The bodies of 40-year-old Michael Atherton and the three women were found at the property in Greenside Avenue, Horden, near Peterlee, late on Sunday.
Three other people escaped the semi-detached house from an upstairs window, including a 19-year-old woman, who suffered minor injuries.
Police confirmed Mr Atherton was licensed to own six firearms.
Det Supt Paul Goundry, who is leading the murder inquiry – dubbed Operation Preston – said: “My preferred hypothesis is that the shootings were carried out by the 40-year-old man.”
Of all the onerous and insane gun laws in the UK, none of them stopped this. Further as far as I can tell this massacre was committed with a simple hunting shotgun.
Can we just all agree gun control doesn’t work worth a damn, and just call this whole thing off?
Just saw a car where the last three digits of the license plate were NF4, and I spent a good while trying to figure out if the first digits implied what NFA Items they were into.
LOL!
Columbia University is offering a new course on Occupy Wall Street next semester — sending upperclassmen and grad students into the field for full course credit.
The class is taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, who boasts about her nights camped out in Zuccotti Park.
Really? I actually have no issue with teaching Anthropology or Political Science classes on the Kill the Jews movement, as despicable, stupid, and violent as they are, they did make a huge mark in American politics. But making it a field course, and taught by a Professor who thought this was all a good idea?
Is there a wonder why so many of the College-educated protestors in the Kill the Jews movement are so woefully unemployable?
**UPDATE**More here
A tragic tale of an “Only One” making a grave mistake.
An off-duty state trooper who was hunting in southeast Massachusetts shot and wounded a 66-year-old woman who was out walking her two dogs when he mistook her pets for a deer.
The woman was shot in the torso while walking on a wooded path in Norton about 5 p.m. Saturday. Police said the trooper called 911 after realizing he had mistaken the tails of the two retrievers for a deer’s tail.
Rule 4: Always be sure of your target and what lies beyond it. A dog is NOT a deer, nor does it really look like one. Furthermore if he mistook the DOGS for deer, but shot a WOMAN he likely had VERY obstructed shot or was a horrible marksman.
But remember cops are the only ones who should have guns
Roadkill sent me this amazing story!
Good Samaritans are undoubtedly the reason three children who were trapped in a car submerged in the Logan River are alive to experience the New Year.
Around 12:30 p.m. a 46-year-old man driving a Honda Accord in Logan Canyon braked to avoid another crash on the snowy, slick road. The car slid down a 10-foot embankment and overturned in the river, according to Utah Highway patrol. The driver was able to free himself, but his 9-year-old daughter, 4-year-old son and a 9-year-old friend were trapped.
Enter the good Samaritans.
Willden tried to open a window or door, but neither would budge. So he took out his handgun and shot out a window. By that time, other men had arrived and they all worked to prop up the car while others grabbed for the kids.
One of the girls had found an air pocket and was breathing fine, but couldn’t free herself from her seat belt so Willden cut it with a knife and pulled her from the rear passenger window. The other girl and boy were “grey” he said, and his heart sank…”I put my fingers on his neck and I couldn’t feel a pulse — even a faint pulse,” Mullahkel said. That’s when another man at the scene ran over and began CPR…The two girls suffered hypothermia, but all three are expected to make a full recovery.
Three lives saved by a gun, a knife, and knowledge of CPR. Tools nobody should be without.
Amazing story!
My folks told me about this story this weekend. Wally dug it up for me.
CAPE ELIZABETH – Warren Roos likes trap and target shooting.
He owns rifles and handguns.
He seems, in fact, like an ideal member of the National Rifle Association.
But he’s leaving his local rod and gun club over a mandate to join the national organization.
What are his complaints?
Roos said his main complaint with the NRA is its lobbying to block laws that would restrict high-capacity ammunition magazines and semi-automatic guns, which he believes are useful only for shooting people.
By contrast, he said, rifles are “sportsmen’s guns and not guns for shooting people.”
First you gotta love the ultra-dummed down talking points. How many hunters and sport shooters use semi-automatic guns? Also If you’re going to speak out against guns “Used for shooting people”, don’t speak out about guns, specifically or in general, speak out against legal force laws! In the appropriate time there is NOTHING WRONG with killing another human being to save your life, or the life of another. This talking point is as short-sighted and unpopular as it is misguided.
Now onto why the club is going 100% NRA Membership:
Wescott said the club will get benefits if it has 100 percent membership in the NRA, including support for a junior shooting team that the club hopes to form.
The NRA will help the team get into sanctioned shooting competitions, he said, and provide financial aid to buy rifles and jackets for the team. The NRA will also do a safety audit of the club’s shooting range, he said, so it can host competitions.
That audit could also be useful in addressing neighbors’ complaints about shooting at the gun club. Wescott said the club has gotten “numerous complaints” since the nearby Cross Hill neighborhood was developed. He noted that the club operated for decades before the development brought in hundreds of residents.
Those are HUGE benefits, also it addresses the huge problem to sporting clubs which is people moving into the surrounding area and then complaining that there’s a long-running gun club near where they just built their house. I love this line:
He said he hasn’t been a very active member of the club, but enjoys the occasional chance to shoot and the club’s social aspects.
So why do we care about why this ignorant asshole is leaving the club? Members like these are a bane to EVERY form of club or group. The people who show up when they feel like it, and are never around when things need to be done to help the organization. If his angle of “We need to ban the guns that aren’t like my guns” line wasn’t proof enugh that he is both self-centered and selfish, then this admission sets it in stone!
Mayon said Roos’ decision to let his membership lapse rather than join the NRA is “unfortunate,” but “with so many members, I can’t make everyone happy.”
He’s more diplomatic than I am. When my folks told me about this story and said he was leaving because he follows anti-gun talking points, and seems to not let his personal ignorance of the issues keep him for speaking like an expert, was “Good, we can stand to have less people like this around.”
The club is better off without members like that.
Oh and on a final note, just as I was squaring away to write this post I noticed that Thirdpower scooped me!
I blame my parents for giving the wrong gun club name when they were telling me the story! Go read over his post, as he also makes some excellent points!
I asked an I received! You’ll now be seeing this logo at the bottom of all stories acquired through the Bubblehead Les News Network.
That’s the mark of quality right there! Image care of the great Robb Allen
So I spent most of the First visiting with family. When they moved on, the Mrs, now able to drive after 6 months of seizure freedom took off to run some errands. I decided to pour myself a drink and watch a movie. I’d recently seen the trailer for the new GI Joe movie, and while the trailer from the first movie heavily dissuaded me from paying any attention to the franchise, this trailer looked amusing, so given that the first film was on Netflix Instant Watch I decided to watch it. Dumb movie, but pure entertainment and stupid action. I set the bar low, and was pleasantly surprised.
The wife came home and heckled the end of the movie a good deal (with encouragement from me), and she asked if The Fighter be the next on the docket. This one was depressing, slow, and after a half-hour neither of us gave a shit about any of the characters, so we shit-canned it for something more interesting. I’d been wanting to watch Hot Tub Time Machine since it came out, and like all of the listed films, it was on Instant Watch.
Five stars! Highly Recommend, it was awesome! We laughed our asses off.
Last up was a “Documentary”: Turtle: The Incredible Journey, now I put the quotes around “Documentary” because rather than the standard nature fare this was more of the Michael Moore-style. It attempted to tell a narrative of the life of a Loggerhead Sea Turtle, and give everything a cinematic appearance by use of staged scenes (many appear to be done in an aquarium tank, using a blue screen, and mixing in stock footage. Also the scenes of the life of a baby sea turtle, unless there is some new studies I’m unaware of) is a bit of a mystery of science. There is speculation that is likely true, but because its nearly impossible to track the movement of baby turtles in the open ocean I was a bit miffed that the speculation was passed off the same as the hard facts presented. The staged scenes were a bit preachy (and IMHO quite unethical given that they likely involved putting a young protected species in a tank of water with known hazards for the sake of adding suspense to a film passed off as fact.
I might say watch it for the stunning nature photography, but even the film wasn’t that good. Sadly more garbage.
Covered some good distance there. I love watching movies!
BLNN sends me this story from New York.
An off-duty federal law enforcement agent who happened to be in a pharmacy during a holdup confronted the robber as he tried to leave with money and painkillers, and both were shot to death.
The off-duty Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent died after being taken to a hospital with a gunshot wound Saturday, Nassau County police Lt. Kevin Smith said.
I have no love for the BATFE, but this officer acted as a citizen, not as an agent of the law. I think last year’s robbery is still fresh on our minds where the robber killed everybody in the store, dispute their compliance.
Two things to note. A gun is not a magical shield, it is a tool. Much like how trained fire fighters still perish in burning buildings despite training, tools, and support, a gun will not protect you from harm, and the only sure way to survive a gunfight is not to be in one. Still I think the officer was thinking exactly what I was, there was a good chance he was already dead no matter WHAT. His actions didn’t save HIS life, but very possibly the lives of others in the Pharmacy….not to mention future victims of this goblin.
One other thing of note is that the only thing that kept him as disarmed as the other patrons if it wasn’t for his federal badge.
He is no more human than I, and his rights are no more important. Still he died a hero, and that shouldn’t be forgotten.
Carry your guns people, you never know when you might need them.
**UPDATE**Dwight of Whipped Cream Difficulties (Again I love that blog name too much to not mention it every chance I get!) Links this story and speculates if the officer may have been shot by responding New York Police officers.
Surveillance footage from the pharmacy shows that along with other customers, Agent Capano, 51, had initially put his hands above his head, as the robber, who appeared to be armed with a gun, took cash and hundreds of pills or capsules of the painkillers oxycodone and Opana, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
As the suspect, whom the police identified as James McGoey, 43, began to walk away, Agent Capano trailed after him down a parallel aisle. Near the door, Agent Capano shot Mr. McGoey once, striking him in the leg or hip, the person said.
As the two men spilled outside, two more men arrived: an off-duty officer of the New York Police Department and a recently retired Nassau County police lieutenant. Both had been in a nearby deli, and one or both were armed, according to the person and another official, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry was continuing.
More shots were fired in the seconds that followed, and details of precisely what occurred remained murky a day later.
Seems very fishy. Keep your eyes peeled. I’m very curious what the end result will be.
