Albuquerque police have announced that they have arrested the man responsible for the killing of Lilly Garcia, 4, in a road rage incident. Tony Torrez, 32, reportedly confessed to the crime and the police hit him with a long list of charges that should guarantee that he remains in jail most if not all of his life. Indeed, even a plea agreement at this point would likely place the sentence near the maximum level but, if Torrez confessed, there is little in terms of a defense to present without striking the confession on some grounds.
Alan Garcia was traveling westbound on Interstate 40 when Torrez cut him off in a Lexus in attempting to exit the freeway. The men exchanged words and Torrez pulled out a gun and fired at Garcia’s truck. He hit the four-year-old girl. With the witnesses and alleged confession, Torrez is toast absent some surprising development.
Torrez is charged with murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, assault with the intent to commit a violent felony, shooting at or from a motor vehicle, child abuse, child abuse resulting in death and tampering with evidence. He was being held on $650,000 bail.
While the actions of Torrez leaves one, again, depressed about our society, it is important to note that Torrez was captured with the help of a tip. Moreover, two nurses stopped and rendered aid to Lilly until she was taken to the hospital. Finally, thousands of people have gone to a gofundme site to contribute to the family.
Just showing the picture below is enough to secure a death penalty.
Rick,
Conceal carry laws, imposed upon all fifty states by the Supreme Court, encourage people to arm themselves in public. (Illinois became the fiftieth state to issue permits when it was forced to issue conceal carry permits by an appeals court that cited S.Ct. in Heller and McDonald.) Care to put your other foot in that pothole?
Then you asked what law could have prevented the tragic subject of this post. If I had more detail, I could suggest what might have prevented this individual from possessing a gun. Of course, with enough information I might also be able to craft a law that could have kept him from getting behind a wheel of a car.
I’m advocating for the rights of communities, of empowering them to pass laws for themselves to prohibit guns within their jurisdictions. Small, localized government governs most effectively, remember that bit conservative mantra.
Guns are the problem and the discussion needs to center not how gun owners may be legally protected, but on what communities can do to limit the presence of guns and the occurrence of gun violence in their community.
Poor baby girl.
Road rage is so terrifying. It’s like people lose all rationality, forgetting, or not caring, that their car itself is a deadly weapon.
I once had a man try to kill me in a road rage incident by trying to force my car off a high freeway overpass. A little boy was in the car with him. No gun was involved.
Criminals hurt people with whatever tool is available to them, including cars.
“the primary phrase of the 2d Am regarding a well regulated militia.”
This has been rebutted so many times it makes me believe that you are either profoundly ignorant of that knowledge, or you are a SJW, and as such will repeat this lie regardless.
“Give us one example of where government action was thwarted because citizens had guns. The 4th Am prevents illegal search and seizure, no gun required.”
REVOLUTIONARY WAR
Historical evidence exists to show what government is capable of doing when the citizens are disarmed. The reasoning WHY law-abiding citizens need to ensure their right to keep and bear arms is not alienated is also well documented. The ONLY reason any of our unalienable rights remain secure is not because we’ve established a government to secure them. History has PROVEN no government will be constrained by paper; only a citizenry willing to defend their rights through the peaceful democratic process or the violent revolutionary process can ultimately secure those rights.
Olly,
Citizens in the time of the revolution lived a frontier existence. That is no longer the case. Furthermore, they were required to muster as an organized unit in defense of their communities in a fashion similar to Switzerland today. Until the Roberts court decided to unleash this terror in society, the Supreme Court had always respected the primary phrase of the 2d Am regarding a well regulated militia.
Gun fetishists pout and brood about any form of gun regulation the way a spoiled child complains about bedtime. Again, the conversation should revolve around what steps may a community reasonably take prevent the flood of weapons within its borders
Guns are the problem and regulation is required.
“Can anyone here claim that only undocumented people commit crimes?”
Can anyone here write a better straw man argument?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Bueller?
T. Hall
I feel strongly that the laws encouraging citizens to arm themselves in public and drive the roads with guns at their sides went a long way towards making this tragedy possible.
No such laws exist.
I don’t know enough about this particular case to suggest what might have prevented this death specifically.
So to summarize you’re advocating something you cannot identify and claiming it will solve a problem you admit you know nothing about. When you get down to the details this isn’t that compelling a position.
Citizens with GUNS protect the integrity of their elections:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_%281946%29
T. Hall
You made yourself irrelevant a long time ago. Lol!!!
bam-bam,
You’ve made yourself irrelevant to this conversation.
Rick,
I don’t know enough about this particular case to suggest what might have prevented this death specifically. But I feel strongly that the laws encouraging citizens to arm themselves in public and drive the roads with guns at their sides went a long way towards making this tragedy possible.
Guns are the problem and we need to prevent them from flooding our society.
Olly,
Give us one example of where government action was thwarted because citizens had guns. The 4th Am prevents illegal search and seizure, no gun required.
Guns in the hands of citizens will invite government to ensure it has more firepower and will make more willing to use it. To think that guns will safeguard your freedom is pure fantasy.
The mention of our immigration policy is far from being a diversionary tactic–it’s part of the overall crime problem in this country and in others taking in the masses of so-called refugees. Is the mention of Tony Torrez, in Albuquerque, quite possibly being from another country, a red herring? Why? Because it insults some artificially imposed PC standard? When, and if, it ever surfaces, that our beloved Mr. Torrez is not a US citizen, is the mention of that fact still verboten?
T. Hall,
Pure fantasy? An outnumbered, out-armed “citizenry” did just that. Oh, those crazy revolutionaries.
DBQ,
Far from punishing legal gun owners, the law should not be encouraging gun possession throughout society. Gun laws have brought about a trigger-happy, shoot-first mentality. Guns have not made us any safer, and in fact, have increased the danger each and every one of us here in America face of being shot.
Olly,
It is pure fantasy, fit for paramilitary, Rambo wannabes, to think that any weapon you or I may possess will in any way deter a government agency from entering upon our property or seizing our property or taking us into custody if that is what they have determined to do.
You raise some legitimate concerns, however, about the considerations to be made for lawfully abiding gun ownership. There can be some, I’m sure. Nevertheless, the problem is that there isn’t enough concern for preventing the spread of gun violence. Encouraging the prevalence of more guns in the public square is simply increasing the odds of more gun violence.
The proper dialogue here is what steps are reasonable for a community to take to stem the shootings. Dodge City, Chicago, Washington D.C., and other municipalities concluded the smallest, most localized level of government what was in the best interests of their communities. And the activists on the Roberts court decided for the first time in history that the 2d Am. applies to individuals, democracy be damned.
Guns are the problem and these gun deaths form the legacy of the Roberts court.
bam-bam,
Borders and illegal immigration have nothing to do with this issue, anymore than Hillary’s private server does. You have not shown that this shooter was an illegal immigrant, or a legal one for that matter.
Josseph J,
I agree with you about lane usage on the roads wholeheartedly. Nevertheless, ones personal safety should not depend upon their observance of driving etiquette, or common sense, driving behavior any more than it should depend whether they possess a gun or not.
T. Hall
Guns are the problem. They didn’t have to be if only some common sense regulations and restrictions were put in place.
What common sense regulation or restriction would have prevented this event?
pernicious,
That still does not answer the essential questions. So because you personally have never been harmed by a criminal or your government, then everyone else should be denied their 2nd amendment rights? Using that logic, if the government has never stolen your personal property then no one else should have their 4th amendment protections. If you’ve never had to testify under oath then no one else should have their 5th amendment protections. If you’ve never been denied your right of conscience then no one else should have 1st amendment protections.
These are not rights CREATED by government; they are rights SECURED by government.
Olly, I don’t feel defenseless; that’s your projection. My point is that it is delusional to think that guns will protect anyone from our government. Our government has been unconstrained by the rule of law since long before I was born and I’m still around. I’ve never owned a gun and never will.
Jackspratt,
Then answer the questions I posed at 11:47a.
pernicious,
I understand you already feel defenseless against our government; that is perfectly reasonable considering how they have become unconstrained by the rule of law. That leaves your response to your defense against the criminal intending to do you harm still unanswered.
The immigration issue is a diversionary tactic in this discussion, let’s all be aware of that. Introducing red herrings into such a discussion reveals that the gun proponents have no argument to make, except maybe to scream Molon Labe or some similar emotional response. Fear of gun confiscation is what the NRA sold to these people, who bought it hook, line and sinker.