Another Mass Shooting, this one at the Empire State Building

Want to bet the gun or guns turn out to have been bought OUTSIDE of New York City? New York has very successful gun control; 85% of the guns used in any kind of crime come from other states, notably Virginia and Florida (ah HAH! turned out to be Florida).

The headline below is out of date; it appears there were 2 killed, 9 wounded.

It is too easy for disgruntled individuals to get their hands on firearms, and to use them.  We have far too many shootings in workplaces, we have too many domestic murder suicides - an estimated 3 or more per week - many of which involve multiple victims, and of course, we have far too many school mass shootings.

from MSNBC.com

2 killed, 8 injured in shooting near Empire State Building

 

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By Andrew Mach, Shimon Prokupecz and Jonathan Dienst, NBC News

A disgruntled ex-employee of a women’s accessories business gunned down a former co-worker and then died in a hail of police bullets Friday morning outside the Empire State Building, officials said.
Eight bystanders were grazed or shot -- all of them, apparently, by police bullets, sources said.
The suspected gunman, Jeffrey Johnson, 58, who was laid off a year ago, approached a former co-worker on the street and shot him three times, killing him, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Johnson's victim was not officially identified, but a law enforcement official told NBC News he was Steven Ercolino, a vice president at Hazan Import, where Johnson had worked until last year.
A police report from last year said that on April 27, 2011, Johnson threatened Ercolino, saying, "I am going to kill you."
A construction worker who witnessed the shooting incident Friday at 10 W. 33rd Street followed Johnson as he walked away, Kelly said. The construction worker alerted police, who confronted Johnson.
Johnson was walking along the curb in front of the Empire State Building when he turned his .45-caliber pistol on the officers and was killed as they opened fire, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
Police fired at least 14 times, Kelly said.
More coverage at NBCNewYork.com
Kelly said that some of those injured in the incident may have been hit by police bullets, adding that the injured are expected to survive.
Kelly said Johnson was a designer of women's accessories at Hazan Imports until he was laid-off in a downsizing.
Johnson bought the .45-caliber gun used in the shooting in 1991 in Florida, two law enforcement souces told NBC News. He was not licensed to carry arms in New York, they said.

Ercolino, who lived in Warwick, N.Y., was the father of a young boy, neighbors there told NBC News.

Through photos and tweets, witnesses show chaos outside Empire State Building
Witnesses described a chaotic scene Friday morning on streets crowded with tourists and commuters alike.

"People were yelling 'Get down! Get down!", said Marc Engel, an accountant who was on a bus in the area when he heard the shots. "It took about 15 seconds, a lot of 'pop, pop, pop, pop, one shot after the other."

"I heard pop, pop, pop, pop, and I ran back into my offices,” Gloria Walker, another witness, told NBC News. "I ran, I ran, I ran."

Another witness, Darrin Deleuil, told the Wall Street Journal that he saw the shooter, wearing a suit and fedora shoot one victim point blank on 33rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue. "He looked like an old gangster," Deleuil said. "He looked real calm to me. He made sure he didn't miss him."

 

The FDNY told NBC News they responded to a call about the shooting at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street at 9:07 a.m. Friday and arrived at 9:13 a.m.

The body of the gunman remained on the street, under a white sheet, in front of Heartland Brewery until it was taken to the city medcal examiner's office around noon.

The Empire State Building operators said the building was not involved in the shooting and remained open.

Update on the California Oikos Shooting

The booking photo for Oakland school massacre suspect One L. Goh. (Alameda County Sheriff)

It has been reported that the shooter, was formerly from Virginia, including during the period of the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007.  It was reported through a variety of media sources this evening that the shooter - the 'alleged' shooter who has confessed, and who has been identified by victims and by-standers, had legally purchased the gun used as much as six weeks before the mass shooting. 
He is reported to have been expelled, and to have been angry that he was teased for his poor language skills.  He also appears to be angry that he was attending school with younger people than himself.  He asserted - it is reported that he was 'gunning' for a female administrator, and instead shot a female receptionist, which suggests to me that he may have had a problem with women in some kind of official or authority positions.
He was reported to have had anger issues.

“It’s very, very sad,” police Chief Howard Jordan said.  “We have seven people who didn’t deserve to die and three others wounded because someone who couldn’t deal with the pressures of life.”

Police have released little background information about Goh, other than to say he had become a U.S. citizen.

A nursing professor who taught him said Goh would often tell a story about beating someone up who tried to mug him in San Francisco.

Romie John Delariman said Goh would say that he picked fights at a park when he was bored.

“Sometimes he would brag that he was capable of hurting people,” Delariman told The Associated Press.

“He said he was too old to go school with all the young people, and he said all his classmates were mean to him.”

Jordan said officials kicked Goh out for unspecified behavioral problems and that he had “anger management” issues.

This appears to have been planned.  while there has been nothing reported - so far - that suggests this alleged / confessed shooter has the kind of disabling mental illness associated with people like Jared Loughner from the shooting of Gabby Giffords and other innocent strangers in Arizona a little over a year ago, or like that of the demented gun obsessed Anders Breivik in Norway from last year's Norway shooting.  This appears to be a case only of a person who was maladjusted and unhappy, angry, not suffering from psychotic delusions beyond his control.
It is deeply disturbing to me that this man with his anger issues and his predilection for violence - at least for claims of violence - could so easily get his hands on a legally purchased firearm without challenge or difficulty.
And perhaps the most disturbing,

"Police said Goh has cooperated with officers—though he would not reveal where he left the semi-automatic pistol used in the shooting—and is being held without bail on suspicion of seven counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder and other charges."

Oh, goody; no one except the gunman (alleged / confessed) knows where the gun is or if anyone else has it.

April has such a tragic, evil history of mass shootings....... and we still fail to keep guns out of the hands of the crazy and dangerous

Why do so many of these mass shootings - like Columbine, like Virginia Tech - occur in the month of April?  And why do we still make it too damned easy for crazy and dangerous people, and criminals, to buy unlimited guns, enormous firepower, from private sellers without a background check, and from gun shows under the gun show loophole?

Why? 

Why don't we learn from our mistakes regarding guns and the people who abuse them?
From MSNBC.com

Gunman kills 7 at small Calif. university

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By msnbc.com staff and news services Updated at 5:45 p.m. ET: A gunman opened fire Monday morning at a small Christian university in Oakland, Calif., killing seven people and wounding three, according to the City of Oakland. Earlier reports said five had been killed. "10 people were injured during this morning's shooting, 7 of which are fatalities," Cynthia Perkins, a public safety official, said in a statement. The Oakland Police Department said a possible suspect was in custody. "No imminent public safety threat appears to exist in immediate area," the department said on its twitter account.
Some of the wounded at Oikos University were taken away by ambulance, while others were cared for outside the building, the Oakland Tribune reported.
The school's director said the suspect had previously been a nursing student at Oikos but was no longer enrolled, the Tribune reported. He was unsure if the man had been expelled or dropped out.
Police had been looking for a gunman described as a Korean man in his 40s who allegedly carried out the attack on Oikos University, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The man had a heavy build and was wearing khaki clothing, police said.

KNTV

A victim in the shootings at Oikos University in Oakland, Calif., is taken to an ambulance.

Angie Johnson told the San Francisco Chronicle that she saw a young woman leave the building with blood coming from her arm and crying: "I've been shot. I've been shot."
The injured woman said the shooter was a man in her nursing class who got up and shot one person at point-blank range in the chest before spraying the room with bullets, Johnson said.
"She said he looked crazy all the time," she said the victim told her, "but they never knew how far he would go."
Oikos says it aims to educate “emerging Christian leaders” and offers courses in theology, music, Asian medicine and nursing.