Frequently Debunked Crackpots Claim the AR-15 is Worthless for Self-Defense

When the young paste-eaters at Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun propaganda factory, known as the Trace, team up with the stodgy window-lickers at the Gun Violence Archive to produce a story about the utility of the AR-15 platform as a modern self-defense tool, it’s hard not to get too excited.

It’s like watching two freight trains headed toward each other on the same track. You know the results are going to be cataclysmic. None of these halfwits have ever heard a shot fired, much less one fired in anger, or especially one fired to good effect. They know less about what makes a reliable home defense weapon than I do about man-buns, skinny jeans, or avocado toast.

We have debunked the Trace and the Gun Violence Archive so often it’s getting old. The kids at the Trace masquerade as legitimate journalists when, in fact, they’re nothing more than highly paid anti-gun activists. The GVA purports to track gun crimes and maintain a list of mass shootings, but their data is collected from media, and even social media sources, and their stats are so inflated they’d have you believe a mass shooting occurs nearly every time someone draws from a holster. When the two anti-gun nonprofits combine for a story, it’s bound to be something as bereft of facts as it is poorly written, and to that standard their most recent collaboration does not disappoint.

A story published Tuesday asks: “How Often Are AR-Style Rifles Used for Self-Defense? Supporters of AR-15s, often used in mass shootings and racist attacks, say they’re important for self-defense. Our analysis of Gun Violence Archive data suggests otherwise.”

The story was written by one of the Trace’s senior fabulists, Jennifer Mascia, who is “currently the lead writer of the Ask The Trace series and tracks news developments on the gun beat.” Mascia has also led the Trace’s hilarious we’re journalists, not activists, propaganda campaign on social media.

Mascia reportedly searched the GVA’s data for “assault weapon,” which she said the GVA defines as “AR-15, AK-47, and all variants defined by law enforcement.” Of course, there’s no mention of whether the weapons were capable of select-fire and, therefore, actual assault weapons. She started with 190 incidents, which she whittled down for various reasons. The results: “That left 51 incidents over a nine-and-a-half-year span in which legal gun owners brandished or used an AR-style rifle to defend life or property. That averages out to around five per year.”

To be clear, I trust Mascia’s findings about as much as I trust the GVA data that produced the results. The whole story is GIGO – garbage in, garbage out.

It is noteworthy that the firearms “expert” whom Mascia found to further beclown herself – who wrote in a CNN story that the AR is the last gun he’d recommend for self-defense – is none other than former Washington D.C. police officer Michael Fanone. He’s the officer who cried a lot before the January 6 Commission – the one with the beard who cried a lot, if that helps jog your memory.

The network must have liked the cut of his jib. Fanone is now a CNN contributor and hawking a new book: “Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul.” (Nancy Pelosi highly recommended it.)

Since he’s so afraid of the AR platform, I can’t help but wonder what weapon Fanone, or for that matter, Mascia, would recommend for home defense. If I had to guess, it probably has two barrels, a wooden stock and exposed hammers.

I’m somewhat familiar with the AR myself, which is why I trust it to defend my hearth and home. It’s light, accurate, and deadly, which is exactly the point, and something we should stop making allowances for.

Despite the exhortations of Bloomberg’s activists or crybaby ex-cops, an AR-15 is exactly what I want when The Bad Man comes a-calling.

BLUF
“The numbers indicate if we didn’t have gun-free zones, we would have more people stopping these attacks,”

Over 60% of ‘active shooters’ stopped by ‘good guy with a gun’

A large percentage of “active shooter” incidents are thwarted by armed citizens who sometimes don’t even fire their weapons, but those cases are no longer counted under President Joe Biden’s pro-gun control policies.

According to just-released data from the Crime Prevention Research Center, 41% of active shooting incidents were stopped by armed civilians.

Outside of so-called gun-free zones, which bar the legal carrying of firearms, over 63% of active shooting cases were ended by an armed civilian, according to the center.

The new data from John R. Lott Jr., the former Justice Department senior adviser for research and statistics, are his latest to challenge undercounting and bias in government reports on shootings and back up efforts by Second Amendment and police groups to encourage people to carry firearms.

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This judge has it backwards and I’d say purposefully. The goobermint has to submit evidence that the weapons are not in common use for self defense, (impossible by the way, so that’s why the judge pretzeled it)  not the plaintiffs

Federal judge upholds Conn.’s assault weapons ban for 2nd time in a month

For the second time in less than a month, a federal judge has upheld Connecticut’s assault weapons ban by denying an injunction seeking a temporary halt to the enforcement of the ban as part of a lawsuit challenging the state’s gun laws.

In a 14-page ruling issued earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton said the assault weapons banned by the state are not “commonly” used for self-defense, which would classify the firearms as protected under the Second Amendment.

“Plaintiffs are correct that the Second Amendment provides them with the freedom to choose a firearm . . . ‘that is not dangerous and unusual’ and that is normally used for self-defense,” Arterton said. “However, until they submit evidence that supports a finding that the assault weapons in the challenged statutes meet those requirements, they cannot show a likelihood of success on the merits of their Second Amendment claim.”

She had denied a similar injunction requested by the National Association for Gun Rights, which is also suing state officials to revoke the ban, on Aug. 3. Her ruling this week marks the third time since June that Arterton has upheld the state’s assault weapons ban.

Attorney Cameron Atkinson, one of three lawyers representing the plaintiffs, three people including two former state correction officers and two gun rights advocacy groups, said they will appeal the most recent ruling.

“The District Court did exactly what the Supreme Court told it not to do (in other rulings),” Atkinson said Wednesday. “We’re very confident that the ruling will be reversed on appeal.”

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Frequently debunked crackpots claim the AR is worthless for self-defense
The Trace teams up with the Gun Violence Archive and hilarity ensues.

When the young paste-eaters at Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun propaganda factory, known as the Trace, team up with the stodgy window-lickers at the Gun Violence Archive to produce a story about the utility of the AR platform as a modern self-defense tool, it’s hard not to get too excited.

It’s like watching two freight trains headed toward each other on the same track. You know the results are going to be cataclysmic. None of these halfwits have ever heard a shot fired, much less one fired in anger, or especially one fired to good effect. They know less about what makes a reliable home-defense weapon than I do about man-buns, skinny jeans or avocado toast.

We have debunked the Trace and the Gun Violence Archive so often it’s getting old. The kids at the Trace masquerade as legitimate journalists when in fact they’re nothing more than highly paid anti-gun activists. The GVA purports to track gun crimes and maintain a list of mass shootings, but their data is collected from media and even social media sources, and their stats are so inflated they’d have you believe a mass shooting occurs nearly every time someone draws from a holster. When the two anti-gun nonprofits combine for a story, it’s bound to be something as bereft of facts as it is poorly written, and to that standard their most recent collaboration does not disappoint.

A story published Tuesday asks: “How Often Are AR-Style Rifles Used for Self-Defense? Supporters of AR-15s, often used in mass shootings and racist attacks, say they’re important for self-defense. Our analysis of Gun Violence Archive data suggests otherwise.”

The story was written by one of the Trace’s senior fabulists, Jennifer Mascia, who is “currently the lead writer of the Ask the Trace series and tracks news developments on the gun beat.” Mascia has also led the Trace’s hilarious we’re journalists, not activists, propaganda campaign on social media.

Mascia claims her story was a response to a reader’s question: “Many gun owners claim to buy assault-style rifles for defense. So how many documented cases are out there where someone actually defended themselves with an assault-style rifle?”

Mascia reportedly searched the GVA’s data for “assault weapon,” which she said the GVA defines as “AR-15, AK-47, and all variants defined by law enforcement.” Of course, there’s no mention whether the weapons were capable of select-fire and therefore actual assault weapons. She started with 190 incidents, which she whittled down for various reasons. The results: “That left 51 incidents over a nine-and-a-half-year span in which legal gun owners brandished or used an AR-style rifle to defend life or property. That averages out to around five per year.”

To be clear, I trust Mascia’s findings about as much as I trust the GVA data that produced the results. The whole story is GIGO — garbage in, garbage out.

It is noteworthy that the firearms “expert” whom Mascia found to further beclown herself — who wrote in a CNN story that the AR is the last gun he’d recommend for self-defense — is none other than former Washington D.C. police officer Michael Fanone. He’s the officer who cried a lot before the January 6 Commission — the one with the beard who cried a lot, if that helps jog your memory.

“I’m more familiar with the gun than most people: I own one. And one thing I know for sure is that this weapon doesn’t belong in the hands of the average civilian,” Fanone wrote of the AR platform in the CNN story.

The network must have liked the cut of his jib. Fanone is now a CNN contributor and hawking a new book: “Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul.” (Nancy Pelosi highly recommended it.)

Since he’s so afraid of the AR platform, I can’t help but wonder what weapon Fanone, or for that matter, Mascia, would recommend for home defense. If I had to guess, it probably has two barrels, a wooden stock and exposed hammers.

I’m somewhat familiar with the AR myself, which is why I trust it to defend my hearth and home. It’s light, accurate and deadly, which is exactly the point, and something we should stop making allowances for.

Despite the exhortations of Bloomberg’s activists or crybaby ex-cops, an AR is exactly what I want when The Bad Man comes a-calling.

September 2

44 BC – Cleopatra declares her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion.

31 BC – In the last war of the Roman Republic, naval forces of Octavian defeat those of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium.

1192 – The Treaty of Jaffa is signed between Richard I of England and Saladin, leading to the end of the 3rd Crusade.

1752 – Great Britain, along with its overseas possessions, adopts the Gregorian calendar.

1789 – The United States Department of the Treasury is founded.

1862 –President Lincoln restores General George B. McClellan to command U.S. Forces after General John Pope’s defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

1864 – Union forces enter Atlanta, a day after the Confederate defenders flee the city, ending the Atlanta Campaign.

1885 – In Rock Springs, Wyoming, 150 white miners, who are struggling to unionize so they could strike for better wages and work conditions, attack Chinese workers, killing 28, wounding 15 and forcing several hundred more out of town.

1901 – Vice President Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, “Speak softly and carry a big stick” at the Minnesota State Fair.

1912 – Arthur Rose Eldred is awarded the first Eagle Scout award of the Boy Scouts of America.

1925 – The USS Shenandoah, the first American built rigid airship, crashes in a thunderstorm in Noble County, Ohio killing 14 of the 42 crew aboard

1935 – The Labor Day Hurricane, the most intense hurricane to strike the U.S., makes landfall at Long Key, Florida, killing at least 400 people.

1939 – Following the start of the invasion of Poland the previous day, the beginning of World War II, the Free City of Danzig, now Gdańsk, is annexed by Nazi Germany.

1945 – World War II officially ends when The Japanese Instrument of Surrender is signed by Japan and the major Allied Powers aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

1958 – A US Air Force reconnaissance RC-130, tail number 60528, of the 7406th Support Squadron, is shot down by Soviet MiG-17 fighters over Armenia, when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a signals intelligence mission, killing all 17 crew members aboard

1963 – The CBS Evening News becomes U.S. network television’s first half-hour weeknight news broadcast, when the show is lengthened from 15 to 30 minutes.

1964 – Alvin C. York dies at the Veterans Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 76.

1987 – In Moscow, the trial begins for 19-year-old pilot Mathias Rust, who flew his Cessna airplane into Red Square in May.

2008 – Google launches its Chrome web browser.

2013 – The Eastern span replacement of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opens, after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the old span.

Just 12% of Americans — mostly men — are eating half of our beef supply.

Where’s the beef? In America, it’s getting scarfed up by a small minority of people.

A new study reveals that 50% of the beef consumed in any given day goes to just 12% of the US population.

And this heavy consumption of beef has significant health impacts on those Americans who are eating half of our steaks, meatballs, weiners and hamburgers.

Current US Department of Agriculture guidelines suggest eating four ounces per day of meat, poultry, and eggs for those consuming 2200 calories per day. But the study reveals some Americans are far exceeding that amount.

The USDA reports Americans overall consumed a whopping 30 billion pounds of beef in 2021, which equals almost 60 pounds per person per year.

The researchers were “surprised” such a small percentage of people consume such an outsized proportion of beef, study author Dr. Diego Rose, nutrition program director at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, said in a news release.

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Violent Crime! Our Personal Safety Depends Upon Ourselves

Fewer than half of crimes in the U.S. are reported IMG Pew Research

The “deterrent value” of law enforcement is at an all-time low!

Less than half of crimes of violence in the USA are never “solved.” Of the ones that are “solved” or “cleared,” few arrests and successful prosecutions ever result.

Less than twenty percent of property crimes are ever “solved.”

Owing to the foregoing, the majority of felonies, even forcible felonies, are never reported (what’s the point?) and thus never show up on any statistics. Thus, as dismal as the crime statistics we actually have, real figures are vastly worse!

Low arrest rates are a direct result of “passionless policing” by critically under-staffed, non-supported police departments, combined with unenthusiastic prosecution by liberal, pro-criminal prosecutors, as well as mayors and city council members.

Accordingly, among VCAs (violent criminal actors) in most metro areas, there is scant risk associated with physically victimizing others, at least risk represented by law enforcement. The real risk to VCAs (particularly drug traffickers) is from the violence visited upon them by other VCAs during territorial disputes.

And, of course, there is always the risk of running into an armed “victim,” as frightened Americans continue to buy guns at increasing rates every month.

As citizens, our personal safety depends almost exclusively upon ourselves. We are no longer “protected” by police in the way we used to be, and may never be again!

Lifestyles need to be tweaked accordingly….

Gun Free Zones are murder magnets.
Arm yourself because no one else will save you

Jacksonville update: Assailant avoided not one, but TWO secure targets before going to the third

A few days ago, we learned how the assailant in the white supremacist attack on the Dollar General store in Jacksonville, FL avoided a hard target and went for an undefended one instead. From the previous article:

Jacksonville assailant found a soft target after security scared him away from the first

Prior to the shooting, the gunman had been turned away from the campus of a nearby historically Black university, Edward Waters University. There, he refused to identify himself to an on-campus security officer and was asked to leave, the university stated in a news release.

“The individual returned to their car and left campus without incident. The encounter was reported to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office by EWU security,” the school said.

It was obvious why the assailant ran away from there. An armed on-campus security officer arrived. That would have meant an immediate confrontation, which the assailant did not want. He wanted to take his own sweet time ending the lives of innocent, unarmed victims.

It turns out, however, that this was not a one-off occurrence. The assailant had initially planned to attack a different Family Dollar store and ran away from there also because he saw the possibility of immediate armed resistance. CNN’s newer report states this (archived links):

The Jacksonville gunman’s dad called 911 after the deadly rampage started. Here’s what he said about his son

Authorities have released details from a 911 call made by the father of [***] – the gunman who killed three people in what authorities called a racially motivated rampage at a Dollar General store in Florida. […]

After the gunfire started, [***] texted his father and told him to go into his room, where the father found a will and a suicide note, Jacksonville’s sheriff said. […]

[***] had been getting psychiatric help and was on medication, but it looked like his son had stopped taking his medication because there was a full bottle that was filled on July 23, his father told the operator.

The father said he called the Clay County Sheriff’s Office a few years ago when his son threatened to kill himself.

[***] flunked out of college, then worked at Home Depot and was “pretty much been living in his room” after losing that job, his father told the operator.

The same factors – mental illness, self-isolation, unemployment – play out in a lot of these incidents. Clearly, this man was sick to begin with. At some point, he also went down the path of hate.

Investigators believe the gunman originally intended to attack a different dollar store – a Family Dollar he visited just minutes before driving to the university, Waters told CNN’s Abby Phillip on Monday night.

Waters believes the sight of a security vehicle arriving at the store and parking outside deterred the shooter.

“I don’t think he wanted to have any confrontation with someone that would create an issue for him or stop him from doing what he wanted to do,” Waters said.

“He had a goal in mind,” the sheriff said. “I think he wanted those stores – one of those stores. I don’t know why.”

So, the assailant first went to a Family Dollar store, saw a security vehicle, drove away to Edward Waters University. a Historically Black College/University (HBCU), again encountered security there, and finally ended up at the Dollar General where he committed his atrocity.

Duval County Sheriff T. K. Waters does not think that the assailant intended to attack the HBCU:

Surveillance footage shows two young African American men getting into the car next to the suspect’s as he was sitting in the lot, the sheriff noted. That bolsters Waters’ belief that the gunman didn’t intend to carry out an attack at the university, he said.

“He had the opportunity to do so, and he did not,” Waters told CNN on Monday.

The shooter immediately started to drive away after being approached by a security officer, and he was followed until he left campus, Edward Waters University President and CEO A. Zachary Faison Jr. said.

This is where I disagree with the Sheriff. We have seen enough assailants target universities and colleges. I am skeptical that this man parked by a HBCU just to prepare and drive two minutes down the street to a dollar store for his attack.

Assailants love target-rich environments with unarmed targets. They are on a kamikaze mission, and all they want to do is take as many people as possible with them. That’s why they avoid hard targets and go for softer ones instead. It’s not much different from a thief who encounters two bicycles, one securely locked and another poorly secured, and goes for the “low-hanging fruit.”

The lesson learned here is to harden targets and for the people to be prepared. Statistically, public mass shootings by a stranger are exceedingly rare. But if you are concerned about it, take steps to arm yourself, get trained, practice regularly, and be prepared to shoot back.

GloBull Warming………..

Greenland’s 2022-’23 Ice Coverage Well Above 1981-2010 Average Despite ‘Global Boiling’ Rhetoric.

Since the early 2000s there has been no net change in the Greenland ice sheet mean annual surface temperature, as well as no net change in melt extent percentage.

Greenland’s ice coverage was, for most of this year (September 1, 2022 to August 31, 2023), observed to be significantly above the long-term (1981-2010) climate average. The Greenland ice sheet didn’t even cooperate with the narrative during the “global boiling” melt months of July and August.

Image Source: PolarPortal

Greenland has been defying the narrative for decades now. After a brief, sharp warming from 1994 to the early 2000s, the mean annual land surface temperatures (LST) have been trendless since about 2003. Since 2012, Greenland has been cooling (Fang et al., 2023). Compare the colorized Greenland temperature trends lineup for 2007-2012 to the 2013-2020 period (bottom).

Image Source: Fang et al., 2023

A trendless temperature record also manifests as non-significant change in melt extent as a percentage of surface area as well as the the mass balance for the whole ice sheet, especially from about 2005 onwards.

Image Source: Fang et al., 2023

Other scientists have also reported Greenland warming “is not evident” (Matsumura et al., 2022) in recent decades. Instead, temperature stations document net cooling trends from 2001-2019 (Hanna et al., 2021).

Image Source: Matsumura et al., 2022
Image Source: Hanna et al., 2021

Very, I’d say.

Gadsden flag: How ignorant are the folks running the schools?

Animated Flags - Bandiere animate pagina U-03

One of the biggest takeaways from the viral Colorado story of the school booting a 12-year-old out of class for having a Gadsden flag patch on his backpack is that the folks in charge are ignorant not just of free-speech basics, but fundamentals of US history.

How can they teach when they’re wrong about simple facts?

A top administrator at the Vanguard charter school is on tape lecturing that the flag has “slavery and the slave trade” origins, making the palm-sized patch was “disruptive to the classroom environment.”

A 10-second Google reveals the truth; the flag’s not about slavery at all.

Known for its rattlesnake and “Don’t tread on me” slogan, it originated during the American Revolution — a topic the school spends a year on in history class.

Remarkably, young Jaiden Rodriguez’s teacher toed the administration line in pulling him out of the classroom. That is, she supported ignorance, not her student being victimized by it.

The school’s fallback was to retroactively make an issue of his many semiautomatic-gun patches on the same backpack; they’re gone, and he’s back in class.

Known for its rattlesnake and “Don’t tread on me” slogan, the flag originated during the American Revolution.

And Vanguard has eaten its words on the flag (wise, as even Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat called out the mistake).

So far, though, it hasn’t explained its institutional idiocy. Chances are it’s intentional. Progressives have been pushing a distorted view of American history for years, demonizing everything from the National Anthem to the flag to the Constitution. To them, the truth doesn’t matter.

September 1

1772 – The Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa is founded in San Luis Obispo, California.

1774 –  Under orders from General Gage, Middlesex County, Massachusetts Sheriff, David Phips confiscates the Massachusetts provincial gun powder supply at the Powder House in Somerville, causing Militia to form and preemptively begin removing other powder stores and accouterments to more secure locations.

1862 –Confederate Army troops defeat a group of retreating Union Army troops near Chantilly, Virginia.

1864 – Confederate General John Bell Hood orders the evacuation of Atlanta, ending a 4 month long siege by General Sherman.

1873 – Cetshwayo ascends to the throne as king of the Zulu nation in Southern Africa following the death of his father Mpande.

1878 – Finding that the young men originally hired as telegraph messengers are providing unsatisfactory customer service, Emma Nutt becomes the first female telephone operator when she is recruited by Alexander Graham Bell to the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company. It is not until the early 1970s before men are again hired to be operators.

1880 – The army of Mohammad Ayub Khan is routed by the British at the Battle of Kandahar, ending the Second Anglo-Afghan War.

1894 – 418 people die in the Great Hinckley Fire, a forest fire in Hinckley, Minnesota.

1897 – The Tremont Street Subway in Boston opens, becoming the first underground rapid transit system in North America.

1934 – The first Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animated cartoon, The Discontented Canary, is released

1939 – Ground, Air and Naval forces of Nazi Germany begin an attack and invasion of Poland beginning what will be World War II.
Switzerland mobilizes its forces and the Swiss Parliament elects Henri Guisan to head the Swiss Armed Forces.

1961 – TWA Flight 529, a Lockheed Constellation, crashes shortly after takeoff from Midway Airport in Chicago, killing all 78 passengers and crew on board. At the time, it was the deadliest single plane disaster in U.S. history.

1969 – A coup in Libya brings Muammar Gaddafi to power.

1972 – In Reykjavík, Iceland, American Bobby Fischer beats Russian Boris Spassky to become the world chess champion.

1974 – The SR-71 Blackbird sets the record for flying from New York to London in the time of 1 hour, 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds at a speed of over 1,435 miles per hour

1979 – The NASA space probe Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passes the planet at a distance of 13,000 mi.

1982 – The U.S. Air Force Space Command is founded.

1983 – Korean Air Lines Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspace, killing all 269 passengers and crew on board.

1985 – A joint American–French expedition led by Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel locates the wreckage of the RMS Titanic.

2008 – The U.S. transfers control of Anbar Province back to the reformed Iraqi government

These days, you can’t go and call this the rambling of a crackpot

If I were only slightly more paranoid, I’d think that the CDC had weaponized AGS and launched a test run for making us proles allergic to red meat. But give it a day or two and I might get there. Stephen Green

Mysterious, Unexplained Red Meat Allergies Reportedly Explode in Virginia.

I have reported previously at PJ Media that the CDC has been warning lately of an unexplained rise in what was previously a rare red meat allergy called alpha-gal syndrome (AGS) that develops in humans by way of a molecule passed into the bloodstream by a species of tick called the Lone Star Tick.

Via CDC (emphasis added):

During January 1, 2017–December 31, 2022, a total of 357,119 tests were submitted from residences in the United States, corresponding to 295,400 persons. Overall, 90,018 (30.5%) persons received a positive test result in the study period, and the number of persons with positive test results increased from 13,371 in 2017 to 18,885 in 2021.

Among 233,521 persons for whom geographic data were available, suspected cases predominantly occurred in counties within the southern, midwestern, and mid-Atlantic U.S. Census Bureau regions. These data highlight the evolving emergence of AGS and can be used to help state and local health agencies initiate surveillance and target public health outreach and health care provider education to high-risk localities…

The number of AGS cases in the United States is predicted to increase during the coming years, presenting a critical need for synergistic public health activities including 1) community education targeting tick bite prevention to reduce the risk for acquiring AGS, 2) HCP education to improve timely diagnosis and management, and 3) improved surveillance to aid public health decision-making.

Taking the CDC’s claims of rising AGS at face value, the crucial piece of information is that neither the agency nor any Public Health™ authority has offered a viable explanation for why cases would suddenly explode. So we are left to speculate as to why.

Related: NYU Bioethicist Hints at Triggering Red Meat Allergies in Entire Human Population

Now Public Health™ officials in Virginia are reporting similar concerns to the CDC.

Via Fox News (emphasis added):

A public health concern with potentially deadly consequences is on the rise in Virginia, health officials said, as people are testing positive for alpha-gal syndrome.

Alpha-gal syndrome (AGS) is a little-known meat allergy that is contracted through tick bites and can be life-threatening. It primarily causes hives, angioedema, upset stomach, diarrhea, stuffy or runny nose, sneezing, headaches and a drop in blood pressure, and it can even cause death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which issued a warning about the syndrome last month.

It is known to spread through tick bites, specifically from the lone star tick, which is prevalent in Virginia, according to Julia Murphy, a state public health veterinarian with the Virginia Department of Health (VDH).

“We do have a lot of lone star ticks here in Virginia, so we think that’s driving a lot of what we are seeing in Virginia when it comes to alpha-gal and people testing positive for alpha-gal,” she said, according to WSET.

This, again, is a totally insufficient explanation. It is already established that lone star ticks, which have been present in North America for thousands and possibly millions of years, transmit the molecule that causes AGS. The disease itself — the symptoms of which are usually very obvious — has been identifiable and testable for decades; all that’s required is to test for the presence of the antibody to the alpha-gal molecule. So there is no real argument here that it’s just more diagnosable now than before.

From my perspective, there are only two real possibilities:

  • Alpha-gal syndrome is not any more prevalent than it previously was, and this is an anti-meat fearmongering campaign.
  • There is something else in the environment besides lone star ticks causing alpha-gal syndrome.

Now, if they’d have OTC Epi

Over-the-counter Narcan to hit drugstore shelves next week.

Narcan, a lifesaving medication that reverses opioid overdose, will be available on U.S. drugstore shelves and online starting next week.

People who want to carry Narcan, the nasal spray version of naloxone, will be able to find it at Walgreens, Rite Aid, Walmart and CVS for a suggested retail price of $44.99 for a box of two doses, the drug maker reported Wednesday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Emergent BioSolutions’ overdose antidote in March in response to record numbers of overdose deaths, largely due to powerful synthetic drugs like fentanyl.

“We think really everyone should be thinking about putting this into their first aid kit,” Walgreens chief medical officer Dr. Kevin Ban told CNN. “It’s really unlimited in terms of the folks who should make sure that they get some naloxone in the off chance that they come across someone who was experiencing an overdose. This is a way to reverse that overdose. It’ll save people’s lives.”

Most U.S. states already had standing orders to allow pharmacies and other qualified organizations to provide this antidote without a prescription for those at risk, but this provides even more availability. The drug can revive a person who is overdosing within minutes.

“It is excellent news that there’s an over-the-counter naloxone product,” said Maya Doe-Simkins, co-director of Remedy Alliance/For the People, which aims to increase access to affordable naloxone.

Yet Doe-Simkins noted that most people get naloxone from organizations and governments who buy it in bulk, CNN reported.

“This is the evidence-based model that is proven to save lives,” she said.

Community groups, first responders, state and local governments and harm reduction groups will be able to purchase Narcan for a cheaper price than the general public, $41 per two-dose carton starting Thursday, the manufacturer said.

Narcan could soon be joined by another naloxone nasal spray, called RiVive. The nonprofit Harm Reduction Therapeutics will sell it at cost – $36 for a two-pack – starting in early 2024, CNN reported.

There may still be some barriers to accessing Narcan. CVS plans to offer it for sale behind its pharmacy counter, as well as at the register and for order via pickup and delivery. Walmart and Rite Aid plan to sell it on pain care aisles. Walgreens will stock shelves with cards that someone can bring to a register to access the actual medication, CNN said.

That allows there to be sort of easy requests without having to ask for it,” Ban said. “That’s one of the things we wanted to remove. We realized that a lot of people just don’t want to ask for the medication. So we came up with that mechanism to grab this card, then you can either bring it to the front of the store or the back of the store.”

Any barriers may still deter people from accessing the medication, Doe-Simkins said.

“Anything that’s layered on to naloxone access is a barrier,” she said, noting its over-the-counter availability is something the community has waited for.

“We’ve been advocating for that for well over a decade,” Doe-Simkins noted. “It’s about time.”

Injectable naloxone is still available by prescription at a much lower cost.

Mass Shootings Have ‘No Correlation to Gun Laws,’ says Report

U.S.A. — Washington, D.C.—a jurisdiction with some of the strictest gun control laws in the country—leads the nation with “the highest rate of mass shootings per capita,” according to a report in the Daily Mail, citing new research released this week by medical researchers in Colorado.

Here’s how the Daily Mail headlined its story: “America’s mass shooting hotspots revealed: First of its kind study breaks down thousands of massacres by state – and there’s NO correlation between gun control laws.”

The study is published in JAMA Network Open, and it relies on data from the Gun Violence Archive, a database often criticized by the firearms community. The work was done by researchers at the University of Colorado: Leslie M. Barnard, MPH, Department of Epidemiology, Colorado School of Public Health; Erin Wright-Kelly, DrPH, MA, Injury and Violence Prevention Center, Colorado School of Public Health, and Marian E. Betz, MD, MPH, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora.

The report may cool some jets in the gun control community, which has maintained that states with the most guns and “lax” laws have the highest number of shootings. But here’s what the report says:

“The rate of mass shootings per 1,000,000 people was highest in the District of Columbia (10.4 shootings), followed by much lower rates in Louisiana (4.2 mass shootings) and Illinois (3.6 mass shootings), the states with the next 2 highest rates (Table).”

Translation: Gun laws do not appear to have an impact, since the District of Columbia and the state of Illinois have restrictive laws, while Louisiana is far less restrictive.

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