Weaponry, or images of it, seem everywhere this morning. We'll start with the National Guard walking the streets of Ferguson, Mo.
From the Associated Press:
The latest confrontations came on the same day Attorney General Eric Holder ordered a federal medical examiner to perform another autopsy on Brown, and as a preliminary private autopsy reported by The New York Times found Brown was shot at least six times, including twice in the head.
The NYT article draws no conclusions as to what Brown's stance or actions were at the time the shots were fired.
On NBC’s “Meet The Press,” U.S. Rep. John Lewis said residents there are owed an apology. From the transcript:
Ferguson is not in the American South. But we're doing much better in the small towns and cities in Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi. This is shameful. This is a disgrace. We must teach people the way of peace, the way of love, the way of nonviolence. But we cannot have peace and order without justice….
Well, I think that the police chief and the mayor and other local officials have a moral obligation and responsibility to literally apologize to the community. And the city mothers or city fathers should come together in a fashion, reach out to the African American community and say, "We're going to work together for the common good." And say, "We all live in this city together and we've got to learn to live together as brothers and sisters," as Dr. King would say, "Or we're going to perish as fools."
An AJC look at the Missouri outbreak by the intrepid Ernie Suggs includes this quote from Atlanta's Goldie Taylor, describing that region's entrapment in the '60s: "The Civil Rights movement skipped St. Louis."
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And then there was the Iraqi war veteran who says he was turned away from a Six Flags amusement park in New Jersey because he was told it was "offensive." The shirt featured a red, white and blue rifle and the phrase "Keep calm and return fire."
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The group called Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America have launched a campaign aimed at Kroger grocery stores, urging the chain to prohibit open carry of guns at its establishments.
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Finally, we have Helen, Ga., soon to be the poster child for Georgia's new gun law. The AJC's Alan Judd on a chamber-of-commerce nightmare:
On the other side, a woman from Texas lay on the ground, mortally wounded by a shot to her side.
From the same bullet.
The single accidental discharge from a small-caliber handgun late Saturday occurred on Helen's tourist-laden North Main Street, police said Sunday.
The shooting quickly fueled an online debate over Georgia's new concealed-weapons law, which took effect last month. The law, known as House Bill 60, greatly extended gun owners' rights to carry weapons in public places, such as bars. The legislation, the broadest of its kind in the nation, was labeled the "Guns Everywhere" law.
Authorities in Helen charged 53-year-old Glenn Patrick Lampien, of Jasper, with involuntary manslaughter after he apparently shot himself and the woman across the street, a stranger. It was not clear from police reports whether Lampien was handling the gun at the time or whether it was in a holster.
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