Gun Nut Kills Two Innocent Neighbors On Their Own Property

I can't even process this story. Senseless doesn't begin to describe it.
What happened to pulling out a gun as a last resort?? When did drawing on someone and shooting become a first option??

When I was a kid visiting my uncle's family during the summer in Roxbury, Mass, he had guns and was a former cop. But we never saw the guns. We didn't go looking for them either because that would have been our asses.:smt022

There were a couple times he thought his house was being broken into, (one time it was his teenage son sneaking back home on a Sunday morning:rolleyes:), anyway my Uncle would be as loud as he could possibly be on the way downstairs and told whoever it was he thought he heard 'you better not be in my living room muthafucker..etc.' before he TOLD the intruder he had a gun and to get the hell out of his house.

It was funny and a little scary hearing my uncle yell his ass off talking to someone he couldn't see, at least that's how it felt when I was a kid.

Whoever it was took one of the components of his stereo, but nobody got shot. Nobody got killed. Because my uncle had no desire at all to smoke somebody and actually preferred to have the thief simply leave his house.

Even if my uncle had confronted a thief in the act of stealing, I think he would have tried to threaten him into leaving his house at gunpoint, and only shot if the guy charged him.

Even after that break in, my uncle didn't buy more guns. He bought a German Shepard and later on two rottweilers.:smt080

I just don't get people who are so gung-ho to murder someone without doing everything they possibly can to resolve a situation without shooting someone dead.

Like the story about that ex-cop who shot the guy for texting on his cell phone. So someone is annoying in a movie theatre. So the fuck what??

It's like the fringe elements in our society suddenly feel empowered to use deadly force regardless of the circumstances.

Believe it or not most gun owners are more like your uncle. You would be surprised at how many people have a non-lethal round as the first round in their shotguns.
 
Until I see people from all walks of life being killed like this I'm calling it racism. How often do you hear of non white people killing people because they felt threatened. Seems like another extension of white privilege where you think its acceptable on some leave to kill a person of color. If it were two old white ladies it wouldn't have happened.

Nor would it have happened if it was an old white lady with a gun as the homeowner. Of course this nut wouldn't shoot 2 old ladies, so it's an apple and oranges example, TDK.

Anyway, on the flipside, while different circumstances, THIS is what fuels and adds credence to the 'fear'......which is to be 'weary of door knockers in distress... and have a gun for protection'....Just an awful, awful story.. :smt085

Grandfather, 69, shot dead after opening door for 20-year-old man who said he was being pursued by men with baseball bats

PUBLISHED: 12:07 EST, 1 February 2014

A 69-year-old Minnesota man has been shot dead after opening his door to a man who claimed he was being chased.

Thomas Sonnenberg called 911 at 11:46am Friday for 20-year-old Devon Derrick Parker who police say told him he was being pursued by assailants with baseball bats.

When police arrived at the home on the 3700 block of North Aldrich Avenue in north Minneapolis, they found Sonnenberg dead.

Parker was apprehended inside the house.

Police spokesperson John Elder earlier indicated that Parker and Sonnenberg were acquaintances, but Sonnenberg's daughter Raina Baldwin says that was not the case.

'No. Absolutely not,' she told the Mail Online through tears.

'He thought he was helping someone in need, that's why he let him into the house,' she said.

Baldwin said she believes Parker was attempting to rob the house but did not realize that her mother was also in the home.

Sonnenberg answered the door to Parker begging to come in because he was in danger. He let the young man inside and closed the door before calling 911.

It was then that Parker shot him in the head.


Thomas Sonnenberg's wife Elaine Sonnenberg, 68, was in the kitchen at the time of the shooting.

'When the murderer found out she was here, he threw her around and choked her, and he was going to rape her,' Baldwin told Mail Online.

The front door locked behind Parker when he entered the house. When Parker realized, he threatened Elaine Sonnenberg to force her to give him the keys, says Baldwin.

Police, who Thomas Sonnenberg had called on Parker's behalf, arrived before he could escape.

Sonnenberg 'seems like an innocent victim. From all indications, this is not a bad guy, a drug deal gone wrong, or anything like that,' Elder told the Star Tribune.

Police recovered a handgun in the house which is believed to be the murder weapon, Elder said.

Court records show that Parker was on probation for a felony assault in 2011. Records show he has been booked on numerous felony charges, including shooting at a public vehicle or facility and throwing bodily fluids or feces and has drug and trespassing convictions.

Sonnenberg has no police record.

Baldwin says it was not the first time her father had opened his home to someone in need.

'He had a big heart,' she said. 'He had helped people before who had come to his door. He was not stupid, he thought he was helping this person.'

Elder says there is no indication that Parker was being followed or threatened, and he did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Thomas Sonnenberg and his wife have three grown-up daughters and several grandchildren.

He was the second youngest of 10 kids who grew up on a vegetable farm in Brooklyn Center, Darrell Sonnenberg told the Star Tribune.

'He was a pretty good guy, pretty friendly, pretty nice,' Darrell Sonnenberg said. 'Not a tough guy. He took good care of his kids.'

Another of Thomas Sonnenberg’s daughters, Rachel Sonnenberg Baufield, posted about her father's tragic death yesterday.

'My DAD was cruelly taken from me and my family today. Please pray for justice for him and wish him to be at peace! I loved him very much! The world will be a much sadder place without him in it.'


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-pursued-men-baseball-bats.html#ixzz2s6ufeFgT
 
Nor would it have happened if it was an old white lady with a gun as the homeowner. Of course this nut wouldn't shoot 2 old ladies, so it's an apple and oranges example, TDK.

Anyway, on the flipside, while different circumstances, THIS is what fuels and adds credence to the 'fear'......which is to be 'weary of door knockers in distress... and have a gun for protection'....Just an awful, awful story.. :smt085

Grandfather, 69, shot dead after opening door for 20-year-old man who said he was being pursued by men with baseball bats




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-pursued-men-baseball-bats.html#ixzz2s6ufeFgT

Actually no its not an apples and oranges thing. It exemplifies the growing and accepted paranoia in this country of perceiving black people as threats on sight. You don't have to do much if anything at all to make someone feel like deadly force is the only way to deal with us. Seriously how many more examples do you need Bliss?
 
Actually no its not an apples and oranges thing. It exemplifies the growing and accepted paranoia in this country of perceiving black people as threats on sight. You don't have to do much if anything at all to make someone feel like deadly force is the only way to deal with us. Seriously how many more examples do you need Bliss?
I really don't think he'd have shot 2 little old black ladies, either. Just my opinion.

Speaking of 'more examples' that you ask 'do I need", why not show deadly force/murder numbers 'committed against you for not doing much, if anything at all', by those exhibiting 'White privilege'? (as you put it).
 
I really don't think he'd have shot 2 little old black ladies, either. Just my opinion.

Speaking of 'more examples' that you ask 'do I need", why not show deadly force/murder numbers 'committed against you for not doing much, if anything at all', by those exhibiting 'White privilege'?
(as you put it).

Well it's understanding and belief that you can get away with harming black people and not have to answer for it. Look at the guy who shot and killed the kid at the Florida gas station, the Treyvon Martin situation, stop and frisk in NY.
Are there going to be people screaming white power as they do these things? Probably not but my point is the ease and comfort in which certain people feel like they have a justifiable right to encounter blacks suspiciously based on the most minor of infractions and when they feel the slightest bit threatened can shoot to kill.
And I will agree perhaps the fast action to deadly force doesn't take place with with bw the same way it does with bm, when they can tell that they are women, but there is something continuously being made clear in the last couple of years. The hunt is on and we're the prey.
 
Well it's understanding and belief that you can get away with harming black people and not have to answer for it. Look at the guy who shot and killed the kid at the Florida gas station, the Treyvon Martin situation, stop and frisk in NY.
Are there going to be people screaming white power as they do these things? Probably not but my point is the ease and comfort in which certain people feel like they have a justifiable right to encounter blacks suspiciously based on the most minor of infractions and when they feel the slightest bit threatened can shoot to kill.
And I will agree perhaps the fast action to deadly force doesn't take place with with bw the same way it does with bm, when they can tell that they are women, but there is something continuously being made clear in the last couple of years. The hunt is on and we're the prey.

Stop & Frisk, while very controversial and probably a discussion thread in itself, is not deadly force, so let's speak to deadly force here.

Also, the verdict is not in yet on the Florida man who shot the teen in the parking lot. Is he any different in maniacal paranoid behavior than the man who shot the father in the movie theater for texting? While I'm not disagreeing with you that deadly things happen to Black people for not much incitement, please understand also that it happens to white people as well, for much the same. Even if the motives/details are different, the ill-willed outcome is identical -someone is murdered for some petty bullshit.

When you state the message being continuously made clear is that the hunt is on and you are the prey, where do you obtain your information? I don't ask that to be smart, it is a genuine question. Is it from the media? Or from FBI stats?
 
Stop & Frisk, while very controversial and probably a discussion thread in itself, is not deadly force, so let's speak to deadly force here.

Also, the verdict is not in yet on the Florida man who shot the teen in the parking lot. Is he any different in maniacal paranoid behavior than the man who shot the father in the movie theater for texting? While I'm not disagreeing with you that deadly things happen to Black people for not much incitement, please understand also that it happens to white people as well, for much the same. Even if the motives/details are different, the ill-willed outcome is identical -someone is murdered for some petty bullshit.

When you state the message being continuously made clear is that the hunt is on and you are the prey, where do you obtain your information? I don't ask that to be smart, it is a genuine question. Is it from the media? Or from FBI stats?

It's a mixture of all of the above as well as life experience. When you read about the incarceration rate in this country as well as the arrests that lead to incarceration and you see how disproportionately "justice" is dispensed you get a sense of wow there is a type of targeting going. I use stop and frisk as an example because its a further desensitization which paints people of color as only one way. You see a black person they HAVE to be a criminal, after all why do I always see them being stopped by the police, why do I see them on television get arrested, why do I see them on the corners not working. They must be a lazy bunch of people who don't want to work and only want to steal after all our prisons are filled with mostly blacks. So when you sum up highly unemployed, most likely to be arrested and convicted there is a creation of fear that they, meaning black men, are going to try and hurt you because that's what they do. And to be absolutely fair if I were a white person who is sheltered and marginally ignorant I would be scared too and this is what leads to the idea that its ok to kill a black man. It was never more clear than when I followed the Martin Zimmerman case. There was an inconceivable amount of support for a person who followed a teenager at night with a gun. It could and would never be accepted the other way. I don't need hard data to know this because I live here, I see the fear. It may not apparent if you don't see it but it is there.
 
It's a mixture of all of the above as well as life experience. When you read about the incarceration rate in this country as well as the arrests that lead to incarceration and you see how disproportionately "justice" is dispensed you get a sense of wow there is a type of targeting going. I use stop and frisk as an example because its a further desensitization which paints people of color as only one way. You see a black person they HAVE to be a criminal, after all why do I always see them being stopped by the police, why do I see them on television get arrested, why do I see them on the corners not working. They must be a lazy bunch of people who don't want to work and only want to steal after all our prisons are filled with mostly blacks. So when you sum up highly unemployed, most likely to be arrested and convicted there is a creation of fear that they, meaning black men, are going to try and hurt you because that's what they do. And to be absolutely fair if I were a white person who is sheltered and marginally ignorant I would be scared too and this is what leads to the idea that its ok to kill a black man. It was never more clear than when I followed the Martin Zimmerman case. There was an inconceivable amount of support for a person who followed a teenager at night with a gun. It could and would never be accepted the other way. I don't need hard data to know this because I live here, I see the fear. It may not apparent if you don't see it but it is there.

Really good read, I don't disagree with most all of what you said here..

My main contention is to ask how much of what you wrote is regarding perceptions, but not necessarily representative of actual deadly force? You seem to digress from the original point-of-reference in order to cite certain Black and White's opinions which, while they can and do produce deadly results, what are the quantitative numbers of White on Black murder for you to declare WP are the hunters and you are the prey?

I harp on this request not to discount what you personally feel, and believe me, I feel often the same despair and anger about my loved ones when they are targeted for nothing more than their blackness, so I'm not discounting your experiences and prism view, I just like to break down how much of it today is it perception that a disproportionate number of race-motivated murder is occurring against BP by WP, versus the actual numbers?

(ps; fyi, Black male incarceration is falling, which is a great thing going into the future)
 
Really good read, I don't disagree with most all of what you said here..

My main contention is to ask how much of what you wrote is regarding perceptions, but not necessarily representative of actual deadly force? You seem to digress from the original point-of-reference in order to cite certain Black and White's opinions which, while they can and do produce deadly results, what are the quantitative numbers of White on Black murder for you to declare WP are the hunters and you are the prey?

I harp on this request not to discount what you personally feel, and believe me, I feel often the same despair and anger about my loved ones when they are targeted for nothing more than their blackness, so I'm not discounting your experiences and prism view, I just like to break down how much of it today is it perception that a disproportionate number of race-motivated murder is occurring against BP by WP, versus the actual numbers?

(ps; fyi, Black male incarceration is falling, which is a great thing going into the future)

Well to be fair I really don't have numbers since its unlikely for a perp to admit to a racially motivated crime since it carries a much heavier sentence but from the narrative of living in this country for more than 30 years I can honestly say that racially motivated crimes against whites by blacks is very unlikely for a number of reasons. One being that a lot of the crimes blacks commit against whites are usually robberies and home invasions and not because the victims are white but white people are more likely to have things worth stealing since there are more white people in general. Even hateful comments I've seen from blacks regarding white people is usually reactive, it's rare that I ever see or hear about an overt superiority complex where blacks feel as if they are better than whites to exact any kind of violence towards whites purely based on their skin tone. I could be wrong but I've yet to see it as frequently as I do the other way around. And again I haven't seen any hard numbers but when I see a lot of the crimes involving whites on blacks its rarely if ever a crime of necessity or greed, I can't recall a situation where whites were stealing or robbing middle class blacks. Not saying it has never happened but what I do see and hear about are assaults or other violent interactions, that paints a particular picture for. That also coupled with a lot of right wing propaganda that has white America fearful of losing "their" country shows me the seeds that lead to a thinking that can only breed xenophobia. I also notice the liberal bs of standing with blacks and latinos on camera but would never actually have one of them at their homes. A lot of them make their bread and butter parading around the poor and disenfranchised in order to get votes but at the same time alienate the white demographic going through the same struggle which builds even more resentment.
I seriously could go on for pages but my overall point is there aren't actual numbers but I don't have the actual numbers on which governments are tapping phones and isp addresses but the writing is on the wall and I can see it.
 
People completely discount how people act when they feel they have impunity.

Fact is, there are whole swathes of people in this country who wake up snarling and growling about black people and go to bed snarling and growling about black people. Signal that they have impunity to fire, and what do you get? People looking to fire.
 
This country is starting to feel like a Viking encampment in one of those movies, where you bump into a guy and he challenges you to obligatory combat. At any time we live in fear of the slightest misstep or affront leading to death. Bump someone? Die. Listen to music in the store parking lot? Die. Cut someone off on the highway? Die. Walk home from the store? Die. Walk home inebriated? Die. Ask for help with your car? Die.

Could death not be the end result of every single casual encounter? I'm not against guns for self-defense in the home or hunting food, but this guns blazing thing is sickening.
 
This country is starting to feel like a Viking encampment in one of those movies, where you bump into a guy and he challenges you to obligatory combat. At any time we live in fear of the slightest misstep or affront leading to death. Bump someone? Die. Listen to music in the store parking lot? Die. Cut someone off on the highway? Die. Walk home from the store? Die. Walk home inebriated? Die. Ask for help with your car? Die.

Could death not be the end result of every single casual encounter? I'm not against guns for self-defense in the home or hunting food, but this guns blazing thing is sickening.

I couldn't agree with you more. I've always been pro-2nd Amendment. But, lately, with all of the shootings going on for no reason, it's made me rethink my stance and wonder if it's still valid.

A month or so ago, some guy allegedly cut someone off in traffic through a merge, and the guy who was cut off, took out a gun and shot the guy. The guy didn't even realize he was shot until a later. He ended up being shot in the shoulder. So, I can only imagine that the guy doing the shooting was going for a head shot. Seriously?!? For cutting you off at a merge? WTF is wrong with people? And imagine if the guy had a child in the backseat. The bullet may have hit the child instead.

I've had the same feeling that this land is becoming lawless.

It's a scary time to be living. People are out of work and desperate. Or other factors are contributing to the craziness that people are experiencing.
 
The problem is that we have too many high-powered, corporate interests that are drafting and getting laws changed in this country.

The gun lobby thinks there aren't enough guns in the hands of all Americans.

The fossil fuel lobby is opposed to any investment and research in alternative fuels.

The pharmaceutical industry is against any FDA approval or extended trials for new drugs.

The medical lobby wants to put a cap on payouts for malpractice lawsuits.

When the powerful and the rich are making laws that benefit mainly themselves, the people at street level are the ones who get fucked.


It amazes me how many folks appear not to give a shit about taking the life of a stranger.
 
This country is starting to feel like a Viking encampment in one of those movies, where you bump into a guy and he challenges you to obligatory combat. At any time we live in fear of the slightest misstep or affront leading to death. Bump someone? Die. Listen to music in the store parking lot? Die. Cut someone off on the highway? Die. Walk home from the store? Die. Walk home inebriated? Die. Ask for help with your car? Die.

Could death not be the end result of every single casual encounter? I'm not against guns for self-defense in the home or hunting food, but this guns blazing thing is sickening.

It's made even worse by the fact that people with guns tend to be a lot more brave and a lot more reckless. I strongly doubt that the guy in the movie theater who shot the father for texting would have said anything if he didn't have his gun with him. The same thing with Zimmerman: if he didn't have a gun and didn't want to play wannabe police officer that never would have happened.

I don't think the Second Amendment should be abolished but sometimes I wonder if this country is obsessed with guns to the point of self-destruction.
 
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