Three Years Ago Today

"There is no greater love than this, for a man to lay down his life for his friends."


Mark Allen Wilson (January 20, 1953 – February 24, 2005) was a Tyler, Texas man killed during a shooting outside the Smith County Courthouse in Tyler, Texas. He entered an ongoing gun battle between David Hernandez Arroyo Sr., who had attempted earlier to kill his wife and son, and law enforcement officers. Wilson was killed at close quarters by Arroyo after firing and hitting Arroyo several times. Wilson had no affiliations, professional or otherwise, with law enforcement, and acted solely as a private citizen during the shootout. Arroyo was later killed by gunfire from police officers.

Biography

Mark Wilson was born and raised in Dallas, Texas and graduated from MacArthur High School in 1971. He went on to serve with distinction in the U.S. Navy. After his discharge from the military, he worked as a racquetball instructor and later opened Tyler's On Target Shooting Range in 1997. He volunteered in the community by helping to raise money for nonprofit organizations and devoting time to organizations like the Texas Blues Festival and Festival on the Square. Wilson lived in an apartment that overlooked the area where the shooting took place.

In recognition of his heroism, the Texas State Rifle Association published an account of his actions. The Texas House unanimously adopted a resolution (HR. 740) on March 31, 2005 to honor Mark Wilson.





Tyler courthouse shooting refers to a February 24, 2005, incident in which David Hernandez Arroyo Sr. opened fire on his ex-wife and son in front of the Smith County Courthouse in Tyler, Texas, then engaged law enforcement officers in a shootout. Mirabel Estrada, his ex-wife, was killed at the scene, as was Mark Allen Wilson, a downtown resident who attempted to intervene; Arroyo was fatally shot by police after a high-speed pursuit where he repeatedly shot at officers. Two sheriff's deputies, a police officer, and Arroyo's son were wounded.

At the time of the shooting, Estrada and her son, David Hernandez Arroyo Jr., were entering the courthouse for a hearing regarding her ex-husband's failure to pay child support after their 2004 divorce. Estrada's lawyer later stated that his client did not believe her ex-husband to be dangerous.

Arroyo, who had parked nearby, approached his ex-wife and son on the steps outside the Smith County Courthouse and fired on them with a semi-automatic MAK-90 rifle, a semi-automatic rifle styled after the AK-47 assault rifle, hitting Estrada in the head and Arroyo Jr. in the leg. The shots brought a response from nearby sheriff's deputies and police, and Arroyo and the officers began trading gunfire. The officers were armed only with pistols, and Arroyo wounded several and forced them to retreat.

First attempt to subdue

A local resident, Mark Allen Wilson, was returning to his nearby apartment when the shooting began. Wilson, who held a Texas concealed handgun permit, is believed to have responded to seeing Arroyo shoot his wife by drawing his own weapon, a Colt .45 caliber pistol and approaching. Arroyo was already engaged in a heated gun battle with sheriff's deputies and Tyler police officers and apparently did not see Wilson.

Wilson fired one round at Arroyo, causing him to stumble. A witness saw the round strike Arroyo and saw "white puffs of powder-like substance" come from Arroyo's clothing. This appeared to be the first time Arroyo was hit or injured during his attack on the courthouse. Wilson then took cover behind Arroyo's truck.

As Arroyo approached, Wilson stood up and fired again at Arroyo over the truck, hitting him; however, Arroyo was wearing a bulletproof vest, and Wilson's shots did not disable him. Arroyo turned and fired at least one shot at Wilson, who faltered and disappeared from view behind the truck. Arroyo then fired at him three times, killing him.

Second scene and aftermath

After over 116 rounds had been fired, Arroyo attempted to flee Tyler in his truck with a number of police officers in pursuit. The pursuit went from the streets of Tyler to the freeway. Here, Deputy Sheriff John Smith used his patrol car to ram Arroyo’s truck, while firing out of his window at Arroyo. Arroyo stopped to fire upon Smith, who at this point was out of ammo. As Smith sped away to avoid the fire from Arroyo, Sgt. Rusty Jacks fired five shots from his Colt AR-15 rifle, one of which struck Arroyo in the back of the head, killing him instantly and ending the battle.

The incident was covered by national news organizations and video from the incident was broadcast worldwide.

The incident was the subject of a number of internet e-mail chains and web pages that variously highlighted the bravery of the law enforcement officers involved and Mark Wilson, advocated the need for stricter regulation of semi-automatic assault rifles, remarked on the utility of semi-automatic assault rifles in stopping spree shooters, emphasized the dangers inherent in using a pistol against a criminal armed with a more powerful weapon, pointed out the dangers of civilians becoming involved in police activity, and advocated positions on both sides of debates on gun control and carrying of concealed handguns by civilians.

Mark Wilson has been widely credited with trying to save lives, at the cost of his own, of law enforcement officers and citizens at the courthouse and surrounding area by injuring Arroyo, causing him to disengage from his attack and flee the area without murdering his son.

The Texas House unanimously adopted a resolution (HR. 740) on March 31, 2005 to honor Wilson.

The Texas State Rifle Association honored Wilson by publishing an account of his actions.

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I'm Baaaaack!

  Yeah, took a short break, been busy doing other things, any other excuses I have...

And oh so many things to say.

But I'll start off with an oldy but a goody as requested by Deathrider.

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On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs - Dave Grossman
By LTC (RET) Dave Grossman, author of "On Killing."

Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always,even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? - William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997

One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me:

"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.

Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.

I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.? For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.

"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."

If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed

Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.

But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.

Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."

Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.

The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door.

Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how many times you heard the word hero?

Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.

Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference.

There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.

Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs.

Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When he learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his phone and uttered the words, "Let's roll," which authorities believe was a signal to the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business people and parents. -- from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.

There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. - Edmund Burke

Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.

If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.

For example, many officers carry their weapons in church. They are well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters tucked into the small of their backs. Anytime you go to some form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to massacre you and your loved ones.

I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the break, one officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other cop replied, "I will never be caught without my gun in church." I asked why he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a cop he knew who was at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. In that incident, a mentally deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning down fourteen people. He said that officer believed he could have saved every life that day if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot, and all he could do was throw himself on the boy's body and wait to die. That cop looked me in the eye and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself after that?"

Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for "heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids' school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them.

Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have and idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?"

It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up.

Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at your moment of truth.

Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11 book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our current world situation: "...denial can be seductive, but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more unsettling."

Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level.

And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes. If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7, for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself...

"Baa."

This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth.

http://mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html

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We need more sheepdogs. What would have happened if people had rushed the shooters at Virginia Tech or Northern Illinois? What if one of the victims had been carrying? Who knows, less people could have died.
But I know one thing, I'd rather die fighting on my feet than begging for my life on my knees.

Communism: boil of humanity

'Art'

From the Northwestern Iowa homecoming alumni artshow.  The artist of these pieces is Greg Schoon.

Art indeed.  If your going to make a statement, incoherent as it may be, at least be original.

Beautiful...

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"Black Flag"

artist's statement:

Since WW2, US militarism and consumption has risen at the expense of all things rational, wise, far-sighted, moral, and compassionate. Instead of crying out, Christianity has become [a] sleazy whore, with killers spewing public prayers. "Democracy" and "freedom" nothing but vulgarities pissed on by the dying in Iraq and Afghanistan and Darfur and wherever else the US turns its greedy eye. The Constitution is spit on by a spineless hypocritical Congress. The world laughs at us when it isn't taking cover. The media is a perpetual evil joke. The Treasury is bankrupt beyond imagining, with people suffering everywhere from no medical care, no education and a rotting economy. Trillions for warfare and death, and oil, and consumer crap, and Exxon and Haliburton, and to hell with the poor.

That is what we get for putting into power human scum bloated with arrogance, deceit, greed, violence, and low intelligence… sociopathic men and women so lacking in vision other than their myopic flawed agendas and of such low morals they are willing to murder populations to accomplish them and then piously lie about it.

We are the enemy. The US is the greatest threat to world peace. Selling weapons to create "stability" and seeding endless war. WE are are the global terrorists. Bush epitomizes America and Americans have become too dulled and too stupid to see it... and too lazy to take a look... and too cowardly to change anything if they did. The new ship of state, the US Titanic. Just keep your eyes closed, you won't feel a thing.

"Bushitler"

artist's statement:

This is a quote from Hunter S Thompson. Rather than write something less, I will let him speak.

"We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world-a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil , but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us...No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you." "Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn't vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today-and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever.

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking halfwits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?

They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammed Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and the hate mongers among us-they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.

And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them."

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Billy

The Rush 'Phony Soldiers' Letter

Backstory: Rush Limbaugh lambasted phony soldiers (like Jesse Al-Zaid AKA Jesse McBeth) who claim to have been in combat and seen atrocities committed by U.S. troops (thereby trying to help the anti-war cause while smearing our soldiers).  Of course many liberal congress creatures, 41 of them to be exact including Hillary Clinton and Tom Harkin from the honorable state of Iowa (sigh), took his words out of context and signed and sent a letter to Rush's boss 'ratting' him out.

It seems to have backfired...

Rush is now selling the letter on Ebay.  And the bids come rolling in.  All of the proceeds go to children of Marines and police officers who have been killed in the line of duty.

Here is the announcement of the auction.  (Windows Media Player needed)

And here is the auction.  Highest bid at the time of this posting: $110,100

Not only that, but Rush is going to match the winning bid.

There's so much WIN in this auction the liberals have no idea how to respond.

Billy