MILESFORTIS – Page 727 – ESSE SINE METU IN FACIE INIMICI TUI. TUENDAM INOPS ET FACERE NON MALI.

CCRKBA SAYS GARCIA VICTORY WAS WARNING TO ANTI-GUN LOBBY

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today congratulated Republican Congressman-elect Mike Garcia for winning election over anti-gun-rights Democrat Christy Smith, and said the victory should serve as a warning to the gun prohibition lobby that their big bucks spending effort to fill Congress with anti-gunners is in trouble.

“There is a message in Mike Garcia’s victory,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “You can be a conservative, pro-Second Amendment candidate and win in California, a state dominated politically by anti-gun Democrats, in the legislature and governor’s office in Sacramento, and within the delegation to Capitol Hill.

“Smith’s campaign was supported by the gun control lobby,” he continued, “but dollars don’t vote, people do. And people are getting tired of far-left politics that trample on fundamental rights, especially the Second Amendment.

“Evidently,” Gottlieb observed, “the gun control crowd learned nothing from Michael Bloomberg’s disastrous presidential campaign, which revolved around his extremist gun control agenda. He spent more than $300 million and finished last, and that was among Democrat primary voters, nobody else. Now Bloomberg’s Everytown is planning to spend $60 million to flip Congress and state legislatures this fall, electing more anti-gunners.

“Garcia won on a campaign promoting American values, including the Second Amendment,” he added. “Those ideals seem foreign to the gun ban bunch, which thinks the constitution is for sale to people with the most money. Garcia’s victory this week proves otherwise, and it’s a warning that gun control is not the winning proposition far-left Democrats think it is.

“Garcia’s victory is also a message to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that her party’s gun grabbing agenda could cost them the House this fall,” Gottlieb stated. “She couldn’t even protect a Democrat seat in her own state, which should raise alarms with vulnerable Democrats in other districts all over the country.

“And Joe Biden should also be worried,” Gottlieb concluded, “because his anti-gun-rights agenda is not going to play well in the critical battleground states, where voters are tired of being attacked by politicians like Biden who want to take away their rights.”

Which means he won by an even larger margin to overcome the level of fraudulent votes the demoncraps usually tally.

Republican Mike Garcia picks up Katie Hill’s California seat as Dem candidate concedes race

Democrat Christy Smith conceded the special election race for California’s 25th Congressional District to Republican Mike Garcia on Wednesday, marking the first time Republicans will retake a Democratic-held congressional seat in the state since 1998 — and, Republicans said, indicating that enthusiasm for President Trump is strong heading into the 2020 elections.

Garcia, a former Navy combat pilot, had a 12-point edge over Smith, a state assemblywoman, as of late Tuesday night in the contest for the swing-district seat vacated by Katie Hill after her resignation. Trump had declared victory on Twitter early Wednesday morning, but Smith initially held off on acknowledging defeat, as an unknown number of ballots remained uncounted.

“While it’s critical that we ensure every vote is counted and recorded, we believe that the current tally shows Mike Garcia is the likely victor in the May 12 special election,” Smith said in a statement posted to Facebook on Wednesday afternoon. “As such, I’d like to congratulate him.”

Trump lost the district by 6 percentage points in 2016. He went out of his way to promote Garcia in recent weeks as strong on guns and immigration, and some Democrats had hoped he would be a liability in the race. Former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other high-profile Democrats all lined up behind Smith.

The seat became vacant last year after the resignation of Hill, who stepped down after admitting to an affair with a campaign worker and the House opened an ethics probe into an allegation that she was involved with a member of her congressional staff, which Hill denied.

Yes, it’s tough when it’s a little kid, but his mommy & daddy should have taught him better.

7-year-old shot while attempting to burglarize St. Louis home with other boys

ST. LOUIS, Mo. – A 7-year-old was shot during an attempted burglary at a home in the 1800 block of North 20th Street in St. Louis. The child was with two 12-year-olds during the attempt to break into a home Tuesday evening.

St. Louis Police say that a 23-year-old man [heard, I guess, ed.] banging and glass breaking from the rear of the home. He found the three boys coming into the home through a broken window. Police say the man fired a shot from his weapon in the direction of the suspects, fearing for his safety. The three boys started to run away.

The 7-year-old was struck in the leg by a projectile. A 12-year-old was struck in the wrist by a fragment of the debris. The other 12-year-old was not injured in the incident. The 23-year-old man was also not injured.

EMS took the injured 7-year-old and 12-year-old to the hospital. They are listed in stable condition.

Home intruder killed in Buffalo shooting

No charges will be filed in a deadly home invasion shooting that left a Buffalo man dead.

Union County Sheriff David Taylor said the incident occurred just after midnight Tuesday in the vicinity of 1202 Main St., Buffalo. When deputies arrived they found a man laying in the front yard of a home.

EMS was called to the scene and medics were unable to revive the man later identified as 27-year-old Victor De Andre Tiwo Hair of 1202 Main St., Buffalo.

Taylor said deputies found Hair lying on a weapon when they arrived. Hair had been shot while inside the home after he kicked open the front door brandishing a weapon.

Two children, a man and a woman were inside the home when Hair broke into it, Taylor said. The woman ran down toward the bedroom when Hair started firing his weapon.

Taylor said Hair was met in the hallway by Antwan Manquel Booker, 34, of Union who exchanged gunfire with him. Hair was struck by gunfire and ran from the home falling in the front yard where he died.

Casselton shooter won’t be charged, prosecutor says he acted in self defense

FARGO, N.D. — Last Friday, Cass County deputies responded to a report of a gunshot at Harness Mobile Home Court in Casselton, ND.

“The suspect, identified as William Dittmer Jr. called 911 and explained that there was an argument and physical altercation at his address outside near his vehicle between he and the victim, identified as Duane Turchin,” said Cass County Sheriff Jesse Jahner.

During the disagreement, Dittmer fatally shot his neighbor and was subsequently charged with murder and taken into custody by the Cass County Sheriff’s Office.

Dittmer claims the shooting was an act of self-defense.

“Mr. Turchin was a considerably larger man. He had presented himself as a challenge to Mr. Dittmer,” explained State’s Attorney Birch Burdick. “He was present on Mr. Dittmer’s property and challenging him right there at his car. The evidence indicated that when Mr. Dittmer got out of his car, Mr. Turchin put his hand around his throat and was squeezing his throat.”

The evidence includes Sheriff’s Office photographs that show a spilled drink on the drivers side window of the vehicle, which Dittmer Jr. said was thrown at him. Photographs also show faint, red scratch marks on Dittmer’s neck. This was corroborated by Dittmer’s girlfriend, Adrienne Johnson, who saw the altercation from inside the couple’s home.

Upon review of the evidence, the State’s Attorney office made the decision not to prosecute Dittmer and he was released from custody three days after he was initially charged.

“We had concluded that we would not be in a position to disprove self defense beyond a reasonable doubt, which is what we would need to be able to do,” said Burdick. “For that reason, we have declined to charge Mr. Dittmer on this case.”

Burdick says Turchin’s actions of having his hand around Dittmer’s throat and pinning Dittmer against the vehicle legally qualify as serious bodily injury and/or aggravated assault and therefore, they are unable to prove that Dittmer’s use of deadly force in self-defense was unjustified.

Arkansas Professor Arrested for Concealing Communist Chinese Funding

An engineering professor at the University of Arkansas has been arrested by the FBI and faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly hiding funding that he received from the communist Chinese government.

The New York Times reports that “Simon Ang of the University of Arkansas, was arrested on Friday and charged on Monday with wire fraud.”

“He worked for and received funding from Chinese companies and from the Thousand Talents program, which awards grants to scientists to encourage relationships with the Chinese government,” the report notes, adding that “he warned an associate to keep his affiliation with the program quiet.”

Emory Prof Admits to Chinese Spy Ring Involvement

A former professor at Emory University pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns by failing to disclose $500,000 in income from Chinese sources.

The professor, Xiao-Jiang Li, worked at two Chinese universities as part of China’s Thousand Talents Program, according to the Department of Justice. Li was ordered to pay $35,089 in restitution and sentenced to one-year probation.

Court findings revealed that in 2012, while still working at Emory, Li began working for the Thousand Talents Program and continued to work for the program until 2018. During this time period, Li worked at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and at Jinan University, where he reportedly conducted animal research. Li’s tax fraud was discovered when the National Institutes of Health examined his applications for research grants.

Burglary suspect fatally shot by North Beach homeowner

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A burglary suspect was fatally shot by a homeowner on North Beach.

Police say a man and a woman entered the home on Snug Harbor Driver overnight, forcing the homeowner to shoot at least once.

Police say he and two women was found a few blocks away on Surfside Boulevard.

His name has not been released.

Kiran Rice is charged with burglary of habitation.

Police say she was inside the home with the man when the shots were fired.

Zulma Zepeda-Antunez was arrested on an outstanding warrant.Investigators say she was inside the car with the suspects.

The Nueces County District Attorney will decide if the home owners will face any charges in connection with the shooting.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Obama’s tour in office has been called Gangster Government, remember, he’s from Chicago.

It looks like President Obama ordered up phony RussiaGate scandal.

RussiaGate is now a complete dead letter — but ObamaGate is taking its place. Just how far did the then-president go to cripple his successor?

It’s now clear the Obama-Comey FBI and Justice Department never had anything more substantial than the laughable fiction of the Steele dossier to justify the “counterintelligence” investigation of the Trump campaign. Yet incessant leaks from that supposedly confidential probe wound up consuming the Trump administration’s first months in office — followed by the Bob Mueller-led special-counsel investigation that proved nearly the “total witch hunt” that President Trump dubbed it.

Information released as the Justice Department dropped its charges against Gen. Mike Flynn shows that President Barack Obama, in his final days in office, played a key role in fanning the flames of phony scandal. Fully briefed on the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation, he knew the FBI had come up with nothing despite months of work starting in July 2016.

Yet on Jan. 5, 2017, Obama told top officials who’d be staying on in the new administration to keep the crucial facts from Team Trump.

It happened at an Oval Office meeting with Vice President Joe Biden, intel chiefs John Brennan and Jim Clapper and national security adviser Susan Rice, as well as FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

“From a national-security perspective,” Rice’s memo afterward put it, “President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.”

This even as then-President Obama also directed that as many people as possible across his administration be briefed on the (utterly unsubstantiated) allegations against Team Trump — and as Rice and others took unprecedented steps to “unmask” US citizens like Flynn whose conversations had been caught on federal wiretaps of foreigners.

Indeed, the Obama administration went on a full-scale leak offensive — handing the Washington Post, New York Times and others a nonstop torrent of “anonymous” allegations of Trumpite ties to Moscow. It suggested that the investigations were finding a ton of treasonous dirt on Team Trump — when in fact the investigators had come up dry.

Sadly, Comey’s FBI played along — sandbagging Flynn with the “friendly” interview that later became the pretext for the bogus charges dropped last week, as well as triggering the White House chaos that led to his ouster. This when the FBI had already gone over the general with a fine-tooth comb, and concluded that, no, he’d done nothing like collude with the Russians.

Meanwhile, Comey himself gave Trump an intentionally misleading briefing on the Steele dossier. That was followed by leaks that suggested the dossier was the tip of an iceberg, rather than a pack of innuendo that hadn’t at all checked out under FBI scrutiny.

Pulitzer Prizes were won for blaring utter fiction; the Trump administration was kneecapped out of the gate. Innocents like Flynn were bankrupted along the way.

Say this about Obama: He knows how to play dirty.

R.I.P. CHUCK TAYLOR

On the fifth of May, we lost Chuck Taylor, one of the most famous defensive firearms instructors of our generation, to cancer.

I first met Chuck in the 1970s, when he was head of training at Jeff Cooper’s famous facility, Gunsite. Chuck was still competing then, skillful enough to earn a slot on the US National Team of IPSC, the International Practical Shooting Confederation. He leaves behind a large body of written articles – for some time, he was editor of SWAT magazine – and several books that can be found on Amazon, including the fourth edition of Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery.

Chuck was a decorated Vietnam combat vet with the scars from enemy bullets on his body. A highly accomplished shooter, he was one of the few men I’ve seen perform the supposedly impossible “one second reload” of a .45 pistol. I knew him as a patient coach and excellent diagnostician. I can tell you from one personal experience back in the ‘70s that he was also a good man to have on your side when serious danger reared its head.

Taylor retired last year, and had all too short a time to enjoy that. His ashes will be scattered in a National Forest where he spent a lot of time hunting.

I know people who credit their survival to what they learned from Chuck. We have lost an important source of knowledge.

RIP.

Five Key Features of a Good Pocket Pistol

Pocket pistols, or sometimes called backup guns (BUG), are all over the place and are generally really popular. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. They are usually pretty cheap, comparatively speaking, running around $350 or less for the most part. They are also really easy to carry. So easy to carry that people usually don’t have to change anything about how they dress or what they do to be able to carry it. We still rely on these guns to save our lives, though, so here are some things to look for next time you are on the hunt for a new blaster gat to stuff in your pocket.

Sights
Not all pistol sights are created equal, and that is really true when we start talking about pocket guns. Some of them barely even have “sights.” Looking at the Ruger LCP, and almost everyone else who makes a pocket pistol. For most of the pocket-sized guns that do have sights, they are small, and non-adjustable and cannot be changed. If your particular sample of said gun doesn’t shoot to the sights, oh well, too bad. However, there are some exceptions. Seek out those exceptions, and at least give them some consideration. Just because these guns are small doesn’t mean the things we may need them to do are equally small. Having mostly proper sights that can be seen, are adjustable if needed, or can be changed to something closer to our preference, can be a big deal.

Reliable
As guns get smaller, the amount of reliability we expect from them also gets smaller. Or at least it seems that way. Getting an itty bitty machine to run reliably is a difficult job, and sometimes the manufacturers miss. However, we really need these guns to work well because they really only have one purpose, and there are no second chances sometimes. Unfortunately, we can’t tell if a gun will be reliable until after we have bought it and invested enough resources of time and ammunition to find out. It is the way the world is, though.

Manageable Trigger
Most triggers on full-size handguns are manageable. They may not all be to our personal taste, but someone who has a decent grasp of skill can make it work in a pinch. Triggers on pocket guns are not always the same. Again, it comes down to the size of the gun, and getting a decent trigger in that package is apparently a tough thing to do because few seem to pull it off. A good trigger is not the lynchpin that holds good shooting together, but it definitely makes it easier.

Holster Support
Guns that are meant to be carried should be carried in holsters. A gun without holster support is not nearly as useful as a gun with it. There are many pocket holsters out there on the market, but as with most things, they are not all good. In fact, there are probably fewer good ones than bad ones. Before buying a new handgun, I always check to see if holsters are available first.

Parts Support
Everything breaks eventually. Guns are no different. Full-size guns require periodic maintenance. Even more so their smaller counterparts. There are many things that can go wrong on a handgun, especially if it is a small one. Having access to the parts to make it right again, instead of having to send it off to the manufacturer and wait for it to come back, is a worthwhile thing to need a gun

Every handgun also requires periodic maintenance. In larger guns, those intervals are into the thousands of rounds before a gun needs a new spring to as reliable as possible. In pocket-sized guns, those intervals can get really small. As few as 500-1000 rounds in some cases. It is critical that end-users be able to acquire those parts to maintain the highest level of reliability possible.

There you have it. Five things to look for in that new micro-sized handgun. What else do you guys look for in guns that are this size? Hit is in the comments to let us know what we missed

I think what the perfesser is really worried about homeschooling is the missed opportunities for progressive indoctrination.

Harvard ‘Anti-Homeschooling’ Event ‘Cancelled’ Amid Conservative Backlash

Opponents of a controversial Harvard homeschooling summit claim the event has been canceled, but the Ivy League institution is still tight-lipped as to whether that is indeed the case.

The purpose of the invite-only event, “Homeschooling Summit: Problems, Politics, and Prospects for Reform,”was to “discuss child rights in connection with homeschooling in the United States,” with a focus on “problems of educational deprivation and child maltreatment that too often occur under the guise of homeschooling, in a legal environment of minimal or no oversight.”

With agenda items such as “Concerns with Homeschooling” and “Litigation Strategies for Reform,” the aim of the event was to equip critics of homeschooling and educators against the practice with “strategies for effecting such reform.” The co-organizer and one of the most controversial featured speakers was Elizabeth Bartholet, a professor of law and faculty director of Harvard Law School’s Child Advocacy Program.

Campus Reform previously reported that Bartholet framed homeschooling as “authoritarian” and suggested the government ban it.

In an interview with Harvard Magazine, Bartholet said, “We have an essentially unregulated regime in the area of homeschooling.” Her reasons for wanting to ban homeschooling include the lack of regulations setting standards on which parents are allowed to homeschool, the isolation of children, the absence of teachers who could act as “mandated reporters,” and the threat it creates that will ultimately jeopardize America’s democracy……………

In the Cane Tuckeeeeee!

Shots fired in self-defense after car crash on North Sunrise

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) – On Friday, May 8, Bowling Green Police responded to shots fired complaint in the area of North Sunrise.

Multiple officers responded to the area to help after receiving multiple calls.

When one officer arrived, he saw two vehicles in the middle of the roadway – a yellow Camaro and a black SUV that had collided in the 1400 block of North Sunrise.

Police spoke with the driver of the Camaro, who explained that when he was at a friend’s house, an unknown vehicle sped through the area and an unknown male got out.

The driver says the unknown male screamed at a female saying, “Where is Cholo? Where is he at?”

The driver of the Camaro explained the man seemed to be waving a silver firearm in the air, and then got back into his car and drove in the direction of Glen Lily.

The driver of the Camaro circled the block a couple of times to possibly see where the other car went. When he headed back to his friend’s house, the car came back around the corner at a high rate of speed.

The Camaro driver said he threw his car in reverse to avoid a collision but that the other car was accelerating towards him and was going to hit him. The cars collided.

The driver of the Camaro said he feared for his life and pulled out his gun and shot the unknown male, using all three rounds in the magazine.

The driver told police the male said, “One shot got me, and you’re lucky.” The subject then fled the scene on foot.

The unknown subject was later found at a nearby house, identified as William Green. He was taken to the Medical Center after being found to indeed have a gunshot wound.

After further investigation, police believe that the driver did shoot Green in self-defense. Officers went to the hospital to receive a statement from Green. It was determined that Green never pulled a handgun but did have a ratchet on him that could have appeared to be a firearm.

Nearby surveillance footage captured the wreck taking place where the black SUV hit the Camaro, though it’s hard to tell about the shooting incident.

Green has been arrested, charged with Assault, 2nd degree and Criminal Mischief, 1st degree.

Homeowner shoots accused robbery suspect, 3 others arrested

LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. (WYMT) — Three people are in jail and a fourth is in the hospital following an attempted robbery in Laurel County.

It happened Friday at a home in the Keavy community.

Deputies with the Laurel County Sheriff’s office tell WYMT the group attempted to rob the homeowner, who ended up shooting one of them.

Deputies charged Nathan M. Myers, 20, of London, with first-degree robbery, Logan Simpson, 19, of Williamsburg, with first-degree robbery and Andrew D. Myers, 23, of London with first-degree robbery.

The suspect who was shot was taken to the UK Medical Center. Police have not released any information about them except that they are getting warrants for their arrest.

MI: Capitol Commission to Discuss Firearms in the Capitol on Monday!

U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)-On Monday, May 11 at 11 am, the Michigan Capitol Commission will meet to discuss the possession of firearms in the Capitol and on Capitol Square. While the meeting notice does not state the Commission will consider banning firearms specifically, this will likely drive the discussion. Please contact the members of the Commission and respectfully urge them not to prohibit the exercise of a constitutionally protected right by law-abiding citizens on property open to the public.

Michigan law on this matter is clear. Local units of government are prohibited from restricting firearm possession in public. Michigan’s firearm preemption law states in full:

“[a] local unit of government shall not impose special taxation on, enact or enforce any ordinance or regulation pertaining to, or regulate in any other manner the ownership, registration, purchase, sale, transfer, transportation, or possession of pistols, other firearms, or pneumatic guns, ammunition for pistols or other firearms, or components of pistols or other firearms, except as otherwise provided by federal law or a law of this state.”

Again, please contact members of the Michigan Capitol Commission before the Monday meeting and respectfully urge them to recognize the right of law-abiding gun owners to carry a firearm for self-defense and to oppose any restriction on the carrying of firearms in the Capitol or on Capitol Square.

May 11 meeting agenda: http://capitol.michigan.gov/Content/Files/AgendaMay112020.pdf

Capitol Commission Contact information can be found here: http://capitol.michigan.gov/ContactCommission

The Long-Term Failures Of Violence Prevention Programs

As a Second Amendment supporter, I tend to believe that the answers to solving the issue of violence in our inner cities aren’t gun control. Obviously, I’m biased to a significant degree, but my bias is based on observation. After all, look at the 10 safest states and the 10 most dangerous states. You have gun-controlled states in both lists and you have gun-friendly states in both lists as well.

That suggests the issue is a bit more complicated than something that can be solved with a simplistic answer like gun control.

However, it also seems that popular gun violence reduction programs aren’t producing the long-term results proponents hope for.

In 2018, Portland started to rethink how it addresses gun violence. The police bureau sent representatives to Oakland, California, to observe Ceasefire, that city’s gun violence prevention program. Oakland’s program, which targets social services at people most likely to commit violence, is credited with dramatically reducing Bay Area gun violence.

“That is something that we’re using as a foundation to try to build something similar to that here in Portland,” Shearer said in an interview with Guns & America.

Cities across the country — from Baltimore to South Bend, Indiana and Stockton, California — have adopted similar models. And while these programs often have an impact in the year or two after launch, long-term reductions in gun violence can be fleeting.

Ceasefire is based on the idea that even in cities with high homicide rates, the number of people committing acts of violence is actually very low.

“About 70% of all gun violence includes people who are in their 20s to early 30s who has significant criminal justice histories, seven or more arrests, who are part of some sort of crew or clique or gang,” said David Muhammad, executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, a nonprofit that helps cities implement gun violence reduction programs like Oakland’s.

Typically, Muhammad says, people who commit gun violence have been victims of gun violence themselves, or someone close to them has been a recent victim. Intervene with this small group directly by providing social services or an alternative to violence, the theory goes, and you can have a major impact on gun violence. At least in the short term.

“Ceasefire is about immediately reducing gun violence,” Muhammad said. “And the type of community transformation that is desperately needed is a very long-term prospect.”

Now, this approach actually makes a fair bit of sense. You target people who are most likely to end up committing violent crimes and offer them alternatives to the kind of lifestyle. The idea is to stop violence at its source.

It should work, right? Well, it has and it hasn’t. Maybe.

The problem is that it’s hard to see any long-term results from these programs. It doesn’t help that some communities stop funding the program once violence decreases, thus allowing it to flourish once again.

To me, that suggests the solution isn’t really a solution, but a band-aid. It’s not really getting to the root of the problem, it’s simply hiding the problem like a toupee.

In some cases, though, it doesn’t even do that.

Elsewhere in the country, in city after city, declines in the near term evaporated over time.

In 2014, the first-year South Bend had a program in place, homicides dropped from 78 to 66. The next year, that number ticked back up to 85, down to 81 in 2016 and in 2017 was over 100.

Detroit, where city leaders have credited Ceasefire with reducing violent crime, started rolling out its program to police precincts in 2015. That year it had 295 homicides. Since then homicides have bounced up to 302, down to 261, and back up to 272, according to FBI data. Meanwhile, the city’s population shrank by 1%, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Those aren’t the other places, either. Stockton, CA has been heralded as a success after the program did wonders there. Then they cut off funding and the number of murders returned. Now, the average number of homicides is pretty much right were it was to begin with.

So what gives?

Clearly, there are a lot of theories, some of which are going to be dismissed by many typical Bearing Arms readers outright. I know I rolled my eyes when I read this:

“The whole approach is, ‘This is a problem person,’” said Aaron Roussell, an associate professor of sociology at Portland State University. “Not ‘We have systematically and intentionally underfunded these communities and we refuse to deal with issues of race and classism that actually keep these places marginalized.’”

…

But Roussell said the focus on data can distract from deeper societal issues that cause violence in the first place.

“It’s a weird idea that you just want less crime in poor neighborhoods,” he said. “They don’t want to change anything else about the world, but you want to just bring that down. Because it’s basically a series of crimes that made those neighborhoods poor to begin with and we don’t ever deal with that.”

Roussell attributes many of those dips noted before as potentially being cyclical variations rather than evidence they worked.

Like I said, it’s hard not to eye-roll at this kind of thing, but Roussell may actually be onto something. These high-violence neighborhoods are typically places that most folks otherwise don’t care about. They wouldn’t care about them now if folks there would just behave. No one really does seem to care about changing anything else about those neighborhoods. They just want the crime to go away.

And yet, what do we do?

Programs like Ceasefire seek to address these neighborhoods and the individuals most likely to become violent criminals which should, by extension the neighborhoods in question. Yet it’s not working.

Roussell would seem to say that racism and classism are to blame, but I find that a simplistic answer yet again for a complex problem. Or, more specifically, adding a couple of complex issues as the cause for another complex issue is simplistic.

So what’s the answer?

I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that we need to figure it out because people are being killed and that’s being used to justify infringing on the civil liberties of others. That shouldn’t be tolerated by anyone, regardless of what neighborhoods they live in.

“I think it was something personal.”

Man fatally shot, another injured in Bonne Terre Friday

An investigation is underway after a man was fatally shot and another man was “slashed and cut” early Friday morning in Bonne Terre.

According to Bonne Terre Police Chief Doug Calvert, officers were dispatched to a residence on South Long Street just before 12:30 a.m. in reference to a stabbing/gunshot situation in progress.

Calvert said Wann reportedly entered the residence and “slashed and cut” a man at the residence, also believed to be in his mid-30s. Officers believe the injured man then retrieved a handgun and shot Wann. The two men knew each other.

When officers arrived on the scene, CPR was being performed on the man who had been shot; however, he was unable to be revived and pronounced dead on the scene by the St. Francois County Coroner’s Office.

The detective and three officers with the Bonne Terre Police Department processed the scene. An autopsy was performed Friday afternoon.

The man at the residence was transported to the hospital to be treated for the cut. Details of his condition were not available.

The chief said no other individuals were injured. The weapons used in the incident have been recovered and secured as evidence. A report will be turned over to the prosecuting attorney’s office after the case is concluded.

Turbiaux Le Protector Palm Pistol

Photo Courtesy Cody Firearms Museum

Over the past few years, smaller and more concealable guns have hit the market — even a gun that simulates the size, shape, and appearance of a smartphone. Whether that’s a good idea or not isn’t for this historian to judge … yet. The idea of concealment in all shapes and sizes isn’t new. Back in the 1800s, many curios items came onto the market, including firearms like the Palm Protector Pistol.

This pistol is a revolver with a small barrel that fits between your fingers, kind of like parents tell their kids to do with their car keys. Instead of the cartridges being arranged in parallel around the cylinder’s axis, they were placed like spokes in a wagon wheel, much like earlier vertical turret revolvers. To fire, a shooter simply squeezes the gun. The design was first patented and sold in France in the early 1880s as the Turbiaux le Protector, but it soon saw production in the United States. Marketed by the Minneapolis Firearms Company as the Protector, it was manufactured in Springfield, Massachusetts. We don’t know of any FBI ballistic gelatin tests, but 32 Extra Short was a centerfire cartridge that made Volcanic Repeating Arms Company’s Rocket Ball ammunition look, well, still not great. Although, before we get too judgmental about the cartridge’s energy, Smith & Wesson got going thanks to sales of its number-one revolver that was chambered in the black powder 22 Short cartridge.

Peter Finnegan, who licensed the design, closed the Minneapolis Firearms Company and created the Chicago Fire Arms Company to sell a slightly different version of the guns. The manufacturing this time was done by the Ames Sword Company. Finnegan intended to have 15,000 ready by the Chicago World’s Fair, but Ames didn’t meet the deadline and a lawsuit ensued. The guns sold into the early 1900s.

Original French guns were 10-shot .22-caliber pieces, while most of the later American ones were .32 caliber, although some .41-caliber examples are reported. Originally, the guns were considered curio and relics but have since moved into the antique category under U.S. law.

TURBIAUX LE PROTECTOR (THE PROTECTOR)

Date: ca 1882
Caliber: 32 Extra Short
Dimensions: The size of a pocket watch
Action Type: Revolving
Options: Option for pearl side plate, usually nickel finished

This doesn’t mean to race down to the store, buy mass quantities and eat it like it was candy. Although you just know some idjit will do that and then try and blame Trump for it.

Northwestern Univ.: Vitamin D appears to play role in COVID-19 mortality rates.

After studying global data from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, researchers have discovered a strong correlation between severe vitamin D deficiency and mortality rates.

Led by Northwestern University, the research team conducted a statistical analysis of data from hospitals and clinics across China, France, Germany, Italy, Iran, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States.

The researchers noted that patients from countries with high COVID-19 mortality rates, such as Italy, Spain and the UK, had lower levels of vitamin D compared to patients in countries that were not as severely affected.

This does not mean that everyone — especially those without a known deficiency — needs to start hoarding supplements, the researchers caution.

“While I think it is important for people to know that vitamin D deficiency might play a role in mortality, we don’t need to push vitamin D on everybody,” said Northwestern’s Vadim Backman, who led the research. “This needs further study, and I hope our work will stimulate interest in this area. The data also may illuminate the mechanism of mortality, which, if proven, could lead to new therapeutic targets.”……….

Backman and his team were inspired to examine vitamin D levels after noticing unexplained differences in COVID-19 mortality rates from country to country. Some people hypothesized that differences in healthcare quality, age distributions in population, testing rates or different strains of the coronavirus might be responsible. But Backman remained skeptical.

“None of these factors appears to play a significant role,” Backman said. “The healthcare system in northern Italy is one of the best in the world. Differences in mortality exist even if one looks across the same age group. And, while the restrictions on testing do indeed vary, the disparities in mortality still exist even when we looked at countries or populations for which similar testing rates apply.

“Instead, we saw a significant correlation with vitamin D deficiency,” he said.

By analyzing publicly available patient data from around the globe, Backman and his team discovered a strong correlation between vitamin D levels and cytokine storm — a hyperinflammatory condition caused by an overactive immune system — as well as a correlation between vitamin D deficiency and mortality.

“Cytokine storm can severely damage lungs and lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome and death in patients,” Daneshkhah said. “This is what seems to kill a majority of COVID-19 patients, not the destruction of the lungs by the virus itself. It is the complications from the misdirected fire from the immune system.”

This is exactly where Backman believes vitamin D plays a major role. Not only does vitamin D enhance our innate immune systems, it also prevents our immune systems from becoming dangerously overactive. This means that having healthy levels of vitamin D could protect patients against severe complications, including death, from COVID-19.

“Our analysis shows that it might be as high as cutting the mortality rate in half,” Backman said. “It will not prevent a patient from contracting the virus, but it may reduce complications and prevent death in those who are infected.”……………

Backman is careful to note that people should not take excessive doses of vitamin D, which might come with negative side effects. He said the subject needs much more research to know how vitamin D could be used most effectively to protect against COVID-19 complications.

Selecting a Personal-Defense Handgun: Size and Fit.

Selecting a personal-defense handgun is a very subjective endeavor. We may see a certain write-up in one of the gun magazines and think that that is just the gun for us. So we go plunk down our hard-earned cash only to find out that the gun is far from ideal. This is not necessarily the fault of a particular gun so much as it is a case of a gun that just doesn’t suit us.

As a young shooter, I was really impressed with the writings of Elmer Keith. And I quickly decided that a double-action .44 Mag. was just about the only handgun that a fellow would ever need. When I finally got the cash and took home that big DA .44, you can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that I just didn’t shoot it very well at all. The distance between the face of the trigger and the backstrap was just too long to fit my hand size. I tried all different kinds and sizes of grips, but that didn’t help. Because I couldn’t hold the revolver properly, that .44 Mag. cartridge just really beat my hand up. I know that was the case because I continue to enjoy the .44 Mag. cartridge, but in a single-action revolver, which fits my hand much better.

In order to shoot the handgun quickly and accurately, it must fit the shooter’s hand. When it does, the shooting grip feels comfortable and natural. It is this good fit that translates into quick, accurate shooting.

When a defensive shooter sets out to purchase a new handgun, this business of proper fit should be uppermost in mind. If one is not knowledgeable about handguns, it’s a good idea to take someone along who has plenty of experience so they can make sure that only quality guns are being considered. While one might have their heart set on the latest double-stacked auto, they may find that the single-stack version fits better. That experienced helper can also advise when a gun’s fit might be improved by changing to a different size of stock.

When considering a defensive revolver, there are a number of different sized stocks that can change the fit of the gun. If a 1911 might be the choice, there are long triggers and short triggers, thick stocks and thin stocks, all of which make a difference. In striker-fired pistols, the prominent companies have been good about making essentially the same gun in a double-stack version or single-stack. Many have different grip panels or backstraps to better fit the pistol to the individual’s hand.

We are blessed to live in a time when so many good defensive handguns are available for us to choose from. When making your selection, it is a good idea to choose from the best quality guns that you can possibly afford. And, among those guns, be sure to choose the one that fits your hand the best. You will find that you feel more secure with it because your grip feels comfortable and natural, more importantly, you can shoot it quickly and accurately.

This is not an article from the Babylon Bee.

Arizona: Muslim Students Threaten to Kill Prof for Suggesting Islam Is Violent.

This will teach those Islamophobes that Islam is a religion of peace: a professor is facing death threats for suggesting otherwise. Nicholas Damask, Ph.D., has taught political science at Scottsdale Community College in Arizona for 24 years. But now he is facing a barrage of threats, and his family, including his 9-year-old grandson and 85-year-old parents, is in hiding, while College officials are demanding that he apologize – all for the crime of speaking the truth about the motivating ideology behind the threat of Islamic jihad worldwide.

Damask, who has an MA in International Relations from American University in Washington, D.C., and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Cincinnati, says he is “to my knowledge, the only tenured political science faculty currently teaching in Arizona to write a doctoral dissertation on terrorism.” He has taught Scottsdale Community College’s World Politics for each of the 24 years he has worked at the school.

Professor Damask’s troubles began during the current Spring semester, when a student took exception to three quiz questions. The questions were:

Who do terrorists strive to emulate? A. Mohammed
Where is terrorism encouraged in Islamic doctrine and law? A. The Medina verses [i.e., the portion of the Qur’an traditionally understood as having been revealed later in Muhammad’s prophetic career]
Terrorism is _______ in Islam. A. justified within the context of jihad.

Damask explained: “All quiz questions on each of my quizzes, including the ones in question here, are carefully sourced to the reading material. On this quiz, questions were sourced to the Qur’an, the hadiths, and the sira (biography) of Mohammed, and other reputable source material.” And indeed, the three questions reflect basic facts that are readily established by reference to Islamic texts and teachings and numerous statements of terrorists themselves.

Despite this, the student emailed Damask to complain that he was “offended” by these questions, as they were “in distaste of Islam.” Damask recounted: “Until this point, notably, the student had expressed no reservations about the course material and indeed he said he enjoyed the course.”

Damask sent two lengthy emails to the student responding to his complaints, but to no avail. A social media campaign began against Damask on the College’s Instagram account. Damask notes: “An unrelated school post about a school contest was hijacked, with supporters of the student posting angry, threatening, inflammatory and derogatory messages about the quiz, the school, and myself.”

At this point, College officials should have defended Professor Damask and the principle of free inquiry, but that would require a sane academic environment. Scottsdale Community College officials, Damask said, “stepped in to assert on a new Instagram post that the student was correct and that I was wrong – with no due process and actually no complaint even being filed – and that he would receive full credit for all the quiz questions related to Islam and terrorism.”

On May 1, Damask had a conference call with Kathleen Iudicello, Scottsdale Community College’s Dean of Instruction, and Eric Sells, the College’s Public Relations Marketing Manager. Damask recalls: “I was not offered to write any part of the school’s response, and there was no discussion of academic freedom or whether the College was even supportive of me to teach about Islamic terrorism. The very first point I made with them on the call (and virtually the only input I had) is that I insisted that the College’s release was to have no mention of any actions to be required to be taken by me personally, I was very clear about that.”

Predictably, Iudicello and Sells ignored that. They issued an apology to the student and to the “Islamic community,” and stated on the College’s Instagram page that Damask would be “required” to apologize to the student for the quiz questions, as the questions were “inappropriate” and “inaccurate,” and would be permanently removed from Damask’s exams.

Damask also had three phone calls with Iudicello, who gave him a bracing introduction into today’s academic funhouse world, where if someone is offended by the truth, it’s the truth that has to be deep-sixed. “During one call with Iudicello,” Damask recounts, “she stated that my quiz questions were ‘Islamophobic,’ that before continuing to have any further class content on Islamic terrorism I would likely need to meet with an Islamic religious leader to go over the content, and that I would likely need to take a class (perhaps at Arizona State) taught by a Muslim before teaching about Islamic terrorism.”

“The irony here,” says Damask, “is that literally during this phone call, I and my wife were tossing socks and jammies and our nine-year-old grandson’s toys into a suitcase to get the hell out of the house because of the death threats made by Islamic commenters on the College’s Instagram page.”

Rethinking Hoosier ‘deplorables’

Coming from the Bronx, I was acquainted with riding the subway or bus or navigating the busy and often treacherous streets of New York.

There I learned to survive in the city, but I knew nothing of hunting, fishing or surviving in nature. Coastal elites have disdain for those schooled in such things.

They assume that food, water and other necessities and amenities just appear. They lack awareness of the complex grids, structures and platforms that maintain their comforts. Or the sources of the electricity that powers their computers and air-conditioning, or of the gasoline that fuels their cars.

They do not appreciate those who make these daily, secular miracles possible, the commonplace wonders of modern, electronic civilization.

But my neighbors in Indiana hunt. They can survive in the forest, hills, lakes and rivers here. They understand the world of nature, its vicissitudes and even barbarism.

Appreciating its transcendent beauty and cadences, they also accept its fierce cruelties. They do not worship nature; they seek reconciliation with it that they may endure and protect their loved ones. They admire the natural world, its towering majesty and microscopic complexity, but they do not hold it on a pedestal, pristine, viewed from a distance.

Theirs is a realistic appraisal of nature and what is required to survive.

Many Hoosiers preserve food. Some steam or pressure can. Or dehydrate, pickle, freeze-dry, smoke, or salt items. Knowing how to farm, they cope with caterpillars, aphids, and cutworms; and guard against hedgehogs, fungi and lack of rain.

Some have gas tanks and generators. They have water filters, propane stoves, purifying tablets, first-aid kits, pick-up trucks, drills, hammers and wrenches. They can repair a car, a machine, or a leaking pipe. And yes, they also know how to install Wi-Fi, use computers, navigate the internet, and operate smartphones.

They have guns and ammunition. Well-trained, many are veterans, serving in the national guard or law enforcement, and are defenders of the Second Amendment. They have shotguns, bolt-action rifles, AR-10s, and other semi-automatics. They own handguns and an array of shells, including expanding, home-defense rounds.

Many have night vision, tree stands, bows, arrows, camouflage, trail cameras, scents, GPS devices and two-way radios. They hunt duck, quail and deer. Floating down a river or walking the fields, they recognize the rhythms of the animals they track and fish, their migration and trail patterns, all driven by the weather, mating seasons and food sources.

In a pandemic, a time of plague, with the economy crumbling, hospitals closing, streets emptied of life, perhaps the rootless cosmopolitans may want to reconsider their contempt.

What is certain is that our elites, in the media, academia, and elsewhere, cloistered in liberal ghettos, among fellow members of the chattering class, would not survive without the welders, assembly line workers and equipment operators, those whom they refer to as hicks, rubes and deplorables who cling to their guns and Bibles.

Maybe they should thank them.

Dr. Richard Moss is a surgeon practicing in Jasper. Contact him at richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Louisiana: House Committee to Hear Pro-Second Amendment Bills Next Week

Next Wednesday at 1:00pm, the House Administration of Criminal Justice Committee is scheduled to hear four pro-gun bills that will benefit law-abiding gun owners in the Sportsman’s Paradise.

House Bill 746 allows those who lawfully possess a firearm to carry concealed for self-defense during a mandatory evacuation under a declared state of emergency or disaster.

House Bill 781 establishes that firearms and ammunition manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, suppliers, and retailers are “Essential Businesses” that shall not be prohibited from conducting business during a declared disaster or emergency. HB 781 further prevents law-abiding gun owners’ rights from being infringed during proclaimed curfews.

House Bill 140 prevents local authorities and municipalities from imposing restrictions to prohibit the possession of a firearm. Preemption legislation is designed to stop municipalities from creating a patchwork of different laws that turn a law-abiding citizen into a criminal for simply crossing a jurisdictional line.

House Bill 334 authorizes a concealed handgun permit holder to carry a concealed handgun in a church, synagogue, mosque, or other similar place of worship.

Gun legislation added to massive public safety bill

Debate on a public safety omnibus bill that reached the [Missouri] House floor Tuesday focused heavily on gun legislation, as lawmakers proposed amendments that focus on preserving Second Amendment rights and eliminating many “gun-free zones” in Missouri.

As the penultimate week of the 2020 legislative session ramped up, lawmakers continued the end-of-session trend of adding as many amendments to bills as possible in the hopes that some of their legislation will become law.

Along with the gun amendments, many other changes to Senate Bill 600, a public safety omnibus bill, were proposed. These amendments covered a wide range of topics, including reducing Fentanyl trafficking, permitting EMTs in Missouri to honor out-of-state Do Not Resuscitate orders, allowing Missourians to kill feral hogs and more. But the proposed gun legislation sparked the most heated debate among lawmakers.

Second Amendment Preservation Act

A bill known as the Second Amendment Preservation Act, which had a whopping 86 co-sponsors, was the fourth amendment proposed to the public safety bill. The bill didn’t make it to the floor on its own, but Rep. Jered Taylor, R-Republic, said the omnibus public safety bill was “the perfect vehicle” to get it made into law.

“This bill is a pro-law enforcement bill that protects law enforcement by not requiring them to enforce federal gun laws,” Taylor said. “They still could be enforced by federal agents; we just wouldn’t be doing it on a state level.”

Rep. Lane Roberts, R-Joplin, was one of two Republicans who said they have strong support for the Second Amendment with hesitations about the bill, which also proposed penalties for police officers who decide to enforce federal gun laws.

“You will note that (the bill) creates an untenable position for police officers. It creates a conflict with their oath of office, and it essentially throws them under the bus and makes them the whipping children for this issue,” Roberts said.

Roberts also took issue with the penalties officers can face if they uphold federal gun laws.

“They can be civilly sued. They can be personally liable. They lose their license. They can be prohibited from being a police officer for the rest of their natural-born days,” Roberts said. “What has that got to do with protection of the Second Amendment?”

He also noted that asking local law enforcement not to enforce federal laws could create tensions with the federal agencies Missourians rely on and need to cooperate with.

Taylor responded by pointing out that he had dozens of co-sponsors on the bill and that current and former law enforcement officers have testified in support of the bill in the past.

“You know, the guys on the streets — the ones who are actually enforcing the laws — who would be forced to be the ones to go do the knocking and the seizure of AR-15s and AK-47s,” Taylor said. “They’re the ones that I’m trying to protect. And they’re the ones that say, ‘Absolutely, we need this.’”

Rep. Sara Walsh, R-Ashland, spoke in strong support of the bill, saying constituents have come up to her in the grocery store asking her to support it.

As the debate on the Second Amendment Preservation Act amendment came to a close, Rep. Tony Lovasco, R-O’Fallon, added an amendment to the amendment that legalized the possession of brass knuckles. As a whole, the new amendment was adopted.

Eliminating gun-free zones

Taylor also proposed an amendment to the public safety bill that would eliminate many of Missouri’s “gun-free zones,” or allow private property owners to determine whether to allow guns on the premises.

Gun-free zones are areas where firearms are prohibited with or without a permit. The bill would remove some areas from that category, including churches, bars and amusement parks. Those institutions could decide their own policies.

Taylor said mass shootings often happen in gun-free zones because people know they can carry out an attack without being stopped in a rapid fashion.

“There’s not going to be anyone there to be able to defend themselves or their family if the need were to arise,” Taylor said. He added that it takes law enforcement time to respond and said the gun-free zones make people “easy targets.”

The debate on the amendment was heated at times, but, ultimately, the elimination of gun-free zones amendment was also adopted into the public safety omnibus bill.