourn those who were killed today. And I can’t be shocked either. Our country long ago made the decision that the right to own guns trumps human life.  No matter how many get killed each year, we as a society have decided that it is worth the cost, as long as we can continue to own our guns.  Until our society makes a new decision, the statistics will continue to pile up.

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By RIRedinPA, December 5, 2007 at 4:40 pm Link to this comment

Gun fucking control now. It’s just insane to deny it’s needed.

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