Somebody shot the bastard...

[error]

Mayor shot dead; everyone in town is a suspect. "He was an unpleasant man who ran this place like his personal kingdom. He made life difficult for most of us but for a select few he made life impossible."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/19/wspain19.xml

[Lloyd Danforth]

Strong Mayor.......Dead Mayor!

[eques]

Los Simpsons en España?

[aries]

Why would a town so small have a mayor?

[KBCraig]

Those Spaniards are getting fed up with bullies all over, it seems.

http://international.lga.gov.uk/news/2007/03-Jan-2007.html

A Spanish mayor has defended his village's use of mob violence against a local bully.

In a fine example of traditional village justice, after seven years of tolerating a local bully's violent behaviour, locals finally snapped and a 400-strong mob burned his house down.

They also destroyed his garage, two cars, two quad bikes, a motorbike and a van. The mob then blocked off firefighters who arrived to try and put the fires out.

The town's mayor has defended the burning. "It was all of us. It was the people," said Lope Benavente de Blas, the Mayor of Villaconejos in central Spain, according to the 'El Pais' newspaper.

The man whose house was burned down is Javier Bernui, known locally as 'the Bald One'. According to the report, Mr Bernui was an ex-convict in the habit of going into shops and bars armed with a knife or gun, threatening people and becoming violent.

The mayor said that he did warn the police that the mob was on its way to Mr Bernui's house. A police spokesperson said that an investigation has begun, but that so far Mr Bernui is the only person to have been arrested over the incidents.

[David]

     See kids, 'initiating' violence does not pay. 

[aries]

I was thinking about how people go about getting guns in Spain.. I suppose it can't be too difficult... even France has lax gun laws by western european standards (iirc... they allowed people to have full auto machine guns until 1995, and depending on your status as a hunter/target shooter/self defense (yes they actually allow self defense in the home), you can get pistols and hunting caliber guns, some can even buy ANY gun.)

[KBCraig]

I was thinking about how people go about getting guns in Spain.. I suppose it can't be too difficult... even France has lax gun laws by western european standards (iirc... they allowed people to have full auto machine guns until 1995, and depending on your status as a hunter/target shooter/self defense (yes they actually allow self defense in the home), you can get pistols and hunting caliber guns, some can even buy ANY gun.)

I don't know about Spain, but France bans private ownership of guns in "military calibers". Other Euro countries do the same (as does Mexico). That means, no 9x19mm, no .45 ACP, no.30 Mauser or 7.62x25mm; it also means no 5.56/.223, no 7.62x51/.308, none of the dozen or more "military calibers" used in the World Wars (even though some of them have been relegated to historical oddities).

That Said, you're right: in France, it's easier to own guns than it is in Massachusetts or Maryland, or especially NYC. France has a strong tradition of hunting, and their gun laws are designed around that "sporting purpose". Quite different from our 2nd Amendment, and a good reason to fight all those laws that claim to preserve the right to own guns for "sporting purposes".

Kevin

[LiveFree]

Strong self defense laws would likely have weeded this "bully" out long before it came down to mob "justice" at the expense of due process of law.  Not that I can really blame the mob in this case, the guy sounds like he needed at least an ass kicking.

[Lloyd Danforth]

People living in the Pyrenees aren't famous for obeying the laws in Spain or France.

[KurtDaBear]

It sounds like Spain is getting past the point in that old Claire Wolfe quote about how "It's too late to work within the system and too early to shoot the bastards" (or something to that effect).

[KBCraig]

It sounds like Spain is getting past the point in that old Claire Wolfe quote about how "It's too late to work within the system and too early to shoot the bastards" (or something to that effect).

Different bastards. They're using mobocracy against thugs who were outside the law (and protected by non-enforcement), instead of rising up against the thugs who create and (selectively) enforce the law.

[KurtDaBear]

It sounds like Spain is getting past the point in that old Claire Wolfe quote about how "It's too late to work within the system and too early to shoot the bastards" (or something to that effect).

Different bastards. They're using mobocracy against thugs who were outside the law (and protected by non-enforcement), instead of rising up against the thugs who create and (selectively) enforce the law.

I had the bullet-riddled, neo-fascist mayor more in mind than the arson-victim bully when I wrote that.  (Although you have to wonder how the mayor kept getting re-elected for all those years if "everyone" wanted him dead.)

[aries]

I was thinking about how people go about getting guns in Spain.. I suppose it can't be too difficult... even France has lax gun laws by western european standards (iirc... they allowed people to have full auto machine guns until 1995, and depending on your status as a hunter/target shooter/self defense (yes they actually allow self defense in the home), you can get pistols and hunting caliber guns, some can even buy ANY gun.)

I don't know about Spain, but France bans private ownership of guns in "military calibers".

Not if you shoot for sport (target shooting, and you have to be a member of an organization)