A man stood in the parking lot of a shopping mall in Southern California on Saturday and fired 50 shots into the air.
Police didn’t say why, but his actions prompted many stores in the open-air Fashion Island mall in Newport Beach to lock their doors.
No one was hurt by the bullets raining down, but one person suffered minor injuries while trying to flee the area, police said.
Newport Beach Police quickly took the man, 42-year-old Marcos Sarinana Gurrola, into custody, but not before calling in the bomb squad when the man said he had more ammunition in the trunk of his car.
Suspect Arrested After Firing Weapon in Parking Lot nixle.us/84KMJ
— Newport Beach Police (@NewportBeachPD) December 16, 2012
The incident came a day after a mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut, and last week’s fatal shooting at a mall in Oregon.
Patrick Wyrick was returning to his car when he heard the shots and, from behind the safety of his car, began capturing the scene with camera.
“I wasn't sure they were real or not. Then a heard another set of shots and then another,” he said in a video he posted on YouTube.
“My wife and daughter were at an ice cream shop in the mall when the shooting happened. They ended up running and screaming with everyone toward the opposite side of the mall.”
Other shoppers began tweeting:
There is a shooting at fashion island and I'm trapped in a department store. This is scary
— Emily Altieri (@e_altieri) December 16, 2012
omg omg omg omg there's a shooting at fashion island. can't go anywhere on lockdown
— Zoë Amelia Klopfer (@zoeboo2) December 16, 2012
Are we going to continue arguing about the right to bear arms? We need to have a gun control law and put a stop to this crap.... Yes there will still be ways to get hold of a gun but it will be more difficult if there is a total ban on guns it is that simple. Who gives a damn what the rednecks think or want!! Innocent people are being killed.
I have an academic degree and I have guns. Your knee jerk reaction is pretty unsubstantial.
Why do dems hat gun owners so much....and say they want to protect us from those evil gun owners...yet support sucking a baby from its mothers womb at 8 months....nice.
Itsveritas
Fritz Hohenheim, your academic degree doesn't mean that you are not a mentally disturbed individual who could possibly go on a shooting spree. Your academic degree should help you reason a little bit more logically.
December 16, 2012 at 8:17 am | Report abuse | Reply
You must believe in magic... like a law banning guns would actually make all guns disappear from America. Get a clue.... you'd only be making criminals out of law-abiding harder-working-than-you Americans, and giving gangs a serious advantage,
Do us all a favor, cancel your internet and don't post anymore/
And who cares what you think. You're not going to take away my rights because you're an emotionally unstable wimp. While these events are unfortunate, I do not want to live in your police state. This conversation is futile anyways because youre not going to get the guns banned.
FritzH.: Your "knee jerk reaction" reply to a blogger are called in to question. I ask, what is so knee jerk about asking that guns be made illegal? Don't we have proof that something is amiss with the recent gun killings? Isn't it time gun laws are reexamined in light of the news? Does the fact you have an academic degree somehow add credence to your statement?
John
We need to have a gun control law and put a stop to this crap....
.
You do realize a gun can and will be obtained regardless of a piece of paper. That is not the answer. There are risks living in a free society. Dying via gun is a very low risk.
Gun Control is only one step. We need education and we need deterant. Place 5 armed Off Duty Polics at a school and all of a sudden it's more difficult to get in the school.
And who is going to pay for 5 armed guards at each school? Remember how people don't like to pay taxes? Are you going to post armed guards at each mall too?
I'd bet you any amount of money that this is an anti-gun protester trying to "seize the moment" to try to make it even more-likely that "anti-gun legislation" will be passed. I'm not characterizing all anti-gun people as being a certain way, just putting forward an explanation that seems possible to me.
Which is more important to you, no filter for anyone to purchase any gun, or a human life? Like it or not, that's where we are at now.
Why do dems hat gun owners so much....and say they want to protect us from those evil gun owners...yet support sucking a baby from its mothers womb at 8 months....nice.
England has the right idea. Their success in gun control is what we should do.
UK has a nice police state going. We should also install cameras everywhere. Actually we should go one step further and put video cams in everyone's home and car. All citizens should be implanted with gps tracking devices too.
Can any of you blathering on about how gun control won't help, or that we need to be able to protect ourselves from the bad guys who carry guns, provide an example of how someone having a gun stopped one of these massacres? If you can't, then shut up. Your arguments are empty.
Moreover, provide one good reason for how the public good is served by allowing ownership of semi-automatic assault rifles. I bet you can't do that either.
As a matter of simple math, the social benefits of gun proliferation in the US escape me.
But the human costs in terms of fear and lost lives from the massacre are real. Very real.
Help us all understand your view of the net benefit to society. So far, your rhetoric is not supported by math.
And your response can not be veiled by wrapping yourself in a flag and 2nd amendment kookerie. Facts please.
Sorry....they are Republicans.....they don't DO math!
Actually if you check the FBI database you will see that violent crimes have been decreasing at a rate directly corresponding to the increase in firearms sales since 2005. And your question is moronic, if someone with a gun stopped a massacre, then a massacre never occurred and all that would be reported would be that someone shot a criminal, which incidently is reported every day. What we do know is that these massacres occurred in gun free zones, where no law abiding citizen had a gun to defend themselves!
Fritz Hohenheim, your academic degree doesn't mean that you are not a mentally disturbed individual who could possibly go on a shooting spree. Your academic degree should help you reason a little bit more logically.
If we must.... a gun buy-back program in coordination with guns being made illegal. Those who support owning guns have to consider business' being impacted by people too frightened to go to malls. Bad for the economy.
Why not replace guns with something less destructive like taser etc..
Why is USA sick with guns and violence? Why is there no compassion for each other?
For all of you who point to Mexico you have to remember when you live next to the largest supplier of arms in the world then yes it will be a problem. A better comparison is with the UK. After a massacre with semi-automatic weapons in 1987 they banned those and then after a shooting with a hand gun 8 years later they banned those. Well now the process of getting a gun in the UK is very difficult. You must be interviewed by a policeman and give a REAL reason for owning a pistol, rifle or shotgun. They also attempt to determine your psychological state of mind and have looked into working with the medical community to get a better profile. They also have one fo the lowest gun homicide rates in the world. is it perfect? of course not but doing nothing isn't either.
@ Red Dog.....I guess today there are 150,399,999 gun owners! (The election is over....stop with the 47% already!) By your logic, there are 78,300,000 pot smokers. Maybe pot should be legal?
Maybe pot should be legal?
YES
Yes, yes indeed.
dirty hippie
What happens when all the police have firearms and the general pubic is defenseless in a militia?
Ya... Like that's going to happen... Poor freaking argument for guns for everyone!!! It's people like you that get in the way of a safer society with ZERO guns which would put an end to mass killings with them.... Wake up....
The worst mass murder in the united states was committed with a gallon of gasoline and pack of matches. Zero guns will not make you safe. Ask the british and the Australians how thats working out. Zero guns = more stabbings and more violent crime.
China, 30 kids stabbed, all survived. USA 20 kids shot, all died. See any difference?
They always use the "it's for self-defense" argument when it's convenient...the rest of the time it's about how the government is tyrannical and is coming for their freedom. So where were the gun owners when the government redistributed over $700 billion of our money to save banks in 2008? So much for them protecting the rest of us...you know, because gun owners and the NRA like to talk big about themselves like they are the ONLY THING standing between us and dictatorship. Guns are a religion just like Christianity is...and it's a mental illness. The odds of INNOCENT people dying needlessly as a result of gun ownership are FAR MORE LIKELY than a law-abiding gun owner using it to prevent a crime. There is no debate about that, and the gun lobby knows it.
Too bad you have no evidence of crimes not comitted because they were detered by the possibility of armed citizens. The real problems such as gangs, broken families, and other issues which breed mental illness go unnoticed because its much easier for people to lash out at law abiding citizens who have guns ligitimately than to solve actual problems. But thats par for the course for the sheltered in life.
The fruits of the regressive conservative death cult present themselves yet again. It's as if you guys hate life itself.
Oh, there's plenty of evidence. I will be amending this post and providing citations of all the studies I've found pertaining to this EXACT argument (that armed citizens do, in fact, deter crime). It isn't true. At all. AT ALL. At the time of writing I just had to get my general idea down before what I wanted to say was lost forever. The real question is, when I post these citations, which are forthcoming, will you accept them or deny them? The gun lobby denies them because the data essentially renders their viewpoint irrelevant and obsolete. We'll soon find out...
There will never be zero guns in this country. Its just impossible to make that happen. But what happens when the government takes away guns from its citizens? Ask German Jews in the 1930s. Im not saying that anyone in government has any dream or desire of doing anything like that, but it opens the door for trouble. Its been done many times in history.
taking guns away will not solve the problem. if people want to kill other people they will find another way
There is something really wrong if you think you have to defend yourself against police with deadly force. If our nation's ultimate defense (our army which is strongest in the world) somehow turn against people in support of a "tyrant", all the guns that ignorant people like U have collected would not do S&%T against what they can do to U and your ilk in just one hour. All it takes a bit of "shock & awe" (I bet you like that word) on one rebellious city, and guess who are the first ones who would drop their weapons and run.. STOP regurgitating the cr@p that the special interest is feeding you daily, and just think for yourself.
Ya, just like in Afghinastan genius
Thank You...Well said! Finally someone with common sense. The Revolutionary War is over folks!
Syria happens. LOL
Yep, good luck with your AR15 against a helicopter or a drone......or a fuly automatic machine gun or an armored humvee...should I go on....
You, and others like you, are total idiots.This is not the 1700's when settlements were being established in parts of the country that did not enjoy military or police protection. I fear idiots like you with a fire arm a hell of lot more than I fear our police and military. Uou might feel right at home as a citizen of Afghanistan.
seriously, If you are that parinoid of the police or goverment rising up then you need to be in a psy ward or move out of the dam country and find a island where you and you millita can sit and guard.
The county is a safer place, dummy
Then we are screwed twice over.
What happens when police have guns and the people don't... no more mass public massacres perpretated by the people?
Teannamen (how ever you spell it). Square.Didn't the Chinese government kill those protesters with guns? I may be wrong, but didn't as many PROTESTERS die or jailed than in the Virginia Tech slayings. When a crazed lone gun man does it we call it a massacre. When the Chinese police do it they call it Crowd Control.........
Maybe you should direct that question to 26 families in Connecticut. Asky them how they feel about your 'rights'.
Then you should ban the police from holding guns, as most of the other countries do.
Cops can't shoot any better than anyone else.
NYC COPS can easily squeeze off 50 rounds. And not hit the target.
by the time they get to the scene..all they really need is a pen......to write the report.
Oh
... nut they wont give up their guns to protect themselves... will they???
Well . . .there probably won't be too many people fighting the cops anymore. . .
Going from evidence in every other developed country in the world... nothing.
What happens when you allow people to have guns who aren't in a militia?
Never happen...
Join us in the year 2012....
OK, so in your paranoid delusion, what happens?
You need know everything is possible. There is no one strategy could cover all in this world. So the question will be, which one is more likely happening? mass killing by a psycho holding the gun, or mass killing by the millita?
If the gov't is coming after you, no amout of fire power is going to make you the winner.
OH, You mean like in New Jersey!
if you do battle with the police, then you need shot period.. Absolutely no reason for any militia here in the United states..NONE. Only in the feeble mind of Tea party IDIOTS...oNLY REASON THEY HAVE IS A BLACK MAN IS IN oFFICE..NO MORE THAN DOMESTIC TERRORIST......
CHINA
Not "logic". Based on fact. Did 78+ million "pot smokers" respond to a Gallup poll asking them if they smoked mj? I didn't think so. But 150+ million gun owners responded that they owned guns, and as I said: The VAST MAJORITY did not kill anybody or go to the mall and fire off 50 rounds into the air. The VAST MAJORITY are law-abiding citizens who are exercising their Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
And your vast majority is going to lose that privilege thanks to your own inability to control your issue. You have no one but yourselves to blame.
The VAST MAJORITY of people who smoked crack last year didn't die or kill anyone. Should crack be legal?
exactly!!
And of that VAST MAJORITY, how many needed to own automatic rifles? Why can common reason not be used? There's such a vast gap of possible action between banning all guns or just starting with the removal of access to automatic weapons or removing the gaps in laws that allow people to purchase weapons without permits.
Automatic weapons already are illegal.
Automatic weapons are already illegal.
You mean, their right to keep and bear arms – as part of a well maintained militia, right? "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Are you part of the national defense? Bear in mind "well regulated". So, not some weekend warriors. National Guard-type stuff. You in that, chuckles?
...and much like nose-picking and ass-scratching, neither has any correlation. Is there a point to your statement?
Pot is legal in Washington and one other state
Good, then maybe all you stoners can live together and leach off one another instead of society.
agreed
Are you kidding me? Of course cannabis should be legal! Being that you seem to be for guns, as am I, I'm assuming you believe in personal liberty and freedom, correct? Well, cannabis use falls under personal freedom and liberty, my friend.
I see nothing wrong with legalized marijuana. I think its less dangerous than whiskey.
you indicated that marijuana is dangerous therefore it should be illega.l
Right......joints don't kill people. But guns do. So why are joints illegal and guns so easy to get????
No, your wrong, Guns dont kill people, people kill people, a gun has never once harmed another living being on its own. Just as Marijuana has never killed anyone on its own, but you can still be high and kill someone with a car so your argument is not valid.
Guns don't kill people. . .people kill people WITH guns! We have a gun in our house, but it hasn't killed anyone! Just for the record, we haven't killed anyone either. However, I will not allow pot in my house! Why, because I don't want to get high from the "second-hand" smoke. Since second-hand smoke from cigarettes is so bad, I'd hate to see what second-hand smoke from pot would do to you.
"The effects of marijuana as second hand smoke"
Example A will sit in a 10×10 enclosed room for 1 hour while 6 people smoke marijuana cigarettes. Only then can the effects of THC be detected.
There has been research done on inhaling marijuana smoke none have concluded lung cancer.
My opinion .. I will hate living in a society of pot heads.
Excellent point. If you ever run for President, I will vote for you. You are the man!
Pot is legal in Colorado.
It probably should be.
The 47% turned out to be underestimated at 51% unfortunately....
crafty name...
Don't you read the news? Pot is becoming legal slowly starting with two states.
We are all going to die anyways on 12-21-12...so who cares!!! HA HA HA
Not one intelligent comment made and not one made on the actual story. We're focusing on guns when we should focus on people's fragile mental states. Everyone's weak, including the guy who captured the shooting on his camera while his wife and child where in the mall. Get out of our social society; twitter, youtube, facebook, instagram. Be a man and run into the mall to find your wife and kid. That's the most important fact of all of this. We need more men and bettter role models in this country.
what a stupid statment
Pot is legal in two states already...one where the mall shooting occured. Go figure.
I am not sure what needs to be done, but something does. We just can't turn the other check. There are many responsible gun owners. Then there are cowards who hide behind a gun . Maybe the NRA could come up with a better
Way to reform gun control.
And maybe the wolf could come up with a better way to guard the chicken coop.
What does the NRA have to do with this guy shooting into the air? Guns have been around in this country for over 200 years, just in the last 15 to 20 have we begun to see the senseless tragic events such as what happened in Connecticut. The social culture of this country is going down fast.
I'm afraid you're living in a dream world, Scranton. There's nothing new about this shooting mayhem - the only difference is that you're here to witness it now. At the risk of being cliche-riddden, our perception of our history is a rosy-colored episode of Gunsmoke and our heroes are Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid.
Humans cannot successfully plan for war and peace at the same time, you will have to choose a side that you support. There is no magic solution for gun control since the human psychology is ever changing ... while the gun never changes... it's always available and ready to do it's ONE task. Good luck.
The NRA is part of the problem, not the solution.
Drunk rockstars waving guns in everyone's face is not going to protect our Rights.
i believe that there needs to be a more in depth procedure when purchasing any firearm. A simple ATF background check done over the phone may check criminal history, but it does not determine the mental capacity of an individual. People need to realize that "Gun Control" will not take away everyone's guns, but put measures in place to keep them out of the wrong hands. With that being said, shootings that have taken place recently (Oregon Mall, CT School, Temple, College Campuses, Colorodo Movie Theater) are all forbidden carry zones for the law-abiding concealed carry permit holder.. Maybe it's just me, but i see a correlation there.. Bad guys are met with no retaliation and are able to take countless innocent lives..