Man Shot 45 Times by Best Friend Lived Through First 32 Shots

JEFFERSON, N.C. — Prosecutors say a man shot by his best friend 45 times lived through the first 32 shots.

They highlighted the findings of pathologists at Freddie McDowell Jr.’s murder trial Thursday after defense testimony claimed the 24-year-old man suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, The Winston-Salem Journal reported.

Authorities say McDowell killed 19-year-old Drew Howell at a mountain home in Wilkes County, N.C., in June 2006.

McDowell’s attorney says he acted in self-defense and was abused as a child.

But prosecutors showed photos of Howell, who was shot in the eyes, groin and chest with a .38-caliber revolver, and pointed out that McDowell cleaned the cabin before police arrived.

Prosecutors are expected to give their closing arguments Friday.

Full Story Here:
Prosecutors: Man Shot 45 Times by Best Friend Lived Through First 32 Shots

OK, this is a much over-used phrase these days but, let’s DO the math!

A .38 revolver carries, at most, 6 rounds. IF the gun was fully loaded when this thing started, and he emptied it into the victim, that’s 6 rounds. Then he had to fully reload at least 6 more times to have fired 36 more rounds. 6 shots x 6 reloads is 36 + 6 more additional rounds = 42. Then he had to reload at least a partial load of 3 more rounds to make a total of 45 rounds into the victim. That’s not taking into consideration ANY misses that may have occurred.

McDowell’s attorney says he acted in self-defense and was abused as a child.

I don’t know about you, but I think I would have gone for an *insanity* plea. If there is anyone on that jury that can do basic math, they too will figure this out. And here’s the trick, a grand jury, in *most* places, looks at it this way, IF you have a revolver in hand and you took time to cock it, as opposed to just pulling the trigger, you took time to think, and that equates to premeditation.

If Freddie McDowell Jr. took time to reload as many times as was necessary to place 45 rounds into Drew Howell’s body, I would have to say he took a lot of time to think about his actions and their repercussions! Somehow I just don’t believe that a difficult childhood, or having been abused as a child would be the defense I would want to try.

The people that scream about *no guns* will have a field day with this one. They are wrong of course, this is a case of seriously premeditated murder or a total loss of sanity. An assault weapon doesn’t put out that many rounds without reloading. This was a deliberate action committed by a person with a very sick mind. It just so happens that a gun was used as his tool to commit murder. Had it not been a gun, it would have been a knife, an axe, a ball bat, any number of items! The GUN did not do this, the MAN did it!

One other thing that I personally found strange about this story was, these guys were *best friends*. With friends like McDowell, Howell didn’t need ANY enemies!

Pizza man delivers shot to armed robbers

A pizza delivery man found himself forced to use his concealed gun to protect himself Tuesday night when two men allegedly attempted to rob him at gunpoint in the 100 block of Booker Street, according to a report from Lt. David Young, Lufkin Police Department spokesman.

Police arrested Johnx R. Greer, 18, at 1:16 a.m. Wednesday on a charge of aggravated robbery in the incident. Police are still investigating the identity of the other suspect.

The delivery man, who has a license to carry a handgun, told police he walked up to the door of the house and rang the doorbell, but the house was vacant. The two men came from behind the side of the house, pointing handguns at him and demanded his cell phone and money while he was delivering a pizza to a house at 9:05 p.m. Tuesday, according to the report. The delivery man drew a .22 caliber Derringer and fired two shots at Greer.

Greer and the other man fled on foot, according to the report. The delivery man was not injured, but Greer was arrested after being treated at a local hospital for a gunshot wound to the back. Greer is currently being held at the Angelina County Jail on a $100,000 bond.

Full Story Here:
Pizza man delivers shot to armed robbers

I just LOVE a FEEL GOOD story, and this is one of them, in almost every respect.

The negative side you ask?? Why, it’s almost a certainty that Papa John’s will fire the guy. I don’t have ANY solid information on that, it IS speculation on MY part, but I would be totally surprised if they didn’t!

I had a friend that was going to school, working on his Masters in Education while holding down a full time teaching job and pulling a 10P - 6A shift at a local convenience store that shall remain unnamed because I have never spent a penny in one since, I can live without a *Big Gulp*… Uh, Ooops…

Anyway, my friend was getting robbed, an armed robber, he bent over like he was going to open the safe and the robber was briefly distracted, my friend came up with his .357 and punched this SOB’s ticket for him.

The police are happy, one less asshole on the street, my buddy is happy, he didn’t get robbed and lived to tell a good story but the corporate headquarters was seriously pissed off, they fired him. It seems they had this corporate policy about *giving in* to robbers and carrying a weapon was completely OUT of the equation.

My buddy lost his 2nd job, had no trouble getting a new one, he was a local hero of sorts, went on to get his Masters and is still a wonderful guy and a great Conservative educator.

This pizza guy will get a new job if he gets fired, but IF Papa John’s doesn’t fire him, I’ll eat Papa John’s pizza exclusively from now on!!

EDIT TO ADD: Info regarding this being a delivery person for Papa John’s Pizza is HERE, the link had rolled off the front page and I had to dig a bit!!

EDIT TO ADD: Lufkin Police have arrested a second man in connection to the attempted robbery of a pizza delivery man Tuesday evening.

Full Story Here:
Police arrest second suspect in pizza delivery robbery

National Rifle Association endorses McCain

WASHINGTON (AP) - The National Rifle Association is endorsing Republican presidential nominee John McCain despite differences with the Arizona senator on gun-show rules and campaign finance restrictions.

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and the chairman of the NRA’s political action committee planned stops Thursday in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Colorado and Nevada to talk about the move.

LaPierre said the two agree on many issues important to the group.

“He’s cast more than 60 votes in the Senate in support of the Second Amendment,” LaPierre said.

The NRA’s Political Victory Fund has spent more than $2.3 million opposing Democratic nominee Barack Obama. The chairman of the political action committee, Chris W. Cox, says its spending in the presidential race will grow to “eight figures” by Election Day. Besides ads, encouraging battleground-state gun owners to vote will be a key focus, he said.

Full Story Here:
National Rifle Association endorses McCain

Of course the NRA is supporting John McCain, the NRA is in the same boat that 99% of the Conservatives of this nation are. We don’t have another viable choice. McCain is FAR from being the right candidate, but he IS, overall, much easier to accept than Barack Hussein Obama!

Personally, I have serious issues, TRUST issues, I have a long memory and Sen. McCain has NEVER been a real friend of the American gun owner. He has of late change his rhetoric, he appears to be more gun friendly, but I feel that his stance really hasn’t change. It is MY opinion that McCain still holds all of his anti-gun feelings but he knows that without the NRA, it’s members and the American gun owner, he can’t even think of getting elected.

Let me remind you of Sen. McCain’s record on guns, either John McCain is a born again gun lover or he is the most pandering RINO that has ever run for office:

John McCain tried running for president in 2000 as an anti-gunner. This year it appears he is seeking to ‘come home’ to the pro-gun community, but the wounds are deep and memories long. John McCain - GOA 2008

As if there wasn’t already plenty of evidence that Senator John McCain is the wrong choice for pro-gun Republicans in the Presidential primary, the Columbus Dispatch has added one more item to the list: Buckeye Firearms Association

Nowhere is McCain’s chicanery and duplicity more jeopardous than in the area of the right to keep and bear arms. On issues relating to the Second Amendment, John McCain is a disaster! For example, the highly respected Gun Owners of America (GOA) rates McCain with a grade of F-. McCain’s failing grade is well deserved. John McCain Is A Liberal Gun Grabber

I am NOT saying McCain hasn’t changed his beliefs, it IS a possibility, but I am saying this, I remain highly suspect of Sen. McCain and his loyalty to the American gun owner. But, given that possibility of having changed his view on guns, and given the KNOWN anti-gun status of Barack Hussein Obama, McCain is the ONLY choice we truly have short of voting for Bob Barr and the Libertarian ticket.

Obama has consistently supported gun control legislation that came up while he was in the Illinois state legislature and the U.S. Senate.

For example, when Obama ran for the Illinois state senate the political group, Independent Voters of Illinois (IVI), asked him if he supported a “ban [on] the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns” and he responded “yes.”

Realizing how damaging this could prove in the general election, his presidential campaign “flatly denied” Obama ever held this view, blaming it instead on a staffer from his state senate race. SOURCE

I hope you will all take these facts into consideration on November 4th, Sen. McCain is NOT the perfect candidate, but he beats B. Hussein Obama hands down! And in MY opinion, Bob Barr beats BOTH of them!

Colleges confront shootings with survival training

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Hundreds of colleges across the nation have purchased a training program that teaches professors and students not to take campus threats lying down but to fight back with any “improvised weapon,” from a backpack to a laptop computer.

The program - which includes a video showing a gunman opening fire in a packed classroom - urges them to be ready to respond to a shooter by taking advantage of the inherent strength in numbers.

It reflects a new response at colleges and universities where grisly memories of the campus shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University are still fresh.

“Look at your environment through the lens of survival,” said Domenick Brouillette, who administered the course at Metropolitan Community College, which serves more than 20,000 students. “Survivors prepare themselves both mentally and emotionally to do what it takes. It might involve life-threatening risk. You may do something you never thought you were capable of doing.”

Full Story Here:
Colleges confront shootings with survival training

Maybe I should have considered a job in the field of motivational speaking and survival training.

I addressed the victim mentality that was so overpowering and present at the Virginia Tech tragedy, Virginia Tech - The Real Tragedy, I wrote the most serious article I have ever written and every word was heart felt, for the victims and their families.

Showing students violent images of school shootings could trigger post-traumatic stress or other reactions that resident advisers, graduate assistants and similarly untrained workers would be unequipped to handle, Coleman said.

And the techniques shown in instructional videos such as “Shots Fired” could provide inspiration for troubled students considering their own acts of violence, Coleman suggested.

C’mon, lets get REAL here. Kids today have seen hundreds of murders and executions in their young lifetimes. You can thank the wonderful world of television and the very graphic video games industry, and it’s world wide market for that.

The kids of today are fairly calloused in regards to death, they have seen far too much of it, in a fake medium. And these training videos are exactly that, a fake medium, one where every victim gets up and walks off when it’s over, and the kids know it. It’s when our young people see it for real, the 1st time they see a friend with his guts hanging out, or his brains all over the wall, or legs and arms blown off, it’s then, and only then, that reality, and true terror set in.

A fine example is the very large number of our troops that are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering PTSD. They are well trained, they have been through all the films, all the realistic training scenarios and every other mode of education our military can use to prepare them for the horrors of battle. And we still have troops returning that have all but lost their minds. Or worse, troops that, after all of that training, simply froze, failed to react to the immediate threat, and died because of that failure.

Those things are happening on a regular basis, with well armed and well trained troops. A short course in improvised weaponry and survival training may very well help some students survive a classroom attack, I am not knocking it, in any way, but this is not something that can or should be done in a brief, one hour, 3 times a week for 2 weeks and it’s over type thing.

Survival IS a matter of training, but it is as much an instinct as anything, and that instinct is not bred into ALL people. It’s up to the parents of our kids to begin that survival training from the moment their kids are old enough to comprehend.

The really sad part is, there are so many young parents today that are products OF the *oh well* mindset that has become so prevalent in the American way of thinking. And until that mindset is overcome, there will always be victims that do absolutely nothing to defend themselves.