1 Dead, 3 Hurt In Calif. Retreat Shooting

Police Responded To Report Of Man Killing Wife, At Least 2 Critically Wounded At Korean Church Retreat

(AP)  A gunman opened fire at a Korean Christian retreat Tuesday in Riverside County, killing one and wounding three others, authorities said.

The gunman was believed to be among the injured at the Kkottongnae Retreat Camp, and investigators were unsure what prompted the attack, sheriff's spokesman Dennis Gutierrez said.

"We have some nuns that are very distraught," Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said at least two of the victims were critically injured. A nursing supervisor at the Inland Valley Regional Medical Center near the retreat said she had no information on any of the victims.

Police and emergency crews converged on the rural area off Highway 79 after receiving reports at about 7:30 p.m. that a gunman had shot his wife, said Mario Lopez, a spokesman with the California Highway Patrol. He said one person was dead when they arrived and the other three were hospitalized.

Law enforcement officers interviewed people at what appeared to be a triage center for injured victims, but Gutierrez said the language barrier was making it difficult to get all the facts.

"That language barrier, that's the key to figuring out what happened," Gutierrez said.

He said investigators believe all the victims are over age 40.

Gutierrez did not know the age or sex of the suspected shooter, and the identity of the dead victim was being withheld until relatives are notified.

The campground, previously used as a summer camp before the religious group bought it, was marked by a single white sign in English and Korean on the side of a rural winding road in remote southeast Riverside County. The retreat was a mile up a narrow road into the hills.

Deputies had evacuated the campground and blocked off access. Nothing could be seen from the main road.

Several women from the retreat sat wrapped in blankets outside the law enforcement lines.

"This is the last place this is supposed to happen," Gutierrez said. "A lot of people are shaken up."

Chang Kim of Los Angeles stood at the scene, saying his 88-year-old mother lives up the road that was blocked off. Kim said he was concerned because he could not reach her.

"My mother lives up there," he said. "I can't go there. I can't get in. I'm stuck."

The retreat is one of four U.S. branches of the Kkottongnae Brothers and Sisters of Jesus, a Catholic organization dedicated to serving the poor and homeless. It was founded in the city of Cheongju, South Korea, by Father Oh Woong Jin in 1976.

A woman who answered the phone at the group's Lynwood branch on Tuesday night said she did not speak English well and declined to discuss the shooting.

Kkottongnae means "flower village," according to the organization's Web site.

[schoollord]

payasyougo said "Because law abiding gun owners do not carry into gun free zones - because they are law abiding."

Gun owners do not carry into gun free zones - because they are law abiding? Are you kidding? Most shooters in gun-free zones are legal gun owners!~ We also have had many, many shootings in zones that are not gun free zones. The more zones with guns we have the more shootings we will have. That's a FACT!~ The assasination of President Kennedy and the Colorado church shootings prove how effective is having armed people to protect us from gun owners. Kennedy was being protected by a ton of highly trained, heavily armed secret service agents and police officers (not gun owners like you "LOL") and they could not save the President. The Colorado church shooter, and his legally owned guns, were able to kill two and wound two in the first church without armed security guards. Then he went to a second church filled with armed security guards and he killed two as well but wounded four. So with all the armed security guards the shooter was able to kill as many and wound more than in the fist church without armed guards. We have millions of gun owners here in the US and when we have a mass shooting there are 90% likely to be the shooter and close to ZEEEEEERO % of being the saviors!~

[schoollord]

winchester said "One more law will make Compton , CA a veritable Eden if elbuitre aka schoollord aka cbswontwin aka remrafbn ad nauseam is to be believed "

You have a big problem. Because, in this field, I have a lot of credibility!~ You do not have any!~

[schoollord]

payasyougo said "No you are not. Show us."

Do you mean..again? Because I have been showing you those stats for YEARS!~ This is from the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the Department of Justice!~

"Nearly all unintentional shooting deaths and close to 80% of all suicides occur in or around the home. Fifty percent of homicides occur in the home of the victim and nearly 40 percent occur in the home of a friend or relative. Firearm ownership in the home (especially a firearm kept loaded and unlocked) is associated with an increased risk of firearm fatalities. Most unintentional firearm deaths and firearm suicides are related to legally owned firearms."

SEE!~ L:earn before you speak!~

[schoollord]

payasyougo said "More lies from the left. Someone w/ mental problems that obtains a gun is not a legal gun owner."

Those are not lies. Most shooters are NOT metally ill. They are just people with a gridge and access to guns. But even if the person is mentally ill and legally bought guns he or she is a legal gun owner!~

"Although some people who commit violent acts do suffer from a mental illness and a few persons with a mental illness do commit acts of violence, the US Surgeon General?s Report on Mental Health notes ?the overall contribution of mental illness to the total level of violence in society is exceptionally small?.

? Approximately 95% of individuals who commit homicidal acts do not have a severe mental disorder.

? Individuals with a severe mental illness commit a minuscule proportion of all violent acts in society. Persons with mental illness are, in fact, more likely to be victims of violence. For example, 3% of acts of violence in our society are perpetrated by individuals with a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia, but such individuals are twice as likely to be victims of violence as perpetrators of violence."

So what are the indicators of violence in the US?

"Criminologists said that "a common thread in all these mass killings is access to firearms"!~"

Then he claimed "Feel free any time at all to explain why VA and MD and any of the states that allow conceal carry all of which have a much, much lower gun death rate than DC or other states with restrictive gun ownership laws."

Your problem is that you continue to buy all the lies from the gun lobby!~ For example, a study from the Department of Justice found out that crime went down more in states without CCWs than in states with them. Look:

"In 2004, for instance, the Department of Justice looked at the FBI numbers and found that while crime declined by 6 percent from 1997 to 1998 in the 29 states that then had concealed-carry laws, crime dropped by 7 percent in the states that did not have them."

You people do not want to know the truth!~

Then he said "Your continued argument that it is the amount of guns that are the problem holds no water or there would be a much higher gun death rate in states with much higher legal gun ownership rates."

That's not my argument but the arguement of the most prominent researchers and criminologists across this nation.

"Miller and his team investigated the association between homicide and rates of household firearm ownership using data collected from the nine US census regions and the 50 states.

They found that household gun ownership was linked to homicide rates throughout the nine census regions. At the state level, the link between rates of gun ownership and murder existed for all homicide victims older than age 5, according to the report in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

In fact, the six states with the highest rates of gun ownership--Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Wyoming, West Virginia and Arkansas--had more than 21,000 homicides, nearly three times as many as the four states with the lowest rates of gun ownership--Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Jersey.

Further, people who lived in one of the six "high gun states" were nearly three times as likely to die from any homicide and more than four times as likely to die from gun-related homicide than those who lived in "low gun states," the report indicates. Their risk of dying in a non-gun-related homicide was also nearly double that of those who lived in states with the lowest rates of gun ownership."

SEE!~ One thing is to make a claim. Another to prove that claim!~ I do NOT make claims I can't prove!~

[payasyougo]

"1 Dead, 3 Hurt In Calif. Retreat Shooting"
----
This is another tragic example of the use of a firearm. There is no disputing it.

But until you get criminals like this out of the public arena, FBI crime statistics (of which the NRA and the Brady camps have no influence over) show that like this event, gun free zones only allow the criminals to prey on known unarmed innocent citizens. Because law abiding gun owners do not carry into gun free zones - because they are law abiding. Criminals however, especially cowards such as these, prey on the innocent in gun free zones. It gives them confidence that they will succeed in their crime.

And the good intentioned left (albeit misguided in my opinion) only enable these criminals.

[winchester70]

They do have really tough gun laws but what they do not have is a shield to prevent guns from states with lax gun laws from entering the state!~ One more law will make Compton , CA a veritable Eden if elbuitre aka schoollord aka cbswontwin aka remrafbn ad nauseam is to be believed

[payasyougo]

"Then he said "Once again, do your research. FBI crime statistics."

Those are the stats that I am using. "
-----
No you are not.

Show us.

[payasyougo]

"The evidence that legal gun owners are a big part of the problem is overwhealming. Most mass shootings, suicides, and domestic violence killings are done by legal gun owners."
------
More lies from the left. Someone w/ mental problems that obtains a gun is not a legal gun owner.

Feel free any time at all to explain why VA and MD and any of the states that allow conceal carry all of which have a much, much lower gun death rate than DC or other states with restrictive gun ownership laws. Your continued argument that it is the amount of guns that are the problem holds no water or there would be a much higher gun death rate in states with much higher legal gun ownership rates.

I'll waste all the time needed w/ folks like you on behalf of the legal side of gun ownership. Your type never has any data to support your claims while the law enforcement statistics continue to prove you wrong.

I also support the free speech that allows folks like you to give your opinion. And an opinion is all you have. FBI crime statistic, available online, disprove most of what you print.

[schoollord]

payasyougo said "99.99% of murderers in the US were educated in the public school system. Clearly the US education system is turning out murderers. Someone is teaching them to kill. The common denominator is teachers. It's time to follow the advice of statisticians and reduce the prevalence of teachers."

Are you people that desperate? Criminologists DO say that we have to reduce the prevalence of gun to reduce homicides and suicides. On the other hand, statisticians say we need MORE teachers!~ "LOL" But you got one thing right. Someone is teaching them to kill. Usually, it starts when they are very young and their fathers take them hunting. There they learn to kill animals. Then they go to a gun range and shoot at targets shaped like human torsoes. If you hit the heart or the head you score higher. That's a gtragedy all in itself!~

[schoollord]

Isaid ""Do you know that most gun-related deaths occur in the homes of gun owners? Those are not gun-free zones. And most of the time we have someone violating the gun-free zones is a gun owner on a killing spree!~"

And payasyougo said "You don't know what you are talking about."

Oh yes, I do. I have been researching this subject for a very, very long time. Even many gun owners here say my stats are accurare.I do not make claims I can't prove.

Then he said "Once again, do your research. FBI crime statistics."

Those are the stats that I am using. The problem with gun owners is that they use the stats given to them by the gun lobby and say they come from the FBI or the DoJ. The stats from the gun lobby are fabricated. Most of the CCW laws came after a study made by John Lott called "More Guns Less Crime". That study was bombarded with "negative peer review" because the gun industry funded it making it bias and John Lott could not provide the raw data for other criminologists to verify his findings.

"In his published research analysis, John Lott has claimed that a 1997 survey he conducted found that concealed handguns deterred crime without being fired an astoundingly high 98% of the time. That claim allowed Lott to explain away the fact that extremely few self-defense uses of handguns are ever reported. But when scholars began questioning his survey results, Lott began a series of evasions that culminated in the claim that his computer had crashed and he had "lost" all the data. The University of Chicago, where Lott claims he conducted the study, has no record of it being conducted so Lott began claiming that he funded it himself (and kept no records) and that he used students to make the survey calls (though no students have been identified who participated). Indeed, no records of the survey exist at all. Lott is now facing serious questions about whether he fabricated the entire survey - raising serious questions about his ethics and credibility."

And here we have another stat from the gun lobby that differs with the stats from the Department of Justice:

Gun lobby:"Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606). (Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, (1991):111-116, 148.)

That stat came from another debunked study. Gary Kleck's study concluded that we have around 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year. In that study there were more people stopping rapes with guns than the total number of rapes and attempted rapes. If you believe Gary Kleck then, in the year of his study, not only there were no rapes at all, since all of them were stopped with guns, but somehow gun owners also manages to stop rapes that never occurred. Look again at the stat above about ctizens killing more crooks than police and lets see what the Department of Justice says:

"Generally, the number of justifiable homicides committed by police exceeded the number committed by citizens."

The stats of the gun lobby have no credibility!~

[schoollord]

Cannibal said "It simply cannot be any great coincidence that California, which has among the strictest firearm regulations in the nation, has been the site of two recent mass shootings."

They do have really tough gun laws but what they do not have is a shield to prevent guns from states with lax gun laws from entering the state!~

"Ten U.S. states are responsible for the bulk of illegal guns that are shipped across state lines for use in crimes, according to a report released Friday.

About 30 percent of guns traced by federal agents in 2006 and 2007 during crime investigations were bought in a state other than where the crime occurred, said the report, which largely blamed the transport of illegal guns on states with lax gun laws.

The gun-friendly southern states accounted for a disproportionate amount of the problem when population size was factored in, according to the report."

[schoollord]

stupidrules said "Hi schoollord, it's good to see that you still want to try to close Pandora's box. I guess it's nice to see a problem and claim you know all the answers. Do you actually think the government is capable of solving this?"

Somebody has to do it. Look at the price of doing nothing. The government has been able to keep tanks and missiles away from most people. Even though I can't understand why gun owners like weapons designed to kill people and the fact that they practice shooting at targets shaped like human creeps me out I am trying to be flexible and I only recommend reducing the prevalence of guns. The evidence that legal gun owners are a big part of the problem is overwhealming. Most mass shootings, suicides, and domestic violence killings are done by legal gun owners. Gun owners do more damage to their cause by believing and spreading the lies of the gun lobby than by being flexible and help us reduce the number of gun-related deaths, injuries, and crimes. Although I know you and many other gun owners are very decent people we just don't know who is going to be the next one to snap and go berserk. If you snap and have access to guns you are a greater threat than those who snap and have access to a bat or a knife!~

[payasyougo]

"The Department of Justice have said many times that most of the guns used in crimes in DC come from neighboring states with lax gun laws."
----
Once again, this is always the ignorant argument from the left.
The number of guns in DC's surrounding states (i.e. MD, VA) is astoundingly higher than in DC since gun ownership is less restricted in those states.

Yet, ignored by the left for their own beneficial argument is the blaring fact that gun crimes per 100k are significantly lower in those immediate neighbor states.

When you correlate the FBI crime statistics against the US Census data for population racial makeup, it is blatantly obvious that the gun crime rate in DC is directly related to racial makeup and NOT the number of weapons (guns or otherwise).

Once again, guns are not the problem.

[payasyougo]

"We can't let this keep happening without taking action. We have way too many guns in the US. It is time to follow the advise of criminologists and reduce the prevalence of guns."
-----

99.99% of murderers in the US were educated in the public school system. Clearly the US education system is turning out murderers. Someone is teaching them to kill. The common denominator is teachers.
It's time to follow the advice of statisticians and reduce the prevalence of teachers.

[payasyougo]

"Do you know that most gun-related deaths occur in the homes of gun owners? Those are not gun-free zones. And most of the time we have someone violating the gun-free zones is a gun owner on a killing spree!~"
-----
You don't know what you are talking about. Once again, do your research. FBI crime statistics.

And most of the time we have someone violating common sense is a liberal on a personal cause.

[erasmus111]

Good on you Erasmus, hang in there.

Posted by rheola-2009 at 4:55 PM : Apr 8, 2009

Thank you, rheola, I will. : )

[rheola-2009]

erasmus111 at 9:04 AM : Apr 8, 2009


Good on you Erasmus, hang in there.

[winchester70]

elbuitre: Where did elcantante1 go?

[stupidrules3]

Hi schoollord, it's good to see that you still want to try to close Pandora's box. I guess it's nice to see a problem and claim you know all the answers. Do you actually think the government is capable of solving this? I know all the statistics, but you still fail to realize that the easiest way to screw up anything is to get government involved. Look at the financial mess we are in. First government allows the financial institutions to work without regulation, thus precipitating the financial calamity we are witnessing. Then they go and start printing money and giving it away to "solve" the problem. Now you clamor for them to "solve" this problem. Do you really know what you are asking for? This problem is way beyond the government's ability to fix. They haven't stopped the evil of narcotics. Why should we believe they can stop the guns?

[CannibalChuck]

It simply cannot be any great coincidence that California, which has among the strictest firearm regulations in the nation, has been the site of two recent mass shootings. In the first, police officers were killed by a violent felon who had no legal right to own a gun in the first place--proof positive that existing laws prevent crime.

As idealistic as it sounds, we cannot un-invent the gun. Courts have ruled that police protection is not a "right" when saying that officers cannot be sued for not responding, or for "tactical retreats" "waiting for backup" etc.

So that leaves the protection of the individual up to the individual--or to put it bluntly: notions of "protection" or "safety" are individual responsibilities, not a collective right.

As tragic as this event is, one has to wonder what would have been the result had it happened in a concealed carry state such as Idaho, neighboring Oregon, or one of well over 50% of the states in the US?