Help needed

I recently got into an argument with a cop about firearms safety courses. I suggested that a basic gun safety course for people who have never fired or handled a gun before should not be taught using live firearms or ammunition. Instead, blue guns should be used to teach the basics of safety.

(The basis of the argument was that teaching firearm safety should be done in high school. A parent came on and said she didn't think it was a good idea for children to handle guns in school. I suggested that the course could be taught using blue guns, and that way the basics could be taught without exposing students to undue risk.)

He responded by being an insulting ass, and telling everyone that HE is a 20 year New York cop, and that makes him an expert. He then told me that all of my certifications in shooting and firearms instruction are useless because the most important thing to be taught is how to load and unload firearms while keeping your finger off the trigger.

I told him that firearms and ammunition should NEVER be handled by students anywhere in a classroom, and that ammo and guns should never even be in the classroom together- this kind of thing should be restricted to range sessions only. Having guns and ammo being handled together, especially by novices, is just asking for an ND.

He then told me that I should stick to hoses. Since he was the cop, and everyone seems to defer to them on all topics related to guns, the crowd all nodded and gave me the stare down. I left the conversation at that point.

So, here is my request: Do any of my readers have a link to a best practices page from a reputable training organization that supports either position? I want to see who is correct...

Las Vegas 2

This is the part where I tell you about my trip. Las Vegas is my favorite US city to travel to for a number of reasons: It is easy to get there, it is relatively cheap, and there is a lot to do, especially if you are travelling without kids.

First, when we go we usually fly there on a nonstop flight, even if we did drive once. It's a six hour flight going west and a three hour flight coming back. We usually leave Orlando at around 5 and arrive in Vegas some time around 8 o'clock. Coming back, we leave at the same 5 o'clock and get to Orlando around midnight. Two round trip tickets usually cost around $600.

We stay in MGM owned resorts on the strip. Our favorite is NY-NY. The reason we stay with MGM is that our four days of our stay is usually comped, and we only pay taxes. They usually also give us a $150 room credit, so by the time you count taxes, they actually pay us to stay there.

This time, we stayed at the Bellagio for the first three days. The total cost was $153 for the three nights, but they gave us a $100 credit that we applied to meals, so the final cost was actually $53. For the next three nights, we stayed at the NY-NY. That one was entirely free, plus they gave us a $150 room credit. In all, the total for both hotels was a $97 credit.

Meals we ate out, and most of them were fairly cheap. We ate Christmas dinner at an upscale Italian place, and we had the Bellagio buffet one night. The total cost for two of us to eat both of those meals was about $200. Other nights, we ate cheaper meals. Our total meal bill for the entire week was about $800.

We rented a car on Christmas day and drove half an hour to the top of Mt Charleston so we could play in the falling snow. We walked the strip. We did some gambling, and we also caught a couple of shows. We also rode the "High Roller."

The gambling was great fun, and as anyone who reads this blog regularly knows, I love to play CRAPS. I had lost a total of about $600 up until Saturday, bu I had a big night at the table on Sunday, winning about $1600 when one of the shooters at the table went on a roll. My wife also wound up winning a couple of hundred. (Sometimes, we come home winners, sometimes not.) So we came back to Vegas with about $1200 in cash more than we left with.

What all of this means is that our week-long Christmas trip to Las Vegas (air fare, meals, gambling, plus all entertainment) wound up costing us less than $700.

Las Vegas

We have been in Las Vegas for the past week. We left for Vegas on Christmas Eve morning, and returned at 3 am this morning. While we were there, they were discussing the security procedures that were in place for tonight.

First, there are signs everywhere saying that from 6 pm on the 31st to 2 am on the first, there will be no coolers, no weapons, no backpacks, no strollers, no glass bottles, and no one under the age of 18 allowed on the Las Vegas Strip or on Freemont Street.

Second, there were helicopters buzzing the "Strip" taking background radiation readings.

Third, I also saw some mysterious black trucks with no markings, police blue lights, and satellite dishes on top of them. I did not get a picture myself, but they looked like this:

Some Internet searching uncovered that they are a National Guard unit called the "Civil Support Team," one of 57 such teams in the US. They are a National Guard unit that specializes in responding to incidents involving Weapons of Mass Destruction. These are referred to as CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear) weapons.

Ever since the shooting on October 1, 2018, they have begin to take security more seriously.

More on my Vegas trip in another post...

Video of Texas church shooting

The two big takeaways:

1 CARRY A GUN
2 Practice. Not just marksmanship. Practice your draw. It appears like the first guy shot was too slow on his draw and paid the price.

Death of "common sense" on concealed carry

For years, we have been hearing about "common sense" with regards to carrying concealed weapons. Some of those things that "common sense" told us have been put to rest. Even though some facts are yet to be released, and other facts out there may turn out to be incorrect, the entire incident was live streamed and put out on Youtube. There are a number of things that are known to be accurate at this time. So....

From now on, I will use this morning's incident in Texas to shut down any of the following arguments:

1 Good guys with guns don't stop mass shootings.
2 You are paranoid if you carry in a church, because nothing happens in church
3 If you carry and engage a mass shooter, all of the concealed carriers will just shoot each other.
4 If a concealed carrier engages a mass shooter, people will die in the crossfire.

Freeloaders- a rant

My wife and I love to travel. We travel a lot, flying, driving, cruising, you name it. In the six years since we have met, we have traveled to 48 states and 18 foreign countries. We take an average of 4 cruises, 3 plane trips, and 6 road trips of at least 200 miles each year. We are the high level tiers of frequent customer clubs with one cruise line, two hotel chains, a rental car company, and two airlines.

Everyone we know thinks that we are vacation experts, so much so that our friends and family constantly asked us for travel advice. This happened so often that we thought it would be a good idea to open a travel agency. This business cost us several thousand dollars to set up. To be a travel agent in Florida requires that you be licensed. To get a license, you must be bonded and insured. So we formed a corporation, got our license, bonds, insurance, and went through training with cruise lines, airlines, and other travel companies so we could use their booking systems.

We thought it would be an easy way to make money. Our friends and family asked for our advice already, so all they had to do was book with us and the cruise line, airline, and hotel would pay us our commission at no extra cost to our friends and families. Everybody wins.

 A few people continued to ask for advice, but when it came time to book did not book through us, even though it cost them nothing. In essence, getting our advice and using our expertise for free.

We finally decided that we were losing money, so we shut down the travel business (those of you who booked, thank you- we will continue to service all of our current bookings) and moved on to other ventures.

The odd part is that the people who sought our advice but never booked through us continue to expect our help and advice. For free. They even then complain when they didn't get the best deal possible, wanting to know why we didn't help them book the cheapest price, get cheap upgrades, or find better deals. Again, for free.

You basically put us out of business, and you still demand freebies. Whoever you are booking your trips through is the one making money off of you. Go ask them for advice. I am done.

To my readers: If any of you provide a service, like doctors, plumbers, electricians, attorneys, handymen, barbers, etc.,  do your families expect your services for free?

If I were the President

If I were the President, I think I would have a bit of fun with the Democrats in Congress. What I would do is issue an order from my home in Florida under Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States. (emphasis added)

Since no one could argue that an impeachment is anything but extraordinary, it would be within the President's powers to order the Democrat held House into session until such time as they transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate. Keep them there over the Christmas break. Alternatively, he could order both houses into session, thus eliminating the ability of Democrat presidential candidates to be on the campaign trail until the impeachment trial is concluded.

Breaking

Shootout between Indiana police and a subject who reportedly has 1,000 rounds of ammo in his house. That sounds like a lot to people who do not shoot, but to shooters that is nothing. There have been times when I shot more than that in a single day. Other than shotgun shells and .32 ACP (I don't own a firearm in that caliber any longer since I sold my Tomcat), I don't have a single caliber that is below 1,000 rounds.

However, the police say that they have been "pinned down" for the past two hours by the high volume of fire. Miami police reportedly called them and advised the Indiana officers to find a family or some small children to hide behind. (OK, the last part isn't true, but that is apparently how Miami cops do things?)

Good riddance

On Tuesday, a man robbed a convenience store at gunpoint. During that robbery, he stole the clerk's car. The police were actively looking for him for two days when a Eustis police Captain heard gunshots and saw a vehicle pulling out of the same convenience store, so the Captain followed it. Without being pulled over, the car stopped and the wanted man jumped out shooting, without warning or preamble. The Captain was shot in the chest and is still in the hospital with that bullet lodged in his back.

Police later caught up with the assailant and ended his life when he refused to obey commands.

It turns out that the dead criminal had just been released from 13 years in prison. He had convictions for armed robbery, vehicle theft, drug dealing and possession, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, kidnapping, and armed burglary.

This guy is one guy that I am glad is no longer with us. The world is that much better without him in it.

I LOL'ed

Case in point

My post of this morning, discussing the police officers who used families as human shields:


I was at the Law of Self Defense website, where a commenter using the handle YERONIMUS PRETORIUS said:

You’re demanding perfection in an imperfect world. Where should the cops have stood in that situation, right out in the open where they would have been shot? You’re confusing prudent behavior with suicide.

What chapter in the police training manual, or where in the Peelian principles does it teach police officers to use children as shields? Remember how we slammed Hamas and Iraq for building military headquarters in the same buildings as hospitals and schools?

If police officers honestly feel that it is appropriate to hide behind children and use them as human shields, then I don’t want to hear another cop EVER tell me how brave they are or how they risk their lives. In fact, I would rather that we have no cops at all. Pussies.

Sick of the thin blue line BS

I have been catching hate from people claiming to be police because I have a problem with the way that the cops handled the UPS shooting in Miami. The police turned this robbery into a double homicide:

Watch this video of cops taking cover behind an SUV with a woman and kids in it. She tries to get out of the line of fire, and the cops stay with the vehicle, using that family as meat shields to protect their cowardly asses:




Now I don't have a problem with the cops chasing the suspects. I don't have a problem with shooting them, and I agree that the cops didn't necessarily have a lot of choice as to where that shootout took place. What I do have a problem with, is the tactics that the police used during the shootout, the most egregious of which was to use Susie Soccermom as a meat shield.

The second was in using citizens as a backstop as 18 of them fired more than 200 rounds downrange without regard for where those bullets were landing:

To paraphrase Steve Martin:

I have a dream. It's not a big dream, it's just a little dream. My dream - and I hope you don't find this too crazy - is that I would like the people of this community to feel that if, God forbid, there were a crime taking place, calling the police department would actually be a wise thing to do. You can't have people, if their family is being raped, robbed, or murdered, saying, "Whatever you do, don't call the police department!" That would be bad.

In this case, while I agree that the criminals needed to be apprehended, the tactics that the police used resulted in two people being killed. That, in my opinion, is more of a tragedy than allowing the criminals to escape with the loot.

Don't sit there and tell me that I can't judge this unless I have been a cop. Any moron knows that real men don't hide behind women and kids in order to save their own candy asses. Or is my toxic masculinity too much for today's police departments?

From an away game

On social media, I made the same point that I did in this post about the $15 minimum wage.

Disney union employee/ complainer: Being a 10+ year cast member, and union representative in my area, sadly I know all too well the financial plights of many of my fellow cast members. Iger will reach hundreds of millions in salary, bonus and options and Disney posts record profits to it's shareholders every quarter. They can do better.

Divemedic: Your post makes the point that the CEO should be paid millions without even meaning to. See, when a CEO runs a company and that company has record profits, the CEO gets large bonuses and salary raises because record profits means that the CEO is doing a good job. Kind of like how a quarterback who leads a team to the Superbowl gets a larger contract.
Pay raises and bonuses are how a company keeps talented people from leaving and taking their skills with them. If Disney didn't pay Iger those bonuses, he would simply take his talent and ability to make a company profitable somewhere else, as soon as that somewhere offered him more money. In the case of minimum wage employees, they make minimum wage because whatever skills they bring to the table don't matter- you are so ordinary and untalented, that if you quit, you would be replaced the next day, and no one would notice the difference.
The stockholders invest in the company because they expect to get profits. Otherwise, there is no reason to invest in the company. Who are the stockholders? They are the pension funds and 401(k) accounts of millions of hard working Americans.
So instead of sitting here with no marketable talent or skills and complaining that you don't make as much as you want, what you do is channel all of that energy that you are using to whine and complain, gain more skills and experience, and then make yourself more valuable. If instead you succeed and get wages increased, you will eventually hit a point where you will be replaced with automation because you have priced your low value labor out of the market.

Second Disney complaining employee:  u are insane and stupid! Rude too. Cast members are what makes Disney go! You can’t automate smiles. Talking to guests. Showing empathy. U have obviously never worked for Disney. U are ignorant. Educate yourself before you make ignorant comments

Some people don't understand business or economics, and this is why they will NEVER understand why the CEO is making so much more than they are- they are just as incapable of understanding the concepts of running a business as a spoon is incapable of tasting the soup.

Virginia

Here is the map of what is happening with regards to using the National Guard to confiscate guns:

Plumbing mystery continues

So my mystery toilet problem update:

After two days of not working, the toilet spontaneously started working again. This is always the pattern. I think it is somehow related to the weather. I suspect that it is caused by the winds blowing from the northeast. I am going to keep track of it. Why do I think that?

Well, I do believe that all of those who commented on my previous post are correct in that it is a vent problem. Let me explain:

I live in a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house. The roof is a gabled roof, with the roof ridge running east to west across the house. This is important to my hypothesis.

There are two lines for sewage that are under my house. They both run north-south. One line is on the east side of the house and services the kitchen and laundry room. It has two vents: one vent pipe that runs up the wall and emerges from the northern slope of the roof, and the second is an under sink AAV valve that is in the island that my kitchen sink is mounted upon.

The second sewage line runs down the west side of the house from the master bath's commode (which is on the southwest corner of the house), past the his and hers sinks, under the shower, and on through the guest bathroom. There is a vent that extends up the wall and emerges from the roof above the guest bathroom, again on the northern slope of the roof. The only other vent for this western line are two AAV valves located under the master bathroom's sinks.

Both vents are clear. The sewage lines are clear. I know, it cost me a $500 plumbers visit, after which they told me nothing was wrong with the plumbing.

My hypothesis is this:
The vents are both on the northern slope of the roof. When the wind is blowing from a certain direction (probably a northern one), the wind is pressurizing the pipes through those northern vents. Once the sewage line is pressurized, this pressure prevents the toilet from flushing. The only thing that could destroy this hypothesis is the fact that no other fixtures, including the toilet in the guest bathroom, which is still on the other line, continues to work.

I don't think it is malfunctioning AAV valves, because while the toilet was malfunctioning I removed the valves under the master bathroom sinks, and the toilet remained dysfunctional.

I am frustrated, the wife is getting aggravated, the plumbers are clueless (yet still billing me for visits), and I am out of ideas.

Turret crawl

I will just leave this right here

Called it

Disney recently announced that they would be increasing their minimum wage to $15 an hour. Now the local fish wrapper is demanding that they increase that wage again, to some unnamed amount called "living wage." In support of this, they claim that Gabby Alcantara-Anderson, who makes $14.75 an hour, is not making enough to support her family and still afford gas money to make the 63 mile commute to her home in Lakeland, so she often spends the night in her car.

I have a few problems with this:
1 She makes $30,600 a year and her husband makes $15,000 a year. The problem here isn't her income, it is his. The article claims that her husband is working two jobs, with the second one being part time 4 days a week at an auto parts store. Even assuming a 4 hour day at the part time gig, he is working 800 hours a year at the second job. Doing the math, that part time job alone would pay him $7000 a year.

2 Look at the picture of her in the paper:

Note that she has a smart phone. Her problem isn't with income, it is that she would rather sleep in her car for lack of gas money that give up her smart phone. It isn't Disney's fault that this family doesn't know the difference between wants and needs.

3. In the article, the woman is complaining that it costs too much to commute from Lakeland, and it is too hard for her and her husband to support themselves, their kid, and her 40-something year old mother. She wants more pay as a result. Why is that her employer's problem?

4. Her checking account has a balance of negative $500 and she claims that they don't know where their next meal will come from, have no savings, but she has tattoos.

5. As much as she is hurting for money, she is on leave from her job so she can do volunteer work for the union.

This entire article is bullshit.

Plumbing mystery

So I have an odd issue with the plumbing in my house. In one of the bathrooms, the toilet occasionally doesn't flush. If you try to use a plunger, the toilet doesn't drain, but you can hear gurgling in the 2 sinks and the shower in that bathroom, and this gurgling comes with a smell of raw sewage. There is another bathroom on the same side of the house which works just fine, and the pipes from the affected bathroom use the same line as the unaffected bathroom. No other drains or fixtures are affected. Here is where it gets odd: - It happens frequently, almost always in the spring and fall - It has been happening for the past 4 years - The toilet will remain clogged for a day or two, and then it spontaneously begins working again - Once when it was clogged, I opened the front door to leave for work, and my wife yelled and told me that opening the door fixed the clog - We had a plumber come out. Of course, by the time he got here, it was working. They put a camera through the pipes, charged us $500 for the hour he was here, and told us there was nothing wrong. Three days later, the toilet stopped working again. The wife gets pretty aggravated. So do I. Any suggestions?

Tuba Skinny

Being originally from New Orleans, my favorite music is usually of the jazz variety. New Orleans is well known for street musicians doing what musicians did for centuries: playing for their supper. Busking is widespread, and the amount of talent that is on the streets of New Orleans can't be matched for the digitally processes screeching that passes for pop music these days. For example, here is a band playing right on the street in New Orleans:




Here they are again, and you will note that they have the collection plate out. This is how many musicians in New Orleans make their living.

Hunting with a Glock 45

I finally have found a gun control law that I will support, as long as it remains narrowly tailored. Current law states that non-citizens cannot purchase firearms in the US, unless they have a hunting license. It seems that the terrorist who attacked the base in Pensacola used that law to his advantage and bought himself a handgun, a Glock 45 to be exact. I would not be opposed to eliminating that particular exception. Even so, are any of my readers familiar with any sort of hunting that you can do in Florida with a 9mm handgun? If a person from Alabama,which is only 8 miles from Pensacola, wishes to buy a handgun in Florida, they would be prohibited by law from purchasing that handgun. In this case, Saudi Arabian terrorists have more rights than US citizens. 

What say you?

On another note, if we are supposedly engaged in a GLOBAL war on terror, why aren't our troops armed while here in the US, at least while on base? The US is a part of the globe, last time I checked. Our entire nation has grown accustomed to the idea that we are safe within our borders. That illusion is going to cost us more.

Snowflakes and helicopter parents

Here is an illustration of what teachers deal with:

A kid in my 10th grade Biology course doesn't turn in any work for several weeks, gets a slew of zeros and is now failing for the quarter. A month later, his mom writes me (his teacher) to demand that I allow him to make up the work that was due as far back as October 6th. Here is the email chain that followed:

From: Angry Mom
Date: November 11, 2019
To: Other teacher
CC: Divemedic
Subject: Lazy Son
I am reaching out to you in regards to my son mentioned above. I am his mother and I am concerned with his grades in school and would like to schedule a parent teacher meeting with you and his other teachers as well to try to figure out why his grades are so low, what’s going on, is he not doing classwork or homework, just to try to get a grasp on what’s going on and a better understanding and some help for him so his grades will improve. Please respond back to me via email so we can schedule a conference please. Thank you in advance and I hope you have a wonderful week.
Sincerely,
Angry Mom

Conference was scheduled for Tuesday the 18th by the other teacher, but I was off that week and didn't attend. Here is the email that I got on December 2:

I’m just following up on my last email regarding my son , Lazy Student. He told me his missing assignments are from a book that you will not allow him to take home. I am asking for a response from you before going to the guidance counselor. He has a free period everyday for a class that he has already finished and I don’t see why he can’t come to your class on that free period and get his missing work turned in. Let me know what options he has as I am trying to prevent him failing your class.
Thank you,
Angry Mom

Note that I took off the week before Thanksgiving. I don't take off many days, and I had weeks of vacation on the books and had to burn some of them. Before I could answer her email (I have students and can only answer emails during my lunch), my computer died and when it was finally fixed by IT on Wednesday, I answered her with this:

I apologize for the delay in my response, my computer died and I have been working without one for the past several days.
 Students may take books home, if they sign one out. However, there is no homework in this class, and students are given significant amounts of time to complete these activities in class. If they fail to complete them in class, they can bring the assignment in the next day for full credit, and up to five days later for partial credit.
 Unfortunately, Lazy's free period is during sixth period, and I am not teaching Biology during that period. I cannot dedicate time away from my other students and their needs to provide specialized instruction to students who were not willing to complete their work when it was assigned, as the rest of their classmates were able to do.
 At this point, he currently has a 45 percent F for the quarter, and there is little that can be done to salvage his grade. His best hope is to spend the weekend studying for his quarter exam, which he will be taking on Monday, and to study for the midterm exam that he will be taking the following week. Perhaps a high score on one or both of those exams would serve to increase his grade. 

This apparently pissed her off, because I got this back in return:

So you’re telling me that you won’t allow him to sign a book out and bring it home and still turn in his missing assignments Because it’s past the free period and we were not made aware of this until now because you were on vacation for ten days and not present for the conference we had with his guidance counselor and then the kids were out for a week due to thanksgiving break ? His other teachers are allowing him to still turn in his work so that he doesn’t fail but you will not allow it ? Even possibly taking points off for it being late ? Is that what you are telling me ? You would rather let my child fail when you have the capability of helping him catch it up as his other teachers are ? I just want to be clear. Lazy is in trouble for not getting this work done when he should have but I have been reaching out to you for weeks now with only getting a response yesterday. I will wait for your response to this email.
Thank you ,
Angry Mom

So here was my next answer to her, which I also carbon copied to my boss:

Again, students are given ample time to complete all assignments in class. If the assigned work is not completed, students are told to complete it and bring it back the next day. If they fail to do so, the work is considered to be late work. As far as late work being accepted, the syllabus states that if any assignment is late, one full letter grade will be deducted for each class day that the assignment is late. After the third day, the assignment will not be accepted and the student will receive a ‘zero’ for the assignment. I have actually tried to be lenient in Lazy's case, and offered to let him turn in missing work that was up to a week late. This policy is in place because the concepts taught in this class are taught in a specific sequence, with the knowledge learned in one week being applied to concepts being mastered in the current week. With Biology being a vocabulary intensive course, a student who falls behind will have difficulty understanding classroom discussions if they do not understand the words being spoken. This makes it difficult to master the course content. Since each course has its own requirements and pacing, this means that each teacher has their own policy for how they deal with late work. How those teachers choose to present their course and how they choose to handle late work has no bearing whatsoever on my course or classroom.

 All students have been aware of that since the first day of school, as we reviewed this policy during that time. In addition, the syllabus is on the class website. I will attach a copy of the syllabus to this email. It would be unfair to show favoritism by allowing one student an exception to this policy while holding others accountable. The fact that I was on vacation has absolutely no bearing on this policy, and I am not interested in debating vacation policies or my personal life with my students or their parents. 

This is when she became unglued:

Thank you for your rather RUDE response!! Teachers are supposed to help struggling students and the fact that you WERE on vacation and therefore not present for the parent/teacher/guidance counselor DOES have bearing on this situation!! But you have made it quite clear what kind of teacher you are and that you would rather have students fail then help them due to “your policies” which I am not expecting leniency for JUST MY CHILD !!! I feel it is your responsibility to first of all help your students and second of all to RESPOND TO A PARENT EMAIL ASKING FOR HELP and not some lame excuse about your computer being broken !!! I have emailed you 4 times in the past month. I’m quite certain there are computers at the school that you have access to. This will not end here. I will be contacting the dean when I get back in town requesting a conference with YOU !! 

I will not be answering this email, and have referred her to my boss. 

Active shooter

Active shooter at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

Accidental rifle purchase

Couple buys a baby bouncer from Goodwill, and there is a Mossberg 715 inside of the box. What a bargain! A $300 rifle for $10.

What I don't understand is why the police confiscated it.

Gun violence reporting

This is crappy reporting.

First off, I doubt that the journalist interviewed Harris, even though he was quoted in the article, because the only person named Harris in this story is one of the decedents.

“Jerric, you know, he’s not a bad (person), he’s not bad at all,” Harris said.

Second, the story claims that "there are victims on both sides,” but I don't consider the person shot in a gun battle with police after he murdered someone to be a "victim." He is a murderer, a criminal. This is the basic problem that I have with the left: they view all people who are shot as "victims," even if the so called victim is the perpetrator.

Third, the family of this murderer then begins campaigning for gun control because their choir boy relative isn't a bad person, so what happened must be the fault of the gun he used, and of the police who obviously overreacted and killed yet another black man for no reason whatsoever.

Journalism majors

Journalists know jack and shit about anything. How can I take this article seriously when it gets basic facts wrong? Water is NOT 800 percent denser than air, it is 800 TIMES denser than air? That means water is 80,000 percent denser than air. Popular Mechanics should be able to get something that basic correct.