Tag Archives: Birmingham

Police believe the Birmingham, Alabama, mass shooters used ‘conversion devices’

Glock-Switch

Important Takeaways:

  • The people who opened fire in a mass shooting in Birmingham, Alabama, late Saturday are suspected of using “conversion devices” in carrying out the attack, and over 100 shell casings were collected at the scene, according to a preliminary investigation from police.
  • The shooting, which left four dead and 17 injured, is just the latest spurt of mass violence made possible by the small part known as a “conversion device,” “Glock switch” or “auto sear.”
  • Whatever the term, the devices have the power to transform a handgun into a fully automatic firearm.
  • Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond called the devices “a huge problem,” adding they were still investigating whether the shooters used a switch or another type of weapon.
  • With these switches, shooters can fire a huge number of rounds in a very short amount of time. The rapid fire and recoil also make it difficult to aim properly, so these types of shootings can lead to innocent bystanders caught in the spray, as appeared to be the case in Birmingham.
  • There are several efforts in Alabama and across the country working to stop the spread and use of these devices.

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God is on the move Cedarville Ohio, Sam Ford University in Birmingham Alabama all experiencing the presence of God

Acts 2:17 “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;

Important Takeaways:

  • Revival Spreads to Cedarville and Samford Universities: ‘God Is Working on Our Campus’
  • Revival at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, is now on its 10th day
  • Just 249 miles to the south, a revival at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee is well underway.
  • Also reports of spontaneous prayer and worship among the students at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio, and at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.
  • The university’s president explained it all began on Monday during Cedarville’s morning campus chapel service while he led the students in studying Psalm 86 in the Bible’s Old Testament. White then described what happened next.
    • “I planned for us to pray as an application of David crying out to God and then sing a song before continuing with the sermon. During that song, the first person to come to the altar to pray was a faculty member. He was followed by students, one after another. As I walked back up to the stage, I knew the sermon was over and God was moving,” he said.
    • “Before long, the altar was packed, with students down some of the aisles. We stayed even after the time for chapel had ended. We don’t do this very often because we value the important work that takes place in classrooms across campus at 11 a.m., but as I looked down at students with tears of repentance dripping from their cheeks while other students put arms around them to pray, I knew we needed to stay. God was doing something special.”

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Flash flooding in parts of Alabama kills one, prompts several rescues

(Reuters) -Heavy rain flooded parts of Alabama near Birmingham late on Wednesday, killing at least one person, closing roads and prompting several water rescues after a flash-flood emergency was issued for several counties.

Flash flooding was blamed for the death of a child in Arab, about 65 miles (105 km) north of Birmingham, the Marshall County Coroner’s Office said early on Thursday.

The U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) said numerous people had been rescued from vehicles stuck in water and that homes and roads were flooded, with the rains forming and moving into areas already suffering from significant and life-threatening flooding.

The NWS issued a flash flood emergency late Wednesday for Shelby and Jefferson counties in Alabama, where weather stations recorded 5-10 inches (13-25 cm) of rain in a day.

“While heavy rainfall has ended at this time, runoff is resulting in continued significant flooding w/major impacts. Elsewhere, areas of rain continue into the night,” the NWS said in a tweet early Thursday.

Birmingham receives an average of about 3.34 inches of rain in October, according to CNN, which means some areas received around double the precipitation they normally receive in an entire month.

“We’ve had numerous water rescues, people trapped in cars and rescued by fire departments and police departments, and we’ve had damage reports of trees on houses and trees on roadways, and it’s really across the entire Birmingham metro area,” Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency Director Jim Coker told CNN.

(Reporting by Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru and Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Toby Chopra and Mark Heinrich)