The Lebanon Daily News tells us Meleanie Hain and her husband Scott have been found dead from an apparent murder/suicide following "a two-hour standoff with police outside their home."
Their headline calls her a "pistol-packin' soccer mom," and the story tells us "she gained national notoriety last year after she brought her loaded handgun to her 5-year-old daughter's soccer game."
Notoriety. People who believe they have a right to the means of self defense are portrayed by the media as notorious. And kooky. And comments under this story--and in other accounts, reflect and amplify this, telling us about "those who live by the sword," some viciously disparaging Hain as a person, and generally exploiting this terrible incident to attack the notion that citizens have adequate competence or temperament to be trusted with guns.
Because we're not trained law enforcement "Only Ones," you see.
As with all developing stories, "facts" are subject to change as more developments and information unfolds. At this point, I note two additional factors to consider:
Several neighbors said they heard or saw the couple's children run from the house screaming, "Daddy shot Mommy!" shortly before the 911 Center was called at 6:20 p.m.
So the "pistol-packin' soccer mom" was not the shooter? Meaning neighbor Debbie Mise's I-told-you-so "she just wasn't right" hoplophobia may not have made her the predictor of events she seemingly claims to be? Meaning...what exactly... about comment posters taking swipes at all gun owners over this?
And the second piece of potentially relevant information?
Her husband was a parole officer in Berks County and a former prison guard at the State Correctional Institute in Camp Hill. He also had worked part-time for Lebanon County Central Booking.
The point here is not to point fingers at law enforcement--no group should bear responsibility for aberrant individual acts. That said, we cannot stand by while the fitness of citizens to keep and bear arms is disparaged on the grounds that we just haven't had proper vetting and training like the professionals.
For now, let's see how things continue to unfold. We'll no doubt learn much more in the coming hours and days. Hopefully, someone is there to take in and love the children, who truly are the main people to be concerned about now.
Comments
Very sad. Pray for the childen
Inside out logic. The mere possession of a gun made it possible for the murder suicide. It also points out that a normal and legal couple, owning a gun, might end up using the gun for illegal purposes, like killing each other.
Both individuals appear to have liked guns, a lot. They also appear to have displayed a confidence in their save use by carrying it to a soccer game. They are now both dead.
Suicide by gun is one of the arguments against gun ownership. Accidental death is another.
John, I can't tell if you're being ironic or not. Are you actually trying to argue that a person that does not posess a firearm is incapable of committing murder and/or suicide, or are you making fun if anyone idiodic enough to make that fallacious leap?
Please Advise.
John. There are many who would agree with you. Hitler and Stalin to name two. If you don't like our constitution then move to a country you do like. Try Venezuala. I hear it's nice down there.
This is sad for the child especially if one of the parents was the shooter because that would make that individual very selfish and pathetic to leave their child without a parent.
Taking away the guns from all but the "Only Ones" will not affect the overall suicide rate, so that's pointless. People say that the "Only Ones" can be trusted with guns, but they have one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, most of them by "smoking their gun". Another thing about cops is that they're five times as likely to shoot the wrong person as is the armed citizen. Didn't we just see the case of the homeowner shot dead by the cops because he had his gun on the actual bad guy?
So, if you're bent on disarming us, John, disarm the cops, too, instead of revering them at the vaunted "Protectors of the Innocent", because they are just as fallible as the ordinary citizen.
If only he'd had the decency to beat her to death like the Gee family in Beason, Illinois. Their deaths were *much* less tragic without the gunfire.
Hmm. It appears that the dead couple's need for attention (wearing a gun to a children's game) was evidence of the mental instability that lead to their shared demise. It's an embarrassment that a person who called attention to our threatened right to keep and bear arms is herself killed by a gun in the home. Notorious? Not then, but certainly now.
Regardless, the misuse of a right by a twisted individual should not lead to it's infringement. If Mr. Hain had decided to shoot a few neighbors in addition to his wife and himself, what good would come from restricting their rights to defend themselves? As a prison officer/parole officer/booking officer, no one would have ever taken away HIS gun.
A prison guard (a fascinating psychological type, that one) married to a woman who brings a loaded gun to a kids' soccer game. And we're surprised at this ending?
People who worship violence and get off on having the power over others that comes with running around in your everyday life like you're John Wayne in _True Grit_ can be expected to make this kind of choice. The surprise is that they didn't take their kids out too, as that seems the MO for most of the gun-obsessed lunatic family suicide murderers you hear about daily in the news. You know, keep the communist American state from getting them by taking them directly to meet Jesus with Mommy and Daddy. Sick. Depressing.
Venezuala, huh? Get out much?
You tell 'em, Don. Then he could have beat himself to death too, because guns are irrelevant here, right?
More fish, Don, it's brain food.
Just when you think the story can't get any scarier:
"Meleanie Hain at last report operated a day-care center in her home."
Can't believe she was making much money in that line of work--how many people are crazy enough to trust this kind of person with their children? "Safest day care in Lebanon" Unless the owner or her husband decide to go postal while the kids are in the house. Nuts. Just nuts. Was she teaching the kids how to resolve disputes, her way?
God, what a scary world David Codrea wants to force the rest of us to live in...
"Aberrant" acts? Happens every day, Mr. Codrea. Every day somebody like you does something like this. Every. Day.
Tony, you give such good advice, and your logic is perfect. I only have a question. After you're done dancing in the blood of someone else, how do you get bloodstains out of your shoes?
Gee... Tony ever here of Jim Jones?
You seem to have a fear of firearms. I guess he could never have hung himself...or taken an overdose...or suicided by cop?
You look silly dancing in the blood of the dead....
Every CO [that's corrections officer Tony] I have ever known mentally went around the bend. Perhaps you should look at some university studies on the subject?
Did you ever think Tony that because of people like you who derided her for her position on concealed carry she opted to not, and that by not having her firearm, she died?....because of comments from people like you?
I don't know the facts of the case enough to make that conclusion, but do you not consider that it is indeed possible?
Tony, a firearm is a tool. Like any other tool is can be used properly or improperly. Baseball bats, hammers, knives, rope, automobiles, and prescription drugs must not harm people on the planet your from.
It's the act, the horrible, despicable act, Tony. Not the to
Remember the woman in Texas who killed her husband by running over him in her car? Using some people's logic, the only people permitted to have cars would be the police.
Terribly sad that this happened, but it was an aberrant act - a singular statistic taken from thousands of incidents where a gun SAVED a life or lives. Libs, if you want to give up your rights for self-preservation like sheep, that's fine with me. I am a mentally stable, licensed and well-trained gun carrier. Why? Because I feel an overpowering obligation to protect myself and family from those that would prey on us. I will not go down without a fight in the face of an impending threat. If you wimps are more afraid of harming yourselves with your own gun, don't whine when some junkie takes the life of a family member for a ten dollar crack fix. As they saying goes - and you SHOULD eat fish to aid your comprehension, "When guns are outlawed, only criminals will have guns". Where does that leave YOU when a meth-head draws on you for their next high? Likely dead unless you have the courage and means to defend yourselves.
So it seems that people think if guns were no in the house then they would still both be alive. Well I don't know one way or the other but to sit here and think the gun was the problem is just plain ignorant.
Tony Page:
If officer Hain had decided to come visit Tony Page's house after topping Mrs. Hain, there wouldn't have been a damn thing you could have done about it . As I pointed out earlier -- he was a cop (of some sort). Nobody was going to take away HIS gun. In your world, it's people like him who are going to protect all of us when we're rendered harmless to people like you. Men in uniform have done most of the murdering in history.
It's true: People kill each other Every Single Day. Some with guns, some with knives, some with 2x4s. If they come for you, how are you going to protect yourself? Do you think they'll be impressed with your contempt for self-defense? We know you're scared of people who can hurt you. And that's not enough.
I'm going to restate what I said earlier: A natural right can't be invalidated by individual misuse.
"God, what a scary world David Codrea wants to force the rest of us to live in"
THIS is the fiction that gripes me the most. The difference between advocates for liberty and advocates for "authority" is precisely the point of coercion and force. Liberty advocates ask nothing more than to be left alone, to be peaceable. Authoritarians cannot abide this, and continually push to threaten, coerce, and force (on threat of men with guns) prior restraint upon all others, whether or not they have harmed anyone.
Tony, I cry BS. Substantiate your claim that David advocates forcing others to live his way. I've followed his work for a good while now and all I hear is him asking to be left alone. It's folks like YOU who advocate forcing others to live "your way", by siccing a paid gang of enforcers upon us under color of law.
You can think all the authoritarian happy thoughts you want, but you have no claim on the lives of others.
Put up or shut up.
Force indeed. The gun-obsessed and their powerful political allies prevent any reasonable restrictions from being passed, which means sane people must live in a society where people like Meleanie Hain, the Columbine boys, and the Virginia Tech killer can be right next door preparing a massacre.
Don't try to make these violence worshippers into friendly freedom lovers. That's not what they are. They want a society of gun slingers, macho John Wayne types (like 90% of the yokels posting on this board) shooting it out to determine who's right, and their political efforts force everyone else to submit to that kind of society.
Of course, they benefit greatly from the ignorance and apathy of many who would like things to be otherwise but have bought into schoolchild mythologies of 'the Founding Fathers wanted us all to have machine guns so we could defeat Satan' and other such brainrot and therefore passively submit to the agenda of the gun-obsessed.
Tony:
So you're all good, then, with the idea of forcing everyone to live the disarmed life? Disarm, or we'll have to kill you? You know, just to be clear and all.
"and their political efforts force everyone else to submit to that kind of society"
The depth of your statist arrogance here staggers me. To suggest that people asking to be left alone (to be the peaceable people they demonstrably are) somehow constitutes forcing everyone else to endure something new and coercive, is essentially saying that a vocal minority should simply shut up and welcome forcible mob rule like good little peasants. You really on board with that?
And we're still waiting on substantiation of your claim on David, by the way.
Poor Tony. However, do you survive everyday? There are 'people' outside Tony. Some don't wash their hands after going pee and wipe their nose with their hand and get on a public bus and sneeze without covering their mouths...oh, poor Tony.
Maybe what Tony needs is a vacation, to a nice sunny place where everyone is disarmed and everyone agrees to the rules. Where no one can lord over another and everyone plays well. I remember a place like this in the grand literary experiment called "Lord of the Flies"...they were such nice boys without all the guns and religiosity that plagues us mere mortals...
Oh Tony! How do you do it?!? Tony, you poor troubled soul. Tony! Don't forget your iPhone with your self-defense app Bedazzler. I heard it can fascinate useless minds for hours. Maybe Tony needs hugs from everyone he meets on the street and wants to give away his 'bowl' to make this world a better place. Who wants to hold hands with Tony & sing "He's got the whole world, in his hands...
A tragic incident. This in no way deters me from carrying my own sidearm at all time. I have been openly carrying a pistol for a long time now and have felt no inclination to violence or domination of others. My weapon has not of its own accord jumped off the table and harmed anyone. I still have many friends and family that do not judge me by my exercising my natural right of self defense. The gun is just a tool, it is the person with intent that commits the crime. Minus a gun, I am sure a stick or rock would do, minus that, bare hands... Doctors are the 3rd leading cause of death in the U.S. shall we ban them?
Logic seems to be lacking in those with more liberal ideals.
Rev. Jim II
Tony Page wrote, "Don't try to make these violence worshippers into friendly freedom lovers."
If violence worshipper means that I'm not a coward and I use whatever means necessary to effectively counter a violent criminal, then yes by your definition I suppose I am a violence worshipper. But know this, I live in small town in Florida of about 4,000 residents and 25% of us (violence worshippers) are legally armed under the Second Amendment and the Florida State Constitution and we haven't had a murder in this town in over 10 years. That's what I, and our Sheriff, call an effective crime deterrence. Criminals are well aware of this fact and migrate to the bigger cites where people, like yourself, are easy meat.
Do me a big favor, where ever you are stay there! People who think like you attact criminals in droves like a moth to a flame. You're doing a wonderful job keeping my town crime free!
Tony, violence has settled more issues than all other programs combined. Thankfully, usually the side in the right wins if they are violent enough and start before they are made helpless by the likes of you.
I suppose you could truthfully call me a violence worshipper. Violence and my facility with it has saved my life way more than once. Yet, never have I initiated it. Not once in all my life and I am in my seventh decade.
You leave me no choice but to consider you one who may need to be addressed with violence at some point in the future by someone somewhere. You have made it clear that you do not mind hiring violence done in your name to force others to live the way you say. Besides that making you a coward it makes you an aggressor. Ultimately aggression results in violence. Leaving people the Hell alone seldom does. Think on that before you decide to sic your dogs on me or other peaceable folks.
The foregoing is not intended as a threat, just education and maybe some damn good advice.
Thanks, straightarrow, for articulating your side's view of things more clearly than some of the more mealy-mouthed. You like violence, you think it solves all problems, and you put in your vote for it. The street corner bully's worldview. Your family must be proud of how much distance you've put between yourself and the muck from which humans crawled so long ago. At least a foot or so.
There seems to be a consensus here to define "freedom" as "the right to impose great danger and threat to health on others in my vicinity based on my own incredible insecurities and irrational fears of normal, human, everyday interaction with others of my species." Local dialect, I take it.
You folks must have little time left in the day after you've thought through all the creative scenarios in which you are going to be confronted with maniacal drug addicts who want to rape your family while you watch bound and gagged, only later to have part of your brain eaten with a side of fava beans
Tony, is the irony of your suggesting that everyone who does not believe as you do is some sort of paranoid with fantastic delusions, lost on you?
I'm sorry, that's a fourth question from me. You haven't even addressed the first three, although you've come back to insult those of us asking to be left alone--twice--with your defense of enforced prior restraint upon lesser beings.
It's clear at this point that you not only defend mob rule in general, but you are quite willing to insult others as lesser than you even WHILE you call for their forcible subjugation under the law. (This appears to be the new eugenics, by the way. New name, same attitude.)
Best of luck to you in always being on the right side of that mob. With your attitude, man, you're gonna need it.
Tony Page wrote, "You like violence, you think it solves all problems, and you put in your vote for it. The street corner bully's worldview."
NO! You still don't get it! We don't like violence. We find violence abhorrent. The difference is that we are not cowards and fearful of our enviornment and surroundings. We don't buy into the anti-gun cool-aid that demands that we call 911 as our first and only response to a violent threat.
Review the case of Warren vs District of Columbia and ask yourself how well did 911 work for those 3 young women when they were attacked nad raped in their home. Would you honestly subject yourself or your family to that situation? If, after reviewing the details of this case, you can answer yes, then you have absolutely no socially redeeming value. None!
We are not glory seeking-violence mongering-vigilantes, but don't think for a moment that we will simply lay down and accept our fate at hands of violent criminals.
A little fish would do wonders in your diet too, Kevin.
I haven't said anything about everyone who disagrees with me being a paranoid delusional--that's another of your little fantasies. You might think wackjobs who write gun nut columns for the Examiner are representative of all possible positions on the politics of guns, but that's about you not getting out of your polluted little pond enough.
Objectively speaking, this is Crackpot Alley. Fun to visit and see the inmates drool on themselves, but I sure am glad I don't live here. And I am also glad that my neighbors aren't like Meleanie Hain. Or you.
Years ago I received probably the best advise my father ever gave me; "Don't ever argue with a man who already has his mind made up. You'll only succeed in wasting your time and in angering him."
Mr. Page has already decided that those of us who believe in personal freedoms are nut cases, violence worshipers, and potential mass murderers. He either doesn't or won't understand that we merely wish to be left alone to live our lives in peace without he and his ilk dictating how we should feel, what we should believe, and what personal possessions we may own.
He apparently refuses to understand that we make no demands upon him other than that he leave us alone. None of us would ever dream of dictating that he or any member of his family acquire or use a weapon, or any other item of personal property, of any kind for any reason.
Like Dad said, "It's a waste of time."
W-III
Tony Page says:
> ... people like Meleanie Hain, the Columbine boys,
> and the Virginia Tech killer
Meleanie Hain == Columbine killers == VT killer.
Tony, you are despicable.
Ha, look at that. Tony Page thinks that he doesn't live among us.
That's okay. In reviewing the record here, I think he continues to make my point better than I do.
Besta luck, with the forcible disarming of others and all. It may not go as well as you'd like. (Human beings are like that.)
No, Tony, you are a liar. At no point did I say I like violence. As a matter of fact, I abhor it. Else I would initiate it, which I never have done.
Being good at it has saved my life on several occassions. It is you likes violence, as long as you can hire it done in your name. I have never forced my preferred practices on another, yet you have advocated for it here. But, of course, you again want to hire it done.
If you wish to be helpless, that's fine with me. You're a waste of oxygen anyway. But, do not dare try to make me helpless. Not even with hirelings. I do believe in cutting off the snake's head if he presents a danger to life. A great many men believe likewise. Manhood is not something I equate with you.
Does your wife know you wouldn't engage in violence to protect her or her children because you are too evolved? Don't you think you should tell her, while she still has a chance to better her situation?
What part of leave people alone did you not get?
Since Scott was a parole officer with an issued firearm, and was also involved in the incident, does this also show that law enforcement officers can't be trusted with guns too?
Look - Two people are dead, and three children no longer have their parents, and probably watched them die. As David says, at this point let's not bicker about who's to blame, especially since noone really knows yet what the hell happened.
I think I would avoid the fish. Obviously Tony has ingested so much mercury it's not only left him brain dead but obviously shrunk his testes in the process.
Obviously the Founding Fathers having fought in an armed revolution against the standing government would never want the same to happen to them.
And if you think David's world is scary, just wait until the time when only criminals and government (usually the same) are the only ones that have guns. Of course that leads me to believe you are hoping for that time and that you're one or both of the above.
Tony continues to ignore all those 1 million gang members the USDOJ identify as responsible for up to what near 80% of violent crime in the US. But continues to ignore the fact that how many of the 100 million law abiding gun owners didnt shoot or kill anyone today.
Yep, taking a tool away from a suicidal person will do what to stop that feeling they have? Any answer Tony as apparently you are a world noted Forensic psychologist that can enlighten everyone how taking a tool away changes a person mental condition?
Why werent the police there at the Hain household to protect Meleani, after all arent the police responsible for protecting everyone in your world Tony? Oh thats right, the US Supreme Court has ruled what guys, 10 times that the government is not responsible for individual protection?
Freedom is the right to choose, we defend our right to choose and Tony tells us we shouldnt have that right. Excuse me but isnt Tony's opine the basic premise of what a Dictator is?
For some scholars, dictatorship is a form of government that has the power to govern without consent of those being governed, while totalitarianism describes a state that regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior of the people. In other words, dictatorship concerns the source of the governing power (where the power comes from) and totalitarianism concerns the scope of the governing power (what is the government). In this sense, dictatorship (government without people's consent) is a contrast to democracy (government whose power comes from people) and totalitarianism (government controls every aspect of people's life) opposes pluralism (government allows multiple lifestyles and opinions). Though the definitions of the terms differ, they are related in reality as most of the dictatorship states tend to show totalitarian characteristics. When governments' power does not come from the people, their power is not limited and tend to expand their scope of power to control.
"The ultimate result of shielding men from folly is to fill the world with fools." - Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903)
It would seem that Tony has been shielded for much too long.
"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun." - The Dhali Lama (05/15/01) speaking at the "Educating the Heart Summit" in Portland, OR, when asked by a girl how to react whan a shooter takes aim at a classmate.
Hey Tony, how about a prime example of a "Reasonable" gun law, the abysmal failure that is the Brady Background Check. Yeah we see the USDOJ Background Check & Firearms Transfer Report 2008 where since 1994 99 million checks, approx 1.67 mill valid rejections where 58% of those rejections are felons. Since 2000-2008, there were 13,024 prosecutions of those approx 933,000 felons, or less than 1% of the total. Wow, did we forget to mention the USDOJ survey 1997 that identified felons bought there firearms 80% street, 12% retail, 2% gun shows, or that since the 1994 that 68% less felons have attempted to buy from a legal source. Yeah that 68% reduction means up to another 10% buy from street buys Tony so lets hear it for this oh so ineffective "reasonable" law, that doesnt do one single thing to address or stop criminals from buying on the streets. After all, can you prove that none of those 1.66 million unprosecuted didnt then go buy a gun on the street and commit a crime?
Tony doesn't care about the life of that poor woman. Judging by what he writes, he is positively delighted she was murdered so he can use her death to promote his authoritarian agenda. He is the cannibal pot writ large.
This doesn’t smell right. The woman had a million dollar case against an A hole sheriff for revoking her permit.
He children were harassed and apparently her husband suffered harassment problems as well.
The convenient death of these 2 people just gave a pass to a sheriff and some liberal thugs.
hey tony page,the killer was a cop,you know the only ones who should have guns,works real well doesnt it.,,,, not
You people dare try to convice Tony Page that he is wrong? That is funny. He has evolved beyond any such desire for violence of any kind. You just cant understand with your primative brains that any violence, including self defense, is only for the unevolved.
You would see if you were as evolved as Tony that it is rare for you to be a victim of violence and that even if you were, it is the intellectually superior to not resisit or even die rather than resort to the primative urge to use violence to defend yourself.
To Tony, a person that carries a gun to defend themself is no different than a criminal out to steal, rape or kill. We are all primative animals and deserve what we get.
You want the freedom to defend yourself. Well Tony wants to be free from having to live among us primatives living on our base insticts of self preservation using violence.
A primitive mind cannot see what Tony's does so to argue with his evolved thinking is futile.
I see Hain was a member of the Hare Krishnas too. That'll help make the case for how sane and balanced she was. Brings guns to kids' soccer matches and chants to Krishna at airports.
Hey Tony Page, so what if Melanie Hain was a Hare Krishna? She had every right to exercise her right to self-defense. It didn't make her nuts.
On the other hand, gun-grabbing Jews are more dangerous.
There are plenty of gun grabbers from all faith and ethnic backgrounds. Leave the bigotry to the trolls.
Luis speaks for the gun-crazed community. C'mon, Luis, tell us what else you think.
Somewhere in the comments I think someone said if we could show just one instance where a gun bearer saved children from a killer he would reassess his opinion. Try Pearl, Mississippi High School shooting, google it.
As for Tony, he would be nothing but a pile of purtid offal if his character improved at least 100%.
Troll Tony, you're the one who initiated the religious intolerance.
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