Murder in Munich

Gunman in Munich Kills 9, Then Himself, the Police Say - The New York Times:

MUNICH — A gunman opened fire outside a shopping mall in Munich late on Friday afternoon, killing nine people, wounding 21 and sending Germany’s third-largest city into lockdown as the police scrambled to find what they initially thought were as many as three assailants. By early Saturday, the authorities said the attack was probably the work of a single gunman, an 18-year-old German of Iranian descent who they said held both German and Iranian citizenship. The body of the presumed gunman, whose name was not immediately made public, was found less than a mile from the mall with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, officials said.

And what about this report is surprising?

It is formulaic( to coin a phrase) and not significantly different from other Murderous European Events.

The only thing which would make this report "newsworthy" would be if there was an armed person present who would take action to stop the carnage .. instead of a (ho hum) just another time when some jerk-off  decides to invade a NO GUNS ALLOWED public forum for the sole purpose of demonstrating that if guns are not legally allowed there, people with guns and with an intend to perform mayhem will TARGET THOSE VENUES!

Frankly, I'm only amazed that the Europeans haven't figured out that a NO GUN ZONE is an asshole-magnet.

Well, that might be implying that Europeans are ... no, I won't go there.

But you may.





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We Get The Government Which We Deserve

A couple of days ago I posted an opinion (Oh, This Is So Lame!) which generated a contrary opinion.

How sweet it is!

It's a rare event when readers comments are quite so interesting.

My thesis was that IF "Bengazi operatives would leave the military if Hillary was elected" ... they would be total wus.

I expected some controversy, but what was received was not at all what I thought I might find.

Here's the most interesting response:
Anonymous said...

In line with what the Geek said. Hillary might not make the most ideal president; however, if she is elected it will show the democratic process works and a majority of the American people supported her. Those of us who might not have voted for her or supported her will have to fall in line and obey her. After all she will be the historic first female president. We might disagree with her policies, but we must respect her office and the process which put her there.

July 21, 2016 6:18 AM

I am yet unsure whether that was heart-felt, or political rhetoric, or an attempt to generate a response.
Whatever the genesis, I appreciate the opportunity to counter-argue.

And this has absolutely NOTHING to do with Bengassi, nor military professionals .. but something to do with National Pride.

In America, we support (with money) people who CAN WORK, but who WILL NOT WORK .... and we congratulate ourselves for our sense of social  responsibility!

(That's nothing unique about America, but it's interesting that we have moved toward the European Plan!)

CONSERVATISM:
Personal: As I am of an age when I found it better to gracefully retire, rather than to continue working at increasingly unproductive tasks, I retired a few years ago after having contributed to the economy for over 50 years.  I live on my small social social security earnings, and have not yet accessed my much more renumerative pension plan (to which I have contributed for decades).

I'm old, and not as competent in the chosen profession as I once was; I found it better to retire, than to continue working at a job in which I could not perform to my preferable level of competence.

This makes me look like a sucker on the social teat; I admit that.  But still, I have small respect for those who can work, but will not, because they do not feel the need to be productive.

Hillary (and other Liberals) support these non-productive, but able-to-work people because Liberals know that they will vote for any politicians who will vote for free benefits .. earned or not.

Back to the comment from a viewer:

Hillary might not make the most ideal president; however, if she is elected it will show the democratic process works and a majority of the American people supported her. Those of us who might not have voted for her or supported her will have to fall in line and obey her. After all she will be the historic first female president. We might disagree with her policies, but we must respect her office and the process which put her there.

I reject this comment on many levels, and I suspect that the commenter offered the thought because he intended to elicit a comment; I will not disappoint him.

Fisking the comment:

Hillary might not make the most ideal president; however, if she is elected it will show the democratic process works and a majority of the American people supported her.

No.
Americans vote for the people who best represent their own, private priorities.  A vote for a Liberal Democrat is not necessarily a vote for the candidate; rather, it is a vote for that candidate's policies.

A vote for Hillary Clinton may very well be a vote for the (Liberal) federal policy of providing free money for unproductive voters.  As it is much easier to be unproductive, than to be productive, there is a large voter turnout who will always vote for Free Money.

Alexis de Tourquiville predicted this three centuries ago

Men in general are neither very good nor very bad, but mediocre... Man with his vices, his weaknesses, his virtues, this confused medley of good and ill, high and low, goodness and depravity, is yet, take him all in all, the object on earth most worthy of study, of interest, of pity, of attachment and of admiration. And since we haven't got angels, we can attach ourselves to nothing greater and more worthy of our devotion than our own kind.

We were not surprised when this philosophy was embraced by our European Friends, but we have not noticed yet that we have embraced it in our own country.

We cannot, in good conscience, condemn our fellow man because he has decided to take advantage of A Free Ride.  (Well, we me WANT to call him a slacker, but that's not fair to slackers.)

The Sick, The Lame, and The Lazy

We have always coddled, supported, and accepted the Sick and the Lame.

We know that they cannot always contribute to the National Good.

But The Lazy ... they are a pestule to the National Good.

They do not produce, nor do they contribute.    They require productive people to contribute to their continued benefit, even though they do not seem willing to provide to their own sustenance.

The worst, though, is that while they don't support themselves .. yet they can vote.

They vote for any measure, any bill, any law which supports their canker on the public good.

The Democrats think this is a wonderful thing; they love the lazy voter, because the lazy voter will invariably vote for any measure which supports The Public dole ... no matter how obscure it may be, the "Lazy Vote" will make the differnce between encouraging people to fend for themselves, think of the best for all people ... as opposed for any measure which will encourage people to vote for The Common Good.

A bill which supports freedom?  Vote it down!
A bill which supports the rights of the Individual?  If there's not a 'Welfare Rider', it will not be supported.

A bill which supports the Lazy Voter?  Vote for it now, and always~

We have become a nation which is ruled by the Lazy Voter ... the person who benefits best from the Public Dole.

Alexis was right:   If there is a way in which the "mediocre many" may benefit, that is a law which  will pass.  It matters not whether it supports 'the public good', as long as it supports mediocrity .. it will pass.  Because free men will ALWAYS vote for mediocrity.

And that's the way it is.



Alexis_de_Tocqueville

Oh, this is SO lame!

Benghazi Vet Special Ops Will Quit If Clinton Is Elected | The Daily Caller:

 The best and brightest of the U.S. military and special operations community will quit if Hillary Clinton gets elected president, according to Benghazi survivor and former CIA operative John “Tig” Tiegen.

Am I the only one who remembers all of the Liberal movie stars who threatened to leave America if George W. Bush was elected president?
(They didn't ... and you won't; so you have just put yourself in a very small, very 'special' group of people who deserve no respect.)

I can't believe that now we have (supposedly adult) Conservatives OPERATORS doing the "WAA WAA I'M A BIG BABY WAA WAA" dance.

I guess that the 'operators' now consider themselves the liminaries of the Conservative movement, much as the Movie Stars slide into the same slot for the Libearls.

There is a great silence in muddville tonight, as our stone-cold heroes reveal their feet of clay.

This makes the "Black Socks Scandal" look like a walk in the park.

Mighty Casey Has Struck Out.

I have NO respect for military personnel who let petty political crap dissuade them from their sworn duty.  If you're among those "best and brightest" who don't have the intestinal fortitude to "shut up and soldier" when the politics go against you, then ... go ahead.  Quit.   We don't need you.

If you're not willing to abide your sworn oath to defend your country against " ... all enemies, foreign and domestic ..."  we don't need you.

If you would leave your wounded buddy on the field, while you retreat, then they don't need you.

If you have so little devotion to duty, and you were in my platoon, I would have put you on point.
You have no greater value to your fellow soldiers than to trip a booby-trap ("IED" in current parlance) which might otherwise have taken out a better man.

Here's a very special Military Acronym which just suits Quiters:    FOAD!

Oh, and by the way: you have just made millions of Liberal Wimps feel privileged to look DOWN on you.  And you deserve their condescension.

They are BETTER than you; at least they know they are cowards.

BACKGROUND:

What's in YOUR Range Bag? Is it enough?

Emergency On The Range: Are You Prepared? - The Firearm Blog:

My friend was at a USPSA match last Sunday when the worst case scenario happened. Someone got shot. From what I hear, the match has concrete dividers for the bays. Supposedly a projectile managed to go inbetween a crack between the concrete blocks used as dividers. A shooter was down range in one bay, pasting targets, while another shooter in the bay next door was shooting his stage.

I've been competing in USPSA (IPSC) matches since 1983, and I've never seen anyone suffer from any injury more damaging  than 'road rash' (when a running gunner falls down on pea-gravel), until a young shooter was faster on the trigger than he was on the draw about 6 years ago.

In that case, the gun "went off" as he was recovering from a prone start position and drawing his open gun; his first shot was faster than his draw.  The bullet hit a bunch of keys in his pocket, driving one into his leg.  His father drove him to the doctor for a treatment and a bandage, and they were back before the match ended.  It was a self-inflicted injury, and while we were all horrified to hear of it, the consequences were not as bad as they might have been.

In this section, nobody has (to my knowledge) since designed a stage with a prone starting position.   Bad JuJu!

So this is the first actual "Somebody Got Shot" incident I've heard about at an IPSC match.   And I have to say: it had to happen sometime, but I'm sorry it did.

And the problem, apparently, was due to poor range construction and poor stage design, which means it was preventable.   We probably definitely need to learn from this.

But when injuries are not prevented ... what can we do to minimize the outcome?

A couple of years ago, I started to expand my "First Aid Kit" which I carry in my range bag at matches.

At first it was just band-aids, ibuproven, and disinfectant (hydrogen peroxide, with some isopropyl alcohol as a backup, in my car).

Then I added some gauze, medical tape, petroleum jelly and cotton padding. When you have serious Road Rash, you need to clean the injury, remove foreign particles (tweezers!), and protect the wound.

Lately, I have added not one but THREE First Aid Kits which I keep in the "Go To" box in my car.  I'm 3 minutes away from semi-serious medical 'stuff', but it's not enough.

Next on my shopping list is WoundSeal .. which encourages rapid clotting and 'stops bleeding' (for certain values of  'stops bleeding'.)   I'm not certain, however, that this is The Real Deal, so if anyone has information about a better product, such as First Respondents/Medic might use and which is available for private citizens, I'm be grateful.

I think that ranges which promote competitive shooting should stock up on more advanced wound-treatment supplies, and make them immediately available in every bay on their range.  That's not going to happen, because the ranges where I compete they're semi-public and there's the risk that the first-aid packs which are typically stored in each shooting bay would be robbed by casual shooters.

Since the ranges can't provide adequate first-aid supplies, the responsibility falls upon the people who show up at the matches and HAVE THE TRAINING to know when and how to administer these advanced first-aid supplies and techniques.

For now, I think it's a good idea for every competitive shooter to acquire his own first aid supplies, those chosen to to address the specific problem of being injured by a bullet or a bullet fragment.

Know you have it, make sure that your friends and shooting partners are aware that you have the means to (minimally) stop the bleeding.  Talk it up when you're waiting for your turn to shoot.  Encourage your freinds to stock up on appropriate first aid supplies.

Don't count on the range to take responsibility for accidental wounds; they won't do that.  They can't insure the integrity of any first-aid pack they leave positioned on the individual shooting bays.

It's your job.

Do it.

AXES May Be Hazardous To Your Health

There are two kinds of axes which, if misused, may be hazardous to your health.

The first kind of hazardous axe is physical:

German axe attack on train: Isil claim Afghan refugee who injured four as one of its 'fighters':

Islamic State has claimed an Afghan teenager who attacked passengers on a train in Germany with an axe on Monday night as one of its 'fighters'. Earlier on Tuesday, the interior minister said a hand-drawn Isil flag was found in the room of the 17-year-old, whose attack left three seriously injured. Police shot dead the suspect as he attempted to flee the scene. The assault in Wurzburg was the latest suspected terror attack to shock Europe following the atrocity in Nice last Thursday. 

Terrorists don't need guns to do their dirty work.   Law-abiding citizens need guns to defend against them.

The second kind of hazardous 'axe' is administrative:

Healthy patients to be axed from surgery lists if they don't see GP for five years:

20 JULY 2016 •  A scheme that discriminates against healthy people by axing patients from surgery lists if they have not visited their GP for five years will harm safety, campaigners have warned. Doctors’ and patients’ groups have said the cost-cutting measure also risks leaving elderly and vulnerable people accidently deprived of primary care. NHS England has employed the outsourcing company Capita to begin a process of “list cleansing”, whith [sic]the aim of cutting costs by ensuring accuracy over which patients are using which services.

Socialists don't need guns, either.  They have a pen and a cell phone, and they can do anything they want.   The insidious thing about Socialism is that the participants (citizens/subjects) have put their whole trust .. in effect, they have put their life on the line ...  in 'The System".

But the system is a heartless bitch, and if you live under her aegis, you have few alternatives when she turns her back to you.

It's difficult to determine which kind of 'axe' is more dangerous;  should you trust the terrorist, or should you trust the state?

In an unarmed battle, some people may find it easier to battle against terrorists than The State.
At least a terrorist won't tell you:  "I'm doing this for the general good".

NRA, you got a LOT of 'splaining to do!

In a recent COUNTERPUNCH article, Ken Levy contends that the National Rifle Association is at fault, in part and in whole, for firearms violence in America.

If You Don’t Support Gun Control, Then You Don’t Support the Police:

The NRA and their Republican supporters’ enthusiastic encouragement and passage of lax gun laws and policies over the past 30 years have sadly enabled hundreds of thousands of senseless, needless deaths and injuries. It’s high time, then, that they atone for their destructive influence by renouncing the same old unproductive, callous platitudes and canards and finally getting on board with a sensible multi-pronged approach that includes gun control. In the end, this is really the only way to honor the Baton Rouge and Dallas police officers who were viciously murdered – and to better protect all of the police officers who are still serving.

Ken Levy is the Holt B. Harrison Associate Professor of Law at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University.

It will be a fine day when Academics contain their lectures to their classrooms, where they are free to brainwash instruct their mallable students on the canons of Liberalism.

Unfortunately, they often feel obliged to lecture grown-ups as well.  In doing so, they demonstrate their Ivory Tower bigotry and flaunt their assumed intellectual superiority.

The good professor might spend some time with real police officers, who have said, recently and emphatically, that they cannot be everywhere; they cannot counter terrorism alone, and they encourage private citizens to arm themselves in order to promote the general wellfare.

(I think I read that last part here in DC, here in Ohio, here in Florida. )

Levy's polemic includes a duty of the citizen to "... protect all of the police officers who are still serving".

Funny, here's another thing I think I read somewhere:

"To Protect, And To Serve"

Oh, yes, now I remember.   It was written on the door of a police car.  

In fact, virtually all of the police cars in America carry that oath.

Levy confuses the roles which Americans assume with roles which Liberals take for granted.

For example, police assume the role of enforcement of the law.  While they claim to "protect", their ability to protect anyone is exceedingly limited.  They can't stop someone from gettting shot, for example ... even their fellow officers.  They would like to but "we can't be everywhere" is just a truth that we all learn to live with.

Levy's assumed role is, apparently, to criticize the people who are trying to make a difference because they don't meet his standards of ... uh ... "difference-making".

No, he won't criticize the police who cannot 'be everywhere'.  

But he WILL criticize American citizens who choose to arm themselves in defense of themselves and others, even though these people CAN  'be everywhere'.

Levy is laboring under the misguided assumption that, if firearms were universally prohibited, America would truly be a land of peace.

He should take a look at Australia and Great Britain,  the Liberals' best exemplar.   Private citizens there aren not often murdered by firearms (although they sometimes are), but they find themselves in a state of aggressiveness against which they have no defense.   The elderly, women, minorities ... all find themselves targets of hoodlums, and the police cannot protect them.   And they cannot protect themselves.   Witness the increased number of rapes and other assaults in England and Europe.  Those victims have no way to protect themselves, because firearms are forbidden ... and only the law-abiding are disarmed.

The assaults suffered there are "just hooliganism" ... victimization by your neighbors.

Compared with terrorism (where people who don't live where you live, but still they wish to murder as many of you as they can) the "unarmed, law abiding citizen" has, literally, no defense at all.  And like the hooligans, the terrorists know that.

In America ... perhaps the only thing which dissuades terrorists from more frequent, more brutal armed attacks is the fact that they may run into a citizen with a gun.

One thing is certain:   terrorist assaults with firearms only occur in "Gun Free Zones".
Such as California.

Firing an AR-15 is horrifying, menacing and very very loud

Firing an AR-15 is horrifying, menacing and very very loud - NY Daily News: It felt to me like a bazooka — and sounded like a cannon.

OKAY .. so today, children, we are going to follow the trail of New York Daily News reporter Gersh Kuntsman as he experiences the (since gone viral) the traumatic Shooting of the Evil AR15!


Let's look at his reportial expose of the shock .. the horror .. the TRAUMA of shooting  Military Assault Rifle!

Quote:   It's " ... horrifying, menacing and very very loud ... ".

Um  .. I've never fired an AR15.

But I've fired an M16 .. a lot.  It was in a little test-firing range in South Viet Nam (children, ask your parent) and frankly .. I thought it was a poodle-shooter.  Suiable only for the murder of small, furry quadrapeds who yap incessently.  
(There have been times since, during which I longed for an M16; most recently, this morning when the neighborhood canines decided to talk to each other during the Dawn Hours, when I longed for either an M16 or an M79 Grenade Launcher;  but that's another story.)

When I was a teenager. I competed in an indoor-range competition rifle  series of matches; I used a .22 "Long Rifle" cartridge, and having fired the M16 in subsequent years I honestly didn't notice any significent difference between the M16 and the .22 LR.

(Well .. the M16 was louder, and had a "select fire" option which I never used ... I considered it to be a "stupid" option because I never saw anyone in a combat situation where Full-Auto was a viable option!)

So I will forgive the author of this original theme for considering the AR-15 "loud".  Having fired REAL "loud" rifles (7mm magnum, .338) I probably have a more ... 'learned' ... opinion about how loud the AR15 is, but I'll give him that.  He has no experiential background to define the word "IS".

Sorry:  He has no experiential background to define the word "LOUD".

Democrat

My uncle was a Taxi Driver in Chicago, and until the day he died, he voted Republican.

Since then, he has voted Democrat.

Catch And Release in Fredrick, MD

7-Eleven clerk disarms shotgun-wielding man | Cops And Crime | fredericknewspost.com:

“[The man] pointed it at my employee and started screaming at my employee, screaming in his face, and [my employee] grabbed [the gun] and took it out of the guy’s hands,” said Abdul Ayub, who owns the store. “And the guy ran out of the store, so now the police have the gun and he didn’t get anything.”

The whole story, and the accompanying video, are available here.

Isn't there some kind of safety rule about "keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot?"

This clerk is happy that his hooded nemesis observed that rule.

Houston, We Have A Problem

Actually, it's not HOUSTON, it's The Liberal Press which has a problem.
They don't get enough opportunities to show how awful gun-owners (and their masters, the NRA) are, so they need to recycle the stories that they find 'elsewhere'.

I wrote about this last Thursday, in response to an article from "Elite Daily";
check for yourself to see if THIS article has anything new to say:

NRA Ad Tells Women to Shoot Rapists, Abusers -- The Cut:

PART 1: "EMPOWERMENT" 

The ad ("NRA Ad" ... see the reference above) —which is less a message aimed at abusers and more a bulletin encouraging women to purchase firearms— goes on to say that "real empowerment" looks like millions of women buying guns to protect themselves and their families from any potential threat. In doing so, it not only transfers blame for assault from the assailant to the victim, but it seriously mischaracterizes both sexual assault and domestic abuse.

Yep ... the "Empowerment" message is there.

PART 2: "EDUCATE THE MALE"

Instead of educating men on the nature of sexual assault — and instead of cultivating a society in which rape and abuse of women is absolutely unacceptable, rather than an offense that's met with leniency — the NRA suggests we arm every single woman.

Yes, the suggestion (and I still can't believe I'm reading this) is that abused women should:
"[educate] men on the nature of sexual assault" .. rather than take positive steps to defend themselves, their family, and their homes.

The image of a woman who is being beaten by her estranged husband  *who is under a domestic violence restraining order* explaining that "sexual assault is a no-no" absolutely boggles the mind.  Apparently, the people who write this crap have no concept of what the word "domestic abuse" means.

And it gets better .. or worse.

PART 3:  NRA THINKS ABUSERS ARE ONLY STRANGERS!

The ad also fundamentally mischaracterizes rape and sexual assault. Rape is almost never, as the NRA seems to suggest here, committed by a stranger in a dark alleyway — ... most victims of sexual violence ... are attacked by someone they know... a spouse, a relative, or a family friend...

NO idea how the authors got that impression.  In the NRA video I saw, it was fairly obvious that the 'intruder' was an (ex) partner who was violating a restraining order.

PART 4:  YOU CAN BE KILLED BY YOUR OWN GUN!

"The presence of a gun in domestic violence situations increases the risk of homicide for women by 500 percent," and, "more than half of women murdered with guns are killed by family members or intimate partners." 

This is a two-fer:

(A) 'if there is a gun in they house you are five times more likely to be murdered' is a meme which was originally published in the report of a study by a man named "Kellerman", who cherry picked his community (he only reported on homes in which a homicide had occurred and "... a firearm was present in the house..." whether or not it was involved in the murder); which study has been widely debunked as statistically fallable.  Which means, he made it all up.   Actually, this 'quote' undermines Kellerman's theme, which suggests that ' you are SEVEN times more likely to be killed if you have a gun in your home'.   Never mind whether it was a gun owned by the resident, or was brought into the home by the intruder, it all adds to Kellerman's pre-determined conclusion.

(B) "More than half of women murdered with guns are killed by family members or intimate partners".
Which presupposes husbands or co-habitating partners,    The supposition that this NRA video might apply negatively to a woman who defended herself against a stranger ("home invasion") assault seems to be intuitively obvious: anyone has the right to defend herself against an intruder.  Why this is even suggested to be a 'negative' message from the NRA is beyond me.   However, Kellerman (and the Liberal Press) conclusions make the victim appear to be the author of her own demise.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Oh, hell.  Thanks to "The Gun Mart", we have this direct comparison between a woman at risk, and a woman who is prepared to defend herself, her family and her home.

PS:
Have a nice day.

Just Another Gun-Grabber

Gov. Brown Announces Plan To Curb Gun Violence . News | OPB:

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced an executive order Friday, ordering Oregon State Police to maintain a database of firearms transactions for five years after the sale. She also ordered state police to notify local law enforcement agencies if a person who is prohibited from buying a gun tries to do so.

When Kate Brown was appointed in February of 2015 to replace former governor Kitzenhaber, I commented here that I was relieved:  "She can't be worse than Kitzenhaber!" I proclaimed.

My friends warned me that she was a Democrat, and an appointee, and she was worse.
I should have listened to them, but it took this announcement today for the warnings to finally sink in.

It was bad enough last year when new laws in Oregon required that all firearms transactions, even private sales, be transacted through the firearms database (a clear violation of the Second Amendment), but I planned to either ignore the trash-law or avoid it.  I have no need for another firearm, I thought.

I was wrong.  It's not about me, it's about Oregon.

Background Check on Private Firearms Sales:

I was not happy when new Oregon laws required a background check on private transfers/sales of firearms.  I was especially disappointed to learn that it included the description (including make, model and serial number) of the firearm.  But I was (naively) reassured that the information was not permanently recorded.

As we all know, a registry of firearms transfers is the first step towards confiscation.  California learned that hard lesson several years ago.  (And it was reinforced last year!)