“A man involved in a domestic dispute shot dead six family members and critically wounded a seventh in a suburb of Houston Wednesday, before surrendering to police following a tense standoff,” NBC reports. “Law-enforcement officials said the suspect — identified as 33-year-old Ron Lee Haskell — had a domestic argument involving a divorce before he drove to the home in Spring, Texas, and shot seven family members, including five children.” The scene of Haskell’s mayhem: the home of one of his siblings. After one of those shot told police where Haskell might go next, the cops cornered the killer before he could get to another family member’s home. Gird yourself for the usual blame hurled at guns, gun owners, the NRA . . . all the usual suspects in the eyes of civilian disarmament advocates.

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77 COMMENTS

  1. I’m sure the way family law courts treat fathers had nothing to do with this.

    (and I don’t mean that as a justification)

    Post flames below.

    • wait for tinfoil hats to say this was just what the antis needed to push through gun restraining orders or whatever they introduced in CA so glad I left that state

      • finding a few people who think it is a false flag, like those who claimed newton was, is not the same thing as the 110 million Americans who think gun murder s up (and that 1/3 of the country with paranoid ignorance is the 1/3 who wants more gun control) or the 120 who think it is flat, when gun murder has plummeted to half if what it was 20 years ago.

    • One article I read said the guy had a handgun to his head while sitting in the car.

      During that time, Gilliand said, there were ‘two hours of constant talking with a man armed with a pistol to his head and who had just killed six people.’

    • It was a pistol.
      As to type, we know it doesn’t matter, since the way the crime was described it easily could have been done with a .22 revolver since he tied up everyone before shooting them

  3. Yeah. My friend made all of his money before he met his wife. They were married for a few years. His wife filed for divorce. She turned down a two-million trust fund for their daughter as a settlement and instead insisted on “child support” even though she made $200,000 a year on her own. She stole his child and ran up $600,000 in legal bills that he had to pay hers and his own. The court agreed with her and gave her a ton of his money. He is a great guy and did nothing wrong except marry someone who turned out to be a man-hating lesbian and ended up with a man-hating lesbian judge.

      • More guns scenario. Mr. Haskell charges into the home with handgun bared…Is immediately subdued by all family members who had drawn their own weapons. At last report all are safe Mr. Haskell is being held w/out bail.

  5. Spring is just north of Houston. It was too far away to hear the choppers, but around dinner time this was popping up all over the local news. Other than being a good advisory to avoid the area of the then-ongoing operation and subsequent investigation, I doubt this guy’s crimes will have much resonance beyond today’s headlines. Sure, if it bleeds, it leads, but it also fades, and rather quickly at that.

    • Except for this guy is exactly who Feinstein et al want you to believe they can stop with their Domestic Violence Gun Restraining Order. They will dance in this family’s blood until their feet fall of.

      • All the while never acknowledging how said restraining order would have prevented it. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

        I personally fail to understand the mental process that leads one to believe that a piece of paper controls, causes or prevents human behavior.

        • Think of a restraining order as a small “Gun Free Zone” sign. See how well that works? Magic!

  6. This is real easy. Anyone in any type of relationship with anyone else must surrender guns. Problem solved.

    • Followed by “No one without at least 10 referrences from family/close friends is allowed to have a firearm.”

  7. What’s going on at 0:07 (and explained 1:54)? He must have been really determined if they needed to crush his car with a SWAT truck and MRAP. Sad to see this is what he chose over working through problems. I wonder what the trigger was and who all the family members were (relation-wise). This is a rare incident because he did not kill himself, I hope we can get some answers from him and glean a better understanding of these kinds of scenarios.

  8. Yep – not the crazy man’s fault – it the NRA. Everything is the NRA’s fault. Everything everywhere.

  9. Two points here.

    One, feminism as a philosophy places females ahead of males . This is a problem when a mans rights are stripped from him without due process, as happens frequently in family courts literally paid by federal dollars to side with the female. The verdict in many cases is written in stone the moment the man walks into court, and theres not a thing his attorney and Jesus himself could do to alter the outcome. He’s losing his kids, he’s losing whatever business he’s built, and if he’s lucky he won’t be unemployed and fall behind on his alimony or child support. All for a woman who will soon house his replacement in the same house he’s being ordered to forfeit.

    Many men in that position gird their loins and work for the better good of their kids despite the unfairness of matters. Others decide that murdering their entire family is a better outcome then complying with such an unfair declaration and placing their kids under the care of a ruthless reptile who would title herself “mother”-a person who in most cases statistically is initiating the divorce. We should ask why a person would decide on violence as a course of action, and not recoil from the answer.

    Two;ive little doubt that in Washington DCs grimmer areas, more then seven people got shot last night . Good thing the Capitol has stringent gun……

    • Alright big guy, I can smell the chip on your shoulder from here. Rather than expressing a poorly veiled validation for murder, consider building relationships that don’t collapse under the weight of your entitled attitude towards gender rights. In a man’s world, where most of the wealth, status, power, responsibility, rights and respect go to men – if a guy can’t get any of that and has to resort to violence, in the words of Louis CK, “Maybe you’re Sh*t”.

      • “In a man’s world, where most of the wealth, status, power, responsibility, rights and respect go to men…”
        I’m sorry – in which world is that again?

      • In a man’s world, where most of the wealth, status, power, responsibility, rights and respect go to men

        Conversely in the present world of reality without rainbow colored unicorns…..

        1) men die in their jobs at > 10X the rate of women
        2) men die 5 years earlier than women

        If women were on the losing side of those two stats we’d be drowning in weekly telethons and colored lapel ribbons to address the CRISIS!! of premature deaths of women.

        So says a long married husband with a wife and daughter that all recognize the leftist BS of the War On Women(TM).

  10. What does this have to do with the NRA?
    Oh yeah…every crazed killer is mind controlled by the NRA. Have to get my tin foil hat out to withstand the endless bombardment of the NRA & pro 2A people. Duh…

  11. Ron Lee is a BIG SOB POS.

    Why smaller weaker (women etc) MUST have firearms to protect themselves. That is your talking point.

    And the coppers got to use there nifty new MRAP for a wheel chock. When he had been parked/cornered for hours.

    • “Why smaller weaker (women etc) MUST have firearms to protect themselves. That is your talking point.”

      +1

    • Why are you criticizing the use of the MRAP? This is exactly what it should be used for. A mass murderer who was still armed and in a vehicle capable of being driven through yards or into other vehicles was pinned so he couldn’t drive away. The officers who disabled his vehicle didn’t have to worry about being shot, which would have been a worry if they had been in regular patrol vehicles. The MRAPs weren’t used to oppress anyone, they were used to keep a dangerous murderer from running loose. And you have a problem with that?

      • And if they had an M88 (Branch Dividian ref) they could drive up and do a pivot steer. Shopvac and end of story.

        Militarization of the police is the issue, not rationalization of a toy.

        • Militarization of the police isn’t the issue in this case.

          Pretty amazing. POS murders a bunch of innocent people, officers respond and arrest him using a minimal amount of force, without breaking any laws or firing a shot. Who do you criticize? The police.

        • @Chris, there is a such a disconnect from reality by a great deal of TTAG commentators. They’re so self involved in their own agendas that they’ll bed the devil to make a point. Ron Haskell murders 6 people and the response by waaaay too many people is framed in terms of (to paraphrase) ‘an unjust court system’, ‘feminism’, ‘militarization of the police’, ‘blame DC’, ‘men are oppressed’. It’s embarrassing.

      • Smoke grenade through the window would have sufficed. Of coarse that solution wouldn’t have enabled all the taxpayer funded joy ride “training” that the po-po gets to do with the MRAP.

  12. I don’t think you smoke 4 kids without a fair amount of rage, and a whole lot of crazy. What tool was used is completely irrelevant.

    The result (6 dead) would have still been the same, just the means would have changed. They would have been bludgeoned, stabbed, strangled, pummeled, chain sawed, sworded…you get the picture.

    • Chain/block all the doors and set the house on fire. Worked a treat for many hundreds if not thousands of years of war…

  13. Where I live at least, divorce court is like the woman hitting the lottery, the courts are so anti men that woman are empowered to change up partners at will while being rewarded for it, regardless of family or fault. At the same time only a truly messed up
    Person would commit this kind of violnce, but the courts certainly don’t help.

  14. Maybe we just need to make divorce a felony. Divorce on your records…no guns for you.

    Since Robert is nearby, he can swing by my house and surrender his collection.

    • Regardless of the perpetrator’s circumstances, any sort of violent action is unacceptable. Will inflecting pain on others improves their lot in life?

  15. A whole lot of excusing this dirt bag who should be hung from a tree. He not only killed his wife, but his kids. Even if (and that is IF, we don’t know the story) she was being a vicious woman divorcing him for money and custody the fact that he killed the kids, who have nothing to do with it, makes him utterly reprehensible and no matter what the wife did he can go jump into a vat of boiling oil.

    • Absolutely! Make NO excuses for this _evil_ mf’er. Read the details of his sickening atrocity. May justice be swift.

  16. I just resigned as a victims advocate. SC has the highest rate of DV crimes & most are beatings or knives. Most fights over finances, kids used as pawns in divorces. I’ve seen things get worse after the restraining orders or divorce/custody/financial papers get served.

  17. No one is excusing this piece of shit for his actions, however to look at his actions in a vacuum without examining any outside factors is irresponsible. Take the mass shooters that have been known to be taking psychotropic drugs for example.

    • Yep they said it was hot in Texas and that correlates to those super accurate climate change models.

      • You mean summer? My own personal climate change model predicts a coming cooling, which should hit us in December and reach its worst in January, before relenting in February and resuming an upward trend into spring. You heard it here first.

        • Wow you must be using some of those taxpayer funded uber super computers. I’ll have to remember your prediction and see if it comes true.

  20. Slow down, everyone. I’ve had my own front row seats to family court, but let’s not forget that this POS murdered children. There’s no excuse for that. None. Kids should never be dragged into adults’ fights. He deserves whatever is going to happen to him now, and more.

  21. The biggest heroine in all this was the girl who called 911 and gave them the word with a bullet in her head.

    My prayers and condolences go out for all involved.

  22. That year, Haskell was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence, simple assault and committing an act of violence in front of children. Melannie Haskell told police her husband dragged her out of their bedroom by her hair and hit her in the side of the head.

    Haskell said he had only pushed his wife, and that he was stressed from his job. The couple’s children were ages 3 and 5 at the time. Haskell pleaded guilty to an assault charge.

    In 2009, Haskell told police that his wife had left and he believed she was going to harm herself. He followed up, and said he found his wife and was taking her to the hospital, records show.

    Then, a year ago, Melannie Haskell filed for an order of protection against him. A judge granted the order, and she filed for divorce the following month.
    The divorce was an anguishing time for Haskell. His brother in California contacted police, records show, and asked them to perform a welfare check because he was worried he might hurt himself. The brother later called back and told police he spoke with him and that they didn’t need to investigate.

    In October, the protective order was dismissed when the Haskells agreed to a mutual restraining order in the divorce and custody arrangements involving their children. The judge also said Ron Lee Haskell’s visits would be supervised by a psychologist.

    “Mr. Haskell’s parent time will be supervised until such time that his physical therapist can report that the respondent is no longer a threat to the children,” the judge wrote.

    A relative told NBC News he had been living quietly with his parents in California since his divorce.

    So the truth comes out, he was a Kalifornika nut job!

    • So the big question is, did he get his gun in California and did it comply with all of their gun laws?

      • So it seems he had a California Drivers License. So the gun was a legal California gun, or an illegal gun. And I wish they would stop calling him a Texan. He was another crazy Californian, killing Texans and brought down by a Texas girl.

  23. What source is reporting that this was the guy’s wife and kids? The Houston media is referring to the victims as the family of the sister of the guy’s estranged wife. His sister-in-law and his nieces and nephews by marriage is what’s being reported here in Houston

  24. This happened less than 2 miles from my house. My parents know the family from church their previous ward (congregation ) til the congregation was split. Yes the(the family that was killed) and I are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as LDS or Mormon. All the same church).
    http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/media/orig/Mormon_Global-Christ-Centered_12-13-13_Infographic.jpg

    The guy that did the shooting was the ex brother in law. The family helped the guys ex wife get out of the bad situation. this was a great family. The dad was the Elders Quorum President (leader of the mens organization)
    http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/media/orig/mormon-lay-leadership-ministry-volunteer_Infographic.jpg

  25. Guns wouldn’t be the problem if the people in this country hadn’t de-evolved to the state of spoiled, non-self sufficient children- ill equipped to handle tbe responsibilities that the Second Amendment.

    Guns have ceased to be the tools of necessity they once were and sre now the tools of madmen.

    The policies of “conservative” politicians supposedly support gun owners rights, but those policies also work against the middle class- putting the average person under financial pressure and fear of crime from a growing group of newly made criminals also created by the financial collapse of the country, its economy and the stagnating job market.

    It all works to impoverish the working man while enabling him to buy guns in the false hope they will keep him safe. The lower classes rob and kill each other off while the puppet masters laugh behind their gated communities and corporate barricades.

    Wake up America!

  26. TTAG is an interesting org, good for you. And, I especially like the hot lady, Ms. Weiss, ready to pick someone off in from a helo. A lady who loves orchids and can shoot like that, I could fall in love with….To my comment, I’ve been a gun owner most of my life. But, I’m sure the following will get some flack…

    My email yesterday to the NRA:

    Subject: The Stay Family – More Victims of Gun Violence

    http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/spring/news/article/FedEx-disguise-divorce-among-emerging-details-in-5611869.php#photo-6578136

    Take a long look at the Stay family. What if that was your 5 kids or your brothers, sisters & parents tied up, face down and then, execution style, had their heads exploded by a firearm? Another slaughtered family…this is more than a tragedy, it’s horror.

    How can the NRA not help and continue to block efforts to find ways to stop these events?

    How did this guy get a gun?

    Maybe enhanced background checks using enhanced database information prior to a firearm purchase or limiting gun ownership rights to individuals for cause would have helped here by identifying that this person had legal or documented mental health issues–such as restraining orders in this case. Of course, Haskell may have owned this gun for years, so therefore, when legal issues occur, such as an assault, a restraining order with a concern for violence, or mental health issues arise with a concern for violence, let’s require such a gun owner to have his gun ownership reviewed by authorities and/or medical professionals. And, if necessary for public safety, have his gun ownership rights suspended or revoked…and take the firearm away. What is hard to understand about developing gun control processes like this which may save lives?

    Unfortunately, your organization is resistant to any additional logical, common sense measures to keep firearms from a monster like Ronald Lee Haskell…other than promoting everyone to have one. Therefore, the NRA and its membership have indirect responsibility for tragedies such as this, in my sane view. And, this old adage is spot on…if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

    But, keep those membership roles growing boys…

    [email protected]

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