Written after the Parkland School shooting, but still applicable today

Israel Has Only Had 2 School Attacks in 44 Years, Here’s How They Make Sure Their Kids Are Safe

In the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting that claimed 17 lives last week, there has been a renewed debate surrounding gun control and children’s safety, leading some to make a comparison to the changes Israel made in response to a terror attack more than four decades ago.

In 1974, Palestinian terrorists took over the Netiv Meir Elementary School in what has been called the “Ma’alot Massacre,” which left 22 children dead and many others injured.

The attack forced Israel to come up with a solution in order to prevent such a situation from ever happening again. The nation requires its schools to have a security system, and that policy is still going strong after 40 years.

The results are clearly evident, as there have only been two successful attacks at Israeli schools since 1974, according to Dr. Ted Noel, writing in American Thinker. Noel wrote that “in both cases, the bad guys were killed by armed teachers.”

According to Red State, Israel’s Ministry of Education funds school security, which ranges from shelters and fences to armed and trained guards at every gate.

To take it a step further, Israel also prepares its students and teachers for the slight chance a gunman does get through security by teaching them to be proactive in times of terror by barricading a door or sensing the ripe opportunity to get away safely.

The guards on the doorsteps of Israel’s schools are also trained to look for any suspicious activity, which usually deters anyone with ill intent from entering in the first place.

That added layer of protection, argues Noel, is a proactive step in shielding children from the gunman. Once the shooters are past school gates, the damage is irreversible and quick to happen since any and all faculty and students immediately become targets.

“The Israelis saw this and got busy,” Noel wrote. “They knew that the vast majority of terror attacks are stopped not by police, but by armed civilians.”

“So they started training teachers in firearms use,” he added. “Those teachers took out the bad guys in the two incidents since the Ma’alot Massacre.”

Noel wrote that once a shooter is no longer in a “free fire zone,” the situation — and the possible outcome — is likely to change, as he becomes a potential target.

“On top of that, he doesn’t know which of the staff might be ready to shoot, or where they might be coming from,” Noel said. “In short, only an idiot would try to shoot up a school with a trained staff of shooters.”

This sentiment was echoed by CNN‘s Steve Cortes, who suggested that guns may not be the problem in the U.S. as much as America’s lack of security when it comes to its children. Cortes compared Wednesday’s shooting not just with Israel, but a disaster that didn’t involve any bullets whatsoever.

“Since the awful Our Lady of the Angels elementary school fire of 1958, which killed 92 students and 3 nuns, there has not been a large casualty school fire in America,” Cortes wrote. “Why? Because we took myriad precautions since then: better fire exits, more extinguishers and sprinklers, routine fire drills, etc.”

“Water squelches a fire,” he added. “And only a gunman, I would argue, can stop another gunman.”

The recent conversation around gun control suggests that an added layer of protection would not only improve school security but also prevent the government from infringing on the Second Amendment, as well as prove that guns aren’t necessarily the problem — people are.

Cortes added to this idea when he argued that stricter gun control laws have failed the world, as seen in the 2015 Paris Bataclan nightclub attack and numerous other incidents, as those who wish harm upon others will always find a way to do so.

“Evildoers, by definition, do not respect our rules and will find ways to skirt them,” Cortes added, suggesting the only sure-fire way to combat these horrific acts is to improve school security and put America’s children first.

“Let’s value our children like the treasure they are and guard them accordingly,” he said. “How? Let’s start with key cards, fences, entry checks, biometric scanners, and — yes — armed guards, and a lot of them.”

Flashback 30 Years: Guns Were in Schools… and Nothing Happened

This article was originally published in 2018.

The millennial generation might be surprised to learn that theirs is the first without guns in school. Just 30 years ago, high school kids rode the bus with rifles and shot their guns at high school rifle ranges.

After another school shooting, it’s time to ask: what changed?

Cross guns off the list of things that changed in thirty years. In 1985, semi-automatic rifles existed, and a semi-automatic rifle was used in Florida. Guns didn’t suddenly decide to visit mayhem on schools. Guns can’t decide.

We can also cross the Second Amendment off the list. It existed for over 200 years before this wickedness unfolded. Nothing changed in the Constitution.

That leaves us with some uncomfortable possibilities remaining. What has changed from thirty years ago when kids could take firearms into school responsibly and today might involve some difficult truths.

Let’s inventory the possibilities.

What changed? The mainstreaming of nihilism. Cultural decay. Chemicals. The deliberate destruction of moral backstops in the culture. A lost commonality of shared societal pressures to enforce right and wrong. And above all, simple, pure, evil.

Before you retort that we can’t account for the mentally ill, they existed forever.

Paranoid schizophrenics existed in 1888 and 2018. Mentally ill students weren’t showing up in schools with guns even three decades ago.

So it must be something else.

Those who have been so busy destroying the moral backstops in our culture won’t want to have this conversation. They’ll do what they do — mock the truth.

There was a time in America, before the Snowflakes, when any adult on the block could reprimand a neighborhood kid who was out of line without fear.

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Victim shoots Hammond teen after robbery and altercation; suspect’s mother also arrested

HAMMOND, La. (WVUE) – A 17-year-old was shot in the chest after getting into a struggle with a resident in what the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office is saying was an armed robbery.

District Attorney Scott Perrilloux’s office says that Ermonee “Money” Bell, 17, of Hammond, will be charged as an adult due to the severity of the crimes. Bell faces armed robbery, attempted first-degree murder, and one count of illegal carrying of a weapon.

TPSO Chief Jimmy Travis also said that Bell’s mother, Prince Felder Bell, 42, has been arrested and faces a charge of one count of improper supervision of a minor.

Travis says that the incident occurred on Sat., May 14 on Klein Road where they found Bell suffering from a gunshot wound on the scene. He was later sent to North Oaks Medical Center for care.

Deputies determined that during a robbery, the victim fought back and shot Bell.

Bell was booked into the Tangipahoa Parish Jail on Mon., May 23.

This annual meeting at Davos is such fertile ground to display the hypocrisy of the elite

Actual Science™

Another School Shooting in a Place where teachers and staff were banned from carrying guns

A shooting at a Texas elementary school left [18] children and [2] teacher[s] murdered. While about 30% of school districts in Texas 2020 had armed teachers and staff, unfortunately, the Robb Elementary School in the Uvalde, Texas CISD doesn’t appear to be one of them. Their firearm regulations are detailed here. There are no provisions in their regulations for teachers or staff to carry.

The attack in Buffalo, New York illustrates once again how these murderers are attracted to places where the victims are not armed. In his manifesto, he wrote: “areas where CCW are outlawed or prohibited may be good areas of attack.”

Unfortunately, as we found in our 2019 study, despite 20 states allowing teachers or staff to carry guns, all the school shootings have occurred in schools that don’t allow them to carry. From the abstract of our study.

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Crap-for-brains SloJoe’s brain has started skipping like a scratched record again, and he’s stuck on the belief that ‘deer guns’ can’t shoot through ballistic armor, when we know that all but a very few rifle rounds will go through kevlar like a hot knife through butter, and most plates as well. But that’s senile dementia for you.

Biden Talks of Deer in Kevlar Vests (Again), Floats ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban

President Joe Biden addressed the shooting at Uvalde, Texas, Robb Elementary School, talking again about deer in Kevlar vests and suggesting an “assault weapons” ban.

Biden began his comments with a soft tone, talking about loss, then he erupted with, “As a nation, we have to ask when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby. When in God’s name are we going to do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?”

He went on to claim that there have been “900 incidents of gunfire reported on school grounds” since the December 14, 2012, attack on Sandy Hook Elementary school. He talked of shootings in theaters, churches, and grocery stores.

Biden said, “And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage … When we passed the ‘assault weapons’ ban, mass shootings went down. When the law expired, mass shootings tripled.”

He criticized being able to walk into a gun store and buy more than one “assault weapon,” never mentioning that purchases from gun stores require background checks.

Biden said, “What in God’s name do you need an ‘assault weapon’ for except to kill someone? Deer aren’t running through the forest with Kevlar vests on, for God’s sake.”

He then criticized the firearm industry, claiming “gun manufacturers have spent two decades aggressively ‘assault weapons,’ which make them the most and largest profit.”

He called for Americans to stand up to the firearm industry.

On March 1, 2022, Breitbart News reported that Biden brought up deer in Kevlar vests during the State of the Union Address.

He called for a ban on “assault weapons” with “high-capacity magazines that hold up to 100 rounds,” and asked, “Do you think the deer are wearing Kevlar vests?”

Uvalde, Texas school shooting: 14 students, one teacher killed, suspected shooter dead, Gov. Abbott says
Salvador Romas,18, killed multiple children and a teacher at an elementary school in Uvalde, a small city located 80 miles west of San Antonio, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said

A mass shooting at a Texas elementary school killed 14 children and one teacher Tuesday and the suspected gunman was killed, Gov. Greg Abbott said.

Abbott identified the suspect as Salvador Romas, a Uvalde resident, who is also dead and acted alone, authorities said. He had a handgun and possibly a rifle when he opened fire at Robb Elementary School, he said. Two police officers were shot and wounded but were expected to survive, Abbott said.

“Texans across the state are grieving for the victims of this senseless crime and for the community of Uvalde. Cecilia and I mourn this horrific loss and we urge all Texans to come together to show our unwavering support to all who are suffering,” he said in a statement.

The shooter was likely killed by responding officers but the investigation was still ongoing, authorities said.

A law enforcement officer helps people cross the street at Uvalde Memorial Hospital after a shooting was reported earlier in the day at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday. (Billy Calzada/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)

The Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers have been instructed to work with local law enforcement.

As the incident unfolded, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin told Fox News that the shooter had become barricaded inside. The school, located 80 miles west of San Antonio, serves students in the second, third and fourth grades.

“There is an active shooter at Robb Elementary. Law enforcement is on site,” the school posted on Facebook shortly after shots rang out. “Your cooperation is needed at this time by not visiting the campus.”

University Health in San Antonio said it received two patients – a child and a 66-year-old woman who is in critical condition. The condition of the child was not released. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been briefed on the shooting.

The agency is also coordinating with local and state authorities. Uvalde Memorial Hospital said Tuesday evening it was having an emergency blood drive on Wednesday, though it was not clear if the event is related to the shooting.

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District first reported the school lockdown at 11:43 a.m. local time.

“Please know at this time all campuses are under a Lockdown Status due to gunshots in the area. The students and staff are safe in the buildings,” the district had said in a message to parents.

The district initially asked parents not to pick up their children and that students needed to be accounted for before being released. Parents were notified to pick up their children around 2 p.m.

All district and campus activities, including after-school programs and events have been canceled. Parents were being asked to pick up their children at their regular dismissal times at their school campus. School bus transportation has also been canceled.

Police officers will escort students to the parent vehicles.

Folks, I don’t know how many times I’ve posted about this.
IF THE SCHOOL YOU SEND YOUR CHILDREN TO DOES NOT HAVE ARMED SECURITY ON SITE, and by that I mean not just uniformed armed ‘School Resource Officers’, but also armed teachers and staff, you do not have a ‘Gun Free Zone’ but a shooting gallery with your children as the targets.

It’s a continual amazement to me that parents apparently have to still learn this the hard way

BLUF
At least half of this country knows why Biden did this:

First, to focus Americans’ attention on “white supremacy” rather than on the inflation, looming recession, food crisis and energy crisis he and his party have created with their policies.

Second, to keep black Americans voting Democrat by saying to them, in effect: “You need protection from your fellow hate-filled Americans; we Democrats are your protectors.”

Meanwhile, 9,941 black Americans were killed in 2020. Nearly all were killed by other black people. But to Joe Biden, his party, and the mainstream, i.e., left-wing, media, those black lives don’t matter. At all. Why not? Because they weren’t killed by white supremacists, and they therefore don’t serve the Democrats’ deliberately divisive narrative.

Joe Biden’s Buffalo Speech Was the Speech of an Indecent Man

If an American president has ever given as mendacious, anti-American and hate-filled a speech as President Joe Biden did in Buffalo, New York, last week, I am not familiar with it. Nor are you.

Biden used the terrible mass shooting of black people in a Buffalo grocery store to smear America, divide Americans and foment race-based hatred. A decent man would have given an entirely different speech.

A decent man would have gone to Buffalo and said something like this:

“My fellow Americans, what happened here in Buffalo was pure evil. Let there be no equivocating about this moral fact. If evil exists, what happened here was evil. But, my fellow Americans, this young man and his race-based homicidal hatred represents an infinitesimally small number of Americans, white or otherwise. The overwhelming majority of Americans of every race, ethnicity, and religion get along with each other beautifully. We work alongside each other, date each other, socialize with one another and marry one another. We are the most successful experiment in creating a multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious country in world history. The actions of a deranged teenager do not change this fact.”

Instead, the hater-in-chief went to Buffalo and said:

“What happened here is simple and straightforward: terrorism. Terrorism. Domestic terrorism. Violence inflicted in the service of hate and the vicious thirst for power that defines one group of people being inherently inferior to any other group. A hate that, through the media and politics, the internet, has radicalized angry, alienated and lost individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced. That’s the word. Replaced by ‘the other.’ By people who don’t look like them.

“Look, we’ve seen the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas; in Pittsburgh. Last year, in Atlanta. This week, in Dallas, Texas, and now in Buffalo. In Buffalo, New York. White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison. It really is. Running through our body politic. And it’s been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes. No more. I mean, no more. We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America. None …

“Look, the American experiment in democracy is in a danger like it hasn’t been in my lifetime. It’s in danger this hour. Hate and fear are being given too much oxygen by those who pretend to love America, but who don’t understand America. …

“Now is the time for the people of all races, from every background, to speak up as a majority in America and reject white supremacy …

“We have to refuse to live in a country where black people going about a weekly grocery shopping can be gunned down by weapons of war deployed in a racist cause …”

As noted earlier, this was not only a hate-filled speech; it was a speech of the Big Lie. The Big Lie of white supremacy as a major threat to America generally and to black America specifically.

Let’s examine each of the examples of white supremacist mass shootings he gave:

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BLUF
Gun-control advocates predict increases in murders with constitutional carry, but the data says otherwise. Self-defense is a natural right. That right can be restricted when there is a strong reason to do so; for example, people confined in prisons are not allowed to possess firearms. But, the opponents of constitutional carry across society have not met their burden of proof.

The Statistical Truth About the Impact of Constitutional Carry

When it becomes clear that a popular change in state law does something fundamentally good for citizens’ freedom without doing harm, it becomes much easier to get legislators to do the right thing. This is part of the reason for the quick spread of constitutional-carry laws, which now cover half of the states, as of press time. (A state is “constitutional carry” if a law-abiding adult who can legally possess a handgun does not need a permit to carry that handgun concealed for lawful protection.)

Another part of the reason for the fast spread of constitutional-carry legislation is the NRA Institute for Legislative Action’s (ILA) team, which has worked across America to bring the facts to state legislators. They have been so effective that a majority of state legislators in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and Ohio most-recently opted to get their state’s bureaucracies out of the way of their law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights.

An underlying reason this has been an effective push is the basic fact that law-abiding American citizens are not problems that needs to be solved. Despite what the Biden administration argues, armed citizens help to keep individuals safer. Nevertheless, each time a constitutional-carry law comes up for debate, gun-control groups argue that getting the government out of the concealed-carry-license business will result in “Wild West-style shootouts” on the streets. But each time these laws pass, the data clearly shows that doesn’t happen.

This has been a big change from a few decades ago when Vermont was the sole state with constitutional carry. The term “constitutional carry” comes from legal history; when the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, constitutional carry—either open or concealed—was lawful in every state.

Still, as more and more states return to the original understanding of the right to bear arms, opponents warn that constitutional carry (or “permitless carry”) will cause murder rates to increase; for example, Eugenio Weigend, director of the Gun Violence Prevention program at the Center for American Progress, says that constitutional carry will “raise some confrontations in some places, further escalating violence to reach lethal levels.” Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group Everytown for Gun Safety says states that have moved toward constitutional carry are “abandoning core public safety standards.”

While Vermont has long had constitutional carry, thanks to the 1903 state supreme court decision State v. Rosenthal, the move toward constitutional carry in the 21st century started with Alaska in 2003.

In this article, we present the data about what actually happened when states adopted constitutional carry. The data comes from a report co-written by Alexander Adams and Colorado State University Professor Youngsung Kim. (The data and code are available at: https://github.com/K-Alexander-Adams/Am1st)

Except for Vermont, all the states that currently have constitutional carry already had “shall-issue” licensing systems for concealed carry. That is, applications for concealed-carry permits could not be denied simply because the licensing official did not like citizens carrying firearms.

So, why did the NRA work for constitutional carry in those states? Because even a fairly administered shall-issue system can take weeks or months for a license to be issued. The delays can leave the innocent defenseless for too long; this is especially true for victims of stalkers and for people fleeing domestic violence. The same is true when civil order breaks down, such as during riots or natural disasters—times when law enforcement is often overwhelmed. Some licensing offices, for example, shut down or slowed down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even when a state statute sets up a fair process for licensing, local governments can find ways to manipulate the system to delay applications. This has been a long-standing problem in Denver, and is one reason why civil-rights activists are fighting for constitutional carry in Colorado.

A second reason for constitutional carry is cost. To some people, spending a few hundred dollars for fees, fingerprints and so on is no big deal. But for lower-income people, the financial barrier of a licensing system can be severe to prohibitive. Constitutional carry also eliminates the possibility of bias against any racial, gender or socio-economic groups in the permitting process.

Even in constitutional-carry states, many people still choose to obtain permits. Permits make it easier to carry in other states when traveling, because many states have laws that recognize the permits issued by some or all other states. Depending on state law, a permit may allow carrying in some places where constitutional carry is not allowed. 

carry states graphic

How Does Constitutional Carry Impact Crime?
How can we determine the effects of constitutional carry? One approach would be to just compare current crime rates in states with and without constitutional carry; for example, Vermont, with constitutional carry, has much less crime than neighboring New York, which does not. The same is true for Utah versus Colorado. But skeptics would accurately point out that other differences between the states could account for the differences in crime rates. Portions of New York, for example, are more urbanized than Vermont. 

Further, because crime rates change over time, looking at several years is more revealing than just a single year.

To get answers, Adams and Kim studied all 50 states and the District of Columbia from 1980 to 2018. Their study also accounted for 30 control variables—that is, factors other than constitutional carry that might raise or lower a state’s crime rate. The control variables included population density, alcohol consumption, poverty rates, unemployment rates, the Fryer crack-cocaine index, incarceration rates, age cohorts in five-year blocks from age 15 to over 65 years of age, police per capita, other gun control (such as “assault-weapons” bans), racial variables and more.

To show how important it is to consider control variables, we will first show you the results without them, and then the results with the control variables included. 

Here is a short explanation on how to read the tables. Suppose you flipped a coin 100 times, and 65 of those times, it came up heads. Does that prove the coin was biased (unevenly weighted), or could the results just be random chance? In social science, the probability that the result was not due to chance is called “statistical significance.” In the tables, if there is less than a 1% chance the result is due to chance, the result has three asterisks. If the probability that a result is random is less than 5%, there are two asterisks. If less than 10%, there is one asterisk. Traditionally, statisticians use the 5% cut-off to call something “statistically significant,” but they also report results for 1% and 10%. We do the same.

Homicide and suicide rates

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At Real Clear Politics: When Misinformation Drives Bad Policy

The CPRC commissioned a survey by Real Clear Politics. Dr. John Lott wrote a new piece at Real Clear Politics on the survey evidence.

To President Biden, public health researchers, and the media, violent crime is all about guns. But a new survey finds that people are badly misinformed about how much violent crime involves guns. The average likely American voter is way off, thinking that over 46% of violent crimes involve guns. In fact, the true figure is less than 8%.

Not surprisingly, those who believe that most violent crime involves guns are more likely to view gun control as the solution.

Biden has given four major speeches on violent crime (here, here, here, and here). Each one of them was focused on enforcement of gun control laws. In the four speeches, he mentioned “gun” or “firearm” 179 times. The term “weapon,” sometimes in connection with “assault weapon,” was used another 31 times.

The words “crime,” “violence,” or “violent” were mentioned about half as often — 94 times. He only mentions the words “murder” or “homicide” seven times in these four presentations, which involve guns at a higher rate, and entirely omits them from his two most recent talks.

But this “guns first” approach to reduce overall violent crime ignores a basic fact – over 92% of violent crimes in America do not involve firearms. Although Biden blames guns for the increase in violent crime, the latest data show that gun crimes fell dramatically.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey, in the latest year available (2020), shows that there were 4,558,150 rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults, and the FBI reports 21,570 murders. Of those, 350,460 rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults (see Table 8) and 13,620 murders involved firearms. So, adding those numbers up, 7.9% of violent crimes were committed with guns.

The new McLaughlin & Associates survey of 1,000 likely voters from April 20th to 26th for the Crime Prevention Research Center shows how misinformed people are. People across the country, of all races and incomes, have wildly inaccurate beliefs about how frequently violent crime involves guns.

Even so, there are large differences across groups. The average Democrat estimates that 56.9% of violent crimes involve guns, whereas the typical Republican gave an answer of 37%. Those with the highest incomes (over $250,000 per year) and those who work for the government give the highest numbers — 56.1% and 51% respectively. Women (50%) believe that more violent crimes involve guns than men do (43%). Urban Americans say 48%, whereas rural Americans say 40%. But the biggest difference is between blacks (59%) and Asians (31%).

The McLaughlin survey also gave people three options on the best way to fight crime: pass more gun control laws, more strictly enforce current laws, or have police concentrate on arresting violent, repeat criminals.

Some respondents at least got it right that less than 20% of violent crime involves guns. Just 8% prioritized more gun laws, and 15% focused on stricter enforcement of existing laws. An overwhelming 71% thought the best way of fighting crime was to arrest violent criminals.

Some likely voters thought that more than 80% of the violent crime involved guns. Most supported either more gun control laws (33%) or more strict enforcement of current gun laws (28%). Only 36% of them wanted the focus on arresting violent criminals.

Those who think that most violent crime is committed with guns consistently support more gun control. Those who don’t believe that instead want to focus on arresting violent criminals and keeping them in jail.

Perhaps the gun control debate would be very different if the media had done a better job of informing people about crime. The most newsworthy cases, unfortunately, don’t tend to be typical of violent crime. Focusing on how to solve eight percent of violent crime does nothing to solve the other ninety-two percent.

John R. Lott, Jr., “When Misinformation Drives Bad Policy,” Real Clear Politics, May 16, 2022.

‘I had to do what I had to do:’ Florida woman, 69, shoots, kills intruder

ORLANDO, Fla. – A 69-year-old woman shot and killed an intruder Sunday afternoon during a home invasion in Orange County, according to sheriff’s officials.

The fatal shooting happened around 12:30 p.m. in the 6500 block of Bentwood Street, near Colonial Drive and Semoran Boulevard.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were called to a burglary in progress and found a man in who had been shot by the homeowner. Deputies later identified the man as 38-year-old Ezequiel Rosario-Torres.

The man was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, deputies said.

“I feel sorry for his family, but I had to do what I had to do,” said Virginia Morrison, who owns the home.

The sheriff’s office told News 6 that the man entered the home and startled Morrison, who asked the man to leave. She shot the man when he refused to leave the property, according to deputies.

Morrison, who is cooperating with investigators, told detectives that she had never seen the man before.

“Something wasn’t right with the man,” she said, adding that he didn’t say a word. “He had a blank look on his face.”

She said she thought her fiance was outside, so the door to the house was unlocked.

Morrison said the stranger stepped inside so she asked him who he was and what he wanted, but he did not respond.

“I said, ‘I’m getting my damn gun.’ So I went to my bedroom and got my gun and I went out the back door and I came to the fence and he sees me and he starts toward me,” Morrison said. “I fired a shot above him, then said, ‘Back off, dude. I’ll shoot you.’ And he kept coming toward me, so I shot him.”

Morrison said it was the first time she’s ever used her gun.

“Keep your doors locked. Anybody can walk into your house now,” she said. “I killed a man. I didn’t intend to do that. I’m trying to protect me and (my fiance).”

The state attorney’s office will determine whether charges will be filed in the case.

An investigation is ongoing.

Biden seems to want monkeypox to be the next pandemic

The world population checks in at just a little under 7.9 billion people. Of that number, Europe has identified 100 cases of monkeypox and the United States has identified…two cases (out of a population of roughly 330 million people). Nevertheless, Joe Biden is already hard at work ratcheting up the fear. Based on the information available, though, we probably don’t need to worry and this should not turn into a government power grab, complete with election control.

Preliminarily, Dr. Robert Malone has written a great post about monkeypox (“Truth versus Fearporn”), from which I’ve gleaned a lot of my facts about the disease. Let’s start with what monkeypox is: It’s a variola virus that is related to smallpox, as well as to cowpox (which led to Edward Jenner inventing the first true vaccination), and other animal poxes. Like the animal poxes, it’s not very serious for humans.

Essentially, as cowpox did to those long ago milkmaids, monkeypox makes people have the same symptoms as smallpox, only more mildly. The illness is also contagious only through person-to-person contact, which means that classic quarantining and contact tracing work to stop its spread. Symptomatic people are isolated while health agencies find their contacts, and that’s kind of the end of it. No lockdowns and changes to voting required.

Further lowering the risk of monkeypox is the fact that it’s a double-stranded DNA virus. Those double strands slow mutations, which means that immunity, once acquired is good for a long, long time. Those who have been vaccinated against, or had, any of the other poxes, are almost certainly resistant to monkeypox.

It’s also not a very infectious disease for humans, although it obviously has a zoonotic element. You probably didn’t even notice a monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. in 2003. It was no biggie, probably because the establishment hadn’t yet discovered the political benefits of virus fear porn.

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BLUF
The formula shortage will eventually ease. But something else will take its place. The litany of potential disasters under Joe Biden is endless, each baleful new development replicating like the pod people of Don Siegel’s classic 1956 film, sucking the life out of human beings and institutions, absorbing mind and memory, and leaving nothing but husks behind. They never stop, they never sleep, they never quit.

You wanted “malaise,” America? You “voted” for it—and you got it.

Invasion of the Body-and-Soul Snatchers

Elon Musk, after me the foremost scourge of Twitter, is much in the news these days. Not only for his high-stakes poker game against the unworthy likes of Parag Agrawal—an Indian immigrant with a bad attitude toward the First Amendment, doing the job (with a handsome pay package) that Americans just won’t do—but for his direct challenge to the Wokerati whose private preserve Twitter, Disney, Netflix, and just about every other aspect of the culture have become. Naturally, the eccentric multi-billionaire immediately came “under fire,” as the gun-shy media likes to say, for past sins real or imagined, and immediately turned the tables on his accuser in a way that even Bill Clinton never dared to do.

But as we’ve all learned over the past several decades, truth is irrelevant to the Leftist project, whose two-step program for fundamental transformation goes like this. First, posit a counter-factual. Second, act on it as if it were true while browbeating the bejesus out of your opponents. Lately, it doesn’t matter how counter-factual or, indeed, utterly ridiculous it is: men can get pregnant, police should be defunded, and the “right” to an abortion can be found in the Constitution. The Hive Mind pushes these precepts and many more, and if you don’t agree, then the only explanation is that you’re some sort of racist or bigot, now the dirtiest words in the English language. There is no longer any such thing as dispassion, and the time for debate, disagreement, and rational discussion is over. Get with the program, comrade.

Run! It’s Dave Chappelle!

This is what happens when everything—sex, race, sports, politics, music, culture, pancake mix, butter, baby formula, religion, the nation-state, your Aunt Hilda—becomes political. Musk has, correctly, described such conformity as the “woke mind virus.” Such a state of affairs is in fact the end-state of “progressive” cultural-Marxist thinking, which has substituted the permanent imposition of political correctness in place of what economic Marxism had initially anticipated, which in the words of Friedrich Engels was the “withering away” of the State itself.

The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not ‘abolished.’ It dies out.

Wrong again, Freddy! What the Marxists discovered after they sandbagged the first, anti-Tsarist Russian Revolution and replaced it with their own, is that the State and its coerced minions in private enterprise come in very handy if you’re a power-mad atheist bent on cultural destruction and your own supreme power. It took 75 years of Soviet communist rule, the blunt-force application of a central-European anti-capitalist philosophy promulgated by a malevolent hobo and his rich benefactor, for the Russian people to learn the partial error of their ways. In the meantime, the State never died out.

The “withering away” of the State is in fact the last thing the Left wants, especially as the Great Reset dawns in Davos.

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Comment O’ The Day
The robbery rattled residents in the area. “I thought this was a very safe neighborhood,” Walnut resident Elaine Thai told CBS News Los Angeles.

It’s sad that people have to get such a wake up call to realize that no one neighborhood is any more ‘safe’ than another. This has been proven time and time again, yet people continually are shocked when their ‘bubble’ gets popped.

Suspect Killed In LA County Home Invasion Robbery
A young couple found an intruder in their Walnut home early Saturday morning and shot one of two suspects, according to sheriff’s officials.

WALNUT, CA — A suspected home-invasion robber was shot and killed in a confrontation with residents in Walnut over the weekend and a second suspect is at large, according to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

The shooting occurred early Saturday morning when a husband and wife heard footsteps inside their home in the 20000 block of East Country Hollow Drive, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

A 27-year-old man and his 26-year-old wife heard strange noises at about 4 a.m. and went to investigate when the man “was confronted by a male suspect armed with a handgun and a shooting ensued,” sheriff’s officials said.

“The suspect sustained gunshot wounds to his upper torso and was pronounced deceased at the scene,” the sheriff’s department said.

Neither resident was injured in the shooting, and the suspect’s gun was recovered at the scene, according to the Los Angeles sheriff’s Department.

A second suspect fled the location. The robbery rattled residents in the area.

“I thought this was a very safe neighborhood,” Walnut resident Elaine Thai told CBS News Los Angeles.

Walnut officials stressed the city’s safety Sunday and said the sheriff’s department would be “utilizing all of their resources to investigate” the shooting death of a suspected burglar by a homeowner.

“The City of Walnut places safety as a top priority within this community and crime rates have been continually low compared to neighboring cities,” according to a statement released Sunday by the city. “This type of incident is uncommon in our City and the Walnut Sheriff’s Station will be utilizing all of their resources to investigate the matter.

“The City of Walnut is relieved the homeowners are safe and were able to defend himself, his family and his home. We will continue to work with the Walnut Sheriffs to keep the residents of our community safe. We as a Council are committed to the public safety of our residents,” the statement continued.

BLUF:
We’ve moved past the point of simple political disagreement and into the realm of purposeful sabotage in order to obtain a delusional partisan goal. They aren’t even hiding the ball anymore. These people want you to suffer.

They Want You to Suffer.

I don’t think I have to be the one to tell anyone reading this the news — as you are probably already well aware — but things aren’t going well under the Biden administration.

In a sentence I’ve typed way too often over the last year, inflation continues to sit at astronomical levels, gas prices keep increasing, and the border is in shambles. To make matters worse, over the past month, the stock market has crashed, eating away at people’s retirements and investments. Dreams that people had are now going to be on hold for years based on the hope that things will recover, and time isn’t something you can get back.

The response from the White House in the face of so many of their self-inflicted wounds hasn’t been empathy, though. Not that such would mean much, but it would at least give people peace of mind knowing that their leaders aren’t actively rooting for their destruction.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what appears to be happening. These people want you to suffer.

That’s the President of the United States calling the $5.00 a gallon gasoline that is crushing Americans an “incredible transition.” And lest anyone think I’m misreading him, he means it exactly as it sounds and says as much by citing that we’ll become “less reliant” on fossil fuels in the end.

In other words, this is all intentional.

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