Let’s pause for a moment to consider what caused this woman’s senseless death.

Should we define the cause as something that couldn’t have been helped, like a tornado or some other natural disaster?

Or was it the incompetence and selfishness of a “law-abiding gun owner” who had permission from the state of Florida to carry his weapon pretty much wherever he wanted, and who just had to have it with him at the internet café — presumably “for protection”?

Remember, she wasn’t killed with a knife, or a baseball bat, or a fist.

She was killed with the tool best designed for the job — a firearm — by someone who reportedly had a permit to carry it.

Feel safer now?

From WJXT News-4 (Jacksonville):

Jacksonville police said a woman was killed Monday afternoon by what appears to be the accidental discharge of a concealed firearm.

Police said a man with a concealed weapons permit went into the Allied Veterans Cyber Center Internet café on the Westside in the 5800 block of Normandy Boulevard just east of Lane Avenue.

Police said the man’s gun was mishandled or dropped and discharged, striking a woman in the back. Witnesses said the gun fell from the man’s belt.

Officers said the woman in her 40s, whose name has not yet been released, died at Shands….

…Signs of what is and isn’t allowed inside the business are plastered all over the door. And according to those who go there often, there are more signs on the inside that say no firearms are allowed on the property….

[more]

Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply “lost” the Bushmaster assault rifle used by the DC snipers who killed 10 people.

Attorneys for the Brady Center, on behalf of the snipers’ victims, sued Bull’s Eye for their negligence.

Bull’s Eye agreed to pay $2 million to the victims’ families in the largest settlement ever by a gun dealer.

Amazingly, Bull’s Eye thought they should stay in the gun business.

A Federal court just said ‘no.’

Via the AP:

A Tacoma gun shop linked to the D.C. sniper case isn’t getting its firearms license back.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez ruled Friday the government properly revoked the license of Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply, where John Allen Muhammad and teen accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo obtained weapons.

Malvo and Muhammad lived in the Tacoma area before beginning a string of random sniper shootings that left 10 dead in October 2002.

A Bushmaster rifle used in the attacks was among hundreds of weapons that went missing from the Bull’s Eye, which was repeatedly warned about sloppy record keeping. In another instance, the pair had a Tacoma man buy for them a .308 Remington rifle from Bull’s Eye.

Malvo is serving life in prison. Muhammad is to be executed in November.

Gun enthusiasts often repeat this as the first rule of gun safety: Every gun is always loaded.

The second rule: Never point a firearm at something you are not prepared to destroy.

The third should be: Remember the law of unintended consequences, because the gun bought “for protection” is often the gun used against one’s self or family, instead.

The tragic story below, reported yesterday from Missouri, encapsulates the paradox of gun advocacy in America.

The gun lobby not only fought tooth and nail for Mr. Looney’s right to own a gun, they helped convince him that he needed one to protect his family — right up to the point he shot himself in the head with it.

From the St.  Louis Post Dispatch:

A man who wanted to teach his girlfriend how to safely handle firearms fatally shot himself during the lesson, police said.

Jefferson County authorities said that on Friday, James Looney, 40, of the 4300 block of Rock Valley Court, was demonstrating safety mechanisms on several guns by holding them to his head and asking his girlfriend, Kim Thompson, whether they would fire.

The last one did. Looney died Saturday at a hospital. Police believe alcohol was involved in the accident, said sheriff’s Lt. Dave Marshak.

Thompson said Monday that Looney wanted her to learn to use a gun because he recently had accepted a job as an over-the-road trucker that would keep him away from their home two to three nights a week. Thompson said Looney had agreed to raise her 2-week-old son, Cameron, as his own.

“He was just trying to protect us,” Thompson said.

Police said the couple had planned to visit a shooting range the next day.

Looney’s mother, Penny Looney of Hillsboro, said her son bought the gun that killed him just three hours before the accident….

[more]

Shooting at someone to defend a human life is one thing.

Shooting at someone running away with somebody else’s property?  Time to put the gun down.

Say it all together now: “Concealed carry permit-holders aren’t trained police.”

From the Springfield (Missouri) News-Leader:

The Springfield man who allegedly fired several shots at a fleeing purse thief last week has had his concealed carry endorsement revoked, the Greene County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday.

Charles R. Webb, 61, is charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon in the Friday night incident.

Police say Webb was waiting in his car outside a Price Cutter store, 3260 E. Battlefield Road , when he saw the purse- snatching occur.

The thief hopped into a waiting sport utility vehicle, and Webb pursued the man.

He allegedly cornered the SUV in a nearby motel parking lot, and fired three shots with a 9mm handgun at the vehicle, an apparent attempt to disable its tires.

The purse thief’s vehicle escaped, and Webb allegedly engaged in a chase that reached speeds of 80 mph….

[more]

UPDATE (8/6): For the record, according to reporting by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, the shooter who murdered three women and wounded nine others at a Pittsburgh-area fitness club held a permit from the State of Pennsylvania to carry concealed weapons.

Two weeks ago, gun violence prevention organizations helped defeat a bill in Congress that would have allowed this killer to carry his loaded weapon almost anywhere in the country.

About three months ago, Congress approved legislation that would have allowed this killer to carry his loaded weapons in nearly every national park in the country.

#

Another in a long line of hateful, murderous shootings occurred last night in Pennsylvania.

According to reports, a man – apparently consumed with a long-simmering anger concerning women and heavily armed – walked into a suburban Pittsburgh fitness club where he was a member, and found a dance class with a number of women.

The killer reportedly turned off the lights, and then fired over 40 rounds of ammunition into the room in about a minute, killing at least three people and wounding another nine or more.

Then, like so many of these suicide shooters, he killed himself.

If President Obama and our other elected officials believe this incident is worthy of their attention at all, hopefully they will promise to explore ways to prevent such rampages in the future, rather than merely express “deep sadness” – along with an unstated hope that America’s gun violence problem somehow will just go away on its own.

This “nothing new that we can do” approach didn’t work after the Amish school shootings in Pennsylvania in October 2006, or the Pittsburgh police killings earlier this year, and yesterday’s massacre shows that it’s not working now.

It’s obviously too easy for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons in this country.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)