Think “road rage” is a phenomena exclusive to big cities like LA? Think again.
Yesterday, St. Albans experienced a fatal shooting, between apparent strangers, that preliminary reports say was due to that old black magic, “road rage.”
The victim, Anna Alger of Highgate, made the mistake of following a car that ran a red light and cut her off at an intersection; then getting out of her car to confront the driver. The driver, who reportedly had multiple guns in his vehicle, exited and shot her not once, but six times.
Ms. Alger later died at Northwestern Medical Center.
The shooter, Matthew Webster of Swanton, is being held on a charge of second degree murder.
The police say they aren’t blaming the victim but suggest that she should have gone to the police rather than following the dangerous driver and confronting him.
No kidding.
A witness to the shooting was Webster’s wife, who apparently followed Webster in another car after some sort of domestic dispute.
WCAX reports that Webster pled “not guilty” this morning in court. I can’t wait to hear his defense.
“Good guys with guns” are good guys right up until that split-second when they become bad guys with guns.
http://www.wptz.com/news/vermo…
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/w…
It is what it is. Nothing more; nothing less.
It occurred to me, too, that this guy would have pulled-out a baseball bat if he had that, and didn’t happen to have two guns in his car with which to kill himself.
Two Great American Sportsmen’s playthings.
Nearly impossible to kill oneself with a baseball bat.
Cuz this is what I do now…lol.
Reality checks:
1. Sue: you know the dangers of policy-by-anecdote. It doesn’t work, and it leads to massive policy trainwrecks. It’s dangerous.
2. Eddie, its not exploiting a tragedy. The gun control crowd promotes the equation that [guns = gun deaths], so pointing and a gun death and saying “see!” is a normal/natural part of the debate, the same way as pointing to climate change driven disasters (droughts, floods, storms) is a normal/natural part of that debate.
So there.
Yeah, I know, I’m an ass, but you guys still loooooove me, right?
We don’t. We have a people problem. People not respecting onw another. People not using their heads, like the victim. She should have taken down his plate number and called the police rather than confronting him on her own.
His reason for pleading Not Guilty? “I was abused as a child. Drug abuse or off meds. Insanity. Radio waves. I heard voices.” Take your pick.
Well, if the fucker had blown his own brains out, it wouldn’t be about a gun problem–it would be about a mental problem. Guess he decided that killing someone else was the easier way out. Nice. But people like this are always going to be able to get a gun, not matter what new regulations are put in place. It’s not the gun, it’s the asshole.
Assholes are always going to have guns. Drug gangs and criminals and mental cases and assholes.
I think part of what we’re seeing is reaction by nuts and assholes to Feinstein and Obama’s campaign. Use it or lose it?
So, because an asshole (probably a batterer too) goes ballistic on a woman, we should disarm? I think not. I’d rather be able to have the ability to return fire, Sue.
Sad as it is, the GUN is more the American symbol than the bald eagle. Because…we’re using guns like assholes on peoples in other countries. Road Rage/War Rage. I think what needs to be regulated is our Foreign Policy. A more peaceable United States in its relations with other peoples will beget a more peaceable American society. Why do you think Newton or the Navy Yard or this incident in Vermont happened? As Dostoyevsky might have put it: “If there is no (morality), everything is permissible.”
Think about how many gun incidents have happened since Obama first came out for starting another war in Syria?
of a particular (fill in the blank) _ persuasion are always going to tell it from their perspective. So?
I should think Ms. Congeniality would get a small break once in a while. She’s pretty brave to damn the hail of bullets & stand up to we the RKBA crowd dontcha think…
It is my opinion that Matthew Webster’s minimum sentence for killing Anna Alger should be to cut off his balls, if he has any. He should be left with a high, squeakeeeeee voice to advertise his presence to all and for his humiliation. A mandatory license plate for his vehicle should read “NOT 1 Ball 1.” Our earth cannot support its present population. It does not need a proliferation of descendants of Matthew Webster. I really hate to be so mean and ugly as him but his kind must cease to be, where we live.
Perry Cooper
running up on him like that.
(Was she wearing a hoodie and carrying Skittles in her pocket?)
Man’s gotta stand his ground, get his man-card punched. Once – or eleven – times.
Driving down here in Dicksea, I am always glad to see the NRA stickers – it lets you know the folks with the dangerous anger management issues.
Wait, what color cowboy hat did he have on???
White or black?
Makes a big difference in how the NRA will respond.
Guys with white cowboy hats are heros, but guys with black cowboy hats are bad guys…
Yeah, I may be off in these stats, but it’s startling. About 35–let’s say 40–thousand gun deaths per year in the USA, and about 800,000 missing children now per year (under 18).
The missing kids figure has grown dramatically in the last couple of decades.
How’s come we don’t seem to care about this? That’s almost a MILLION kids–and maybe is, if there are 200,000 UNREPORTED cases.
Now, if you allow for kidnappings by family members and non-family members, you can knock off about 250,000 from this figure. And some missings per year are ‘dupes’–meaning the kid was a multiple runaway. So maybe knock off about 100,000 there. Still leaves close to HALF A MILLION missing kids per year.
Where did they all go? Were they all shot and cleverly disposed of? I’m saying that I’d like to see us get ‘worked-up’ about THIS. The national gun debate has a big engine. But you don’t hear much about the missing kids.
800,000–that figure is shocking! If almost a MILLION Americans were killed by guns per year, I’d say: “Yeah, something needs to be done.” But right now I say: “Fuck gun control, and all the wasted energy there. We’ve got a WAY BIGGER PROBLEM, folks.”
I have said for years that ‘human trafficking’ is part of the world’s ADVENTURES IN CAPITALISM. A dead child, or woman, or man ain’t worth shit. But a live one?
Would you shoot someone you see trying to snatch a child? Probably no opportunity there, so forget that. But that figure makes me feel like saying: “We need to arm the kiddies.”
Well, this is certainly a tragic story.
But here’s my takeaway from this story. If someone is threatening to take their life, don’t chase them or try to be a hero, but instead, call 911 and get help. If you are in a near hit or an accident in your car as a result of someone else’s fault, call 911. That’s why it exsists.
I have called 911 once in my life. My co-worker suffered a heart attack and before I tried out my CPR skills on him, I dialed 911 and the ambulance corps was there in less then 5 minutes. They saved his life because they had a defibulator gizmo and jumped the dude back to life. The medic told me CPR works only about 10% of the time and its only on TV where everybody lives.
…..
Well, this is certainly a tragic story.
But here’s my takeaway from this story. If someone is threatening to take their life, don’t chase them or try to be a hero, but instead, call 911 and get help. If you are in a near hit or an accident in your car as a result of someone else’s fault, call 911. That’s why it exsists.
I have called 911 once in my life. My co-worker suffered a heart attack and before I tried out my CPR skills on him, I dialed 911 and the ambulance corps was there in less then 5 minutes. They saved his life because they had a defibulator gizmo and jumped the dude back to life. The medic told me CPR works only about 10% of the time and its only on TV where everybody lives.
…..
Well, this is certainly a tragic story.
But here’s my takeaway from this story. If someone is threatening to take their life, don’t chase them or try to be a hero, but instead, call 911 and get help. If you are in a near hit or an accident in your car as a result of someone else’s fault, call 911. That’s why it exsists.
I have called 911 once in my life. My co-worker suffered a heart attack and before I tried out my CPR skills on him, I dialed 911 and the ambulance corps was there in less then 5 minutes. They saved his life because they had a defibulator gizmo and jumped the dude back to life. The medic told me CPR works only about 10% of the time and its only on TV where everybody lives.
…..
Well, this is certainly a tragic story.
But here’s my takeaway from this story. If someone is threatening to take their life, don’t chase them or try to be a hero, but instead, call 911 and get help. If you are in a near hit or an accident in your car as a result of someone else’s fault, call 911. That’s why it exsists.
I have called 911 once in my life. My co-worker suffered a heart attack and before I tried out my CPR skills on him, I dialed 911 and the ambulance corps was there in less then 5 minutes. They saved his life because they had a defibulator gizmo and jumped the dude back to life. The medic told me CPR works only about 10% of the time and its only on TV where everybody lives.
…..
Guns and gun control. It feels to me like another example of how Americans respond when they feel threatened by the ‘other’. 9/11 leads to war in Iraq, Afghanistan. Then, with war, with the whole world hating Americans, with Americans on vacation abroad telling their waiters and hotel keepers that they are really ‘Canadians’, you have more threat. So, “Peace,” we vigil. “We don’t want to get BOMBED. Please, government, PROTECT US! Stop The Violence! It may come back on us.”
We don’t want to get SHOT. We don’t care about injustice at home here–it is just the ‘other’, and they may have guns. Can’t a respectable white Peace-Loving American walk down the streets without having to worry about the ‘other’? “Please, government, do something!” Anything.
So, as Martin Niemoller might have put it: “First they came for our guns, but I didn’t own one, so I did nothing. Then they came for our Social Security, Medicare, and Emergency Relief funds, but I had bigger things to think about. Then they came for our vote, but I never voted anymore, so big deal. Then they came for me and my children, and I looked around, and nobody seemed to give a shit, and Damn It! I didn’t even have a gun. Sonofabitch! How did this happen?”
Gun Control–Control The OTHER. Or: “Was it not Moby Dick that shot off thy leg?” Yes, a WHITE whale. Good and Evil. It now depends on your priorities. Or your obsession with ‘threat’.