GUNS ( Part 6: Defund the Police and Defend Yourself )

Mixed Messages in the Era of Gun Control

But let’s take this one step further.  We have established that the cops have a 6.5% hit rate in armed encounters.  If we are seeking to defund the police and effectively reduce their presence, one can logically assume that crime will increase. Nature abhors a vacuum.  Without law enforcement, the citizenry will have to rely on themselves for security.  And nobody drives that point home better than a democrat administration in the White House, whose anti-police and anti-gun rhetoric has driven gun sales through the roof.  Ironically fueled by government stimulus checks, the FBI broke its record for background checks for gun sales, and concealed carry permits in March. According to Forbes, “background checks for gun purchases and other firearms related actions totaled 15.96 million in the first four months of 2021”. And since the start of the pandemic “more than 8.4 million Americans have purchased guns for the first time”.  Gun manufacturer Sturm Ruger reported a “50% spike in quarterly sales and more than doubled its profit.” So Mr. Biden, America is listening and responding appropriately to secure their safety.   So here’s the dilemma: if more Americans are forced to rely on firearms for there own security while the government reduces our police presence, how does that mesh with the government simultaneously seeking to restrict the citizen’s access to a firearm? And here’s where the statistics become very inconvenient.  If law enforcement, trained professionals are scoring only a 6.5% hit rate on assailants, how exactly will the relatively untrained citizen score in a similar situation? The Biden Administration seeks to impose a ban on “assault weapons”, an ill-defined construct that lumps the AR-15 sporting rifle into that category, a rifle that accounted for 61% of all civilian rifle sales in 2016 according to CNN. There are more than 15 million AR-15 rifles in the hands of American citizens today. So how is such a popular firearm that even CNN states was “designed for close, confusing combat”, an apt description for say, a home invasion, deemed unfit for civilian use? Without launching into that argument, we all know why. It has been the weapon of choice in certain high profile mass shootings and serves as the most effective poster child for the narrative of not allowing a “military style weapon designed to kill people “ in the hands of the public.  It’s modular, it’s ugly, it looks evil, it’s black and that’s probably racist. It also serves as the “camel’s nose under the tent”, the observation that in other countries that have instituted all-encompassing gun bans, they started by demonizing one type of firearm, banning it in the name of public safety, only to incrementally expand their definition of what is “allowed” until they were all eliminated.  And the party of science is choosing to ignore the data.  The Clinton era assault weapon ban, misleadingly titled The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, was a 10-year prohibition on the manufacture of certain semi-automatic firearms, ill-defined as “assault weapons”, as well as large capacity magazines greater than 10 rounds.  Despite notorious ant-gun Senator Diane Feinstein crowing that the 1994 ban was “effective at reducing crime”, the data is clear that the legislation resulted in no statistical change in criminal activity, or firearm homicides. In actuality, the homicide rate with firearms was less in the three years preceding the ban. Christopher Koper, a professor at George Mason University concluded “the ban did not appear to effect gun violence during the time it was in effect”.  Of course, good liberal that he is, he suggested, “it may have modestly reduced shootings had it been in effect for a longer period”.  May have.  Possibly. Just give it time.  Uh-huh.  But back to the premise at hand:  The government, who we have established is forcing us to fend for ourselves, is intent on eliminating the most popular rifle in America, popular due to it’s ease of use, customizable features, effective caliber, handling, manageable recoil and magazine capacity?  Which gun do the pros use, you know when the SWAT team shows up to clear the building?  I want that one. Why do I want a Kitchen-Aid mixer in my kitchen?  Because that’s the one the Cake Boss uses.  And yet, the government expects the citizen to be restricted in his choice of equipment, restricted in the number of rounds in his magazine and yet still have the skill to stop the threat, even when our professionals, armed with the best equipment, training and unlimited magazine capacity have shown that they only score a hit on their intended target 6.5% of the time.  So we are expected to perform better than the professionals, with less training and less rounds in the magazine.  You have to be kidding.  And the ten round magazine restriction, law already in most blue states, is creeping its way through Congress as we speak.  Going back to Sheriff Ken Campbell: “If armed with a firearm containing 16 rounds (15 round magazine plus one in the chamber)” statistically  “12-13 rounds will may miss the target entirely.  Of the 3-4 rounds that [score hits on] the attacker, none may be effective in immediately stopping the attack. If restricted to a 10-round magazine it’s likely that all 10 rounds may miss the target and the citizen will be “unable to stop the attack”.  Comments by liberal author Stephen King who said in 2013 “If you can’t kill a home invader with ten shots, then you need to go back to your local shooting range”, are totally out of touch with the reality of armed engagement.  But Sheriff Campbell astutely points out, “it’s not about hunting”.  Andy Cuomo infamously bellowed in his grating downstate accent: “No one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer”, while promoting banning magazines greater than 10 rounds for New York State’s preposterous SAFE Act.  Similarly Joe Biden latched on to the ridiculously unrelated hunting theme with this patronizing nonsense: “talk to responsible gun owners-they’ll tell you there’s no possible justification for having hundreds of rounds in a weapon.  What do you think the deer are wearing, Kevlar vests?”  No, Joe I don’t. But it’s unlikely that deer are going to break into my house. Besides, dummy, most high-powered rifle rounds will penetrate Kevlar…… providing you are able to hit it. Of course, the preposterous notion behind this whole magazine restriction nonsense is the assumption that the attacker, specifically those engaged in a mass shooting incident, can be stopped when they pause to reload. More hooey. Not only is it unlikely that the criminal will choose to adhere to your magazine restrictions, but Sheriff Boone showed in a live fire exercise that, even with a relatively unpracticed shooter, the difference between emptying two 15-round pistol magazines into a target and five 6-round magazines was somewhere on the order of four seconds.  With a seasoned shooter, this was reduced to less than two seconds. He placed a runner 25 feet from the shooter and had them speed towards the shooter when they perceived the shooter was engaged in a reload.  In none of the exercises was the runner able to reach the shooter before the reload was complete. You could argue that a potential hero could be closer or could surprise the shooter from cover, but that would require a lot of luck and a huge set of….intestinal fortitude.  Statistically, experts recommend running for the nearest exit, specifically advising, in order of preference, evacuation, barricade yourself, prepare for attack if cornered, distract the attacker, and lastly swarming the suspect with improvised weapons.  Doesn’t that sound appetizing? Unfortunately, there have been few instances where such a disarming has occurred, most notably the Tucson shooting incident where a 61 year-old woman managed to wrestle a magazine away from the shooter.  But in another high profile supermarket shooting, it appeared that two potential heroes lost their lives in an attempt to disarm the attacker.  It may actually be more dependent on assessing the skill of the attacker. And frankly, the government and the media shouldn’t be promoting this nonsense. Wait until he attempts to reload, then rush the attacker.  Seriously? But none of this would apply to a home invasion where we are right back to the statistics game.  If confronted with an attacker or, worse yet, multiple attackers in your home, with no means of egress, with the likelihood of you scoring less than 6.5% hits on your attacker, how many rounds do you want to have in your magazine?  And you have to assume that if the attacker is armed as well, it is unlikely that he is concerned about adhering to your state’s magazine capacity restriction laws.  Sheriff Campbell summed up his study best; “Proposed magazine bans are absurd.”   

GUNS ( Part 5: Interacting with the Police )

Interacting with the Police

So let’s review:  We’ve established that stressful, violent encounters with a firearm result in a significant degradation in motor skills to the point that the police record a hit rate on the assailants of something on the order of 6.5%.  Abysmal.  And the media, essentially the propaganda arm of the democrat party, supports defunding the police as a solution to the narrative that the police are disproportionately shooting people of color, despite the fact that people of color are disproportionately engaged in a greater percentage of crime, specifically violent crime. So let me get this straight: we have concluded that the police need more training, so the solution is to defund them, so they are stretched thinner and unable to fund more training?  Or perhaps we should take a more pragmatic approach and seek to lessen the number of violent encounters people of color have with police officers.  But that would require a fundamental change in the behavior of the citizen.  Here’s something novel:  how about when stopped by a police officer, you do what you’re told?  Radical thinking, I know. Regardless of the perception that people of color are being disproportionately accosted by law enforcement, it seems to me, and this is based on a review of body cam footage from the recent shootings, that complying with the officer, even if that compliance means getting cuffed and hauled down to the local precinct, results in a much higher rate of survival.  Duh.  And come on, all of us have had negative encounters with law enforcement, most often in the dreaded “speed trap” when the 75 MPH speed limit is suddenly reduced to 45MPH, seemingly for no other apparent reason than to entrap you and line the local coffers. And for some reason, the vast majority of State Police officers all treat you like you’re public enemy number one, their wife left them, their dog died, their shorts are too tight and it’s all your fault.  And besides, they have to wear those funny hats. And despite being a model citizen and being treated like dirt by officer cranky-pants, why haven’t I been shot? Because I complied and followed the officers instructions.  Shocking, I know.  I had a friend who was a senior surgeon, faculty at a large southern teaching hospital.  He was stereotypically, in what would be considered a racist description these days, Mexican in appearance, as if he was the villain in a Clint Eastwood western.  Thick, black, slicked-back hair, an enormous moustache that obscured his upper lip, dark complected and with a heavy accent to go with it.  Amusing, self-effacing, smart and affable. He was pulled over for a speeding violation on his way to work.  When asked for his license and registration, it suddenly occurred to him that the documents were in his glove box, inconveniently nestled next to his .357 revolver.  Uh-oh.  So he informed the officer with a chuckle, of the location of his papers and the legally owned firearm, and asked how he wished to proceed.  After backup arrived on the scene, most of the hospital staff and a few of his residents witnessed him cuffed and sprawled on the hood of his car while officers searched his vehicle. He was late to work, arriving unscathed, with a speeding ticket as a souvenir of his encounter.  Why wasn’t he shot or beaten?  Because he complied with the officer’s instructions.  He suffered some embarrassment, was probably profiled to a degree, but he lived to tell the tale. Life is full of choices.  You have the option of being a good citizen, of following the law.  The other option will result in an increased possibility of encounters with law enforcement.  So which should we, as a society chose? Law and order? Or the dismantling of our security to favor those that choose to ignore the rule of law? Not to go all Vulcan on you but “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

GUNS ( Part 4: Marksmanship: The Reality of Shooting Under Stress )

Marksmanship: The Reality of Shooting Under Stress

And returning to the subject of marksmanship:  As we have already examined, stress and fine motor skills do not generally go hand in hand.  Using the recommendations of the Joys, Ms. Reid and Ms. Behar, pinpoint accuracy like “shoot them in the leg” or “in the behind” would be an exceptional feat in the midst of a stressful encounter.  Like trying to thread a needle after sprinting up a flight of stairs, successfully achieving pinpoint shot placement on what is likely a moving target would not only be impossible, but would probably fail to stop the attack in progress.  Center of mass training is in place to both stop the attack and increase the probability of successful hits on the target.  Recall a few short decades ago, cops were carrying 6-shot .38 caliber revolvers, eventually graduating to the higher capacity 9mm semi-automatic pistols, both relatively anemic rounds as compared to the .40, 10mm and .45 pistols found in the holsters of law-enforcement officers today.   And modern ballistics have improved as well, making the 9mm of today a more powerful round than it was back then.  But there were numerous documented encounters with assailants of sufficient body mass, fueled by adrenalin and drugs, that failed to stop the attacker even after they had sustained multiple hits.  This lead to a reassessment of ballistics and training, resulting in higher-powered cartridges, larger magazine capacity and the tendency, based on real life encounters, to continue firing until the assailant is subdued or your magazine is empty.  And how accurate are our police officers in these encounters?  Unfortunately, the answer is: not very.  Boone County, Indiana Sheriff Ken Campbell produced a series of videos detailing the statistics of armed encounters as well as examining the media-fueled notion that banning high capacity magazines is in the interest of public safety. He makes the salient point that “civilians defending themselves from a violent attack are under conditions similar to those encountered by police officers”.  “Most US Law Enforcement agencies”, he states, “shifted to firearms with larger capacity magazines for two reasons: 1. Because 75-80% of round fired by police officers in lethal force encounters miss the intended target, and 2. Many rounds that do hit the target fail to achieve immediate incapacitation (i.e. the threat continues)”.  Well, that’s not very good.  He continues with more sobering statistics: “NYPD officers fired 368 rounds in 2010 to stop 24 attackers  (a 6.5% hit rate)”, despite the fact that “in 27% of the encounters, only one round was fired.” This leads one to suspect that in some instances, the situation deteriorates significantly into chaos.  In a foreshadowing of the Breonna Taylor shooting, he outlines one incident inside an apartment in which “four officers fired a total of 21 rounds, and struck the subject three times (14% hit/86% miss).  In yet another encounter, four officers fired 46 rounds, hitting one subject four times and the other 21 times (and three bystanders and one police officer one time each).  Some years ago in Providence, RI, State Police officers had the misfortune of pulling over a vehicle driven by an armed parole violator, who leapt out of his vehicle and opened fire with a six-shot revolver.  The two police officers responded in kind with their high capacity semi-automatic pistols.  When the smoke cleared, the assailant had scored three hits on the officers, a 50% hit rate, whereas the police officers managed to spray their 30 rounds all over the neighborhood scoring no hits at all.  Embarrassing to say the least.  But it details the fact that these trained professionals suffer a significant degradation in skills when faced with high stress encounters, encounters that are life threatening. And why wouldn’t they?  They are understaffed, underfunded, and not adequately trained for these encounters, encounters in which they may find themselves, surprised, outgunned, on unfamiliar ground, and now restricted by the court of public opinion. My State Police source, for example, was recently tasked with a routine serving of a warrant that degenerated into a home search that resulted in the perpetrator emerging from his hiding place to attack the officer with a kitchen knife.  Split second.  What do you do? After a few moments of flailing more akin to the 3 Stooges than CSI, his partner shot the perpetrator.  Center of mass.  One shot. Stopped the attack.  The perp, a person of color, survived the encounter, which is likely why you haven’t heard about it, nor have you seen a city burn.  All in a day’s work.  So progressive left pundits, listen up.  Go head, defund the police, thin their ranks, lessen their training and expect perfection.  Perfect decision making, perfect interactions, perfect marksmanship. Or better yet, form your citizen police forces, your neighborhood militias.  And these lesser-trained weekend warriors are going to be armed with what exactly? See how that works out for you. Who you gonna call?

 

GUNS ( Part 3: Shooting Incidents and Training )

Shooting Incidents and Training 

For those of you that have seen the body-cam footage, it is remarkable how quickly these incidents escalate from routine to life threatening.  Rarely is there opportunity for de-escalation when what starts as a professional interface with the public degrades into brawling and grappling for a firearm.  Often the officer has been struck, or his weapon has been compromised.  He is undoubtedly angry.  His authority has been tested; his well-being is in danger.  He may be injured.  He is caught between the desire to be safe and the requirement to do his duty. The adrenalin is flowing and the fight-or-flight response is in high gear.  You’re essentially on autopilot where we become victims of our own physiology: blood is shunted from places where you don’t need it to places where you do.  Your blood is diverted from your GI tract to your skeletal muscles and you often off-load waste you don’t need, thus the effect of peeing yourself…. or worse. All the better to take flight.  Your heart rate increases as blood is pumped to your muscles and your airway dilates to allow you to take in more air, oxygen to fuel your engine. You sweat to cool your muscles, your hands shake from the epinephrine surge.  Your pupils constrict, you get tunnel vision, better to see distance and focus on your escape.  Your brain’s higher function isn’t required, only the instinctual desire to escape or fight.  At this point the situation has deteriorated to something primal.  

Training can mitigate much of this fight or flight response and, of course, the best response is not to get into this level of confrontation to start with.  But that would involve either a level of social working skills that officers may not possess, skills that may expose them to a greater potential for injury should the efforts fail, or the option of not showing up to the confrontation at all. And when the interaction deteriorates into combat, how much training do officers actually receive in high stress confrontations?  In speaking with a State Police officer, the answer is: not much.  Officers are required to qualify with their sidearm at the range to meet minimal standards of marksmanship.  But slow-fire marksmanship is altogether a different skill than shooting under stress. In recent years practical shooting has become very popular in the civilian sector with competitions and courses available to the gun owner. IPDA (International Defensive Pistol Association) in particular, offers shooters the opportunity to run courses that present the participant with scenarios that require quick decision making, marksmanship and using cover while being timed, perhaps the best simulation of real life shooting situations this side of actually taking fire.  The Police apparently have no such program in place.  They are often required to practice on their own, purchasing their own ammunition.  And as many of you might know, finding ammunition these days is a feat in itself.  Ammunition stores have been depleted by a run on ammunition as the Biden Administration introduces more anti-gun legislation and news of rioting and lawlessness dominates the airwaves.  Common handgun ammunition is virtually impossible to find and, when it is available, can command prices as high as a dollar a round, up from Trump era prices in the range of 16 to 20 cents a round for 9mm, for example.  The situation has become so bleak that many defensive pistol courses, offered by firearms training schools like the SIG Academy or Gunsite for instance, have had to cancel their classes and students have had to drop out when they are unable to find or afford the 2500 rounds required for enrollment.  Even professional shooters who compete internationally in IPSC (International Practical Shooting Confederation), a more technical precision shooting competition, have had to limit their practice time and reduce their appearances at competitions when they routinely digest over 20000 rounds a year.  Practice has become either unavailable or unaffordable and alternatives like dry-fire drills, air-soft guns or even using the more affordable and available .22 caliber round does not simulate the recoil, the noise, or the skill of reacquiring your target after each shot that comes with using the real thing.  

GUNS ( Part 2: Armchair Policing )

The Media and Politicians Weigh In

Alas, that  (Part I) wasn’t my topic for the day.  Like the media mob, I’m on to the next crisis in our streets, although at the time of my writing, they have disturbingly moved on to yet another. And by now, you must realize that there will be another after that.  This time, police in Columbus, Ohio were called to break up an attack by a knife-wielding assailant in which all the participants, except the cop, were “people of color”.  I’m getting tired of that. They were actually Black which is technically defined as the absence of color, but the party of science is never bothered by these inconvenient truths. Furthermore this incessant focus on color makes is turning me into a person of color, as my blood pressure rises and I become beet red.  But I digress, police arrived to a suburban melee, a chaotic scene in a seemingly cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood where less than 20 seconds after the cops appeared on the scene, a 16 year-old female, appearing completely oblivious to the presence of law enforcement, pushed another young woman up against a car and wound up to plunge a knife into her chest.  The video has gone viral; you’ve all seen it.  So what do you do if you’re the cop? Any verbal warning will result in a stabbing.  Attempt to physically intervene? Nope, too far away.  How about the Hollywood option:  shoot the knife out of her hand or perhaps shoot her in the leg?  Sure, Dirty Harry, that will work.  Split-second decision. What do you do? Well, we all know what did happen: the cop shot the attacker, killed her, and saved the victim.  Cue the racial outrage.  

Within hours, the Columbus Mayor declared the attacker “a child of this community”.  Ohio State students gathered to protest, chanting “Black Lives Matter” and the preposterous “Hands up, don’t Shoot” slogan, a reference to the Ferguson shooting in a media narrative that never happened. They chanted Ma’Khia Bryants name.  You know, honoring the attacker who, had the cop not intervened, would have been a murderer.  But the most preposterous reaction of all was that of the media pundits who, despite having no training in law enforcement and no working knowledge of firearms, all chose to armchair quarterback the incident.  Joy Reid, the MSNBC talk show host who the Hollywood Reporter describes as being “at the forefront of cable-news conversations”, billed by her network as sharing the news “with experience on race, justice, and culture”, weighed in on the incident with her usual level of ignorance and racial animosity. “I remember fights in high school where a kid brought a penknife or something to school and teachers were able to defuse that and they didn’t have guns”.  Really?  Recall, Ms. Reid was raised in Brooklyn and Denver, was Harvard educated with a degree in film studies whose mother was a college professor, her father an engineer.  Exactly how many knife fights did she witness in her rough and tumble upbringing?  She also claimed “it’s very difficult to trust cops” this coming from someone who claimed hackers traveled back in time to plant homophobic slurs on her blog before she became a media darling.  Sure, you’re credible.   Always available for elevating the definition of obnoxious, The View co-host and advertisement for all things the rest of America hates about New Yorkers, Joy Behar wasted no time in displaying her ignorance.  She claimed the police had the option to “de-escalate” the attack before resorting to using “deadly force”.  Again, using her years of experience in policing and firearms training, she suggested the following: “Shoot the gun in the air, warning, tase a person, shoot them in the leg, shoot them in the behind.”  Hilarious.  And this coming after she watched the bodycam video.   HBO’s Bill Maher sparred with theGrio’s  April Ryan over the Chauvin verdict when the conversation turned to the Columbus shooting.  Maher, certainly no friend of the conservative right, posed the obvious question: “This was a Black girl who was about to stab another Black girl.  Black Lives Matter….which one? Ryan retorted: “He could have saved her.  He could’ve shot her in the leg.  He could have de-escalated in a different way. “  After his brief lucid interlude into the obvious, Maher returned to his leftist perch and criticized the police as “terrible marksmen”, suggesting that they spend more time at the range before they use their guns again.  All this based undoubtedly on their years of experience in the field.  And at the pantheon of absurdity, Defund the Police Activist Bree Newsome tweeted “Teenagers have been having fights including fights with knives for eons.  We do not need police to address these situations by showing up to the scene and using a weapon against one of the teenagers.  Ya’ll need help.”  Come on, just let them fight.  With knives. What’s the worst that could happen? Valerie Jarrett, she of the Obama administration, chimed in by stating “Bryant was killed because a police officer immediately decided to shoot her multiple times in order to break up a knife fight”.  Just a knife fight.  Okay, Val. But perhaps all of this insanity was set in motion by President Biden, widely known for his tough-guy up-bringing on the mean streets of Scranton, who immediately proclaimed the shooting as being racially motivated before he even saw the video. Recall, he offered his expertise after the Ferguson shooting: “Instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there’s an unarmed person coming at ‘em with a knife or something, shoot ‘em in the leg instead of the heart” Genius, why didn’t I think of that?   Of course, Biden is well known for his sage advice on self-defense with a firearm.  When arguing against the necessity of owning an AR-15 rifle he once opined “if you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.” Seriously? While riffing on a similar theme he claims to have told his wife “Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, walk out and put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house”.  I’m sure petite Jill Biden is thoroughly competent in managing a 12-gauge shotgun and fortunately, being a doctor, she would be more than qualified to treat the shoulder bruise she would suffer afterwards.  Oh right, wrong doctor.  Inconveniently, Wilmington, Delaware police responded to Biden’s suggestions by issuing the clarification that residents are not allowed to wantonly shoot trespassers nor is it legal to discharge firearms unless you are in fear for your life.  But as we recently became aware, the Biden family may be blissfully unaware of the law as it relates to firearms.  Hunter Biden apparently lied on his application to purchase a handgun on a question regarding drug use, a girlfriend disposed of the firearm in a dumpster, and then he was unable to find it when he returned to retrieve it.  Naturally, this minor felony infraction came to the attention of the Secret Service who unlawfully attempted to confiscate the Federal Firearms License holder’s records, only to be rebuffed.  Curiously, the BATFE arrived on the scene that same day and were able to “secure” the records of the transaction.  Oh, those Biden family hijinks.  

So thus far, we have established that the media is far more interested in advancing a racially charged agenda than they are in facts, and they are certainly not your go-to source for firearms training. It is strangely hypocritical that they enthusiastically support defunding the police, yet they are also interested in more training; specifically marksmanship as it relates to the ability to target the legs and buttocks of assailants. But perhaps the party of science should spend a little more time reviewing the data on police shootings, the ability to function under stress, and why training has evolved the way it has.  

GUNS ( Part 1: The Chauvin Trial )

 

The Chauvin Trial: Justice in the Era of Racial Equity and Political Partisanship 

The Chauvin verdict is in and the mob has been appeased.  Wait no, they have just moved on to the next outrage.  Remember, the goal is to convince you that America is systemically racist.  The police are racist.  Voting laws are racist.  The filibuster is racist. Not admitting DC and Puerto Rico into the union is racist.  Healthcare is racist.  The border is racist.  Hell, according to AOC and her band of merry progressives, even climate change is racist.  You’ll have to explain that last one to me. Apparently the left has weaponized racism and is using it to bludgeon conservatives into retreating on every progressive talking point, making a sensible discussion of the issues impossible.  Especially when one side has essentially resorted to name-calling.  And don’t get me wrong, Derek Chauvin is a persona non grata on the right as well.  This cretin opened the door to the narrative that we have to “fundamentally change racist America” and “defund the police” by his callous disregard for the well-being of his fellow man in obvious distress, regardless of Mr. Floyd’s criminal record, drug abuse, and the infamous gun held to the pregnant woman’s belly during a home invasion. No angel was he.  But he didn’t deserve to die in the street and be deprived of due process.  Yet he also doesn’t deserve to be canonized by the left. And while on the subject of due process: Since when in America do we disregard the effect of outside influences placed on a non-sequestered jury?  CNN essentially doxed them all, providing detailed descriptions of their ages, races and professions.  As Glenn Beck pointed out, in a parody of the Dating Game (Google it, kids): he’s a 30 year-old white, chemist, married with two children.  Gee, I wonder if his co-workers in the lab can put that together when Frank is mysteriously out of work for two weeks? And how about the pig blood smeared on the front door of a witness’ home? And the reprehensible and utterly self-serving Maxine Waters inciting the mob to violence should the verdict not be to their liking?  Incredulously, even Biden weighed in and issued a statement.  And how about that mob that assembled outside the courthouse every day? Does anybody have a job anymore?  But here’s what I really gleaned from the trial and all those expert witnesses:  unless a knife was plunged into the victim’s heart, or perhaps there’s a large bullet hole in the forehead, pathologists frequently have absolutely no idea what actually killed the victim.  The most important determining factor on autopsy would appear to be which side is picking up the tab.  And in all that testimony, not one word in the media about the most common side effect of fentanyl: respiratory depression.  Another complication, although rare, is “stiff chest syndrome”, a poorly understood phenomenon that results in muscle contraction and rigidity of the chest wall with the patient being unable to exchange sufficient air resulting in the inability to breathe.  Might that account for Mr. Floyd claiming he couldn’t breathe when he was standing upright, unmolested, restrained only by handcuffs?  Nothing.  Crickets.  Even the judge provided a qualifier as the jury headed to deliberation, chastising the mob, and that includes you Maxine, for seeking to influence the jury.  Such is the state of justice in America. She may claim to be blind, but she sure has become politically correct.  And now we find that a juror seeking his 15 minutes of fame, a sad commentary on our times, lied on his questionnaire and had appeared at a BLM rally that featured Floyd’s family.  But we’ve seen this before.  Recall the jury foreperson in the Roger Stone case who lied about her background, actually being a failed Democrat candidate, and a vehement anti-Trump activist.  But Obama appointed judge Amy Berman Jackson let that one slide, and Stone was convicted.  With that precedent, this appeal should be of interest.

The Woke Movement

.....Jordan Peterson best describes what is happening to us.....

“Culture is always in a near-dead state, even though it was established by the spirit of great people in the past. But the present is not the past. The wisdom of the past thus deteriorates, or becomes outdated, in proportion to the genuine difference between the conditions of the present and the past. That is a mere consequence of the passage of time, and the change that passage inevitably brings. But it is also the case that culture and its wisdom is additionally vulnerable to corruption—to voluntary, willful blindness and Mephistophelean intrigue. Thus, the inevitable functional decline of the institutions granted to us by our ancestors is sped along by our misbehavior—our missing of the mark—in the present.”

More Thomas Jefferson

My favorite Jefferson quotes are as relevant today as they were in his day. Take heed, you Democrats he speaks to the same planks in your party’s platform that you all so vehemently support:

"When we get piled 

upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, 

we shall become as corrupt as  Europe."

"The democracy will cease to exist 

when you take away from those 

who are willing to work and give to those who would not. "

"It is incumbent on every 

generation to pay its own debts as it goes. 

A principle which if acted on would save 

one-half the wars of the world. "

"I predict future happiness for 

Americans if they can prevent the government 

from wasting the labors of the people under the 

pretense of taking care of them." 

"My reading of history convinces me 

that most bad government results from too much 

government. " 

"The strongest reason for the 

people to retain the right to keep and bear arms 

is, as a last resort, to protect themselves 

against tyranny in government. "

 "To compel a man to subsidize with 

his taxes the propagation of ideas which he 

disbelieves and abhors are sinful and tyrannical. "

It has been asked, how did Jefferson in his time know our fledgling government was  going to be subjected to these kinds of affronts in the future? Because in his superior intellect he was a student of the history of European forms of government that preceded our founder's efforts, their distortive political machinations, their rise, and fall. And, in that keenly aware that those that fail to remember the failures of the past and guard against them, are destined to repeat them. 

             

 

Don't Be Deceived

The end game here: de-incentivize self-sufficiency in subsidizing your subsistence. In other words, kick back you layabouts, and your government will take care of your every need. Of course, the government, in its infinite wisdom, will also tell you what those needs are to be. Again let me borrow from Thomas Jefferson:“... beware the government wasting the labor of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”  And, make no mistake, that's what Socialism is all about, robbing the labor of the people for the good of a single-party state. The governing class, the politicians,being the sole beneficiaries of that theft!