Chicago joins New York, Los Angeles with drops in crime as coronavirus and shelter order take hold

Like other major U.S. cities, Chicago has seen a dip in crime with the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting virtually every aspect of the country’s way of life.

Despite beginning 2020 with crime spikes, particularly related to gun violence, Chicago saw a sudden single-week drop of nearly 20% in major crimes in mid-March, records show. That was just as much activity in Chicago was slowing.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker closed schools across Illinois, Chicago bars and restaurants shuttered, and a statewide stay-at-home directive went into effect Saturday.

Since March 18, Chicago has only had two homicides, a fatal shooting on the South Side and another on the West Side.

From March 16 through March 22, the latest compiled period available, Chicago police saw a 17% overall drop from the prior seven days in its seven major crime categories, among them robberies, burglaries and aggravated batteries. That same period also was down from the same stretch in 2019, official city data shows — a 19% decrease.

Constitutional Carry in Idaho is Now for All Americans

U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- Fantastic news for Idaho’s gun-loving citizens and supporters of the Second Amendment nationwide – Idaho just passed HB 516 allowing Constitutional Carry in the great state! The following passage in HB 516 makes it abundantly clear, that ID citizens have the right to keep, bear and carry arms without any permit whatsoever.

18-3302. CONCEALED WEAPONS. (1) The legislature hereby finds that the people of Idaho have reserved for themselves the right to keep and bear arms while granting the legislature the authority to regulate the carrying of weapons concealed. The provisions of this chapter regulating the carrying of weapons must be strictly construed so as to give maximum scope to the rights retained by the people.

NSSF THANKS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FOR INDUSTRY’S CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGNATION
Department of Homeland Security includes firearm manufacturing, distribution, retail and ranges as essential critical services.

NEWTOWN, Conn. — The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearm and ammunition industry, is grateful for the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) inclusion of the firearm industry’s manufacturing, distribution, retail and range businesses as essential critical services that should remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic. NSSF has been working closely with the Trump Administration and DHS to convey the important role the firearm and ammunition industry performs for national security, public safety, and the ability for continued exercise of individual constitutional liberties and self-protection.

“We are deeply appreciative to the Trump Administration and Department of Homeland Security for recognizing the vital role our industry fulfills in our nation,” said Lawrence G. Keane, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for NSSF. “We have seen over the past week hundreds of thousands, even millions of Americans choosing to exercise their right to keep and bear arms to ensure their safety and the safety of loved ones during these uncertain times. Americans must not be denied the ability to exercise that right to lawfully purchase and acquire firearms during times of emergency. This guidance from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is crucial to governors and local officials as they craft the orders to preserve public health.”

The firearm industry continues to provide small arms to the U.S. military, even during times of crisis. The national security mission remains and U.S. Armed Forces, with rare exception, rely upon domestically manufactured small arms. Most law enforcement departments rely on local firearm retailers to supply them with their firearms to perform the critical duty of providing for community safety. Law-abiding individuals also rely on these retailers for the ability to purchase their firearms and ammunition. It is also where retailers are able to explain the responsibilities of safe firearm ownership and storage and new gun owners are able to access ranges to learn to safely handle their firearms.

Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce:
Ensuring Community and National Resilience in COVID-19
Response
Version 2.0 (March 28, 2020)
THE IMPORTANCE OF ESSENTIAL CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE WORKERS

Functioning critical infrastructure is imperative during the response to the COVID-19 emergency for both public health and safety as well as community well-being. Certain critical infrastructure industries have a special responsibility in these times to continue operations.
This advisory guidance and accompanying list are intended to support state, local, tribal, territorial and industry partners in identifying the critical infrastructure sectors and the essential workers needed to maintain the services and functions Americans depend on daily and that need to be able to operate resiliently during the COVID-19 pandemic response.
This document gives advisory guidance on defining essential critical infrastructure workers. Promoting the ability of such workers to continue to work during periods of community restriction, access management, social distancing, or closure orders/directives is crucial to community resilience and continuity of essential functions.

IDENTIFYING ESSENTIAL CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE WORKERS
The following list of identified essential critical infrastructure workers is intended to be overly inclusive reflecting the diversity of industries across the United States.

LAW ENFORCEMENT, PUBLIC SAFETY, AND OTHER FIRST RESPONDERS

• Workers supporting the operation of firearm or ammunition product manufacturers, retailers,importers, distributors, and shooting ranges.

In August 2013, DEFCAD released the public alpha of its 3D search engine, which indexes public object repositories and allows users to add their own objects. The site soon closed down due to pressure from the United States State Department, under the pretense that distributing certain files online might violate US Arms Export ITAR regulations.

From 2013 to 2018, DEFCAD remained offline, pending resolution to the legal case Defense Distributed brought against the State Department, namely that ITAR regulations placed a prior restraint on Defense Distributed’s free speech, particularly since the speech in question regarded another constitutionally protected right: firearms. While the legal argument failed to gain support in federal court, in a surprise reversal in 2018, the State Department agreed that ITAR did in fact violate Defense Distributed’s free speech. Therefore, for a brief period in late 2018 DEFCAD was once again publicly available online.

Shortly thereafter, 20 states and Washington DC sued the State Department, in order to prevent DEFCAD from remaining online. At its core, this new suit (correctly) cited a procedural error: the proper notice had not been given prior to enacting the change in how ITAR applied to small arms. As such, DEFCAD was once again taken offline, pending the State Department providing proper notice via the Federal Register.

On March 28, 2020, DEFCAD once again became publicly available online

Gun-Rights Activist Releases Blueprints for Digital Guns
Cody Wilson calls the move impervious to legal challenge

A U.S. technology company made thousands of digital-gun files publicly available, including blueprints that will enable users to make plastic guns with three-dimensional printers, a scourge of gun-control advocates.
Cody Wilson, a director of the company, Defcad, has waged a multiyear legal battle against the federal government over the right to share 3-D-gun-related materials. This was the third time he has released such files, but the first time he has abided by U.S. foreign export controls online, using what he said are digital verification tools to ensure legal file downloads.
Mr. Wilson said he believed his release of the files would be “impervious” to legal challenge and would help normalize the distribution of such material for easy download in the future.
Mr. Wilson is offering access to the files for an annual fee of $50, characterizing his service as “Netflix for 3-D guns.”
His opponents quickly condemned the action, saying that he is bypassing federal gun laws, including those providing for background checks of gun buyers. Foes are also concerned about the proliferation of 3-D-printed guns, which don’t have serial numbers, making it difficult for law-enforcement officers to track them should they be involved in a crime.
“The biggest concern with 3-D-printed guns and the technical data for them is that they’re not traceable,” said Kelly Sampson, counsel at Brady: United Against Gun Violence, a gun-control group. “It’s a huge loophole and opportunity for people who would otherwise be unable to access firearms to be able to do so.”
Federal law generally permits the manufacture of guns for personal use.
The State Department, which oversees the distribution of 3-D-gun blueprints, regardless of export intent, has the responsibility of scrutinizing Mr. Wilson’s new effort. The department declined to comment.
Mr. Wilson said he is fighting the imposition of limits on personal freedoms and that he expects people to download the 3-D-gun files not necessarily to manufacture guns, but “as a form of internal resistance.”
“For me, this is a political battle,” Mr. Wilson said.
Mr. Wilson first alarmed lawmakers when his company, Defense Distributed, published 3-D-gun design files in 2012. In 2013, the State Department ordered him to take down the plans.
The Obama administration ultimately reasoned that the files could be downloaded by foreign nationals and were thus classified as exports regulated by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, a U.S. control on the export of defense and military technology.
Mr. Wilson had run afoul of laws designed to control sales for export, not those restricting domestic transactions.
Mr. Wilson engaged in a lengthy legal fight with the federal government, ultimately prevailing in 2018 when the State Department amended its policy and allowed the files to be posted, issuing Mr. Wilson a license to do so.
President Trump waded into the discussion that summer, writing on Twitter that he was “looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public. Already spoke to NRA, doesn’t seem to make much sense!”
Mr. Wilson again published the plans on his site, before a group of 19 state attorneys general brought suit against him in Seattle federal court. U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik issued an injunction ordering Mr. Wilson to take down the plans.
In his ruling, Mr. Lasnik wrote that Mr. Wilson aimed “to arm every citizen outside of the government’s traditional control mechanism.”
Mr. Wilson said he had been waiting for a long-planned transfer of 3-D-gun oversight from ITAR to the Commerce Department to go through before reissuing the blueprints. Commerce Department oversight is in some respects more lenient than that of ITAR, as it isn’t subject to congressional approval.
But when a new suit was brought in Seattle federal court last year, blocking the transfer of 3-D guns to the Commerce Department’s oversight list, Mr. Wilson charted a new course.
Instead of openly publishing the plans, he said that he would now first vet people who would like to download them, ensuring that they are U.S. citizens or legal residents and that they are located within the U.S., maintaining compliance with ITAR export rules.
To achieve this, Mr. Wilson said he would employ four levels of security, including IP geolocation and proxy detection and technology developed for credit bureaus and anti-money-laundering specialists.
“The internet is not an airtight, hack-proof system,” Ms. Sampson said. “Even some of our most secure databases are vulnerable. It’s not quite living in reality to assume that you can 100% secure information that’s online.”
Mr. Wilson’s proposed system can’t prevent people who download blueprints from sharing them with others, including with those outside the U.S. “I can only tell them that it’s against the law to do so,” Mr. Wilson said.
Nevertheless, Mr. Wilson said his approach adheres to export rules. “I’m a compliant part of the system,” he said.
Defcad has so far made 3,680 files available. Mr. Wilson said that the site will ultimately offer more than 25,000 files, the great majority of which will be for traditional guns and gun components. Many of those are already in the public domain.
Mr. Wilson, who lives in Austin, Texas, timed his Friday release to coincide with the anniversary of the 1836 execution of several hundred soldiers in the Texas revolution in the town of Goliad.

 

OLD SCHOOL GUNOLOGY: Tales of Trigger Work From Past Days

These are a compilation of hunting and shooting stories that I wrote over the last 30 years or so. These are actual experiences that I or my friends had in various locations over the years. There is no fiction herein, though details may be a bit skewed due to lapses in memory. Some of the data is long out-dated and should not be relied upon, as this is only a re-telling of adventures long ago. All loading data should be gotten from modern reliable sources.


AN ICONOCLAST’S READER

We all read the Scriptures with our own particular doctrinal glasses on. We interpret what we read, consciously or sub-consciously, through those ideas we believe. Challenges to our beliefs are sometimes frightening, but are not bad, especially if they drive us to the Lord and help us see more clearly.

Give me all you got‘? Okay, the citizen gots 5 rounds for ya.
Too bad he’s a bad shot….or the criminal is an out of work contortionist.


Gunman robs 2 stores, carjacks driver, then gets shot at by concealed carry holder — all within 15 minutes

An armed man carjacked a motorist, robbed two businesses, and was shot at by a concealed carry holder whom he tried to rob — all within 15 minutes Thursday evening in Rogers Park, according to CPD reports. No one is in custody.

It all started around 9 p.m. when the offender displayed a gun in his waistband as he tried to rob Little Caesars, 7001 North Clark, the reports show. The man left empty-handed and immediately robbed Taqueria Hernandez across the street at 6983 North Clark.

At 9:04 p.m., the offender flashed a gun and carjacked a driver on the 1700 block of North Lunt, the reports said. He got away with the man’s silver 2008 Saturn sedan, which bears a license plate that begins with BK911.

But the gunman made a tactical error around 9:15 p.m. when he walked up to a concealed carry holder on the 7000 block of North Paulina, pulled out a gun, and said, “give me all you got.”

The would-be victim pulled out his own gun and opened fire on the offender, squeezing off at least five rounds at the man, officers reported. No one sought medical attention for gunshot wounds from nearby hospitals, so it appears the robber was not struck.

Police said the offender is a white man between 18- and 30-years-old who stands 5’9” to 6’2” tall, and weighs 160 to 200 pounds. He wore a black hoodie and a mask over the lower half of his face.

The concealed carry holder said the robber may have been Hispanic, according to details released by detectives late Friday. And the robbery victim on Lunt told police that the robber was accompanied by a black male who wore a camouflage mask.

The eastern religions call it Kharma. The principle in Christianity is You reap what you sow. Either one, it’s playing with fire, and with what the demoncraps and their allies are doing, it’s not the minimal getting the fingers burned level.


Death as a Political Tool

If you’ve been paying attention for the last ten years or so in particular, you may have noticed in how many ways political leftists in this country love death.  Not their own, but the deaths of otherwise anonymous American citizens whom they’ve never met, care nothing about, and clearly consider deserving of sacrifice for their policy objectives.

These progressives, globalists, socialists, or any other synonym you wish to append to the ghouls who harvest souls for their own advancement think nothing of choosing who lives and who dies.  They do it all the time, and that’s just to seize power they don’t have yet.  Imagine what our country will look like if or when they are fully in control, as they thought they’d be in 2016 and hope to be again soon.

This week, we’ve been treated to the spectacle of Democrats in Congress using a national health catastrophe that is killing people daily, and bankrupting those who live, to extort political agenda items from the country while it suffers exponentially by the day.

We’ve seen the Democrat governor of Nevada issue an executive order banning the use of a drug that is shown to cure people with COVID-19, apparently on the basis that President Trump identified it as a means of stopping the virus in its tracks, to the benefit of the country and its economy.

They would rather exact petty victories and hide cures than defeat the illness and save American lives because the more people who die, the more they can blame Trump in November for a crisis he has responded to with every ounce of energy and determination.  The more people suffer economically, the worse for Trump and the better for them.

In the relief bill, which remains stalled in Congress, they’ve inserted a provision that pays people more to be on unemployment than they made when they worked, and there are still people who can’t figure out why it’s in the bill.  If you pay people more to be unemployed than they earned, they’ll choose to be unemployed, which raises the unemployment figure, which hurts the economy and, thus, hurts Trump.  Sure, those people will become less employable and more dependent on public benefits, but how else to you buy votes?  It certainly isn’t by offering independence and success, as that rotten Trump has done.

The virus, however, is merely the latest embrace of death and suffering imposed upon us by these folks.  Abortion is the easiest example.  Isn’t it ironic that the left decries Trump’s failure to singlehandedly defeat a virus, and blame him for causing deaths, when they actively encourage and enable the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children a year?  For piles of cash.  That’s an easy one, but it is one of many.

What about illegal immigration?  Every year, American citizens are killed by the hundreds and injured or maimed by the thousands across this country by people who have no legal right or reason to be here.  Yet they are here at the express invitation of the left, under their clear and dedicated protection.

Whether it is drunk driving, murders, gang violence, burglaries, assaults, rapes, molestation, or any other product of whatever culture we are supposed to celebrate, the crime and the suffering forced upon the victims is immeasurable.  Though this is unmistakably clear to any rational observer, the solution has been not to change course, but to double down.

Sanctuary cities, sanctuary states, bought prosecutors and judges — all work together to hide such people from federal authorities who would protect us from violence and tragedy.  You may have noticed, as I have, that leftist politicians and their loved ones never seem to be the ones who die, or suffer, or are even remotely inconvenienced when lives are torn apart.

The effects of their policies are borne by the nameless, faceless people who gain nothing from the votes the perpetrators will eventually offer up to the progressives.  But that is a price the leftists are perfectly willing to have someone else pay.

Maybe you’ve noticed that not only do leftists love for children to be in schools deemed “gun-free zones,” but they fight like hell to make sure that no one in those schools can prevent the deaths that become so useful to the advancement of their agenda.

We are then offered the spectacle of the anti–Second Amendment politicians briefly leaving the protective cocoon of their armed security detail to tell us how unacceptable it would be for teachers and school administrators to be able to kill a gunman whose primary inducement in his choice of location is that no one will shoot back for a good, long time.

Those aren’t their children or grandchildren we’re mourning.  Those are expendable children.

Perhaps it’s sad, theoretically, that their lives were snuffed out by a triggered lunatic protected by laws passed by liberals that prevented the shooter’s preemptive commitment to an institution, whether psychological or criminal, but their families have the comfort of knowing that their children died to eradicate the Second Amendment.  They were offered up so that we can eventually be a nation of unarmed, subservient workers ruled by the politicians who willingly sacrificed those children so they can be the ones on top when the dust settles, sans bullet holes.

The cynical, bald-faced lie that runs through each of these examples is that the left values the lives of “innocents,” but leftists have defined that term differently from how we would.  To them, women who don’t act responsibly to prevent pregnancy are victims who must be protected.  The children have to be sacrificed so the women can live the lives no one took from them.

Illegal aliens who came here to prey upon our society, but who leftists believe will eventually be voting dependents, are innocent victims who must be protected.  We are told they have the “spark of divinity.”  The Americans whom these blessed and protected victims have killed or maimed were necessary sacrifices.

While progressives preach that some people are so important that we must prevent their prospective victimhood, their own policies furnish the actual victims necessary to maintain the charade that unfortunate deaths keep occurring and must be stopped while enabling them by the hundreds of thousands.

And here we are again.  The more people who die from coronavirus, the better the progressives think their chances will be in November.  They can rationalize that they aren’t actually killing the victims; the illness is.  But as they seek to create discord and strife between the president and his experts, thereby making his efforts less effective and immediate, they obviously know that time is of the essence.

The longer it takes to get this under complete control, the more people will die, and they will blame Trump.  If they can ban the use of medicines in their states that would reverse the severity and duration of the virus, more people will die, but they can blame Trump. If they didn’t order enough ventilators for their own states when they could have done so, but instead dedicated their resources to abortions, and protecting violent criminals, and green energy that doesn’t work, and people die, they can blame Trump.

All roads lead to the same place.  Death advances every item on the agenda.  Cause it, pretend to cry about it, and then cause some more.  For the left, death is business, and on the political left, business is booming.

Second French Study Confirms Hydroxychloroquine/Azithromycin Effective

Translated: Our two articles published tonight help to demonstrate:
1. The effectiveness of our protocol, on 80 patients.
2. The relevance of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, thanks to research carried out in our P3 containment laboratory.

Many people are unaware that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in addition to serving in Congress, is also an orchestra conductor. Sometimes she combines the two jobs as when she denounced the Stimulus bill while simultaneously conducting the 1812 Overture.

By the numbers: How coronavirus compares with the flu, opioid overdoses

Coronavirus comparison to the flu

Amid ever-changing models, it’s hard to put a finger on just how dangerous the coronavirus is.

We know at this point that COVID-19 — the disease caused by the coronavirus — has led to more than 85,356 illnesses and more than 1,246 deaths in U.S.

For comparison, the flu has caused an estimated 38 million illnesses, 30,000 hospitalizations and 23,000 deaths this season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…………

Coronavirus is still a moving target for researchers because it is new.  In comparison, scientists have studied seasonal flu for decades and opioid overdoses for years.

The CDC says certain people have a higher risk for severe illness from coronavirus. These people include those 65 and older, those who live in a care facility, patients with chronic lung disease, people with moderate to severe asthma, those with heart diseases or complications, immunocompromised people, and those with severe obesity (body mass index equal to or greater than 40).

Also at higher risk are patients with underlying medical conditions such as diabetes, renal failure, or liver disease, according to the CDC.

More comparisons will be available after the coronavirus pandemic ends, and can more accurately be analyzed.

NRA and 3 other gun groups suing L.A. County Sheriff Villanueva over shutting down firearms dealers

Four gun-owners rights organizations on Friday sued Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva over his repeated attempts this week to shut down firearms dealers, contending that his actions violate citizens’ constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms.

“Shuttering access to arms necessarily shutters the Constitutional right to those arms,” says the federal lawsuit filed by the Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association of America, California Gun Rights Foundation, and Firearms Policy Coalition on behalf of individual gun buyers and a Los Angeles firearm and ammunition retailer.

Meanwhile, libertarian economist and actor Ben Stein sued Gov. Gavin Newsom, challenging whether California’s unprecedented restrictions on social movement can actually be enforced.

Gun-owner rights organizations have asked the federal government to end the debate nationwide over whether gun shops can remain open despite growing stay-at-home orders aimed at reducing the spread of the coronavirus. They want the U.S. government to specifically add them to official lists of essential services.

They say the Los Angeles lawsuit is the first in California to challenge forced closures. It could end a patchwork of such decisions that has Villanueva ordering them closed to the public in the nation’s most populous county, while other California sheriffs declare them to be vital.

Villanueva’s office did not respond to telephone and email requests for comment.

The sheriff first ordered a total shutdown on Tuesday, saying long lines from panic buyers risked spreading the coronavirus. The disease causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

He again on Thursday ordered the stores closed to the public, challenging the county legal counsel’s finding that the stores are essential businesses that should remain open. However, his second order said the stores may still supply security guard companies, and anyone who already has purchased a gun and possesses a valid safety certificate can pick up their firearms.

Those exceptions aren’t good enough, the lawsuit says, because gun stores provide “the only lawful means to buy, sell, and transfer firearms and ammunition available to typical, law-abiding Californians.”

It also argues the shutdown violates the constitutional right to due process, and says even those who can pick up their previously purchased firearms now can’t buy the ammunition they need to go with them.

Meanwhile, Stein’s lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court asks that a judge clarify the rights that citizens have under Newsom’s executive order, which it notes has not been enacted into law by state legislators nor by voters at the ballot box.

His requirement that residents stay home except for essential errands “approximates the house arrest of 39.5 million healthy and uninfected California citizens,” says the lawsuit filed by the actor perhaps best known for his dry, monotone delivery in the 1986 movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

“Ben respects the governor and he respects people doing social distancing and good health hygiene. But what he has an issue with is that the governor’s order appears to be dictatorial,” said prominent right-wing attorney Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch who sued on Stein’s behalf.

He argued that Newsom’s order, while laudable as a recommendation, “cannot be enforced.”

Newsom administration officials did not respond to requests for comment. It’s unclear when or if the suit might be considered, because most court functions have been shut down due to the coronavirus.

So far, officials generally deny that they are conducting stops or making arrests if someone doesn’t comply.

But Stein, who lives in Beverly Hills, said in the lawsuit and on Klayman’s radio show Friday that a friend who is a pastor has been threatened with arrest if he holds religious services even for fewer than 10 people.

“This is outrageous, this is a police state, and it’s an interference with freedom of religion, it’s an interference with freedom of assembly,” Stein said on the show. “It’s what I call a soft police state.”

Just because it’s a woman, doesn’t mean she can’t be a murderous thug.


Man shoots, kills woman accused of opening fire at Tulsa shopping area

TULSA, Okla. – A woman is dead after allegedly opening fire at customers outside a Tulsa business on Friday, police said.

According to Tulsa police, a man with a concealed carry permit shot and killed the woman in response to seeing her shooting at people.

It happened near 5300 N. Peoria.

Surveillance video showed the same woman in an altercation in the area earlier in the day. Police said she returned with a gun.

The man with the concealed carry permit was questioned and released.

Coronavirus: The European Union Unravels

As the coronavirus pandemic rages through Europe — where more than 250,000 people have now been diagnosed with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 15,000 have died — the foundational pillars of the European Union are crumbling one by one.

Faced with an existential threat, EU member states, far from joining together to confront the pandemic as a unified bloc, instinctively are returning to pursuing the national interest. After years of criticizing U.S. President Donald J. Trump for pushing an “America First” policy, European leaders are reverting to the very nationalism they have publicly claimed to despise………

In an article titled, “Coronavirus Threatens European Unity,” Bill Wirtz, a political commentator based in Luxembourg, observed:

“As the coronavirus unfolds, Schengen countries are shutting their own borders. Whether or not they do so because they believe that a coordinated European response would be inefficient, or whether they believe that their own voters wouldn’t buy it — at this stage it’s irrelevant. The mere fact that borders have resurfaced in Europe is a failure for the integrity of the Schengen open borders agreement….

Darren McCaffrey, the political editor of the France-based news channel Euronewswrote:

“In the past couple of weeks, solidarity has collapsed in the bloc. Countries have started imposing border controls on neighboring EU countries, and even Germany has taken steps to manage the flow of people entering and leaving its territory.

In an article titled, “Nations First: The EU Struggles for Relevance in the Fight against Coronavirus,” the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel noted:

“As the pandemic takes hold in Europe, the decades-old union is showing its weaknesses. While the EU managed to survive Brexit and the euro crisis, the corona crisis may yet prove to be an insurmountable challenge.

The signal is clear: When things get serious, every member state still looks out for itself first — even 60 years after the founding of the community.”

2.2 trillion is 2 thousand 2 hundred billion

See the source image

Imagine 2200 times this in $100 bills.

Trump signs $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill into law

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a more than $2 trillion stimulus bill that attempts to blunt the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The signing comes days after Senate leaders and representatives from the White House reached an accord on the stimulus bill tied to the coronavirus. In that time, the House of Representatives also approved the measure (though not without some 11th-hour drama over the nature of the vote itself).

The bill, weighing in at approximately $2.2 trillion, is the largest piece of stimulus legislation in modern American history.

Alleged burglar shot, killed; another suspect arrested

TOME—An attempted burglary in Tomé Sunday morning has left one Valencia County man dead and another in custody.

Valencia County deputies were called to a burglary in progress on N.M. 47 in Tomé shortly after 7 a.m., Sunday, March 22. When they arrived, deputies found Jason Shadron, 41, of Los Lunas, dead in the front seat of a stolen pickup truck.

Valencia County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Lt. Joseph Rowland said items left at the scene identified a second suspect — Sammy Armijo, 40, of Los Chavez — who fled on foot.

The department isn’t releasing many details about the Sunday shooting since it is still under investigation, the lieutenant said.

“Somebody at the home fired the shot that killed Mr. Shadron,” Rowland said. “There is no known association between Jason and Sammy, and the people at the residence.

“It appears the two of them arrived together in the stolen truck, which we believe is the truck reported stolen by Armijo’s in-laws.”

Armijo was found and arrested late Monday afternoon, Rowland said.

“We located a vehicle that was associated with (Armijo) driving around. We stopped it but he was not in the vehicle,” Rowland said. “The driver said he got the vehicle from Armijo’s in-laws on Peyton Road (in Los Chavez).”

The lieutenant said that was the same household where the reported stolen truck Shadron was found in at the home on N.M. 47.

Deputies set up surveillance of the house on Peyton Road, and saw suspicious activity. Rowland said they contacted Armijo’s wife, who lives at the home, and found out he was in a camper in the backyard.

While Armijo was being taken into custody, he punched a window in the camper, injuring himself, Rowland said, and was checked by medical personnel.

“Otherwise, he was taken into custody without incident,” he said.

Rowland said the department was working closely with the district attorney’s office on the case.

“New Mexico State Police also assisted in the investigation. We will have to complete the investigation, review all the facts and work with the DA before we make a determination as to how to proceed,” he said.

Armijo was wanted on felony warrants prior to his arrest in regards to three probation violations for aggravated assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon, a second incident of aggravated assault of an officer and the third for burglary and assaulting, fleeing, evading and obstructing an officer.

Truckers Call for Second Amendment Right Nationwide During Emergency

Washington D.C. – A trucking group sent an emergency request to the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) on Friday urging leaders to take immediate action to help interstate truckers better protect themselves.

The Small Business in Transportation Coalition (SBTC) says urgent action is needed to ease restrictive state and local gun laws amid the unprecedented statewide orders arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Thursday, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, ordered all non-essential businesses to shut down and all non-essential travel to be restricted under threat of civil penalties.

The “stay at home” order came only hours before New York governor Andrew Cuomo, on Friday, issued a similar order to residents and businesses in New York State.

“These provisions will be enforced,” Gov. Cuomo said during a news conference when making the announcement. “These are not helpful hints. This is not if you really want to be a great citizen. These are legal provisions. They will be enforced. There will be a civil fine and mandatory closure for any business that is not in compliance. Again, your actions can affect my health. That’s where we are.”

Also on Friday, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker and Connecticut governor Ned Lamont joined the others in issuing similar orders.

Truckers are deemed “essential,” so deliveries will continue, but what about the safety of these drivers now operating in a much different and unknown environment?

Citing the statewide “stay at home” orders, the SBTC contends the safety of truckers is now being further jeopardized as the “crisis worsens.”

In an emergency email sent to DOT secretary Elaine Chao, James Lamb, president of the SBTC, argues:

With four states now having issued stay at home orders causing metropolitan areas to now be desolate, and with cities like New York and Los Angeles releasing criminals from jails, now more than ever are there significant life threatening dangers to the men and women who drive trucks as America’s supply chain first responders.

The 15,000-member SBTC is calling on federal authorities to preempt state and local laws regarding the right to carry a firearm.

Therefore, in accordance with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, we hereby request the U.S. Department of Transportation please issue a preemption order nullifying any and all state and local laws that restrict truck drivers from carrying firearms across state lines throughout America in order to enable them to protect themselves and their cargo as they engage in interstate commerce.

As this is now a matter of life and death, please issue same forthwith.

“The SBTC through its TRUCKER LIVES MATTER campaign has sought the unfettered ability of drivers to carry firearms for self protection nationwide since its inception in 2014,” Lamb tells Transportation Nation Network (TNN).  “We have pointed to Department of Labor statistics that show the unusually high rates of murders on the road for workers in interstate transportation.”

NSSF GRATIFIED TO SEE FIREARM ACCIDENTS REACHING RECORD LOW LEVEL

NEWTOWN, Conn.—The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®) is pleased to report that unintentional firearm fatalities reached their lowest level ever, according to the latest data from the National Safety Council’s just-released Injury Facts Report 2018.

NSSF, as the trade association for the firearm industry and leading proponent of safe gun handling and storage, applauded the report, which shows fatal firearm accidents at their lowest level since record keeping began in 1903. The firearm industry has for the last two decades provided more than 100 million firearm locking devices with new firearms sold and through its award-winning Project ChildSafe® program—the largest and most comprehensive firearm safety program in the country. The industry’s educational materials are widely distributed to gun owners by firearm manufacturers, retailers, instructors and others nationwide.

“As an industry that prioritizes firearm safety, it is extremely good news to see this record decline in gun-related accidents,” said Joe Bartozzi, NSSF’s President and CEO. “It’s gratifying to know that our industry’s gun safety efforts, including our long-running Project ChildSafe firearm safety education program, are contributing to helping save lives.”

With approximately 100 million gun owners in the country, the data demonstrates that firearms can be safely owned and used and accidents prevented as long as secure storage guidelines are followed. “Securely storing firearms when not in use is the No. 1 way to help prevent accidents, thefts and misuse,” said Bartozzi.

The National Safety Council data showed that for 2018 there were 458 firearm fatalities, accounting for less than 1 percent of unintentional fatalities from all principal causes. In the last two decades (1998-2018) accidental firearm deaths have declined by 47 percent. “Even one accidental firearm fatality is one too many,” said Bartozzi. “We’re aiming for zero, and this is great progress.”

With reports of many people purchasing their first firearm due to safety concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, Bartozzi reminds new gun owners to use the safety device that came packaged with their new firearm when their gun is not under their direct control, to strongly consider using an additional safety device such as a lock box or lockable gun case, and to take advantage of the many gun safety resources at ProjectChildSafe.org, such as this video on the 10 commandments of firearm safety.

Also, with so many children at home because of COVID-19-related school closures, Bartozzi encourages parents to take time to have “the talk” with their kids about gun safety and to use tools such as the McGruff on Gun Safety videos and a video on how parents can talk to their children about gun safety on the Project ChildSafe website.

Learn more at ProjectChildSafe.org.

 

I’ll just post this without any extraneous comment concerning the author’s sense of humor….or the lack of it.

Uranus is leaking gas

  • NASA’s Voyager 2 probe flew through a blob of charged gas called a plasmoid decades ago, and scientists only just now realized it. 
  • The blob could reveal secrets about the planet’s atmosphere loss, which may be related to its bizarre rotation and distinct wobble. 
  • Future missions near Uranus, or even to the planet’s surface, could reveal even more about its history. 

Two accounts of some really stupid burg– bunglers


Putnam County Sheriff says ‘these hoodlums make me sick’ after homeowner shoots burglar

PUTNAM COUNTY, Ga. — Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills says a homeowner on Thomas Dr. called 911 dispatch around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday about a man armed with a knife up a tree making a disturbance.

Deputies were dispatched to the home, but before they could arrive a second call came in from a next door neighbor alleging the suspect was attempting to break into their home.

The suspect, identified as 28-year-old Hunter Layne Harrison, had picked up a concrete landscaping border brick and threw it through the locked glass door which led to an enclosed porch, according to Sills

After getting to the porch, Harrison beat on the french glass door to the home, screaming to be let in, but the homeowner shouted back that he was armed and that Harrison needed to leave.

But the homeowner, armed with a .45 semi-automatic pistol, shot the suspect once in the arm. Harrison hit the kitchen floor and the owner held him their until deputies arrived.

Once law enforcement made it to the scene, were they sent the homeowner along with his wife and child to wait out the situation in one of the home’s bedrooms.

The deputies then attempted to detain Harrison and place him in cuffs, but Sills says the suspect battled with the deputies, splattering blood across the kitchen, breaking free, cussing at the officers, and running towards a door that he believed was an exit.

But Sills says Harrison didn’t realize the home was currently under construction and that the door no longer led to a back deck, causing Harrison to fall nine feet to the ground where deputies arrested him.

The officers had to use pepper spray to subdue Harrison and keep his feet in shackles to keep him from running.

While Harrison was en route to an ambulance that had arrived on scene, Sills says he continued to fight deputies. Once inside the ambulance, Harrison was sent to The Medical Center, Navicent Health to be treated for his injuries, including undergoing surgery to remove a bullet from his arm.

Harrison is still at Navicent Health once he is cleared for release he will be transported back to Putnam County for booking.

“These hoodlums make me sick. He’s got a twenty-page raps heet and he’s over at the hospital, taking up a bed where someone more important, who might have coronavirus, might need it,” Sills said Wednesday.

Sills says he currently has warrants on Harrison to charge him with:

  • Home invasion
  • Burglary in the first degree
  • Three counts of felony obstruction
  • One count of disorderly conduct

Sills added that at the time of the incident, Harrison was on probation for a 2014 burglary in Putnam County, damaging government property in Putnam County in 2016, and driving on a suspended license and giving a false name to law enforcement in Greene County in 2018.


Alleged burglar shot, killed; another suspect arrested

TOME—An attempted burglary in Tomé Sunday morning has left one Valencia County man dead and another in custody.

Valencia County deputies were called to a burglary in progress on N.M. 47 in Tomé shortly after 7 a.m., Sunday, March 22. When they arrived, deputies found Jason Shadron, 41, of Los Lunas, dead in the front seat of a stolen pickup truck.

Valencia County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Lt. Joseph Rowland said items left at the scene identified a second suspect — Sammy Armijo, 40, of Los Chavez — who fled on foot.

The department isn’t releasing many details about the Sunday shooting since it is still under investigation, the lieutenant said.

“Somebody at the home fired the shot that killed Mr. Shadron,” Rowland said. “There is no known association between Jason and Sammy, and the people at the residence.

“It appears the two of them arrived together in the stolen truck, which we believe is the truck reported stolen by Armijo’s in-laws.”

Armijo was found and arrested late Monday afternoon, Rowland said.

“We located a vehicle that was associated with (Armijo) driving around. We stopped it but he was not in the vehicle,” Rowland said. “The driver said he got the vehicle from Armijo’s in-laws on Peyton Road (in Los Chavez).”

The lieutenant said that was the same household where the reported stolen truck Shadron was found in at the home on N.M. 47.

Deputies set up surveillance of the house on Peyton Road, and saw suspicious activity. Rowland said they contacted Armijo’s wife, who lives at the home, and found out he was in a camper in the backyard.

While Armijo was being taken into custody, he punched a window in the camper, injuring himself, Rowland said, and was checked by medical personnel.

“Otherwise, he was taken into custody without incident,” he said.

Rowland said the department was working closely with the district attorney’s office on the case.

“New Mexico State Police also assisted in the investigation. We will have to complete the investigation, review all the facts and work with the DA before we make a determination as to how to proceed,” he said.

Armijo was wanted on felony warrants prior to his arrest in regards to three probation violations for aggravated assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon, a second incident of aggravated assault of an officer and the third for burglary and assaulting, fleeing, evading and obstructing an officer.

The market doesn’t seem to be overly concerned about this (DJIA + 1,351.62 today), probably because it was expected.


A record 3.28 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week due to coronavirus

The numbers: The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits last week rocketed to a record 3.28 million as large parts of the U.S. economy shut down and companies laid off scores of workers to cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

The seasonally adjusted increase in initial jobless claims from March 15 to March 21 was the largest ever, easily crushing the previous record rise of 695,000 in October 1982. The tally in the prior week was 282,000.

The sudden surge in claims is likely just the beginning. Waves of fresh layoffs are expected with many states ordering nonessential businesses to close.

Wall Street was bracing for a terrible number. Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a 2.5 million increase. Just a few weeks ago, new clams hovered near a 50-year low.

The actual or unadjusted number of new claims, meanwhile, was 2.9 million, according to new figures released Thursday by the Labor Department.