They were asking for it!

UPDATE: Open carry activists who walked into police dept.with AR-15 due in court - WXYZ.com: DEARBORN, Mich. (WXYZ) - 

Two open carry activists who walked into the Dearborn Police Department armed with guns, body armor and video cameras last month were due in court Friday morning for a probable cause hearing.
 Surveillance video captured the men walking into the building last month, while police are seen and heard telling them to put down their weapons. "Dude, put that on the ground. Put it on the ground... Or you are dead," an officer, with guns drawn is heard screaming.

Dude, they were lucky!

 I would have shot them on sight.
They apparently showed up "ready for action".

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should!"

(The Dearborn Police deserve two thumbs down a medal  for their willingness to allow these IDIOTS to pollute the Gene Pool.)

click the link to see the video

Federal Judge Opines ... open & concealed carry not justifiable

GUN WATCH: Judge Claims to Support Second Amendment, Just not the "Bear" part: open and concealed carry laws were a danger to any community.

"I think open carry (and concealed-carry) laws, with all due deference to the Second Amendment, which I support...are dangerous to any community because of the epidemic of mental health issues throughout this country," he said. "Putting guns in the hands of mentally incompetent people is a recipe for disaster."

Well ... yes.   The insanity clause seems reasonable.  But who decides who is insane?
What criteria is codified to determine insanity?

To most Liberals, anyone who thinks he/she needs a gun is ipso facto insane,

That's Crazy Talk!

Deep Thoughts

I saw a sign on somebody's lawn:

 "Lady XWanda ... Psychic Readings.   Call for Appointment".

Why do psychics need a phone?   Don't they already know?

Oregon "Idjut" was not the boy with an air rifle

It's all in the eye of the beholder.


Oregon Idjut Arrested Carrying Air Rifle Near High School:
(March 08, 2017)

 The North Bend High School was put under lock down briefly after a man with a rifle was seen walking toward the building Tuesday morning. Police Chief Robert Kappelman said the man was carrying the uncased weapon in the ready position about 11 a.m. while walking past the city swimming pool, causing generalized panic in the neighborhood and numerous calls to 911.

Um, let me see, which laws were he breaking?

 Police stopped and took into custody George L. Watson, 19, of North Bend. “The ready position is one hand on the forearm stock and the other on the rear stock,” said North Bend Police Chief Robert Kappelman. “You don’t carry a gun like that unless you’re going to use it. To those who saw him, it looked like all he had to do was take aim and fire.” 

Either that, or he was carrying an uncased "rifle-style" bb-gun in a public place .. which, last time I looked, was not illegal.   And unless he was actively pointing his bb-gun at people, he was no threat at all.

 Watson told police that he was headed to a friend’s house to show him the Ruger Blackhawk Elite Air Rifle. Though police took steps to determine if this was true, Watson is still being charged with disorderly conduct II, a class B misdemeanor and is being referred to the District Attorney’s Office.

I don't see any disorderly conduct here.

What I see is an irrational over-reaction to perfectly normal activity by a young man who didn't expect people to perceive a threat by a bb-gun.

And I see a police chief who is punishing a young man because the disorder was caused by over-reaction on the part of the people who freaked out at the sight of a non-lethal "weapon".

We've seen this before! In the case of Tamile Rice ... (2014)

The family of a 12-year-old boy who was fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer over a toy gun have filed a federal lawsuit claiming the officers "recklessly" shot the boy and then failed to give him immediate medical care.
The civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit was filed by an administrator for the estate of the boy, Tamir Rice.
Officer Timothy Loehmann, who fired the fatal shots, Loehmann's partner Officer Frank Garmback and the City of Cleveland are all named as defendants in the suit.
The suit accuses Loehmann and Garmback of acting "unreasonably, negligently, recklessly, wantonly, willfully, knowingly, intentionally, and with deliberate indifference to the safety and rights of Tamir Rice."

So, what's it going to be?

Is the officer who shot Tamil Rice because he was holding a toy gun to be exonerated because it was an 'honest mistake', and Tamil Rice was not at all liable?

Or is the Oregon Teenager liable to prosecution because witnesses jumped to the conclusion that he was holding a lethal weapon?

We can't have it both ways.

Me?  I blame the witnesses to the un-named Oregon boy with a toy gun.
Maybe we're getting a little too jumpy here.

Or should we outlaw toy guns and air pistols because the MainStream Media is over-publicizing all of these threats?

I don't have an answer,   All I know is, when I was a kid nobody was calling the cops on me because I was wandering around the neighborhood with a Roy Ryder BB Gun.

Liars Always Lie ... about "Assault Weapons"

John Lott's screed on "Assault Weapons Bans":

Court Upholds "Assault Weapon" Ban With Incorrect Facts | The Daily Caller:
(FEBRUARY 23, 2017)

Should “military-style rifles” be banned? On Tuesday, the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia – in a virtual party line vote – upheld Maryland’s assault weapons ban.  In the 10 to 4 En Banc decision, Democrats supported the ban while Republicans opposed it.

Black Beauty Is Dead: Part II

BREAKING: Colt Lays Off Custom Shop Director, Other Employees, Company Rumored Gutted - The Firearm BlogThe Firearm Blog:

What is happening at Colt? That’s the question on many people’s minds as news of layoffs in the company began to trickle out starting on Tuesday. Rumors of massive layoffs at Colt began with a post at Pistol-Forum by member “misanthropist”, who wrote: Sounds like a big mess down there and a whole lot of pink slips, including my favourite division, the custom shop.

I predicted this in September, 2006;  in the original "Black Beauty Is Dead" article I wrote:

Colt!
The very name evokes imagery. A new-born stallion racing with the wind, Ferrari's rampant horse icon, and that of the Colt Firearms Company of Hartford, Connecticut!
Well, nobody has read "Black Beauty" for 20 years. Enzo Ferarri is dead, and so is Colt Firearms Company of Hartford, Connecticut.

As it turns out, Colt managed to find new financing (see the article for details) and new management and new .... almost everything.   They held out for over ten years.

Now it appears that (for reasons which are not yet clear) Colt finds itself once again between a rock and a hard place.

In the words of Dear Leader:   "sad".

We'll probably be reading about the details of the problems which lead to this; fiscal, market share, technology, societal changes ... or some combination of all the above.    Will Colt manage to dodge the bullet once again?

For comparison, I reference "Remington Has Been Sold" from 2007.

But as I review my own "arsenal", I realize that I don't have a single firearm with that Prancing Stallion logo, and I haven't for years.

Okay, so it's my fault.

I'm sorry!

Deregulation of the Regulations. (Oh, I LIKE this!)

New Army policy OKs soldiers to wear hijabs, turbans and religious beards:
(January 05, 2017)

Observant Sikhs and conservative Muslim women are now able to wear religious head coverings, thanks to a directive issued Tuesday that updates the Army's grooming and appearance regulation. Sikh soldiers also are allowed to maintain their beards, according to the update. Soldiers will still have to submit their requests for brigade-level approval, but the move opens up service to people who otherwise would have had to abandon cherished religious practices to serve. Since 2009, religious accommodation requests received by the Army have largely been from soldiers wanting to wear a hijab or a Sikh turban or patka with uncut beard and hair, according to the directive.

When I was in the service, we were told we could not have beard or moustache because "it doesn't match your official ID card".   Which meant, of course, it was because some 'suit' had a stick up his butt.

When I got back from Viet Nam two years later, with three stripes and a rocker and a CIB, nobody even mentioned my handlebar moustache.   I didn't look like my Military ID Card (which I had lost in a swamp somewhere) and I still wasn't strack;  but I was "colorful".

Check the picture .   Do all these people look "Strack"?  
I think they do.

",,, and where it fell, I know not where ..."

This story is perhaps a 'warning shot' to those who would follow the advice of our beloved VP, who suggested that we could protect ourselves by firing "warning shots" .

(We should never, ever, ever accept firearms advice from a no-nothing Liberal!)

Morrissey: Victim of Ashland Walmart shooting was killed by errant bullet | Crime | richmond.com:

The defense attorney for the Mechanicsville woman accused of fatally shooting another woman at the Walmart in Ashland late Saturday said his client did not mean to kill the victim and that she was being teased by two men for being a lesbian and responded by firing a warning shot into the air. It was that bullet, fired by Brittany Lashea Wiggins, that incidentally struck and killed Ashley Fricke, a woman who was not involved in the altercation and whom Wiggins had never met, defense attorney Joe Morrissey said in an interview

(HT: War On Guns)

Two-Faced about Colorado Carry Bill, because USPSA!

I find myself ... to my amazement ... giving credence to  Liberal cautionary remarks.

Gun bill to allow "constitutional carry" passes GOP-led committee:

 “If you’re legally eligible to possess a firearm, you should be able to carry that weapon concealed for self-defense without begging for government’s permission,” said Sen. Tim Neville, R-Littleton, the bill’s sponsor. He called it “common-sense legislation.”
 Mary Parker of Ken Caryl, who has a concealed-carry permit, opposed the bill. She said there’s not enough training required now to carry a gun, and allowing untrained people to walk around armed won’t end well.

I've been training people for six years now, and I've never rejected anyone from my "INTRODUCTION TO USPSA" class FOR THE SOLE REASON THAT they are a total incompetent.

That's why I'm there; to teach the "incompetents" to become competent.

Having said that, I admit that I've passed too many "Total Incompetents" through the training regimen.  Usually, they're just unfamiliar with the concept of "drawing from a holster" and it's obvious that they will improve with experience... so we treat that First Match as a "Training Experience" and allow them to continue.

If they're "irredeemably totally incompetent", they usually figure it out for themselves and they don't show up for the monthly matches (unless they have elicited some private/personal training; not a common thing.)

OTHER THAN THAT:

I've said it before, I'll say it again, here and now:

SOME PEOPLE SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO HANDLE A GUN!

What would we do without NewsWeek? (Think for ourselves?)

It's a wonderful thing to be a writer for NEWSWEEK:

When there's a Democratic administration, you get to write about a Saint; and when there's a Republican in the White House, you get to write about the asshole leading the country.

Either way, you have an eager readership just waiting to read (and agree with you) about whatever you have to say about the current administration!

Donald Trump’s Congressional Lackeys Are Threatening Washington D.C.’s Gun Laws:

 Now proven largely correct, I’m willing to bet there’s one consequence to Donald Trump’s presidency that didn’t occur to you: For the first time in 40 years, due to the Republican Congress emboldened by a new president, guns might return to the streets of our nation’s capital en masse, no longer subject to the controls that have kept gun violence in check for decades.

This is just one example about the opinions propounded in SlewsWeek;
The current administration is "permitting" Americans in DC to exercise their constitutional rights ... and it is A Bad Thing!

DC is "no longer subject to the controls that have kept gun violence in check for decades.

Yeah, right.

The District of Columbia has been among the top fifteen most lawless (in terms of "Gun Violence") cities in America for decades, but NewsWeek Magazine typifies it as a city which has kept " gun violence in check for decades."

This has been a town (?) which has been (in 13th place in the nation along with its sister city, Baltimore, in 4th place) so lawless that criminals, crooks, gang-bangers and other Bad Guys have been moving from Chicago (18th place) to the DC area just because they know they are less likely to be prosecuted for "gun violence" .. because DC wants so badly to maintain its (unlikely) image as a "violence free" place to live.

If it wasn't for all the armed body-guards protecting elected officials, there would be NO protection for "The Average Joe".  All you have to do in DC to protect yourself is to have a half-dozen suits forming a protective circle around you; everyone else is assumed to be without protection, because NO GUNS ALLOWED!

The rest of the citizens have been advised to carry a five-dollar bill in their wallet, no credit cards, and to meekly "give it up" when confronted by muggers.

Where is the outrage?

Who can carry a gun?  (Nobody, except armed, licensed "Security Guards" ... which the Average citizen cannot afford!)

Gun Control sucks.  It keeps the criminals .. muggers, gang-bangers, etc. ... well armed and everyone else (who can't afford a hired bodyguard) without defense.   Unless, of course, they're willing to "carry" even though it's a violation of the law, or perhaps if they are "privileged" to carry a firearm .. which means very few without  "Political Influence".

Here's how you can get a Concealed Carry License in the District of Columbia:

The District of Columbia is a "May Issue" entity: you must have a permit to carry a firearm, but permits are rarely issued.

In Washington, D.C., all firearms must be registered with the police, by the terms of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975.
The same law also prohibited the possession of handguns, even in private citizens' own homes, unless they were registered before 1976. However, the handgun ban was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller. The Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment acknowledges and guarantees the right of the individual to possess and carry firearms, and therefore D.C.'s ban on handguns was unconstitutional.^[9] 

In a word:   NO!   "They cannot keep you from owning a firearm!"

SSA and Public Financing of "Those Who Will Not Work"

A recent kerflufle regarding 'senior citizens" and "anti-gun groups" highlights the extremes to which gun control people will go to define Constitutional rights to ... as many firearms owners as possible.

(See the bottom of this post for details.)

The Social Security Administration (SSA) took aim at senior citizens who find it more convenient to find an advocate to handle their Social Security payments/obligations, than to sort through the confusing myriad of laws.

SSA (a federal agency) proposed that anyone who authorized an "advocate" to guide their fiduciary rights was obviously "mentally deficient", and therefore should not be "allowed" to possess a firearm, on the grounds that they are among the "Non Compos Mentis":  ("not of sound mind; mentally incapable of managing one's affairs.) 

Why the SSA should make this leap of logic is unclear.

Or is it?

Their mandate is to insure that workers who have contributed to FICA deductions from their paychecks (involuntary contribution to both Social Security and Medicare) for all of their working rights, should in post-retirement years be entitled to those benefits.

Why would they want to do that?  Inquiring Federal Minds want to know, because it's not in their Best Interests


The Answer is:  It's The Feds!
One guess is that, since SSA (and Medicare) payments have willy-nilly been entered into a "Slush Fund" status (from which various federal agencies have not been restricted from plundering at will to support other 'social benefits'), the Feds have recently realized that they have inadequate funds to pay the earned social obligations to the Baby Boomers who are now retiring in record numbers.

It stands to reason that the Feds are unwilling to search for the money which has been funded by these programs to repay the original investors.

Unfortunately, The Feds have been "robbing Peter to pay Paul" for so long, that Peter is beginning to wonder how the United States government intends to repay the stolen funds.

All of the Government Programs stem from the same source; the elected members of the U.S. Government, and their method of meeting the fiduciary obligations which they have arbitrarily forced upon us.

We're paying illegal aliens, people who refuse to work, and other neer-do-wells who will re-elect irresponsible politicians to office over and again just so they can be the happy recipients of a mutual admiration society;  

"you pay us to vote for you, and in return we will not question how you manage the funds into which nobody expects us to contribute".

Now that the Federal Government finds itself in a bind  between tax-payers and tax-delinquents, they have some difficult decisions to make.
Shakespeare, in his famous soliloquy from Hamlet wonders:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,And by opposing end them: to die, to sleepNo more; and by a sleep, to say we endthe heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocksthat Flesh is heir to?

Unfortunately, that is a question which the Ruling Democrats have for too long found themselves unwilling to face.   They rely on the votes of those-who-get, rather than those-who-give.

That's about to change;  we hope!

 We Hope that Donald Trump knows more about Finances than Politics.

 We Hope that a new administration will pay less attention to the 'needs' of "Those Who Will Not Work", and more intention to those who contribute to the welfare our our Country.

 We Hope that Federal Funding will be directed more to creation of lesser-skill-level jobs (yes, computers are undermining our society, and we need to find a way to balance technology and society) or to training entry-level job applicants to a useful service industry\
(like that's going to happen, but hope springs eternal, etc.)

We don't expect that our hopes will be answered, which is probably why we keep electing the same losers to represent us in D.C. 


THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST:

NRA and Republicans find unlikely ally on rollback of gun control rule: science | US news | The Guardian:

The Social Security Administration would ultimately receive more than 90,000 comments on its proposed rule for doing this – meaning that more people wrote in to protest against the measure than the number of people who would ultimately be affected. Supporters of the Obama rule said it focused on a relatively narrow group of extremely impaired people. “This rule only impacts people who have been determined to be so severely disabled through a mental disorder that they can do no sort of gainful activity. They can’t hold a job even part time. Their mental disability is so severe that the Social Security Administration has determined that funds cannot be paid directly to them,” said Lindsay Nichols, a staff attorney with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

"Mentally Impaired" Recipients of Social Security?

Unless I read this wrong, the authors of this article consider that anyone who willing accepts a firearm in his/her home (let along WILLFULLY DESIRING to own a firearm) ... must be crazy.


NRA and Republicans find unlikely ally on rollback of gun control rule: science | US news | The Guardian:

For once, science is on the side of the National Rifle Association and Donald Trump, according to prominent experts on mental health and violence. 

(Reluctantly stated?)

 A cohort of researchers and civil rights advocates say congressional Republicans were right to roll back an Obama-era rule that would have barred certain mentally impaired recipients of social security benefits from owning guns. The Obama rule “is fundamentally not a rational policy”, said Paul Appelbaum, a psychiatrist who directs the law, ethics and psychiatry division at Columbia University. “It’s not a rule that would be very likely to make us safer.”

The "Obama-era rule" cited, but not defined, is that a retired person ("recipient of social security benefits") who chooses to have a third-party negotiate his/her retirement benefits package under the American Social Security Laws",  may (should?) be arbitrarily defined as "Mentally Defective" .

("Lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his or her own affairs.")

The policy, finalized in the last weeks of the Obama administration, would have disqualified from gun ownership an estimated 75,000 people who have mental illnesses or disabilities and are assigned a representative to manage their social security benefits. The people targeted by the rule “are not a particularly high-risk group for violent behavior”, Appelbaum said.

First Point:  These people are usually those who have sufficient mental capacity to decide (for their own reasons!) that they choose not to manage their own benefits package negotiations.   Which is not unreasonable, because the federal rules are sometimes contradictory and often obtuse.   It seems only reasonable that individuals may decide to appoint a judiciary arbitrator ... and it's constitutionally supported.

Second Point:  Why in the WORLD would the Social Security Administration make such an arbitrary ruling, entirely unsupported by other rules of law (or the Constitution!) which effects only retirees?

Third Point:  If a person is sufficiently 'in his right mind' to appoint a designee (much akin to an "Attorney of Record" or a "Trustee"), why would that appointment be an ipso facto argument that the person is incapable of handling his/her own legal affairs?

It seems reasonable to assume that the SSA is voluntarily accepting the general Rule of Federal Government, which is to deem anyone who applies for Federal benefits as a total fucking loser and may safely be treated with disdain, if not disrespect.  (That also includes the collateral assumption that the person in question is not a present or past Federal Employee, which of course automatically elevates said person to the Intelligentsia!)

This leads directly to the argument that anyone who trusts his government deserves exactly that he gets ... which is at best "poor service" and a least disdain, insult, embarrassment and intimidation.

That's what Government is good for, and nothing better.

Trust me: I was a Federal Employee for two years; the only redeeming factor for my service was that the people I "serviced" were entitled to shoot back at me.   And they did .. if poorly, with great enthusiasm!

I never really blamed them for that; it seemed like a reasonable response then, and it still does.

READING! (Col. Jeff Cooper, et al: Shit You Need To Know!)

SayUncle: They see me patrollin’. They hatin’:

just about every writhing related to handguns today, can directly be traced to Jeff Cooper.

It doesn't happen often, but every now and then some KnowzNothing has a bad thing to say about The Colonel.

SayUncle is far too wise to "go there", and he realizes the great benefits that Col. Jeff Cooper has lent to such competitive entities as USPSA/IPSC and similar activities.

But not everyone has such good sense.

I have a lot of opinions, and as a personal favor I'll spare you the recitation.  If you haven't  even read, let alone OWN, Cooper's "Gargantuan Gun Gossip",  *(both ONE and Two, let alone THREE)* you don't know shit.

Cooper's great about providing you all the SHIT you need to know about guns, gun safety, and the gun community/milieu.

And I use the term "shit" advisedly, because there's a shit-load of stuff about the gun culture that you can't get without either (A) spending thirty years in the culture, or (B) reading Cooper's accumulated works on the subject.

Best if you can do both, but for some folks it's a little late to attempt to grasp 30 years of culture in a single session;  Cooper attempts to give us at least a shadow of the values of Gun Culture, which nobody else (with the possible exception of perhaps Skeeter Skelton) has managed to do in the past half-century.

Oh, and of course Robert Ruark is on your "Must Read" list, for all times!

I find myself on the verge of providing a reading list for my friends, and that's A Bad Idea.  It's best that we discover our own "favorite author" list,

The Shooting Sports comes with a century (or two) of literature, which non-shooters neither know nor appreciate.  The writers (from Robert Service through Ernest Hemingway to Peter Hathaway Capstick  .. well, you name it) have provided the glory of the Gun World to millions of readers over the past century and longer.

...

I am of the opinion that people in general need to develop and perfect three social skills:

(1) Shooting ... quickly, accurately,  ... where and and when it is needed;
(2) Situational Awareness, so that the first skill is never needed;
(3) Civilized Discourse, so that the first two skills are less likely to be needed.

This isn't to say that the three skills are mutually incompatible; only to say that there is an accelerating stratus of skills to be learned, with the hope that each may minimize the need to descend to the next highest level.

About that 2012 Clackamas Mall Shooting .... ARMED CITIZEN!

Oregon Divide | Indiegogo:

On December 11th, 2012 at Clackamas Town Center in Portland Oregon, a lone gunman walked into the crowded shopping mall and started shooting.  He killed two people and wounded a teenager before he placed the barrel of his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

This is a frightfully telling story about a gunman in a public place.

The only element missing is ... why did the shooter kill himself?

Because one armed civilian (even though it was a Gun Free Zone) pointed his gun at the killer.

The Civilian didn't have to fire a shot ... the killer, noticing that he had been 'targeted' .... handled the dirty work.   Blew his own head apart.  (One Alpha)

Gun Free Zones ...  the civilian was NOT prosecuted for carrying in a GFZ!

And you know, the Main Stream Media won't tell you about that Armed Citizen!

(cf: Bearing Arms)

Racist Me

I'm a white male member of the NRA, and I haven't shot anybody for ... like ... MONTHS!

No, really!

I hope this won't look bad on my resume.

"Whiteness" Presenter Bashes NRA, Says All Mass Shooters Are White Males - YouTube:

Published on Apr 6, 2016 Charlotte Childress, with her sister Harriet Childress, give a presentation on hierarchy at "whiteness history month" at Portland Community College. In this excerpt, they bash the NRA, white males, say all mass shooters are white, talk about the psychology behind wanting to talk about white mass shooters without actually talking about guns, and framing the NRA as a hierarchical organization, thus making it evil.

Sneaky, dirty rats

Trump calls Islamic State 'sneaky, dirty rats' during Hannity interview - YouTube:

 Jan 26, 2017 President Donald Trump discussed the fight against ISIS, replacing Obamacare, his Supreme Court nominee and much more in an interview with Sean Hannity in the White House.

I wish I had said that ... I could have, but nobody would have listened.
Oh, and I don't have the ability to pick the perfect nomenclature for the "sneaky, dirty rats" which threaten our country.

Liberal Press Again Skews Facts About Firearms Violence Research

Gun Violence Researchers Race to Protect Data From Trump | WIRED:
(February 07, 2017)

 AROUND 11 AM Pacific on January 20th, while newly-inaugurated President Trump finished a celebratory lunch in the Capitol Rotunda, Magdalena Cerd  noticed something different about the White House’s website: All of its references to climate change had disappeared. Cerd  is an epidemiologist at UC Davis’ Violence Prevention Research Program, which focuses on another politicized region of science—gun violence. So she knew what that meant.  (emphasis added)

Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't know what 'that meant'; but the insinuation that the Trump White House was censoring published (or private) research data about "Climate Change" is obvious,

There are a lot of details which are not examined or made clear in this amateurish article, which suggests that it should be ignored except as an example of unprofessional reporting.  It's more important for what information it does not provide, than for the bias which is revealed.

And even more telling, research data about "gun violence" was, as insinuated by this WIRED article, also at risk of having been "disappeared".

This article is a patent attack on the integrity of the Trump White house, for purely political reasons.

 “It was a real call to action,” Cerd  says. With links to climate data vanishing, she worried the same thing could happen to gun violence data on websites belonging to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “I was on Amtrak between Berkeley and Sacramento,” she says. “So I sent an email to Garen Wintemute saying we needed to start downloading our data immediately.”

Does that mean that the research data of the UC Davis' Violence Prevention Research Program was not regularly backed up?

This is difficult to believe, considering that tens of thousands of dollars were probably invested in the research.   The UC Davis Web Master wasn't encouraging the research teams to perform website and data backups at least daily (and more responsibly, more than once a day) or that the data wasn't available on an offsite data repository?   It's a base canard against the professional practices of a respected Educational and Research Facility.

Rather than to point the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate at UC Davis tech support, I find it much more likely that the UC Davis research program managed to lose (at least temporarily ... whether they recovered the data is not discussed in the article) valuable research data, and in an attempt to cover up their embarrassing lack of data integrity supervision has chosen to blame their oversight on an external agency.

Specifically, a political foe:  the current President of the United States of America.

The suggestion that the President would be responsible for a loss of research data is not only bizarre, but it is a sad commentary on whomever provided the 'background' information for this article ... and for the author, who rushed to judgement by printing innuendo instead of facts.

(In fact, the article suggests that the President had the power, and the resources, to delete 'research data' from multiple, federally funded, generally reliable websites such as the Center for Disease control!)

And the worst approbation is for the website, which allowed this article to be published without requiring the minimum standard of finding at least two sources which support the same interpretation.

I once considered WIRED to be a reliable data source, if only for its technical content.
Now that the website has undermined its own integrity, every single word they ever published will be tainted.

So long WIRED.   Nobody will ever trust you, since you turned Political.

(The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award)

Eliminate ATF? Oh, please!

What federal agency doesn't have enough work to justify its existence, so they are overstaffed and then go looking for innocent civilians to harass just to make it look like they're actually ... you know .. accomplishing something?

If you said "Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives" you  would be almost right.

(I say "almost" because, having nothing better to do with their copious free time, this agency changes its name with the seasons;  I'll just call them the "ATF", because that's what they call themselves when they're at home;  and you can call them less complimentary names if it makes you feel good.)

I think it might be a good idea to eliminate the ATF and shift its duties to other federal agencies.

The ATF (BATFE ... etc) ... is an organization in search of a job.  They don't have enough to do while enforcing regulations on alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives .....    

... (which organization, by the way, was originally established only to insure that the appropriate taxes were paid to the feds;  all this enforcement shit that made such a huge wave in the Prohibition Era was generated only because they didn't have UTUBE for self-congratulatory advertisements,  It's all about funding!.)  ...

...... so they at ATF are desperate for a way to justify their existence.

They couldn't find enough work regulating firearms, and their best years of busting moon-shiners were gone, and tobacco isn't an issue (enough smokers die every year to render ATF meaningless), and what's with that "Explosives" thing?  We all know, all you need is a pressure cooker and some chemicals from under your kitchen sink.

So the ATF (Excuse me!  "BATFE"!) is looking for some way to justify their existence.   They don't have anything else to do, to keep them busy.

Please, by all means .. eliminate the redundancy and shift their duties to some other Federal Agency which is already so over-burdened that it hasn't time or resources to harass  bug law-abiding firearms owners with meaningless and redundant regulations.

Personally, I feel really sorry for the sad sacks who can't find 'A Real Job' and have to go to work for the ATF.   They are the most despised people in this country, and they try to make themselves feel better by imagining that they are doing something which justifies their salary.

I understand that.  I did the same thing for the last 20 years of my career, when I was working for a state educational institution.

But at least I never put anyone in jail for exercising his constitutional rights.

Guns in churches?

Guns in churches? Pastors debate church security - KWES NewsWest 9 / Midland, Odessa, Big Spring, TX: newswest9.com |:

The Texas legislature is considering a law that would allow churches to hire security officers. Many Wichita Falls churches have security, but not everyone believes armed guards belong in church. "If you think you need to have a gun to go to church, or have someone there to guard you, it makes me wonder if we need to test the depth of our faith," Cheryl Murray, Pastor of Wesley United Methodist Church, said. "Maybe we are just sticking our big toe in the shallow end instead of diving all in." She believes there are more pressing issues for the legislature to tackle than security in churches.

Luke 22:36 (BBE) And he said to them, But now, he who has a money-bag, or a bag for food, let him take it: and he who has not, let him give his coat for money and get a sword.

I guess this is officially an even-numbered year

Yesterday I wrote a draft outline about my angst-ridded decisions whether or not to renew my National Rifle Association (NRA) membership.   But I didn't publish it; I gave myself time to rethink my original decision.

I 'rejoined' the NRA last year, after having allowed my annual membership to lapse the year before.  I usually rejoin on even number years, and decline renewal on odd-numbered years.  There's a "love/hate" relationship between me and the NRA; I think they're insufficiently conservative and that they don't do enough to protect the Second Amendment.

uh ... yes, perhaps I am a little right of center.

Today, I read this article:

America's 1st Freedom | Tracing Judge Gorsuch’s Paper Trail On The Second Amendment: “The Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own firearms and may not be infringed lightly.” So wrote U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch in United States v. Miguel Games-Perez. That case demonstrates why Judge Gorsuch is a worthy successor to Justice Antonin Scalia.

Then I went to the NRA website and signed up for another year.   If it helps keep judges like Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, it's worth $40 to me.

But I did demand that I get the free magazine with my membership.  I'm not a TOTAL Bleeding Heart!