Either SecDef Austin, didn’t know, or didn’t care that HAMAS runs the Gaza Health Ministry.


Pentagon Walks Back Austin’s Gaza Casualty Figures

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Congress on Thursday that more than 25,000 women and children had been killed by Israel in Gaza since October 7, but the Pentagon later clarified that estimate, saying the figure came from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, not U.S. intelligence.

During a congressional hearing, Austin was asked how many Palestinian women and children had been killed by Israel and Austin replied: “It is over 25,000.”

A few hours later, Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokesperson, said that Austin was citing an estimate from the Gaza health ministry and was referring to total Palestinians killed, not just women and children.

“We cannot independently verify these Gaza casualty figures,” Singh said in a statement.

In late January, Palestinian health officials said the death toll from Israeli strikes had passed 25,000. That number, according to the Gaza health ministry, is now over 30,000 Palestinians.

Gaza health authorities said more than 100 Palestinians had been shot dead by Israeli forces as they waited for an aid delivery on Thursday, but Israel challenged the death toll and said many of the victims had been run over by aid trucks.

Austin, during the hearing, also added that about 21,000 precision guided munitions had been provided to Israel since the start of its war in Gaza.

Fact Check — Hakeem Jeffries: Gun Violence the No. 1 Killer of Children

CLAIM: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) used a Thursday post on X to claim that gun violence is the number one killer of children in America.

VERDICT: False.

Jeffries is not the first Democrat to make this false claim, one based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) numbers focused on causes of death for people 0-19 years of age.

For example, during a June 2, 2022, prime-time speech, President Joe Biden reacted to the CDC figures by claiming: “Guns are the number one killer of children.” The “children” referenced by Biden include people of voting age, i.e., 18 and 19-year-olds. CDC figures show firearm-related deaths of people ages 0-19 totaled 4,368 in 2020, while motor vehicle deaths for the same age range totaled 4,036.

However, Breitbart News pointed out that if you do a custom search on the CDC website, adjusting the numbers so that you are limiting the category of “children” to the ages 0-17, i.e., individuals that are actually minors, then the data flips. The number of firearm-related deaths for children aged 0-17 was 2,281 in 2020, while the number of motor vehicle deaths for the same ages was 2,503.

Despite the demonstrable falsehood of Biden’s claim, Vice President Kamala Harris repeated it, as did actresses Allysa Milano and Jennifer Lawrence.

Jeffries is repeating it now, and it is still false.

This elitist snob starts with an opinion that he states as fact and then moves on from there building a large sand castle

Textualist or not, does Johnson, or anyone, really, believe that if we could question Madison today, he would say that it was his intent to allow this country to be awash in guns, including automatic weapons that serve no good purpose other than as instruments of war or mass killings?

The obvious answer is YES! Madison and his fellow patriots had just fought off what they considered a tyrannical government, and they believed the people had that right and that responsibility to ensure a free state. “Weapons of War”™ (*gasp* Horrors!) were exactly the kind of “arms” the second was intended to protect, just in case the government was stupid enough to not realize that in the future. That does not even address the issue that there exists tens of millions of these rifles in the nation that are used for lawful purposes daily.

He claims he is ‘incredulous’. I find myself also being incredulous that someone who has held and holds such positions can also hold such a flawed opinion, especially after the Supreme Court had ruled on the matter so many times, starting in the 1800s with Cruikshank and on to just last year in Bruen. Actually I wish he would hold his breath.

Speaker Johnson’s hypocritical First and Second Amendment contradictions

From Court to Campus: Former Federal Judge John E. Jones III Takes Helm ...
Former (thank God) Federal Judge John E. Jones III, President of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania

I am a college president. And I am afraid.

The mass killing last week in the college town of Lewiston, Maine, is the 36th this year in the United States, according to an AP/USA Today/Northeastern University mass killings database. The 18 who were murdered bring us to a total of nearly 200 victims of these ghastly events.

Sadly, it is easy to predict that there will be more of them before the year is out. Which community — college town or not — will bear the weight of the next tragedy?

I am also a former federal judge. And I am incredulous.

The House of Representatives has a new Speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.). During a 2016 sermon at the Christian Center in Shreveport, La., Johnson blamed mass school shootings on a “series of cultural shifts” in the United States that included teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution and erasing creationism from society. Last week, Johnson opined that it was inappropriate to discuss gun control “in the middle of a crisis” and that “it’s not the weapon, it’s the underlying problem.”

The suspected Maine shooter reportedly used a “Ruger SFAR” rifle “chambered for high-powered .308 ammunition.” The weapon is “larger and more powerful than the regular ammunition carried in the rifles of soldiers and SWAT teams.”

Johnson is a staunch defender of what he believes the Second Amendment to the Constitution represents. Its wording, which includes “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” has for generations been the subject of various interpretations and countless lawsuits.

Interestingly, the same Bill of Rights that contains the Second Amendment also features the First Amendment. Within it is the establishment clause, which prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.”

In 2005, I presided over the landmark case of Kitzmiller v. Dover in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. At its conclusion, I ruled that a school district’s policy introducing a concept known as intelligent design into the ninth-grade biology curriculum was, in fact, tantamount to teaching creationism, and thus violated the establishment clause. In rendering this opinion, I carefully followed the First Amendment’s dictates as well as Supreme Court precedent. The decision was not appealed and still stands.

It is my educated guess that Speaker Johnson, a trained lawyer, sees himself as a textualist. That is, he believes in the ordinary meaning of a legal text. I have always thought that to be an interesting interpretive theory so far as it goes, but far too unrealistic in practice. The Second Amendment was drafted largely by James Madison, who of course later served as president of the United States.

Textualist or not, does Johnson, or anyone, really, believe that if we could question Madison today, he would say that it was his intent to allow this country to be awash in guns, including automatic weapons that serve no good purpose other than as instruments of war or mass killings? It is absurd to think that Madison, a brilliant scholar and statesman, would endorse that view. In fact, I think he’d be as incredulous as I am that anyone could so torture the amendment he carefully drafted in this fashion.

I find myself endeavoring mightily to explain to my students how we arrived at this point, and why we lack the political will to pass reasonable gun legislation that would make us all safer. I have no good answers to their inquiries. They are afraid, and I share their apprehensions.

And so, I ask new Speaker Johnson and his colleagues these questions: Where is your courage, and when is the right time to pass legislation designed to end these slaughters? I will not hold my breath waiting for answers.

Russia Finally ‘Ready’ for Ukraine Peace Talks.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Monday that Moscow is ready for talks on the “post-conflict settlement” of the war in Ukraine.

Shoigu made the remarks at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, China’s largest military diplomacy event, saying that Russia is also ready for talks on further “co-existence” with the West, but said Western countries needed to stop seeking the strategic defeat of his country.

The prospect of peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow have been raised multiple times since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Kremlin has specified a few conditions that are non-negotiable for Russia, including that Ukraine must accept the September 2022 annexation of four of its regions—Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia—following referendums called by Putin that were deemed illegal by the international community.

Ukraine has said that any peace deal must invalidate the September 2022 annexations of its territory, and that the Crimean Peninsula, which Putin annexed in 2014, must once again be considered part of Ukraine.

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Pritzker compares AR-15s to “missile launchers” while calling for a federal ban

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker seems to be channeling his inner Joe Biden in his defense of the state’s ban on so-called assault weapons and “large capacity” magazines. Biden has famously (and erroneously) proclaimed that while the Second Amendment may protect muskets, it never allowed citizens to own cannons; a statement that’s been thoroughly debunked on multiple occasions yet still emerges from Biden’s mouth on a regular basis.

The thrust of Biden’s argument, factually deficient though it may be, is that the Second Amendment doesn’t protect the right to keep and bear any and all arms, and Pritzker is now piggybacking on the president’s pontifications with a ludicrous comparison of his own.

 “We’ve banned assault weapons. We’ve banned high capacity magazines. We’ve banned switches that turn regular guns into automatic weapons and here in Illinois those are things that will keep people safe and alive, but we need a national ban,” Pritzker said.

The White House Wednesday highlighted Illinois’ law as what the Biden administration would like to see nationwide.…

To the consolidated lawsuit challenging the state’s gun and magazine ban, Pritzker said he’s “heartened” after last week’s hearing in the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The governor cited some of the judges’ questions focused on whether the issue is a “popularity contest which guns we’re going to allow.”

“Because the people who were advocating for semi-automatic weapons were saying ‘well gee, everybodies got one now, so you can’t ban them.’ Well that’s ridiculous,” Pritzker said. “If everyone had a missile launcher, we shouldn’t ban missile launchers?”

I confess that I’m not up to speed on the legality of owning missile launchers, but it’s perfectly legal to own a grenade launcher… as long as you’re willing to register it under the NFA and pay a $200 tax stamp. But as long as missile launchers cost millions of dollars, I don’t think Pritzker has to worry about a Patriot missile system being erected by a private citizen in Chicago or Joliet. We’re not talking about exotic weapon systems that will never be in common use for self-defense, we’re talking about commonly-owned rifles lawfully possessed by tens of millions of Americans for hunting, recreation, self-defense, and other lawful activities.

Todd Vandermyde, who’s consulting plaintiffs in the challenge to Illinois’ ban, said more gun control won’t make the streets safer. He said the governor’s other policies are “an abject failure.”

“They don’t go after the criminals. ‘Oh no, we’re going to give them electric home monitoring. Oh no, we’re going to let them go out for 48 hours. Oh no, we’re not going to require cash bail,’” Vandermyde told The Center Square, referring to the state’s latest changes to the criminal justice system.…

Vandermyde said the case isn’t about missile launchers.

“They just keep jumping to the absurd that if you allow rifles, shotguns and pistols then you have to allow all this other stuff. And nobody is arguing [that], that’s not even before the court in any way,” Vandermyde said.

Vandermyde’s correct in noting that this argument is more useful to politicians than to the attorneys defending the state’s ban, but Attorney General Kwame Raoul is deploying a similar argument that’s equally absurd. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported back in March:

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Thursday filed a brief defending Illinois’ assault weapon ban, arguing the weapons restricted by the newly enacted law aren’t commonly used for self-defense and that large capacity magazines are accessories — not “arms.”

It also argues the country’s founding fathers owned guns that could only fire a single shot before reloading — proving assault weapons and large capacity magazines weren’t in “common use” when the Constitution was ratified.

“The assault weapons restricted by the Act are not commonly used for self-defense; by design and in practice, they exist for offensive infliction of mass casualties,” the brief states.

It also argues the term “arms” refers to weapons and not “accessories,” and that large capacity magazines are therefore not protected under the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

The Supreme Court has already stated that arms that are in common use today are protected by the Second Amendment, not just those arms that were around at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified. In Caetano v. Massachusetts , a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that stun guns and other electronic weapons fall under the scope of the Second Amendment, pointing out that in Heller the justices determined that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”

Note that the Supreme Court specifically referred to “bearable arms”, which negates Pritzker’s hamhanded comparison of missile launchers to AR-15s. But if the courts were to accept Raoul’s argument, then what’s stopping them from concluding that all semi-automatic firearms, including handguns, fall outside the Second Amendment’s protections? We may soon find out, because based on the makeup of the Seventh Circuit panel that recently heard oral arguments in the Illinois gun ban cases I’m not all that optimistic that the appeals court will follow Supreme Court precedent and the Bruen test to their logical conclusions; modern sporting rifles are indeed in common use for a variety of lawful purposes, and are therefore covered by the Second Amendment’s guarantee of our right to keep and bear arms.

I wouldn’t say it’s a ‘victory’. A judge on the Appeals Court simply stayed enforcement of an injunction to stop the law from taking effect.

NJ scores victory in federal court over concealed carry gun legislation

A federal court issued an order in favor of the state on Tuesday as the latest development in the legal battle over gun reform legislation.

The order, a stay requested by the state last month, will make it so that enforcement of limits on where concealed weapons can be carried in New Jersey is not restricted.

The motion filed by the state’s Attorney General’s Office said that not allowing enforcement of the restrictions “threatens public safety by allowing loaded guns in crowded theaters, bars, protests, and Fourth of July celebrations in parks, as well as zoos and libraries where children gather — just to name a few.”

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Let me tell you of The Days of High Adventure™

About 20 years ago, AK bought a Remington 700 ADL in .243 Winchester off a co-worker hard up for money. Had a good scope on it, power/brand I can’t remember

Using Remington factory ammo, neither AK, nor I, couldn’t get it to shoot any better than a 6″ group @ 100 yards using the competition level facilities of the Springfield Benchrest Rifle Club at Billings Missouri , even after  checking everything over from the scope mount, to the bedding of the receiver and for any binding of the barrel in the stock plus giving it a preshoot ‘standard’ barrel cleaning with Hoppe’s 9

Leaving only the condition of the bore as the final cause of the crappy grouping, I used the old original model electronic Outers Foul Out and using the solvents for both powder and metallic fouling back and forth over and over, about 4 hours later the device indicated I had a ‘clean’ barrel.

Using the same factory ammo as before, at the same range and shooting bench, I then shot several 3/4″ 3 shot groups at 100 yards. I’ll have to add that AK rose to the challenge and managed to keep a group well within 1″ as well.

While the man in the video is correct that the DOD never regarded metallic fouling to be problematic. The fact behind that is the DOD didn’t and doesn’t care all that much about smallarms barrel life, or the money involved in scrapping a possibly salvageable barrel, because if a barrel develops any accuracy problems, the way the problem is resolved is not fixing the barrel but simply replacing it. Ask me how I know.

The man is also correct about gilding metal jacketing ‘filling in’ the irregularities in a bore, but then makes a leap of illogic that therefore metallic fouling is never a problem. Of course he then goes crackpot by calling those who don’t go along with his belief liars.

The man has come to his opinions from his long, but apparently narrow experience. Take them for what they are.

Fact Check: Did Mass Shooting Deaths Drop 43% After Assault Weapons Ban?

Shootings at Michigan State University and an El Paso Walmart within days of each other have led to shock and mourning across the U.S.

The regularity of such tragedies, particularly in the wake of other mass shootings recorded this year, has catalyzed online debate over gun control.

According to one account shared on Twitter, a 10-year ban introduced on “assault weapons” in the U.S. in 1994 led to a substantial fall in the number of mass shooting deaths, only to rise significantly after it expired.

The Claim

A tweet posted by activist Mohamad Safa on February 15, 2023, which has been viewed more than 128,000 times, said: “Do you know that in 1994 Bill Clinton banned assault weapons and mass shooting deaths dropped by 43%, in 2004 the ban expire [sic] and mass shooting deaths shot up by 239%.”

The Facts

Comparisons between the U.S. and countries with stricter gun control laws are frequently used in the wake of events like the shooting at Michigan State.

Australia, as one example, claims to have seen a significant fall in the number of mass shootings after it experienced one such tragedy at Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996.

Analysis by Newsweek found that the country experienced far fewer mass shootings since 1996—perhaps none at all, under some definitions.

Changes to U.S. law and restrictions on firearms have been incremental, but the country briefly saw a ban on what it called “assault weapons” between 1994 to 2004.

While the term “assault” has been more commonly associated with rifles such as the AR-15, the ban included weapons such as the handheld Tec-9 and the Israeli Military Industries UZI.

The bill’s effectiveness and scope were also questioned at the time. A 1999 National Institute of Justice paper on the impact of the ban noted that it still exempted prohibited weapons bought before, and how only small adjustments to a firearm, such as shortening its barrel by only a few millimeters, were “sufficient to transform a banned weapon into a legal substitute.”

The source of the claim on Twitter appears to be University of Massachusetts researcher Louis Klarevas, who found that compared with the 10-year period before the ban, the number of people dying from mass shootings fell by 43 percent, and increased 239 percent 10 years after.

However, as Klarevas told The Washington Posthe only assessed “high fatality” mass shootings and “did not have comprehensive data of mass shootings that resulted in less than 6 killed.”

The Post was also provided with analysis that suggested per capita incidence of gun deaths did dip during the period. However, this data did not assess assault weapons in particular and, as mentioned in the article, there are other issues with it too.

As Klaveras stated, he had only counted shootings where the number of deaths was six or more. The definition of a mass shooting is contentious but one metric regularly cited is any shooting where four or more victims had died.

Looking only at statistics involving six or more victims would, in theory, narrow the number of incidents recorded.

There are further disagreements about what counts as a mass shooting. While four or more is used frequently, the Gun Violence Archive (which is widely quoted in the media) defines it as “being that they have a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed.”

This type of analysis, again, could significantly alter the statistics quoted on Twitter if used.

Furthermore, the link between the dates and the number of deaths here is correlative. Qualitative and quantitative analysis would be needed to more confidently determine whether the assault weapon ban directly impacted the number of deaths in these circumstances.

As data by Statista shows, the number of mass shootings across the U.S. continued to increase after 2004, but we do not have sufficient evidence to attribute that increase to the lifting of the weapons ban alone.

Nonetheless, while the claim that there was a 43 percent drop and 239 percent rise in the 10 years before and after the ban is based on real expert analysis, that analysis used a less usual methodology, and inferences from it are not based on a thorough examination.

A recent Newsweek poll found a majority of Americans agree that there should be a maximum age for purchasing firearms, although respondents did not agree on the limit.

The poll—conducted between January 28 and 29 among a sample of 1,500 eligible U.S. voters—found 52 percent of respondents supported the imposition of a maximum age requirement for the purchase of firearms.

Among these, 20 percent of respondents thought the age limit should be set at 60, while 16 percent said that it should be set at 70.

The Ruling

Needs Context

Needs Context.

The figures cited on Twitter come from an analysis by one expert, quoted by The Washington Post, who looked at the number of mass shootings where six or more people died during 1994-2004 compared to the ten years before and after those dates.

Interpreting the results and whether it was related to the 1994-2004 assault weapons ban, however, is correlative.

Accounting for shootings where less than six people died could also alter these results. The definition of mass shootings remains contentious with some analysts counting both injuries and deaths of four or more people.

Joe Manchin Agrees to Tax Hikes, Spending Increases, Green New Deal Agenda Items

Joe Manchin announced he reached an “expansive” deal with Chuck Schumer on Build Back Brandon.

This is now Manchin stating this, so this seems unfortunately real.

We don’t know the details, though.

In an unexpected turnabout, Sen. Joe Manchin announced Wednesday that he had reached an expansive agreement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer which had eluded them for months on health care costs, energy and climate issues, taxing higher earners and large corporations and reducing federal debt.

That last one is smoke-and-mirrors– he wants to jack up taxes and spend lots more federal dollars, but take some of the new tax revenue and supposedly use it to retire a small amount of federal debt so he can claim he’s not blowing up the deficit.

Manchin, D-W.Va., whose resistance had long derailed sweeping legislation on those issues, abruptly revealed the agreement in a press release. It provided virtually no details on the accord.Manchin, one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress, just last week said he would only agree this month to far more limited legislation curbing prescription drug costs and extending federal subsidies for health care costs.

He said he was open to considering a broader compromise on environment and tax issues after Congress returns from a summer recess in September, an offer that many Democrats thought dubious.

There was no immediate explanation why Manchin had suddenly agreed to the far broader package.

Meanwhile, while Manchin is raising taxes, the Fed is raising interest rates to combat inflation.

The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark overnight interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point on Wednesday in an effort to cool the most intense breakout of inflation since the 1980s, and U.S. central bank chief Jerome Powell said another “unusually large” hike may be appropriate in September if price pressures have not sufficiently abated.

Manchin’s agreeing to raise taxes, which might reduce economic activity, while also increasing spending, which is inflationary, and therefore fights against what the Fed is trying to do, and may require the Fed to raise interest rates more.

What a guy. Glad West Virginia keeps reelecting him because he “seems like one of them” and once shot a rifle through the Cap and Trade bill.

Meanwhile, Biden’s got his best propagandists out there explaining to the media how they are ordered to report the Official Non-Recession Event.

Giffords: The gun lobby controls ATF

Of all the three-letter agencies, none quite stir the ire of the gun rights crowd quite like the ATF. After all, this is the agency that can unilaterally decide something you spent thousands of dollars on is now suddenly illegal. They’ve already done that with things like bump stocks, which didn’t cost thousands of dollars but weren’t exactly handed out as free swag, either.

Yet would you believe that our side controls the ATF?

That’s what a report from Giffords tries to claim.

The American gun industry has effectively “captured” the law enforcement agency charged with regulating it, according to a new report from the Giffords Law Center recommending a host of changes at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The report comes just two days after Steve Dettelbach, a former federal prosecutor in Ohio, was sworn in as the ATF’s first permanent director in seven years. Dettelbach became just the second Senate-confirmed director in the agency’s history this month, overcoming gun industry opposition to win confirmation.

The report argues that gun industry groups, most prominently the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), influence the understaffed and underfunded agency’s policymaking and effectively turn the agency’s leadership into advocates for the gun industry within the Justice Department.

“For years, the gun industry, led by NSSF has developed an exceptionally cozy relationship with ATF, a relationship that has enabled the industry to exert tremendous influence over the agency,” the report’s author, Giffords’ Lindsay Nichols, writes. “This influence benefits the industry, but has undermined ATF’s ability to do its job: to protect public safety from gun violence by enforcing the laws regarding firearms and firearm sales.”

What I can’t help but notice is that this is Giffords, the same organization that employed and supported former ATF agent David Chipman’s nomination to helm the ATF.

He was bounced because, well, he was a terrible choice.

Now, though, there’s this huge problem where the NSSF is supposedly able to influence the ATF? Yeah, there’s absolutely no chance of sour grapes there, right?

Had Chipman been confirmed, though, Giffords would have run rampant influencing the organization while the NSSF would have been shut out, and that would have been fine, of course. After all, they are good and pure while the NSSF is evil and vile because they represent the gun industry.

Never you mind that we’ve seen numerous instances where groups like Gifford are clearly influencing policy without any pro-gun group having any input at all. That, of course, is fine. It’s the NSSF getting to provide any input that’s the problem.

Of course, let’s also remember that the ATF is still hostile toward the firearm industry. They still pulled up and declared bump stocks illegal despite knowing full well that they don’t turn firearms into machine guns and don’t even get me started on pistol braces.

Does Giffords honestly think the ATF is in the gun industry’s pocket?

Next, they’ll try to tell us that the media is too partial to pro-gun ideas. Truly, we live in the upside-down.

Further, they’re ignoring that Dettlebach isn’t exactly one of ours, either.

The truth is that Giffords is probably more salty that their guy didn’t get in so they can’t insure that the NSSF is shut out of the conversation, despite the industry clearly having a stake in things.

Garen J. Wintemute. That name rang a bell.

Garen Wintemute’s Conclusions Aren’t Supported By His Own Data…But He Won’t Let That Stop Him
UC Davis’s Dr. Garen Wintemute runs something called the Violence Prevention Research Center. Translation: he’s a hoplophobic grifter with a university sinecure who sucks up millions of dollars to keep his anti-gun rights operation going thanks to the largesse of like-minded individuals, foundations and, of course, California tax payers.


BLUF
Additional authors of the study include Colette Smirniotis, Christopher McCort and Garen J. Wintemute from the VPRO and the California Firearm Violence Research Center.

Machine learning identifies gun purchasers at risk of suicide

A first-of-its-kind study from the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis shows an algorithm can forecast the likelihood of firearm suicide using handgun purchasing data.

A new study from the Violence Prevention Research Program (VPRP) at UC Davis suggests machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence, may help identify handgun purchasers who are at high risk of suicide. It also identified individual and community characteristics that are predictive of firearm suicide. The study was published in JAMA Network Open.

Previous research has shown the risk of suicide is particularly high immediately after purchase, suggesting that acquisition itself is an indicator of elevated suicide risk.

Risk factors identified by the algorithm to be predictive of firearm suicide included:

older age
first-time firearm purchaser
white race
living in close proximity to the gun dealer
purchasing a revolver

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Comment O’ The Day
The gun-buying spree was a RESULT of the murder spike and a reaction to the demonstrated knowledge that if mostly peaceful pink-haired Antifa Zombies came crawling through your window, the police would not only be unable to help, but would refuse to do so if the opportunity arose.


The New York Times Uses a CDC Report on Homicides As an Excuse To Attack Private Gun Ownership

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday issued a report on the recent surge in the U.S. gun homicide rate, which rose by a third between 2019 and 2020, from 4.6 to 6.1 per 100,000 residents. The article, which was published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, notes that “several explanations have been proposed,” including “increased stressors (e.g., economic, social, and psychological) and disruptions in health, social, and emergency services during the COVID-19 pandemic; strains in law enforcement-community relations reflected in protests over law enforcement use of lethal force; increases in firearm purchases; and intimate partner violence.”

The New York Times predictably plays up that passing reference to “increases in firearm purchases.” The rise in gun homicides, the Times says, “corresponded to accelerated sales of firearms as the pandemic spread and lockdowns became the norm.” The Times explains that “Americans went on a gun-buying spree in 2020 that continued into 2021,” although sales have since returned to their usual level. It cites an estimate by gun violence researcher Garen Wintemute that “there remain roughly 15 million more guns in circulation than there would be without the pandemic.”

In 2017, according to the Small Arms Survey, American civilians owned more than 393 million firearms. Purchases in 2018 and 2019 added an estimated 27 million guns to that stock of weapons. If sales in 2020 had been similar to sales in the two previous years, they would have added another 13 million or so. Assuming Wintemute’s estimate is in the right ballpark, the “gun-buying spree” that worries the Times amounted to a further increase of about 3.5 percent. Although Times reporters Roni Caryn Rabin and  seem to think that’s a plausible explanation for a 33 percent increase in the gun homicide rate, it’s not clear why.

It is demonstrably not true that more guns in circulation automatically results in more homicides. The number of guns owned by Americans rose steadily throughout the period, beginning in the early 1990s, when the U.S. homicide rate fell precipitously, a downward trend that has only recently abated. As the CDC notes, the reasons for the 2020 jump are unclear, although it is widely assumed that the massive disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic had something to do with it.

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White House defends DHS ‘disinformation’ board: ‘Not sure who opposes that effort’
Mayorkas announced the creation of the ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ on Wednesday

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday defended a recently-announced Department of Homeland Security effort to combat “disinformation” on issues related to COVID-19 and elections.

Asked by Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich for more information what DHS’ Disinformation Governance Board would be doing specifically, Psaki said, “I really haven’t dug into this exactly, I mean, we of course support this effort but let me see if I can get more specifics.”

The White House announced its support for an effort from the DHS to crack down on what it considers to be online disinformation.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified Wednesday that a Disinformation Governance Board had recently been created to combat online disinformation and Politico reported that Nina Jankowicz, who previously served as a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, will head the board as executive director.

“We know there has been a range of [disinformation] out there about a range of topics, I mean, including COVID for example, and also elections and eligibility,” Psaki said, adding that she would check for additional information on what the board plans to do.

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No, only the proggies in Oklahoma are ‘tired’.
I think they’re tired of their losing streak.


Propaganda O’ The Day

Advocate: Oklahomans tired of lawmakers catering to gun lobby

Public Radio Tulsa | By Elizabeth Caldwell elizabeth_caldwell.jpg


(Again, nice for the author to provide positive ID for future use )


A bill allowing people to carry guns at state fairs and into government buildings is paused in the state legislature.

Don Spencer of the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association said he “worked” on HB 4138 and he’s very excited about it. He published a video on Saturday boasting to his club that one intent of the proposed law was to let people carry rifles into traditionally quiet places.

“The concern was that when we have this bill passed, the question was, would a person be able to carry an AR-15 rifle into a library? My answer was yes,” said Spencer.

Spencer said as a concession the bill was altered to allow concealed handguns in libraries. But he reassured his club it was just a first step.

“Remember folks, 2012, we couldn’t even see guns in Oklahoma. In ten years we’re going from not just seeing them to no license required.”

Beth Furnish of Moms Demand Action said legislators betray Oklahomans when they pass laws for lobbies instead of citizens.

“Oklahomans started paying attention to what our lawmakers were doing after they passed permitless carry, which was opposed by a strong majority of Oklahomans, even gun owners and Republicans. Oklahomans are getting tired of our lawmakers passing the wish list of the gun lobby,” said Furnish.

HB 4138 was written by Sen. Warren Hamilton of McCurtain and Rep. Sean Roberts of Hominy. A long list of coauthors has also been added.

It was not heard in the House before deadline Thursday. Neither Roberts nor Hamilton responded to requests for comment on their plans for their bill.

Gaslighting: CBS News Wants You to Think Ukraine-Russia Caused Our Economic Problems.
CBS News thinks we’re stupid enough to believe inflation, supply-chain issues, and high gas prices started right now because of Ukraine and Russia.

Propaganda at its finest. CBS News thinks we’re stupid enough to believe inflation, supply-chain issues, and high gas prices started right now because of Ukraine and Russia.

They think we forgot all three started in 2021.

It’s no wonder the Biden administration has pushed for war. It’s no wonder Biden all of a sudden started caring about Ukraine. Wag the dog, you guys.

They know a war would make it worse so why not? It’ll deflect the blame from them to Putin. Or so they think.

Continue reading “”

Propaganda O’ The Day

Amazingly…..I bet well before the election campaign season really kicks in we’ll be told the pandemic is over, we’ll have more good jobs for the jobless, homes for the homeless, the rise of the oceans will begin to slow again and our planet start to heal once more…..Just another booooster now and then……


Fauci says U.S. is exiting ‘full-blown pandemic phase of COVID-19,’ 

The “full-blown pandemic phase of COVID-19” is finally on the way out as virus cases quickly fall across the U.S., Dr. Anthony Fauci said this week.

Fauci added that he’s optimistic all COVID restrictions will end “soon,” and that even means lifting mask mandates. That has started already as the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on Wednesday announced that the K-12 mask mandate will end on Feb. 28.

Fauci’s comments about the pandemic come as COVID cases plunge following the massive surge of omicron variant cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

“As we get out of the full-blown pandemic phase of COVID-19, which we are certainly heading out of, these decisions will increasingly be made on a local level rather than centrally decided or mandated,” Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical advisor, told the Financial Times.

“There will also be more people making their own decisions on how they want to deal with the virus,” added Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

While Fauci said he’s hopeful all virus restrictions will soon end, he cautioned that local officials could bring back measures if there were community flare-ups.

“There is no way we are going to eradicate this virus,” Fauci said. “But I hope we are looking at a time when we have enough people vaccinated and enough people with protection from previous infection that the COVID restrictions will soon be a thing of the past.”

“It will depend on who you are,” Fauci said. “But if you are a normal, healthy 30-year-old person with no underlying conditions, you might need a booster only every four or five years.”……………….