US credit rating manipulated

Remember back in 2011, when the US credit rating was downgraded? Did you also know that the US Congress used its investigative and legislative powers to harass the rating company who did it?

On August 5, 2011, representatives from S&P announced the company's decision to give its first-ever downgrade to U.S. sovereign debt, lowering the rating one notch to "AA+", with a negative outlook. The government was furious. Two weeks after the August, 2011 S&P downgrade, SEC and Department of Justice announced that S&P was under investigation, and the CEO of S&P was forced to resign just 18 days later.

Three years later, filed a $5 Billion lawsuit against the company.

You can bet that no ratings agency will ever do that again.

Why gun laws can't work

Imagine carving an AR-15 lower out of styrofoam, and then using the method shown in this video to cast it out of aluminum. You have just made a ghost gun, completely untraceable and unknown to the government.












If there is a so called assault weapons ban, or an outright ban of all firearms, you might as well make a machine gun. After the first felony, the rest are free.

More on Gun Violence Archive

In a follow up to yesterday's post...

The Gun Violence Archive is claiming to be a non-partisan repository of "gun violence" and also states that they are not taking sides, but want to encourage debate. They are being used to support the fantasy that the USA has had over 1,000 mass shootings in the past 1,260 days.

In order to have an unbiased discussion about mass shootings, it is helpful to agree on a definition. The Congressional Resource Service (pdf warning), an office of the Congress of the United States, uses the same definition as the FBI:
There are three categories of these types of incidents:

Mass Murder/shooting-
These are incidents occurring in relatively public places, involving four or more deaths—not including the shooter(s)—and gunmen who select victims somewhat indiscriminately. The violence in these cases is not a means to an end—the gunmen do not pursue criminal profit or kill in the name of terrorist ideologies, for example.

Spree killing/shooting-
A spree killer is differentiated by the shooter killing in multiple locations over a relatively short period of time.

Serial killer-
A serial killer is a spree killer who kills over a long period of time, ranging from days to even decades.

Let's look at the accuracy of that claim and the accuracy of the data. Here is the "mass shooting page" of the Gun Violence Archive. The first few shootings are listed as:

June 22, 2016	Washington	Lacey	500 block of Dutterow Road	3	1	View Incident View Source
June 21, 2016	Kentucky	Louisville	2802 Rodman Street	2	2	View Incident View Source
June 19, 2016	Virginia	Roanoke	2328 Melrose Avenue	0	4	View Incident View Source
June 18, 2016	Virginia	Exmore	Fredrick Douglas Road	1	3	View Incident View Source
June 18, 2016	Georgia	Waycross	2625 Arnold Ct	2	2	View Incident View Source
June 18, 2016	Illinois	Chicago	East 79th Street and South Escanaba Avenue	0	4	View Incident View Source
June 14, 2016	Delaware	Wilmington	South Van Buren and Elm streets	0	4	View Incident View Source
June 14, 2016	California	Oakland	1301 Franklin Street	1	3	View Incident View Source

The first thing that we notice is that they are NOT using the same definition for "mass shooting" as the US Congress or the FBI. If I were to guess, I would suspect that they are using the much looser definition of the Bloomberg funded anti-gun groups, which are using the definition of "any shooting involving 3 or more people whether or not all of them are killed, or even shot." In other words, they don't get the desired results, so they move the goalposts.

Let's look at the first incident on the list: It is a case where 4 people shot each other inside of a meth lab.

The second listed incident involved 4 family members in the same house. Another version of the same incident gives two of the victims' names. I looked up the first name, and what do you know, he is a violent felon with a long history of arrests for drugs, violence, and firearms violations. I'm betting that drugs are involved. Even so, only two killed, not in a public place, victims not random= not a mass shooting.

The third shooting on the list occurred in Roanoke, Virginia. That location has had three shootings in the past few months. Still, no one was killed, so not a mass shooting.

The fourth shooting listed was a man who was targeting individuals over a large area. He drove around and shot 4 different people, but still not a mass shooting.

The fifth shooting on the list still isn't a mass shooting, but one thing that I do want to note is from this story about the shooting:

A father of seven and a woman are dead after a weekend shooting at the Garlington Heights apartments in Waycross, Georgia.
Waycross police said Cameron Wilkins Jr., 21, and Felicia Williams, 32, were killed Saturday. The two people who were injured were not named.
Cameron was recently released from jail and was trying to get his life on track, according to his family.

Aren't they always? These are not mass shootings. They are just criminals taking each other out over gang affiliations or drug turf.

The anti gun crowd knows that most people don't care if one gang member or drug dealer takes out another. So, just like the confusion between machine guns and AR-15s, they hope to redefine the term "mass shooting" into something else, no they can mislead an uninformed electorate into voting for something that they don't want.

Gun violence archive dishonesty

There is a website calling themselves the Gun Violence Archive. They claim to be cataloging all of the gun violence in the nation without bias.

I did a brief search through their data, and I found this listing on the first page:

June 19, 2016 Arkansas Jonesboro 1300-block of Flint Street 1 dead 0 injuries

Clicking on the source link leads to this story:

JONESBORO, AR (KAIT) - One person is dead following a shooting late Sunday night in Jonesboro.
Brandon Edwards, 30, of Jonesboro was killed in the incident, according to Paul Holmes, public information specialist for the Jonesboro Police Department.

What was Edwards doing when he met his end? Not attending choir practice, that's for sure:

Edwards and James Campbell were listed as suspects in an aggravated residential burglary at the same address, the incident report states.
The man living in the apartment has not been charged with a crime at this time, according to [Police].
The 33-year-old Jonesboro man told Officer Jonathan Wood he shot at Edwards [the decedent] and Campbell [the accomplice] saying, "I did it, but I had to shoot them," according to Woods in the report.
Woods reportedly asked the man where he put his gun. An "AR-15 style weapon" was recovered and found loaded.
According to the man, Edwards and Campbell forced his unlocked apartment door open following an earlier phone conversation.
Edwards reportedly came in first with a rope telling the man "he was going to kill him." Campbell followed behind holding a rifle or shotgun.

As clear cut a case of self defense as I have ever heard. Surely they can't be blaming a homeowner for defending himself from an armed burglar? So, I clicked on the incident link, and this is how they categorized the shooting:

• Type: Victim

• Age Group: Adult 18+

• Status: Killed

• Type: Perpetrator

• Age Group: Adult 18+

• Status: Unharmed, Arrested

The perpetrator (I refuse to call him the victim) was NOT arrested. The decedent's accomplice was. The shooter was the victim, and he was not arrested. I would say that any data or numbers that come from this website are highly suspect.

I also thought it important to note that an AR-15 was used for self defense. There is no better self defense weapon in your home than an AR-15, especially when you are faced with multiple armed attackers who are intent on killing you.

Democrats with guns

Another Democrat with a gun goes off the deep end while respecting a woman...

No one wants to take your guns

We keep hearing that "no one wants to take your guns" and we all know they are lying. Here is a recent online exchange I had with an anti:

anti: BAN ALL ASSAULT WEAPONS NOW!

Random commenter. What's an assault weapon?

 anti: If you don't know then clearly you shouldn't have one.

Divemedic: It's a simple question. If you are advocating for a ban on something, you should at least be able to define what it is. Name calling just shows that you have no idea what you are trying to ban,

anti: Inserts link to Wikipedia article on "assault weapons"

Divemedic: Let me show you why Wikipedia's definition won't work. Under the 1994 Federal Assault weapons ban, which of the rifles in the picture below would be illegal?

(courtesy of Tam)

anti: Clearly all THREE should be illegal! If it were up common SENSE, all the small-brained, gun-loving, Fox-brainwashed Obama haters should have their weapons confiscated before they hurt themselves or somebody else.

Divemedic: See, that is where you are incorrect, and are only making my point that you can't ban something that you can't identify. At least one of the weapons above is not an "assault weapon" under the definition that you cited. As a side note, just how do you plan on confiscating somewhere north of 400 million firearms? Who is going to be kicking in doors and doing the confiscating? You?

anti: Just ban ALL sales. NO citizen needs that kind of firepower. Period. This nation is SICK with guns, and Orlando PROVES it...aGAIN.


EDIT: Then he posted this:

 I will quote Larry Correia here:

"Shut up with your actual examples! Penises! PENISES! AAAAAAAHHHH!" - the liberal side of the national debate on gun control.

Don't criticize if you are ignorant

In comments to my recent test of firearms, a conversation began where I said this:

Selective fire means, under Federal law, machine gun. Having a variant that is a machine gun is not the same thing as being a machine gun. You are also incorrect, in that ALL of the weapons above have a select fire variant.
Pretty much every weapon (or its variants) were designed for military use, and that includes knives. My statement stands: Only two of the above weapons were never issued to a military for use by soldiers. Calling an AR-15 an M-16 is misleading at best.

In response, an anonymous poster said this:

The M1 Garand was NEVER produced for issue in a selective fire variant. The "selective fire M-1" was ether the BM-59 or the M14. Nether one is an M-1. The AR-15 IS NOT an M-16. 99% of all the firearms ever designed were made for civilian-not military- use. You really don't know very much about firearms , do you?

1. I apparently know more than you. For starters, the M1 Garand had at least one select fire version:

U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30 T20E2
Operation: Gas, select-fire
Automatic operation: 700 rounds per minute
Rifle Weight: unloaded, without accessories: 9.63 pounds
20-round magazine weight: empty: .55 pounds; loaded: 1.69 pounds
Grenade launcher: .47 pounds
M1 Bayonet: 1.0 pound
Overall length: 44.88 inches
Barrel length: 23.7 inches,
Rifling: 4-grooves, right hand twist, 1:10

The testing and evaluation at the Aberdeen proving ground was completed, and the US ordered 100,000 of them for the invasion of the Japanese mainland, but the war ended before they went into production and the order was cancelled. The design was modified into what later became the M14 rifle.

2. I still stand behind the statement that pretty much every weapon (or its variants) were made for military use.

3. i never called the AR15 an M16, but other than the fire control group and bolt carrier, they are the same weapon. Due to restrictions on full auto fire control group parts, it is not easy to convert the AR15 into its full auto cousin, but there is a lot of parts commonality.

Name ten firearms that were designed from the ground up exclusively for civilian and not military use, and are not just a variant of a military design.

Deadliest US attacks

I compiled a list of the 19 deadliest attacks in US history. In compiling this list, I only included killings that were the result of a single event. In researching this post, I found that there were serial killers who carried out their crimes over years or months, and those were not included in this list.

1 On 9/11, there were 2,996 dead and over 6,000 injured. The weapons used were box cutters and airplanes.

2  October 31, 1999: Gameel al-Batouti cried out “I entrust myself to Allah” 11 times in Arabic as he deliberately piloted a plane full of passengers into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 217 people.

3 The Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995. There were 168 dead and over 680 injured. The weapon used was a bomb made from fertilizer and diesel fuel.

4 The Hartford Circus Fire. 167 dead, 682 injured. Weapon used: fire

5 The Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857. There were 120 settlers killed when their wagon train was ambushed by Mormons. (I hesitated to include this one since it was a group of 20 Mormons who committed the killings, but if you are going to include 9/11, I figured you should include this one.)

6 The Happy Land fire of 1990: 87 are killed when a man sets a nightclub on fire.

7 The Pulse Nightclub shooting, 2016. 49 dead, 53 injured. The weapon was an MCX rifle.

8 The Bath School massacre of 1927: 45 dead, and 58 injured. The weapon used were a pair of bombs.

9 Pacific Air Flight 773 of 1964: 45 killed when a man murdered the pilot and copilot of an airplane, which subsequently crashed.

10 Continental Flight 11 bombing of 1955: A man blew up the plane with a bomb.

11 Pacific Southwest Flight Flight 1771 of 1987: 43 people were killed when a man shot and killed the pilot and copilot of the plane, which subsequently crashed.

12 New York Bombing of September 1920: There were 38 killed and several hundred injured. The weapon was a bomb.

13 National Airlines Flight 2511 of 1960. 33 people killed by a bomb on an airplane.

14 Virginia Tech massacre of 2007. 32 dead. The gunman was a South Korean student that had been showing signs of mental instability.

15 The Upstairs Lounge Fire in New Orleans on June 24, 1973 was an arson that was intended to kill the patrons of a gay bar. It worked, killing 32 and injuring dozens. It was started with a Molotov cocktail.

16 Newtown School shooting of 2012. 33 dead. The shooter used an AR-15 rifle that he acquired by murdering his mother.

17 Dorothy Mae Arson of 1982. 25 killed. The arsonist claimed he didn't mean to kill anyone, and only set the fire because he was stoned on marijuana and angry at his uncle, who was in the building.

18 The Luby's Cafeteria Massacre of 1991. A total of 23 people were killed by a spree shooter.

19 The LA times was attacked with a bomb in 1910, killing 21.

Murder weapon
Of the above 19 killings:
4 of them included an airplane as the murder weapon
6 of them were committed by people using a bomb
4 of them were committed by arsonists or people with an incendiary device
4 were spree shootings
1 (The Mountain Meadows Massacre) was committed by a group of people with multiple weapons, including gunfire, knives, and clubbing)

The fact is that guns have nothing to do with spree killings. In fact, 80 percent of spree killings were not performed by firearms.

More idiot news.

As I said in my earlier post:

This guy is an asshole:

Idiots

So it turns out that the three people arrested in NYC with weapons were in a vehicle that was just ASKING to get pulled over and searched:

If you look closely, you will see the name of the store: Higher Ground Tactical. You would think that a Pennsylvania gun store would know better. So, I decided to look into it. A quick Google search, and this is what I see on their Facebook page:

Here is the post on their training classes:

Break OUT of the herd.
Only the Strong Survive........
Are YOU going to be one of the SHEEP.....
or are you going to be one of the a WOLVES! ?
Come on up to Higher Ground Tactical in Emmaus and sign up for your Tactical Training today before all the placement is filled up.

i really hope these guys aren't the idiots they appear to be, or they are not only going to jail, but they are hurting the rest of us.

EDITED TO ADD: and they had drugs in the truck, too. They claim they were on the way to help a female friend who was being held against her will. These guys are first class assholes.

SRV covers

The first is a 12 year old playing Texas Flood:





The second is a guy playing Pride and Joy on a toy guitar at Wal Mart.

Muslim statistics

We keep hearing how not all Muslims are terrorists, and how Islam is the religion of peace. Since I love looking at data, we will do that here.

There are 3.3 million Muslims in the United States. According to a 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center, 65 percent of the Muslim-American population are first-generation immigrants, and 61 percent of the foreign-born arrived in the 1990s or this decade. In fact, the US admits approximately 250,000 Muslims per year into the country.

In the fifteen years since 9/11, approximately 2 million Muslims have immigrated to the US.

Since June 17, 2015, there have been 5 confirmed terror attacks on US soil, involving at least 8 suspects. There have been a total of 73 killed and 86 injured.

Eight terrorists out of 2 million doesn't sound like a lot, since that is only one terrorist out of about 250,000 people, until you realize that this is far higher than any other demographic.


Chattanooga TN military attacks, five dead and two injured. The attacker was a Muslim born in Kuwait.
San Bernardino shooting, sixteen dead and 23 injured. Two immigrant Muslims are the suspects.
Ohio machete attack, one dead and four injured, the suspect is a Muslim Immigrant.
UC Merced stabbing attack, one dead and four injured, US born Muslim attacker (first generation)
Orlando nightclub shooting, 50 dead and 53 injured, an US born Muslim attacker who was a first generation American, with his Muslim Jordanian wife, who has since disappeared.

The pot and hookers platform

For some reason, the earlier post about Gary Johnson and gun control is having issues.

Here is the video of a Libertarian campaign spokesman:





He favors it, as long as it is done right, and as long as they let him have pot and hookers, I guess.

Non-permissive environments

I despise that companies with anti-gun and pro-child molester policies, like Disney. However, far too many of my friends want to go there, so I have passes to all of the major Central Florida theme parks: Sea World, Disney, and Universal Studios.

These parks are all what is called a "non permissive" environment for people with concealed weapons. That is, no one is permitted to have weapons on property, but this is only a corporate policy, not the law. It is perfectly legal to have a concealed weapon on your person, but if you are caught with one, they will ask you to leave. As far as I know, this includes police officers who are not on duty. To enforce this policy, security has a mandatory bag inspection and randomly runs those entering through a magnetometer. For some events, ALL persons entering are required to pass through the magnetometer.

I have used my pass to thoroughly test the theme park security systems. They all failed spectacularly. Let me explain the flaws that I saw:

1 About a month ago, I went to one of the parks and, as usual, skipped the bag check because I had no bag. As it turns out, every person who didn't have a bag was asked to go through the magnetometer. The security failure here is that the magnetometer is not random. If a person had a bag, they were not being asked to go through it. So, bring a bag, and no magnetometer. Non random checks are easy to beat. I had no firearm on me that day, because we were there to experience some adult beverages with some friends, and I do not carry firearms when drinking alcohol. Even so, the search still missed a can of pepper spray and a push knife.

2 When going through the bag check, the security guards only give a perfunctory look into the main compartments of a bag. On multiple occasions, a Coronado Concealed carry Hobo bag, with its hidden compartments, was used and not thoroughly searched. As a result, a Smith and Wesson 642 was missed every time this method was tried.

3 Even if you are asked to go through the magnetometer, it proved easy to beat as well. Wear a belt with a large metal buckle, like this one. Then carry a small handgun like a Smith and Wesson Bodyguard or a Smith and Wesson 642 in a Thunderwear holster or a pair of boxer briefs with a pocket for a cup. (The Bodyguard is more comfortable in these holsters). When the security guard wanded the front of my body, the detector went off…exactly as expected when the detector is placed in close proximity to a large metal belt buckle.  I lifted my shirt so he could see the buckle.  When the alarm sounded, he already expected it and attributed the alert to the belt buckle instead of the gun stashed just underneath it.  The rule is: “show security what they expect to see.”  The guard expected that his wand would go off when passed over a large metal belt buckle.  It’s up to me to use this expectation to my advantage when I conceal my weapons.

Keep in mind that most of these places are paying security somewhere in the area of $12 an hour or so. These rent a cops are not that sharp, or they would be making double or triple that as real cops. They are being asked to screen tens of thousands of people a day, and just like garrison troops, they become lazy and complacent. They must sit there and check thousands of people in the hot Florida sun for hours on end, and do it for very little pay. They aren't going to be thrilled to investigate your crotch too closely, and if they do, it is inevitable that they will eventually get sued, so they don't.

In short, it is easy to get a weapon into a non-permissive environment with just a little forethought and ingenuity. I am sure that there are other ways, but these have worked for me so far. Let me point out a couple of things:

Nothing that I did here was illegal. If I had been caught, the most that would happen is that I would be asked to leave, and perhaps given a trespass warning. Don’t carry a weapon in any place where you are prohibited by law from doing so.  Use these techniques only in places where it is LEGAL, but against company policy, to carry a weapon.

One other thing to keep in mind.  It was EASY for me to get weapons into a “secured” venue.  I could have very easily taken more or larger weapons.  Do you think that an active killer or terrorist couldn’t do the same thing?  Don’t think you are “safe” because there is a rent-a-cop with a metal detector at the front door of the event you are attending. If this were to happen, don't think for a minute that Disney, or any other large company, is going to take the blame for what happened. You will be dead, and they will absolve themselves of all responsibility for creating a defenseless victim zone.

We already know that the Orlando shooter looked at Disney theme parks as a potential target. ANY place where people gather is a potential target for terrorists. Keep your eyes open, stay armed, and be ready to take action.

Libertarians want to take your guns

To all of you who support Gary Johnson and his "weed and hookers" platform, he is now in favor of destroying due process and using a secret list to deny firearm rights.

EDITED TO ADD: Here is the link I should have included.

Gators and Disney

Anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time knows that I think Disney is a horrible company, and I rarely defend them, but in the case of the alligator attack, I think placing blame on Disney is wrong.

A gator is a wild animal. They are EVERYWHERE in Florida, as are other animals that have been known to attack and even kill in Florida:  rattlesnakes, bees, Black widow and Brown Recluse spiders, Black Bears, Bobcats, wasps, and Cottonmouth Moccasins, not to mention sharks. All of these animals can and do kill people, especially small children. As a child growing up here, there were some things that I was taught:
1 Don't put your hands or feet anywhere that you cannot see.
2 Step on logs, not over them.
3 Piles of debris like firewood and leaves are home to rattlesnakes and vnomous spiders. Do not let children play in them.
4 Assume that all natural bodies of water have alligators in them.
 5 Breeding and egg laying season is April through September. Alligators are dangerous and territorial during this time.
6 Do not let toddlers and pets play near water. They are small enough to be food for alligators.
7 Do not swim in the ocean, ponds, lakes, or any other natural body of water from a half hour before sunset to a half hour after sunrise. The dark hours are when predators hunt, and are the times when human senses are degraded.

The local theme parks hire off duty police, fire, and EMS personnel to staff their parks. I had part time a job at one of them in the Health Services Department. I once saw a man and a small child feeding a squirrel, and told them to stop, because the squirrels are known to be aggressive. The father told me, "Mind your own f**king business."

Ten minutes later, I was called to return to that area for an animal bite. You guessed it, the squirrel had bitten the little girl. The father was there, demanding that we locate and kill the squirrel to make sure it wasn't rabid. I laughed and explained to him that we were not likely to find the same squirrel again (there are hundreds of them in that area) and that his daughter would have to go to the doctor for the rabies vaccines.  I made sure to document the earlier contact in my report, because you just know he was going to hire a lawyer.

 This alligator attack would not be national news if the child had been killed by a swam of bees, a spider, a snake, or had drowned. There was a no swimming sign there for a reason. Now there are people who claim that the "No swimming" sign should have been more specific, and specifically warned of alligators. I disagree, because what would have happened if the sign had specifically warned of alligators, and the child had been bitten by a water moccasin? Should the sign warn of snakes as well? Just how large and comprehensive should these signs be?

When you go swimming in a body of water that is plainly posted with a "No Swimming" sign, you have no one to blame but yourself when something goes wrong.

Answers to test

Yesterday, I posted a little test. Here are the answers:


1:
Rifles A, B, E, and G are fully automatic.
Rifles C, D, and F are semi-automatic


2:
Rifles C and D would have been illegal, because they are semi-automatic rifles with a folding stock and a pistol grip.

The fully automatic guns would be legal to own, as they were not part of the law. Even if all could be modified to semi-automatic operation only, they would still not have been illegal.

3:

Rifles C and D are the only ones on this list that have not been issued to the soldiers of any military.

4:

The criteria used to ban these rifles in 1994 were based only upon cosmetic features, none of which affected the operation or lethality of any of these weapons.


The weapons were:

A: Soviet Ppsh-41 Submachine gun
B: Model 1921 Thompson Submachine Gun
C: AR-15
D: Sig MCX
E: M-2 Carbine
F: M-1 Garand Rifle
G: M-14 Rifle

What to do in a shooting

Until recently, police have been advising that if you find yourself in an active shooter scenario, that you hide, or run away instead of fighting. Now that tune has changed:

Knowledge

There are many people nationwide who are calling the AR-15 a weapon of war, and demanding another assault weapons ban. So, I am putting together a little test, using pictures. Below, you will see pictures of seven rifles, and there will be questions to follow. Look at the pictures below:

Rifle A:

 Rifle B:

 Rifle C:

 Rifle D:

 Rifle E:

 Rifle F (top) and

Rifle G (bottom)

Question 1:
Of the seven weapons above, three of them are semi-automatic, and four of them are fully automatic. Which are which?

Question 2:
Of the seven weapons above, which of them would have been illegal to own under the 1994 assault weapons ban, and why?

Question 3:
All but two of the above weapons have been issued to the soldiers of either the United States or a European nation. Which of them hasn't?

Question 4:
What characteristics make a weapon lethal enough to ban, or what criteria would you use to specify what constitutes a weapon that should be illegal?

If you cannot answer at least three of the above questions correctly, then how can you claim enough knowledge to demand laws be changed? How can you hope to ban something that you cannot even accurately describe?

NICS

In the seven and a half years since Obama became President, there have been 130 million background checks performed through the NICS system. That is compared to the 78 million that were performed in the 11 years prior to that. (source here)

Now the number of NICS checks doesn't always mean that the same number of guns were sold. Each check may be for more than one gun, as the check is done for each transaction, not each firearm. With that in mind, we use this as an approximation for the number of guns sold. Even so, the fact that there have been over 200 million guns sold in the past 18 years makes me seriously doubt that there are only 300 million firearms in the US.

If I were to guess, I would say that there are more like 400 or 500 million firearms in this country. Tell me again how you are going to confiscate all firearms, when you can't even tell me how many you want to confiscate, especially when there are hundreds of millions of them.

Into the fold

Gun Sales Surge in LGBT Community Following Orlando Attack

I was glad to see this. As shooting and self reliance becomes more mainstream, it will be more difficult for people to take our rights away. I fully support this, because in order to expect freedom, you must support the freedom of others.

There are also many free gun safety courses being given nationwide. Find one here.

He self identified as

So when a man self identifies as a woman, I am supposed to believe him to the point of letting him use the same restroom as an 8 year old girl, but when a man self identifies as a Muslim terrorist, I am supposed to call him a liar and say he is a closet homosexual who is only killing gays as a hate crime against LGBTs?
Even though he posted on the Internet that he was a terrorist, he told his coworkers that he was part of al Qaeda (which is what got him investigated in the first place), and called police AND several news stations during the attack to claim the attack was done in the name of ISIS, we are supposed to ignore all of that.

Suspected terror list

There is a lot of talk about prohibiting anyone who is on the suspected terrorist list from buying a gun. Here is the main problem that I have with it:

My son is on that list. He is listed as a suspected terrorist. He was even visited by DHS agents, and his passport was revoked.

Now, I raised my son better than that, and he is most certainly not a terrorist, so how did he wind up on that list?

My son is a travelling nurse. He flies all over the world, treating and transporting patients from one place to another. It pays very well. He recently got paid for a 4 day trip, escorting a patient to Australia, and was paid $4000 for 4 days' work. This week, he is in Milwaukee, and is being paid $12,000 for ten days' work. In between trips, he works at the local trauma centers, and was one of the nurses on duty this past weekend in the Orlando area.

Now that you have the background, here is how he wound up on the terror watch list:

A known terrorist was arrested, trying to enter the country with my son's passport. Well, not his actual passport, but a forgery with all of his information on it.

In all of his travels, he once had to go to the Dominican Republic to bring a patient home. While he was there, a government official photocopied the passports of the entire crew: 3 members of the flight crew, a respiratory therapist, and my son. Those photocopies were sold to people who make forged identity papers, and that information was used to create fake papers.

My son received a visit from DHS, they revoked his passport, and he had to apply for a new one. His name, birth date, and other information is now on the suspected terrorism watch list, because that information is now known to be used by terrorists.

This proposed law would prevent my son from buying a firearm, even though he has not broken a single law, nor is he likely to.

4473 questions

Form 4473 is a form that is required to be filled out whenever a person buys a firearm from a dealer. It contains a list of questions that are required to be answered before the dealer can transfer the firearm to the buyer. Some of those questions are:

Are you the actual transferee/buyer of the firearm(s) listed on this form? Warning: You are not the actual buyer if you are acquiring the firearm(s) on behalf of another person. If you are not the actual buyer, the dealer cannot transfer the firearm(s) to you.

This question is designed to see if the buyer is actually performing an illegal straw purchase.

Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?

Because users of illegal drugs are always truthful, and will admit to being a criminal.

Are you an alien illegally in the United States?

Again, criminals always admit their crimes, because they are honest people.

Because of this, it is obvious that we can eliminate the problem of terror attacks by simply adding one question to the 4473:

Do you plan on committing an illegal act with a firearm? An illegal act would be murder, workplace violence, a hate crime, or any other crime which would involve shooting or threatening to shoot, another person or persons?

Problem solved. Unless, of course, you admit that this would do nothing, which would mean that all of the questions on those hundred million or so 4473s are a useless waste of time.

failed policies

When I advocate carrying a concealed weapon as a solution to mass shootings, I frequently get, "but what happens when innocent people get caught in the crossfire" as a response. Now we know what happens when no one gets caught in the crossfire.

20,000 gun laws, and decades of gun control have delivered us to the point where 50 people die in a terror attack. This plan obviously isn't working. Can't we go back to the gun laws of 1967, when anyone could buy a gun by mail, and these sorts of things didn't happen?

Of course, there is always this response:

"I just think in a world that is as complex as it is, that it is very important for us to be able to forge partnerships as opposed to simply dictating solutions. Just to try to crystallize the example,we are talking to ISIS leaders and trying to convince them that we are sorry for all the bad things we have done and the disgusting things Donald Trump has said."

~President Barack Obama

2 year old killed at Disney

A toddler was dragged from the shore of a lake on Disney property. Disney has been spending all of its time trying to keep legal CCW from happening, and they really aren't concerned.

Democrats fundraising from terrorists?

So, on a whim, I went to the Federal Election Commission's website and searched for the Orlando shooter's name. What I found was stunning:

Seddique Mateen, the shooter's father, the man who claims that he is a supporter of the Taliban, donated $280 to the Democratic Party in 2015, including this receipt for $250.

Maybe THAT is why the Democrats won't do anything about terrorists.

Shooter in Orlando

I typed the Orlando nightclub shooter's name into the state license database, and it turns out that the "firearms license" that the press is talking about him having is not a CWP. It is an armed security guard license, called a "Statewide Firearms License" His license number is G 2704169.

A statewide firearms license is for armed security guards. He worked for a company called G4S, which was formerly known as Wackenhut Security.

It starts

Here it comes...

Of course, Occupy Democrats aren't pointing out that the shooter in this case was registered to vote as a Democrat. They also misrepresent an AR-15 as an "automatic assault weapon"

Weapons prohibited

Now that Governor Scott has declared a state of emergency (pdf warning)exists for the next 30 days in Orange County, Florida as a result of the terrorist attack there, are firearms prohibited in that county?

You tell me.

Nervous

I woke up this morning to the news of the terrorist attack in Orlando. My son is not gay, and to the best of my knowledge, does not frequent that particular bar. However, he and his live in girlfriend do work in that area as nurses on the night shift, with my son specializing in trauma care. I do not know if they were working last night.

I have tried texting both of them, and they have not responded. I am hoping that the lack of communication is due to them either still working, or they are sleeping off a long and difficult night of treating the injured.

Please keep them in your thoughts today, as I wait on word from them...

EDITED:
My son just contacted me. He and his girlfriend are both working, and are slammed with victims of the attack, as well as the normal influx of patients. For those familiar with triage:

Triage center was in the parking lot of the Einstein's Bagels.
There was some confusion, as police were bypassing the triage center and taking patients directly to the trauma center two blocks away, rather than triaging them and following the mass casualty plan. This placed a strain on the trauma center, until EMS personnel could get a handle on the cops.

Ballistic vests were issued to EMS and firefighters on the scene.

20 red tags were sent to Orlando Regional Medical center (level one trauma center)
2 Red tags to Florida Hospital Orlando
Yellow and Green tags are going to Florida Hospital East
Other trauma patients not related to the attack are being diverted to Osceola Regional, one of Central Florida's two level two trauma centers
The entire trauma system of central Florida is being tested with this mass casualty event. There are only three trauma centers in Central Florida. ORMC is the only level one, with Osceola Regional Medical Center in Kissimmee and Central Florida Regional Medical Center in Sanford as the two level 2 trauma centers. All three of them are currently slammed with patients.

Doesn't count

This man was killed by two young men in The Villages, Florida. He was killed after being punched in the back of the head and subsequently hitting his head on the concrete as he fell.

According to the anti-gunners in the Zimmerman case, Zimmerman should have just "taken his beating like a man," and they also point out that beating a person's head on the concrete isn't deadly force.

Either way, it doesn't matter to the anti-gun people in this country, because this death isn't a gun related murder.

Overrun

A San Jose, California, police chief admitted that he kept his officers in formation instead of protecting Donald Trump supporters during a riot in San Jose last week is a member of La Raza. I have talked about them on this blog for years.

Here is a tweet from the police chief:

This nation is being overrun by foreign powers.

Only in Florida

Only in Florida, do you see a spaceship and a cruise ship in the same port of call...

Women and the military

The way that women are treated in the military is a bit unfair. Not the way that women would have you believe that they are being mistreated- in fact, they have a HUGE advantage. The last thing that women REALLY want is equality. Let me explain:

I did six years in the Navy. I was an Electrician's mate which, according to the Navy, is a sea intensive rating. What this means is that there are not that many shore based billets in comparison to sea based billets, so an EM spends the majority of his service assigned to a seagoing command. In keeping with this reality, the Navy has a sea/shore rotation for EMs that is- shall we say, a bit taxing.

Sailors who are electricians typically are assigned to a sea command immediately following their initial training, which takes up the first 7 months or so of their enlistment. That first sea posting lasts 51 months. This means that the first enlistment and the first year and a half of the second is spent assigned to a seagoing command. Most sea going commands spend about 65-75% of their time at sea. After this posting, that electrician is sent to a shore post for 36 months, and then back to sea duty for 60 months. After that, the rotation is 48 at sea followed by 35 months on shore.

In fact, in a 20 year career, a sailor who is an EM will spend 14 of those years assigned to a seagoing command. No surprise, it's the Navy, and the Navy is in charge of the sea.

Unless you are a woman. If you are a woman and you get pregnant, you get 18 weeks off WITH PAY after the baby is born. In addition, they are assigned to light duty on shore for the majority of their pregnancy before the baby is born.

Men get only ten days. When I was in, every time a command with women assigned to it was scheduled to deploy, a large percentage of the female crew members would get pregnant. Free time off, and time not being spent away from home. In fact, one in seven female service members are single mothers.

Our military cannot perform its mission if nearly ten percent of its force can't deploy because they can't find a baby sitter.

The U.S. Marine Corps announced that it was postponing its self-imposed deadline for women to be held to the same physical fitness standard as men. On January 1, 2014 female Marines would have been required to complete three pull ups on their physical fitness test; the same requirement as male Marines. Over 50 percent of women were unable to complete the new standard.

Therefore, Marines chose to delay the deadline and allow women to pass without meeting the equal standard. With the military so willing to ignore these equal standards, one must wonder, does the military have a double standard when it comes to gender equality?

Equality is the state of being equal, and equal is defined as being of the same measure, quantity, amount or number as another. The same standards, the same treatment, the same physical requirements, regardless of your gender. No political correctness, no ulterior motives. No senior level officers getting to bolster their Officer Evaluation Reports with accolades of leading the integration of females into infantry units.

You want equal? Make it equal. Same haircuts, same uniforms, same duty. If that means that you can't be a mother while in the service, so be it. Perhaps the time spent on convalescent leave could be added to your enlistment: 18 weeks of maternity leave means 18 more weeks of active duty without reenlistment bonus, or alternatively, enlistment means taking a Depo-Provera shot for the duration of your enlistment.

You are either equal, or you are not.