Random observations from the ADE community
As you look at this picture a friend showed me, guess what I noticed first..
Yep… That’s right… it is, in fact, SO bad that it is hard for me to notice anything else…
Because……
Trigger discipline, It’s Beautiful.
Over on The Smoking Gun they posted a story about a woman who watched her house get burglarized over the internet feed from her home security system. She called the police who apprehended 4 suspects.
at the LAX Range in Inglewood
“The GSSF League Match is a series of three matches conducted over a 3-month period. Our class dates are displayed above. Participants must be current GSSF members and compete in two of the three matches to qualify for plaques and prizes. If you are not currently a member, you may join on-line at the web-site or upon registration at a www.gssfonline.comGSSF League Match. An annual GSSF membership costs only $25.00 and allows you to compete in any GSSF match.”
It is always fun to do, even if you can only do 1 of the 3 events (you need to shoot at least 2 to qualify). Last round will be on May 9th.
And there was security video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vPnMbLr5nc&feature=player_embedded
The flurry of comments is well worth reading..
CNN just ran an article on the secretary who called 911 in Binghamton titled “Secretary played dead to avoid New York shooter.”
It is a simple reflection of our modern society that the unarmed Shirley DeLucia who has the intuition to play dead after being the first victim shot in the abdomen by a cowardly lunatic who went on to kill 13 people in less than 1 minute is being hailed as a hero for calling 911 after the rampage was done. I give her credit for having the intuition to play into the preconceived notions of a mass murderer that one bullet placed anywhere in a persons body will kill them, but she is not a hero. She seems to understand the difference and even rolled her eyes at her brother who told her that people where calling her a hero. It should not be surprising that we are told to admire helplessness as heroism in a time when our highest elected officials amateurishly bow to foreign monarchs, apologize for our countries just actions around the globe and our elected leaders beg foreign governments to buy our bad debt. The unarmed woman had no other choice than to play dead and desperately call for help since she had no means to defend herself. It was a matter or survival, not heroism. “I am shot, others are dead, please come help us.”
What bothers me most about the liberal use of words like bravery, courage and hero is that when we apply them to insignificant tasks they lose their meaning. When strong words like these get watered down and applied to common things people who are truly heroic, brave and courageous become radical vigilantes that are a danger to society and our ability to defend ourselves and enjoy our freedom abolished. I guess we are just that desperate for truly heroic, brave and honest people that we try to fabricate them wherever we can. Perhaps we just need to find something to celebrate in every tragedy. I can appreciate that, but don’t tarnish great words and people by making then ordinary.
Apparently the UK Home Defense Secretary’s husband was confused about the stimulus.
The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, apologised today for an expenses claim which included adult films watched by her husband Richard Timney.
Smith said she mistakenly submitted an expenses claim which included five pay-per-view films, including two adult movies which were viewed at her family home in her Redditch constituency.
Barak Obama, President of the United States of America and leader of the free world greeted King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the recent G20 conference. When the President shook the hand of King Abdullah, the king whispered “XYZPDQ.” The President initially balked at the comment so the King looked down at the President crotch and whispered again “your fly is down Mr. President.” Obama then quickly bent over and feigned bowing to the King while he quickly zipped up his pants with his other hand. Good cover Mr. President. You certainly wouldn’t want to embarrass and subjugate yourself and our whole country to a foreign monarch in front of other world leader by having your fly open.
I am sure you have all seen the news about several recent shooting.
In January a Los Angeles husband and wife who were fired for lying about their employment status to obtain child care planned and carried out the murder suicide of themselves and their five children.
The Oakland shooting by a convicted felon and parole violator took the life of 4 Oakland police officers. This was soon after the shooting of an unarmed black man at a BART station near Oakland which ignited a racially charge confrontations in the city.
Yesterday in Binghamton, NY a man recently laid-off from Shop-Vac and apparently ridiculed by his English as a second language classmates killed 13 people and wounded many more at a community center.
This morning three police officers responding to a domestic violence call were killed by a recently fired man wearing a bullet proof vest in Pittsburgh.
I have been trying to make a little sense out of it myself since I don’t see the rationality behind any of it. Perhaps there is none, but the one thing that is clear from these recent shootings is that there is a lot of anger, frustration and desperation being felt by people during this horrible economy. Whether the individual circumstances are brought on themselves through their own actions or forced on them, these few individuals see no other way out than to take themselves out.
I am a big fan of individual liberties and believe that if you want to take yourself out of this world through whatever mean that is your choice. But there is no justifiable reason to take other people or property with you. I don’t care if you lost your job, face possible incarceration, think cops are racist killers, people make fun of you, you fear the government? Guess what … you can get another job, you will likely get out of prison, cops are just as flawed as every other person on the planet, laughing at yourself is a good thing, and the government does not care about you at all. Really, truly, honestly. So what is wrong with these guys? Are they just plain old crazy to did something tip the balance?
The Christian Science Monitor had a great writeup on some of the possible rational. Men from the 20’s to 40’s (yep, that’s usually who does this type of thing) who are wrapped up in work trying to work make themselves successful move away from their families to pursue professions in other cities, spend more time at work than at home with their spouses or kids. They trade a home support system for a work based support system. Basically everyone that they know or are friends with is at work. When they are fired or laid-off they may feel isolated and abandoned with nobody to help them or probably more pertinently to talk some sense into them when they get crazy ideas like shooting up the local community center.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think people are “rotten to the core” “bastard coated bastards with bastard filling“, but since we have about 5.1 million unemployed people in the U.S. right now we know that not every guy who loses his job will go on a bloody rampage. Perhaps what we should really take away from these recent shooting is that everyone needs a support system of friends and family to help them through hard times. I am sure that everyone knows someone who has been affected by the poor economy whether they have been laid off, or lost their retirement money in the market. So while I doubt that your friends, family members or neighbors hit with hard times are bent on homicidal acts because of their recent bad luck they could probably use whatever support you can offer.
Some time ago the Mexican government contended that:
“In 2008, 5,376 people died due to drug-related violence in Mexico, including 505 military and law enforcement officials killed in the line of duty. According to the Mexican Government, about 90 percent of the weapons they seize from Mexican drug cartels came into the country illegally from the United States.”
The U.S. national news media has been on fire parroting this curious statistic over the past few weeks since it has been uttered from notable U.S. dignataries such as Diane Feinstein and Hillary Clinton. Here is a Blurb from the Brady Center publication “Exporting Gun Violence“.
“American gun sellers are supplying the cartels with the guns used to wage war. Upwards of 90% of the crime guns used by the drug cartels and recovered and traced by law enforcement originate from U.S. gun sellers.“
If you read the news articles articles it would seem that a huge volume of straw purchases at border firearms dealers are to blame for the influx of firearms to Mexico which is firing the violence between Narco and Government forces. What is unbelievable is that these same articles state that fully automatic firearms, rocket launchers, fragmentation grenades and dynamite are part of the weaponry that is now in the hands of the Narco forces.
When was the last time you could go down to one of the dwindling number of firearms dealers and purchase a fully automatic M16 or AK47 let alone a fragmentation grenade. Probably 1968 from the prior and never for the former. What is even more unbelievable is that these weapons are supposedly coming from the four states that border Mexico – Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California. The fact that any guns that a bunch of drug running thugs would actually want could come from California and the land of the “if its fun, it’s probably illegal” firearms laws is simply laughable.
The truth
Well it turns out that this whole brewhaha is another classic case of poor reading comprehension skills of our elected public officials such as Diane Feinstein and her staff and anti-gun groups like the Brady Campaign who have an agenda.
Here is the actual quote that they are all talking about:
According to ATF’s Tracing Center, 90 percent of the firearms about which ATF receives information are traceable to the United States.
Read it carefully and notice the difference in the meaning of the quote versus the reported statistic. That means that not all the firearms that are confiscated are actually submitted to the BATFE for tracing. So what is the real number of guns coming from the U.S.?
There’s just one problem with the 90 percent “statistic” and it’s a big one:
It’s just not true.
In fact, it’s not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.
What’s true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency’s assistant director, “is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S.“
But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.
“Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market,” Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.
It appears that the source for the U.S. firearms in Mexico may actually be from U.S. government sanctioned firearms sales to Mexico and not from illegal straw sales and smuggling. These weapons then get into the hands of the Narco forces through their connections and infiltration in the the wildly corrupt Mexican government. From the NarcoSphere.
A former senior U.S. Customs Inspector, who asked that his name not be used, provided the following reaction when presented with the DCS data:
I would agree entirely [that] DCS (and DoD gifted, as opposed to DCS sold) weapons are obviously the simplest explanation for the massive rise in the number of fully automatic weapons, grenades, rockets, etc., obtained by the narcotics gangs. … That is to say, they are obtaining their weapons from their own, Mexican, government, by various illegal means.
… The Mexican government has a long and well-documented history of corruption at all levels, from city to federal. Most of the weapons being “displayed” [in the media] are simply not available for sale to American civilians, particularly including the grenades — both 40mm and hand types. …
… The source of these weapons can be easily traced by ATF. … All foreign sales must be reported to ATF prior to shipment, just in case the government wishes to hold up a shipment to a particular country, etc. Tracing the serial numbers would be easy, with US government assistance, of course.
But that assumes the Mexican government, and our own government, really want to trace those weapons. A November 2008 report in the San Antonio Express News, which includes details of the major weapons seizure in Reynosa, Mexico, that same month involving the Zetas, reveals the following:
Another example of coordination problems occurred this month. Mexican authorities in Reynosa across the border from McAllen, seized the country’s single largest stash of cartel weapons — nearly 300 assault rifles, shoulder-fired grenade launchers and a half million rounds of ammunition.
But weeks later, Mexican authorities still have not allowed the ATF access to serial numbers that would help them track down the buyers and traffickers on the U.S. side.
To be sure, cartel corruption and intimidation of Mexican law enforcement at every level and in every agency has caused some dysfunction.
So I guess two corrupt governments = no gun rights for citizens.
Powered by WordPress
