Man shot, killed after allegedly forcing his way into home

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Pa. – Police in Montgomery County are investigating a shooting where an alleged home invader was killed.

Police responded to a house on East Third Avenue for reports of a shooting at around 11:30 p.m on Saturday in Collegeville Borough.

According to a release from the Montgomery District Attorney’s Office, police found a 55-year-old man with a gunshot wound when they arrived at the scene, and was pronounced dead.

Initial reports say that the man was shot by someone that lived in the home after he forced his way in, according to the release.

An autopsy is being conducted by the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office. The identity of the man is not being released until next of kin has been notified.

Homeowner shoots suspect in reported home invasion

RUSSELL, Ky. (WSAZ) — One person is in serious condition after a shooting during an alleged home invasion in Russell, Kentucky.

Police Chief Ned Crisp tells WSAZ it happened just after 1:30 Sunday morning on the 300 block of Short White Oak Road.

Crisp says a 31-year-old man was shot by the homeowner and was flown to Cabell-Huntington Hospital where he remains in critical condition.

Detectives were still on scene early Sunday, and no other details are available at this time.

No one has been charged.

Man shot, killed while attempting robbery in Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM — Police in Birmingham said a man was shot and killed while attempting a robbery early Sunday morning. Detectives are conducting a homicide investigation, according to Sgt. Rod Mauldin.

“On Sunday, February 16, 2020, at 4 a.m. an off-duty officer was working an extra security detail when shots were fired at 528 3rd Avenue West,” Mauldin said.

Upon further investigation the officer discovered the subject laying on the ground suffering from a gunshot wound. Birmingham Fire and Rescue responded to the scene and the wounded subject was transported to UAB Hospital where he was pronounced deceased.

“Preliminary investigation suggest the subject approached a person in a robbery attempt which resulted in the subject being shot,” Mauldin said. “This is an ongoing investigation. Additional details will be provided as they become available.”

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Situation Report – 26

SITUATION IN NUMBERS total and new cases in last 24 hours
Globally
50 580 laboratory-confirmed
(1527 new)
China
50 054 laboratory-confirmed
(1506 new)
1524 deaths (121 new) †
Outside of China
526 laboratory-confirmed
(21 new)
25 countries (1 new)
2 deaths

Chinese doctors say Wuhan coronavirus reinfection even deadlier
Instead of creating immunity the virus can reportedly reinfect an individual and hasten fatal heart attack

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — It’s possible to get infected by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) a second time, according to doctors on the frontline in China’s city of Wuhan, leading to death from heart failure in some cases.

The claim is made by doctors working in the Hubei Province capital that is at the center of the epidemic, which has to date infected 64,201 people and killed 1,487. One of the doctors reached out to a relative living in the United Kingdom, who then informed Taiwan News.

Both the relative and doctors asked to remain anonymous, out of consideration they might face retribution from the Chinese authorities. The doctor, Li Wenliang (李文亮), who first raised warnings about the Wuhan virus, was rebuked by the authorities before succumbing to the devastating disease himself earlier this month.

According to the message forwarded to Taiwan News, “It’s highly possible to get infected a second time. A few people recovered from the first time by their own immune system, but the meds they use are damaging their heart tissue, and when they get it the second time, the antibody doesn’t help but makes it worse, and they die a sudden death from heart failure.”

The source also said the virus has “outsmarted all of us,” as it can hide symptoms for up to 24 days. This assertion has been made independently elsewhere, with Chinese pulmonologist Zhong Nanshan (鍾南山) saying the average incubation period is three days, but it can take as little as one day and up to 24 days to develop symptoms.

Also, the source said that false negative tests for the virus are fairly common. “It can fool the test kit – there were cases that they found, the CT scan shows both lungs are fully infected but the test came back negative four times. The fifth test came back positive.”

According to the BBC and other media outlets, some laboratory tests are incorrectly telling people they are virus-free. There is also anecdotal evidence of people having up to six negative results before being diagnosed correctly.

Do the Gun-Grabbers Really Want to Save Lives?

My first impression is ‘No’.

We often find ourselves arguing statistics with anti-gun people. Let’s put the conversation into perspective. I will give you some statistics and I’ll also expose the anti-gun left’s real motives for gun control. First of all, don’t you think that if someone really wanted to save lives, they would focus their attention on an area where the most lives are lost? If you’ll notice, Anti-Gunners miss that piece of logic and gravitate toward any justification for gun control laws regardless of its inability to save lives.

The gun grabbers like to use the number of 30,000 to 40,000 gun-related deaths per year but if we take out suicides, which are 60% of those deaths and we take out law enforcement-related deaths, we’re left with about 14,880 gun-related homicides. Let me add something here. After seeing the results of Australia’s gun ban, we know that suicides do not go down in the absence of guns. People find other means; just in case there are some Anti-Gunners out there still trying to blame suicides on guns.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

The majority of those gun-related homicides are gang-related. So, let’s say we didn’t have the gang problem we have in this country. If we take out gang/gun murders the number of gun-related homicides shrinks to 2,976 per year in America. here’s another interesting fact that the anti-gun left doesn’t want you to know. The majority of gang-related violence occurs in Democrat-run cities across this country, which by the way are highly gun restricted and often allow violent Illegals safe harbor. Which means, the good people living within those cities are denied their right to protect themselves against the human violence that Democrats encourage with their bad policies. Now let’s compare 2,976 gun-related homicides to some other things that the anti-gun left could be working on if they really wanted to save lives.

  • 2,976 gun-related homicides, consisting of many different causes. None of which are caused by “the gun.”
  • 11,000 lives lost per year in America to drunk driving accidents.
  • 47,000 lives lost per year in America due to suicide, (bipolar disorder and schizophrenia being two of the leading causes of suicide.) Not guns. Remember, take away the guns and that number doesn’t change.
  • 330,000 lives are taken per year in America by people committing abortion. One of the biggest causes of preventable deaths in America is abortion. Didn’t the gun-grabbers say they wanted to save lives?

Now let me give you a piece of information that the anti-self-defense crowd doesn’t want you to know. How many lives do you think are saved every year because of guns?

  • 2,500,000 lives are potentially saved every year in America because of guns. These are called Defensive Gun Uses (DGU’s). Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean good guys killing bad guys. This most often means just the mere presence of a gun deters a bad guy. 46% of those lives saved are women. This is from a study that was done by Gary Kleck, a Florida criminologist and backed by data from the CDC.

*[Data collected from Pew Research Center, FBI Statistics, Armed Resistance to Crime Report (Kleck/Gertz), Center for Medical Progress, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.]

Why do you think the gun grabbers never share this information? Some would argue that they don’t really care about saving lives as much as they care about disarming their fellow citizens and preventing them from independently protecting themselves and their families.

Gun control is a top-down method that puts the government in charge of the lives and safety of people under the guise of “public safety.” It’s the first step in stealing the freedom our founders fought for. The anti-gun left has already decided that they are willing to give up their freedom to government.

The problem is, they can’t have their government-controlled Utopian society unless everyone gets on board. Real Americans are clearly not getting on board. In fact, just the opposite is true. People across the country are fighting back as the left-wing ideology tries desperately to embed itself into traditional America. Gun control is a way of forcing you into dependence whether you like it or not.

We’re never going to cure the evil in the hearts of killers but thanks to our Founding Fathers recognized the importance of firearms, we can stop them.

So, to the gun grabbers, do you really want to save lives? Then get to work on the real causes of human-violence and help us restore our gun rights so good people can protect themselves. Help us save lives, rather than ending them before they get a chance to take their first breath.

The 2nd Amendment is not a privilege. It’s your right.

Cholesterol drugs may help fight ‘high-risk’ prostate cancers.

Definitely something for further research.

Drugs that many men with prostate cancer might already be taking — cholesterol-lowering statins — may help extend their survival if they have a “high-risk” form of the disease, new research suggests.

High-risk patients include men with high blood levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA) and a “Gleason score” of 8 or more. Gleason scores are a calculation used to gauge prognosis in prostate cancer. Men with a high Gleason score may develop difficult-to-treat cancers.

Prior research had suggested that statins and the diabetes drug metformin (often prescribed together) have anticancer properties. However, it hasn’t been clear which of the two drugs is the bigger cancer-fighter, or whether either might help against high-risk prostate cancer.

To help answer those questions, a team led by Grace Lu-Yao of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center–Jefferson Health, in Philadelphia, tracked data on nearly 13,000 high-risk prostate cancer patients. All were diagnosed between 2007 and 2011.

The study couldn’t prove cause and effect, but it found that statins, taken alone or with metformin, did seem associated with an increase in survival.

Men who took both statins and metformin had higher median survival (3.9 years) than those who took statins alone (3.6 years), metformin alone (3.1 years), or those who did not take either drug (3.1 years).

Vancouver homeowner shoots, kills suspected burglar

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A man was shot and killed while breaking into a home overnight, according to Vancouver police.

Vancouver PD responded to what they believe was a burglary around 10:20 p.m. in the River View Neighborhood along Southeast Beach Drive. Police said an unknown man kicked in a back door and was inside the home when he was confronted by the homeowner, who had a gun.

The burglar charged the homeowner, who fired and shot the suspect. The suspect ran outside and collapsed. When authorities arrived the suspect was already dead.

The homeowner and his family were not injured.

One woman who lives in the neighborhood said she’s sorry for the tragedy that someone died “for trinkets or whatever. It wasn’t worth it. But I totally support the homeowner’s desire to protect themselves.”

Mike Murphy, who lives nearby, said it seems people are more desperate and brazen these days.

“Homeowners have a right to protect themselves. You can’t just expect to break into somebody’s home and there’s not going to be repercussions to their actions.”

Murphy said it’s a nice, quiet area. “You just don’t think there would be those kind of people down here up to no good.”

Suspects shot breaking into home a second time

RENO, Nev. (KOLO) – The Reno Police Department released new details into a shooting and house fire in the 900 block of Bates Avenue early Monday morning.

The incident was reported just before 3AM on February 10, 2020.

Investigators say two juveniles, broke into an addition off the main house, looking for a 14-year-old who lives at the home. They were confronted by an adult who was armed with a gun. Investigators say one of the suspects pointed a gun at the adult, and the adult opened fire, shooting both suspects.

One suspect was found at the scene. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition. The other suspect left the scene, but checked into a hospital after getting shot in the leg. He was later arrested.

Part of the home also caught fire. It’s unclear how the fire started.

Investigators say two days prior to the shooting, the same suspects had broken into the home and beat up the 14-year-old who lives there. Police also say the suspects had threatened to return.

The names of the suspects involved are not being released at this time

Oklahoma State Senate passes bill making it easier to arm teachers

The Oklahoma Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that could make it easier for Oklahoma teachers and school personnel to carry a firearm at school.

The bill by Republican Sen. David Bullard, R-Durant, and Rep. Sean Roberts, R-Hominy, would change requirements for teachers to be able to be armed at school.

Bullard said the rural school districts in his area want the legislation because it could take a significant amount of time for law enforcement to respond to a mass shooting on campus.

“We have students right now that are vulnerable if someone walks in with a gun,” he said. “It’s a manslaughter and there’s nothing they can do about it.”

Teachers would no longer be required to complete a 240-hour Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training certification course in order to be armed at school. Bullard said the requirement is cost prohibitive and time intensive to a point that it deters teachers from participating.

Instead, under House Bill 2336, school personnel who undergo the eight-hour concealed carry class or the 72 hours of armed security guard training would be eligible to carry on campus at K-12 schools. The personnel also would have to go through “campus-specific active shooter training” as stipulated by local law enforcement agencies.

The campus-specific training would vary based on a school’s size and layout and would be intended for law enforcement to work one-on-one with teachers or school staff who intend to be armed, Bullard said.

Senate Democrats said the legislation could result in teachers having various levels of training depending on which district they teach.

Virginia’s Model for Both Sides of Gun Debate
As Democrats advance anti-Second Amendment measures, Patriots fight back.

Like all would-be tyrants, as soon as Virginia Democrats took power following the last election, they began an all-out assault on the right to keep and bear arms, unleashing a package of gun-control measures intended to strip Virginians of their right to defend themselves.

The newest proposed measures include a ban on “assault weapons” such as the AR-15 and AK-47 rifles, magazines holding more than 12 rounds, and sound suppressors (“silencers”). That bill passed the House of Delegates yesterday.

As a means of reducing mass shootings, such measures are worthless. According to the FBI, in 2018, just 297 of the 6,603 gun-related murders (4%) nationwide involved a rifle of any kind. In fact, knives (1,604) and fists/kicking (656) were used to kill far more often.

The “progressive” obsession with the AR-15 is rooted in abject ignorance of all things gun related. Though they refer to AR-15s as “assault weapons” and “weapons of war,” they are neither.

“AR” stands for “ArmaLite Rifle,” after the company that designed it. Furthermore, the Department of Defense defines an assault rifle as a “selective fire” rifle that can alternate between semi- (one shot fired per trigger pull) and full-auto (continuous fire). The AR-15 is semiautomatic, firing a .223 (or 5.56) round, which is smaller and less powerful than many hunting rifles. If we ban AR-15s, why not all hunting rifles and handguns? They are functionally equivalent.

Gun grabbers claim the AR-15 is especially “dangerous and unusual,” attempting to get around the Supreme Court ruling in DC v. Heller, which found the Second Amendment protects weapons “in common use by law-abiding citizens.” But the AR-15 is the very definition of “common use” — more than 15 million AR-style rifles are currently in the hands of American citizens, and more than a million more are sold each year. In fact, one in five new firearms sold in the U.S. is an AR-style rifle.

Yet far from America turning into the Wild West, as anti-gun hysterics claim, America has become more peaceful with the proliferation of firearms. Gun crimes fell to historic lows after the expiration of the 1994 ban on “assault weapons.”

In reality, full-auto weapons have been effectively banned for civilian use since the National Firearms Act of 1934, and there have been only two deaths by full-auto weapons in the last 40 years.

But in the grand scheme of things, this is all just semantics and details. The Constitution protects our right to keep and bear arms, period, regardless of arguments and statistics.

Yet Socialist Democrats reject the meaning of “shall not be infringed.” For decades, Democrats have sought to erode or eliminate this most fundamental of human and American rights. They couch their assaults in terms like “public safety” and “commonsense gun control,” insisting that no one needs certain types of weapons for hunting and sport shooting. Untrue, but irrelevant. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with providing a firm check against the rise of tyrannical government.

In 1787, Thomas Jefferson warned of the dangers of conspiring men and asked, “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. … The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Is it any surprise the state seal for Virginia is an image of a robed Virtus (Virtue) standing, spear in hand, over the body of Tyranny? The state motto is “sic semper tyrannis,” meaning “thus always to tyrants.”

Jefferson was a native of Virginia, and it seems many of his fellow Virginians still have the fire of Liberty, and resistance to tyranny, burning in their breasts, judging by the 22,000 gun owners protesting at the state capitol recently. Or the fact that 141 counties and cities have declared themselves “gun sanctuaries.”

After the announcement of the proposed gun-control laws, Virginia gun sales nearly doubled, with nearly 70,000 gun background checks in a single month. Gun owners continue to show up at rallies, chanting “We will not comply!”

Gun owners are by nature peaceful and law-abiding. They seek peace, but are prepared to defend themselves and their families, whether from armed intruders or a tyrannical government. That is a fact that Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam and the Democrats in the state legislature would do well to remember.

No peak in sight as China reports 5,000 new coronavirus cases

BEIJING/SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia (Reuters) – China’s coronavirus outbreak showed no sign of peaking with health authorities on Friday reporting more than 5,000 new cases, while passengers on a cruise ship blocked from five countries due to virus fears finally disembarked in Cambodia.

Policymakers pledged to do more to stimulate Asian economies hit hard by the virus, helping Asia stock markets edge higher, with Chinese shares headed for their first weekly gain in four.

In its latest update, China’s National Health Commission said it had recorded 121 new deaths and 5,090 new coronavirus cases on the mainland on Feb. 13, taking the accumulated total infected to 63,851 people.

Some 55,748 people are currently undergoing treatment, while 1,380 people have died of the flu-like virus that emerged in Hubei province’s capital, Wuhan, in December. The latest toll takes account of some deaths that had been double counted in Hubei, the health commission said.

The new figures give no indication the outbreak is nearing a peak, said Adam Kamradt-Scott, an infectious diseases expert at the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney.

“Based on the current trend in confirmed cases, this appears to be a clear indication that while the Chinese authorities are doing their best to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the fairly drastic measures they have implemented to date would appear to have been too little, too late,” he said.

Chinese scientists are testing two antiviral drugs and preliminary results are weeks away.

The head of a hospital in Wuhan, a city under virtual lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus, told reporters on Thursday that plasma infusions from recovered patients had shown some encouraging preliminary results.

Japan confirmed its first coronavirus death on Thursday – a woman in her 80s living in Kanagawa prefecture near Tokyo. The death was the third outside mainland China, after two others in Hong Kong and the Philippines…………

Evacuee at Lackland Air Force Base is 15th virus case in US

NEW YORK — U.S. officials on Thursday announced the country’s 15th confirmed case of the new coronavirus — an evacuee from China who had been under quarantine in Texas.

The patient, who had been flown to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio last week, is now in isolation at a hospital and was reported in stable condition. The infection was confirmed through a Wednesday night lab test, making the person the first coronavirus patient in Texas.

“There may be additional cases we identify. I do want to prepare you for that,” said Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control’s division of high consequence pathogens and pathology.

Two earlier U.S. cases were found among evacuees flown to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in Southern California.

Hundreds of people, including U.S. State Department employees and their families, were brought to military bases in Texas, California and Nebraska aboard chartered flights from Wuhan, a city of 11 million that is at the center of the outbreak.

There are 57 evacuees being held in quarantine at the Nebraska National Guard’s Camp Ashland southwest of Omaha, Nebraska, none of whom have shown any signs of the virus, Nebraska Medicine spokesman Taylor Wilson said. He said the Omaha hospital prepared to treat any of the evacuees if needed.

Convenience Stores, where crooks can go to conveniently get shot

Suspect shot during armed robbery attempt outside gas station

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – The Fort Wayne Police Department is investigating an attempted armed robbery that ended with the suspect getting shot.

Officers responded to the Sunoco gas station at 1416 Oxford St. around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday.

According to an FWPD lieutenant at the scene, witnesses told police a group of people walked out of the convenience store and got in a car at one of the pumps.

That’s when a man wearing a mask apparently walked up to the car, pulled out a handgun, and tried to rob them at gunpoint.

While that was happening, another man with the group walked out of the store and saw what was unfolding. He pulled out a gun and exchanged fire with the robbery suspect.

The suspect and some of the victims then ran from the scene.

As police searched the area, they found the suspect about a block away with a handgun and a face mask nearby. Police said he was suffering from a gunshot wound.

Medics took the injured suspect to a hospital, but doctors determined his injuries were not life-threatening.

Police also eventually found all of the robbery victims that left the scene. Detectives took them to the police station to interview them about the incident.

During their search for more evidence around the area, officers found multiple guns in various places. It’s still not clear whom they belonged to, and police said it was too early to say what other charges, if any, may result from the situation.

The robbery suspect is being guarded at the hospital and will likely be charged with armed robbery once he is discharged from the hospital, according to a lieutenant at the scene.

One woman who lives across the street from the gas station where the shooting happened said bullets came into her apartment during the incident, but they didn’t hit anyone.

Nobody besides the robbery suspect reported any serious injuries.

Detectives interviewed victims and witnesses, and also planned to review security video at the scene to learn more about the incident and confirm the details of what happened.

Man shot, critically wounded by security guard at Garfield Park liquor store

CHICAGO – A man was critically wounded after being shot by a liquor store’s security guard Wednesday in Garfield Park on the West Side.

The man, 28, got into an argument with the guard about 11:30 p.m. inside Madison Food, Wine and Spirits, 3900 W. Madison St., Chicago police said. When the argument turned physical, the guard shot him in the leg and back.

The man was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, police said. The guard was taken in for questioning.

Area North detectives are investigating.

Why scientists are encouraging people to drink more coffee

Coffee, just what can’t it do?

The promise of strong bones meant something very different to us as children. We thought obtaining the physique of our favorite superhero was as simple as drinking as much milk as possible. Turns out, we were wrong about the prize and the best way to achieve it.

According to a new study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, there is a robust association between habitual coffee consumption and the prevention of bone fracturing later in life and the development of metabolic illnesses. In other words, more coffee for everyone!

Coffee, coffee, coffee

“Inconsistent associations between coffee consumption and bone mineral density (BMD) have been observed in epidemiological studies. Moreover, the relationship of bioactive components in coffee with BMD has not been studied. The aim of the current study is to identify coffee-associated metabolites and evaluate their association with BMD,” the authors wrote in the report.

In actuality, bone strength refers to mineral density. The amount of minerals present in bone tissue is a strong correlate of several metabolic bone diseases, including osteoporosis, rickets, osteomalacia, osteogenesis imperfecta, and fibrous dysplasia.

For many years research has been suppressed by a long-standing (and anecdotal) assumption that caffeine poses a negative effect on calcium absorption. Scholarly inspection concluded this impact to be a fractional one.

“There is no evidence that caffeine has any harmful effect on bone status or on the calcium economy in individuals who ingest the currently recommended daily allowances of calcium.” celebrated osteology expert,  Dr. Robert Heaney wrote back in 2002.

Coffee Consumption and its Association with Bone Mineral Density

The Hong Kong University researchers began their analysis with 564  healthy community-dwelling adults previously involved in an osteoporosis study from a few years back. The participants were tasked with documenting the frequency of their coffee consumption in the followup examination logged in November of last year.

Twelve serum metabolites important to bone mineral density were significantly more concentrated among regular coffee drinkers—three molecules (quinate, 3-hydroxypyridine sulfate, and trigonelline) evidenced particular relevance to the study’s premise.

“Among these metabolites, 11 known metabolites were previously identified to be associated with coffee intake and 6 of them were related to caffeine metabolism. Habitual coffee intake was positively and significantly associated with BMD at the lumbar spine and femoral neck,” the authors continued.

The health benefits linked to coffee consumption are almost all preventive in nature. The abundance of anti-oxidants contained in a single serving effectively disarms free-radicals which in turn delays many of the physical markers of the ageing process. These very same agents have been confirmed to be instrumental measures against cavities, diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver and various forms of cancer.

A study conducted back in 2018 that used mouse models determined that drinking four shots of espresso a day boosts heart health by reinvigorating important proteins and cardiovascular cells.

“For all those folks who drink lots of coffee and are concerned about the health effects of coffee, this is good news,” Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Chad Deal, who was not directly involved in the study, said in a press release. “It appears to show that coffee is, in general, probably good for bone health.” 

Joe Biden doesn’t get why gun rights are a bulwark against tyranny

Oh, Plugs understands RKBA alright enough. He, like other elitists, can’t stand that it confounds their tyrannical desires for power so they have to try an discount its effectiveness. And it does have effect on them, or they wouldn’t be so adamant about gun bans.

As Joe Biden’s flailing campaign headed toward a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire, the former vice president managed to get off some doozies. Perhaps most memorable was the time he jokingly dismissed a student questioner at one of his events as a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier.” But the man who first held federal office during the Nixon administration also managed to reveal his ignorance about one of the key arguments for gun rights.

“Those who say ‘the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots,’ a great line, well, guess what?” Biden lectured his audience in the “Live Free or Die” state. “The fact is, if you’re going to take on the government, you need an F-15 with Hellfire missiles. There is no way an AK-47 is going to take care of you.”

Even though we believe that the Biden candidacy is fated to pop soon, the argument he made is such a prevalent misrepresentation of why gun rights supporters view the Second Amendment as a bulwark against tyranny that it’s worth addressing.

Yes, of course, critics are right that civilian gun owners wouldn’t be able to overthrow completely a government willing to deploy a vast, expansive, and technologically elite military force. But that’s not the point. Our founders believed that every man has the fundamental right to resist tyranny.

Furthermore, one doesn’t need to defeat the government in armed civil war for an armed populace to still serve as a bulwark to tyranny. What matters is that citizens can put up a fight. An armed populace dramatically increases the cost of imposing and maintaining tyranny. Sure, perhaps a tyrannical future president could subdue a resistance, even in a country with more guns than people, such as America, but it would require months of bloody conflict, substantial military losses, and a protracted political nightmare.

Contrast this to a scenario in which an unarmed citizenry is completely at the government’s mercy, able to sweep in and crack down on its people with immediacy and ease. It’s clear that just imposing a higher cost to repression in and of itself is a check on would-be tyrants, even if the people couldn’t, in fact, overthrow the government successfully.

In China, the tyrannical government under Xi Jinping has launched a brutal crackdown on the Uighurs, rounding up people of the Muslim ethnic minority and putting them in reeducation camps. It’s an international outrage and human rights disaster. But it’s also one that would have been less likely to have happened if the 1 million Uighurs had AR-15s at home.

A similar scenario has unfolded in Russia, where Vladimir Putin’s regime has allowed a vicious, anti-gay purge to occur in the Chechnya region. Surely those innocent gay men facing electroshock torture would disagree with Biden’s assessment that a citizenry’s ability to offer armed resistance to tyranny isn’t worth protecting.

For a man who is running on his half-century of experience in politics, it’s amazing that Biden doesn’t understand the Second Amendment or its supporters.

Yes, 3D Printed Guns Render Gun Control Moot. That’s The Point

However, some are upset by this revelation. They argue that 3D printing completely renders gun control efforts null and void, as if that’s an argument for, well…anything.

3D-printed guns are dangerous because they circumvent existing policies. They are considered “ghost guns,” a term used to describe firearms that do not have an identifying serial number that can be used to match gun purchases to their owner. By law, legal firearms sold in a gun store or by a manufacturer must have a serial number. Printed guns and their parts do not.

All firearms must contain enough metal in the weapon to be able to set off a metal detector. With a 3D-printed firearm, the person printing the weapon must add that metal themselves and there is no way to ensure they have done so. In a licensed gun store, background checks are required to see if the user should be allowed to own a rifle. But with 3D-printed guns, no background checks are done and anyone can buy the blueprints and use a 3D printer to create the weapon.

Yes, that’s kind of been my point. That’s why Cody Wilson worked so hard to develop a viable 3D printed firearm. The very point was to make gun control less than useless. After all, gun control has only ever applied to the law-abiding citizen anyway.

Health experts warn Congress coronavirus may hit US hard in next two to four weeks.

Leading health officials expect to see a significant uptick in coronavirus cases nationwide.

“We’re going to start to see those outbreaks emerge sometime in the next two to four weeks,” said Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner. “We should be leaning in very aggressively to try to broaden diagnostic screening right now, particularly in communities where there is a lot of immigration where these efforts could emerge to identify them early enough that they’ll be small enough that we can intervene to prevent — prevent more epidemic spread in this country.”

Gottlieb, one of five panelists who briefed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday, said although U.S. customs officials blocked some travel and are screening travelers returning from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated, they could not have stopped every person with coronavirus from getting into the United States.

“I don’t think we should be planning for the onesie-twosie cases that we’ve been seeing thus far in the United States,” said Asha George, executive director of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense. “We have to plan for the possibility that we have thousands of cases, you know.”

Hundreds of thousands of coronavirus cases could break out globally, George said, adding federal, state, and local governments should start planning for an outbreak on a massive scale.

“We’re going to see a lot more cases here, and I really worry about the helpers in the parasite patients,” said Luciana Borio, former director of medical and biodefense preparedness at the National Security Council.

Julie Gerberding, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the U.S. would begin to see more cases among people who did not visit China but were exposed to the virus by people who returned from China either before the travel ban or who were not flagged in health screenings upon their return.

“We shouldn’t assume that the 13 cases that we’ve identified — I think 10 of them were travel-related people who came directly from China and imported the virus into the United States — that we just managed to find all 10 people coming in from China who happened to have coronavirus,” said Gottlieb, who added many passengers returning from China or elsewhere could have been asymptomatic or only showed mild symptoms. “Some of the modeling out of the U.K. suggests that we’re capturing about 25% of cases at best. So for every case we identify, there’s three or four that we didn’t identify.”

He added, “One or a few breakouts may happen on a local level, but until there is a trend or deadly case, local governments may not realize or be able to sound off and at least some of those cases, probably are propagating at a local level, but not enough cases have accumulated yet to be identifiable.”

Gottlieb said he believes China first saw the epidemic spread internally in November and doubts the Chinese government’s data are sound. The coronavirus was confirmed to be in the U.S. in January, unbeknownst to the public. Chinese officials announced the first known human-to-human transmission on Jan. 20.

The panel members said they are watching the world to see how the virus progresses because it will show how cases exported from China become a global pandemic. Singapore has reported 50 cases, which Gottlieb said is “concerning” because it is the middle of summer there.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Situation Report – 23

SITUATION IN NUMBERS total and new cases in last 24 hours
Globally
45 171 confirmed (2068 new)
China
44 730 confirmed (2022 new)
8204 severe (871 new)
1114 deaths (97 new)
Outside of China
441 confirmed (46 new)
24 countries
1 death

People Under Investigation (PUI) in the United States*†
People under Investigation (PUI) in the United States
Positive 13
Negative 347
Pending§ 60
Total 420

*Cumulative since January 21, 2020.

Cane sword-wielding Dunnellon man accused of threatening Trump supporters

Around my neck of the woods, this man would be lucky to be alive.

James L. Whitehurst II faces 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

DUNNELLON — A 49-year-old Dunnellon (Florida) man accused of threatening multiple people favorable to President Donald Trump, was arrested and charged with 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of disorderly conduct by police.

On Thursday, Officer Megan Feliciani of the Dunnellon Police Department was called to the 11300 block of North Williams Street to investigate an armed man at a gathering where people were holding pro-Trump signs.

The victims told an officer that a man, later identified as James L. Whitehurst II, had approached them during their peaceful assembly with what was described as a cane sword in hand. The officer was told Whitehurst pointed the sword in their faces and made threatening statements.

The sword was allegedly 6 inches from their faces, according to the victims, and they felt afraid.

Feliciani spoke with Whitehurst, who told her he removed the sword from its holder and pointed it at the Trump supporters. He told the officer he meant no harm.

Whitehurst was arrested after and taken to the Marion County Jail.

 

Evacuee Confirmed to Have Coronavirus in California as US Total Reaches 13

One of the evacuees who was transported from China to California last week due to coronavirus fears was diagnosed on Monday with the new virus, becoming the 13th known case on U.S. soil, reports said.

The patient left Wuhan — the epicenter of the virus — on a State Department chartered flight carrying 167 evacuees that arrived at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego on Wednesday.

The patient is under observation and isolation at UC San Diego Medical Center and is “doing well,” according to the hospital.

“CDC is conducting a thorough contact investigation of the person who has tested positive to determine contacts and to assess if those contacts had high-risk exposures,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement, according to Reuters.

The evacuee was among four people — three adults and one child — who were taken to UC San Diego Medical Center with a fever or a cough, according to the CDC.

The CDC said all four patients had tested negative for the coronavirus on Sunday and were returned to MCAS Miramar, according to Reuters. However, on Monday, the CDC said that additional testing showed the patient had tested positive while in the 14-day mandatory quarantine.

Another patient was also transported to the hospital on Monday for evaluation and will remain there for further tests. It’s not clear if they were part of the four people originally tested.

“Both patients are doing well and have minimal symptoms,” the medical center said per the news organization.

Home intruder shot, killed in rural Grant County

GAS CITY, Ind. (WISH) — A man at a home in a rural part of Grant County told police he shot and killed an intruder Monday afternoon, the sheriff’s department says.

The Grant County Sheriff’s Department Dispatch Center received a 911 call about 1 p.m. from a man who said he’d just shot and killed an intruder at the home near the intersection of East County Road 600 South and South County Road 500 East. That’s about a mile southwest of the I-69 interchange for U.S. 35 and State Road 22.

Sheriff’s deputies arrived and found two people outside the home, said a news release from sheriff’s Capt. Ed Beaty. The two people were taken into protective custody. One of the two people, Matthew Whitt, 39 of Wabash, was arrested on a parole violation.

The deputies also found a dead man lying on the floor near the back door of the home. He was suffering from what appeared to be gunshot wounds to the head and torso.

The man was identified Tuesday as Steven Nickell, 33, of Muncie.

Beaty said Tuesday in a news release, “The nature and cause of the shooting is still under investigation and any information that did not come from an official release from the Grant County Sheriff’s Department should only be regarded as speculation at this point. Several interviews have been conducted and continue to be done, as well as the processing and collecting of evidence from the scene and other locations as it relates to this case.”

The Grant County Prosecutor’s Office was called to the scene. Indiana State Police also responded to the initial call.

Willow Man Jailed after being Shot in Shoulder Monday Morning

Unlike all the times Marshal Dillon got shot in the shoulder, getting hit there is one of the worst places since there’s so much bone, muscle and connective tissue necessary to enable the shoulder joint perform the amazing things it’s capable of.

Alaska State Troopers report that a Willow man was arrested on Misconduct Involving Weapons and Assault charges after he was treated for a gunshot wound just after midnight on Monday morning.

Troopers reported a call from Willow homeowner Sherry MacDougal that a suspect, she identified as 51-year-old Shawn Burke, had shown up at her residence with a rifle and shot at her home.

AST was told that the homeowner had shot Burke in the shoulder after the incident. He left the scene after being wounded.

The investigation would find Burke at a neighbor’s property and he was taken into custody and treated for his injury. After declining further treatment, Burke was transported to the Mat-Su Pretrial Facility in Palmer on charges of Misconduct Involving  Weapons and Assault III x3.

He was held without bail.

195 Americans released from coronavirus quarantine at air base

The 195 Americans who were evacuated from Wuhan, China, last month have now been released from the first mandatory quarantine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ordered in more than 50 years.

The group, which faced numerous health screenings both in China and during their trip and quarantine, has now been “medically cleared,” health officials said Tuesday, clearing the way for them to leave the March Air Reserve Base in Southern California.

“Our guests at March Air Reserve Base are happy to see an official end today to their 14-day quarantine and are looking forward to returning home. We wish them well!” Riverside University Health System – Public Health said via Facebook Tuesday, posting an image of the evacuees gathered together outside, tossing blue face masks into the air.

While the evacuees are glad to see the end of an ordeal that began at the epicenter of a global health emergency, there are also some mixed feelings about disbanding a group that has grown close.

“They’re very excited to go home, and at the same time, we’re kind of sad saying our goodbyes to each other,” evacuee Matthew McCoy, who worked in Wuhan as a theme park designer, told NPR’s Patti Neighmond.

“We’ve all created a family environment here,” McCoy said, adding that many of the evacuees plan to stay in touch through special groups on Skype and other platforms.

McCoy says the group coped with the quarantine as a team, trying to maintain a positive attitude.

“We chose to work together,” he said. “We chose to create classes and things like that. That made it more of a positive outlook. And we all helped each other. It’s better than sitting around sulking and not doing anything.”

There are no confirmed cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus among the 195 evacuees, the health system said in a statement disseminated by the Department of Health and Human Services.

“They have completed their final health check this morning, which included their symptom check and their temperature check,” said Rear Admiral Dr. Nancy Knight of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Saying that it’s now safe for the group to rejoin their communities and families, Knight added, “This is a huge celebration for all of us here at March Air Reserve Base.”

Knight also stressed that the completion of the quarantine means that the evacuees have been determined to be entirely free of the virus that has now killed more than 1,000 people in China.

 

‘Diamond Princess’ Reports 66 New Coronavirus Infections, Bringing the Total to 136

The Diamond Princess, the cruise ship that has been quarantined off the coast of Yokohama, Japan for roughly a week now, saw the total number of confirmed nCoV infections climb to 136 on Monday, cementing its position as the host of the largest outbreak outside China.

Japanese health authorities have been extremely careful in dealing with the ship, which has become a massive albatross for the government of PM Shinzo Abe. While Hong Kong let a cruise ship sail yesterday following a 4-day quarantine (the ship was reportedly found to be free of viral infections), the ‘Diamond Princess’, and the 2,500+ remaining passengers and crew, will be stuck in place until mid-February. The NYT chronicled the growing sense of unease and paranoia aboard the ship, which we cited yesterday.

The ship’s captain Stefano Ravera announced Monday that 66 new cases of the virus had been confirmed, bringing the infection total of passengers and crew to 136, roughly equal to all the other cases in Asia outside China. Media reports have claimed more than 2,500 passengers and crew remain aboard the ship.

Joy in the Wilderness

Of course, we know what transpired 4 years ago.

Twyla;
Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Requiescat in pace.
Amen.

In 2010 Jim and Twyla Taylor sold their small farm in Missouri, resigned the pastorate of the church where they had been for twenty years, sold most of their possessions, said goodbye to their family and friends, and moved halfway around the world to the nation of Mozambique, Africa.

There, in one of the poorer nations of the world, they began a new life.What would cause someone to leave everything they are familiar with and move from a comfortable life to the challenges of living in the Developing World?

As you follow their journey you will get a glimpse into the experience of making such a decision. You will also see what it is like to build a life in the Third World. And you will share in some of the many adventures they had. From visiting villages that white people had never visited to traveling bush trails and meeting some of the most beautiful people in the world, you will get a behind-the-scenes look at missionary life as it is lived day to day.

It is Jim’s prayer that some of you who have been feeling the urge to “go” will see that stepping out and actually doing it can be the adventure of a lifetime!