PHILADELPHIA — A man with a pistol fatally shot three people on Friday in rural western Pennsylvania, one of them in a church, before he was killed in a shootout with state troopers as he tried to flee in a pickup truck, authorities said.
Three state troopers also were injured in their confrontation with the gunman in Frankstown Township, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh, shortly after 9 a.m., state police said.
The violence in Pennsylvania unfolded as bells tolled and many Americans were observing a moment of silence for the 20 children and six adults shot to death one week ago by a gunman at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
The Newtown shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, also shot his mother to death at their home before going on his rampage, which ended with his suicide and has reignited a national debate over gun control.
The National Rifle Association pro-gun lobby marked the occasion on Friday with a statement urging that armed guards be placed at the nation’s schools to improve security.
Friday evening, investigators were still piecing together events behind the deadly shootings in Pennsylvania.
“We don’t believe it was a domestic dispute, but we also don’t know a motive, because the shooter was not related to any of the victims,” trooper David McGarvey, a state police spokesman, said hours after the unexplained slayings.
In fairly rapid succession, the gunman shot and killed a woman inside a church, then fatally shot two men at their respective homes — all within a short distance from each other — before trying to flee in his pickup truck.
He opened fire at two state police patrol cars rushing to the scene as he passed them on a two-lane road and slammed head-on into a third patrol car. The gunman was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police at the crash scene, McGarvey said.
The identities the gunman and his victims were being withheld until their next of kin were all notified, he said.
All three troopers involved in the chase were injured — one from the collision, one hit in the face by bullet fragments and shattered glass, and one who was shot in the chest but survived thanks to a bullet-proof vest. All three were treated and released from a local hospital, McGarvey said.
Another state police spokesman, trooper Adam Reed, said earlier it did not appear that the shooting had any connection to events last week in Connecticut, but added, “that’s all still being looked into.”
(Reporting by Drew Singer and Daniel Trotta; Additional reporting and writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Sandra Maler, Alden Bentley, Gary Hill)
Next, I guess we can expect Wayne LaPierre to be lecturing us that what we need are armed, uniformed officers in every church. Anything to protect the cash flow in America’s death industry.
and every movie theater and every military base and well let’s just have a police state and call it a day….
You know I was thinking that if it could be made affordable then perhaps posting armed guards in all these places wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Then it struck me, why not let the NRA pay for all the new policemen/women that this would take? All their money would be better spent on putting thousands back to work and providing security then simply enriching politicians by purchasing their votes in Washington.
Almost got verbally lynched for that same sentiment earlier. LOL Of course, the NRA is just the mouthpiece the front-man, for the 51 companies that actually mfr and market combat weapons to the general public — they hold no bankroll or actual liability.
And even now, in the wake of a national gun-related slaughter, we’re still not seeing those names in the media… 51 US companies make guns and ammo, and ain’t a one of them willing to contribute a dime to to protect our kids from their products. Ah Corporate America, love it or they’ll buy up your mortgage and sell the house.
So Jack Daniels should be held responsible for a drunk driver killing someone while he chose to drive his car after drink too much Jack, or what ever he choose to drink fill in the blank and hold them responsible instead of the one that commits the crime, this wack job, committed a few crimes before he went to the school, murder, stolen property(mother guns) entered a gun free zone, and then committed murder again and again, Is it Chevy Ford or Dodge’s fault for drunk driving as well they build the cars?
Sounds more like a Wild Turkey episode to me, Jed – either that or too much rumatiz medicine. =) I’m wearing out on the cars vs. guns comparison because it’s not an even field — like comparing apple to animal crackers. Cars don’t come ready-made to kill from the factory, yet guns have no other purpose.
Nobody is going to win a suit agaisnt the gun mfrs — been tried by the best and never got anywhere — ditto with the automakers. At least with cars the authorities know who owns it and can ask who’s driving it. Cain’t do the same for the weapons that get sold for cash, no questions asked — in states where they don’t ask — to any drooling maniac with the $$$. Big difference between the two…
I don’t oppose guns at all, but I question why Joe Dokes needs 4 AR-15s and three .44 Automags. Hunt game with a semi-auto assault rifle? Why, to save money on butchering — just pick-up the pieces and carry them home? Supposed to be a sport, not a murderous ambush — use a long gun with a scope and .scope and bring home a little dignity with the meat.
your trying to split hairs!!!!
The NRA won’t pay for squat…..and isn’t THAT the point ??
I am not a member of the NRA and frankly I detest some of the things that they do. However one first needs to understand what the NRA actually is. They are a lobbying group and they are lobbying for their members. We don’t need more gun laws in this country , hell we could get away with abolishing half the laws we current have, but we do need a new law, one that will not infringe upon lawful gun owners. If you are convicted of a crime, any crime, and you use or possess a gun when commiting that crime you go to jail for life, no ifs, ands or buts.
The NRA can do that when our tax dollars stop protecting the private business called the airports.
yes, and the zionist controlled media, from movies to the nightly news fall in lock step with the violent demands of a zionist temper tantrum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Aslh1DebPw4
Seriously ? Take your paranoid, anti-Semite medication and try watching less Faux news and reading less NRA propaganda.
controlling much..
Yet another brilliant response Gail….you’re nothing if not consistently dim. LOL
Lets not forget to sell guns to the Preacher and everybody in the congregation! Could even include some body armor with the right approach… Maybe Colt or Ruger can hold a little coffee klatch after services — call it Guns For God — and teach all the nice church ladies to aim for ‘center mass.’ ACK!
There are churches where those in the congregation do carry and some of them even have active shooter plans in place, they go so far as to even have drills. It was a very hot topic that was discussed often on a firearm forum I used to be active on.
You did catch the part that said he used a pistol?
So an assault weapons ban would have been useless in this situation.
The good guys with guns stopped the bad guy with a pistol.
Are you people really this numb or do you just play numb on the internet?
Well look at you, champ — point at everybody else for being “numb or numb on the internet” and follow that up with a quote from NRA tool on TV. Really original, keep trying.
Know what, a gun is a gun is a gun, brother — a .22 derringer or a .45 Thompson or Sharps .45-70 — and trying to point out that the PA guy didn’t use an assault rifle is a moot point.
So you DO want a total gun confiscation program, Comrad?
Don’t put that on me, pally — ain’t a word about it one way or the other in my comment. Think maybe I know those types and calibers of guns by accident, or just ‘numbed’ around on the internet to have something catchy to talk about? C’mon, will ya?
Just listen to harry reed, it’s not just on the internet
Disarm the people, so folks like Bill Cat can force them how to ‘behave’
Death industry? Sure. Let’s forget about teaching responsibility and just go after objects. It’s the easy way out. I’m all for protecting children, and Mr. LaPierre has a very valid point and a good idea.
,EXACTLY
Hmmmm…must have been an “assault” pistols fault ! It couldn’t possibly be the deranged mentally ill person who pulled the trigger!
Can’t keep playing that card, Bill. Blaming every nut and crackpot on US soil still don’t alibi 310 million guns in a country of 314 million people. Good try, but that angle like like comparing a trout to a turnip.
There are at least 7,655,628 guns in Switzerland, a country of 7,655,628 people. Do the Swiss need an “alibi”?
Don’t let sprucedweller hear you talking like that.
Thanks for admitting it is the “nuts and crackpots” that are to blame instead of weapons owned by law abiding Patriotic citizens!
Bill, it really is the fanatics, the lunatic fringe, not the guns literally. A 9mm Glock is no different than a circular saw until some human picks it up. Gotta say there seems to be quite a few too many floating around, unregistered, stolen, sold with no ID, to make any sense of it all.
Keep right on broadcasting these killings. The more it is glorified, the more it’s going to happen. From the domestic violence of a p.o.s. football player to school massacres. There were at least two different news stories every day for over a week to either add shock value or to glorify the ones involved. All that does is give the sickos out there more ideas. In today’s world, everyone has to “one up” the last guy. Did we really need to know how many bullets those little kids had in their bodies? As I said, it’s all about the shock value. Look at all the money that’s made, from selling papers to advertizing.
I agree. It may not be the whole solution and I dont know if we will ever be able to find that, the solution will change anyways, but it is a very good start. And you are right, the news is all about sensationalism. Part of the solution is also to demand that our lawmakers have a zero tolerance for this behavior and hold people accountable to the full letter of the law. No plea deals or bargaining, no reduced sentences. Do the crime, do the FULL time. Or better yet, an eye for an eye, a life for a life. I know many wont agree, I honestly dont think it will stop until we send a clear and strict message. Removing guns is not the answer. It will force good people to become criminals because they will obtain one illegally themselves just to protect themself and their family. Criminals really would own the streets. Regardless of how you feel about gun control it really isnt about the NRA. Long before the NRA we had the right to protect ourselves. I have noticed through a few generations that they do always have to one-up the last generation. Bigger and better. If we dont glorify it, because lets face it, that is what the media does, and we hold fast to the strictest sentences, we might have a chance.
Very nicely said! Why can’t people understand this? It is really a sad society that is just getting worse.
Mass murders has been going on forever, Hitler, Kahn, sadam, Syria today, when has society not been sad, was it all the serial killers in the 70’s 80s, the KKK, please point out when we have had a utopia Country or World?
I don’t recall saying that… I know it has always been a sad society and there is no end in sight. I am quite certain it will get a lot worse before it gets any better.
“Removing guns is not the answer. It will force good people to become criminals because they will obtain one illegally themselves just to protect themself and their family.”
What kind of a person would do a thing like that? Aren’t we getting a bit off the wall here?
The humble Farmer
Hmm. I don’t recall getting the urge to grab my gun and go looking for some mayhem to create… did you?
Not so far today, but it’s early yet. LOL
Lets not report them and then the NRA types can say “look how safe the country is with all these guns.”
Exactly…….the NRA forgets that the dummies are on their side.
And Gooten tag to you, too, Mien Herring. You realize, of course, that every tyranny and dictatorship starts by controlling and repressing the press and media, right?
and making gun ownership illegal.. Stalin, Hitler, Mao etc etc
It is not suppressing the press. They just don’t need to broadcast it for weeks to a time. Look at the football player. The B.D.N. had five stories in one week about him. I saw only one about the victim. Do you think it was necessary for a news article to describe the extent of the injury those kids had?
Cap, I don’t completely disagree, but it’s a fine line there. Used to be ‘the press’ had some dignity and respect, now most are well-paid barracuda. Those poor folks in CT had to literally ask the media to leave them alone — may have been the interview with the kid’s barber — and still there telephoto shots of all the funerals and mourners. Strikes me as one of the more disgusting media frenzies in recent history, but that’s just me.
There’s a copy-cat angle to all these killings that’s hard to pin down, but it’s there. And, yeah, quite likely because there so much media hammering on every detail every minute for days or weeks that the next whack-job get the idea in his fevered brain.
Instead of trying to tame the media, might be better to school them on dignity and respect — maybe toss in a three day time limit on madness like this. Got no answer, just thinking aloud.
I think its time to outlaw guns completely, then everyone would be safe, the deer, the moose, all of us
tell me you don’t think the innocent CRIMINALS wouldn’t have them? Heroin is against the law, do I need to remind you of the drug problem this state has??? Don’t say its not the same, because it is! If it is illegal to own, the only ones that will have it are the criminals because in case you don’t know, that is why they are called criminals, they WON’T abide by the law.
An ex-navy man wants to ban guns? Also I though you said you worked in corrections for six years. Do you really think if they outlaw guns nobody will have them?
Oooops – did I forget my persona? LOL
Get it correct i was never in the navy, i was in the army, yes i was in corrections for maybe 8 to 9 years all together, i am just saying something needs to be done who can buy guns. Its getting bad everywhere
U were in the Army and want to ban all guns, why did you get out of the Army? Did you fall and get a head injury?
that is kind of personal, ty, but i left for medical reasons. I will go back if i get better, but im getting older
So guns are the problem, not the knives used, bats, chainsaws, rope to strangle, rocks, bath tubs to drown 7 kids, cars have been used to kill, screwdrivers, Ted Bundy did not kill with a gun, neither did the hill side stranglers, Boston Strangler, swords were used, arrows are used, so when is it your going to be safe in you utopia mind, I have ur answer NEVER.
Just goes to show that freedom isn’t free?
Correct. Freedom was and is NEVER free. Many sacrificed their lives for our so called freedoms. I served for 10 years in the military offering my life for this country so that we could remain ‘free’… free to live in a society that wants to limit the freedoms of others to protect themselves. Free to live in a society that actually has the right to have this debate over gun control. If they want to be a ‘cow’ and go live in a pasture where they can be herded, fine. But not me. I will NEVER give up my right to protect myself. I earned that much.
No one is asking you too……..unless you go everywhere with an assault rifle on your hip.
not true Joe Brock.. apparently you havent been listening. Not only is there talk about banning assault rifles, there is much talk all over the place, about taking away your right to have a gun. I have seen, heard, and read it over and over in these forums, TV, facebook, the workplace, in town, in the store, etc..
You only have to look up the page here to see a few of them: see dmckenzie, for instance.
Bad Pistol!!! I don’t see where it mentions that the gun was registered to him. But I do know for a FACT that the gun did not walk to the church and start killing people. Most of the time, the guns are stolen or obtained illegally. This article doesn’t really say anything. The shooting in Newton, the gun was taken, it was not his. It may have been his mother’s, but that does not give him the right to take it. She should have had them locked up, away from him. The guns are just the way to kill in a hurry, as long as they keep advertising these kinds of things the way they do in the media, the worse it will get. They could just as easily do the damage with a homemade bomb but its less trouble and work to just steal a gun.
Let’s not forget…………..EVERY last one of these major shootings from
Columbine to Newtown ended ONLY when someone else showed up
with a gun.
New laws limiting magazine capacity will do absolutely nothing to
stop the deranged from their evil ways. Limiting my 9mm clip to ten rounds
is useless feel good window dressing. All I need is 5 ten round clips
and I can put out 50 rounds per minute in fairly accurate fashion. Most of
the nit wits I have seen the last few days talking about new laws & such
don’t even use the correct terminology when spewing their drivel about
something they want to control. The best one so far was a gun with a
“SPEED TRIGGER”. WTF? MSNBC of course.
The lady on Fox news weekend is no better, yacking about guns when she has no idea about what she is taking about.
Who cares whether it’s Fox or MSNBC retardo?
no need to have hatred in your heart, with that name calling..apologize, that derogatory terminology has been retired, since education advanced!!
I guess we should have armed guards in churches too?
Oddly, LaPierre referred to banks and how they are guarded. But as O’Donnell points out in his piece I linked to elsewhere, when was the last time you saw an armed guard at a bank?
Armed guards have been present in banks in the New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania region for at least 30 years. Armed guards are also stationed in banks not wearing uniforms, so you wouldn’t know if the man or woman standing at the counter is a customer, branch manager or armed guard.
Another person no worthy of gun ownership….I wonder where this gun was stolen from?
Lawrence O’Donnell has this last word for Wayne LaPierre:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/22/1173122/-Lawrence-O-Donnell-calls-out-Wayne-LaPierre
Every church should have armed guards. You’re all OK with that, right conservative church goers?
They are ok at airports and hospitals, so why not., The President is protected by how many guns at any given time? do we even really know?
Funny how people don’t want security cameras in public places but they will accept armed guards everywhere. This country never ceases to amaze me.
What kind of truck did he use during this rampage? Ramming a victim? I hope it’s not a GM product, I love mine, hate to see it banned.
So lots of people where saying the school shooting happened because their god was removed from school so I have to ask.. Where was your god when this woman was killed in his house?
Folk tend to overplay the God card waaay too often. Even behind the Adam & Eve theory God gave people free will, the decision to choose. Seems to be a trend to say “Boy, aren’t we swell!” when things work out okay, but “Where was God?” when they don’t.
Not a god person, but I bet they were praying to God in that school that day.
I still can’t believe what happened last night!
I had a funny feeling something wasn’t just right after I came home from a school function and my 9mil was not in its usual place in the gun cabinet.
Upon closer inspection, it seems someone had chiseled a hole thru the rear of the gun cabinet and taken my only means of self defense.
Well, no sense calling the cops at this hour, i thought, so off to bed.
The pillow didn’t seem quite right when I went to snuggle under the covers, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when, upon throwing back the covers, there was my prized 9mil. While I watched in horror, that dang thing raised itself up and pointed my way. Fearing for my life, I ducked just in time to hear three loud bangs and felt the whirr of those slugs just inches from me.
Needless to say, I got out of there some fast, and called the local democrat headquarters and had them come down and subdue that evil thing.
under 50 comments for far on these Reuters articles on BDN.. Just wait until they add that it was a gay person shot !!