When It’s OK to Kill

Inside the School Teaching Cops When It’s OK to Kill - Bloomberg Business:

 Forty cops are in a classroom, watching recent footage of protesters in San Francisco denouncing the police. “Your children are ashamed of you,” a black woman in the video tells a black officer, who looks away. “Coward!” others shout. A young demonstrator walks up to a cop and sticks out his middle finger. A female officer trips, and the demonstrators laugh.
The volume is way up, and the cops in the room are leaning back in their chairs, crossing their arms, getting tense. Jim Glennon steps to the front of the room and stops the video. Glennon, 59, spent 29 years as an officer in Lombard, a suburb of Chicago, at one point running county homicide investigations. He’s 6-foot-1, 210 pounds, and has the gravelly voice and bearing of the desk sergeant on the 1980s TV show Hill Street Blues who told cops to “be careful out there” before the squad cars rolled. “Welcome to our world,” Glennon says. “It’s as bad as it’s been since the ’60s and ’70s.”

I spent a few days on Whidbey Island this week, visiting my son and his family.

Said son (aka "The Squid Kid") is a Master at Arms in the U.S. Navy.   He was recently promoted to E6 (Petty Officer Something ... I never was any good at Navy Ratings, but that's the equivalent of Staff Sgt. in the army) and in part my visit was an opportunity to again tell him how proud I am of his hard-earned promotion.

We had a chance on the last day of my visit to chat in private, without his wife and children listening to our conversation.  It was a bit of a letting-down of the hair; shared war stories, and he described many of the training operations he was becoming responsible.  

Silence Of The Lambs

Peshawar school attack: Taliban 'burn teacher alive in front of pupils and behead children':

Taliban terrorists allegedly burned a teacher alive and made the students watch during their attack on a Pakistan school which left over 130 people dead. According to a NBC News report, citing an unnamed military official, the terrorists stormed the Army Public school in Peshawar, in north-west Pakistan, and committed the horrific act as well as detonating a suicide bomb which killed a number of students. "They burnt a teacher in front of the students in a classroom," the unnamed military source told the US TV network. "They literally set the teacher on fire with gasoline and made the kids watch." At least six militants entered the Pakistani school wearing security uniforms, before massacring an estimated 132 people and injuring another 122.

(H/T: Irons in the Fire)

Compare this to Sandy Hook:

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and 6 adult staff members.Prior to driving to the school, Lanza shot and killed his mother at their Newtown home. As first responders arrived at the scene, Lanza committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

I don't mean to denigrate the tragedy of the Sandy Hook school shooting.  I merely offer it in comparison.

In America, we acknowledge that this kind of "Silence of the Lambs" slaughter of the innocents is rightfully considered to be an aberration of of Civilized society.  In other societies, it's Business As usual.  It's political.

Here ... we hold our people and our governments to a higher standard.   

In America, Liberals hold the peaceful citizens responsible for their actions ... and acknowledge (if reluctantly) that there is perhaps a reason why citizens should be allowed cannot be prohibited from owning guns.

We say: "When Guns Are outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Own Guns"

Liberals say"  "Small Penis Gun Nuts, Fearful Of Imaginary Bad Guys, Salivate Over The Prospect Of Getting To Shoot a Burglar".

Well .. here's what it looks like when "only outlaws own guns".

With all respect to the victims of Sandy Hook and their families .. and I had no intention to minimize their grief at the tragedy .... I recently watched a video in which teachers who survived Sandy Hook discussed their experiences and announced that the solution was to remove all firearms from private hands .. by law.

Security breach at USPSA

Email to members from USPSA:

We have become aware of a security breach r

USPSA.org Security issue We have become aware of a security breach that happened on USPSA.org within the last 24 hours. The USPSA login database was compromised and at least a partial list of usernames and passwords were exposed. USPSA staff has taken steps to address the vulnerability and we have changed the system to ensure this type of attack will not be effective in the future. Members are encouraged to change their passwords on USPSA.ORG and any other web site for which they used the same password.  It is important to note that the breach did not involve the credit card processing system or any financial data.  All credit card processing is done using a separate industry standard secure vendor - no credit card information is stored on the USPSA server. We will keep the membership updated as more information is available.

Copyright © 2014 USPSA, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you are a USPSA member.

Argument for gun control ... or 'texting in public' control?

Authorities: Argument over texting leads to man being fatally shot at Florida movie theater | Fox News:

(January 14, 2014)

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. – Authorities say an argument over texting in a Florida movie theater ended with a retired Tampa police captain fatally shooting a man sitting in front of him. The former police captain, 71-year-old Curtis Reeves, has been charged with second-degree murder. It wasn't immediately clear whether he has retained an attorney. Pasco County Sheriff's officials said the shooting happened Monday when Reeves asked 43-year-old Chad Oulson to stop texting at the theater ...

The punch line was ... Oulson was texting to his 3-year old daughter.

More information  available here.

No, I'm not going to even suggest that the shooting was justified.  Reeves contended that Oulson had 'assaulted him' ... with a bag of popcorn!   Since Reeves was a retired police captain, he should have been able to evaluate the threat level more objectively.

It's significant that this deadly assault occurred in Florida, though.  This was the premiere state which allowed concealed carry of firearms.  Initially, the people who thought it was "A Bad Idea!" suggested that it would lead to a series of  'Road Rage' incidents, but it never did, really.

This non-issue outcome encouraged other states to enact similarly permissive laws about concealed carry.

Does this strange incident suggest that the nay-sayers were right, after all?

No, I don't think so. 

Typically, most LEO offices permit their retired members to continue to 'carry' firearms, concealed, in public.  The thinking seems to be that experienced officers have developed the proper judgement to evaluate a situation, and decide whether "deadly force" is justified.

Clearly, in the case of Captain Reeves, that judgement was faulty.

As an Army veteran, I'm usually less benign about the judgement of the "Officer Class" .. speaking in terms of Senior personnel, not in terms of police "officers".  This is not a universal judgement, and on behalf of the retired military officers whom I consider friends ... they're just people, and we judge them by their actions.  But I do have memories of some military officers who are notable mainly for their poor judgement, and not that they are the minority.

Captain Reeves, in my personal opinion, made a terrible mistake in over-reacting to a petty incident.  I will not defend him.  We don't know all the details of the "incident", but I see no reason to believe that his response ... shooting the popcorn-throwing, tot-texting stranger ... could be justified by the circumstances.

I won't give up my opinion, though, that concealed carry -- even in movie theaters -- is justifiable.  Witness the Aurora, Colorado, theater where even a less competent idiot shot up a movie audience during the premiere of a Batman movie.

Were Captain Reeves there and able to use his BETTER judgement, he might have reacted ... better.

At least one hopes he would be pointing a gun at the madman with a rifle, and not at the guy eating popcorn in the next row.

----------

I had a long discussion with a woman whose judgement and expertise I respect.  She presented the question: "Do you think EVERYONE should have a gun?  Or are there some people who just can't be t trusted to exercise good judgement?"

I had to agree with her.  I do know people I would not trust with a gun, and I suspect you do, too.

The question isn't whether those people exist, but who decides who they are?

When that "who" decides on the basis of departmental policy, rather than the circumstances, sometimes the results are disatrous.

But we have become accustomed to disasters in public forums, haven't we?

Thieves sell YOUR account numbers on underground black markets

Debit and credit cards stolen in Target breach reportedly for sale in underground black markets | Fox News:

Credit and debit card accounts stolen during a security breach involving retailer Target have reportedly flooded underground black markets, going on sale in batches of one million cards.
The cards are being sold from around $20 to more than $100 each, KrebsOnSecurity reports. The security news site said it spoke to a fraud analyst at a major bank who said his team was able to buy a portion of the bank’s accounts from an online store advertised in cybercrime forums as a place where thieves can buy stolen cards.
The analyst was not identified, but said the purchase was made before Target admitted Thursday that data connected to about 40 million credit and debit card accounts was stolen as part of a breach that began over the Thanksgiving weekend.

(We first reported this here on December 19, 2014)

Fortunately, I don't do my Christmas shopping at Target.

No, that's misleading ... I don't do Christmas shopping at all.  I'm less prudent than I am a curmudgeon, but apparently it's an Unexpected Consequence (or benefit?) of Curmudgeonlihood!

CHASE bank responded by putting temporary "restrictions" on the 10% of their accounts which may have been affected.  About 2 million of them, apparently. 

As expected, Target customers had trouble reaching the national chain's call center.  Many refused to shop at Target stores.  It's obvious that as much as it affected consumers, it affected the chain's profitability even more.  During this, the most frantic shopping period of the year, that could sound the death knell for Target.

My opinion, not fact ... but Watch This Space.

Personally, I tend to use debit cards rather than debit cards for purchases.  I don't keep enough in my bank account to cause fiscal ruin if I'm hacked.

On the other hand, my single credit card account does have protection plans.

Last year I reported that my credit card had been hacked.  Some $1500 had been used for what seemed to be "charitable contributions"   (presumably accounts set up by the hackers to accept stolen funds).  When I noticed the charges the day after they occurred, I notified my Credit Card Vendor and they cancelled the account, deleted the charges, and sent me a new credit card.  It was upsetting, and inconvenient ... but didn't cost me a penny after I reported and challenged the charges.

Unfortunately, not all bank debit cards offer the same kind of protection.

TARGET was responsible in reporting the problem immediately after they discovered the deception, and they are presumably taking steps to prevent its recurrance.

On Friday, Target reiterated that the stolen data included customer names, credit and debit card numbers, card expiration dates and the embedded code on the magnetic strip found on the backs of cards, Target said.
There was no indication the three- or four-digit security numbers visible on the back of the card were affected, Target said. It also said Friday there was no indication that the stolen data included a customer's birth date or social security number. The data breach did not affect online purchases, the company said.
Target also said it didn't believe that PIN numbers to customers' debit cards have been compromised.

 That's a single ray of hope for consumers whose card numbers have been compromised.

My credit card company offers a 'notification service'; when they see a charge which does not seem to match their customers' normal shopping patterns ... they hold the transaction and contact me personally to confirm that the transaction is legitimate.  That's a responsible way to manage an account, if you're a credit card company.  So far, all of the transactions which they have notified me about have been legitimate.  I can only assume that the two "bogus" transactions had not yet tripped their BS-ometer before it tripped mine.  (Considering that the two charges totaled over $1,200, it's a good argument for credit card holders to regularly monitor their own account!)

And yes, I did check my credit card account ... my only charges since my last payment are only purchases which I recognize.

Can you say the same about your own credit account?  May I suggest that you check it ..... now?


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