Category: Crap For Brains

BLUF
The enemy always gets a vote – and Biden just announced that his enemy is tens of millions of us patriotic citizens. So, in the great AR-15 vs. F-15 hypothetical – and pray it stays hypothetical despite the stupidity of our ruling caste – the smart money is on the numbers. But the truly smart course of action is to not to even go down this road, to re-embrace our Constitution and to stop trying to be butch in order to get some Twitter love from the pinkos. Maybe this ridiculous stooge masquerading as our president should stop running his fool mouth threatening to slaughter other Americans.

F-15 vs. AR-15? Bet on the Guys With the Guns

Father of the Year and alleged President Joe Biden is busy trying to rile up his base of weirdos, adjunct professors, gender studies grads, government timeservers, sexually unsatisfied wine women and their sexually unsatisfying life partners. That’s why Dork Brandon pulled one of my favorites out of his Big Duffel Bag O’ Hack Cliches, the old “Your puny guns are no match against the awesome power of the US military which I will use to kill you for dissenting!” narrative.

Okay, fine. Let’s go over this again for the knuckleheads who think that they prevail if they step outside the “use your words” paradigm they grew up with in their sissy private schools. You lose if you idiots provoke a real civil conflict – not the kind of low-intensity urban conflict of the Seventies where you cheered on the Weathermen and Cinque’s SLA, and not the kind where a bunch of mutants riot under the protection of leftist municipal governments in leftist municipalities, but a real one. One where the people you want to crush under your Birkenstocks fight back. With AR-15s.

I discuss this in great detail in my new non-fiction book We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America, and not from the perspective of half-wit daughter-showering goofs but from the real down and dirty of how this terrible course of events would actually unspool. And it would go poorly for a largely unarmed, untrained, urban-centered population of smug geebos whose primary weapon system is a snarky tweet.

The doddering moron shared his tactical insights with his audience at a rally in Pennsylvania for Heart Attack Shrek. He said, thinking he was super-clever, “For those brave right-wing Americans… if you want to fight against the country, you need an F-15. You need something little more than a gun.”

Hmmmm, but do they? Really?

Grandpa Badfinger’s premise is that all you tens of millions of semi-fascists out there with your AR-15s would have no shot stopping the woke military, which would eagerly crush you with their potent force package of F-15s and esoteric pronouns. It is a flawed premise on more grounds than one column can cover (hence my book), but we need to focus and that means we will need to overlook some important questions. These important questions include:

– Why do you imagine your sorry band of socialist creeps who treat the Constitution like Jerry Nadler treats his boxers constitutes “the country?”

– The useless senior officer corps aside, why do you believe the normals who make up the vast majority of America’s combat forces will gleefully butcher their friends and family for the amusement of a bunch of Chardonnay-swilling blue checks?

– Have you ever heard of Afghanistan?

Let’s focus on his key sound bite. Gun vs. Jets…who ya got?

I’m putting my money on the guns. You dumb progressives can go for the jets and the points.

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FAKE WOKENESS: Two New Junk Science ‘Studies’ Suggest Racism, Fears of Blacks Drive Opposition To Gun Control.

Remember the RAND study that found only 123 of 27,900 gun control studies actually used the scientific method to come to their conclusions? Well, gun control advocates have trotted out two fresh, steaming new “studies” and the flies are already swarming. The University of Wisconsin has promoted a new finding that whites own guns and oppose gun control because of racism and a fear of blacks.

And within days of squeezing out that specimen of woke clownishness, the American Psychological Association published their own “study” that — you guessed it — whites who support gun rights are racist.

Interestingly the same study showed that when whites support gun control they’re racist too! So you’re racist. I’m racist. We’re all racists! To the uber-woke racists at the APA, if you’re white, you must be a racist.

Meanwhile, here in the real world, gun owners and gun rights supporters — whatever their color — are some of the most open-minded, tolerant and welcoming people in our communities. Contrary to what the racial hucksters, the Grievance Industry and critical race theory practitioners are selling, most Americans aren’t racist. And frankly, most Americans oppose racist gun control laws, too.

Most normal people rightfully reject claims of inherent racism in whites (or anyone else), or any of the other woke, social justice nonsense peddled by the gun-hating left in America.

In fact, plenty of black gun owners would dismiss this Wisconsin Badger junk science (or the APA’s trash “science”) as nothing but poppycock.

The folks over at The Federalist have the deets on these new “studies” . . .

White people own guns — and oppose gun-control legislation — because they are racist and fear black people. Two new studies advance this dangerous narrative building among our academic elites. While such rhetoric is perhaps unsurprising among political pundits or celebrities, otherwise serious academics are now ascribing racist motives to gun ownership and opposition to gun control. These studies are not only based on a slew of bigoted assumptions, but also bad science.

The University of Wisconsin recently promoted a new study contending that in U.S. counties where black people were enslaved in 1860, gun ownership is higher today. In fact, gun ownership, they say, is correlated to the number of slaves formerly in each county. To support this more-slaves-means-more-guns theory, the authors construct a historical narrative that whites feared newly freed slaves, bought guns for self-defense, and then this fear somehow trickled down over 160 years.

But interestingly enough, just last month, National Public Radio ran a story on how black people are the fastest growing group of gun owners. If gun ownership is a product of white people being racist, then this is quite curious.

The University of Wisconsin study suffers from a series of flaws, even apart from its poisonous premise that white people believe or feel certain things because they are white. You’d never say the same about other races, and we shouldn’t give a pass to academics who traffic in the same type of racism…  

A few days after the release of the slavery-predicts-gun-ownership study, the American Psychological Association (APA) released another study contending that whites support gun rights because they are racist, and when whites oppose gun rights, that’s also racist.

Rest assured, gun control advocates will try to use these junk studies — like thousands that came before them — to paint patriotic, gun-loving Americans of all colors and persuasions as racists no matter their race, sex or religion.

And why not? Using pseudo-scientific hokum to support claims that gun control laws prevent criminal misuse of guns is actually less scientifically accurate than claiming drinking milk causes car accidents. But they have no fear of anyone in the media debunking the junk science on which they base their calls for civilian disarmament.

Plus most politicians and low-information types will probably believe it…so they keep pushing the politicized garbage to further their disarmament narrative. And so it goes.

BLUF
Back in the United States, American Farm Bureau Federation Chief Economist Dr. Roger Cryan estimates that a Sri Lankan-style move would cut domestic grain crop production by about 50 percent within two to four years of implementation, leading to massive price hikes and acute shortages of basic commodities……

Should California – or the nation –  take the path of most destruction and implement restrictions or even fertilizer bans, the social and economic impacts would be catastrophic and could hearken back to the conditions during the Great Depression of the 1930s – except this time there wouldn’t be any bread lines because there wouldn’t be any bread.

From Sri Lanka to Salinas

Ah, Sri Lanka.

In 2020: a beautiful, agriculturally self-sufficient island nation full of tea and tourists and holder of the highest “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) investor rating in the world.

And then, as part of the larger “green” effort spurred on by international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), woke capital, and, seemingly, a desire to sit at the big table at the various and sundry global initiative conferences, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa banned the use of manufactured fertilizer in order to create a more climate-friendly sustainable farming sector.  In April, 2021, the country went all-organic overnight.

What could possibly go wrong?

By the end of last year, Sri Lanka became unable to feed itself, prices for food (especially rice) and fuel and other daily basics skyrocketed, the tea crop – and the hundreds of millions it earns in international trade – was decimated.  The nation defaulted on its foreign debt, had rolling power blackouts, the tourists are staying away in droves, and Sri Lanka,  already wracked by corruption and COVID, spiraled out of control.

The public’s response?  Even though the fertilizer ban had already been partially rolled back, just last month Rajapaksa’s presidential palace was stormed by thousands of everyday Sri Lankans and he had to flee the country – last word was that he was holed up in Singapore.

(Side note to Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney – this is what an actual insurrection looks like:)

It seems Kermit was right – it ain’t easy being green.

But, considering the state’s claim to be the global leader in fighting climate change, can California – with its extremely powerful “climate lobby” that was able to ban the future sales of new gas-powered vehicles, a concept that would have been unthinkable a very few years ago –  be far behind?

California’s commitment to confronting climate change cannot be underestimated., as proven by the 86 different climate partnerships, or “bilateral and multilateral agreements with national and subnational leaders” the state as entered into.  (The list can be found here:  https://www.energy.ca.gov/about/campaigns/international-cooperation/climate-change-partnerships .)

Additionally, a quick tour of state department websites finds numerous examples of “green,” “sustainability,” and “climate” pages and plans; even the state’s prisons get into the act with its climate change plan: https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/green/cdcr-green/climate-change-adaptation/ .

It should be stressed that California is not above shooting itself in the foot when it comes to climate issues. Thursday, the legislature passed a bill mandating 3,200-foot “buffer zones” around all – new and existing – oil and gas wells, a move which would practically eliminate the industry – and its 13,000 jobs – in the state.

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Never Forget. SloJoe may be a senile dolt, but that speech was precisely what the demoncraps think about you.
As Joe Huffman says ‘Prepare Accordingly’

BLUF
So he just wants us to pretend he didn’t say it and ignore everything he said last night? What kind of ridiculous administration is this? They can’t even do evil oppressive government right, they’re that messed up.

But you know what a failure this all was when he immediately has to backtrack from it the next morning.

You Know It Backfired Badly: Biden Now Desperately Trying to Backpedal His Despicable Speech

Joe Biden is getting all kinds of backlash from the despicable speech he delivered last night at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, attacking millions of Americans who want to “Make America Great Again” and supporting President Donald Trump.

We covered some of the hot takes, with many people comparing his unprecedented attacks to Communist or Nazi-like tactics, Biden acting like the fascist he was accusing others of being. They also hit on the visuals with the improper use of the Marines and the evil blood-red backdrop.

Among the hot take was Trump who chastised Biden for essentially threatening Americans and saying if Biden doesn’t want to make America great again he shouldn’t be representing America. Trump also called going after Americans like that insane.

Even CNN bashed Biden for the use of the Marines in such a speech. On the other hand, CNN also reportedly softened the look of the visuals so it didn’t look as bad.

But now Biden seems to be trying to walk it back a bit. Or maybe he just can’t even remember what he said the night before. Now he’s trying to say he was only talking about people who called for “violence.” That of course was a lie, that is not what he said during the speech or the whole prior week. It means he knows now that he screwed up and went too far.

“I don’t consider any Trump supporter to be a threat,” Biden said to Fox’s Peter Doocy. “I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence and fails to condemn violence when its used, refuse to acknowledge an election when it’s been won… That is a threat to democracy.” Oh, so you mean like the Democratic reaction to when Trump won in 2016, when they tried to suborn electors, boycotted his inaugural, when Democrats refused to accept he won, and leftists rioted in the streets on Jan. 20, 2017? When have the Democrats ever called out any of that? Biden didn’t condemn any of that, indeed, he encouraged the perception that Trump was not a legitimate president.

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I Am a ‘Clear and Present Danger’ to the Biden Regime (And So Are You)

“Clear and present danger” aren’t words any president should use lightly because that’s when the big guns used to come out against the First Amendment — and might again.

Set aside for a few minutes the vaguely Nurembergesque optics of Thursday night’s historically divisive speech by Presidentish Joe Biden so we can concentrate on the content.

“MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger,” Biden angrily declared. “They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow lies together.”

“That’s why respected conservatives, like Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael Luttig, has called Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans, quote, a ‘clear and present danger’ to our democracy.”

Ben Shapiro called it “the most demagogic, outrageous, and divisive speech” he’s ever seen from an American president because Biden “essentially declared all those who oppose him and his agenda enemies of the republic.”

Biden’s speech came just two days after he not-so-implicitly threatened [VIP link] millions of law-abiding Americans with military action. “For those brave right-wing Americans,” he sneered, “if you want to fight against the country, you need an F-15. You need something little more than a gun.”

Ricochet’s Jon Gabriel said that Biden’s word choice was as “deliberate as it was divisive,” reminding readers that the C&PD doctrine was “created by the Woodrow Wilson-era Supreme Court to curtail the free speech of Americans.”

Biden, warned Gabriel, “floated a legal pretext to silence Republicans heading into the midterm elections.”

Already, social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have been revealed as willing stooges for government end-runs around the First Amendment, as our own Stacey Lennox noted just today:

On the heels of shocking comments by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the FBI’s role in censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story, initial e-mails related to a lawsuit filed by Schmitt and Landry show even more evidence that the Biden administration is using Big Tech to do what it is not, allowed to do according to the Constitution.

Lennox wrote that “Further disclosures could demonstrate that Big Tech and the government are conspiring to censor information related to any number of issues.”

But back to Thursday night’s demagoguery.

MSNBC’s Eugene Robinson approvingly described Biden’s speech as an “urgent, wartime address.”

Well, with whom is Biden at war? Biden has met the enemy, and he is us.

Many on the Right, including my friend and colleague Stephen Kruiser, believe that Biden’s speech was a display of weakness, “the panic and flop sweat of every Washington power player inside the Beltway.” I don’t necessarily disagree, but let’s at least consider that it might have been something else: A display of dangerously hubristic overconfidence in the administration’s own power.

Their power not to govern but to rule.

What else is there to call it when the Biden regime goes from surreptitiously silencing critics via social media back channels to openly floating a Wilson-era pretext for jailing us?

If this scheming mediocrity believes he can use his signature to transfer up to a trillion dollars from blue-collar Americans into the wallets of lawyers, doctors, and Trans Deconstructive Lit Theory majors and call it “debt relief,” why wouldn’t he think he can use the coercive power of the state to silence his critics?

I’ve been writing for PJ Media for over 15 years, but this is the first time I ever felt like the company, all of these voices, might not be here tomorrow.

I don’t know if the Swamp cabal running the White House will get away with it, but I’m sure as hell not going to be quiet about it ….

Forget “democracy” — our republic might depend upon it.

Just to point out for those who may not know.

DoD Instruction 1334.1, “Wearing of the Uniform,”

1.2. POLICY.
a. The wearing of the uniform by Service members of Active and Reserve Components, retired Service members, cadets, midshipmen, auxiliary members, and members of organizations authorized to wear a military uniform by the respective service, is prohibited under any of the following circumstances:

(2) During or in connection with furthering political activities, private employment, or commercial interests, when an inference of official sponsorship by DoD or the Military Service concerned for the activity or interest may be drawn.

Now, the Marines in attendance at that political activity were almost assuredly under direct orders to attend that ‘speech’, but that doesn’t excuse them, or their commanders, from what they did (for they should know better), nor the politicians who abused the public trust, and the non-politization of the military, by inferring that the military would, or will ‘back up’ Biden’s rant by having them on stage. The only time uniformed military service members are permitted to attend a political activity is  as a member of a joint Armed Forces color guard at the opening ceremonies of the national conventions of the Republican, Democratic, or other political parties
(DOD Directive 1344.10 -§ 4.1.2.15)

What Biden and his handlers have done is make a direct threat to his political opposition by showing that he feels he has the power to use the military for partisan political purposes.

Banana Republic, we have arrived.

Birmingham mayor calls for gun ban

The city of Birmingham, Alabama isn’t exactly Chicago or New York City when it comes to size, but it’s not exactly Lotsee, Oklahoma (population: 6) either.

Because it’s a good-sized city, it tends to have a lot of the problems one would associate with a larger city. That obviously includes crime.

In fact, now the mayor is using that crime rate to demand stricter gun control laws.

Since January 1, Birmingham Police have investigated 90 homicides to date in the city with 83 of those by guns, according to Mayor Randall Woodfin during Tuesday’s city council meeting.

This, as he reports that over 700 firearms have been taken off the streets in that same amount of time.

Woodfin is calling for stricter gun laws to get those weapons off the streets, while asking for more help from the community.

“I wake up every day thinking how can we address this?” Woodfin said.

At Tuesday’s meeting he had two police officers take in examples of the types of guns that they have confiscated to people could see what they look like – he says the most common ones are mini-Draco’s and the AR pistol. Woodfin said there is no use for them on the streets but harm.

No, that’s not true at all. There are plenty of uses for them; legitimate, law-abiding uses. Just because criminals are using them doesn’t mean no one else is.

As for Woodfin’s calls for gun control, they’re going to fall on deaf ears, as they should.

Look, Birmingham may be pretty rough, and the crime statistics say that it is, but just what gun control does Woodfin think will suddenly make this end?

It seems he wants to ban them.

“If you can’t support this ban that’s un-American because the whole idea is public safety,” Woodfin said. “Federal tax dollars, state tax dollars, local tax dollars, the root of what we do is public safety first.”

So, it’s un-American to want to uphold the actual Constitution? Seriously?

As for public safety, I took another look at the text of the Constitution. The term “public safety” appears exactly once, and that’s only in reference to suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus. That’s it. At no other point does it claim any other right can be suspended in the name of public safety, even the Second Amendment rights.

Further, the idea that you can ban these particular weapons and criminals not get their hands on them is absolutely insane.

On one hand, there are already plenty of them running around the state as it is. A ban now would, at best, simply keep law-abiding folks from buying any more of them. It won’t stop criminals from getting them at all. Even if they ran out of guns to steal, they’d just obtain them from out-of-state sources.

Further, these are easy to put together yourself, even without a “ghost gun” kit. How does Woodfin propose preventing that?

Look, Birmingham’s problems are significant, to be sure, and Woodfin isn’t a complete idiot. Yes, he’s calling for gun bans, but he’s also asking for community help. That’s where he should be directing his time and effort because that’s going to accomplish far more than anything else he’s talking about.

In fact, had he not called for the gun ban, I’d be celebrating him for talking common sense. Instead, he wants something he can’t have, then has the cajones to call it “un-American” if you oppose it.

With RINO-Republicans Like Ohio’s Matt Dolan, Who Needs Democrats?

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Ohio GOP lawmaker introduces gun safety bill; includes red flag law, enhanced background checks,” ABC affiliate News 5 Cleveland video reports. “Cleveland-area state Sen. Matt Dolan proposed bill with mental health in mind.”

That this obvious advocacy piece masked as news relies on assumptions right out of the starting gate is evidenced by repeating the term “gun safety” in the headline, the lede, the body of the “report,” and twice in the crusading reporter’s embedded self-publicizing tweet (embedded below). And curiously, since “red flag” laws are also promoted, you’d think the term “due process” would appear at least once in an unbiased report?

You’d think.

Also of note, no real opposing viewpoints are presented. The single gun owner quoted who appears marginally uncomfortable with what he’s being told isn’t totally against the idea; he just isn’t sure what it would actually do. He said that “most gun owners don’t want to cause issues.”

I suppose asking someone from Buckeye Firearms Association what they thought about it would be too much of an investigative reporting stretch. Besides, they’d probably just throw a wrench in the predetermined narrative and give the video editor much more work to futz around with context. And that’s assuming anyone at WEWS even bothered to look for “Ohio gun rights groups” to see what might turn up first on Google.

For his part, that Republican Matt Dolan is following a time-worn gun-grabber script could not be more apparent, especially when he declares, “[The bill] protects the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens while also…”

Grabbers always sound that way when they feign “I support the Second Amendment” right before showing everyone their big “but.” Remembering that it ends in “shall not be infringed,” what other tyrannical usurpations besides disarming citizens who have not been convicted, let alone even charged, does Dolan intend to “protect” us with?

“If someone aged 18 to 21 wants to buy a gun, they would only be able to buy a rifle or shotgun that holds only a single round of ammunition if they buy the gun by themselves,” the report notes. So evidently double-barrel Fudd guns are out.

Why would he invent such a ludicrous Constitutionally and historically unsupportable and offensive restriction?

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Amy Swearer

I read the transcript of Biden’s gun control speech yesterday so that you didn’t have to. Here are the top five most unserious things he said:

(1) “The bullet out of an AR-15 travels five times as rapidly as a bullet shot out of any other gun…and can pierce Kevlar.”

What even…? This is obviously and objectively false. He just flat made it up. Especially if you’re talking about your typical 55 gr. .223/5.56 rounds.

An intern could have fact checked this with a basic google search. There are dozens of readily available charts for this:

chuckhawks.com Improved Rifle Ballistics Table

But also, muzzle velocity is not synonymous with lethality or vague notions of “stopping power.”

(2) “You can’t go out and buy an automatic weapon. You can’t go out and buy a cannon.”

Okay, we’re actually tired of fact-checking this. You can, in fact, own both of these things. Both at the time of ratification and today.

Hundreds of thousands of civilian-owned machine guns are currently in the NFA registry. Heck, you can own a tank if you can afford it.
(3) “For those brave right-wing Americans who say it’s all about keeping America independent and safe, if you want to fight against the country, you need an F-15…need something more than a gun.”

How many F-15s did the Taliban own?

Also, I’m confused…is my AR-15 an ultra-dangerous weapon of war that no civilian should own because it rips bodies apart…or is it a useless hunk of carbon fiber that has zero value in a hypothetical armed defense against a tyrannical gov?

Seriously, though, this view of armed revolution/defense against tyranny underappreciates the role of federalism in that scenario. It’s not “me and my AR.” It’s “tens of thousands of armed Americans and almost certainly a lot of state national guard units [which have F-15s].”

While we’re here, let’s also acknowledge that “your AR-15 is useless because the government could just carpet bomb you into submission” isn’t an argument in favor of gun control. It’s actually an argument for a better armed citizenry and against trusting whoever said that.

Re: Kevlar – literally every rifle round will go through soft body armor. This isn’t unique to an AR-15. There’s a reason body armoring grading exists – if you’re planning on using soft body armor against rifle rounds….don’t. You need the proper grade. That’s the whole point.

(4) “For God sake, what’s the rationale for these weapons outside of a war zone? They inflict severe damage…they rip bodies apart.”
…so then why do we universally exempt law enforcement officers from these bans, including while they’re off duty? Are they waging war against the American people? And how does removing a pistol grip and barrel shroud change the rationale for possession? [It doesn’t].

I mean this sincerely but also gently – if you think a single child in Uvalde would still be alive (or their body less horribly destroyed) if the shooter used a different firearm or a featureless “non-assault” weapon chambered in .223/5.56…you don’t understand guns. At all.

(5) “There are certain gun dealers that are basically… Not gun dealers, they’re wholesalers providing the weapons to anybody who have the money.”

Either he’s suggesting that these gun dealers are breaking the law and selling to felons, etc. – in which case, shut them down and put them in prison – or he’s suggesting that gun sellers are somehow bad for selling guns in full compliance with federal law.

This is how sales of anything work. But yes, gun sellers will sell to anyone who has the money to purchase then gun and who passes a background check….because that buyer has a right to keep and bear arms and his purchase/possession is perfectly legal.

Biden has never showed himself to be a serious person when it comes to gun policy and the Second Amendment [remember “just fire two blasts of your shotgun outside the house if you think there’s an intruder”?] But was hands down his most unserious speech on the issue to-date.

If he wanted to be serious about gun violence, he’d be in Philadelphia talking about rogue prosecutors and straw purchasing. Instead, he’s in Wilkes-Barre telling law-abiding citizens they should give up their ARs because he could just order the Air Force to bomb them.

‘Prevent‘? No one seems to how a device that – supposedly –  tells you where shots were fired, can ‘prevent’ such from occurring. Does the idiot believe it’s something like ‘Pre-Crime™’?

Detroit officials say ShotSpotter could have helped prevent Sunday mass shooting

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said Monday that if a controversial gunshot detection system called ShotSpotter had been implemented in the police precinct where four people were shot Sunday, there’s a good chance officers would have stopped the shooter sooner.

Detroit officials alleged that a 19-year-old man with no criminal history shot four people in the 12th precinct unprovoked, killing three of them.

ShotSpotter is active in two Detroit precincts, but some officials have urged using $7 million in federal pandemic relief funding to spread the technology across the city.

“I know from the time I spent with the officers yesterday, they’re going to be haunted for a long time,” Duggan said. “They very likely could have prevented two and probably three tragedies had they had an immediate notice.”

Critics have argued the technology puts more surveillance on communities of color and that it often doesn’t work.

“It is disingenuous for Mayor Duggan to claim that ShotSpotter would aid in helping the police catch the perpetrators of violence when in reality, this technology has and will continue to lead to more police terror on Black, Brown and indigenous community members,” said Branden Snyder, co-executive of the nonprofit Detroit Action.

“Giving the police more incentive to monitor historically impacted communities is inherently violent to the people of Detroit,” Snyder said in an emailed statement.

Duggan said that’s not true.

“There are are an element of defund-the-police groups that intentionally put out false information. ShotSpotter has no surveillance. ShotSpotter has no cameras. All ShotSpotter does is say this is the location of a gunfire with precision so the police can respond immediately,” said Duggan.

During a Monday press conference, Detroit Police Chief James White explained how the city tried to inform people about the shootings.

He said the police focused on notifying residents through social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Next Door, as well as news reports. White also said registered users received a text through the city’s Detroit 365 alerts app. Residents need to register to get the alerts.

City communications officials could not confirm Monday how many residents have signed up for Detroit Alert 365 or how many residents received alerts the day of the shooting.

Police officials said by the time the department began notifying the public, it was mainly to help find the suspect, and there were no longer active shootings.

Bishop Daryl Harris with Ceasefire Detroit said this kind of violence disrupts the entire community. During his Sunday worship service, he said, he informed his congregation of the still-wanted shooter.

“Many of our members were distraught as they ran out of the sanctuary to try to call their loved ones and their families in that area to kind of warn them what was going on. And you could just feel the panic,” he said.

Several hours later, after broadcasting the image of the suspect, a tip came in with the identity of the suspect, police said.

Officers got a search warrant and arrested the man without incident, authorities said. A firearm was found at the scene that matched the bullets found at the scene.

One of the women who was shot has not yet been identified. Police asked people to come forward if they think they might know her.

Well, SloJoe has always been known as a liar, so…

Fact Check: Biden Claims Mass Shootings ‘Tripled’ After ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Ended

CLAIM: During his speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, President Joe Biden said mass shootings “tripled” after the 1994-2004 “assault weapons” ban expired.

VERDICT: Mostly False.

Biden said, “Back in 1994, I took on the NRA and passed the ‘assault weapons’ ban. For ten years, mass shootings were down.”

He added, “But in 2004, Republicans let that ban expire, and what happened? Mass shootings tripled.”

There are two things to unpack here: First, his claim that the ban itself was successful while in effect and, second, his claim that mass shootings “tripled” once the ban expired.

On February 19, 2018, Breitbart News looked at a report by the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which found that the “assault weapons” ban could not be credited with any reduction in crime.

The NIJ report was written in 2004 as the ban was about to expire.

The Washington Times quoted University of Pennsylvania professor Christopher Koper, author of the NIJ report, saying, “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.”

The NIJ report observed, “The ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”

So much for the claims of all the great things the ban accomplished. Now consider the claim that mass shootings tripled after the ban expired.

Breitbart News noted that the Washington Post fact-checked the claim about mass shootings tripling when Biden first made it in early June 2022.

The Post reported:

Biden claimed that mass shooting deaths tripled after the law expired. He appears to be relying on a study of mass shooting data from 1981 to 2017, published in 2019 in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery by a team led by Charles DiMaggio, a professor of surgery at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. That group found that an assault weapons ban would have prevented 314 out of 448, or 70 percent, of the mass shooting deaths during the years when the ban was not in effect. But the data used in that study has come under attack by some analysts.

The Post added, “The new mass-shooting database shows that there were 31 mass shootings in the decade before the 1994 law, 31 in the 10 years the law was in force (Sept. 13, 1994 to Sept. 12, 2004) and 47 in the 10 years after it expired. As noted, some of that increase stems from population growth.”

The claim that mass shootings “tripled” after the “assault weapons” ban expired is mostly false. There was a modest increase in such shootings, but the expiration of the ban does not seem to be causal in that rise.

“Gun loving” doctor thinks he’s found a “safer Second Amendment”

Dr. Michael Rose calls himself a proud gun owner, but the Baltimore physician is also a big fan of gun control. In a new article in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Rose recounts fond memories of growing up in North Dakota, including getting his first gun (a Ruger 10/22) for his 12th birthday. Other guns followed, including a “hand me down” 12-gauge shotgun and a Remington 700 deer rifle that he (or rather his parents) bought with money that he’d saved.

Rose’s supposed love of guns isn’t stopping him from calling for a number of restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms, however. In fact, in his mind there’s “we can craft a safer Second Amendment” by “embracing the public health principle of harm reduction”… a strategy that, frankly, sounds a lot like the standard talking points from the gun control lobby.

There are several popular policy proposals—all grounded in harm reduction—that would allow lawmakers to build a safer Second Amendment. To reduce the risk for mass killings, we can reinstate the national ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; subject assault weapons in circulation to the enhanced restrictions faced by machine guns; and outlaw gun carrying in high-occupancy locations, such as malls, public transit, schools, and event venues.

To curb homicides and suicides, we can implement universal background checks (including checks on guns gifted within families like mine); improved safety training; red flag laws allowing removal of guns from high-risk households; and laws preventing sales to violent criminals, domestic assailants, and people with severe mental illness (9). These policies have previously held up in court, will save lives, and enjoy broad support from gun owners (1, 7, 8).

The extremist minority of gun owners are sure to raise their voices in opposition to any safety measures, but responsible gun owners can kindly remind them that they are the outliers, not us. We know that passing sensible laws won’t endanger our factory-fresh .22s, hand-me-down shotguns, and trusty deer rifles. But they will reduce the unacceptable violence happening every day.

Keep in mind that Rose works in Baltimore, Maryland; a place where the vast majority of the restrictions he calls for are already in place. Maryland has “universal background checks,” a ban on so-called assault weapons, a “red flag” law, and (until recently) a “may issue” concealed carry permitting system that blocked almost every resident from exercising their right to carry.

If these laws worked to reduce harm, then, we’d expect that Baltimore would be a relatively safe city, right? Instead, it’s headed for a seventh straight year of more than 300 homicides.

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Electric cars only? Howzabout

New York Senator Pushes Bill Mandating Speed Limiters for All Cars.

Per capita roadway fatalities have seen dramatic increases over the last two years and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has suggested that 2022 might actually end up being the deadliest year it has ever recorded in regard to the total body count. So there are a lot of people in politics that have concerned themselves with getting those numbers down. Unfortunately, the solutions are often to leverage more of the technology that data is starting to show might have gotten us into this predicament in the first place.

Manhattan State Senator Brad Hoylman (D-NY) introduced just such a bill on August 12th, one that would effectively require all new vehicles to incorporate some form of speed-limiting technology by 2024 and direct the Department of Motor Vehicles to establish new rules for all transportation over 3,000 pounds. Considering that even teensy hatchbacks like the Mini Cooper already clock in dangerously close to that threshold, such a law would impact just about everything with four wheels that’s bigger than a Mazda MX-5 or Nissan Kicks.

The bill ( S9528) stipulates that modern vehicles provide “direct visibility of pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users from the drivers [sic] position.” This is being done in an effort to curb pedestrian fatalities that have been on the rise in most major cities. But there’s a lack of clarity in terms of how that would be implemented. Studies have shown that full-sized, flat-faced pickups and SUVs often have a blind spot just ahead of the front bumper – meaning they’d either have to be redesigned or implement some kind of camera system that would display the area to the driver. But the same could be said of the zones directly beside and behind almost every vehicle, presumably requiring an array of cameras and screens.

Vehicles sold in New York State would also need to have the latest advanced driving aids – things like lane keeping, automatic emergency braking, and blind spot monitoring – to pass muster after 2024. That’s in addition to the speed-limiting technologies that are at the forefront of the bill. New York City has actually been piloting an “Intelligent Speed Assistance” (ISA) program that uses a vehicle’s GPS and software capable of reading road signs to electronically limit its speed based on its present location. It sounds like a novel concept but it’s actually not. The European Union is actually requiring all new vehicles to have some form of ISA after July 2024.

However, Hoylman’s proposals have some strong headwinds to confront. Americans generally don’t like anything that curtails their freedoms and New York doesn’t actually have any formal jurisdiction over what everyone else drives. However, Hoylman has suggested that NY could become a trendsetter similar to how Californian legislation has fundamentally influenced national emission laws. Hell, it wasn’t more than a few years ago when select automakers were lining up to proclaim that they would be shunning federal standards set by the Trump administration in favor of whatever limits the California Air Resources Board (CARB) said would be permissible.

“We think that, if New York goes first, we could push the marketplace and have an effect across the country,” he told Streetsblog in an interview, adding that the present “patchwork” where only some cars have the latest technology was unacceptable.

But adding such systems could add thousands to the base price of many automobiles during a period where vehicles have already grown prohibitively expensive. Your author is also unconvinced this will move the needle on pedestrian fatalities when there’s mounting evidence that a lot of the technology that’s in modern cars actually encourages distracted driving. That, combined with the fact that cars have been getting heavier, certainly hasn’t given foot traffic the edge at intersections. Meanwhile, I have my own theory that accident rates frequently seem to track with economic strife in a manner that mimics crime rates. Substance abuse is also way up in the United States and has undoubtedly played a factor in the elevated fatalities witnessed since 2020.

Blindly regulating more tech in cars could end up being counterproductive if those systems rely on a distracting interface or consumers decide it’s just too invasive to live with – which it probably will be. A lot of these urban initiatives designed to fundamentally change how we travel have backfired already, frankly. Senator Hoylman even seemed conscious that NYC had failed with Vision Zero – an earlier safety program brimming with buzz terms like sustainability, equity, mobility, and stakeholders – that lowered the citywide speed limit while adding more bike lanes, traffic cameras, and automated tolls.

“The impetus of the bill is the failure of the promise of Vision Zero,” Hoylman said, adding that NYC endured 273 traffic deaths last year. That represents a noteworthy increase since Vision Zero was introduced in 2014, despite reduced fatalities being the program’s main goal.

Hoylman’s staff said that they are presently seeking an Assembly sponsor for the bill and would be holding hearings on it when the legislature comes back into session in January.