Government has its own agenda

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Via a private message from Don Kaag we have this explanation for why the local police didn’t do anything about the murdering scumbag in Florida when they were told dozens of times prior to when he shot up the kids.

If These Tweets Are True, Broward FL Law Enforcement Has A LOT To Answer For!!

…

I stumbled upon was a Broward County law enforcement system in a state of conflict. The Broward County School Board and District Superintendent entered into a political agreement with Broward County Law enforcement officials to stop arresting students for crimes.

The motive was simple. The school system administrators wanted to “improve their statistics” and gain state and federal grant money for improvements therein.

So police officials, the very highest officials of law enforcement (Sheriff and Police Chiefs), entered into a plan.

…

The primary problem was the policy conflicted with laws, and over time the policy began to create outcomes where illegal behavior by students was essentially unchecked by law enforcement. Link.

Initially, the police were excusing misdemeanor behaviors. However, it didn’t take long for felonies, even violent felonies (armed robberies, assaults and worse) were being excused.

…

Only then a Parkland school shooting happened. For Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel this had to be an “oh shit” moment; but not for the reasons the media initially thought. If people start digging, they’ll discover the shooter was one of those previously excused students

…

2013/2014 – Praise for the program: Link.

2017 – The program continues. Still chasing year-over-year reductions. Worse and worse crimes being excused. Link.

2018 – Parkland School Shooting. 17 dead. Political cop (SRO) cowered from the shooter; now retiring. School board wondering ‘what went wrong’.
Entirely predictable. Link.

The specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms is an essential part of life. Government has it’s own agenda and many times that agenda has nothing to do with protecting the rights of individuals. The Second Amendment enables individuals to protect themselves from all predators. This includes four legged predators, two legged predators, and the multi-headed monster called “government”.

When the dealing with corrupt and/or predatory governments the Second Amendment is Plan B when Plan A, the First Amendment, is insufficiently convincing that change is required.

Gun cartoon of the day

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Via a tweet from Firearm Policy Coalition:

SchoolA-B

The political left has a strong tendency to deflect when presented with something like this. That tells you all you need to know about them and possession of guns. They hate gun ownership more than they are repulsed by the slaughter of hundreds of innocent children and teachers.

Quote of the day—Don Kaag

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I’m tired…

I’m tired of typing in the same constitutional arguments on gun control every time there is a shooting anywhere in America.

Tired of citing the same statistics of declining gun crime in America—except in cities controlled by Democrats for decades, with the nation’s strictest gun laws—to liberal people who think the Constitution is an outdated document.

Be careful what you wish for.

I am done discussing this topic. It is like shouting into the wind. No minds will be changed.

If and when you manage to get together the votes to retake the Congress and the Presidency to affect radical change, and to propose and pass and sign and ratify a constitutional amendment abrogating the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, we will reengage.

Because then there will be a genuine shooting revolution.

See you on the barricades…

Don Kaag
February 21, 2018
Private Facebook post (used with permission).

[Kaag is a former Marine. I’m glad he is on my side.

My fear is that unless we keep talking and keep taking new shooters to the range and converting minds we will lose anyway. Our enemies will always play to their strengths and our weaknesses. They will do their best to never get in a shooting war. They know this is our point of greatest strength. Their greatest strength is the mainstream media.

We have other strengths we must enable and utilize. SCOTUS is not yet our friend but with one or two more Trump appointed justices it will be. The Federal district and appeals courts have long been unfriendly as well but this changing with hundreds of new appointment made and to be made during the next few years. In another three to seven years the courts have a good chance of swinging the direction of the tide. This will require we vote, encourage others to vote, and to persuade our Senators to approve the justices which adhere to the original meaning of the U.S. Constitution.

Sometime after we win the battle for the courts is when I expect we could, literally, be “on the barricades”. This will be when the political left enables us to use our greatest strength.

The political left has totally lost their cool in regards to the current political setting. You can see Trump Derangement Syndrome nearly everywhere. The gun issue had people rushing the stage chanting “Burn her!” to Dana Loesch when she engaged in a discussion about the Florida school shooting on CNN. Loesch didn’t do the shooting. She didn’t encourage the shooter to murder 17 people. She didn’t give the shooter the guns or ammo. She didn’t even know of the murdering scumbag loser until she heard it on the news. What do you think the mobs will do when told the Second Amendment doesn’t stop at the school property line? Or that able bodied people on welfare for years must finally get a job or go hungry? Or that in addition to paying for their own food they must pay for their own health care? Or that most of the government grant money is going away and those people are going to have get private grants or get a real job?

One of the strongest political currencies of the political left is street violence. Violence is part of their nature. When they are losing with little hope of recovery they will use it and they will not hold back.

The barricades will have to be strong, the ammunition plentiful, and the aim true. I expect the mobs will be epic.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ben Shapiro‏ @benshapiro

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Only the government should have guns to protect us. We can’t expect government employees to confront armed criminals. Pick one.

Ben Shapiro‏ @benshapiro
Tweeted on February 23, 2018
[Shapiro has a logical response and expectation.

Unfortunately this is not how the minds of many people work. I have posted about the problem many times before. Many people do not have a process to determine truth from falsity (see also these posts). The truth depends upon how they feel. I have a lot of experience with dealing with people like this. I literally have decades of experience.

In regards to the first two sentence quoted above, the way their mind works is as follows: They have a feeling in regards to each sentence independent from the other. They both feel true to them. Therefore both sentences are true.

It used to be that I literally would be told that I should do two different things which were mutually exclusive. I would have to be at two places at the same time to accomplish them. When I would point this out they would get angry and say things like, “You always have to get your way!” Their feelings trumped the laws of physics. If you look into the characteristics of some personality disorders you will find that they create situations where their associates/family/friends/etc. “can’t win”. They will demand others adhere to their rules/requests/whatever but when you look at the requests you will discover it is impossible to comply with all of them. You will always be in a position to be found at fault and punished.

My counselor when dealing with these things in my personal life, Staci, told me there are two characteristics that are common to all personality disorders:

  1. The more close the relationship the more severe the symptoms. A spouse and their children will have a more difficult relationship than extended family which will be worse than co-workers which will be worse than with strangers. They can frequent “hold it together” while at work or dealing with strangers and still make life a living hell for their spouse and children.
  2. They will not, or perhaps more accurately cannot, admit they are to blame for anything. If you point out to a normal person they could have handled a situation differently and that would perhaps have resulted in a better outcome they can reflect on it, think it through, and accept they may have made some contribution to the poor outcome. The person with the personality disorder is unable to do this. Among other things this results in the “can’t win” requests. They may have made requests that are physically impossible to comply with. Yet, it is your fault the requests were not complied with.

Hence, I see a lot of evidence that many anti-gun people have mental health issues. Look around with just a hint of the correct filter and you can see it too.

They created “Gun Free Zones” around schools and over the years hundreds of children and teachers have been murdered. This is your fault. It is beyond their ability to recognize they contributed in any way.

They banned guns in Chicago/D.C./etc and have horrific murder rates committed with firearms inside those political jurisdictions. Just outside those jurisdictions such as in Indiana and Virginia, where guns are legal, the murder rate is much lower. We conclude the laws where the crime rate is lower should be emulated in the high crime areas. The anti-gun people conclude their gun control isn’t working because guns are available outside their gun free paradise—it is the fault of Indiana and Virginia “lax gun laws”. This is your fault. Again, it is beyond their ability to recognize they contributed in any way.

These people are “nuts” and we should not be trying to negotiate or compromise with them. They cannot determine truth from falsity in a manner normal people would recognize as valid.

As I was advised by Staci, life with these people will never be easy. If you can’t terminate the relationship then you will always have a “fiery relationship” with them. It is beyond their ability to think and behave in a normal manner. The best way you can deal with these people is to set limits and enforce them. You tell them, “If you behave in this manner we will not tolerate it. This is what we will do in response.” Then, if they misbehave anyway, you do what you said you would do. They have to have consequences for their misbehavior.

The most appropriate limits I have come up with are 18 USC 241 and 242. It’s long past time to enforce them.—Joe]

Self defense shooting lessons

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What can you learn from this?

The lessons I see we can learn from this are:

  • One shot probably isn’t going to do the job.
  • Neither the mother or the daughter appeared to be very comfortable shooting. They seemed hesitant even after it was clearly “game on”. Know when to shoot and when to stop. When it’s time to shoot keep shooting until the threat is gone or you have lost your sight picture.
  • An experienced shooter should have been able to place well aimed shots in the guys upper chest at a rate of about two per second or better. These two would shoot then wait, shoot then wait.
  • Shot placement is very important. If the girl had gotten close enough to put a sold hit into the guys head when he was wrestling with her mother he probably would have gone down a lot sooner.

I don’t know what was happening outside when the mother was shooting out the door, but one generally should stop shooting when the bad guy is running away.

Boycott time

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Various companies have cut ties with the NRA:

A cybersecurity firm. Six car rental brands. A home security company. An Omaha bank. Companies are scrambling to cut ties with the National Rifle Association.

The list, so far, is composed of:

  • First National Bank of Omaha
  • Rental car companies Enterprise, Alamo, National, Hertz, Avis, and Budge
  • Moving van lines Allied and North American
  • Insurance companies MetLife and Chubb
  • Anti-virus company Symantec
  • Home security company SimpliSafe
  • Wyndham Hotel Group

It seems to me they need to have a lesson in economics. There are a lot more gun owners who are members of, or are supportive of, the NRA than there are people who support the anti-gun agenda.

Quote of the day—Chris Hayes

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Prediction: the president will approach gun safety legislation the same way he has approached DACA. He will lie about what his own position is and attempt to blame others for nothing getting done.

Chris Hayes
Tweeted on February 21, 2018
[H/T to streiff who wrote President Trump’s Gun Control Ideas are so Bad I Don’t Think He Even Believes Them.

I’ve been thinking something similar although I wouldn’t have put it in those words.

I assume President Trump knows we are in a (Fifth Generation) war. If you are in a state of war and you don’t use deception as one of your weapons you aren’t fighting to win. Telling the ATF to make up some regulation to ban bump stocks could get the anti-gun people to quiet down for a while or encourage them to overreach. See, for example, what Sebastian and his commenters are saying. The ATF may come back in a month or two with the same thing they did earlier, paraphrasing, “Banning bump stocks requires legislation, we cannot create such a rule within the confines of existing law.” With just a few weeks the anti-gun people will run out of steam and we can resume our drive for concealed carry across all state lines, taking suppressors off of the NFA list, and even other things like being able to purchase guns in other states and getting rid of the stupid “sporting purpose” requirements.

If things don’t cool off enough and we do get regulation and even legislation banning bump stocks it isn’t that big of sacrifice if we avoid legislation on “assault weapons” and “high capacity feeding devices”. And if it does go the route of a regulation change that should be a lot easier to defeat in the courts if someone has a real interest in taking it to court. I expect any ban on bump stocks will result in grandfathering existing stock. And since they don’t have serial numbers on them they can’t easily be registered. And 3-D printers mean that you as long as you keep your mouth shut you can make one at anytime in the future and it will be essentially impossible for anyone to prove you didn’t own it prior to the ban.—Joe]

Alison Airies, thanks for sharing

Featured

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I have pinned this post to the top of my blog. It is to remind people of what many of our opponents want. Alison Aires wants a tyrannical government. They want summary execution for private possession of firearms.

This is why we have a Bill of Rights. This is why I created Boomershoot.

Continue reading →

Quote of the day—ExpatSoutherner‏ @Tedards

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Upping the age to buy an AR-15 isn’t going to do it! Ban ’em. Confiscate ’em.

ExpatSoutherner‏ @Tedards
Tweeted on February 17, 2018
[ExpatSoutherner, are you going be taking point entering the houses after the doors are bashed in? Please say yes. I have a special surprise for you.

Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Chad Prather‏ @WatchChad

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Help me understand why you want a guy you’ve been calling Hitler for over a year to collect all your guns.

Chad Prather‏ @WatchChad
Tweeted on February 17, 2018
[That is a reasonable ask. But I’m pretty certain Prather knows the answer. The people calling Trump “Hitler” are projecting. They know they wouldn’t be at risk if gun were confiscated. But they know they are at risk when attempting to implement their political goals. They are planning for the future when they regain political power and implement their “(final) solution”.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ronald Reagan

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In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

Ronald Reagan
January 20, 1981
Inaugural Address
[It was true then and it is true now.

Government create the victim disarmament zones. The solution to the problem is to remove government from the problem.—Joe]

Stabby Tree

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I visited daughter Xenia this last weekend. She recently moved to Kentucky. It’s a little damp and cloudy but it looks like it will be very beautiful when it warms up and the trees get their leaves.

We did a little bit of sightseeing and this was one of the more interesting historical items we saw:

20180219_145845

She and John have a few acres with their new house and we took the dogs on walks and looked at the trees and birds trying to identify them. There were several trees like the one below. I thought trees like this only existed in scary Disney cartoons. It’s the kind of tree I would expect around Sleeping Beauty’s castle:

20180218_182451

20180219_102809

20180219_102907

Xenia says it’s a Honey Locust and is also known as a Thorny Locust. I prefer the name Xenia gave it when she first saw it, “a Stabby Tree”.

Quote of the day—LucasJackson

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We’re 17 children closer to the Australian solution. Unfortunately because of the pervasive gun cult of tiny-handed cowards, we’re not close.

LucasJackson
February 14, 2017
Comment to The Latest: Student: Suspect in school shooting ‘weird kid’
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday.

This idiot thinks what they did to gun owners in Australia is plausible. It has neither legal or practical plausibility.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Bess Kalb @bessbell

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If you feel like you need an AR-15 you are not mentally fit to own an AR-15.

Bess Kalb @bessbell
Tweeted on February 15, 2018
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.

Just as gun owners have predicted. Mental competency tests are a very dangerous path to go down.

A better way to think of this is that if someone thinks this makes sense or will ever be tolerated it proves they aren’t fit to participate in discussions of our specific enumerated rights.—Joe].

Quote of the day—Joe Nocera

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The person who made me aware of the poll was Ralph Fascitelli, co-founder of LodeStar Firearms, a new smart-gun company. LodeStar has engaged the legendary German gun designer Ernst Mauch to develop a 9-millimeter smart pistol, which will use a radio frequency to connect gun to owner.

Joe Nocera
February 16, 2018
Gun Companies Need This Gun-Control Measure
[Ralph Fascitelli is a co-founder of a firearms company? Wow! He is also on the board of Washington Ceasefire.

Sorry, Ralph. I know you have been told this, I was there when John Urquhart, King County Washington Sheriff, told everyone in the room, “Smart guns aren’t ready for prime time.” The LodeStar approach doesn’t address the deficiencies pointed out by Urquhart. Your company is going to fail.

There are at least three other issues which will ensure the failure of Fascitell’s company.

The first is Fascitell has long been an advocate for limiting magazine capacity to no more than ten rounds. His company is targeting, in part, law enforcement. Even if they could get over the many reliability hurdles pointed out by Urquhart, law enforcement is not going have much interest in a low capacity handgun.

The second is gun sellers know that if they put one of these guns on the shelf for sale it will trigger New Jersey’s law that within three years any gun sold in the state will have to have “smart gun” technology before it can be sold. They claim this law will be repealed in early 2018. But that isn’t going to help. Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that there will be several other states, probably including New Jersey, which will pass similar laws if such a gun had even a fraction of a percent of the market share

The third is that many gun control people don’t want guns to be less likely to be used by your kids or unusable if taken from you during a self-defense situation. They want people to have that fear. They want people will be less likely to purchase a gun and, if purchased, less likely to take it out of the safe. It’s the same argument used by some people against sex education. That argument goes, “It good that young people are afraid they will have unplanned pregnancy and/or catch a life threatening disease. This will help prevent them from having sex, period.”

While there are some applications where “smart guns” won’t be serious impediment to their use, the number one reason people, and the only reason law enforcement purchase guns, is for self-protection. There hasn’t been a “smart gun” design concept yet that doesn’t make the gun far less desirable than a standard gun. Building a product that is less desirable and more expensive than established competitors is not a winning strategy.

I have to conclude Fascitelli is delusional and/or has an evil plan of some sort. Being on the Board of Washington Ceasefire causes me to be inclined toward both.—Joe]

Full dependence on the government enables evil

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From the FBI today:

FBI Statement on the Shooting in Parkland, Florida

On January 5, 2018, a person close to Nikolas Cruz contacted the FBI’s Public Access Line (PAL) tipline to report concerns about him. The caller provided information about Cruz’s gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting.

Under established protocols, the information provided by the caller should have been assessed as a potential threat to life. The information then should have been forwarded to the FBI Miami Field Office, where appropriate investigative steps would have been taken.

We have determined that these protocols were not followed for the information received by the PAL on January 5. The information was not provided to the Miami Field Office, and no further investigation was conducted at that time.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said:

“We are still investigating the facts. I am committed to getting to the bottom of what happened in this particular matter, as well as reviewing our processes for responding to information that we receive from the public. It’s up to all Americans to be vigilant, and when members of the public contact us with concerns, we must act properly and quickly.

“We have spoken with victims and families, and deeply regret the additional pain this causes all those affected by this horrific tragedy. All of the men and women of the FBI are dedicated to keeping the American people safe, and are relentlessly committed to improving all that we do and how we do it.”

Good security depends on multiple independent layers. Law enforcement is one layer. Threat intelligence is another. In this instance law enforcement failed. This is how it should have gone down.

Denying access to the protected assets is another. This requires more than signs and stern words. It frequently requires people with guns. This is something the political left is fine with if the protected asset is a bank, government building, celebrity or politician, but it the protected asset is a common person and especially the children of a commoner then they go hysterical and demand even less physical security. This is clearly some sort of insanity and/or evil and should be treated as such.

Quote of the day—Maj Toure‏ @MAJTOURE

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Because for govt to do so, it acknowledges firearms as a legit tool for defense from tyranny. In doing so on practical levels it empowers the populace. If I want dominance, I can’t have young minds that aware. Gun control, is about PEOPLE CONTROL. #StayWoke #BlackGunsMatter

Maj Toure‏ @MAJTOURE
Tweeted on February 15, 2017
In response to Valerie @swannoir27 who said, “It’s always seemed obvious to me, we could protect our schools. Why aren’t we?”
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Viscount Halifax

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He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

Viscount Halifax
1940
Referring Winston Churchill’s speech in the movie The Darkest Hour.
[For Valentine’s Day Barb and went to this movie (she chose it). It is a very good movie.

Mobilize the English language and send it into battle. This what gun owners need to do. It is either that or face our own darkest hour and/or a bloody war.

I have often thought something like that is what I was doing. I try look at things, change the point of view, and articulate a vision which makes obvious we have the high moral high ground, we should always attack, and we must always make our enemies defend.

But I had never articulated it even one tenth as clearly and succinctly as Halifax did in the movie. The movie inspired me. Henceforth, I will make better use of words. If these words are properly crafted into powerful weapons of war we can win the battles needed to defeat the forces of evil in this country and avoid a war of bullets and blood.—Joe]

Overheard at work

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Boss Lady: I used to run explosives through the TSA.

My ears went up and I listened in as she was telling a co-worker about going through the TSA a few days ago. It turns out that she used to work for Homeland Security and one of her jobs was to test the TSA. This time she wasn’t working for Homeland Security and her pre-check card had just expired (it was her birthday). The people at SeaTac TSA remembered her.

She got “special treatment” even without the pre-check card. It just wasn’t the kind of “special” she was expecting.

We were just talking about this at work

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There are a three new people on my team at work. Two of them have a decade or more of experience in the field and one is in sort of an expanded intern program and is “drinking from a firehose” as she is coming up to speed. A week or two ago the newbie expressed some insecurities about her being able to contribute and one of the experienced guys reassured her and told her about “Imposter Syndrome” and said that he feels that and probably everyone does. Nearly everyone on the team jumped in to reassure the newbie that she is doing extremely well (she is) and had their own little stories about how they feel insecure about various aspects of their ability to do their job.

XKCD gives us another example:

Impostor Syndrome