Mass shooting and Hostages in Binghamton

In 1977 I lived right up the street at #238. It was a run down rooming house and the rent was $17 a week. I worked at Universal Instruments and walked to work. Came home every night and drank beer with the various other unfortunates that lived in that house.
That neighborhood hasn't changed much in 32 years.
My relatives that live up there work hard, party hard, are family oriented. They don't lock their doors. Everybody knows everybody. There are lots of beautiful, affordable country houses at great prices; if you can find a way to make a living.
Now the anti-gun people will say "See, we have to disarm the entire population!"
If there was one person in there with a CCW then maybe it would have ended sooner with less lives lost IMO.

It doesn't take long for them to turn up the heat on gun legislation. World News tonight asked their Washington correspondent what is being done in Washinton about gun control,which naturally brought up the Brady Bill etc,. They stated there are 250 million guns in this country and that makes access too easy.Once they figure out how to control and remove the looneys out of main stream society they will have the problem of these trajedys solved.

Binghamton is about 70 miles south of us.

Damn shame. Other than that I'm reserving comment on the specifics of this event for a day or two. Not enough facts and a lot of speculation floating around the entire day.

Actually, one general point, not about the events, but the coverage of the events. I was very disappointed with the media coverage. All day I've been catching quick hit news updates on it, mostly by accident, and I've been amazed with how completely wrong and misleading the early and many of the later reports were on many of the basic elements of this story. At least I assume they were wrong on the assumption that the news gets more accurate as the story and events age and the fact that the story has been changing continuously since the outset.

I get the desire for instant media and broad coverage of big events like this, but I think there is great disservice done to the people when so much focus is put on getting any and all information out there, even that which is completely unverified, unknowable, or patently misleading. On this event and its coverage I'd grade the media (local radio and national cable news) at about a C for overall performance, a D for facts, and A for production values. I oh so love the strong primary colors spinning, and swirling, and dancing on the screen, framing the pretty people's faces as they spew the firehose of unchecked and/or unsourced information... unrepentant.

Edit: One more point. The annual raft of gun control legislation is slated to start make its way through Albany next week. Given these events, the many falsehoods that media generated and broadcast about it, and the penchant of politicians (particularly in this state) to manipulate facts or simply use lies to advance agendas... like I said, the media does great disservice in these kinds of situations, providing just the fodder and cloud of confusion the assembly and senate need to advance their mostly ignorant gun control agendas.

pvolcko wrote:Other than that I'm reserving comment on the specifics of this event for a day or two. Not enough facts and a lot of speculation floating around the entire day.

Very true. I think the Mayor of Binghamton should heed the same advice. The news was reporting that he stated a high powered rifle was used, and that was reported early in the day. The Police stated in the news conference that the only weapons found were two hand guns.

It's to bad something like this has to happen to people who are trying to better themselves and begin a new life by trying to become citizens of the U.S. the LEGAL way unlike many others.

Jeff