He's wrong, you know ...

Somebody isn't reading the right newspapers.

It's either Bush's fault, or we're all dupes of the EVIL NRA!

What are we suppose to do?  ENFORCE our Immigration laws?


Honduran President Says U.S. Weak Laws To Blame For Child Migration Crisis | Fox News Latino:
(June 13, 2014)

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernndez, on a visit to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Friday, said the U.S. has to strengthen efforts to control the humanitarian crisis that both nations face with unaccompanied migrant children crossing the U.S. Southwest border.
 At the end of his speech to the chamber, where the Honduran head of state discussed his nation’s short- and long-term investment projects with U.S. businesses, Hernndez seemed to blame the U.S. for the crisis – saying a lack of immigration reform and weak drug laws has contributed to the problem.
 It is unfair, he said, for his nation to tackle the surge of migrant unaccompanied children alone.

And what will you do for an encore? Tap dance?

Hundreds to march over Brooklyn Bridge to call for tougher gun control laws | Fox News:

 Hundreds of demonstrators are planning to march across the Brooklyn Bridge to call for tougher gun control laws. Saturday's demonstration comes after a wave of mass shootings across the U.S.  It is being underwritten by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the nation's most visible gun control advocates. The marchers will include relatives of some of those slain in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. They will gather in downtown Brooklyn and then march across the bridge to City Hall. The group will then hold a demonstration outside the building's gates to call for tougher federal firearms regulations.

(And they thought OCT demonstrations looked like a bunch of performing seals!)

Surviving the CHRONOGRAPH Stage At A Major Match

Traditional Ammo Is Fundamentally Flawed

USPSA match scoring is based on three factors: Speed, Power and Accuracy.

The ACCURACY is based on the points you score on each target .. less penalties.
The SPEED is based on the time you take to complete the stage. ("Timed Fire" is judged a little differently, but still ....)
The POWER factor is based on your declared power factor, except at a Major Match when they actually determine the power factor of the ammunition you are using, on that day, at that place.

And if your ammunition doesn't actually perform to the level that you have expected, it can ruin your whole day.

What I want to talk about is one of the points that I include in my "Introduction to USPSA" Safety Class, when we start to talk about "POWER FACTOR" in the segment about Scoring Your Target.

This is A True Story, and I tell it once every month when I give a class

Don't be Naive

Naivety! | Defense Training International:
Naivety! Posted by John S. Farnam on 9 Jun 2014 9 June 14 CCW Naivety:

The vast majority of state CCW licensees are genuinely “good” people, but many have had precious little relevant training, and much of it fraught with errors and unrealistic expectations. For example, many naively believe:
1) When they see “bad things” happening in public places (which don’t involve them directly) that they should step forward and “get involved” and “do some good.”
2) VCAs will do what they are told to do, because they’re intimidated by the gun in the hands of the righteous CCW holder.
 3) The CCW holder will be thanked and congratulated for his courageous intervention and good intentions ...

[go, read the whole thing]

This goes directly against many of the opinions that I talked about earlier today in "VPC: It's The NRA's Fault!".

I yield to the man who knows what he is talking about.


With the possible exception of the VPC accusing Wilcox of being a dupe of the NRA.

The problem isn't with the concept of "willingness", it's about "readiness".

Maybe we should all attend John Farnham's Defensive Training classes!\.

VPC: It's The NRA's Fault!

We shouldn't --- and don't --- expect unbiased reportage from the San Francisco "GATE";  their articles are written to reflect the political opinions of their community.   They cater to their market.

They slant their 'news' articles by selecting the quotes which reinforce the political message they wish to send.

And in this SFGATE follow-up article on the Las Vegas killings, they don't disappointed their market.

The "Hero or Victim" article spends less time discussing whether Joseph Wilcox was a "Hero or Victim" then it does whether he was a "Victim or Dupe".

The Violence Policy Center leans toward "Dupe":

Vegas conceal carry permit holder: Hero or victim? - SFGate:
(June 12, 2014)

Gun control advocates said the death of Wilcox was a black eye for the NRA and its promotion of gun ownership and carrying as a solution to a rising tide of mass shootings. "From its magazines to Wayne LaPierre’s statements after Newtown, the NRA routinely argues that concealed carry is a simple [emphasis added] solution to complex situations including mass shootings," said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center. "In his own way, Joseph Wilcox was as much a victim of the NRA’s language and marketing as the two law enforcement officers who were killed."

Simple?
Who said it would be "simple"?
Or Easy?
Or Painless?
NRA only suggested it would be better to fight back, than to allow murder to continue without resistance..

Oregon's Blue-menauer capitalizes on School Shooting for political gain

Oregon Dem hopes school shooting 'will inspire action' on gun control | TheHill:
(June 10, 2014)

An Oregon lawmaker said he hoped a school shooting that took place Tuesday morning in a town he represents would spur action in Congress on gun control. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D), who represents Oregon's 3rd District, made a call for universal background checks on gun buyers after reports that a gunman killed at least one student at Reynolds High School in the city of Troutdale. 

One day in the 1980's, when I lived in Portland (Oregon's largest city), Blumenauer knocked at my door during a neighborhood campaign for ... I think it was a state-political position election.  He currently held a municiple office in Portland.

I told him that not only would I not allow him to put a sign on my front yard, but in any campaign he presented I would always vote for "The Other Guy", no matter who he was.

(I was polite; I didn't tell him to get the HELL off my porch!)

Earl thanked me for my time and moved on.

Unfortunately, there are too many Oregonians in Portland who will vote for any Democrat, so my only satisfaction was that I got to tell him what I thought of his politics, to his face.

His satisfaction was that he was "Electable in Oregon".

Earl?  He don't stop by my house no more.   It works out better all around that way.

It is better to have tried, and failed, then never to have tried at all

Blogging Blue | If citizens carrying guns help prevent crime, what happened in Las Vegas?:
(June 10, 2014)

One of the most common talking points I’ve seen and heard from conservatives who support concealed carry laws is that allowing citizens to “pack heat” will serve as both a deterrent and a means for citizens to “fight crime” on their own, but it seems pretty clear that wasn’t the case in Las Vegas. While many conservatives (fueled no doubt by the radical National Rifle Association) seem to feel we need to arm the citizenry with more guns, it would certainly seem to me that’s not the solution, given how the number of mass shootings that have plagued our nation.

Police who are killed while trying to stop murderers are lauded as "hero", even by the Left.
Well, that's the job of police: "To Protect And to Serve".

But when a civilian, who carries a firearm, accepts as his duty to his fellow citizens to stop murderers?   He is mocked as (supposedly) incompetent, inept.  His moral flaw is assuming that he can make a difference.  His actions are dismissed, and counted "fueled ... by the radical National Rifle Association".  Not the actions of a hero at all; merely a misguided buffoon who should be held in contempt.

The private citizen, Joseph Robert Wilcox. was not a buffoon.  He was ambushed by the murderers as surely as were LVPD officers Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo, he was taken by surprise and murdered even as he tried to keep armed people from killing innocents.  Wilcox was probably unaware of the killing of the two LVPD officers, but he saw his duty and he did his best to follow his conscience.  He did so suspecting he was risking his life, and he paid the ultimate price.

I give you The Montrose Quote:

He either fears his fate too much, 

Or his deserts are small,  

That dares not put it to the touch, 

To gain or lose it all. 

Had Wilcox been aware of the details of the previous killings, he might have realized that there were TWO shooters ... and he might have been realized that there was a second shooter on the scene ... one of them behind him.

There are two kinds of people who react to violence:  those who run away, and those who go to the sound of the guns.

Joseph Robert Wilcox was the second kind of person.  Regardless of the outcome, his attempt to serve his community should be hailed as the act of a hero.

It is better to have tried, and failed, then never to have tried at all.

Gentlmen-Rankers

Rudyard Kipling's poetry is often difficult for the Modern Man.

But when it is examined by a Military Man, it exhibits haunting memories of a time when "things" were dire, and you never expected to live to see your 23'rd birthday.

Kipling, in "Gentleman Rankers", speaks of the low-caste (low esteem, little experience) Officer in the British army.

In modern parlance:  A Lieutenant in Viet Nam, or Iraq, or  ... we come full circle ... Afghanistan.

So, if you choose to take the time to read this "poem" (although I would call it "An Ode To The Dead"), remember that this is not quite so much as a poem, as a Psalm.  you will recognize the verses from the song "Gentleman Rankers".  If you have ever seen the movie "Dawn Patrol" (with Errol Flynn) from WWI, you would recognize the song they sing around the piano at the Officer's club.

It is called The Whiffenpoof Song.
Lyrics: here
A Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong  version here (jazzed up)

Poetry Lovers' Page - Rudyard Kipling: Gentlmen-Rankers:


I do realize that this is a "Less Than Entirely Interesting" subject, but for military veterans it's important that the antecedents be remembered.  I'm I'm feeling nostalgic tonight.

Thank you, Mister President

SayUncle � Obama likes gun confiscation:

Yup, he just praised a forced disarmament of civilians.

DRILL DOWN:

Say Uncle linked to a "National Review Online/The Corner" article (June 10, 2014) in which the author, Charles C.W. Cooke, averred:

Speaking to users of the blogging platform Tumblr, President Obama today praised Australia’s confiscation of firearms. Obama said:
(")Couple of decades ago, Australia had a mass shooting, similar to Columbine or Newtown. And Australia just said, well, that’s it, we’re not doing, we’re not seeing that again, and basically imposed very severe, tough gun laws, and they haven’t had a mass shooting since.
Our levels of gun violence are off the charts. There’s no advanced, developed country that would put up with this.(")
In other words, the president of the United States just praised a government for forcefully removing all semi-automatic firearms (i.e. a remarkable number of the guns in America and the majority of those sold today) from its citizenry. 

(Note this Presidential statement seems to have been spoken in the same statement cited here yesterday in this Geekish article.)

At the risk of seeming hard-hearted (by ignoring the tragedy of the Oregon/Troutdale School Shooting) it seems clear that the long-touted Obama assertion the "I am not going to take your guns away from you, that just ain't true" is just one more lie from our President.

IS that an 'agenda item' for the President?

I don't know.

(Related Article from "Shall Not Be Questioned":

Gunman in fatal Oregon high school shooting likely killed self, police say | Fox News

Gunman in fatal Oregon high school shooting likely killed self, police say | Fox News:
(June 10, 2014)

A teenage gunman armed with a rifle entered a high school outside of Portland, Oregon Tuesday morning and fatally shot a student and injured a teacher before he likely killed himself, police said. The gunman, whom police have not publicly identified, was found dead in a bathroom at Reynolds High School in Troutdale. It was not clear how he died.

Another school shooting.   Students "locked down" in classrooms.  One brave (or just unlucky) teacher wounded, but continued to chivy students into classrooms.  Teenage boy with a rifle smokes himself in the boys room.

It wasn't quite a "massacre" this time, which leads one to wonder whether the murderer targeted his victim specifically, or just ran out of nerve.  Or ammunition.  At least he saved one bullet for himself, although we could wish he would have used that one first and saved the rest of us a lot of grief.

Follow-up (June 11, 2014)

Obama: Gun Law Inaction My Biggest Frustration
(Politico, June 10, 2014)

President Barack Obama said Tuesday [in reaction the Oregon School shooting - Ed.]  that it was “stunning to me” that Congress did not take real action to tighten gun laws following the late 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
"My biggest frustration so far is that this society has not been willing to take some basic steps to keep guns out of the hands of people who can do just unbelievable damage,” Obama said during a question-and-answer session hosted by microblogging platform Tumblr that came hours after a school shooting in Oregon.
He added that shortcomings in mental health care failed to account for the unusually high number of U.S. mass shootings relative to other nations. “The United States does not have a monopoly on crazy people,” he said.
The president said he supports the Second Amendment but still sees a need for tighter rules. “I respect gun rights but the idea that, for example, we couldn’t get a background check bill in — it makes no sense,” he said.

30 shot in Chicago in 2 days; Ho Hum, what's new?

Crime: 29 shot in Chicago in weekend violence includes two officers - Mesa Top News | Examiner.com:
(June 09, 2014)

There were at least 29 shot in Chicago over the weekend [according to NBC Chicago] -, and some of those were fatal gun shots. Chicago had another weekend of violence. The first fatal shooting of the weekend was back on Friday afternoon. An 18-year-old was found by police in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. He was one of four that died of gun shot wounds during the weekend. NBC Chicago reported on the violent weekend on June 8.

.... and more chillingly .......

The shootings did not only involve civilians though. Two officers were also shot [emphasis added] over the weekend, according to NBC Chicago. Malik Shabazz has been charged with five counts of first degree murder after shooting two officers during a routine traffic stop on Friday night. The officers pulled over Shabazz around 11:30 p.m. on Friday night. When the officers stepped out of their vehicle to approach, the man opened fire on the officers. The officers returned fire, and the man and woman inside the vehicle were wounded.
One officer was wounded during the incident. A 38-year-old officer was shot in the knee, and he was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center. He will recover from his injury. The second officer at the scene took the bullet in his bullet proof vest, and he was released from the hospital after treatment. Shabazz was still in the hospital for his injuries on Sunday. The woman that was with him in the car was shot in the shoulder. She was taken to Little Company of Mary Hospital for treatment.

That Chicago has become America's Shooting Gallery is not news.  Apparently, the shooting of CPD officers is also not news.

Where else have you read about this?

Compare the lack of reportage of CPD shootings with the shootings of two Las Vegas officers, which as been WIDELY reported.  

You might think that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel would find it significant that 30 people being shot over a weekend would NOT cause a furor in the national press.

Only in California

Nearly 300,000 Californians vote for gun smuggling candidate | Fox News:
(June 04, 2014)

State Sen. Leland Yee might have officially dropped out of the race to become California’s next secretary of state in March, but that did little to diminish his numbers on election night Tuesday.  Yee, who was arrested back in March on gun smuggling charges, finished astoundingly well, with nearly 300,000 people checking his name on the ballot Tuesday – despite not campaigning at all since his arrest, allegedly plotting to deal weapons with a radical Islamic group in the Philippines, and maintaining a close connection with a powerful Chinese gangster who was also arrested in the sting.
 When Yee pulled out of the race shortly after being charged and arrested for his connection in a federal sting, he was polling only at eight percent. After all the results had been counted Wednesday morning, Lee had earned 11 percent of the vote and finished second among Democratic candidates.

Wait a minute!

What part of "knowingly selling guns to Terrorists" wasn't clear to California voters?

That truly surprises me.

Hypocrisy?   Lying?  Using his office for personal gain?

That doesn't surprise me.

California Democrats have demonstrated repeatedly that this sort of shenanigans is only to be expected from their own "Favorite Sons and Daughters".

There are a couple of other high-profile Democrats in California, including at least one Representative and one Senator (at the Federal level) who have also made a career out of using Gun Control as a political tool to get re-elected year after year.

Maybe the FBI should take a closer look at them, as well?

Sad, Sad News ...

Director Michael Moore enmeshed in vicious divorce | Fox News:
(June 08, 2014)

 “Fahrenheit 9/11” director Michael Moore plans to bring his superagents, Ari Emanuel and Mort Janklow, into a Michigan courtroom to help in his divorce reports The New York Post.
 Emanuel is the William Morris Endeavor chief who inspired the Ari Gold character in “Entourage.” Janklow is the literary agent who made the deals for Moore’s books: “Dude, Where’s My Country?” “Stupid White Men,” and “Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American.”
 Both men are on Moore’s witness list for next month’s trial to determine how to split the tens of millions of dollars worth of assets amassed during Moore’s 23-year marriage to Kathleen Glynn, a fellow native of Flint, Mich., who produced some of the roly-poly provocateur’s documentaries.
 The agents can testify about Moore’s earnings, his unique niche in the media and how badly he was damaged when Glynn “unilaterally wasted a large percentage of the marital funds” building a mansion on northern Michigan’s Torch Lake.
 Court documents posted on The Smoking Gun list nearly 300 exhibits, including six stories from 2011 that mocked the Occupy Wall Street supporter over the luxurious vacation mansion, which one story called “Moore’s $2M hypocrite house.”
 The couple owns eight other properties in Michigan and New York, including a Manhattan condo created by joining three separate units.

Take him for everything he's got, Kathleen.  Anybody who sticks with this pontificating panderer of political porn for 23 years deserves a reward ... if only for being able to hold her breath, or breath through her mouth for that long.

Schadenfreude!

Eric Zoen, Chicago Trib, on child murders

Change of Subject | 
Eric Zoen, Chicago Trib, on child murders:

Almost as shocking as the accusation that two 12-year-old girls from near Milwaukee stabbed a friend nearly to death Saturday was the news that authorities are charging the girls as adults. Adults?
Anyone who has ever lived with 12-year-olds — and my wife and I have reared three — knows that they're impulsive, naive and malleable by nature. Delightful as they can be, you wouldn't trust them to vote, drive, carry guns, have sex or drink alcohol responsibly. You wouldn't leave them home alone for a weekend.
 Because they're children. "

Kipling:

  WHEN the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride, 
    He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside. 
    But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail. 
    For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.



Should girl-children be forgiven their crimes, no matter how abysmal, because "they're children?"

How about boy-children of the same age ... who are often given guns and sent out to murder, because their gang members know that they will be given minimal sentences, because "they're children"?

You and I are not part of their culture; can we legitimately condemn them for murder?

After all .. they're children.

Even though older children have imposed this onus upon them.

The Lamest Anti-Gun Article EVER!

Google Glass Guns=Disaster - The Daily Beast:

If you've ever seen an inexperienced "sportsman" try to shoot a sitting bird ... and miss .. then you will appreciate the total gigglement elation I felt upon reading this very inexpert attempt to criticize an industry, a culture and sporting venue which seems ENTIRELY outside her experiential background.

TrackingPoint, a company manufacturing precision-guided firearms—or firearms designed to turn even mediocre shooters into the best of crack shots with the help of embedded digital technology—is apparently ushering in a “new era in augmented marksman ability,” according to their concept video. In the video, a bearded man wearing Google Glass combines the nerdy with the deadly by shooting with a massive firearm at orange targets, while making it a point not to look at them.

Um ... okay.

Originally, I started a lengthy rejoinder based on what I though was the point of the original article.

And I realized .. the article had no point.  None at all!

The Author (one "Jamelle Dumalaon" ... which was not attributed on the article,  but in a sidebar which will probably have been deleted when you read this) managed to write a 500+ word article which had no point, but only a theme:  anything having to do with guns is "bad".

How can we tell?  Let me quote, briefly:

Unsurprisingly, gun control advocates are not amused—and it’s not just because deliberately not looking while shooting is in itself a very uncomfortable concept, and not just because it might be too soon to introduce ideas on how to make guns cooler. Rather, some say gun manufacturers apply a double standard when it comes to applying technology to guns.

("... uncomfortable concept; make guns cooler"... wait, it gets better!)

then .. no segue at all, the next paragraph reads:

“Gun companies have no problem with 21st-century technology if it’s used to enhance the lethality of their products,” says Ladd Everitt, communications director at the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “But if you try compel them to use technology to improve gun safety, they turn around and sue you.”

WTF?
We have no idea what point the author is trying to make, but she does  (somehow) work in the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.whom she manages to depict as being more concerned about being sued, than Stopping Gun Violence!

[You Go, Girl!]

The two next paragraphs cite the NSSF (bad!) lawsuit against Microstamping laws in California, and then that "... smart handguns ... have been criticized as well".

You'll have to work it out for yourselves, because I couldn't manage to determine which issues the author determined were GOOD or Bad:

• Microstamping  (whatever that is)
• Smart Handguns
• Criticing Smart Handguns

I have never heard of this writer before (and why do I think I'll never hear of her again?) ... but please, Daily Beast ... do keep her on staff.

I need a reason to continue reading your stuff, and she is the most refreshing writer I've ever seen there.