DeSantis Declares No Orders for Closing Gun Stores Ahead of Milton

If Hurricane Helene was all we had to deal with, that would have been plenty for the year. Unfortunately, now Florida is bracing for Milton, which is expected to reach category four status and then slam into the state.

With all the death and devastation hitting a part of the country that pretty much never has to worry about hurricanes, a lot of stories have gotten lost in the shuffle. We covered the situation in Okeechobee, Florida where the police chief illegally decreed that gun stores must be closed. No one stopped what they were doing because of the decree, mind you, and it wasn’t enforced–the chief says it was a mistake that shouldn’t have happened–but it was still a thing.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is taking steps to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has issued an emergency declaration ahead of  Hurricane Milton that prohibits Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie from exercising his authority to suspend or limit gun sales.

The preemption of Guthrie’s authority is unprecedented and even highlighted in the news release that went out with the executive order declaring an emergency:

Florida law allows the emergency management director to prohibit citizens from carrying guns and selling guns and ammunition during an emergency, but Guthrie has not taken such action as far as available records show.

Except that it doesn’t.

It provides for emergency management directors to prohibit the carrying and selling of firearms when there have been acts of violence or defiance of lawful authority. That simply doesn’t exist here, so no, Guthrie doesn’t actually have the authority to do so. The fact that he hasn’t doesn’t mean he won’t, and after what happened to Okeechobee, well, DeSantis is taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen this time.

“But this is unprecedented!” the writers declare.

Sure, it’s unprecedented, but that’s because no one figured they needed to spell it out specifically before. Prior to Okeechobee, no one in Florida thought that someone would try to prohibit the lawful carry of a firearm or the sale of one in the lead-up to a hurricane. Sure, I could see them doing it during a riot or some kind of uprising, but for a storm?

Yet someone did, and DeSantis clearly wants to make sure there’s not a repeat.

Yes, officials said it was a mistake, that they didn’t mean to sign any such order and it was never enforced, and so on. That doesn’t mean someone else won’t try to do it simply because they don’t like guns.

I don’t think Guthrie would do so–he was appointed to his job by DeSantis, so, probably, he’s not exactly a gun control enthusiast–but this also shields him from criticism if something goes sideways and someone gets shot during the storm or the immediate aftermath. It’s unlikely we’ll see widespread violence or anything, but we also know how the news media gets.

No, DeSantis did the right thing and media hysterics are nothing but an attempt to try and pretend this is something that it’s not.

People need to be able to buy guns right up until the stores close because the stores’ management decides its time to close. DeSantis making sure there’s no repeat of Helene and Okeechobee is just good sense.

Comment O’ The Day:
If they were innocent, they would’ve called in about being shot at


Investigation underway after shots fired at Burnet County church
According to the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office, a member of the church’s volunteer security team fired multiple rounds during the incident.

BURNET COUNTY, Texas — Law enforcement is investigating after an incident at a Burnet County church on Sunday morning where multiple shots were fired.

According to the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to the Church at the Epicenter at 2401 N. U.S. 281 around 10:30 a.m. after a 911 call. A man reportedly called 911 and requested police at the church before hanging up.

Deputies arriving on the scene determined a member of the church’s volunteer security team had fired shots.

The church member told deputies he had confronted two suspicious men outside the church, and one of them presented a rifle. The church member allegedly fired multiple rounds, causing both men to enter a white minivan and flee the scene, driving northbound on U.S. 281.

There are no known injuries at this time.

The Lampasas Police Department said it has called in additional staff and supervision to patrol the city and churches.

“We have coordinated with other local law enforcement agencies to be on high alert and ready to deter or respond immediately to any incidents that might occur,” the department said.

The Burnet County Sheriff’s Office is working with state and federal agencies on the investigation.

No other information is available at this time.


Local law enforcement agencies reassure residents after reports of attempted shooting at church in Burnet County

(KWTX) – Multiple local law enforcement agencies are reassuring residents after reports of an attempted shooting at a church in Burnet County.

The Burnet County Sheriff’s Office says on Oct. 6, at around 10:30 a.m., deputies were sent to the Church at the Epicenter in reference to a welfare check after an unknown 911 call.

Burnet County Sheriff’s Office says dispatched informed deputies that a man called 911, provided the address of the church, requested police and then disconnected.

When deputies arrived, authorities say it was clear shots were fired and that all shots fired came from a member of the church’s volunteer safety team.

The safety team member told deputies that he found two suspicious men outside the church, and one of the men had a rifle with him, according to the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office.

Shortly after, the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office says the safety team member shot multiple rounds, causing the two men to enter a white minivan and flee the scene northbound on US 281.

After hearing about the incident, multiple law enforcement agencies across Central Texas took to social media to reassure their residents of precautions they’re taking to keep residents safe.

The Bosque County Sheriff’s Office says their deputies routinely patrol church parking lots during services in Bosque County but in light of the incident advise having additional people and security teams to increase the likelihood of potential threats being deterred.

They encourage church leaders and security teams to review their safety plan and step up security efforts moving forward.

Additionally, the Lampasas Police Department took to Facebook to inform residents that no related incidents occurred in or around their city, but that police will remain on high alert throughout Sunday afternoon.

Lampasas police say out of caution they called in additional staff to patrol the city, specifically churches, and have coordinated with other law enforcement to be on high alert should any incidents occur.

Theft & Brandishing Gun Leads To Shooting At Walgreens Leaving Suspect Dead

On October 6, 2024 at approximately 2:10 AM, Calumet City Police responded to the Walgreen’s store located in the 500 block of Torrence Avenue for the report of a retail theft, according to Calumet City Police.

While responding, the Calumet City 911 Center received a report of shots fired and a vehicle that fled westbound from the scene.

Officers located the vehicle in the 1600 block of Sibley. The driver of the vehicle, a 42 year old male, had a gunshot wound to the chest. Officers provided immediate trauma care to the male who was then transported to a local trauma center where he later succumbed to his injuries.

The preliminary investigation indicates that the 42 year old male and a 48 year old female exited the Walgreen’s store, separately, without paying for merchandise in their possession. Both were approached by store employees. Store employees recovered the stolen merchandise from the 48 year old female who then fled the scene on foot. When the 42 year old male was approached, he displayed a handgun and the store employee, who has a concealed carry license, discharged his weapon striking the 42 year old male. The male then entered a vehicle and fled in a westbound direction.

Calumet City Detectives are investigating. Anyone with information is requested to contact the Calumet City Police Department at 708-868-2500.

October 7, 2024

1571 – The Battle of Lepanto is fought, and the moslem Ottoman Navy suffers its first defeat.

1777 – American forces defeat British forces under general John Burgoyne in the Second Battle of Saratoga, also known as the Battle of Bemis Heights, compelling Burgoyne’s eventual surrender.

1780 – American militia defeat royalist irregulars led by British major Patrick Ferguson at the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina.

2001 – The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan begins with an air assault and covert operations on the ground, starting the longest war in American history.

2023 – Hamas and several other Palestinian militant groups launch an attack into Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 240 hostages, including civilians and soldiers.

Man shot and killed after altercation with machete in New Haven

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — An altercation involving a machete led to the shooting death of a man [Friday] night in New Haven, according to police.

New Haven officers were called at 5:30 p.m. Friday to the Bella Vista housing complex on Eastern Street for a disturbance. Callers reported that a Black male was carrying a machete, banging on doors, and rambling.

The man, 56-year-old John Reynolds, was shot and killed by a resident after an altercation ensued. According to 911 callers, Reynolds had a history of mental health problems and may have been under the influence.

Reynolds died at the scene, and the medical examiner’s office took his body for an autopsy.

Neighbors said Bella Vista is a quiet community. Most are shocked and sad to hear something like this happen.

“I told my wife, and she was at bible study, and she said, ‘Oh my god, we have to get out of here,” said Leigh Busby, a Bella Vista resident. “She is a little upset about it, obviously.”

Bella Vista is a senior living housing complex. Neighbors said there is security, but some believe it’s not enough.

“We need better security,” Busby said. “We can’t just have everybody coming in and out of here like that.”

Police said the resident who shot Reynolds has not been arrested, and the investigation is ongoing.

Iran military chief ‘killed’ by Israeli air strike in Lebanon that targeted new leader of Hezbollah

One of Iran’s top military commanders is believed to have been killed in an Israeli attack that targeted the new leader of terror group Hezbollah.

Esmail Qaani, head of the Quds Force – the elite wing of the feared Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – was reported to be with the new leader of Hezbollah, Hashem Safieddine, who was targeted in his HQ bunker in Beirut by the Israelis.

The air strike on Thursday night during heavy bombing of southern Beirut was mounted as Safieddine held a secret meeting with other Hezbollah leaders in the underground intelligence headquarters.

He had only just taken over from Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by the Israelis last month.

Last night, Arabic and English language media in the Middle East were reporting that Safieddine is highly likely to have died.
Esmail Qaani (pictured), head of the Quds Force ¿ the elite wing of the feared Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) ¿ may also have been at the meeting

Esmail Qaani (pictured), head of the Quds Force – the elite wing of the feared Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – may also have been at the meeting

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Study: COVID-Vaxxed Kids SIX TIMES Likelier to Die Than Unvaxxed Peers

The ostensible takeaway, per the authors, of a poorly-publicized study from June of this year was that children vaccinated for COVID had much higher rates of asthma — almost double, in fact — post-COVID infection than their unvaccinated peers.

That’s compelling enough of a headline, but what should really have been the lede in any sane world got buried deep in the weeds.

Via Infection (medical journal) (emphasis added):

Two cohorts of children aged 5 to 18 who underwent SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR testing were analyzed: unvaccinated children with and without COVID-19 infection, and vaccinated children with and without infection. Propensity score matching was used to mitigate selection bias, and hazard ratio (HR) and 95% CI were calculated to assess the risk of new-onset asthma.

Our study found a significantly higher incidence of new-onset asthma in COVID-19 infected children compared to uninfected children, regardless of vaccination status.

In Cohort 1, 4.7% of COVID-19 infected children without vaccination developed new-onset asthma, versus 2.0% in their non-COVID-19 counterparts within a year (HR = 2.26; 95% CI = 2.158–2.367).

For Cohort 2,COVID-19 infected children with vaccination showed an 8.3% incidence of new-onset asthma, higher than the 3.1% in those not infected (HR = 2.745; 95% CI = 2.521–2.99). Subgroup analyses further identified higher risks in males, children aged 5–12 years, and Black or African American children. Sensitivity analyses confirmed the reliability of these findings.

The study highlights a strong link between COVID-19 infection and an increased risk of new-onset asthma in children, which is even more marked in those vaccinated. This emphasizes the critical need for ongoing monitoring and customized healthcare strategies to mitigate the long-term respiratory impacts of COVID-19 in children, advocating for thorough strategies to manage and prevent asthma amidst the pandemic.

However, as Alex Berenson — vindicated “conspiracy theorist” who turned out to be right about all of the things he was censored for since the start of the pandemic — explains, the truly shocking statistical finding, which somehow never made it into the conclusion, is a six-fold increase in death among vaxxed kids in the study as compared to the unvaxxed.

Via Alex Berenson (emphasis added):

The study about Covid and asthma in American kids and teens has gone mostly unnoticed. It hasn’t been cited once since it was published in June.

Which may be why no one has raised an alarm over the stunning figures buried in its appendix about deaths among mRNA Covid-vaccinated kids.

They show that 354 of the 64,000 children and teenagers who received a Covid mRNA shot died within a year after vaccination – a death rate of almost six kids per 1,000.

In contrast, only 309 out of 320,000 unvaccinated kids died, fewer than one per 1,000.

One might assume, again, that finding a drug is implicated in a six-fold increase in childhood mortality might be the headline — but, if it were, these researchers might not get another grant their whole careers. In fact, they might be working at McDonald’s or collecting unemployment within a week.

Why the researchers refused to focus on this statistic, or even mention it in passing in the summary of their work, is obviously a matter of speculation.

But speculate I will.

Scientists rely on grant money, either directly from the pharmaceutical industry or indirectly from the pharmaceutical industry by way of the government, which is often in bed with said industry.

There are, as such, clear financial interests at play, which is why you will notice that, virtually universally, scientists will downplay even the mildest negative effects of pharmaceutical products they study— especially blockbuster ones like the COVID-19 shots — or else rig the research design to produce rosier results, or else never publish any negative research findings in the first place.

Indeed, it’s mildly surprising that the data Alex Berenson unearthed ever made it to publication at all, when it would have been so easy just to scrub it out of existence.

wretchardthecat

The key to renewal is repentance, the acknowledgement of error. Yet that acceptance is almost impossible to those who grew up on the belief they are better than everyone else, who have justified their power over others upon that undoubted superiority.

The normal person learns more from failure than success. But the already perfect man lacks the capacity to learn anything from defeat other than to conclude that someone failed him.

Usually it is we the public who have failed them. Taxes will increase and regulations redoubled until everyone is doing his fair share. Notice that the concept that they actually work for us has completely disappeared in the shuffle.

The trope that Communists make subordinates report while standing on a trap door over a shark tank is a joke, but only just.

“You know the penalty for failure. Comrade”

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.  Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
— Thomas Paine

Kamala Harris’s Long-Running Disinformation Campaign on Guns.

Kamala Harris is the most anti-gun candidate who has ever been as close as she is to becoming president. And she has been less than forthcoming on her specific views on firearms and the Second Amendment. It doesn’t help that she has avoided any meaningful interaction from the media where she can be pressed to explain her positions. What few appearances she has made have been absolute disasters, even though they have all been with compliant Harris supporters who have handled the candidate with kid gloves.

Without any clearly explained positions coming from Harris for her current campaign, we can only rely on her history of firearm-related statements and the few vague comments she or her campaign surrogates have made as she seeks to usurp the job currently held by Joe Biden.

To be perfectly honest, when it comes to firearms and the Second Amendment, Kamala Harris is running a campaign of disinformation, obfuscation, and lies; a campaign supported by compliant “journalists” and sham organizations manufactured to help obliterate our rights as gun owners.

While Harris has tried to claim she supports the Second Amendment, she has yet to demonstrate that with either words or deeds over a career where she has drawn paychecks from only one employer: Taxpayers.

We’ve noted several times that, as a candidate for president during the 2020 election cycle, Harris stated that she didn’t want to just ban semi-automatic firearms, but also wanted to confiscate those firearms already owned by law-abiding citizens. She is now trying to hide from that past. She wants gun owners to now believe confiscation is no longer part of her plan, but we simply do not believe her.

Sadly, although not surprisingly, many members of the media are more than happy to give Harris cover on her new claim that she does not want to confiscate firearms. The ironically misnamed website FactCheck.org tried to give her cover, claiming NRA “misleadingly claims that Harris will ‘ban law-abiding citizens from owning’ guns and ‘seize your legally owned guns.’ Her proposal would not ban all guns or seize any guns.”

But NRA has not said Harris wants to “ban all guns.” She very well may, but what we have said, and what Harris has said, is she wants to ban what she calls “assault weapons.” These are guns—and some of the most popular guns sold in America—so, yes, she wants to ban law-abiding citizens from owning these guns, as well as others.

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Biden’s agency bosses say Americans have ‘too much freedom’
The ‘swamp’ thinks you have it too good.

In an unusual look at federal agency managers, most believe Americans have too much freedom, and they back President Joe Biden‘s efforts to impose 

The bosses of federal agencies were asked in a new Napolitan Institute survey about the “individual freedom” Americans have, and 51% said they have “somewhat” to “far too much freedom.”

But just 16% of voters agreed and 57% believe the government has too much control over their lives.

Democratic “swamp” managers felt the country has too much freedom at the highest levels in the survey, at 68%. Among Republican federal agency chiefs, just 33% agreed.

But the partisan bureaucrats were more in agreement when it came to choosing who is best at deciding if new regulations are needed, found the polling outfit headed by Scott Rasmussen.

Said the analysis shared with Secrets on Friday, “Fifty-four percent (54%) of government managers say that if, after carefully researching an important issue, they determine that a regulation is needed, yet voters overwhelmingly oppose it, they should follow their research and issue the regulation anyway. This includes 49% of Republican government managers and 60% of Democrats,” it said.

Unlike Democrats and Republicans in America, and even on Capitol Hill, partisans that work in the swamp generally think like the other, according to Napolitan’s latest poll of America’s 1% elitists.

“On many topics, there is a disturbing level of bi-partisan agreement among federal government managers. Fifty-three percent (53%) of Republican government managers and 48% of Democrats believe the federal government should be allowed to censor speech that is posted on social media platforms. Forty-three percent (43%) of ‘Elites’ and just 16% of voters share this view. Seventy-four percent of Republican government managers and 79% of Democrats favor banning private ownership of guns. This view is shared by 77% of ‘Elites,’ but just 36% of voters,” said the analysis.

In his polling of elites, Rasmussen has found a stunning gap with Middle Americans, which could be a danger sign considering the outsize effect of elites, especially in the media.

Rasmussen said, “The ‘Elite’ 1% wield a tremendous amount of institutional power but are wildly out of touch with the nation they want to rule. Over the years they have built institutions and mechanisms of regulatory power that are immune to the checks and balances of elections. Worse still, these same ‘Elites’ own, operate, and control a large majority of media outlets, blocking out the true voice of the American people and broadcasting their own out of touch viewpoints.”