Saturday, October 28, 2017

Recertification course

Spending the day taking some courses. Two of them: The first being Basic Life Support, which is a CPR class for healthcare providers. I am also taking Advanced Cardiac Life Support, which is (as the name implies) the more advanced version. I offer this video as a primer on how to perform CPR:




Even though it isn't as technically accurate as the film for the course, it is certainly not as dry.

What happens when a cop is a burglar?

A Palm Beach cop is caught burglarizing a home. Evidence found in his possession indicates that this was not his first burglary. Florida has a castle law. What happens when you shoot a burglar who is armed with at least one handgun, but turns out to be a cop? 

The law says that you can't use force in a few cases, but here is the part about cops:

(d) The person against whom the defensive force is used or threatened is a law enforcement officer, as defined in s. 943.10(14), who enters or attempts to enter a dwelling, residence, or vehicle in the performance of his or her official duties and the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using or threatening to use force knew or reasonably should have known that the person entering or attempting to enter was a law enforcement officer. (emphasis added)

It would seem that the emphasized text above would have you in the clear, but this would certainly be a muddy case. 


Friday, October 27, 2017

Best and Brightest

Florida, in a bid to attract the "Best and Brightest" began a campaign a few years ago where they want to attract intelligent people to the teaching profession. If you meet the criteria, the state gives you a check for $7,000-10,000. The rules are simple:

- must be a classroom teacher

- The person has to have scored in the 80th percentile on the SAT or ACT, AND

- Has to have an evaluation of "Highly Effective" or
- Has to be a first year employee of the school district and not yet received an evaluation.

Since I am new to this district, and state law requires that 50% or more of teacher evaluations include "student growth" as measured by their improvement in standardized testing, and my student growth for last year can't be measured because they weren't mine for most of the school year, I am eligible for the money.

Except that the school is denying it, saying that since they couldn't evaluate my effectiveness through testing my students, I had a choice: they could simply assign to me the average growth of all students in the school, or they could use the English tests of my students. Either way, this would not result in enough student growth for me to be eligible to receive the incentive. They tried to cushion the blow by telling me that they are giving me a $250 a year raise next fall.

I have been a teacher for over three years. During my first year, a Vice-principal threw me under the bus with a parent, and lied about me to make himself look better. He and the principal got fired at the end of the year.

During my second year, a student with a rich, well connected attorney for a father was upset that she got a C on one of my Chemistry tests. The father called the school, and the Principal began investigating me. He spent a week questioning my students. He put a hidden recording device in my classroom.  The principal told me that out of the 50 students they questioned, all but three of them had positive things to say. He went on to claim that this was probably due to the fact that the students were afraid of retribution. I then said "So when a student complains about not liking my class, they are being accurate and truthful, but when they are happy with my class, they must be lying?" Three days later, the Principal called me into his office, and they fired me without cause, which is legal in Florida. Even for teachers with an annual contract. I got another job in less than two weeks. Six weeks after I left, my students had high passing rates for the state exam- 76%. The state average is 64%.

During my third year, I was told by my new Principal to confiscate a student's cell phone for texting in class, send that phone to the office, and tell him to come get it from the Vice-Principal. I did so. The student came into my class during lunch and physically attacked me in an attempt to get his phone back. The school did not support me. I spent two months on modified assignment before resigning. After I quit, the school contacted the state Department of Education to have me investigated. They also insinuated that I was, as a male, making inappropriate sexual comments to female students. After nearly a year of investigating, during which the state sent an investigator to the school to interview 20 of my students, I was cleared of any wrongdoing. In total, my legal fees were more than $4,000. The student who attacked me is going to college on a football scholarship.

Now in my fourth year, this latest outrage is costing me at least $7,000. I have finally had enough. It wasn't about the money. After all, if money was all I cared about, I would have stayed in the medical field.

I pointed out to my wife that I can go back to the medical profession, where a local hospital is hiring people with my qualifications for 75% more than I make as a teacher, but it will mean night shift and no more summers off.  I would be working three 12 hour shifts a week. She has agreed that I should begin looking to go back into the medical field after the first of the year. Luckily, my medical licenses are still active, I just have to take a couple of refresher courses. I will be taking them this weekend. .

I am done. The education system is broken beyond repair, and teachers are not valued employees. I hope to be out of there before spring. This is why the average teacher lasts less than five years in Florida: no money, no respect, and knowing that the entire system is failing.

Armed in a nonpermissive environment: Sea World edition

I detest security theater. The security measures that have been put in place at various public venues have not done a thing to actually make us safer, and actually make us less safe. All these measures have done is make people FEEL safe, while providing no real safety. There is a lot of crime on the property of the theme parks, even being perpetrated by the very employees of the parks themselves, and not just a few times, either.

A few years ago, I took a class on terrorism at a local college in pursuit of my degree in Public Safety. One of the things that I did for the class was plan a terrorist attack on a soft target in the area, and then see what steps should have been taken to prevent it. As a result, I saw that the security at these locations was there only for show. I continued to check other locations and saw how flimsy the security was, and used some of these checks as the basis for a post or two.

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.

The latest theme park to be tested is Sea World. This park announced that they are tightening security, with multiple police officers working off duty, in uniform, as Sea World screeners. Supposedly, all guests entering the park must pass through magnetometers. It seems like it would be difficult for a terrorist, deranged criminal, or other person with ill intent to get into the park. I decided to try.

It turned out to be trivially easy. I signed up to dine at SeaWorld's "Dine with Sharks" restaurant. We were told to meet the employees at a side entrance of the park, where we had our bags checked before boarding a shuttle bus. Since I didn't have a bag, I got right on the bus while carrying a Smith & Wesson Shield in 9mm with a spare magazine, and a can of pepper spray.

The bus drove through a back gate, where we were released into the theme park itself in order to eat dinner and then explore the park. We didn't have to circumvent security, the theme park's employees did it for us.

Even though a man with a gun entered the park, nothing happened.

Keep this in mind:

1 I did not enter in violation of the law. When I enter places armed, understand that I am not breaking the law. I have a concealed weapons permit, and although the company may not like the fact that I am armed, it is completely legal.

2 I am not interesting in debating the basis for concealed carry. One of the biggest comments I hear is how you don't need a gun at Disney or anywhere else, unless you are in a "bad" neighborhood. I think this is a rather naïve position to take, but if you don't think you need to carry, then don't. Just don't try and stop me for choosing to carry. I would, however point out that theme parks are a dangerous place, with even Federal law enforcement officers being kidnapped and carjacked there. Sometimes it is the Disney security guards themselves committing the crimes. Even the terrorist who was the shooter in Orlando had scouted Disney as a possible target. 

3 I also do not want to debate the morality of carrying against a property owner's wishes. I don't care what his wishes are. I don't owe him a thing, and I am free to ignore his wishes as I please, as long as I am following the law. 

Think of the above rules, and consider this:

A criminal or terrorist will bring a weapon in to these places, and doesn't care about the law, the owner's wishes, or whether or not concealed carry is a good idea. If I can legally sneak a weapon into these places, a criminal or terrorist could also do so illegally with the intent of killing, robbing, or kidnapping you. 

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Right of the People to alter or abolish it

People want to be able to live their lives by the rules they set for themselves. That is universal.

The second thing that many people want is to be able to force others to live by rules that they themselves set for those others. Those many who would force others to live by those rules do so through strength. That strength can be obtained through physical toughness: the weak are overpowered by those who are larger, faster, or can lift heavier things. It can be obtained through force of numbers: the many overpower the few.

We establish governments to support both of those goals. A limited government can support the goal of freedom. The danger is that the government with enough power to allow one group to overpower the other, and force rules on others, has enough power to take everyone's freedom, leaving all citizens at the mercy of the governing power at the helm.

The founders wrote about this (emphasis added):

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
When we established the government, the intent was to restrict its powers, so that the second goal of using it to control others was impossible. When that fails, people will want to part ways with that government. Just as the citizens of Catalonia are doing, or at least trying to do. Their government is responding the way that governments always try to do. They are using force and clamping down.

This is going to be instructive.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Mags and stuff for sale

I have a few magazines and parts for some firearms that I no longer own, and I wish to sell.

I have 13 magazines that fit G3 pattern rifles, such as the H&K91, or the PTR91. They are missing some bluing on the edges, but work fine. $2 each.

I have a 40 round steel AK pattern magazine. Like new $10.

Also, 3 Glock 19 magazines, factory. Like new. $20 each.

I will sell all of the magazines as a lot for $85.

I also have a stainless steel extended, threaded match grade barrel for a Glock 19. It has had less than 200 rounds through it. Storm Lake manufacture, 1/2"  28 threads for suppressor. With thread protector. It is 4.75" long. I am selling this barrel for $170. 

All prices are plus shipping. Let me know where you are, and I will quote you a price for shipping. I will not ship to places where I know they are illegal to possess, such as NY, MD, MA, HI, NJ, CA, CO, or CT. I will also not ship to IL. Also, I make as much effort as I can to weed out prohibited areas, but you are responsible to ensure that the items are legal to own in your area.

If you are interested, let me know in comments and make an offer.

Stupidity on TV

My wife was watching a show called "Chicago Fire" where some people, including an off duty paramedic, were trapped in a building collapse of a parking garage. One of the vehicles had a CB radio in it. The trapped people were listening to the CB, and heard the rescuers on their radios outside saying they were pulling back.

This is stupid. CB radios operate in the 11 meter band, meaning that the wavelength is about 11 meters. That makes the frequency near 27 mHz. This band is exclusively used for CB radios. The signal is an AM analog signal.

Public safety radios are allocated different bands. Chicago is operating in the 460 mHz band, and they are using FM digital signals. There are some channels in Chicago that are analog, but they are still in the 460 mHz band.

This requires different radios, different antennas, and the two are nowhere near compatible.

In short, there is NO WAY that an AM CB radio in the 27mHz band can receive an FM digital signal in the 460 mHz band. 

Thursday, October 19, 2017

K9 cops

For years, police have arrested anyone who harms a police K9, claiming that the dogs are defacto police dogs. There is a Federal law that makes it a felony to harm police dogs.  I have long said that, if it is a crime for a private citizen to harm a dog, then police officers should also face charges if, through negligence or deliberate action, they bring harm to a police dog.

Well, a police officer left his K9 in a police car outside of the courthouse for hours. The dog died, and the cop is facing criminal charges. He is trying to get them dismissed. I think he should face charges and pay the price.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

FEMA makes no sense

After the hurricane passed, many of the people in my area filed for disaster assistance. Two weeks later, many of them received checks for $800 or more. No inspections, no questions asked. I asked them, and the ones who got the cash said that they had no damage to their homes, and told FEMA so. They got a check anyway. All I got was an inspector who came to my house, and a denial letter saying that we didn't have enough damage to receive anything.

The inspector told us that the $800 was only given away during the first two weeks, and now that the disaster was more than a  month ago, that money was no longer available. The thing is, we applied just a week after the storm, and were told we had to wait for an inspection.

The government makes no sense at all.

Monday, October 16, 2017

Errors in testing

So a man who was arrested for possession of Methamphetamines, after two field test kits said that white flakes found on his floorboard were drugs, sues the city of Orlando after the state crime lab certifies that they were actually the frosting from a glazed donut and wins $37,500.

The problem here is that the cops use their own pocket knives to put the sample into the test kit. The knives are contaminated with drugs from previous tests. So the test turns out positive.

Cops should have to report when they screw up arrests like this, so a person arrested is able to bring up the cops error rate in court. Drug dogs, too. When the police department makes a mistake like this, at least part of the money should come from the cop's pocket.

Back to business

Just a week ago, I posted that the casinos in Las Vegas would not be able to search everyone entering the casino. It turns out that I was right:

In the days after the shooting, visitors found marked police SUVs parked outside their hotels along the Strip. Security employees of the Wynn Las Vegas and Encore casino-resorts used hand-held metal detectors to check bags. Guards asked some visitors to pop their trunks.
But those measures have since been scaled back. A tour of several major resorts found no apparent new security measures other than guards checking room keys at Mandalay Bay.
With more than 20,000 people a day entering these mega-casinos, it would be a logistical nightmare to search all of them. Not to mention the fiscal cost and the inconvenience. Remember that people go to Vegas to leave their cares at home, and the goal of the casino is to have people carefree and gambling. You can't do that if it feels like you are in a prison. 

Sunday, October 15, 2017

2 gun limit

Slate has gone full retard. They published an article on October 13th that forwards the idea that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms, but since it doesn't specify which arms or how many, the people should be limited to two guns each: a pistol, and a shotgun. That's it- two guns per person, unless you apply for a license to own more and show a need to own those extra weapons. The license, according to Slate, will cost $200 and will list the serial numbers and descriptions of the guns owned.

The author is a former staffer at the Brady Campaign. He goes full retard here:
First, the Constitution and its text are a starting point, not an end point, for determining what gun regulations federal, state, and local governments may pass.
In support of this argument, the reporter admits that there is no right to gay marriage, and in this he exposes one of the fundamental flaws in his argument: the Constitution isn't now, and was never intended to be, a list of the rights of the people. The document is a list of the powers that were granted to the Federal government. Nowhere in that document is the power granted to regulate marriage, nor arms. Of course there are other, more obvious flaws.

One obvious one is, if the Second not mentioning the number of guns a person may own allows the government to arbitrarily limit the number of arms, then the same reasoning could be used to limit the number of books one may own, or the number of articles that may be written by a reporter. Of course, the comments to the article address this:

I originally spent over an hour refuting the rest of this idiotic article, but I tired of it. I am not going to change their minds. They also published this drivel. Don't let anyone tell you that no one is trying to take your guns.

I am tired of arguing. So here is my new answer:  I own guns because fuck you. If you think you have the votes and the ability to deal with the civil war that will follow, then go ahead and ban them.

Pass the law, and then order the cops to go door to door and take them. Your plan, aside from being based upon a flawed legal analysis, violates not only the Second Amendment, but the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth.

Even so, if the law you proposed were passed, there are practical considerations: How are you going to know when a person already owns two guns? Registration? Who will manage this? How will you pay for it? Have you considered what will happen when people refuse to obey? Or simply make their own? I can make an AR15 from scratch with hand tools. As long as they are illegal, I may as well make them with a happy switch. All of the felonies after the first are free. How will you prevent that?

What happens to all of the cops who kick in doors? Are you prepared to deal with hundreds of dead cops and the martial law that will inevitably follow? Really? Keep in mind that the same people who want to restrict guns to everyone but the military and the police are the same people who despise the police and military. This is a win for them- they get to watch groups of people they hate annihilate each other, while they sit safe- or so they thing- in their ivory towers observing their intellectual inferiors. Or so they think.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Everyone is suddenly a firearms expert

I ran across this post where a guy is claiming that the shooter in Vegas knew nothing about guns because guns are hard to shoot, and courts can't issue secret gag orders.

Here is my open letter as a reply:
There are plenty of courts that issue sealed orders, beginning with the FISA court. Even regular courts routinely issue gag orders that are sealed. I myself have been involved with a court case that involves a gag order, and that order has been in effect and sealed for nearly five years.

Bump stocks affect accuracy because it is impossible to hold the weapon on target with high precision while the thing is bouncing back and forth in the stock. The distance isn't that great, according to Google maps, it is only 280 yards from the hotel to the stage. It is 400 yards to the center of the concert area. My ballistics table says that you only have about a 25 inch drop at that range, and a 55 grain bullet still has more than 300 foot pounds of energy at 400 yards.

The guy is full of crap when he talks about the shooting distance being the hypotenuse. The bullet only sees the horizontal component of the distance when computing drop, but sees the flight distance (hypotenuse) when computing energy. Even so, the hypotenuse of the triangle formed by a 32 story hotel and a 400 yard horizontal distance is only 414 yards. That really doesn't matter a whole lot to energy.

As to accuracy: At 400 yards, one minute of angle is equal to approximately 4.18 inches. This means that the concert venue at 500 feet wide, being 400 yards away, is more than 1400 minutes of angle wide. The shooter wasn't trying to hit individual people, which I admit would take quite a bit of skill. Instead, he was shooting into an area the size of two football fields, and hoping to hit any of the 22,000 people who were densely packed into that area. This would be the equivalent of shooting at a standard highway billboard (which is 48 feet wide) at a distance of about 100 yards. NOT a difficult shot. Stevie Wonder could make a shot like that.

Only about 200 of the injuries/deaths were due to GSW. The rest of the injuries were due to being trampled or otherwise injured while taking cover. There were 22,000 people in the venue, and he hit less than 1% of them- meaning he missed more than 99% of the time.

I don't know why I am getting sucked into these discussions.

Incompetence, deliberate, or something else?

With regards to the Vegas shooting, there are many theories. Some are outrageous, some buying the official version, some make more sense than others. Everyone seems to have their own theory. Why there are so many theories is obvious: the official investigation is being publicly and obviously bungled.

The Las Vegas metro police cannot even establish basic facts. When did the shooter (I won't use his name) check in to the hotel? Was it the 28th? Or was it the 25th? Don't the police department, the FBI, and all of the other agencies involved have the ability to check the hotel register?  This seems rather basic to me.

They cannot even establish a timeline. When was the security guard shot? Six minutes before the crowd was fired upon? Immediately before the crowd was fired upon? After? When was 911 called? As a former emergency worker who was involved in hundreds of criminal and internal investigations, I can tell you that ALL radio traffic and 911 calls are recorded and time stamped. Why can't the cops reliably establish a timeline of something that their own systems record and time stamp?

Even though there are several receipts from room service showing that there were two people in the room, there has been no explanation of who the two are.There are reports that there was a phone charger that could not be matched to any of the shooter's devices, then the next day, the cops say "nevermind, we figured it out." Matching phones to chargers: a skill that any average American middle school student has mastered, seemingly can't be handled by the FBI or a major metropolitan police department.

While his car was out of the garage, his room was opened with the key. The police and FBI have not even tried to explain this one away. More incompetence? Cover up? Who  knows?

Instead of explaining all of this, the FBI's official line is that there was not a second person. Since the FBI can't figure out who the person was, there must not be one, and if there is not a second person, then the shooter was obviously faking the existence of the second person. Case solved. This is the height of incompetence and arrogance. The FBI is essentially saying "If we don't know it, it must not exist."

It is a fact that no one can count cards or cheat in a Vegas casino, yet the shooter- a man who is 6 foot four, was not seen on camera entering or leaving the place even once. To haul nearly a thousand pounds of firearms and ammunition into the room would have taken several trips, even using a luggage cart.

The security guard who was shot: Where is he? Why did he disappear? Why isn't there a security guard licensed in Nevada by that name? Was he registered under a fake name? Or is his legal name different than the name that people use? After all, I used to have people call me by my middle name, and maybe that is the case here. Even so, why did he disappear?

A reporter trying to get answers to these questions has had her press credentials taken away, and is now prohibited from attending LVMP press conferences. She was also chased away from the home of the missing security guard by an armed man who claims to work for On Scene security. On Scene security doesn't have an active license to operate in the state of Nevada. Their license expired in January, and the corporate address is a company that provides virtual office space.

There are so many problems and inconsistencies with the investigation that it is no wonder that people are creating their own theories to fill the void. Nothing about this makes sense. There are a few old sayings that come to mind: "Never ascribe to conspiracy that which can be explained by incompetence."

At the same time, there is Occam's razor, which essentially says that when presented with multiple theories about a phenomenon, the one which requires the fewest assumptions (the simplest) is usually the correct one.

In this case, we are asked to choose between two explanations:
1 That a man who has no public persona, no political opinion, no history of mental illness, was a person who made more than $5 million a year but can't fully explain where it came from, somehow managed to spend months or even years plotting to commit one of the largest mass murders in US history without leaving a trail for investigators to follow, and without alerting any of his family and close friends that anything was amiss, and without anyone figuring out that he was a "gun nut." No one has EVER been able to do this.

Then, after all of that, when the FBI, the local cops, the ATF, and every other police agency you can think of begin to investigate the shooting, they handle the investigation with so much incompetence, that they can't even establish who was in the room, or when he even checked into the room. This is the same FBI that arrested Tim McVeigh less than an hour after the Oklahoma City bombing.

2 That we are all getting played. The FBI and police know more than they are letting on, and are covering up key facts in this crime. The question is: Why? Who is playing us? The shooter? The cops and FBI? Or someone else? and to what end? This explanation creates more questions than answers.

This is fertile ground for conspiracy theorists.


Thursday, October 12, 2017

Valid Question

If the shooter in Vegas was shot at 9:59 and called it in, then the shooter was firing on the crowd until 10:15, then why did it take LVMPD dispatchers until 10:25 to declare that there was an active shooter, and why did police wait until 11:20 to enter his room?

How many people bled to death while waiting for help that wouldn't come in time? Nearly an hour and a half passed before police entered that room.

Gun ownership: because when you need help, police are only an hour and a half away...

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

I support the NAACP

The NAACP says that the owner of the Dallas Cowboys is violating the Constitutional Rights of his employees by not allowing them to protest while they are on the clock. So is the NAACP saying that an employer may not violate the Constitutional Rights of their employees while they are at work? I want to see the result of THAT court case, so I can finally begin carrying guns at my workplace without having to worry about my 2A rights being violated...


(This is satire)

Monday, October 9, 2017

Disney: Guns only for the rich

Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, said this week that we should be outraged by the Las Vegas shooting, and should be discussing gun control.

On the same page is a link to a story where Disney's government arm, Reedy Creek Improvement District, has budgeted $13.7 million to hire off duty deputies at $40 per hour to work at the park. I guess when you have millions to hire gunslingers to guard you and your business,  you can be for gun control, knowing that the laws will never apply to your hired guns. According to Disney, guns are only for the rich, because fuck the poor.

Lying liars that lie

So Steve Wynn was interviewed on 60 minutes about guns in his hotels and had this to say:

WALLACE: So, given all of that, and I know that you had a hidden metal detectors and you had profilers in your casinos, watching the people walking in and out, would any of those measures have prevented Steven Paddock from checking in to one of your hotels?
WYNN: Well, I know that my friends at MGM are particularly fastidious about trying to protect their employees and their guests. Having said that, there are couple of things in retrospect and it's always good to look over your shoulder on these things. But we have a routine with housekeeping, with room service, with audio visual, who anybody that goes in the room to do an inspection.
We also have rules about do not disturb. If a room goes on do not disturb for more than 12 hours, we investigate. We constantly -- we don't allow guns in this building unless they're being carried by our employees and there's a lot of them. But if anybody's got a gun and we find them continually, we eject them from the hotel.


He then goes on to claim that a person with a "Do Not Disturb" sign on a room for several days would trigger an investigation. I call BULLSHIT. First, are we to expect that a man who was known to gamble $100,000 an hour in a casino, who was a high roller, and a millionaire would be subjected to his room being summarily searched because of a "Do Not Disturb" sign?

Hidden metal detectors? What are you going to do when every person who goes through it sets it off because of their cell phones or keys?

I seriously doubt that the casinos in Vegas are going to search every person who attempts to enter or leave, and search the luggage of every guest. That just isn't a viable, long term solution. People would simply stop going to Vegas. Like he said, there are 15,000 to 20,000 people a day entering those casinos. It simply isn't practical to search each and every one of them.

What about the SHOT show? Are you going to tell them that they are no longer welcome?

Second: In June, I stayed in Las Vegas for a week. I spent two nights in the Freemont Street area, and 5 nights at New York, New York. During our stay, we walked into nearly every casino on the Las Vegas strip, including the Wynn. Since my Florida CCW is covered by reciprocity, I was able to legally carry in Las Vegas, and I carried all over that town. Including in the Wynn resort.

Not once was I approached by police, security, or anyone else.

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Inconsistencies

There are a number of things that just don't make sense to me about the Las Vegas shooter. I'm not the only one. Now, I am not by any means saying that there was any sort of conspiracy, but there is a lot here that makes no sense to me.

First, there are the statistical anomalies: A 64 year old millionaire with a graduate level education, no political affiliations, no social media presence, and no history of mental illness just doesn't fit the profile. I read an article with quotes from a former FBI profiler who is just as stumped.

Then there are the other anomalies:

The note left behind turns out to have included hand-written calculations about where he needed to aim to maximize his accuracy and kill as many people as possible. To me, this seems to indicate one of two things: either a ballistics table, or a range card. Either of those would indicate a level of knowledge that is higher than the average shooter, not just the average American. A range card is used as a guide for soldiers, particularly ones who are going to be using a weapon to cover an area with fire, as opposed to using a weapon to engage point targets. Below is a range card, right out of the Army field training manual:



In other words, he was planning on using his automatic weapon to place fire into a "beaten zone" to fire into a crowd, where hits on specific people don't matter. All that mattered was putting fire into the zone, and count on the law of averages to get hits on individuals. Again, this would indicate a level of training and knowledge that is beyond what most people would know. Since this man is not alleged to have had any military training, where did he get the training?

Then there is the large amounts of cash he had. He paid cash for a house, gambled upwards of a million dollars a year, and there is a report that he won $5 million in 2015 by playing video poker in casinos. I am a bit of a gambler myself. I am not a high roller, but I do gamble enough to get limited comps, like the occasional hotel stay or cruise. Let me say this: The games are not predictable over the long term for people to pull those kinds of winnings out over the long term. Sure, there are people who hit the VERY rare large jackpot, but casinos use those large winnings as loss leaders to entice gamblers. People do not win over the long term, or everyone with some math skill would be in there making millions, and the casinos would go out of business. A more likely story is that he was using the casinos to launder money from some sort of illegal enterprise. Gambling is a great way to hide the source of illegal money.

Who pays cash for a house? Even millionaires don't travel around with a briefcase full of cash. They would pay with a cashier's check or bank transfer.

There are other anomalies pointed out here, and this is where things begin sounding like a badly written conspiracy theory novel:

He is a licensed pilot who let his medical certificates expire, but who still owned 2 aircraft. One of Paddock's airplanes, tail number N5343M, was an SR-20, in production since 1999, and retails for $390K.
It's now registered to Volant Associates, LLC (you should check out their website, and read the "Careers" page, to see if you get a whiff of Christians In Action as strongly as I did). The tail number is active, yet apparently, the plane has recorded not a single registered flight in the last three years.

Now the interesting part, if you go to faa.gov and put the same tail number into their search engine N5343M, you will find that the FAA says the n-number is inactive, and the last registration was a C152 (different aircraft) to some guy in San Diego CA. And no mention of the current registration by Volant LLC, or Mr Paddock. The FAA database is updated every business day at midnight. So, it looks like someone ether scrubbed the FAA database and forgot or didn't know that flightaware posted the same info.

(Pssst! Say, just wondering, who can double-register tail numbers, and make flight records go away? Asking for a friend.)

These anomalies beg for Internet detectives to spin yarns. What scares me is knowing that people are capable of doing stuff like this to advance an agenda- after all, the Obama administration came up with Fast and Furious. I'm not saying that there was a conspiracy here, all I am saying is that it isn't impossible.

Saturday, October 7, 2017

From London

Here is a picture of London police not carrying guns:





So is this attack going to result in demands for car control?

Friday, October 6, 2017

This week's lessons

The Democrats have come out dancing in the blood of victims of a shooting, as they always do, demanding more laws that wouldn't have dine a thing to prevent this shooting. However, there were some important things learned here:

There were many on the anti gun side who want to completely eliminate the Second Amendment and outlaw guns. Let's say that the plan comes true, the 2A is repealed, and a statute making guns illegal is passed: "Ladies and gentlemen, turn them all in. Here is a gift card for some sneakers."

There are at minimum, 400 million firearms in the US, likely held by at least 100 million people. Let's say that you get 99.9% of them, which would be a miracle, since Canada and Connecticut didn't get even 50% compliance the guns they wanted registered. That would leave 400 thousand firearms and 100 thousand gun owners.

Someone will have to go out and get those missing guns. That means door to door cops kicking in doors. Many of these gun owners would not be happy about this, and this will result in a significant number of cops getting killed. The end result is that the military will wind up going door to door, and gun owners will have to turn them in, go into hiding, or fight. 

One guy just committed a shooting that police admit they had no way of stopping. He was killed, but managed to kill 58 people in the process. Imagine the bloodbath if even 10% of these rogue gun owners did the same. When the dust settles, are the American people willing to see hundreds of thousands of deaths, military searches, and all of the fallout that would entail?


Thursday, October 5, 2017

Florida Assault Weapons Ban

Here come the politicians dancing in the blood of the Vegas victims to advance an agenda, as always. The proposed Florida law would make it illegal, as of July 1, 2018:
- to own nearly all semiautomatics.
- to own a magazine that holds more than 7 rounds
- a person who can prove that they owned such a weapon or magazine before October 1, 2017 can still own it, but must apply for a license for each such weapon or magazine. (No word on how much this will cost)
If a person doesn't have a license, they must sell it to a dealer, or turn it over to the police.
- the law also says that gun shows can only be held by or under the supervision of police
Violating this law will be a felony.


1 How is backdating the day to October 1 NOT ex post facto? 
2 Hopefully this will die in committee. 
3 Keep an eye on this one.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Don't just stand there, DO something!

This is one of the dumbest things that I have ever seen: A proposed law that makes it illegal to have rifles in a hotel room that faces a public venue, as if a spree killer would care about such a law.
While they are at it, they should pass laws against killing more than ten people without a permit, and then they could redefine Pi to 3.1, so math will be easier for people to learn.