Police and fire officials assist an injured pedestrian at the scene where a car drove through a packed afternoon crowd along the Venice Beach boardwalk in Los Angeles on Aug. 3. (Photo: Alex Thompson, AP)

“Los Angeles police arrested a suspect Sunday after one person was killed and 11 others injured when a car plowed into crowds walking on the Venice Beach boardwalk,” usatoday.com reports. “Nathan Campbell, 38, who turned himself into police a few hours after the incident, was booked on suspicion of murder and remained jailed on $1 million bail, police said at a news conference Sunday. Officials did not provide additional details or a possible motive for the incident, which occurred around 6 p.m. local time Saturday.” How much longer are we going to put up with this kind of car violence, given that driving a car is not a right protected by the United States Constitution? [h/t/ Wild West]

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44 COMMENTS

  1. If they would only require licenses for all drivers and register all vehicles, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen . . . wait, what?

    • Its the high capacity cars that are the problem. “Nobody needs more than one seat to drive around”

      • No, nobody needs more than one gallon of gas to drive around.

        Actually, here in Portland, high capacity freeways and roads are effectively becoming illegal.

    • I was thinking more on long the line of background checks. I mean we already have a NICS system we can use for this very purpose. Run a NICS for all car purchases that are made through a dealer. Private sales would be exempt except in those states that where all car sale must go though a dealer.

    • No, we need to push for bans on cosmetic “assault” features! Winch bumpers, lift kits, spoilers, non-oem lights. They must all be banned! For the children! ©

  2. This is exactly where my greatest disconnect with the gun-banners exists. I don’t like cars, and they kill tens of thousands of Americans every single year. Over the last century, they’ve regularly been the largest single cause of violent death in this country, far, FAR beyond gun deaths.

    And it would NEVER occur to me to form an organization that sought to ban cars because of all the deaths they cause. The banners, on the other hand, want to take guns away from anyone but the military and police.

    How’s about a deal, gun-banners? If you’ll leave cars entirely to the military and police, keep them out of the hands of “civilians” like you, I’ll agree to the same for guns.

    WHAT SAY?

    • A fellow Southern cyclist seems like a good point to comment…. the idiots-with-cars is an old issue of mine. I’ve ridden and driven in Europe, where a driver’s license is far more than a 10mph ramble around the blocks near City Hall and a considerable number fail and have to take the bus. After 30 years on motorcycles and bicycles, I can say that about 25% of American drivers are idiots who have no business behind the wheel, except that this is a country where a license to drive is a God-given right, even if you are a teenager or geezer with the attention span and depth perception of a parakeet.

  3. -Everybody knows somebody with one.
    -People using them got instruction and safety training, often starting in high school.
    -Fear isn’t something we associate with them.
    -There isn’t a campaign to scare people away from using them and eliminate general knowledge about them.

    I guess the only thing left to say is that my friend’s aunt makes $79 an hour on the Internet. Her income was over $9000 just this month working from home.

    • my friend’s aunt makes $79 an hour on the Internet. Her income was over $9000 just this month working from home.

      Is she dealing meth?

      • I’d ask if his aunt is the real life Skyler White, but then she’d be making like $625,000 per month.

        • On a related note, I’ve had the full series of Breaking Bad sitting around on my computer for over a year, and since the last half of the final season starts back up on 8/11, I decided to dig in. I watched the whole first season (7 hours) as well as the first 6 episodes of season two yesterday. That leaves 41 hour-long episodes to get through between now and next Sunday night.

    • “-Everybody knows somebody with one.”

      Or two, or three, or a half-dozen. Often they have different purposes, but they don’t have to. I can want a Corvette and a Porsche. Also, while some of them have a specified purpose, none of them have to be justified with a reason.

  4. No no no, it was obviously because those people had a right to assemble! If we would just ban crowds, then none of this would have been possible.

    If it saves just one life….

  6. Seriously the most lefty of the left WOULD ban cars if they could get the 51 votes Mr. & Mrs. America turn them all in.

  7. I can see it now….ban all cars and only use approved mass transit where transporting your firearm would be illegal. No more range time or hunting on the family farm unless it was within walking distance but then you would be ‘carrying’ a firearm.

    Ban cars…bad idea.

  8. Who needs the ability to go more than 10 mph? If that assault vehicle had been governed to not exceed that more than adequate speed limit, think of the carnage that could have been averted.

  10. Actually there is a segment that is constantly under attack. Hot rodding. There are tons of ridiculous laws against modifying your car in many states. Some, like an exhaust law, was tried to push through Oregon under an emergency would have made it illegal to have anything except the factory exhaust on your car. So what happens if my exhaust gets rusty or damaged and leaks? Junk the car? Doesn’t this sound familiar?

    The guy who wrote the bill was in California and sent it to Oregon. How about keep your crazy south of the border?

  11. I actually think if anything is banned, then ban alcohol. Bring back prohibition. Drinking alcohol has absolutely no benefit to society. Drunk drivers kill hundreds every year. Drunks abuse and kill children. Drunk women are often raped. It is medically proven to be physically addictive. If you are going to ban anything that kills people, then make it alcohol.

    ( Ok, I drink and I think this argument is bullshit. But it makes a hell of a lot more sense than banning guns)

    • I read once on one of the crazy sites that alcohol is the “drug of choice” for most of the world.

  12. It was a black “assault” car with a tank capacity of more than 8 gallons. He could drive 200 miles or more without reloading. Who needs to go 200 miles without reloading?????? Only criminals. Come on Jesse and Al Sharpton. Get out your signs.

    • Darn. You beat me to the “assault car” reference.

      Let’s start a campaign to limit the number of cylinders, engine capacity, fuel capacity, meaningless cosmetic features, the seat thing that goes up, spare tyres,etc.

  13. Believe it or not, this is one of the rights we take for granted that I’m pretty sure will eventually be revoked by the Government. In the movie iRobot (starring Will Smith, only vaguely related to the books by Asimov) “Manual” control of a car was unusual and not recommended. Driving was done by the City wide embedded AI. We’re not there yet, but it’s a matter of time..

    http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-28/googles-self-driving-robot-cars-are-ruining-my-commute

    The irony is, they have some legal grounds and arguably the moral imperative to mandate computer driven cars.

    • Just wait for the mandatory black boxes to monitor your driving habits and behavior. We can just get speeding tickets mailed to us and watch our insurance rates go up due to the data that is collected.

      • Uh huh. I’m still waiting. I’ve had a SunPass (automated toll transponder) on my car for over a dozen years, and I’ve yet to see a ticket from having it. Despite the warnings of lots of aluminum heads, they’ve never used them to issue tickets despite the clear technological ability to do so.

  14. He should thank his lucky stars he lives in California. They don’t allow conceal carry, so no one could pull their Sig, Glock, S&W, and put a couple of bullets in him.
    Try that on Daytona Beach and we’ll see to it that your DRT(Dead Right There). The police can’t be everywhere. The only people who can be everywhere you are when trouble starts, is you. How many people could have been saved from injury or death by an armed civilian bystander? Quite possibly…all of them!

  18. we need to expand the background checks to include information from the mental health status of anyone who might get their hands on such a weapon.

  19. Evil black assault cars, liberal fascist want a ban on Corvettes Mustangs Porches and Chargers. All fascist media says no one needs anything more than a Toyota Prius.

  20. I’m pretty sure any right not enumerated for the Feds or the state are reserved for the people, correct? So, wouldn’t that mean we have the right to drive cars?

  21. Every one must have a motorcycle. Id be a lot safer on the roads that way. We must also ban all cars, We also have to register swimming pools, knitting needles and all sharp objects. Lets not forget axes and hammers while Im at it, baseball bats. Lastly one of the biggest killers of innocent people.
    Doctors!!!!! Heck they do still call it a Practice don’t they?? You would think by now they have gotten it right and are no longer practicing their chosen skill …..um profession.???

  22. Cars need more safety devices on them. Rubber baby buggy bumpers. Think about it, you’ll see the genius.

  23. The “cars are like guns” (or are not) argument is great and has its place. But this post has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with guns. Perhaps just file it in the archive for future proof of things other than guns being dangerous, and stick to the G in TTAG.

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