While I agree this guy is obviously unbalanced and a threat to himself or others, I have trouble with defining two rifles, a shotgun, and a handgun as an "arsenal." Based on the article, he did have a significant amount of ammuntion, but I'm still not sure that qualifies as "arsenal." I lean left politically, but it seems that the media is quick to label anything more than one firearm as an "arsenal." I don't agree. The article reports he had five firearms, what would it be called if he'd had ten, or twenty? A depot?

The cops showed great restraint. He's lucky to be alive.

I agree i think that an arsenal would be about 50 to 100 firearms/weapons... I have probably 15 firearms and countless knives. Am i considered to have an arsenal at my house?

Sick Person

There's plenty of them out there during these times

Please be vigilant

If you see something say something

Obama 2012 / Romney 1040

@TIGER FOOTBALL

"I agree i think that an arsenal would be about 50 to 100 firearms/weapons... I have probably 15 firearms and countless knives. Am i considered to have an arsenal at my house?"

Clearly, YES. You have enough weapons (firearms and knives) in your house to arm dozens of people, if that were your intent. Sometimes nuance is just splitting hairs.

NRA sanctioned assault weapons were needed for an invasion by Canada - GOP wants everyone to have weapons of mass destruction - it's our Constitutional Right!

Well this guy was obviously a bit of a nut job, but I agree that his little weapons cache hardly qualifies as an arsenal. Hardly qualifies as a small collection, but the press likes to blow things out of proportion.

When you get right down to it, I'm not so sure that one guy with a thousand weapons is really any more dangerous than one man with one or two good weapons. The quantity really doesn't raise the threat level.

You have to wonder what this guy was thinking, it almost seems like he was begging to get shot. The guy sends a threat, say come and get me and leaves his address. You've got to figure he was looking for some kind of confrontation. Or maybe someone else sent the email for him. He shared the apartment with his mother. Maybe she had something to do with it. Strange indeed.

Coward trying to get the cops to shoot him.

I thought the fact that he gave his address and said come and get me a bit odd myself. Something else odd about it, they said they "tracked his location". Why did they have to track his location when he supposedly gave them his address. My first thought was "is this a set-up by someone. Hopefully the truth will come out sooner rather than later.

Was this guy home from work that day?

1NewDay

" ... it almost seems like he was begging to get shot. The guy sends a threat, say come and get me and leaves his address. You've got to figure he was looking for some kind of confrontation."

@theCavalier

"Coward trying to get the cops to shoot him."

I had a similar thought as both of you. When the police knock on the door and a person opens the door armed, that person has got to assume there's a pretty good chance he's going to die, right? Law enforcement agencies even have a label for it, "Suicide by Cop".

I know a couple of police officers pretty well, and both have said to me that situations like this are one of the worst fears of law enforcement professionals; that they will be put in a threatening situation by a depressed or otherwise mentally disturbed person -- who really (unbeknownst to them) is just in need of mental health assistance and medication -- and they will be given no choice but to use deadly force.

It has happened with increasing frequency over the past few years, and in several of those situations the distraught or mentally disturbed person never even loaded their weapon (because they never had any intention of harming anyone but themselves).

It would be understandably pretty traumatic for any cop to learn after the fact that they had been used, had served as the intentional means to an end, and had taken a life of a person holding an unloaded weapon.

I am a divided in my thinking however about your use of the word "coward" in connection with cases like this, cavalier. You may be right. I think a psychologist could probably explain if that's correct, or not. That one is worthy of a very good discussion and debate.

If in fact this was a suicide attempt, I don't know how to define that act, other than 'desperation', and maybe 'irrational.' I have often heard suicide described by mental health professionals as a "selfish" act. But "cowardly"? Gosh, I just don't know. I can't really wrap my brain around that one way or the other.

"Arsenal" means a collection of weapons, usually referring to the military but also used in connection with the collection of facts for purposes of debate. This guy seems to think he was a one-many army and had collected more than one firearm so the word is used appropriately..

Maybe if he'd bought fewer firearms and less ammunition, he could have afforded to move out of his mom's house...

I have probably 15 firearms and countless knives. Am i considered to have an arsenal at my house?

No, it's more of a "cache" at the moment. It doesn't become an "arsenal" until you get arrested.

If 5 firearms and 1,000 rounds of ammunition are an arsenal, then my food pantry is a supermarket.

Sorry guys but you don't know wtf you're talking about.

Definition of ARSENAL

1
a: an establishment for the manufacture or storage of arms and military equipment
b : a collection of weapons

Unlike your 4X4 size doesn't matter to the definition. Try using a dictionary sometime.

"Arsenal" means a collection of weapons, usually referring to the military but also used in connection with the collection of facts for purposes of debate.

Partially right, wrong in intent. It does not usually refer to military, it refers to civilian too. Quote the definition and you will not find the reference to "usually refer to".

Jeff-1592116

"Arsenal" means a collection of weapons, usually referring to the military but also used in connection with the collection of facts for purposes of debate.

Partially right, wrong in intent. It does not usually refer to military, it refers to civilian too. Quote the definition and you will not find the reference to "usually refer to".

Your first post is absolutely correct with respect to the dictionary definition of "arsenal." Perhaps you should have quit while you were ahead. When you say the definition does not include the reference "usually refers to", you are also correct. You are also admitting that you either don't know or choose to ignore the difference between the denotation (ie. definition) and connotation (ie. social context, or "usually refers to") of a word. For instance, by definition a bachelor is an unmarried male and a spinster is an unmarried female. Do these words have different connotations?

I also note (as a general observation, not a personal attack) that people who do not understand the difference between denotation and connotation are often socially inept.

You guys crack me up! Sunni's and Shiite's...when do we throw down?

When you say the definition does not include the reference "usually refers to", you are also correct.

I am not getting into this STUPID debate about what the definition of "Arsenal" is. I already proved that. You guys have some odd reason to redefine something so you have an argument by all means do. But that's a logical fallacy and you already know that.

Enjoy.

what i don't get is this: people are going to say that the public should be armed to prevent guys like this from doing anything bad. yet, in recent memory, there's only been one instance that i can think of where an armed citizen was involved (the giffords shooting), and even then, he didn't draw his weapon; he arrived after the shooting ended.

so i have to ask... are there any instances where a citizen, not involved with law enforcement in anyway, who was legally authorized to carry a gun actually DID anything to stop someone else from harming people? are these stories just not making the news? or are criminals the only people who are firing guns at other people?

what i'm getting at is this: the standard argument goes that the public SHOULD be armed so people like this don't do anything bad. fair enough point, but where ARE these 'good guys'? if nobody's DOING anything, WHY should the public be armed instead of banning guns altogether?

JohnBrowning

You guys crack me up! Sunni's and Shiite's...when do we throw down?

LOL ... there is no firefight if one side runs away.

@denver bill 2

"...a bachelor is an unmarried male and a spinster is an unmarried female. Do these words have different connotations?"

Not for me, because I'm not dating either one of them!

(does that mean I'm socially inept?)

;-)

@JerkInCoolClothes

so i have to ask... are there any instances where a citizen, not involved with law enforcement in anyway, who was legally authorized to carry a gun actually DID anything to stop someone else from harming people? are these stories just not making the news? or are criminals the only people who are firing guns at other people?

Yes, there are plenty of situations and the stories run in local newspapers & local TV news, however I rarely see them in the large national media, regardless of whether the national media is left or right politically. If you really think about it, a headline like, "Guy stops home burglary by drawing firearm" is a news story about nothing. Nobody got shot, nobody got robbed, and a potential burglar was arrested. It's just not exciting enough for the national media to report on.

Thank-you President Obama for Protecting my Family and the Families of all Policemen, Firemen, Teachers, the American Woman, the Latino and Gay Community, all those who collect Social Security and/or Medicare, and all you still Undecided Voters from you Domestic Terrorists, crazyTeabaggers, and Rightwing Wacko GunNuts!

All Hail Obama! Ruler, Master, and Overlord of all you Republicans and extremist Teabaggers for the Next four (yes! 4) very long years.

Ain't Life grand?

ps. Is this a Great post, or what?

Strange...an enraged conservative that hates Obama and also lives at home with his mom at the age of 31. Sounds like the exact profile for the GOP's target audience in this year's election.

Obama/Biden 2012

Well, it may be a blue state, but they have their share of some serious anti-government types and militias, hate groups and extremist organizations. In the rural Eastern part of the state there is a growing trend in the these extremist groups. Washington may be on the Left Coast, but they still have their far right radicals.

Well, he doesn't need a lot of guns to hurt a lot of people, just a lot of bullets and he certainly had that, including high capacity magazines.

Ahh. Yes. Total BS. Not an arsenal for one man. More like minimal defense for an innocent man. Of course, some jackass will look at the definition in Webster:

Definition of ARSENAL

1
a: an establishment for the manufacture or storage of arms and military equipment b: a collection of weapons

So, obviously, this is not an arsenal. Obviously.

Hell, by that definition (b) my silverware drawer contains an arsenal.

Again:

Definition of ARSENAL

1
a: an establishment for the manufacture or storage of arms and military equipment b: a collection of weapons

You yourself defined it as a collection. Webster's say a collection of weapons is an arsenal.

Both usages are correct - cache is more neutral toned. Arsenal sounds ominous and journalists are supposed to use neutral language to preserve impartiality.

What's more, they said "AK-47 type". It was probably just an SKS.

It is not worth the time to examine these mentally deficient individuals. With a world wide population of 7 billion, there has to be millions of mentally ill people.

The U.S.A. lives on the edge of a sword, the same freedoms that allow certain individuals to develop extraordinary talent also allow the mentally ill to take advantage of those freedoms and do horrific deeds.

We don't want a police state, yet we don't want mentally ill people out there going on a rampage when the screws get loose.

Liberal,YouExistInABubble you exist in a bubble. Most of the writers for nbcnews are interns. You can look them up. The first thing they teach you in a school of journalism is to get the readers attention and jerk them around with ridiculous headlines.

It only takes one bullet to kill you and the nut was running around his house armed. Sounds like a paranoid individual. So he lives with his mother. NBC just ran an article how older people have to return to live with their children because of the bad times. I would love to know if this person had a job. I do believe anyone running around the house armed with a bandoleer of live ammunition didn't have many job opportunities.

Your description of the number of nutcases in the world now explains how Mitt Romney (or any Republican) was able to be nominated.

Also explains how Obama was elected.

Yep.

The two political parties are the cookie pattern that incite these mentally ill people. We definitely have to clean up the political advertisements and the news reporters.

We have to get back to the real issues and have open, fair and honest discussions based on real issues with moderators and intelligent people who are going to slap the hands of the liars and immediately remove negative advertisements and stick to advertisements that are meaningful and honest.

Yea I know, it is time for my meds.

"Hello ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox --- what should I do to get to be on the evening news?"

Looking for his 15 minutes of fame?

Let's hope he only gets 5!

djrashan,

This is not directed at you, but just a general observation.

Context... How somone defines an object or situation depends on their context, their point of view. To a firearms enthusiast this may not seem like an arsensal. But to a police force in a confrontation, the referenced weapons, combined with the magazine capacities and extra ammo would seem like an arsenal.

He has four times the 'cache that I would ever accidentally posses. I suppose by this frame of context, my kilo would just be a stash compared to most drug busts. If it's more then could ever be used by the individual for any reasonable intent, then I really don't see the difference.

Yes, media sucks, mostly because it's all owned by the same guy, but the internet also makes you stupid. Why argue over the context of the word as if it has any political implications? Guy probably ghost writers news stories for a half-dozen other sights, probably on both sides of the aisle. News stopped being objective when you could sell it at no cost to yourself.

Paladin, you have a lot of nerve trying to get people to believe that the 16 trillion dollar debt was Obama's fault. This is typical Republican rhetoric; keep repeating a lie, over and over and SOMEBODY will eventually believe it....but you do have one thing on your side; your guy has chosen the right vice presidential candidate! Ryan is the perfect Mr. Flip to Mitt's Mr. Flop.

The vast majority of that debt was piled on by the Democrat Congress. President Obama has made no attempt to rein the deficits in. While I think he was exaggerating, you are incorrect in saying he's lying.

It doesn't matter who is in your White House because corrupition is corruption. Your president is only a figure head and doesn't run your country. He never had and never will. You are all being lied to. This Obama fellow is nothing more than a clever ploy by the order to incite racial hostility and further their goal to destroy the United States which will definitely happen and their is nothing you all can do about it. It's finished. There was a reason this Mulatto was elected. That's all I can say.

The number of guns a man owns is directly proportional to the amount of cowardice he possesses.

the bigger the coward, the bigger the cache of guns.

Real men fight.

Cowards shoot.

We have a lot of people in our state who rely on their guns, boats and fishing gear to feed their families. I know because I hunted four months a year for many years. Part of it was hunting and part was just being a part of the most remarkable and beautiful place on the planet.

I cannot imagine a real hunter needing an automatic rifle and a semi-automatic shotgun was used but not really required. The people in Alaska would appreciate you calling them all cowards. . . but it is easy for some folks to trot out the labels when they can't think of anything intelligent to say.

Don, I don't think CountrySimple was referring to guns when used to be more efficient at gathering resources from nature.

The comment about cowards and guns is generally aimed at humans that threaten other humans while standing behind guns.

Hey I am a hillbilly.

Obama/Biden 2012

earsport

Tell me, did someone teach you to hate your fellow man, or were you just born that way?

I don't hate anyone...I am just stating an opinion about the intentions of an ill informrd.simplistic minded ,group of people in the U.S that are disloyal to a duly elected President and The Government of The Unied States...just as the Confederates were in 1860.... You have it backwards pal....It' sThe Tea Party that hates The President and the government

Another typical rant from a member of the Flea party.

Tell me, did someone teach you to hate your fellow man, or were you just born that way?

A better question for the group that carries signs depicting President Obama as a sociopathic killer, jeers and threatens a civil rights hero, and supports vaginal probes.

Since when did disagreement with the president rise to the level of treason? In your ignorance you left out the time honored retort of the leftist morons, they're all racists. Even their members of color. Disloyalty to a President? Where did you go to school? I can't recall anyone ever swearing allegiance or loyalty to any person in the USA. The only instance I can think of offhand anywhere was back in the 30's and 40's to that little monster with the funny mustache. Even elected officials, servicemen, and others affirm their loyalty to the country and the Constitution that defines it, not to any flawed human being.

When was the last time a President's place of birth was questioned?....or information disseminated that he is a Muslim and connected with ant-American groups?...or the rant "take OUR country back?...or that a President wants to "take our guns"?...or "2nd Amendment solutions"?.....The Tea Party utters all of these things...and..it crosses the line of "loyal opposition". Ultimately,the Tea Party will resort to some kind of violence against The President and the government...just as The Confederates did in 1860

NBC News
updated 2/29/2008 7:21:39 PM ET 2008-03-01T00:21:39
Print Font: +-Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his advisers are doing their best to brush aside questions — raised in the liberal blogosphere — about whether he is qualified under the Constitution to be president. But many legal scholars and government lawyers say it's a serious question with no clear answer.

Published: Aug. 28, 2008 at 8:41 PM
DENVER, Aug. 28 (UPI) -- America is ready for change and Barack Obama is the man who will "take our country back," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told Democratic delegates in Denver....

Whipping the enthusiasm of the thousands at the stadium, Richardson concluded, "Are you ready to take our country back? Are we going to win this election? For America's future? Let's do it!"

Apparently those are only a no-no when conservatives do it.

How often do Tea Partiers do it...every day

How many Tea Partiers do it...hundreds of thousands

You take TWO isolated incidents and compare it to the 3 years of diatribe against a President who was (is) dealing with a national economic emergency? Just a little bit of "loyalty" to country instead of politics...the kind Democrats showed after 9/11...would have been the decent thing to do.

A successful Hollywood producer who had an insider's view of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign claims she heard Bill Clinton say that Barack Obama is not eligible to be president.

Bettina Viviano – who started her own film production company in 1990 after serving as vice president of production for Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment – told WND that it was common knowledge among delegates committed to Hillary that the Clintons believed Obama was constitutionally ineligible and that Bill Clinton would eventually disclose his belief to the public.

Origins of the claimsDuring the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential primaries, anonymous e-mails from supporters of Hillary Clinton surfaced that questioned Obama's citizenship in an attempt to revive Clinton's faltering primary election campaign. These and numerous other chain e-mails during the subsequent presidential election circulated false rumors about Obama's origin, religion and birth certificate.[21][22]

Bill Clinton told Ted Kennedy that Obama 'would be getting us coffee' a few years ago: 'Game Change'
BY HELEN KENNEDY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Bill Clinton helped sink his wife's chances for an endorsement from Ted Kennedy by belittling Barack Obama as nothing but a race-based candidate.

"A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee," the former president told the liberal lion from Massachusetts, according to the gossipy new campaign book, "Game Change."

The book says Kennedy was deeply offended and recounted the conversation to friends with fury.

After Kennedy sided with Obama, Clinton reportedly griped, "the only reason you are endorsing him is because he's black. Let's just be clear."

total heresay...this is the stuff right wing extremists base their beliefs upon...you are only proving my point about the "disloyalty" to a duly elected President....based upon unfounded....and disproved allegations about his citizenship..... righty wackos believe OBAMA'S Not A NATIVE BORN AMERICAN=HE'S ILLEGITIMATE....therefore...we (birthers,Tea Partiers) have to remove him...by defeating him...and if that doesn't work..."2nd Amendment Solutions"= DISLOYALTY.....just like The Confederates were disloyal to Lincoln...There is a big difference between LOYAL and DISLOYAL opposition...and alot of Tea Partiers crossed it a long time ago...

earsport

total heresay...

Total denial on your part.

Democrats were guilty of the sort of thing that you decry. Hilary Clinton was chirping from her first day in the senate about worst economy ever. Tom Daschle was screaming at press conferences and attacking Bush over failed diplomacy on the eve of the ground offensive into Iraq, but he when it was a Democrat in the White house he was all "we have exhausted diplomacy and have to use force." Pelosi was openly calling Bush a failure and making statements about taking America back for the people.

Likewise it was Democrats that slung the first mud at Obama. Only reason that changed was that they disliked the Clintons more than they did Obama.

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president."
― Theodore Roosevelt

Arsenal or Not?? Simply because if you have more than one gun the media calls it an arsenal and it reads better than saying several guns. This is why the discussion is taking place..it's really about media bias..is it not.