Vetting Wikipedia

Those of you who stop by Legion's Fate every now and then know that I have taken personal issue with the claims made by the mainstream media regarding the flow of weapons from the US into Mexico.

Now I'm sure that the cartels in Mexico are acquiring semi-auto rifles from the US in some amount, but the claims of every media outlet, as well as the ATF (who are driving the media's claims) border on the absurd. The story goes that these cartels are sneaking across the border into the US and paying soccer moms $100 to straw purchase full auto AK-47s, RPGs, M60s, .50 caliber M2 Heavy Machine Guns and smuggle them into Mexico. Those of us who are knowledgeable in the US firearms market and US firearms law know that this is patently untrue.
My investigations have led me to believe that this whole fiasco is the result of one tall tale telling ATF Special Agent who has led a retarded media to the cool waters of ignorance to drink.

My argument is that the cartels may be buying semi auto AK and AR copies from the US to some extent, but that the bulk of the weapons are coming from South American countries who have as standard issue all of the weapons that the ATF and Mexican government says the cartels are using, or the Mexican government itself. I'm sorry, but these weapons are just not available in sufficient quantity in the US to outfit an army of 100, much less the army of 100,000 that the cartels are known to have. They are, however, readily available from foreign countries for prices a fraction of the cost lower than that here in the states, and many of these failed socialist foreign countries wouldn't hesitate for a second to sell a truckload of grenades to some druglord.

But CTone, what the hell does any of this have to do with Wikipedia? I'm glad you asked.

I'm an advocate of Wikipedia. While you can't take anything said there as the absolute truth unless you check a secondary source, it does provide a handy base of information to start a search. Since anyone can change any article, there are sometimes crazy things posted (like what happened with the Chuck Norris page), but it does give those who are knowledgeable a means to make the information correct.

So there I was, this past Monday, reading through one of the many fraudulent stories about soccer moms buying RPGs at gunshows when I happened upon the Wikipedia entry for the Mexican Drug War. Seeing that the article lacked a great deal of fact, I created an account and proceeded to edit the page, adding a few legitimate references to round things off. Two days later the information I had added was removed by what I can only determine as a moderator of some sort named BatteryIncluded, who you may notice is knowledgeable in Viking Biological Experiments, Mars Science Laboratory, and Paragliding, but not Small Arms. It is also apparent that he (or she) is not knowledgeable in economics either, and neither am I for that matter, but I digress. As I am just learning the voodoo that is Wikipedia editing and don't want to step on any toes, I find my way into the discussion tab under the entry and proceeded to make my case.

I was informed that my argument on the price and availability of select fire AK-47s and RPGs and such was "interesting," but that I had not "[brought] forth any references," (which I quickly provided) and then I was provided dissent to my argument with exactly one link to a news report written in Spanish. I translated the linked page to English and showed that it reaffirmed my point, and I provided more information with references.

Boy, open forums for the exchange of ideas sure are great, huh!?!?

Not so much.

I was rewarded for all of my work with "The published reports by the FBI, ATF and DEA disgree with your opinion."

That's it. No linkage, no reference, not even a single solitary quote from a discredited ATF agent.
Now how is a website like Wikipedia supposed to keep any hope of correctness if the other person doesn't even bother to read the information provided? How do I know that my information wasn't read? Because when I noted that US regulations like the NFA, GCA, and FOPA kept prices of select fire AK-47s high, and also made them rare, BatteryIncluded responded to my point with:

"PS: due to its durability, low production cost and ease of use, the AK-47 remains the most widely used assault rifle in the world - so much so that more AK-type rifles have been produced than all other assault rifles combined. (Reference: AK-47). So much for your expensive and rare asumption."

The obvious problem in this statement is that US firearms regulations have absolutely nothing to do with production costs of foreign made weapons that were last imported into the US in 1968, but have everything to do with supply. The less supply, the more the demand, and the higher the cost, but BatteryIncluded would know all of this because I had already said it twice; he or she just didn't bother to read it (we wouldn't want something as trivial as fact to interfere with someone's opinion, now would we?)

I have provided a substantial rebuttal of facts, complete with legitimate and respected references, that is totally void of Spanish and not written by some idiot reporter late on a Friday afternoon, but I am asking my readership to take a stroll over there and provide some facts of your own.

This issue is important as it has a political impact on public opinion and US firearms law, and Wikipedia is used worldwide, and it would be a shame to let truthful information get trumped by media hysteria.

If anything, do it for the children!

Update: It seems he had a change of heart. I'm pulling together my sources to come up with something closer to the truth.

Maybe Wikipedia is not so bad after all.

Your definition of "arsenal" may vary

The arsenal in accused gunman Terry Sedlacek's room included two 12-gauge shotguns, a rifle and a box of 550 .22-caliber bullets, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

This ridiculous statement brought to you by the Associated Press!

So three longarms is an arsenal, huh? And I guess this answers all of our questions as to whether the media will make someone out to be a terrorist gun nut for the possession of a box of .22 rimfire.

Why this holds any weight with the story of the gunman who killed a pastor in an Illinois church with a single pistol is anyone's guess. I do note that the gunman's three magazines all held only ten rounds each, showing that the "people shouldn't have high capacity magazines" argument is pretty stupid. Also of note is that Sedlacek's GLOCK pistol jammed, and that he had the audacity to carry out his attack without the proper Firearms Owners Identification Card.

Spree shooter in Alabama

In the news this morning is the story of the gunman who killed nine people yesterday in Samson, Alabama.

The reporter is saying that he had an automatic weapon, which is very unlikely, but if I were to take a guess I would say it was a semi auto type rifle like an SKS or a High Point carbine. One of the victims said that the rifle jammed at one point. Either way, the gunman fired a bunch of rounds out of the window of his car, and eventually chose to end his own pathetic life instead of being gunned down by the police.

There is another report right now of a school shooter in Germany who killed eleven kids in a high school yesterday. Unfortunately, he didn't end his own life, so police are still looking for him.

Why these people can't decide to quietly end their own lives out in the woods somewhere is the question of the day.

Update: CNN is claiming that eleven are dead in the Alabama shooting, including the gunman, and that he used a "semiautomatic weapon," but then they say "He fired a 30-round burst with what appeared to be an M16 rifle, grazing Police Chief Frankie Lindsey with a bullet." A 30 round burst would be from an automatic rifle, not a semiautomatic.

Update: ABC news reports that the gunman shot the Geneva Police Chief, but that the Chief's vest stopped the bullet. The reason I point that out is that either the Chief was wearing the ceramic rifle plates that are standard issue for the US military, or the round hit something first which caused the bullet to fragment. The .223 Remington cartridge will easily puncture a standard kevlar police vest as they are only designed to stop standard handgun cartridges, but that does not mean that the gunman was using "armor piercing bullets."

Update: CNN is reporting that the gunman in Germany was killed by police. Good.

Update: I might have missed it from the above linked articles, but the Alabama gunman's name was Michael McLendon.

Update: McLendon had a Bushmaster AR and a Russian SKS, but there seems to be some confusion as to their rate of fire:

"He opened up on us with an AK-47," said Geneva Police Chief Frankie Lindsey, who was wounded in the shoulder. "That's what it looked like. It could have been an M-16, but it was an assault rifle, automatic. And he burst about 15 to 18 rounds on our vehicle, all at once."

****

It was later determined that McLendon was armed with two high powered assault rifles, a Soviet-made SKS and a Bushmaster. He also had at least one . 38 caliber pistol, police said. He fired more than 200 rounds, police said at a news conference today.

Actually, they're not all that high powered, not when you compare them to the average hunting rifle that country bumpkins across the nation use. Powerful enough, I guess. Neither the SKS nor the Bushmaster come in full auto, and do not constitute an "assault weapon" by any standard. It's possible that McLendon could have modified them to fire on automatic, but that is unlikely unless he had access to a machine shop and possessed the know how.

More on citizen violence

It seems that Maryland do-gooders have no fear in apprehending bank robbers as long as the robber is unarmed.

Now, what would the outcome have been if the robber had a gun? No such citizen bravery would have been seen. And what would have been the outcome if the robber was armed, but so were the citizens? I would imagine that, considering that this story is coming from NBC4 in Washington, that the author would be castigating the same citizens for being "vigilantes."

Tell me I'm wrong.

Upstanding citizen shoots masked mugger in DC

If by upstanding citizen you mean someone who has been proven to be upstanding by having a badge, because in DC it takes a special kind of citizen to be able to slay a Slay. (love that pun!!)

They should have called it "Take Back the Night"

Because holding peace rallies under any other name is not only going to be ineffective, it's going to result in violence.

Virginia the nanny state

Thanks to that prick Tim Kaine, my state is about to get a dose of bannitfurthechildren. Just what this state needs!

What if the gun didn't jam?

The gunman strode toward the Rev. Fred Winters shortly after 8 a.m. Sunday in the church, exchanged words with him, then fired a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol until it jammed. Churchgoers then wrestled him to the ground as he brandished a knife, Trent said.

So the churchgoers used violence to apprehend the gunman, but only after the pistol jammed. Do you think they would have been able to stop him if the man's gun didn't jam? What would have been the reaction of the churchgoers then?

Two worshippers tackled the gunman as he pulled the knife, and all three were stabbed — the gunman suffered "a pretty serious wound to the neck" while one worshipper had lower back wounds, Trent said.

Churchgoers knocked the gunman between sets of pews, then held him down until police arrived, said member Don Bohley, who was just outside the sanctuary when the shooting began.

Protective violence from good people stopped the predatory violence. I wonder what kind of small protective device would have allowed any one of those churchgoers to stop the attack immediately?

Armed Israeli cabbie stopps terrorist

Hot Air covers this report of a bulldozer attack by a Palestinian terrorist that was stopped by shots fired from a cab driver, with the fatal shots coming from a police officer.

Update on the California courtroom stabbing

From my post yesterday, the guy who stabbed a judge in a courtroom had a six inch knife that he made while in prison, and it looks like he smuggled it in inside of a knee brace.

There's a ton of stupidity going on here as there's questions of "how he got the knife," as well as a boatload of blame going everywhere but where it really should go: on those responsible for searching his murderous ass before he got to the courtroom. One spokesman from the Sheriff's Dept. actually blames the law for the incident.

First, it's pretty obvious from the pictures that he didn't "get" the knife; he made it with his own hands. I guess someone else could have made it for him, but he certainly didn't have it smuggled in by some guard who bought it from Gander Mountain.

Second, why the knee brace wasn't properly searched for a weapon is a good question. The guy was on trial for murder, so you would think that the officer(s) searching him would be thorough.

Third, and the point that I made yesterday, is that even in the most controlled environments, with armed police presence just a few feet away, and with an attacker already in restraints, an attacker is still able to cause severe harm or death to someone. It only takes seconds.

The idea of a sterile, 'safe', "Gun Free," "Drug Free" environment is fantasy even under the best conditions, so expecting schools, stores, office buildings, or hospitals - which have no armed cops a few feet away, no controlled searches of those entering, no restraints - don't have a chance in hell of stopping someone from doing harm by putting up signs or making violence illegal. It will not stop an attack.

Do you think this had any impact whatsoever on Paradiso:


Do you think it would stop a crazy gunman at the door of your nearest Wal-Mart?

The Terrorizer

Wow, another story of a middle schooler arrested for bringing a gun to school. It's almost as if the signs aren't working.

We're gaining ground

I happened upon this story about how a revolver was found in an Atlanta middle school - I know, impossible, right - and how a search of a suspected youth's home turned up this:

A subsequent search of Busby's home turned up an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a Mini-14 assault rifle, as well as 200 rounds of ammunition, Baker said in a statement.

So we finally got some traction from the media on getting AR15's off of the stupid "assault thingy" bandwagon, but it looks as though the Ruger Mini-14 is still hung up under the bus.

Mexico is "lying through it's teeth" on US firearms trafficking

Seen at Clayton Cramer's Blog, CNN's Lou Dobbs and Bill Tucker say that Mexico may claim that US weapons are flowing across the border to feed the drug cartels, but they don't provide any serial numbers for the weapons confiscated; meaning that the weapons are probably coming from the corrupt Mexican government or elseware.

That truth would be an embarrassment to Mexico, for sure, and is probably why they failed to mention it.

Note that this is the first time that any news source has brought this to light, thus reaffirming what I've been saying all along.

(Found at Snowflakes in Hell)

A must have weapon

The Magpul FMG9, now with a Glock frame:



(H/T to co-worker Lloyd)

A dangerous problem

I've posted about similar attacks over and over again, and I still say don't let police into your house without a warrant.

In this particular attack, the police imposters forced their way into the home and spent twenty minutes robbing everyone at gunpoint. My thoughts on this are that if police are supposed to have a warrant to come breaking into your home, and if you are the kind of person who has nothing illegal in your home, or have done nothing to cause police to break down your door, then it is reasonable to treat anyone who breaks down your door as a deadly threat, regardless if they are in a uniform or not. Where I see a potential problem for the non-criminal home owner, like myself, is that it's not that uncommon for real cops to come busting into your home by accident or negligence.

The question then would be how would you be treated if you gunned down a state, local, or federal police officer that mistakenly picked your house and came smashing through your door?

The Ryan Frederick case doesn't quite fit the scenario because the Chesapeake PD smashed into the house stated on the warrant, but if the Cory Maye case is any indicator, it doesn't look good. It's definitely not fair for the homeowner to have to make the choice between either protecting his or her family from what could be a predator in a police uniform or going to prison because the law doesn't allow a cop to be killed regardless if they made a mistake.

We need to stop the flow of armored vehicles to Mexico

The REAL Iron Pipeline:

The drug violence in Mexico has gotten so bad that booming numbers of Mexican and American professionals are having their cars fitted with armor plates, bulletproof glass and James Bond-style gadgets such as electrified door handles and push-button smokescreens.

What could possibly go wrong with electrified door handles and smoke screens? It's not like they would be a danger to kids in parking lots or motorists on the highway. I guess if you have the bucks for all this stuff, than to hell with everyone else's safety.

Now, for those who think carrying a gun is for the paranoid:

"I feel we need to be in a cocoon that is impenetrable," said a businessman who runs factories in Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and has gotten two Chevrolet Suburbans armored since October 2007.

Maybe you should try crawling up inside a US Senator's head. I hear they're pretty impenetrable.

Now for your daily dose of obfuscation:

Customers get not only armor plating but tires that will run when flat and bulletproof glass, which bursts into a spider web pattern but won't break, even when shot with an AR-15 assault rifle, a weapon of choice among drug smugglers.

But I thought they were "patrol rifles?" Tomato, tomahto. Whatever, right Michelle Roberts?

Other customers buy a package that will turn a Ford F-150 pickup or SUV into something out of a Batman movie: A button releases a cloud of white smoke for escaping a pursuing car.

Or for putting pesky tailgaters into the guardrail.

If the assailant makes it through that, the driver can release spikes to flatten the pursuer's tires.

If you haven't already killed all of the occupants of the tailgating vehicle by obscuring the road, then some tire spikes will ensure that the vehicle ends up a flaming wreck burning at the base of the nearest tree.

And finally, if the attacker makes it to the car, electrified door handles can give him a non-lethal jolt.

Great for keeping the neighbors kids from stealing your new Chris Isaak CD too!

And here's your daily dose of stupid:

Under a 2004 regulation, U.S. companies need an export license from the Commerce Department to ship a car that has been armored out of the country. The rule is aimed at preventing drug dealers and other criminals from acquiring such vehicles.

What a fantastic concept! We should license everything to keep them out of the hands of criminals! I'm glad my tax money pays for the salaries of such brilliant men and women to make such common sense laws on everyone's behalf!

With laws like this, there's no way a drug dealer can get ahold of steel and a welder to make his own armored ride. Besides, if the Mexican drug cartels can just ride around in armored vehicles with impunity, then the Mexican government would be forced to stop selling them those RPGs and M72 LAWS.

Whew! I feel safer now.

"Disposable silencer"

CHICAGO – Marni Yang practiced at a gun range and bought a book titled "How to Make a Disposable Silencer" weeks before killing the pregnant woman she believed had taken her place in the life of a former Chicago Bears player, a prosecutor alleged Wednesday.

You mean to tell me that she had the nerve to not pay the $200 tax stamp like everyone else?

Why, there ought to be a law or something.

A look inside a Gun Free Zone

Paradiso's mother, Debra, stood up and started yelling, leading the judge to call a recess. As jurors filed out, Paradiso left the stand and approached the judge from behind "with an unknown cutting instrument," Konecny said.

Karen McConnell, a county spokeswoman, said witnesses reported seeing Paradiso lift the judge and begin punching and possibly stabbing her when bailiffs ran to her aid and shots rang out.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but prisoners are supposed to be unarmed in court rooms, right? The Deputies were even warned by Paradiso's brother.

If an animal such as this was armed with a "cutting instrument" in such a controlled environment, then what in the world makes anyone think we can ever disarm someone like him while he is free to roam the streets?

The idea of a "Gun Free Zone," or anything of the sort, it just absurd.

Now, raise your hand if you think Paradiso may have just bought himself another year on his oh-so-tough California sentence?

Gee, ya think?

How Media Sucks Up to White House

This blatantly obvious piece of electronic fishwrap from NBC New York acknowledges the media's orgasmic frenzy over everything Obama, but waters down the whole thing as being somehow necessary because in order for the media to remain close to an administration, they have to be that way.

That wasn't the case with the Bush administration, now was it?

A better question would be that if the media really is the unbiased government watchdog that it used to be in a past life, then why doesn't it hold an administration accountable for not being open unless good things are said about it?

That whole thing is just a big excuse.

Once their man is no longer in office we will see big media get up off its knees and wipe their chin. Count on it.

NBC Washington never lets a shooting go to waste

A Starbucks employee shoots himself in the leg while at work, and NBC News uses this as an opportunity to take a shot at the repeal of DC's unconstitutional gun laws.

And "pops a cap?"

Objective, no?

The barista's motive for carrying the weapon to work is unknown.

What they are implying is that because one guy can't obey four simple rules, that the one million+ people that are in a city with a crime rate three times the national average should probably be disarmed.

I've got to tell you guys, that's already been tried, and it failed.

Maybe, just maybe, the guy was carrying a gun because DC is a haven for violent thugs.

When seconds count. . .

. . .Police are thirty feet away! That didn't seem to stop the shooting:

THIBODAUX, La. – A man shot at his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend in the rear parking lot of the Thibodaux Police Department on Saturday night, according to police.

And by "shot at . . .her new boyfriend," they really meant to say that Motton's bullets hit him - as in shot.

But everything is OK folks; detectives were able to confirm that there had been a shooting. No doubt the guy bleeding out from the bullet hole in his leg in the parking lot was used to ascertain this undeniable truth. My point is that despite the fact that this went down at a freaking police station, the gunman still managed to shoot the boyfriend, and could have killed both of them afterwords, but instead chose to run off. Only by Motton's mercy did these two survive, and not by the actions of police.

This is not to say that the cops were incompetent, but it does point out that they cannot reliably respond to an immediate threat to your life, no matter how close they are to the attack.

McGruff the Crime Dog takes one on the chin

Very strange:

McGruff, who was actually District officer Tyrone Hardy in costume, was handing out flyers to kids in northwest Washington Saturday when bus driver Shawn Brim, 38, stopped, got out and adjusted his mirrors and then cold-cocked McGruff in the head with a closed fist, according to a police report.

Stupidity will not get you invited to Christmas dinner

Glancing this morning at The Free Lance Star, I noticed this post about two genuine idiots and one curious kid.

In the first shooting, which happened about 5:30 p.m., a father was explaining to his son the importance of not handling a loaded weapon, said 1st Sgt. Liz Scott of the Spotsylvania County Sheriff's Office, when he accidentally fired the gun.

Well, at least the gun didn't do it by "discharging," as what seems to happen when cops negligently shoot someone.

I'll let you read the other one on your own. Bottom line is that there are four safety rules for handling firearms:
1)Treat every gun as if it were loaded.
2)Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot.
3)Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you're ready to fire.
4)Know your target and what is beyond it.

- and two of these simple rules have to be broken at the exact same moment for someone to get hurt or killed. The dad failed this simple lesson, and his son paid the price. Darwinism only works on the idiot(s), and unfortunately a curious kid that tried to do the right thing got hurt.

The other kid should have been taught these simple rules if he were to be left in the house alone with firearms. Maybe a little more instruction on what constitutes a threat would have been nice too, so he doesn't end up going for daddy's pistol because he heard the big bad wind blow outside.

Fortunately, all three are going to be OK.

Gooey armor

Ace of Spades links to an article at the Telegraph about a gel type substance that hardens when hit at high velocity. The gel, called D3O, will be tested to see if it will stop bullets when integrated into Soldier's helmets.

I'm kicking myself in the ass right now because I thought of this years ago when I was a kid. My parents had bought me one of those Stretch Armstrong figures that are made of something that's probably similar. If you've ever owned one of those things then you know what I'm talking about; you can manipulate the figure and stretch him all day, and he will feel flexible. Punching him, however, would break your hand because the gel stuff inside hardened up.

Even as a kid I though it would make for some pretty cool armor. Too bad I didn't act on it or I could be reaping the big bucks instead of working my ass off.

More on Bass Pro's carry policy

I posted my brother's post at The High Road to let them know of the issue and one commentor, Docgmt, there said that he was disarmed of his concealed piece at the exact same store:

"Bass Pro asked if I was armed as I walked in the door I went to the BPS during the grand opening in Ashland and they stopped me at the door and asked if I had a weapon. I did not lie to them I had a CCW and they locked it up until I was leaving the store. Have not been back since."

From what my brother has told me, a Google search turns up plenty of these incidents at Bass Pro Shops. One would imagine that a large store that sells firearms would know the law and not disarm their patrons.

Bass Pro Shops needs to clarify whether they allow open carry and concealed carry. I, for one, won't be shopping there if they don't.

Bass Pro Shops and Open Carry policy, Hunter0811

This is C-tone's brother sharing an experience from this past Friday the 27th.

An update for anyone that shops at Bass Pro Shops concerning their policy on Open Carry. This past Friday I rode over to the Bass Pro in Ashland Virginia, walked through their greeters and 30 yards into the store before an employee followed behind me asking for a permit. I informed her that a permit was not necessary in the Commonwealth of Virginia and that my form of carry was completely legal. It was brought to my attention that no loaded and/or unlocked firearms were permitted in their facility, so I calmly walked back to her check point and unloaded my CW so that she may put a trigger-lock on it. I attempted to honor this policy despite that this makes it impossible to openly carry my firearm anywhere but my hands and that for all intensive purposes, this would scare more customers than a loaded firearm properly secured in a holster. I was thanked for my patience by having the muzzle of my own weapon waved in my face as this poorly instructed employee attempted to lock the trigger of my firearm, at which point I corrected her for this mistake and asked for my firearm back. Once retrieved it was returned to my vehicle, and I went in to purchase what I rode an hour to pick up. This is my last trip to Bass Pro Shops, until such a time as they can rethink their policy and train their employees to do such simple tasks in a safe manner. Their store has the legal right to limit firearms on their property and I honor that despite my personal beliefs. This doesn't excuse dangerous, poorly educated, and poorly trained employees. Also note that their policy isn't properly marked and enforced at the door. I was barely noticed by an employee that was looking for such rights being exercised. I open carry because it is practical and legal for me, not because I need to flaunt or make people uncomfortable. People like this are why it draws so much negative attention. Having had this issue, I have done a basic Google search and found that many others have had these issues at other Bass Pro Shop locations. I don't appreciate this stupidity, but it's something to watch for.

I am also typing up a formal complaint for their management, and will keep you all updated as to how they respond to/handle this.

For all those interested, the store location is 11550 Lakeridge Parkway, Ashland Virginia, 22305.

Hunter0811

Update : I received a response early this morning from the store manager, that reads as follows.

"Seth,

I am sorry, that is unacceptable. Can you tell me who it was that stopped you and I will rectify immediately. We have folks coming in here all of the time. You are right. It is your right and my right to carry arms. I will fix.

Thanks,

GB

Greg Bulkley

General Manager

Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World

Hanover County, Virginia"

Notify me if you would like to see the draft sent directly to the manager.

When in doubt. . .

. . .make shit up!

Opponents say the measure would undermine federal anti-trafficking laws and allow teenagers and people with a history of mental illness to possess semiautomatic assault rifles.

Uh-huh. Because that's what Americans are telling their Congressman and Senators in their letters. Please Senator, will you vote for this bill so we can sell guns to terrorists?

Come on guys! Can't you do one single freaking piece about gun legislation without saying something crazy? It's like you folks at NBC4 are biased or something.

CNN joins the fray

More on the dogma, as SayUncle correctly calls it, regarding the non-existant flow of extravagantly priced and ultra-rare weapons from the US into violence infested Mexico.

Linked to the CNN piece is a post about it from DownWithTyranny that takes the bait hook, line, and sinker. I posted a comment to try to enlighten; we'll see how that goes, but check em' out if you've got the time. There's plenty more gun confusion for you there, so comment if you can, but be polite.

There it is!

For all the nay sayers that don't think that our enlightened President would possibly ban guns, I link to Bruce who reflects on the dumbassery of Obama and his AG pick, Mr. Eric Holder.

RTWT.

Back already? See how Holder confuses automatic weapons (AKA machine guns) with semi-auto rifles?

The part that I'm going to slash at is this paragraph taken from the ABC News piece that Bruce linked to:

Holder said that putting the ban back in place would not only be a positive move by the United States, it would help cut down on the flow of guns going across the border into Mexico, which is struggling with heavy violence among drug cartels along the border.

"I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum." Holder said at a news conference on the arrest of more than 700 people in a drug enforcement crackdown on Mexican drug cartels operating in the U.S.

Where have we heard of this lie before? Oh, that's right. From ABC News.

My question is when is that lying douche bag Eric Holder going to address the glaring loophole in our border? If Mexican gangs are able to smuggle overpriced semi-auto rifles into their country, and are able to smuggle people and drugs into our country, just how long do you think it's going to take for them to start smuggling RPGs, grenades, bet fed machine guns, and real AK47s that they got from bankrupt former soviet nations into the US in order to continue their drug trade?

You sure as hell can't get that shit here, and you know there's a huge market for it if the average cost of a AK47 in the US is $15,000.

Update: I didn't get a chance to read the second page of the article, but I notice another demon that raises its ugly head:

"I think closing the gun show loophole, the banning of cop-killer bullets and I also think that making the assault weapons ban permanent, would be something that would be permitted under Heller," Holder said, referring to the Supreme Court ruling in Washington, D.C. v. Heller, which asserted the Second Amendment as an individual's right to own a weapon.

I guess that would be two demons. The gun show loophole is not actually a loophole as gun dealers at gun shows have to follow federal regulations by law, which means they have to run a background check on gun buyers. The "unlicensed dealers" at gun shows that the Brady Campaign like to lie about don't have to follow federal regulations and run background checks for firearm purchases because they're not selling firearms, they're selling tools, books, military surplus, knives, etc. What they want you to think is that the occasional citizen walking around at a gun show with the Mosin-Nagant slung on his or her shoulder with a price tag is actually a unscrupulous arms dealer that is trying to find a bearded terrorist to sell the offending weapon to, instead of a free citizen looking to score an extra $100 in order to have enough money to purchase that Springfield Armory Operator he saw at table 14 - after a qualifying background check, of course.

The second thing is that silly "cop-killer" bullet nonsense. People eat that shit up because they don't know any better, and who could possibly be against something that saves cops, right? See here for a test that I did on this very subject that is actually the reason I started this blog.

There's no such thing as cop-killer bullets, and someone who is holding the position as the head law enforcement agent of this country should take the time to actually Google the subject before spouting ignorance.

Animal control fail

In Virginia.

Animal control tries to kill cow but instead kills the farmer. It sounds like a freak accident if the story is correct; for what that's worth.

Arkansas gun bill fails

The bill called for the removal of the law barring concealed firearms in churches.

It looks like it has lots of support, so I'm sure it will pass eventually.

Gun sales help Cabelas

I guess if you're going to invest right now, it pays to put your money into a company that is full of guns that people oh so desperately want to cling to.

A must see film

Instead of watching President Obama's speech last night, which would have just pissed me off, I decided to watch a movie on HBO called Taking Chance that I TVoed.

Go on over to Blackfive for the backstory of how LtCol. Strobl escorted the remains of a Marine named LCpl Chance Phelps to his home in Wyoming.

I first read about the story of LCpl Phelps a couple of weeks ago, and it dawned on me that I had heard his name before. I had to dig through some of the pictures that I had taken from 2006, but I found one of the baseball field and memorial named in his honor that is located on Camp Ramadi, Iraq, within thirty feet of the operations tent where I worked everyday.


Right behind it are the four stacks on the Southern edge of Ramadi that used to be notorious for providing insurgents a birds eye view of the camp. I would often sit on the edge of this memorial to smoke a cigarette as it provided cover from those towers. I often wondered who this Marine was and what the story was behind this inscription.

Now I know.

Thanks for the cover LCpl Phelps, and Semper Fi.

Maybe we should start locking up clueless news anchors

Here's a fun little piece from Lisa Bloom, In Session anchor at CNN.

And here's an idea of what she thinks about firearms for youths:

Are we out of our minds? I have long been saddened, as I interview one grieving family after another, that we lack the political will to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people, and even children, but now we’re making special kiddie guns?

I hate to break this to you, but youth sized firearms have been around for quite awhile. Actually, up until 1968, youths could mail order guns straight to their homes, and blood didn't run in the streets because of a lack of laws. The problems today are a parenting problem.

Pennsylvania, my beloved home state, has the shame of having the highest number of juveniles in the nation serving life without parole sentences. And now they want to lock up another kid and throw away the key.

Uhm, yeah. I'm not under the impression that a person realizes right from wrong on their 18th birthday; like on that very day they have some great epiphany. If a couple of 16 year old kids brutally murder a family, then they don't deserve to see the light of day again. I wouldn't want them walking around in the mall in my town.

But let me get this straight. You're saying that instead of locking up, say, violent teenage gangbangers that have zero problem obtaining a firearm from one of their fellow crackhead friends, the millions of non homicidal folks in this country should make the firearms that we have to defend ourselves from said violent teens useless by locking them up? Is that about right? Have you given any thought whatsoever about the unintended consequenses of that?

You don't need to tell me, I already know the answer.

Dial 911 and take a seat

It's going to be awhile.

A 6-year-old girl at Barkers Mill Elementary School in Clarksville had a pencil in her hand while walking. Her shoe laces became untied. When she tripped, the girl fell on the pencil point, puncturing her trachea.

The nearest EMS station, No. 26, is less than three miles away. An ambulance should have been there in a matter of minutes.

But it took 25 minutes for an EMS crew to arrive at the school.

When seconds count, help is only 25 minutes away!

A hell of a hangover to wake up to

Imagine waking up in the drunk tank to learn that you shot up a town last night and shot at police officers - all because you drank to much after getting caught embezzling $3 million dollars.

Sucks to be you!

I have a grand idea

Why don't they make guns illegal in schools, put up some signs, and post 'security guards'? That would surely have stopped these guys from firing guns at each other, right?

Oh, you mean they had already done all of that, and the criminals still had a shootout?

Weird. It's almost like criminals aren't deterred by laws and signs, and are smart enough to evade the minimum wage, minimally trained security.

Is there nothing else the schools could do to protect the students?

The sounds of war

In Mexico, a reporter is on an overpass while listening to automatic gunfire between drug dealers and the Mexican Army. None of it sounds like it's coming from a FN Five SeveN, and none of these automatic weapons came from gun shows in the US.

That doesn't stop CNN from publishing another fraudulent piece on how the US is responsible for the violence.

Pastor and Hakim note that the United States helps fuel the violence, not only by providing a ready market for illegal drugs, but also by supplying the vast majority of weapons used by drug gangs.

Pastor says there are at least 6,600 U.S. gun shops within 100 miles of the Mexican border and more than 90 percent of weapons in Mexico come from the United States.

And it's not just handguns. Drug traffickers used a bazooka in Tuesday's shootout with federal police and army soldiers in Reynosa, Mexico, across the border from McAllen, Texas.

Robert Pastor has never been to a gun shop or gun show in the US, but has instead been living inside of his own little fantasy world where anyone can go to a gun store in the US and buy a bazooka. Seriously hoss, good luck finding one.

As I've stated before, Mexican drug dealers and cartels are not buying automatic weapons, grenades, bazookas, RPGs, mines, machine guns, and the like from the US, and 6,500+ people did not die in Mexico last year from handguns. That's a myth.

They're getting their weapons from the corrupt Mexican government, or from former soviet nations who have no reservations of selling heavy hardware to drug dealers. Why would these cartels go through the trouble of finding rare, expensive, coveted, and heavily regulated weapons in the US when they could get them cheap from Russia, China, or Czechoslovakia? Doesn't make sense, does it?

What, you don't think that the Mexican government would be that corrupt? Right after the article blames the US for all the violence:

"There is so much money involved in the drug trade, there is so much fear involved in the drug trade, that no institution can survive unaffected," Birns said.

"This has really revealed just how corrupt Mexican officeholders are," Hakim said.

In one recent instance, Noe Ramirez Mandujano, who was the nation's top anti-drug official from 2006 until August 2008, was arrested on charges that he accepted $450,000 a month in bribes from drug traffickers while in office.

You don't suppose some weapons were exchanged somewhere within that $450k, do you? So to all the alphabet news agencies out there: quit drumming up this garbage. Please find something nonfiction to write about, or at the very least do some fundamental research before spreading this stuff around.

A deadly city for scumbags

A scumbag tries to rob a business owner and gets shot to death for his troubles.

It seems to me that trying to rob someone in Kansas City is not the brightest idea.

Movie Guns XXXIV

This week's Movie Guns post is not quite as lengthy as the last post. The movie that I had originally started has some pretty poor picture quality, so I shelved it, and instead opted to cover Rambo: First Blood.

This is the type of film that inspires countless young men to join the Army in an effort to be a bad ass. Unfortunately, a lot of the Speshul Forses stuff in this movie is fantasy, with very little tactical relevance. Special Forces I am not, but I have gone to some of the schools that some high speed special operators go through, and know that some of this is just Hollywood hype. Just know that my tough love attitude toward much of the substance in this movie does not lessen my love for the film in general.

The location of this movie is in Washington state, in a town called Hope. Our prestigious hero is John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), who has just found out that the last guy from his US Army Special Forces unit died, making Rambo the sole survivor. He is on foot heading towards Hope when the town Sheriff, Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy), intent to keep "drifters" out of town, picks him up and drives him outside of city lines. That pisses Rambo off, so he heads back toward the town so the Sheriff arrests him.

The first pick is of the Sheriff's nickel plated Smith & Wesson Model 629, which he starts to draw when he thinks Rambo might give him trouble:

We'll see this gun again later.

The Sheriff finds a big ass knife on Rambo, and holds it up with the same look that I've had cops give me as a teenager when they noticed I was carrying a knife:

I've never cared for knives that big, and mine have always been considered tools, not weapons, or for hunting, which is what Rambo claims his is used for.

The over zealous Sheriff takes Rambo to jail where even more over zealous cops work him over.

I caught a glimpse of the department armory which consists of mostly M16s:


After the cops beat on him a little bit, a creepy looking Deputy tries to shave Rambo, making him flashback to his time in Vietnam and his torture as a prisoner of war:



Despite the intense suffering, Rambo survives his earlier torture with the help of his trusty porno mustache.

Back in his current nightmare, Rambo flips out and beats the cops in the jail to the floor. Sheriff Teasle tries to find out what all the racket is about when Rambo does a top secret Judo/Ninja Dragon kick; knocking the Sheriff down and making him negligently discharge his gun:


As he runs out the front door of the building, Deputy Galt (Jack Starrett) tries to shoot him in the back outright with a Winchester Model 88, but the Sheriff knocks the gun away:


This is one of the few instances where one of the film's actors actually puts the weapon up to the shoulder.

Rambo escapes to the great outdoors where his speshul forses training helps him fight The Man and win!

The Sheriff and his goons attempt to track Rambo down in the woods with a variety of mismatched M16s and a couple of Heckler & Koch 33s. Here is a pair of pictures where the Deputies flag each other as well as the Sheriff with their rifles:


Safety violators!!

Here are a couple of H&K 33s and a hybrid M16:




Rambo shows us his survival skills by making a super warm jacket out of an old tarp, thus making him impervious to the Washington cold. Here he is with his new jacket, and you can see his big ass knife in it's leather sheath on his waist:


As Rambo is hanging helplessly onto the face of a cliff, Galt tries to get some retribution for Rambo having made him his bitch in the jail cell by firing that Winchester Model 88 at him from a helicopter:


Rambo taketh his life with the skilled throw of a tactical assault stone that hits the helo in the wind screen, thus causing the pilot to gyrate on the cyclic and toss Galt to a righteous screaming death. Sorry, I didn't grab a gruesome picture of that.

Rambo does take Galts rifle and radio, and then tries to surrender to the Sheriff and his goons who are still up on top of the ridge. Rambo is standing there unarmed, but they open up on him with some full auto fire which just bounces off Rambo's skull:


Now shit's on!

Rambo takes off and prepares to take out all of the hostel little bastards with some pernicious booby traps that he builds during a little arts & crafts time:



He kills the dogs that were tracking him, and the Deputies start some indiscriminate fire with their M16s:



One by one the Deputies fall:


But none of them are killed because Rambo has a heart, you see. He takes the Sheriff at knife point and warns him that further action will not be tolerated:


Well, Sheriff Teasle calls in the National Guard, which the director of this movie thinks are a bunch of yahoos, and they appear to be. . . well. . .yahoos. All of them are cowards, but again Rambo shows restraint by not killing them mercilessly.

Here's Rambo heading toward the mine that he's using for a shelter with an M16 that he's holding by the carry handle:

That's a big no-no in the Marine Corps. Carrying your weapon like that will get you smoked for an hour or so.

The National Guardsman fire in vain at the mine where Rambo is with M16A1s:




And Rambo shows them how speshul forses handle an M16: by hip firing with his eyes closed:


No one hits any one, so the Lieutenant in charge of the yahoo brigade has one of his idiots fire a M72 LAW at the entrance of the mine:



But it takes more than a nuclear warhead fired from a Soldiers M72 to take out Rambo!

Rambo escapes from the mine, steals a National Guard truck containing one M60 machine gun and an assload of ammo, and heads towards the town of Hope. Some of the State Police demonstrate their lack of safety and gun handling by shooting over each others heads at the truck that Rambo is driving:


Along the way Rambo decides to shoot the town up, destroy buildings, and pretty much make his wrath known to the good people of Hope.

One of the places that he destroys is a gun store called "The Outpost," which he breaks into, dumps the ammo and cans of gunpowder - some of which is Red Dot - and lights the whole shootin match on fire:




The whole building goes up in a huge fireball, but Rambo's appetite for destruction is not quenched. He shoots up a couple of electrical transformers in order to bring about some darkness, which he uses to get all stealth-ninja and sneak up to the Sheriff's Department:

Firing a M60 one handed with his eyes closed is just another day in the life of a speshul forses soldier, and Rambo has the proper amount of veins sticking up in his arms to qualify as being in that elite part of the Army, because we all know that average sized guys just don't have what it takes.

Sheriff Teasle has his own personal armory in his office, so he grabs an M16 and some ammo and heads up to the roof to wait for Rambo:



Here he's seen with his S&W Model 629 while clearing the roof:


Rambo shoots the building up with the M60, and surprise surprise, uses the sights:


The fight is short lived as Rambo wounds Teasle with some automatic fire and wins the fight. Afterwords, Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna), who trained Rambo, shows up to make him surrender. Rambo breaks down and cries like a sissy, thus betraying his eliteness. He's led out of the building by the Colonel with two State Troopers flanking him: one with a M16, the other with an unknown shotgun with folding stock:


In the bonus features of the disk there's an alternate ending which has Rambo taking Colonel Trautman's M1911A1, cocking it, and making the Colonel shoot him with it:


How was that for a Movie Guns? I can't have a collection like this without including Rambo. To tell you the truth, this one was a challenge to get pictures from because most of the scenes are filmed in low light, and for the most part there are no close ups of the weapons. Throughout there is that military drum beat music that I talked about earlier showing the viewers that something military and organized is happening.

Well, I had fun with this one, and I hope you enjoyed it.

Tune in Tomorrow

Today I spent time with the family, so tomorrow will be a Movie Guns post.

Maybe then I'll also get around to responding to all of the comments on my older posts.

In the cradle of freedom. . .

. . witness the decline of humanity.

Cardozo High School looked like a police substation Wednesday thanks to all the men and women in blue patroling the area after Tuesday's outbreak of fighting.

Yes, this would be in DC: the capitol of the most powerful country in the world. This is where our ideals of freedom, liberty, and justice are supposed to be at their most influential.

I can't even understand what most of the people interviewed are saying. And notice that one guy doesn't even want to be seen on camera. My only guess is that he's concerned for his safety in front of a high school in our nations capitol!

I desperately want to move my family to Wyoming.

DC crime cameras don't stop crime?

Who knew?

This is a pretty long article, but go get yourself a cup of coffee and read it. It's worth your time. These cameras may not be as Big Brother as you would think, but they're still an invasion of privacy that are not effective at their assigned task: catching criminals.

A taste:

In warning Congress that cameras are “readymade for abuse,” the ACLU’s Johnny Barnes read an excerpt from a New York Times Magazine article on the surveillance boom.

Reporter Jeffrey Rosen spent some time with the fellows who watch CCTV feeds in London:

“[W]hen you put a group of bored, unsupervised men in front of live video screens and allow them to zoom in on whatever happens to catch their eyes,” Rosen wrote, “they tend to spend a fair amount of time leering at women.”

The blokes in the control room zoomed in on big boobs and teenagers necking in cars.

Hard to imagine it doesn’t happen here, though ever since the Wall Street Journal blew up its surveillance network, the department has not been foolish enough to allow a reporter to hang out in a control room with the people watching the feeds, despite requests.

The video footage may be erased after 10 days, but the door for nefarious use is open wide. And just because a citizen hasn't made a case yet doesn't mean that abuse hasn't happened.

This piece of the article carries the most weight:

A common lament of the civil liberties crowd used to be that the constant and increasing presence of surveillance cameras would acculturate modern society to an omnipresent government eyeball, and that we would miss something we didn’t understand until after we’d lost it: privacy.

Americans have already lost that. This is just the nail in the coffin.

Attempted puppycide, or self defense?

A UPS man smashed a german shepherd on the head with what looks like a small baseball bat while delivering a package, and it's caught on tape. The owner wants the UPS guy fired.

I can understand the outrage from the homeowners; that's to be expected. Homeowners always insist that their animals are harmless, and that they've never harmed a soul. This is, of course, taken from the perspective of the animals beloved owner - the same guy or gal who feeds the thing - and not from the perspective of a stranger that wanders onto the property to deliver a package that said homeowner ordered.

I like how the news only interviewed the owner of the dog and some random couple with a shitload of cats who are not surprisingly sympathetic to the dog owner. Weird.

It's almost like your opinion is being made for you.

I often read about all of the puppycide incidents that accompany forced entry raids by police, and I tend to be sympathetic to the homeowner in that particular situation, but that is on entirely different terms. Talk to anyone who delivers mail or food, or anyone who does residential utility work and you will hear at least one story of some "sweet innocent pooch who would never hurt anyone" going on the offensive and trying to take a bite out of his or her ass. I've had it happen to me. And I don't know of any delivery service that allows any sort of weapon carry, of even pepper spray for that matter.

The cat owners cannot understand why the UPS guy even approached the house. Uhh, maybe because that's his job? He also thinks it was unreasonable for the guy to be carrying a club when he probably had a cellphone. We all know that a cell phone will stop a 65lb. running dog in his tracks.

Well, just watch the video for yourself and be your own judge. Me? I would have done the exact same thing: do my job and deliver the mail. If some happy go lucky dog wants to be a hero and chase after me then I would probably bust him across the head too.

Update: See! People always swear that a pet is harmless when it obviously isn't. I believe that it's because people humanize their pets in their mind.

She said she's upset and saddened and just wants to be back home with her two children. She said she knows the 18-foot snake never meant to harm her son.

“She didn't clamp onto him. If she wanted to try to kill him, she would've crushed him, but she didn't,” Melendrez said

I'm not blaming the snake - it's only being a snake and doing what snakes do, but this woman thinks that the python was making a conscious determination to play with a 3 year old kid. It wasn't:

In a jailhouse interview Wednesday afternoon, Melendrez said she and her husband, who is also charged with felony child abuse and neglect, were baby-sitting an 18-foot python when it somehow broke free from its cage and went for their son.

"But. . . but. . . but. . .Eve was only going for my son to see if he wanted to go outside and play some T-ball!! She would never hurt anyone!!"

According to Metro police's arrest report, the 3-year-old suffered several bite marks in addition to being essentially strangled when the snake, named Eve, began to coil itself around the small boy.'

I suppose that Eve was just trying to give the boy a gentle hug.

I don't think it's a felony; the couple owns snakes like this and take measures to keep the kids separated from them. This seems to be a freak accident. Good thing the kid survived.

What a jackass

He would have been better off knocking on the prison gates.

What did he think he was going to accomplish?

Brock drove up to the north barricade at the Capitol late Tuesday afternoon, saying he had a delivery for the president, Schneider said. After further questioning, he admitted he had a rifle in his truck.

****

A search of his truck turned up several rounds of ammunition, Schneider said.

Who tries to go on a shooting spree with a couple of rounds? And how terrifying is it that all that ammo was "unregistered?" Scary stuff folks.

Why pocket holsters are a good idea

Because nothing says "I'm a complete moron" like shooting yourself in the leg with your own handgun.

. . .and behold a High horse:

and his name that sat on him was Jim Newell, and Smell followed with him.

Gun haters are so ignorant it defies description.

Huge, Fancy Shooting Range To Open in Virginia
Largest range in country to teach citizens how to shoot
people.

Wow. The rest of this trash is identical in tone.

On a day when another major local headline is, "Va. Tech Shootings Archive Now for Public Viewing," some impeccably time-conscious citizens of Virginia tell the Washington Times they are prepared to open "the largest shooting range in the country" this week in Ashburn.

"Time conscious" huh? It's almost like he believes that there's something evil going on here, like the former Soldiers and federal agents that make up the staff of the Silver Eagle Group are so incompetently evil that they deliberately picked an arbitrary day to open their facility, instead of opening it on the day of the VA Tech massacre happened; a massacre of defenseless students in a school just like the one these guys will teach you how to survive in.

What, exactly, is your point?

Because the facility announced that it "is set to open this week" on the same day as NBC News announced the public release of a report from an incident that happened 22 months ago, we're supposed to think that there's some sort of intent? The information isn't even available online yet, so was the opening premature?

Get a freaking grip!

There's not even a hint of rationality in the whole thing as the author believes that everyone who wants firearm training is a lunatic (including military and law enforcement), and learning how to clear your house means that you really think that Al-Qaeda might break in at any moment.

The range's owners will "focus on helping residents, members of the military and police officers protect themselves in schools, homes and other real-life situations." Hmm.

It appears that we can edit this sentence to say this simply by removing a few cumbersome words: "... focus on helping residents ... protect themselves in schools." With guns, that is!

What a dipshit. To think that NBC News lets this retard write stuff is the reason why I only look to mainstream for material to mock.

Note to you gun haters: you might want to police up your idiots every now an then to ensure that you don't look so stupid. We realise that you are mostly just misguided, but having people like this on board makes you loose your credibility.

Update: Found a second piece of trash at NBC News!

Just so there's no confusion, this is the face of media bias. Now that I've found two erronious and blatantly biased articles at NBC in fifteen minutes, how do I believe anything that they report? Do you think they get anything right on other subjects that you might be familiar with?

Shootout in Texas

I just found this video from Live Leak of a bank robber being shot to death by a security guard. Do note the tellers who are trapped and at the mercy of the gunman before they escape to relative safety.

It is not known if the dreaded "Gun Free Zone" signs were posted on the door - I can't imagine why this guy would roll the dice and risk a trespassing charge - but I am operating under the assumption that they were.



From what I can tell, the teller closest to the screen notices the threat at 2:05:40, and the SWAT Team doesn't show up on camera until 3:52:09, which means that the tellers were hiding defenseless in the back room for just under an hour before the cops even got within sight of the gunman's body.

Still think being unarmed in a bank is a great idea?

On the other hand, how bad would that have hurt if the gunman had been alive when hit by the responding SWAT Teams flashbang?!?!

Found via Ernie's House of Whoop Ass. ****DEFINITELY NSFW**** - but a cool place to visit.

My Photobucket account is down

Sorry for all the blank pictures. When I said that my last Movie Guns was a Super Post, I wasn't kidding; I'm way over my monthly picture quota so they shut me down.

I'm looking in to it.

Update: Well, I've exceeded my monthly bandwidth. The only excuse for that is that the Movie Guns posts have become more popular than my Photobucket account allows, so I'm going to have to upgrade. I'll see if I can make that happen today.

I'd like to thank everyone who comes here to view my posts. I never imagined that folks would enjoy them so much, as this bandwidth problem confirms. I've got this coming up weekend off so I'll have to get started on a new post this week.

Thanks again!!

Update: My account is working again and the pics are back up! Thanks to my readers for giving 440,010 hits to that account every month!

Burning dog poo and the human response

Update: Scroll to the bottom for more info.

I just don't get it.

David posted at the War on Guns on another round of deceitful reporting on the "Mexico-drug-cartels-getting-guns-at-gun shows" alarmism; this time being reported by Fox News.

This story has been going round and round and round for a long time, and it stinks to high heaven, yet it keeps drawing attention because people still believe what the news tells them. I posted another story about it on Monday.

What are the facts?

Fact: Mexican drug cartels are in an outright war with their government. They are waging this war with the traditional weapons that wars are fought with: anti-tank rockets (M72 LAWs, apparently), RPGs, general purpose machine guns (specifically, the M60), heavy machine guns, mines, grenades, and finally, rifles like the AK47 (of the automatic kind, mostly), and M16s (with some AR15s). I'm sure there are weapons like the FN FAL and such, but I have no proof.

Fact: M60s like the one portrayed in this video are not purchased at gun shows; they are rare and expensive in the US ($25,000-$50,000), and are not being sold out of the backs of NRA member's vans here in the states for $100. It just ain't happening. With very rare exception, they are not used by US forces, but they are used by the Mexican Army. That's where the M60s are coming from, not the US.

Fact: M72 LAW (66mm) are no longer used by the US military because we have better equipment. It is, however, used by the Mexican Army. That's where they're getting them.

Fact: RPGs are rare in the US and regulated by the NFA, but you can buy them. The problem is that the rockets for them are regulated by the ATF. You file a bunch of paperwork with the ATF and then go through months of waiting, and on top of that you have to pay a $200 tax stamp - for every rocket, and that's if you can find them. But, RPGs are available for a low low price from Russia, China, and Czechoslovakia, which is where they're getting them.

Fact: Real AK47s and M16s are available in the US. They're subject to the NFA and regulated by the ATF, which keeps prices around $10,000-$15,000 each. That's no counting the $200 tax stamp and the above mentioned ATF paperwork. Cartel members are not buying them at gunshows because nobody is going to sell a rare $15,000 M16 or very rare AK47 for $400. Not happening. You can, of course, get a semi-auto AR15 or Ak47 look-alike for $1,000 at a gun show, which is likely what some of the cartel guys are doing, but the auto weapons are probably coming from Russia, China, Czechoslovakia, and the corrupt Mexican soldiers and police for a more affordable price, and would seem to be more popular.

As far as mines, grenades, and heavy machine machine guns go, they are too rare to be getting in the US; would be subject to the NFA; would be regulated by the ATF; would be prohibitively expensive, but would be way more available and affordable from unscrupulous countries like Russia, China, Czechoslovakia, and corrupt Mexican soldiers and police.

Now, I also see that people are alarmed by the cartel's acquisition of the dreaded FN Five SeveN pistol, which you will notice are used by the Mexican military, but are otherwise available from the US. I wonder where they're more affordable? Some of these cartels may be getting them from us by sending 'straw purchasers' to buy them from gun shows, but such buyers are getting a NICS check to get them, despite what you may have heard in the news. The little 5.7x28mm round may penetrate a Kevlar vest, but not nearly as readily as a rifle round. I would point out that wars are not fought and won using pistols; they're fought and won using rifles.

Honestly, do you think that these massive wealthy cartels have no foreign relationships? Do you really think they're sending gun-buying senoritas to the US to straw purchase premium priced weapons, many of them unobtainable, almost all of them rare, when they could just buy them from one of the many third world former soviet countries by the truckload without any sort of background check whatsoever? Why pay US prices for civilian semi-auto rifles when you can get real full-auto battle rifles for a fraction of the cost. Do you not think that the Mexican government is a major supply for these weapons? The Mexican government is as corrupt as it gets, and they're dirt poor to boot. You think that altruism is going to keep a police chief from handing over a couple of crates of automatic weapons to these cartels if they grease his pockets and refrain from shooting his officers?

If so then your as gullible as it gets.

So the next time you see one of these flaming news articles on your doorstep, pay it no attention because it's definitely full of shit.

Update: A Keyboard and a .45 shows us where the Barrett .50 caliber rifles came from, as well as the probable origin of grenades, dynamite, RPGs, and other splodey things - the Mexican military.

Sailorcurt, cross posting at The Sentinel, reaffirms that the 5.7x28mm rounds for the FN Five SeveN pistol - again, used by the Mexican military - are not coming from the US. If the rounds are coming from Mexico, than it's pretty fair to say that the pistols are coming from there as well. It makes sense considering the .38 Super "Super Guns" are popular in Mexico, and not so much here in the States as Snowflakes in Hell points out.

Another law enforcement imposter

Another victim that complied without question.

Stafford Sheriff's spokesman Bill Kennedy said the girl was driving in the area of Hope Road and Walker Way about 6 p.m. when a "police-style" vehicle pulled her over.

The vehicle had red flashing lights on the front and rear dashes, Kennedy said.

The suspect, who was not wearing a law enforcement uniform, asked the victim for her license and registration and asked her where she had been.

I didn't have time to cover this from yesterday, but again I point out that you should treat any interaction with law enforcement - especially if they're not in uniform or not in a marked cruiser - with some amount of question. Don't be a dick, but do maintain a sense of observation and vigilance.

Personally, I do not pull over for unmarked cars. If that ends up pissing some state trooper off, too bad. It's nothing personal, but my safety is my concern.

I don't see how using unmarked cars is sensable anyways. An unmarked black Impala running radar on the side of I95 is not inconspicuous or covert, however, John Q. Public also drives Impalas, Crown Vics, and Chargers, so thinking that I should pull over anyways doesn't sit well with me. I'll maintain a safe speed until a marked cruiser pulls up behind me because I don't want to be shot by some imposter with a blue light in his Caprice.

Good riddance

A teenager who committed two armed robberies in Stafford County in a week was ordered this week to spend 231/2 years in prison.

In Stafford Circuit Court, Naser Mihailovic, 18, received a total of 691/2 years with 46 years suspended.

Mihailovic robbed a man at gunpoint in England Run on Jan. 24 of last year, then held up two people a week later after following them home from a Spotsylvania restaurant.

They don't have much sympathy for scumbags around here, and he didn't even fire a shot. This sentence is straight from the judge; the jury didn't get to recommend a sentence because he was 17 when he committed the crime. If there is a next time, he'll get a longer sentence that won't be suspended. Notice as well that he is still facing more charges elseware.

His mother is pretty pissed. Boo hoo.

Mihailovic's mother was escorted from the courtroom after she screamed out, "You can't do that judge," once the sentence was announced.

Judge John Alderman's sentence Tuesday exceeded the state sentencing guidelines, which called for a maximum penalty of just under 16 years.

Prosecutor Andrea McCauley had argued that Mihailovic deserved a longer sentence. "He earned every day and then some," she said.

As far as I'm concerned, it's only a matter of time before he gets bold enough to kill someone.

Again, good riddance.

Could this be labeled under Future Weapons?

COLORADO SPRINGS - The search is on for the sword-wielding thief two tried to rob two convenience stores early Wednesday morning. The weapon is it described as a Star Trek Klingon-type sword called a "Batleth."

HAHAHA!! That's too funny, except that they were violent robberies, and the clerks could have been hurt.

Had I been a properly armed store clerk that set about shooting this guy rapidly for trying to take money by force, I would probably feel pretty bad about it the next day. I mean, how desperate do you have to be to use a Star Trek sword?

Oh, and the offenders description?

The suspect is described as a white male in a black jacket, blue jeans and wearing a black mask.

(snip)

. . .about 28 years old, 6 foot tall, with a medium build.

And a virgin, for sure; living in his parents garage, and he probably smells awful from never bathing. If you're a Trekkie and that offends, I do apologize.

You tube is corrupting our children!!!

Hawaii "authorities" think that kids just learned last week how to make pressure bombs from household chemicals by watching You Tube.

I can only imagine that some politician there is now going to be pressured to regulate the viewing of that site by minors. Ban it, ban it, ban it! Save our children from the toilet bowl cleaner menace! Maybe we should brand the kids as felons and ruin their lives!!

The whole thing is pretty silly, as kids have been making those things and blowing them up in schools long before Al Gore even imagined creating internets, but these days Americans need a clear direction to place blame. Americans need an enemy to fight against, and here the enemy is clearly a harmless website enjoyed by untold masses of people.

Maybe some restraint is in order

With using overwhelming force based on a phone call.

They were victims of a new kind of telephone fraud that exploits a weakness in the way the 911 system handles calls from Internet-based phone services. The attacks — called "swatting" because armed police SWAT teams usually respond — are virtually unstoppable, and an Associated Press investigation found that budget-strapped 911 centers are essentially defenseless without an overhaul of their computer systems.

I understand that someone's life could actually be on the line, but SWAT teams are deployed with little hesitation these days; often times unjustifiably so.

But of all of the things in this article, none bothered me as much as this:

Tony Messina, a construction worker from Salina, N.Y., was swatted three times by the gang broken up by the federal authorities in Dallas. He was even arrested as the result of one call, because authorities found weapons he wasn't supposed to have while they were searching the house.

How could they screw that up three times? And he gets victimized twice because they take his guns away? I don't understand how the police didn't take note of the fact that it was a hoax the first time, and then exercise a little caution two weeks later, then a month later when they got a call. Are patrol officers not competent enough to check the place out before sending in a CTU Tac Team? Maybe they were interested in helping themselves to more of his Constitutionally protected property?

This guy got jacked up on the third raid:

Messina had been told to call 911 himself if the swatting calls happened again, and when the deputies realized it was another fraudulent call, Messina was let go. He said he suffered bruised ribs that kept him out of work for a month and a half.

"Ummm, okaaay Sir. . .next time just try calling 911 if this happens again. . . .we have no way of keeping track of what doors we bust down. . . .mmmkay?"

Seriously? If the 911 system is so "powerless" to stop these attacks, then we need to really buckle down of the use of aggressive tactics:

"Nobody ever thought anyone would get hurt or die from a SWAT call," he said.

Unbelievable.

Such compassion

I'm often pretty hard on the DC government, but I generally cut the residents some slack. Those people live under the yolk of nanny statism every day, and I often wonder why they put up with the government that they have; why they keep electing pompous elitists or slimy tax dodging scumbags.

Well, with compassion like this, who really cares about what your government is doing.

Citizens who would step over a dying man while they load their groceries are clearly "sheeple" in every distasteful, loathsome, and repugnant meaning of the word.

More on the Mexico violence

". . .there are almost 11,000 weapons in here; the vast majority of them seized since 2006. They come from Russia, from China, from Czechoslovakia, and of course from the United States, but the big problem for the army and anyone else fighting the drug gangs is as quickly as they seize these weapons, those gangs are re-arming themselves." - Jonathan Hunt

Well now, maybe we should start looking to close the Russian, Chinese, and Czechoslovakian gun show loopholes; not that it would do any good.

I'd like to make a withdraw

The next time you go to the bank, just tell them to give you all of the money. Don't make threats, don't say you have a weapon, don't even raise your voice. Hell, you don't even need to pass them a note telling them they're being robbed.

When the teller says "can I help you?" Just tell him or her that you want everything in the drawer and they will hand it over without question.

No, really.

After obtaining an undisclosed amount of cash, the suspect fled on foot in an unknown direction. There was no weapon seen or implied. No one was injured during the incident.

I've posted about this phenomenon before. Apparently society is so timid that "just give them what they want" includes people with no weapon and who make no threatening gestures.