Recently, the Mayor of Dover NH, Dean Trefethen, has been asked to quit Mike Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors against Guns (as the mayor of Nashua did), but has doubled down on his membership. He takes pride in standing alongside some 30 mayors arrested for crimes from bribery to buggery and back again, and pride in trying to stop “the epidemic of gun violence,” which in New Hampshire as well as the rest of America refers mostly to bummed-out losers whacking themselves (something that happens everywhere in the world where bummed-out losers despair about their miserable lives), and to criminal losers being deftly distanced from the gene pool by the lawful firearms self-defense employment of police and armed citizens.
As we, and many others, previously reported, the list of names read by his pals in Concord included many violent felons, or as they described inmates in A Clockwork Orange, “pervos and hardened prestoopniks.” But we only listed four of the criminals (and only had dashcam video of the death by “gun violence” of one — sorry). A scrub of the list by the Washington Examiner found at least 11 more.
So we thought we’d look specifically at New Hampshire — whose death troubles this sensitive mayor? As it happens, NH punches below its weight on violence of all kinds, something criminologists attribute to the relatively high mean socioeconomic status of Granite Staters, the long, cold winters which discourage criminals (and everybody else, to some degree), and — when nobody’s recording them, anyway — the low percentage of minorities in the state (see above about long, cold winters), given that minorities are proportionally more likely to commit violent offenses.
But there are still six New Hampshire “victims of gun violence” on Bloomberg and Trefethen’s list, which is maintained interactively at their ally, Slate magazine. They are:
Ismael Chavira, 19
Chavira was a “victim of gun violence” in Manchester, NH on 19 December 2012 (some references say 16 December). He had a handgun, which under Federal law is illegal for anyone under 21 to acquire. What sort of handgun is unknown, because after playing recklessly with the gun at a party where drugs and alcohol were used, he put it to his head and fired it, subsequent to which party-depressing event, some unspecified one of the other yout’s at the party made off with it. He was survived by numerous siblings of equally-numerous last names, but apparently no co-workers, as he does not appear to have held a job.
Daniel Langlois, 25
Langlois was driving when someone shot him 27 December 2012. At first the police thought it was a car crash, but the crash wasn’t violent enough to explain his fatal head wound. Turned out there was a bullet in there. He had just been in a fight at a bar with a group of unspecified individuals. The case is very confused but he seems to be a true murder victim, someone who may have been killed in retaliation for the bar fight or in retaliation for something he did in his work as a bouncer, a profession that guarantees encounters with angry drunks. Spoiler: Langlois is the one of the six that was a victim of someone other than himself.
Geoffrey Bidwell, 42
Slate and MAIG report Bidwell as “killed,” which he isn’t. What he is, is bat guano crazy. He’s also a many-time rehab failure for drugs and alcohol, someone who couldn’t buy a gun under existing laws. Not that he had one; on 6 January 2013, Bidwell assaulted a police officer with a log, screaming, “I want you to kill me.” Nice try, Geoff. The cop fired twice, and one shot hit Bidwell. Just one more victim of gun violence, but we guess Bloomberg and Trefethen want more cops to be beaten up with logs, since they’re mourning Bidwell. (We bet they’re sorry he didn’t die).
Jacob Carver, 15
Carver is a victim of “gun violence.” He killed himself with the service pistol of his girlfriend’s father, the Danville, NH police chief, on 11 March 13. If he hung himself from a rafter, would he have been a victim of joist violence? Ligature violence? Suicide is always tragic, and young suicide is doubly so. But Bloomberg and Trefethen’s claims about this “crime” don’t add up — unless they plan to disarm the cops, too.
Larry Bohannon, 52
Poor Larry was just minding his own business 29 March 13, plying his trade, when police in Walpole, NH interrupted him at work, specifically, committing armed robbery. (His trade? Career violent criminal, specifically, a serial kidnapper and armed robber, and a fugitive at the time of his expiry). Invited to lay down his gun and decamp to a shady cellblock, where he might well meet members of Bloomberg’s MAIG cabal as well as his own old friends, he declined, choosing to test police in a driving contest followed by a challenge of marksmanship instead. Larry took home the 2nd Place Gunfight Cup: fatal gunshot wounds to the head, chest and abdomen. As a convict, Larry was forbidden to possess firearms of any kind, but respect for any law seems absent from his life. Even a stridently anti-police website seems to think Larry had it coming. Another victim of gun violence that Bloomberg would rather have alive and free to ply his trade, which makes the people of Walpole glad that he’s mayor of some lesser place.
Michael Laroque, 24
Laroque was gunned down in the prime of his life in Manchester, NH on 9 June 13. All he was doing was committing a violent home invasion at the time, when the apartment dweller defended his fiancee and child by gunning Laroque down and shooting at Laroque’s accomplice, who escaped. Laroque came out of the home he invaded: feet first, head covered, on a gurney (a picture is at the link), much to the chagrin of Bloomberg and Trefethen, who would rather have him alive and free, invading homes and terrorizing children.
Personally, we can’t see who would mourn guys like Bidwell, Bohannon or Laroque, except perhaps family members who regret that they went bad, and paid MAIG operatives and professional Newtown mourners. One suspects that last group of payroll patriots are being rewarded well enough to join the memory of their dead children with the likes of Michael Laroque, who actually died trying to harm a child. Bad cess to him.
Are there people in the world that, no euphemisms, need killing? We argue yes, and some of the people on this list were among them, and the world is a better place for their demise. Conversely, to the members of MAIG, these men were better left free to commit their violent crimes. That is a philosophical chasm that can’t be bridged by reason or compromise. Theirs is the voice of descent ad nihilo, the voice of madness.
So let’s sum this up. Of six gun homicide victims whose names were read by paid anti-gun activists in Concord, NH this month:
1: isn’t even dead, and he was a guy “well known to the authorities,” shot by a policeman he was attacking.
1: armed felon, fatally shot by cops after an armed robbery and high-speed chase.
1: fatally shot in the act committing a home invasion.
1: killed himself, possibly inadvertently, with a weapon he probably broke the law to acquire.
1: killed himself deliberately, with a sworn officer’s duty weapon.
Oddly enough, none of this “gun violence” took place in leafy Dover, a bedroom community for, among others, UNH professors. That may be why Dean Trefethen can be so judgmental about it.
Three of the six were slain by police weapons. And exactly one of the six appears to be an innocent murder victim. Whose death, heartbreaking tragedy that it is, is offset by the three lives saved by the citizen who shot the home invader, and scared off a second home invader (who remains at large).
Moreover, none of the six would have been saved by MAIG’s current preferred policies of Schumer-Manchin-Toomey backdoor registration and ban on family transfers, and a renewal of the failed 1994 “assault weapon” ban. Except perhaps for the home invader; you may call that progress, Mr Trefethen, but we’d rather not.
So their cases are more violent criminals than crime victims, and their solutions won’t address these kinds of killings, but do address their psychological desire to dominate their fellow citizens.
But is it surprising that MAIG’s “gun victims” are mostly criminals? What are we at, thirty MAIG mayors indicted, arrested or convicted for everything from kiddie diddling to assault (with a firearm, for irony buffs) and kidnapping? Plus, one of Bloomberg’s bodyguards?