California judge charged with killing wife had 47 guns, 26,000 rounds of ammunition: Court documents

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 255 points – California judge charged with killing wife had 47 guns, 26,000 rounds of ammunition: Court documents
abcnews.go.com

A California Superior Court judge arrested last week has now been charged with killing his wife in front of their adult son at their home. Court filings reveal the judge had over 47 weapons and 26,000 rounds of ammunition in his home.

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Take a moment to admire the marketing of the gun manufacturers for a minute. Like, imagine someone having 47 toasters.

Gun Manufacturers and the NRA (same thing) are good at what they do.

That's not really a fair comparison though. They all handle and fire different. This piece of shit is still a piece of shit, but collecting different guns is more akin to "I participate in 10,000 point fights with my choice of Orks or Blueberry Spacemarines" than toasters.

Noone needs that but that's a hobby.

A hobby he killed his wife with because it's a hobby that appeals to shitheads.

At least we agree that it's mostly the shitheads that are the problem, not so much the hobby. I'm pretty sure this shithead would have killed his wife if his hobby was hiking or cosplay too.

Ever hear the story of the nuclear boy scout? Now thats a hobby no one should be allowed to have.

You can wax hypothetical about what abusers would have done, but they overwhelmingly use guns, since they're great for threatening people or executing them in an instant with a slim chance of survival or intervention.

Shitheads get into all hobbies. Some hobbies are more dangerous than others, and need more safety than others.

You know what's a dangerous hobby that ALSO appeals to masculinity-troubled people? Modding cars to go faster and drift harder. You can tool around in them legally and if you drive like a shithead you can drive through a crowd. Modding pickups is also a big shitwaffle magnet. Still a hobby.

I avoided the whole "are guns the problem" subject in my comment for a reason. My comment served to illustrate that collecting large numbers of "Object" is a hobby. Whether or not the hobby is good, or bad, or dangerous, or safe, was not my comment.

Again, using hypothetical other people to dodge what this person did: executed a family member with a legal firearm.

No, it was a correction of how people collecting guns is not like collecting the same toaster over and over, more like different toasters, specifically not addressing anyone's use of them.

But you're specifically asking people to not treat gun collectors like toaster collectors.

If someone had a collection of 50 toasters, people would find that weird, but generally harmless.

But if that person then claimed to not be even slightly interested in toast, that would immediately set off warnings in people's head.

Why would they collect so many toasters if they didn't like toast? It's what toasters are for. Sure, they could maybe find some off label use for them, but that still makes it a weird choice of hobby.

I'd definitely think they were much more interested in toast than they let on and if they were one day caught eating toast with a full erection, I wouldn't be even slightly surprised.

Guns are a stupid and dangerous hobby, though. If Warhammer was responsible for thousands of deaths per year, I would not want to contribute to that, and I'd find something else to do.

Easy to scare limp dick conservatives

You think this guy has 47 guns because he’s scared? Really???

Edit: sure keep down voting me. No one buys 47 guns because they are “scared”. Clearly this guy loves guns and collects them for fun. He’s still a POS but describing what drives his behavior as “scared” just makes you look completely out of touch with reality, which doesn’t help improve the overall situation.

People who buy 1 gun are scared, people who buy 47 guns are scared people with an expensive hobby.

How does someone with a murder charge get bail?

Its west coast. They let people out for multiple murder charges.

Source: was west coast and got tired of seeing mass murderers being released to our society only to do it again.

What does the 88 in your username mean?

88th RD

Oh cool.

Since it seems like you're new to the internet then, you shouldn't put information that makes you easily identifiable right there in your username.

Also, the number 88 is used as a dog whistle by neo-nazis, so that other neo-nazis on social media know who to support without the trauma and physical pain of thinking for themselves.

But now we've sorted the 88 part out, what about the 'Atticus' bit? It's such an uncommon name. In fact, the only 'Atticus' I can think of it fictional former rights activist turned pro-segregation racist Atticus Finch.

Don't be a moron. He's out on bail for the same reason police get it, if you put and judge or cop in prison they get murdered. If they aren't guilty that's a huge fucking risk, it's the same for pretty much anyome but not everyone plays for the same team.

If he gets sentenced he will still need to be kept alive inside prison, how does that work?

Sometimes they're put in isolation for their own safety. They can request to be in general population but it comes with risk.

And to think that he was responsible for deciding the fate of others. SMH.

I don't mean he is not a piece of shit but

Who cares he has 47 weapons. You only have 2 hands. What you think he is going to do? Strap 30 glocks to his leg?

Who cares he has 26000 rounds. Do you know how heavy ammo is? What you think is he going to do? Walk around with a shopping cart full of ammo? Strap 50 magazines to his chest?

It still amazes me that people fall for this "quantity " argument. It means nothing. Someone is not more dangerous with 500 rifles or 5 rifles.

I think the point was that he was obsessed with guns.

I also like firearms. And I am a normal european 9to5 guy with a job in health care. Over here being interested in firearms means nothing, it's not different from, let's say, owning a horse ;)

Do you own 47 of them along with 26,000 rounds of ammo and would you ever kill your wife?

Well isn't that exactly the point? What possible reason does a murderer need with 47 guns and 26,000 rounds of ammunition? He only has two hands and couldn't conceivably carry a tenth of that at any given time.

There's a few reasons people collect guns. Some people just like guns, and appreciate the craftsmanship and variety of weapons. Like any hobby, it's easy to end up with way more stuff than might seem reasonable to an outside observer.

But this guy was a judge. If he was an avid stamp collector, and had a basement full of stamps, nobody would care that he had an obsessive hobby until he decided to dissolve his wife in a vat of stamp preservative or whatever. 47 might seem like a reasonable number of guns to a lot of folks, but we can all agree that's still more than anyone needs for things like hunting or self defense.

Another reason to collect guns is because you're prepping for... something. Collapse of some sort, or maybe the government is going to start piling up bodies so they can take guns from cold, dead hands. Whatever happens, you're going to need weapons in all calibers, and ammo will become the new currency.

But again, this guy was a State Supreme Court Justice, and not for some podunk state like that one state we're all thinking of. No, he was among the top jurists in Califuckingfornia, a high arbiter of justice and the rule of law in the most populous and prosperous state. If this piece of shit was also a prepper, what in the sam hill is he prepping for?

There are probably other reasons to have a big collection of guns. But given that he murdered his wife, I think we can agree that his specific, violent version of crazy is relevant to the conversation.

Yes you got the point. I've heard that in Israel you can have one gun. When you leave the shooting range you must buy 50 bullets. If you go back and have less than 50 bullets, they need you to justify why that's the case, or they refer it to police or something. I know something like this would not fly in America, but maybe it's a regime we could work our way towards

Yeah, it’s pretty easy to tell that you haven’t been around guns much. 50 rounds isn’t much and isn’t reasonable for any purpose from hobby to sport usage or even proficiency for someone who uses them professionally. The amount of ammo I shoot on any given range trip? Varies from 20 to hundreds and hundreds of rounds; it depends on the day, weather and dozens of other factors. Even the concept of only being able to buy a single box the day of is hugely problematic. For the most common calibers like 9mm prices over the past decade have varied from less than $ .30 a round to over $2.00 per round, if you could even get it. There have been periods of months to years where getting a single box every 3 months was difficult/near impossible. I have one rifle that is a family heirloom that I haven’t found ammunition in stock for over a decade and have never shot it since inheriting it.

The ammunition market is 100 times more volatile than a cardboard box soaked in gasoline holding 100lbs of gunpowder. Having a few thousand rounds doesn’t mean you’re planning anything bad, it’s a drop in the bycket to sustain occasional shooting for 6 months despite never ending supply issues that have been going on for years. If I see ammo at a fair price I buy as much of it as I can. On any given day I might be able to shoot half of the guns I own if I so desire due to the availability of ammo, and that includes the stuff I make on my own in my garage.

I've been around guns. I know 50 rounds is practically nothing. I was shocked when my friend explained the law there to me. Just providing an alternative perspective

Limiting ammunition isn't effective, Limiting magazine capacity on the other hand. I live in Europe where firearms are heavily regulated, yet they don't care about the amount of ammunition. In fact, you always get a 30% discount if you buy bulk and bulk means per 1000 for quality and per 1400 for surplus. If you have 6 different calibers it adds up quickly. That's how much they care. There is a limit on the weight of total gunpowder before you need a fireworks storage permit though... there are a lot of gun owners in Europe, but we don't practice in schools and shopping malls, I don't know what is wrong with America

I also don't know what is wrong, but as a citizen here, I'd like to try anything and everything to prevent mass murder. I don't see how limiting ammunition wouldn't work towards that goal

Yeah I mean to be fair there are tons of gun enthusiasts that also have an insane number of guns and ammo (because they regularly go shooting at a range or something for fun).

It goes to show how sometimes it's not just because they're enthusiasts though but because they're actually nuts. Seeing as this guy was a judge I doubt there would be any way of stopping him from stockpiling that much weaponry.

Who cares he has 47 weapons. You only have 2 hands. What you think he is going to do? Strap 30 glocks to his leg?

Well he is from Cali, so yes. NY reload due to mag capacity issues.

So since the need for guns is a well regulated militia, per the second amendment, everyone should get to have 1 or 2 guns. No need for more

Remember the shooting in Las Vegas?

Random thought that's totally pointless here:

If he took all of his weapons and all of his ammo to a shooting range, and if he prepped to the best of his ability before beginning, how long would it take for him to shoot off all 26,000 rounds, if he tried as hard as he could to fire them off as quickly as possible? By himself, with nobody else helping, just to be clear.

Feel free to throw out best case scenarios.

Shooting is the easy part, you can probably sustain about a round per second. Reloading magazines probably takes 5 times as long, so let's say 10 rounds per minute, 600 per hour. If he's there for 8 hours that's 4,800 per day so he could git 'er done in about a week.

It really depends on what the breakdown is and how many magazines he had and what the breakdownin ammo was. If everything was loaded ans laid out it could be done in a day that's 10-12 hours, if you don't care about keeping guns usable you could probably do it faster. It's all about reload speed and managing heat, endurance would be a factor as well. You can pretty easily attain a 4-6 rounds per second with most guns, world record levels are more like 10 per secondwith a pistol. Bushmaster claims and effective 45 rounds per minute with their ar 15, which would be just under 10 hours.

I have another random thought: if his wife's father or brother or other similarly-inclined-for-justice sibling were given all the ammo and weapons, and they were both placed in a forest on an island, with the condition that only one can come out alive, and if it's this pig-looking motherfucker, then he gets skinned alive and then eaten by a hippo - how long could he put off the inevitable?

47.... the cheapest one was probably 500$ or so. This is fetish. What the hell are you going to do with them all? I can think of 3 or 4 models I need and the rest of my stockpile just needs to be ammo for them.

Need?

To elaborate.... Need as in some kind of self defense scenario or even as a survivalist. There are 4 firearms I would probably want to have, each having a specific purpose. But that is it. Having 47 is like a cat lady or something. To me it is weird and unnecessary.

This is America, I have no problem with people owning guns. I support gun restrictions and the banning of automatic assault rifles as well. That is common sense to me.

If I could afford a million dollar bail I’d probably buy 69 guns too.