Blog
Gun Safety
Talking With Kids
Where are they going to learn the truth about guns and the safe handling of guns? On TV? At school? Peer groups?
Do it! Have the talk—at home first, then with your PTA or School Board. Gun Safety is important enough to be taught to all kids in the public schools. What they see on TV is fantasy; don't let fantasy become reality.
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Crime Stoppers
Concealed Handgun Permit Holders Stop Four Violent Crimes in Five Days
Macon, Georgia, December 26, 2015:
A Warner Robins man told police that he shot and killed a man who tried to rob him.
According to police, it happened around 8:10 p.m. on Christmas night on the 100 block of Oakridge Drive.
. . . Antonio Bagley, 29, told [police] Jerrell Walker tried to rob him so he fired his pistol at him. Walker later died from a gunshot wound to the torso.
Bagley has not been charged, and the case is still under investigation. . . .
Miramar, Florida, December 23, 2015:
The incident happened at Captain Max Seafood on State Road 7 around 5:30 p.m., Miramar Police spokeswoman Tania Rues said.
According to Rues, the suspect entered the eatery wearing a ski mask and gloves. The employee fired several shots, killing the suspect, Rues said.
At least one customer and other employees were in the restaurant at the time but no other injuries were reported. . . .
Gary, Indiana, December 22, 2015:
Brandon Johnson, 22, was shot several times about a block from his home in Gary, Indiana, after he pulled a gun on the would-be buyers and tried to rob them, officials said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
A northern Indiana man was killed and his girlfriend shot after trying to rob two Illinois men looking to buy a vehicle from a Craigslist ad, police said.
Brandon Johnson, 22, was shot several times about a block from his home in Gary, Indiana, after he pulled a gun on the would-be buyers and tried to rob them, officials said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. . . .
The would-be car buyers — a 55-year-old man from Olympia Fields and a 65-year-old from Chicago Heights — called police around 7 p.m. Sunday to report a shooting on Gary’s west side. They told officers that they made arrangements to make a purchase from Craigslist, when the man and woman they planned to meet with tried to rob them . . . .
Detroit, Michigan, December 24, 2015:
“The big dog came charging at my dog, I thought he had her by the throat, but it turned out he had her shoulder,” the 65-year-old Port Huron man said.
Kessler was walking with Daisy on North Boulevard about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday when the attack occurred.
Kessler said he was on the sidewalk when the large dog charged.
“Before he got to me I got my pepper spray out and sprayed him but that didn’t stop him,” he said. “After the pepper spray the dog started attacking mine, I tried kicking it, but it was so aggressive I took out my gun and shot it.” . . .
A friendly wag of the tail to the Crime Prevention Research Center
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Political Ambiguity
Two Recent Headlines
and
Irreconcilability used to be legal grounds for divorce, now it seems to be a cornerstone of our current governmental administration. I'm sure they will devise a new way to try and blame the chaos on guns....
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Law
Citizen Enforcement?
Chopped liver before a pit bull....
American citizen's are being forced into playing an law-enforcement role by an administration whose only response to violent crime is "let's pass another law" while neglecting to enforce the laws that are already in existence.
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Sailing & History
Here’s some unfolding (geographic) US History
St. Augustine may have a "Fountain of Youth", but Pensacola has the oldest “Presidio" (Fortified Spanish Colony) —or, more accurately, what’s left of it…
The University of West Florida uncovered what they believe to be the original Presidio established by Don Tristan de Luna in 1559, located (on shore) near the wreck of one of de Luna’s ships (the oldest shipwreck of record in Florida) that had been discovered on the bottom of Pensacola Bay in October of 1992.
"The longstanding mystery is solved. The location of the oldest established European multi-year settlement in the United States is indeed in the heart of Pensacola.
Discoveries by local historian Tom Garner in October and research afterward by University of West Florida archaeologists confirmed where Don Tristan de Luna established his Spanish colony in August of 1559 – six years before the St. Augustine settlement and nearly 48 years before the English settled in Jamestown, Va.
The historical site is in an urban downtown neighborhood within view of the two shipwrecks linked to the Luna expedition in Pensacola Bay.”
That brings the local total to four:
1559 - Presidio Santa Maria de Ochuse (near Pensacola Bay)
1698 - Presidio Santa Maria de Galve (near the Naval Air Station)
1722 - Presidio Isla de Santa Rosa (near Fort Pickens)
1754 - Presidio San Miguel de Panzacola (near downtown Pensacola)
One of the interesting things about the ocean and the littoral wilderness preserve is that most of it appears the same today as it did in 1559. I enjoy that thought every time I approach the entrance to Pensacola Bay from the Gulf of Mexico.
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Justice System
Only in Chica...er Baltimore
In a shocking statement, trial Judge William Barry told the hung jury to “Compromise if you can do so without violence to your own moral judgement,” according to reporting by ABC News.
Such a statement coming from a trial judge is shocking because “compromise verdicts” in criminal cases are anathema to American concepts of jurisprudence and due process.
Each juror is sworn to vote for a guilty verdict on a charge only if they honestly believe that each and every element of that charge has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
If they do not so honestly believe this to be the case for a given charge, they are sworn to vote not guilty on that charge. Period.
This lies at the core of the legal mandate that the defendant has the presumption of innocence.
There is no proper room for compromise in such a judicial framework.
While it is true that criminal trial jurors do from time to time arrive at so-called compromise verdicts, such instances are considered defects in the judicial system, not legitimate outcomes.
If ever there were grounds for reversal of any conviction, this is it.
A friendly wag of the tail to Andrew Branca at the Legal Insurrection blog.
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Global Firearms
The UN and the 2015 Small Arms Survey
For anyone interested in global dialog regarding small arms, the Small Arms Survey 2015: Weapons and the World examines the role of weapons and armed violence in humanity’s appropriation of the earth’s wildlife and mineral riches—in Africa, where the poaching of elephants and rhinos is becoming increasingly militarized, and near resource extraction sites around the world.
In addition to presenting updates on the UN small arms process and the top arms importers and exporters, the volume assesses how recent technological developments affect weapons marking, record-keeping, and tracing; reviews small arms flows to Egypt, Libya, and Syria before and after the ‘Arab Spring’; and evaluates a stockpile management initiative in South-east Europe. The ‘armed actors’ section sheds light on the arms and ammunition used by insurgents in northern Mali, the decline of the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda, and the use of floating armouries by private security companies in the Indian Ocean. This edition also analyses the conditions that are driving young people to adopt high-risk coping strategies in Burundi.
The report was launched at the UN HQ in New York on 1 June 2015, during this press conference and during a public launch afterwards.
Speakers: Anna Alvazzi del Frate, Small Arms Survey Research Director; Khristopher Carlson, Small Arms Survey Senior Researcher; Glenn McDonald, Small Arms Survey Senior Researcher and Yearbook Coordinator; Paul Seger, Permanent Representative of Switzerland.
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Politics
Hazardous Dissension
Having been a lawman for many years, I personally appreciate and respect the augmenting effect that an armed citizenry has on keeping crime under control. It was, and still is, a comforting concept to most officers who enforce the law. The reason is simple; a large outbreak of crime can quickly overwhelm the police, and the size of the outbreak is relative to the local jurisdiction. For this, and other reasons, the concept of an armed citizenry is important enough to have its assurance embedded into our Constitution as the law of the land.
A 2013 poll conducted by PoliceOne.com, which drew 15,595 completed responses from verified law enforcement professionals found that the overall attitude of law enforcement is strongly pro-gun rights, with the belief that an armed citizenry is effective in stopping crime.
A recent video made by a police chief in Texas represents a consensus of those who protect the public for a living:
Published on Dec 10, 2015
Dec. 9, 2015 - Texas police chief, others urge citizens to arm themselves. DALLAS (AP) -- A Texas police chief who warns President Barack Obama in a social media video that trying to disarm Americans would "cause a revolution in this country" is the latest law enforcement official to urge citizens to arm themselves in the wake of mass shootings.
Randy Kennedy, longtime chief in the small East Texas town of Hughes Springs, about 120 miles east of Dallas, says in the video posted this week on his personal Facebook page that the Second Amendment was established to protect people from criminals and "terrorists and radical ideology."
"It's also there to protect us against a government that has overreached its power," Kennedy says in the video. "You are not our potentate, sir. You are our servant."
He warned people in his town to prepare themselves: "Be ready when the wolf comes to the door, because it's on its way."
Law enforcement officials in Arizona, Florida and New York also have recently prompted citizens to arm themselves - some using similar comments aimed at terrorism.
Kennedy said his call to arms was the result of his disappointment with Obama's Oval Office speech Sunday in which the president vowed the U.S. will overcome a new phase of the terror threat that seeks to "poison the minds" of people here and around the world. The police chief told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he's not asking residents to turn into vigilantes or "become super action heroes."
He said feedback on his video has been supportive for the most part.
Do we really have an government administration that has such a blatant disregard for law and order that they are crazy enough to dissent from the founders, and try to disarm American citizens?
That kind of thing is what the 2nd Amendment is designed to prevent.
Every law-abiding citizen should be trained in the use of firearms, and enjoy the freedom guaranteed by our Constitution.
I can help.
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Worldview
Putting on 'The Whole Armor'
It is obviously futile to try to protect a citizen's right to bear arms from the erosion of political corruption and demagoguery without also, at the same time, helping to protect the citizenry from becoming theologically disarmed. The whole armor (Eph. 6:10-20) is essential.
... we’ve come up with what represents about 20 million people who are favorable in the Muslim world to ISIS and that’s counting just three of the 11 countries cited in the report. What we’re looking at here is a vast collision of worldviews and one that secular leaders in Europe and in the United States starting in the White House seem to be incapable of understanding.
For example, effective theological armament would allow a citizen to comprehend that the first step toward preventing "home grown" terrorists is to keep the terrorists out of our home. It's not fear, it's logic!
Albert Mohler, in his Daily Briefing today, addresses this issue, and much more.
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Hoplophobia
End the Gun Epidemic in America
This editorial published on A1 in the Dec. 5 edition of The New York Times. It is the first time an editorial has appeared on the front page since 1920.
And, the naiveté expressed by the writer(s) of the noted article illustrates the underlying cause of hoplophobia. Lack of respect equals lack of knowledge, and vice versa.
The writer(s) of the editorial consider it "a moral outrage and national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency." Really? Is it really a moral outrage that an innocent law-abiding citizen or police officer can legally purchase the tools necessary to defend themselves from the likes of Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik? And, what about the need to kill dangerous animals (the four legged kind); does the writer think that the guns used for that application are somehow less powerful than the guns used to kill terrorists?
I would guess that the writer(s) of this article have never had the opportunity to attend a firearm safety course, or learn anything about the subject of firearms. Apparently, they are just scared of guns, in which case the best thing for them to do is to keep their hands off and refrain from projecting their fear and ignorance.
It is true that a breakdown of moral discipline has led to many abuses, but the right to keep and bear arms is one of the principal civil rights that we possess in this country, and for the New York Times to advocate against that right, and publish it on their front page, is amazingly naive.
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Politics
Cause and Effect
A petulant President Barack Obama demanded that Americans talk about gun control over Thanksgiving.
Citizens responded by buying enough firearms in one day to field an entire new military the size of the Marine Corps, with guns left over to equip 2-4 Army divisions.
More and more people are finally starting to realize that we are at war with an enemy that want to kill us for nothing more than being a Christian, or an American, and that we have a delusional functionary in the White House. There has never been a greater time of need for every law-abiding citizens to be armed.
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