4 ms·

Not excusing the incident but the fuller story is a little more complicated than the police shot someone just because: "The incident happened Thursday when San

Not excusing the incident but the fuller story is a little more complicated than the police shot someone just because: "The incident happened Thursday when Sanchez's next-door neighbor, Ben Ledford, was allegedly "firing up to 100 machine gun rounds at a home across the street, killing a dog inside the house," CBS Sacramento reported. Ledford surrendered to police, but officers fired at Sanchez after they saw him stand at the edge of his open garage and extend his hand out with an object—which turned out to be his cell phone, local NBC affiliate KCRA reported."

icebraining 9y ago
Excusable in a war zone, not in a policing action. Then again a man firing 100 machine gun rounds would be almost unheard of in any other developed country, so maybe the US does qualify as a war zone.
- rayiner 9y ago
  There is a bit of truth to that. England and Wales had about 10 murders per million people last year, versus 50 per million for the U.S. The cities that show up in the news, like Baltimore, are at about 500 per million people. To put that into perspective: Baltimore, a city of just 620,000 people, had a roughly comparable number of homicides as the entirety of England and Wales, a country of 56 million people.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    Wikipedia[0] seems to indicate that Baltimore is about on par with Venezuela and Lesotho, as far as murders per capita go, matching the US Virgin Islands' rate quite well. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
  - pjc50 9y ago
    I think last time I ran the numbers I concluded that Troubles Belfast in the 1970s (troops on the streets, authorised to use deadly force consistent with rules of engagement, versus actual armed terrorists, plus loyalist militias engaging in terrorism of their own) was still safer than 80s Detroit.
- ythn 9y ago
  > so maybe the US does qualify as a war zone. It sure does. We are constantly at war against tyranny and citizen owned guns are one of our best weapons. I don't think any other "developed country" has been democratic as long as we have without lapsing back into tyranny every other century.
  - oblio 9y ago
    1. Are you sure about the correlation between the two? 2. Off the top of my head, the UK, France, Sweden, etc. have been democratic since at least the end of the 19th century.
    - ythn 9y ago
      > Are you sure about the correlation between the two? No, but can you point to any effective tyrannies where the citizens can freely buy and own guns? It seems as though a universal prerequisite to tyranny is gun control. > Off the top of my head, the UK, France, Sweden, etc. have been democratic since at least the end of the 19th century. That's not very long. It turns out that long term democracies are really hard and without constantly reinforcing checks against tyranny, you'll find your country has slipped back into one before you know it. It's happening right now with Turkey.
      - oblio 9y ago
        The best defense against tyranny is an educated populated, not guns. Look at what's happening in the US right now, despite it being brimming with guns.
        ythn 9y ago
        I agree. But just because education is the best defense doesn't mean it should be the only defense. Guns are literally the very last resort to prevent tyranny after all other safeguards have failed.
        9y ago
- golergka 9y ago
  I think the fact that this us unheard of makes it even more excusable. I don't think that the police had faced this kind of sitiation too often.
  - bobwaycott 9y ago
    That it was so unheard of should have invoked far greater caution and hesitancy to fire.
- ad_hominem 9y ago
  The news article was wrong, it wasn't a machine gun. It was a semi-automatic rifle, hardly different than the rifle that Anders Breivik used to kill scores of people in Norway. An example of actual machine guns used would be the rifles used by French citizens to kill over a hundred people in the Bataclan theater (AKMs). They also used hand grenades and high explosive (TATP) suicide belts. In the Charlie Hebdo attacks, besides machine guns they also had an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade).
  - thesmallestcat 9y ago
    It seems like organized criminals in Europe have greater access to automatic firearms than in the US. I'm guessing that's because in the US you're dealing with stolen/straw-purchased legal firearms, whereas military/police arms from former Soviet-bloc countries circulate in Europe. I have nothing to back this up.
  - soundwave106 9y ago
    If you search for Ben Ledford's arrest record in Sacramento County's inmate records database (http://www.sacsheriff.com/inmate_information/SearchNames.aspx http://www.sacsheriff.com/inmate_information/SearchNames.asp...), one of the items he is charged under indeed is PC 32625(A) -- possession of a machine gun. So, not sure if the news article is necessarily wrong. Clearly there is some prosecutor out there who believes that what Ben Ledford possessed qualified as the definition of a machine gun under California law.
    - ad_hominem 9y ago
      Huh I stand corrected. I've seen ATF agents[1], FBI agents [2], as well as US district attorneys[3] incorrectly refer to semi-automatic AR-15s as "assault rifles" (which in actual fact are subclasses of machineguns), but since they charged him with that I assume it really must be a machinegun then. But now I'm really curious to know more specific details about this firearm. Particularly if it was a legally transferable machinegun (legal federally, obviously not in California), or if it was an illegally modified semi-automatic (probably most likely) or a black market gun. [1]: http://ktla.com/2015/12/02/mas-shooting-suspects-had-assault-rifles-pistols-many-magazines-in-shootout-atf/ http://ktla.com/2015/12/02/mas-shooting-suspects-had-assault... [2]: http://documents.latimes.com/lax-shooting-cell-phone-search-warrant/ http://documents.latimes.com/lax-shooting-cell-phone-search-... [3]: https://www.scribd.com/document/293561681/Enrique-Marquez-charged-with-terrorism-offenses-in-San-Bernardino-shooting-investigation https://www.scribd.com/document/293561681/Enrique-Marquez-ch...

icebraining 9y ago

Excusable in a war zone, not in a policing action. Then again a man firing 100 machine gun rounds would be almost unheard of in any other developed country, so maybe the US does qualify as a war zone.

rayiner 9y ago
There is a bit of truth to that. England and Wales had about 10 murders per million people last year, versus 50 per million for the U.S. The cities that show up in the news, like Baltimore, are at about 500 per million people. To put that into perspective: Baltimore, a city of just 620,000 people, had a roughly comparable number of homicides as the entirety of England and Wales, a country of 56 million people.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  Wikipedia[0] seems to indicate that Baltimore is about on par with Venezuela and Lesotho, as far as murders per capita go, matching the US Virgin Islands' rate quite well. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
- pjc50 9y ago
  I think last time I ran the numbers I concluded that Troubles Belfast in the 1970s (troops on the streets, authorised to use deadly force consistent with rules of engagement, versus actual armed terrorists, plus loyalist militias engaging in terrorism of their own) was still safer than 80s Detroit.
ythn 9y ago
> so maybe the US does qualify as a war zone. It sure does. We are constantly at war against tyranny and citizen owned guns are one of our best weapons. I don't think any other "developed country" has been democratic as long as we have without lapsing back into tyranny every other century.
- oblio 9y ago
  1. Are you sure about the correlation between the two? 2. Off the top of my head, the UK, France, Sweden, etc. have been democratic since at least the end of the 19th century.
  - ythn 9y ago
    > Are you sure about the correlation between the two? No, but can you point to any effective tyrannies where the citizens can freely buy and own guns? It seems as though a universal prerequisite to tyranny is gun control. > Off the top of my head, the UK, France, Sweden, etc. have been democratic since at least the end of the 19th century. That's not very long. It turns out that long term democracies are really hard and without constantly reinforcing checks against tyranny, you'll find your country has slipped back into one before you know it. It's happening right now with Turkey.
    - oblio 9y ago
      The best defense against tyranny is an educated populated, not guns. Look at what's happening in the US right now, despite it being brimming with guns.
      - ythn 9y ago
        I agree. But just because education is the best defense doesn't mean it should be the only defense. Guns are literally the very last resort to prevent tyranny after all other safeguards have failed.
        9y ago
golergka 9y ago
I think the fact that this us unheard of makes it even more excusable. I don't think that the police had faced this kind of sitiation too often.
- bobwaycott 9y ago
  That it was so unheard of should have invoked far greater caution and hesitancy to fire.
ad_hominem 9y ago
The news article was wrong, it wasn't a machine gun. It was a semi-automatic rifle, hardly different than the rifle that Anders Breivik used to kill scores of people in Norway. An example of actual machine guns used would be the rifles used by French citizens to kill over a hundred people in the Bataclan theater (AKMs). They also used hand grenades and high explosive (TATP) suicide belts. In the Charlie Hebdo attacks, besides machine guns they also had an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade).
- thesmallestcat 9y ago
  It seems like organized criminals in Europe have greater access to automatic firearms than in the US. I'm guessing that's because in the US you're dealing with stolen/straw-purchased legal firearms, whereas military/police arms from former Soviet-bloc countries circulate in Europe. I have nothing to back this up.
- soundwave106 9y ago
  If you search for Ben Ledford's arrest record in Sacramento County's inmate records database (http://www.sacsheriff.com/inmate_information/SearchNames.aspx http://www.sacsheriff.com/inmate_information/SearchNames.asp...), one of the items he is charged under indeed is PC 32625(A) -- possession of a machine gun. So, not sure if the news article is necessarily wrong. Clearly there is some prosecutor out there who believes that what Ben Ledford possessed qualified as the definition of a machine gun under California law.
  - ad_hominem 9y ago
    Huh I stand corrected. I've seen ATF agents[1], FBI agents [2], as well as US district attorneys[3] incorrectly refer to semi-automatic AR-15s as "assault rifles" (which in actual fact are subclasses of machineguns), but since they charged him with that I assume it really must be a machinegun then. But now I'm really curious to know more specific details about this firearm. Particularly if it was a legally transferable machinegun (legal federally, obviously not in California), or if it was an illegally modified semi-automatic (probably most likely) or a black market gun. [1]: http://ktla.com/2015/12/02/mas-shooting-suspects-had-assault-rifles-pistols-many-magazines-in-shootout-atf/ http://ktla.com/2015/12/02/mas-shooting-suspects-had-assault... [2]: http://documents.latimes.com/lax-shooting-cell-phone-search-warrant/ http://documents.latimes.com/lax-shooting-cell-phone-search-... [3]: https://www.scribd.com/document/293561681/Enrique-Marquez-charged-with-terrorism-offenses-in-San-Bernardino-shooting-investigation https://www.scribd.com/document/293561681/Enrique-Marquez-ch...