Friday, May 27, 2011

Tucson

This has been making the rounds for the last two days:
Tucson, Arizona (CNN) -- A U.S. Marine who died in a flurry of bullets during a drug raid near Tucson never fired on the SWAT team that stormed his house, a report by the Pima County Sheriff's Department shows.
Jose Guerena died May 5 after a SWAT team descended on his home in a Tucson suburb with a search warrant. His home was one of four believed to be associated with a drug smuggling operation in the area.

A video released Thursday by the sheriff's department shows the uniformed SWAT team pulling up outside his house, sounding their sirens, banging on the front door -- before kicking it in -- and opening fire shortly after entering the home.

Officers fired more than 70 shots, the investigation showed. Deputies said they opened fire after Guerena, 26, gestured at them with an AR-15 -- a semiautomatic rifle.
From what I can tell, pretty much everybody involved did the wrong thing, including for some reason having a semiautomatic rifle in your house.  But this is what we should expect in a place where not only is having a bunch of guns easily permitted, but ENCOURAGED, a la the 'ol "if everybody was armed, nobody would get hurt" mantra that is obviously somewhat less than wise.  The notion that you should always assume the next guy will be armed makes for an itchy trigger finger; throw in our relentless insistence on ratcheting up The Drug War any chance we get, and here we go.  Instead of feigning outrage, we should be mildly surprised this doesn't happen every day in Tucson.

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