You probably didn't notice ...

but I haven't been doing much blogging lately.
Well, you worst fears have come to pass, the gun debate critic blog is being discontinued until further notice.

If you enjoyed reading here, you can use one of the many notification services to be made aware if I should return to posting.

As for now, I have other matters to attend to.

Here's what's wrong with the world today:

Seriously, how long is Ishida going to keep this up, it only keeps getting better since he started ... over a week ago already?

There's something wrong with this country, a phrase from V for Vendetta, a lesson to be learned from this cartoon.

No less than lethal .... murder?

Or: when police officers blatantly violate directions and people die.

Suppose that a man is threatening to jump into his death, standing on a ledge three floors up, what is the right thing to do? Call in a negotiator, set up an inflatable cushion?
Well, according to one NYC "only one", deploying a stun gun is the way to go!

Let's see

1. Officers had radioed for an inflatable bag as the incident unfolded, but it had not yet arrived
2. the guidelines issued with the expansion in June specifically state that when possible, the stun guns "should not be used ... in situations where the subject may fall from an elevated surface
3. So far this year, stun guns have been used 180 times. No other deaths have been reported.

No not murder, negligent manslaughter ... if anything.

Oleg Volk needs you!

If you've been wondering what's up with the high road forum, get over here , read and weep ... or better yet, join the scores of arduous gun rights supporters in bankrolling legal action against a died in the wool thief!

Yee of little faith

• I didn't know that the current crisis/bailout issue could be made funny until I say that.

• -Learnabout guns, "the rich will go on"

Not only can almost anything be made fun of, I don't think Tatsuya Ishida is nowhere near finished.
Point to prove: Today's cartoon.
In bad taste or funny as hell? I for one laughed and felt a little guilty, what about you?

*UPDATE*

One day later ... the boost you need to keep fucking liberty.

Assault flatulence

Monty python may have jokingly said "I fart in your general direction", but passing gas has been considered an offensive act ... and by offensive I mean to say that a man who farted in the vicinity of a police officer has been charged with battery on a police officer.

Do we need gas control laws to protect our policemen, and: is this why some local governments seem hell bent on shutting down junk food outlets?

Time will tell, or probably won't.

When you say "assault weapons ban"

... all I hear is: ban on robust entry level guns that are cheap and easy to maintain by people new to the shooting sports.

Secret bomb ingrediënt my ...

Whenever the media get their hands on an amateur bomber, they turn and twist stuff around faster and harder than the large hadron collider.

Acetone peroxide becomes "the mother of satan", fertillizer is a national threat and aluminum powder is a "secret ingredient" that makes bombs super-duper dangerous with a twist. Yeah I'm snapping at you, wired ...

Aluminium has been used for ages to increase the density of explosives as well as correct or intentionally throw off the oxygen balance. Aluminium, Al by it's scientific name has seen extensive use by amateur high energy chemists in compositions such as ANAl wax, ANNMAl and many more. The military uses it in huge crude explosives. It is not a secret, it is common practice for military ordonance and amateur concoctions alike.

Stop with the PSH! Needlessly scaring people to terrorist acts defeats the purpose of terrorism, don't do their job for them!

Man recovers the rifle issued to his father in Korea

• It is a rare person who does not attach some sort of value or emotion to some physical object or to an event. A home becomes more than a building. A statue of the Virgin Mary, a crucifix, a flag or a song, or even a photograph can stir emotions greater than the value of the material item. (...) our guns are more than metal and wood.

From the essay "metal and wood" by Dennis Bateman


A veteran who served in Korea with a .30 carbine managed to retain the serial number of his service weapon. With this number, his son managed to track down and acquire the rifle.
Much reminiscing ensued.

Not just pieces of wood and metal ... not something that could ever be "bought back".

The rich will go on.

A beautifull, heart warming story that has so many hooks and angles: the conflict between the rich and poor, love that transcends classes, the expendable nature of some human life, the allusion to nudity and a pig to sing about the downfall of the US economy all summarized in a five strip cartoon.

Check it out!

A quiet day ...

... nothing much to blog about, so here's some gun porn:

A .50 beowulf AR

Belgium is making a mistake (education)

School starts Monday, we had the introduction /slash/ first chance to pick up books and rosters today, as well as a speech about the introduction of educational credits ... learning credits they're called.

If you're just in it for the guns -what the hell are you doing *here*- you might want to skip todays post. I think education is a great way to further society, so it concerns me, and what I've learned today is upsetting.

So the fedgov is trying to get more bang for their buck when pumping money in the higher education system. They want people to get into school, enjoy a subsidized education under high speed low drag conditions before hopping into the job market without looking back and becoming yet another high earning taxpayer, paying enough taxes to continue to support subsidized education, the boomers retirement, healthcare for the masses and welfare for the unfortunate.

Starting this year, each student who enrolls in one of Belgiums many fine colleges or universities will be allotted 140 "learning credits" (LC). Enrollment in a course requires a certain amount of LC's. For example, my course in chemistry would have cost me 6 points, which are refunded if you pass the course. The first 60 points you earn back are doubled, so you can end with 200 points max if you successfully complete a 60 point program.

Of course, if you fail, nothing gets refunded, and you just lost your learning credit rating. This is intended to prevent people from enrolling in a class without the sincere intention of seeing ot to the end.
Also, when you succesfully complete a masters education, you LOSE 140 points, just like that! In an effort to force academics out of the academy, the government will now cripple their credit rating.

If you do not have the adequate amount of points to enroll in a course, you'll be required to pay a higher enrollment fee. The government doesn't subsidize any courses you can't put on your own credit, but they also prohibit colleges and universities from asking more than twice the enrollmetn fee, even though the real cost of a course can be five times the subsidised rate! This will result in institutions refusing applicants.

Now, I'm going to my senior year, and everybody who's already enrolled is also just given 140 points, so this doesn't really apply to me ... thank god. I bended around the university for a year you know ... touristing is what they call it. While I did earn multiple academic credits, I didn't take the thing serious. I learned a LOT, I enjoyed myself and I grew as a person, I could! Education was not expensive, I had my parents to provide me with a home and food and clothes and whatnot ... I did fine, and now I'm doing GREAT in a collega that I *am* taking serious.

So when we were geting this explaination about the new situation, I turned to a university buddy of mine (yes, plenty of folk from the university ended up in the same college as me) and said: thank god they're only doing this now. Everybody else next to me agreed.
Said buddy tried and failed his freshman year in the university twice. Not for a lack of dedication or intelligence, it just took him that long to figure out that that wasn't what was right for him, he blazed through this colleges courses at the same speed as me.

Under the current system, he would have been out over a hundred points, I would be at 90-something. He might not be here, and I wouldn't be nearly as confortable.
Don't tell me it's a hard life and school is about work ok! If there's ever going to be any time for me to relax and enjoy life, it's now, and my parents live in a country with a 45% tax pressure rate to make that possible!

Yeh, that's the price you pay for socialized healthcare, subsidized education and whatnot, 45% of what you "earn". That's what I'm looking at for roughly fifty years, so don't tell me I can't take these years of MY life to myself.

I believe this new policy will turn some people away from higher education, it will degrade the academic level of my home country and all I can do is sit here, rant about it and think to myself: thank god I already had my year of fun ... sometimes I disgust myself.

Student planned to shoot and bomb others ...

... but apparently didn't have a gun or explosives.

Contrary to what KSN is claiming, police did NOT find explosives in the home of a student who had claimed he wanted to shoot and bomb other students. After this was heard by other students and passing it on to the proper authorities, the angry ones house was raided and an incendiary device was recovered.

While I'll be the first to admit that incendiaries are very dangerous (more so than explosives in my opinion), they are not explosives. Firebombs aren't "explosives" and even then: incendiary device could be anything from a thermite grenade* to a Molotov cocktail or just a plastic bottle of coleman fuel.

* military designation: AN-M14 TH3

World of crafty terror?

So the fed is starting to worry about terrorists discussing their evil schemes ... over world of warcraft?
Well, terrorists or other criminals could hypothetically use these games chat channels, coupled with some code-language to discuss the detail of their crimes. I mean, it would be perfectly possible to set up a drug deal over WoW (drugs are the anti-WoW after all), I suppose one could be talking worse as well.

I just feel like people are digging deep here, and I hope they've got better avenues than this one to pursue ...

• some day soon, we might find secret agents in World of Warcraft, along with the druids and orcs and night elves.

Hm, 60's era LSD ring infiltration all over again eh?

Is this guy serious?

Ah the internet, a place for free sharing of ideas and opinions. A place for social networking, a place where aspiring artists can be heard, and a place were by the cover of anonymity you can openly call for the extermination of a demographic as well as their innocent and uninvolved family.

I'm talking about a Mr. Anonymous over at Marilyns, responding to a post where a man pulled out a gun after a road rage incident:

• This so-called 'preacher', Thomas Howell, needs to be disarmed and arrested again but this time he should be tired to a chair, his entire family brought before him and shot with his gun. It is what these Bronze Age neaderthals teach with thsir god based eye-for-an-eye savagery. Then he needs to be shot as well.
  
  In fact everyone who buys or owns a gun needs to be killed with their own death machines, its the only way to get through to them and high time too!
  I'm sure the non-violence people here agree with me that is how to create a peaceful world. Kill off all the supporters of violence in our self defece!
  
  Good to see I am agreed with, kill all gun owners and their infected families for the safety and betterment of all mankind. Then we will have peace.
  
  no they can not, guns take over the minds of people and make them feel like gods with the power of life and death over everyone else. there is no treatment or cure for the insanity of guns once exposed to the. the only hope for the rest of us is for the gun owners, their families to be taken and tied up then killed and the guns finally melted down.
  
  its the only way. the only way to get rid of the source of the mental infection of guns and the people who believe in them destroy everyone who comes in contract with them. once that law is passed and put into effect we will get a handle on the plague of gun violence by destroying them all, guns and gun owners. see? it just takes a law to make the killing legal for public safety sake and that will justify it. i'm serious.

(all emphasis mine)

Now, this could be another idiot trying to smear the other side, there's no way to tell really. But this day and age, it would not surprise me that there really are people like this. Remember: a full out race and class war if McCain is elected?

What's your take on this?

Smartguns with sensored grips?

There's been a bit of chatter lately about the new "smart guns", guns equipped with grips that feel your grip as to determine who is holding the gun. Only if the authorized user is holding the gun, is it supposed to be able to fire. I'd like to theorize a bit about the pitfalls of this ideology.

No, I'm not going to make the "lend it out", "change your grip" or "criminals would rip the safety out" arguments over again. I'd like to focus on the "information" aspect.

The following text is strictly speculation, based on no evidence whats however, I am merely fantasizing, bear with me or tune out.

From pictures, I venture to guess that these grips have pressure sensors in them at various places. The lock and key model applies to this perfectly. Just like a key needs to be of specific height at every pin, I guess that your grip would have to be of sufficient strength but not too strong at each sensor. Just like locks allow for small deviation in key tooth height, a gun locking system would have to allow for some slight deviation as well.

This deviation, let's call it "tolerance" will be a factor of great interest; too loose and the lock will open for every grip. Too tight and even an experienced shooter will not be able to operate his own firearm. Laws would have to be drafted to regulate this tolerance, if not, a gun grip producer could market grips with such tolerance that pretty anybody with the same grip technique and hand size could operate a locked firearm, even if it wasn't "registered" to him/her.

There's a bigger problem. This information would have to be stored in the locking device, and can therefor be tampered with. A chip burner would become a pretty wise investment for a black market gun dealer or straw purchaser. This is assuming that the information is stored on a chip. I suppose it could be a magnetic strip such as on the credit cards that get hijacked cloned and altered on a regular basis by fraudsters and identity thieves. Heck, it could be a flash memory chip for all I know, which would pose even less of a challenge.

This may sound like organized crime turf, but is it really? People who buy defensive guns want the most reliable ones. Your average gun owner just might decide to make his gun more reliable by loosening up the tolerances, defeating the purpose of making his gun childproof for one. Said gun would have a higher chance of unlocking for a criminal as well.

Less than lethal, a comprehensive text

So I found this Brit text about alternatives to likely lethal weapons, a.k.a. firearms.
The article contains a lot of information concerning these less than lethal alternatives, such as their capabilities and flaws. A great read if you're new to the subject, or would just like to see what kind of bean bags are around and such.

Much more interesting to me were the comments both in the article and those added by readers.
Here's a nice conclusion:

• The limitations of Tasers and impact rounds mean that firearms officers cannot be instructed not to consider the use of anything except "less lethal weapons".

  "It would be inappropriate for commanders or supervisory officers to attempt to restrict the deployment of an authorised firearms officer to a particular less lethal technology or personal safety tactical option,"

In plain English: A less than lethal only policy is a recipe for disaster. Police officers should not be restricted to such gizmo's, not without the availability of a normal likely lethal weapon as backup. Why you ask?

• "Additionally, it has been shown that it is possible, in certain circumstances, for some individuals to maintain enough control to aim and fire a weapon while under the effects of Taser."

A taser does not always stop a violent attacker. A gun isn't guaranteed to do so either, but you get multiple shots, and each one has a fair chance of stopping a lethal attacker. I'd venture to say that a single 9mm round (cops carry glock 17's over here) isn't guaranteed to stop an attacker, I'd even say one may very well survive it, even if the shot incapacitates him. But with such a weapon, you can easely have up to a dozen rounds available.

What? Do I shock you? (no pun intended) Yes I am talking about killing people. No, I do not like the prospect, I vamue life and dream of a world free of violence, still I talk about cutting life short, why? Let me quote some commenters with whom I completely agree:

• As a former Police Firearms officer I believe that short of many police offiers losing their lives in such incidents there are no other alternatives but to shoot a person dead if he or she will not lay down their firearm when ordered to do so, if they fail to lay down their arms they know the consequences of their actions. (...) (The Police Officers) are protecting their own lives as well as members of the public.

• Let me get this straight: Your officers have to put their lives on the line for you and then fumble through 3 or 4 options while a criminal is endangering their lives and those of the truly innocent people around them. If the criminal happens to die in the police response, it's the fault of the officer? You don't deserve them. Defend yourselves.

A truely interesting read.

Yesterday silence.

So yeah, I spent all of yesterday playing the original fallout game, in expectation of bethesda's rendering of the third installment hitting shop shelves in October.

I took a combat heavy character with the "good mannered" trait, my initial combat skills were crippled, but I could talk, barter and gamble like noone else. After some scientific exploits, a little persuasion and some hard work as a doctor, I leveled up and got acquainted with small arms.
I eventually turned into a compulsively gambling computer hacker that could blow a super mutants eyes out with a bolt of plasma at 50 feet.
But I ended up destroying both the military base and the cathedral with some hacking work, and lockpicking skills I picked when standing in front of the last locked door in the game.

Later in "real" life, I wanted to do a piece on that hammer-attack, but uncle beat me to that.

The reinstitution of banishment

Justice:

1. A crime is committed by a person or group of people.
2. This person is brought before a judge and a jury of his peers.
3. He is tried and judged, and if applicable: sentenced to undergo a punishment.
4. The person serves his time, repays his debts.
5. The person is once again a free man.

Well, often there are some additional conditions, you can lose your right to vote or that to own a target rifle, but generally, you do the time and your time is done.

Not so in Manchester New Hampshire where the major seeks to return to the dark ages by effectively banishing a man who has previously served his time. The man, a convicted killer who has been released from prison after serving his 25 year sentence and ten years more, now lives in a boarding house where probation officers intend to monitor him. Mister major demands he be removed and placed elsewhere, in someone else's city.

The major joins the ranks of other countless majors who seek to usurp additional powers, other than those granted by the electorate. He does not want this man, who was already punished for his actions, living in "his" town. "His" town? ... the majors? Isn't it the town of the people who live there?

I have little sympathy for this criminal as a person. He did after all kill somebody, but he also served his time, forfeited a certain amount of civil rights and now he is a free man once more. Free to go and live wherever he pleases. He needs not be punished any further by being bounced forth between nanny statist trying to control his life further.

Furthermore, I find it repulsive that an elected official show such a lack of faith in the justice system! Why doesn't he want that guy around? Does he know something we don't about the effectiveness of prison terms, probation and rehabilitation? Does he intend to openly admit that the prison based justice system doesn't work? If so, does he not have bigger fish to fry than dogging this one old man who just spend 35 years in captivity?

golf club accident leaves 7 y/o dead.

It's a scene from cartoons and comics, one person swings an object such as a baseball bat, a wooden beam or plank, and accidentally hits somebody over the head with it.

Well, it happened with a golf club recently, and the person struck was a seven year old child. The boy did not survive the incident.

The video of that girl handling a rifle sparked outrage in some, provoking comments such as "she should be doing girly stuff". Well, accidents can happen everywhere, and some sports are more dangerous than others.
Kids die in accidental shootings too, but at a far lower rate. That girl doing fire drills, she's probably safer off than the other girl in cheerleading.

Think about that.

One response after a home invasion, the right one?

In the past, couple had fallen victim to home invaders, violent criminals who attacked these folk in their own home, a place where they should be safe, should be ... not were.

They were not safe, they were attacked and robbed and they took action in hopes of preventing that from happening again. Hope misplaced, proven so by a lack of change.
Watch through this video and see how well their precautions worked.

They placed one or more cameras, then their house was invaded again. The camera's caught images of their attackers, hopefully allowing the police to arrest them, but they did not stop the intruders, did not prevent them from assaulting and injuring them. I hope for their sake that they realized that as they lay in their hospital beds.

A gate might have stopped their attackers, the sight of a gun may have turned them away, such precautions might have safeguarded them from harm. The camera only served as an aid for punishing the criminals after the fact. Had those invaders opted to kill them, they would be just as dead.

"Never again" is an intention and a promise that needs to be enforced. If you desire to never again be subjected to violence, then it falls onto you to be able to enforce that desire in an effective manner.

Current events in the UK: the list.

I'll pass on reciting the countless acts of violent crime this week. They just keep coming and coming without end, check for yourself.

What I'd like to share with you this week is the list ... the list of 25 teenage fatalities, victims of Londons violent criminals. 25 ... at last count.

Two of them were shot to death. Only two, or ... oh my god there were two of them?
Only two, as if to mean that guns are available after all and ever so deadly as compared to knives or other sharp objects which were used to kill ... well pretty much everybody else.
Oh my god two, if you honestly believe that strict gun control prevents gun crime.

One of these kids was killed with a shard of broken glass for crying out loud, how are you going to gt rid of their weapons? How are you going to prevent them from ganging up on their victims and beating them to death? By making it illegal ... even more so?

Twenty five and counting.
Who still remembers when the time to act was passed by?

McCain, or: not knowing how to pose

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: the worst McCain picture ever!



Found here, thanks to Runaway_Stapler

Politics and food, or: My way! My way! My way!

Politicians often try to do the right thing, that is: try to do what they think is right. What they think is good for you. Usually I blog about guns, and you've all -I suppose- read the argument that you don't "need" that AK-clone. Right? "You don't need it, I don't want it myself so I don't think you should have it either" is what they say.

Well, that ideology and the fatal flaw is illustrated in something else today: junkfood.

The Albuquerque Major is bent on banning junk food from vending machines on City property and demands it be replaced with healthier food. He calls it:

• "Get rid of the bad stuff that none of us need,"

Now, the people who "run" these vending machine have tried to introduce healthy food in their vending machines in the past. They have allowed the people the freedom to choose what they stuff their face with, and the people chose to leave those healthy snacks where they were, letting them go stale in the machines.

Knowing this, the major has no interest in allowing the people a choice, he instead has opted to force his opinion on the people he serves:

• "We absolutely want to continue to have them in our facilities if they can convert to healthy choices 100 percent,"

Yeah, that's a man who defends the rights of the people right there (/sarcasm)

Look I think people should eat healthier too, but you can't force that choice on them! furthermore, I seriously doubt that those who intend to eat healthy things will bring fresh food with them from home. What, you forgot that a healthy diet is something to be upheld consistently? That it requires variety far beyond what vending machines offer?

The nutritional idiocy aside, you can't just force your will onto the people! It's on city property now, but what's next? Banning new fast food outlets? Oh forgive me, its called "health zoning". Just like it's not oppression of freedom to peaceably assemble, it's instituting "free speech zones".

Keep your eyes open to what's happening around you, because it's the same thing all over but closer to home.

Spyspace? Facebook for spooks?

Granting credibility to the long established rumor that government agencies have trouble sharing ... information that is, they are now to start using "A-space", a social networking site for members of the US intelligence community. It would allow them to share intel quickly and efficiently, information that would otherwise remain classified within one agency.

A good evolution, or a huge security risk once 4chan gets wind of it?
How long until somebody misplaces a flash drive with sensitive information?

An interesting concept with an intriguing future!

Man plotted to molotov RNC.

A man was found in possession of multiple molotov cocktails. He intended to disrupt the republican national convention by causing a power outage, he also intended to use his firebombs against law enforcement personnel should they try and stop him:

• “I will light those pigs on fire.”

Fortunately, nobody was actually injured.

Poetry

So when listening to Joey DeMaio singing "dance on a string" in "Blood of the kings" reminded me of a poem by Oscar Wilde which I once helped my sister analyze for her homework, I just had to share some of it with you.

• Yet each man kills the thing he loves
  By each let this be heard,
  Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
  The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!

A classical education, do *you* have it?

Laser rifles on the coming?

Chemical based lasers are already a reality, even if not battlefield tested at the moment. One problem though is that these devices are big and heavy, unfit for small arms. As a matter of fact, the first likely carrier would be a boeing 747.

But now, wired reports of an electrical laser under development, the kind that is small enough to be turned into a laser rifle ...
Yes I am sitting here with a grin on my face, what off it? :p

UK squirrel hunters.

American squirrels are bigger, stronger and more aggressive than the European red squirrels. They also carry a virus that kills off the reds, and are therefor a menace to the UK's native squirrel population.
As the reds numbers fall, hunters are trapping and killing grey squirrels to cull their numbers, and selling off the meat to high end butchers.

There's the usual complaint about how ethical it is to shoot a caged squirrel in the back of the head with an air rifle while there are other options available such as contraception ... not exactly sure how that would work but somehow I doubt it will be a bit more costly than this method.

Maybe this will help to bring hunting back into normality in the UK, I certainly hope so.

When cops try their best ...

... but there best just isn't good enough.

Police officers were called to the scene of a man with a gun in what I presume to be a bad part of town. They came across two men. One man was ostensibly carrying what appeared to be a handgun. When ordered to do so, one man surrendered and put up no fight whats however, the other one, the one with the "gun" didn't.

Less than lethal measures were deployed but they failed. And then when the man appeared to reach for his gun, officers used normal guns, which did incapacitate him.

The man was homeless, the gun was a fake. Police fire claimed one more, innocent victim: a man who was grazed by a police bullet, he wasn't seriously hurt fortunately.

Look, these cops did their best. They started by talking, they tried to end it with less than lethal means but when those failed they had to make a split second decision and they chose to survive, not knowing they didn't have to take another life for that.

I suppose this case will be added to the long list of "innocent victims of gun violence" and "innocent victims of police violence" ... I think those cops did a good job in a crappy world and I hope they don't beat themselves up over it.

One gun a month, my two cents.

With gun legislation, there are several driving forces behind the laws. Some laws can be rightfully considered aimed at banning guns, or making them otherwise unavailable to the people. California's microstamping law may turn out to be like this, making certain firearms prohibitively expensive.

Other legislation is more cunning, making it a little more difficult to become a gun owner, to buy a "fun gun" for example, it is my belief that the focus on bayonets is a law like this, as I have said before.

But there's also legislation that truly has been thought of -at least in part- to help tackle gun crime. While there's always the "slippery slope" argument, some proposed laws do envision criminal or otherwise questionable activity. I'd like to talk about "gun rationing" laws in that regard.

Ostensibly, the law is supposed to curb gun trafficking, disallowing criminals from buying a large amount of guns (more than one per month) for resale to people who cannot (or rather not) buy their guns from a licensed dealer. By only allowing one gun a month to be purchased, proponents of such legislation hope to decrease the amount of guns that end up on the black market. This of course depends entirely on the idea that an unlicensed gun dealer sells significantly large amounts of guns (or at least more than one per month) and isn't capable of finding somebody else to purchase more guns legally.

It's not the effectiveness that entertains me, it is the manner in which gun control proponents seek to tackle the problem as a whole. They choose to prevent criminals from buying multiple weapons legally, cutting the problem off at the root. This also prevents some honest from buying that .22 when they figure out that a .357 wasn't a good choice for their first handgun, or prevents some people from buying a "his and hers" set in the same month, but the idea is that this generally only affects the criminal element and some "legislative flyers*" are acceptable.

While I personally doubt the actual "need" for a law like this, such legislation has been introduced in a lot of places. I'd like to propose a revision:
Why don't you limit the amount of private sales per month? If Joe Citizen wants to buy an S&W collectors set consisting of 5 wheel guns, why not let him? Don't prevent him from spending money and keeping some local merchant in business, but force him to keep those handguns in his possession for some time. Prohibit selling off bulk purchases. If you limit the amount of private sales to one per month, but still allow sale through FFL's then:

1. Criminals can't legally dump more than one handgun per month on the street.
2. Citizens can still legally buy guns at will.
3. The "guns show loophole" disappears almost entirely
4. Sale through licensed dealers is encouraged.
   

There'd need to be some control mechanism of course, a mandatory checkup by an FFL for example, as to not burden the police with yet another gun law to enforce. He/she'd take note that you still posses the guns that bought in an under one month period.

Again, I'm not arguing that we need rationing laws to begin with, I'm just saying that if you're going to introduce them out of the intention to stop criminals, do so in a manner that doesn't harm the law abiding.

*I henceforth lay claim to this term.

Current events in the UK

A body was recovered, the victim presumably died from injuries to the neck and face. A man died of undisclosed injuries after being attacked, yet another person is in critical condition following an assault ...

So when I was going through my blogroll this morning, I spotted a true gem over at sharp as a marble. Where he spots a news article with something interesting to say:

• Guns are always available and stemming the flow of weapons remains an almost impossible task.

Some people knew this before, some have been saying so all along. Some people have been in denial for some time now. I'd say others have known but keep denying it because of ulterior motives.

Point to proof, a man used a handgun to try and rob a bank just now.

This weeks knife crime alone is enough to fill a blog. One kid was stabbed to death after a party, don't conuse him with the OTHER kid that was stabbed at a party and died. Q:Did you hear about that kid that got stabbed to death at the party - A:Which one?

Two men were stabbed, one died in what is called "not a random attack". Earlier, yet another teen was stabbed to death in London.

If anybody was wondering, arsonists *do* still kill people, large amounts of illegal drugs are still being confiscated and few people bat an eye at either.

You can't have it.

Here's a guy who knows how to get the point across!



Brought to you thanks to kaiservontexas who will appreciate your visit

Assassins creed, part two

So, I did get it to work, runs perfectly now.
Other than the sometimes crappy console-camera, it handles sweet. Amazing game!

So ... yeah I pretty much wasted the entire day on that ... thank god for media center automatically recording anything worthwhile on TV so I don't even need to bother doing that.
There *is* also a feature that lets me schedule blog posts but I neglected to use that one. I am not sorry :p

I promise that the good and trusty current events in the UK post will be up tomorrow, maybe I'll snoop around the newspapers tonight and see if anything catches my eye.

Assassins creed

Trying to get it to work X(

It was great fun while it lasted ... stabbing crusaders in the back scaling buildings and all, but it just keeps crashing on me :(

I'll be blogging about something tomorrow.

Very interesting read:

Handgun wounding factors and effectiveness.
(For law enforcement dissemination only)

An FBI publication concerning the effects of gunshots and how to achieve the desired results during a gunfight. A very interesting read if you ask me!

Dealing with pigs ...

No, not our boys in blue, hogs, pigs, boars and the like.

Wild pigs are an old ace in California, I even blogged about them slightly in the past. And right now, they're at it again. Dozens of pigs are sometimes seen wreaking havoc in peoples gardens and yards.
The authorities are allow people to apply for permits that would allow them to shoot these critters.

I was under the impression that you could shoot feral hogs without a permit if they're causing property damage, guess I was wrong.
Either way, pork ribs and bacon are yummy, their population needs culling and meat is expensive ... it's an omen.

Correction on boat homicide

Updated news reports have removed a shooting from the events that concluded with the death of 39-year-old Albert Edward Driscoll III of Edgemere, who was supposedly shot on a boat.
It may not have been a defensive shooting or gun homicide after all, but a stabbing or other type of altracation.

I'd like to apologise for any wrong information passed on, and remind everybody, myself most off all, that even the mainstream media is not infallible when it comes to spreading information.

Russia recognizes rebels ... with poor trigger control.

So people are condemning Russia for recognising South Ossetia and Abkhazia as nations, broken away from Georgia. They declare two regions as nations, and the Russians are catching flak from everybody who disagreed with them on various other issues that have nothing to do with this, like from me:

What on earth are you thinking recognising this woman pictured with the worst trigger control in the history of photography as a resident of a sovereign state:


(picture from CNN, found here)

Honestly, I halfly expect that the safety on the other side of the reciever is one notch down.
If you're going to have your picture taken for the international press, and you're posing with a rifle that's got a magazine in there, keep your booger hook off the trigger!

On another note: I have no opinion on the local politics as I am not familliar with the region. The political content of this post is there for satire, I do not support either the independance of either state, or the preservation of the greater Georgian nation ... I don't care either way, ok?

Boat burglar blasted.

(A correction to this post was issued on the 27th of august, turns out it was not a shooting)

A defensive gun use can occur at your house, place of work, on the road and as it now turns out: on your boat.

A 21 ear old man was rudely awakened from his sleep as multiple criminals tried to pry their way into his boats cabin. The exact events that ensued aren't known yet, but one of the burglars, one Albert Edward Driscoll III of Edgemere, ended up shot and deceased. His death has been ruled a homicide, but no formal charges have been filed. I hope this shooting was justified and that it is recognised as such.


(Killings by police officers in the line of duty, fatal incidences of self defense and other justifiable/excusable action are all classified as homicides)

An invasion of your property and a possible treath to your life is a very serious matter. Odds are very low that you'll ever have to defend your life, but an attack may occur anywhere, and if your have chosen to carry a means of defending your life, carry it wherever you can.

Current events in the UK

Welcome once again to the gun debate critic on sunday, as I take a look at the current situation in the gun control paradise of the UK. Gun control is non-existant according to the crooks, and it aint no paradise either. Let's have a look:

Starting off with a hint of mystery, a body was found on the roadside ... a family man who had gone missing. Murder, suicide, accident ... the police are investigating.
The police also speak of mystery themselves as they for witnesses to help clear up a death in a pub.

To account for a lack of working gun control: one man was shot to death in Birmingham, another was gunned down in Dublin. Two people were injured in a shooting (also in Birmingham), and the gun that was used to kill someone last week has been recovered.
It's not all guns ... one man managed to shoot himself with a crosbow, he'll live. Accident or botched suicide? I wouldn't know either.

A man remains in critical condition after a stabbing, a teenager was stabbed to death, as was a senior citizen, another man is critical ... the list goes on and on ...

This is NOT a peaceful place!

Getting away with a felony.

Suppose you willfuly and intentionally planted your fist in someones face ... that constitutes assault. A felony that -under the current legal system- should land you before a judge and a jury of your peers, because you simply do not walk around hitting people, do you?

Well, the law it would appear isn't equal for all of us.

The major of Detroit who I can only guess leads his violent urban centre by example was charged with multiple assault charges. Now the DA is making him an offer, drop your title and you'll get away with it. Give up your job, and this violent crime you carried out against a fellow American will go completely unpunished.

Not to overdramatize, the good Major faces ten felony charges in two seperate criminal cases, but still. How would you feel if a charge for assault against you or a loved one (spouse, child) was being used as tender in a deal. The crime perpetraited against you or your dear ones will go unpunished, but fear not! This man, who when opposed by even the most incompetent of adversairies in the next election would not get re-elected, will have to give up his job.

How would you feel?

And don't tell me how this will allow them to better prosecute him, if the fact that he's a major would stand in the way of bringing him to justice for TEN FELONIES, than we've got seriously bigger problems.

Video of a close quarters shooting

Here's a video of a cop who's moolighting as a security guard when the shop he's guarding is robbed by three criminals, at least two armed with handguns.



I got the impression that those criminals didn't originally inted to kill anybody. Rather than just shooting the cop, one of them tells him to give up his gun (imagine that, thugs disarming the law abiding). But then the policeman pushes his attackers gun away from him before delivering two rounds point blanc into the chest.

A criminal will just use your gun angainst you my ass!

I'm not sure if he should have gone outside, he only opened himself up to more gunfire in my opinion, but in the end, he walked away without a scratch and there were three thugs off the street. Good show!

killing in a fit of rage ...

People are killed in a fit of rage, there is no oint in denying it. What I'd like to deny here today is that removing firearms from the scene would prevent such a thing.

Students can be under a lot of stress, I would know, and stress is killer. But then again, I've never felt -through stress and rage compelled- to kill another human being in a fit of rage. Somebody else did however:

• A law student who stabbed his guardian 56 times because she had pressured him to resit his failed exams was jailed for life yesterday.

  David Quartey, 22, was convicted of murdering Victoria Anyetei, 54, in a “frenzied attack of enormous brutality” as she waited in her car to take him to college for extra tuition.

You can read the entire story here. My point is, that people kill people. We've been doing so since we were still feasting on wooly mammoths, back when swords and longbows were the assault weapons, and I'm confident we'll continue to do so long into the future. I would very much like to put an end to that, alas, I can only start with myself.

Other people claim that they can put an end to other peoples behavior. One way is by passing legislation against itmes associated with crime. Ban guns to prevent gun crime, ban knives to prevent knife crime, ban drugs to prevent drug crime.
It's never: ban guns to prevent murder or homicide in a fit of rage, and if it were, it would be a failure, as people kill other people in a fit of rage without guns just the same.

Remember that.

A pound of cyanide ... freely for sale?

So a poor man is found dead in an expensive hotel, dead from cyanide poisoning (technically cardiac arrest or respiratory failure I think, but lets not split hairs), a pound of cyanide was recovered at the scene, that's enough to kill eighty people and then some.

First terrorism was suspected, but now police have decided it was suicide.

A couple of toughts:
People continue to demonize guns as suicide tools, but the substance he supposedly used is readely available to all:

• Denver police spokesman John White assured that the kind of cyanide Dirie had could be purchased anywhere, since it's the primary ingredient in rat poison.

Which also begs the question: doesn't this mean that an ideal weapon for mass murder is simply out there? Where are the million people marches? The "terror gap" websites and the like?

Nanny state: Mandatory noise pollution

Sure, people like to diss the California administrations for their inability to control violent crime, racial tensions and illegal drug traficking. They sneer at their homeschooling policies and building codes and their liberal laws concering substances that remain illegal at the federal level ... but try to make fun of this:

Some folks are concerned that the new hybrid cars are so quite, that blind people may not be able to detect them in traffic. This perceived hazard is something that the California legislature simply must deal with!

• (California Legislature) has passed a bill to ensure that the vehicles make enough noise to be heard by visually impaired people about to cross a street.

Mandatory noisemaking for cars. I always thought those "loud pipes save lives" bumperstickers were a funny gimmick, well, some Californians would seem to agree ...
So ... spoke rims and an ace of spades*? Whistles built into speed holes? Can't wait to see how this turns out.

*on the wheel or on the stereo, either one will do.

nothing brings the world together like simulated murder

Saywhat?

So I was just over at cracked dot com reading an article about olympic sports that somehow didn't make the cut for appearing in the Bejing games. Sports like canefighting and speedskiing.
The article ends with dueling with pistols ... for true, cracked claim that dueling with pistols was once an olympic sport, and it's true! They weren't killing their competitors of course, they were shooting mannequins.

The poll linked to shows that 32% of the people who took the poll would like to see it on the olympics once again! And those are ABC readers! (note: *I* read ABC :p)

So, combat shooting at the olympics anyone? I'd try to qualify!

Woman stabs ex-boss in the head

A woman was angry with her former superviser, former because he'd fired her not long before. So she
snuk into his house, found him sleeping in his bed with his wife besides him, and she stabbed him in the head multiple times. The wife who was promptly awakened defended the life of her beloved* husband by hitting the other woman over the head with a baseball bat.

In the video here, a neighbour vocalises her ability and willingness to do basically the same, but with a firearm.
I applaud her!

*I presume

Current events in the UK

Welcome once again to the gun debate critic on sunday, current events in the UK.

It's been a rather shocking week, as a heavely pregnant woman was attacked in her home! She was bludgeoned over the head and seriousky injured. Fortunately, her child was allright, doctors induced labour and brought the baby healthy to this oft horrible place. In response, police are stepping up their activities in the neighbourhood. I applaud their efforts, but I also regret that they can only do so after the facts. That's not the polices fault, that's just the way it is I'm afraid.

The twenty third teenager has been killed in Londen, a 17 year old was killed with a single stab of a knife. The same day another teen was killed in an unrelated incident. Knife attacks are no reason for city officials to consider their city dangerous it would seem ... "sure, a woman was stabbed, but this place is perfectly safe otherwise, I swear!". Perhaps she's lucky ... another woman was raped at knifepoint by multiple attackers.

To illustrate the administrations failure at keeping guns out of the hands of kids, a 13 year old was found in posession of a handgun, ammunition and sound supressors. The gun may be a Makarov Baikal-442, which may very well have been procured in eastern Europe and smuggeled into the UK.
In a display of justice after the horrendous fact, a young drug dealer was sentenced after shooting three people dead with a semi-automatic mac-10, and then stabbing two people after that. He regrets ... running out of ammunition.

And once again, a petrol bomb was used to attack an inhabited construction, the house of a law enforcement official.

Banning guns, not quite working great if you ask me.

No less than lethal

Yet another man has been killed by what manufacturers still try to pass of as less-than lethal.
A man was seen ...

• under the influence, knocking on people's doors, while screaming for help.

... a regular menace to sciety.

When police arrived at the scene, they told him to put his hands behind his back. Because he did not comply fast enough for the police officers tastes, they tazered him three times, killing him.
The article makes no mention of anybodies life being in danger, not the officers lives, nobody else, he wasn't trying to run, I do not see a single reason why they should have deployed a taser on him.

Once again, a man has lost his life because a tool that was supposed to be used under no corcumstances other than those meriting the use of a lethal weapon was used to obtain complience ... id est: torture.

No, you may be asking: One post I bash tasers because they're not effective, the other I bash them for killing people. My beef is with tasers, you don't know what you're getting yourslef (and somebody else) into: They may not work, they may kill somebody ... you just don't know.

Guns can fail too, but generally, if your aim is good, you'll get a pretty predictable result ... you know what to expect.

Thank god he didn't have a gun ...

Police are looking for a man who got into a fight with a DJ, and ended up cutting his eyes out.

...

No, not a sick joke, he cut the guys eyes out, blinding him.

Thank god he didn't have a gun huh? He could have seriously injured the guy.

Gun > Taser

Last time it was a police officer who shot and stopped an attacker who had a stun gun, now I've come accross a normal citizen who was the victim of a carjacker. After the man resisted, the criminal was able to shoot him multiple times, despite being shocked with a taser just moments before!

Less than lethal weapons have their worth and their place, but if my life were on the line, I'd prefer a firearm

Don't worry about your guns ...

We'll protect you ...

Gun > Taser

Linked to by Robb Allen

A police officer with a firearm, a criminal with a stun gun, the law abiding person in posession of a firearm comes out on top.

Hazmat and common sense ...

Today I'll talk about a very serious issue, something that can lead to horrible accidents, something that could easely be used as a weapon of mass destruction: legitimate household chemicals.

A woman feared her children had fallen ill at the hand of a set of chemicals used for pool maintenance. As she brought her offspring to the emergency room, she figured it would be a good idea to bring the chemicals along so doctors could use the information to better help her children.
She did not realize that by doing so, she exposed a large portion of the hospital to those very same chemicals, multiple members of staff got sick as well.

Read the story here.

Now, what she did was ... not entirely tought through to say the least, but what mother would not be eer so slightly in panic if you childerne are sick? She tought she was helping, and she basically had the right idea, but not quite.

If you fear that you've been adversly affected by chemicals, do not bring the actual substances! Ideally you could take an empty container or the labels with you, or snap a couple of pictures with a digital camera or cell phone.

Don't drag chemicals with you that are dangerous, and especially do not risk cleaning agents to get mixed, some very common chemicals you use at home may ract with eachother and form highly dangerous agents. People fall ill every year, some even die because of improper use of around-the-house-chemicals.

Current events in the UK

Welcome again to the gun debate critic on sunday, current events in the UK.

Starting off with a hint of mystery as often before, two people were found dead with serious head injuries, cause unknown or otherwise undisclosed at the moment.

I'm glad to see justice come down hard on the 16 year old killer of a fourteen year old boy, stabbed him to dead him for giving the other "a dirty look". Mind that a life sentence hardly ever means spending life in prison on this side of the ocean. If anything, maybe these harsh punishments will turn youngsters away from violent crime ... if only:

A small gang of "Brady Children" attacked a middle aged man, who survived but needed medical attention for a skull fracture. Do think of the children!

There have always been some who tought criminals would simply pick on easier targets with guns unavailable to the law abiding, an example of this can be found in this incident, where a woman was assaulted and robbed by an unarmed attacker. The victim ended up in the hospital. Another woman was robbed at knifepont.

Others predicted that criminals would simply switch to other weapons, this has again been confirmed as a band of criminals carried out a robbery armed with a hammer and a stun gun. Another pair of criminals carried out half a dozen of robberies with a large kitchen knife and a metal bar amongst their weapons. And yet another group of criminals used a machete and knives to attempt a robbery during which they stabbed a security guard in the ass.
I suppose some will be glad to see criminals moving away from guns I suppose ... ah wait:

An apparently random shooting proves that guns are still available to the criminal element in the UK, a spent shell would indicate that the gun used was a semi-automatic firearm. Another shooting brought the teenage death-count in Londen up to 22, with many more dead outside of the capitol.

One of the responses to these dozens of dead children has been to crack down on knife posession, continued actions remain a way to put people behind bars. One arrest per hour was the average of an action in Essex, though 75% of those arrested were arrested for drug crimes. One might dispute the effects, three teenagers were hospitalized for stab wounds yesterday, as well as a man in his twenties.

Once again, fire fighters have come under attack by youths, this along with the recent "spate" of firebombings may prove to be a great danger in the long run. But it need not all be firebombings and molotov coctails, dousing somebody in gasoline and setting him on fire isn't unheard of either.

History of my homeland

What is the price of a mile?



A common hobby in the place where my grandfather moors his boat is digging up remnants of either world war that's been fought here, remnants are plentifull, but memories are running thin and past horrors are being forgotten.

out shopping, the art of war, Georgia

So I went out shopping today, and I picked up a bunch of Alice Cooper CD's, as well as Sabatons "the art of war".

I'm listening to it right now ... they managed to blend Sun Tzu's writings quite well with their music! Before the number "40:1" (the casualty ratio between the nazi Wehrmacht and the Polish defenders of the Westerplatte), a female voice quotes Sun Tzu that conquering in battle alone does not suffice to be a victor in the end. (winning without doing battle is to be desired, true words)
For sure, if in every battle you suffer casualties at a fourty to one ratio, you'll not likely win the war.

Later, this is essentially repeated in the song Talvisota, which is about the Finnish war in WWII, you all remember "Finland, be afraid", right?

So, listening to this music, I put the international news up on a browser tab, to see houses in Georgia set ablaze, Russian sources claiming over 2000 fatalities in the Southern Ossetian Capital alone.
If anybody invlolved in the conflict is reading this, let me quote Brodén to whom I'm listening right now:

• How many wasted lives? How many dreams did fade away?
  Broken promises they won't be coming home
  Oh mothers wipe your tears your sons will rest a million years
  Found their peace at last as foe turn to friend and forgive
  And they knew they'd die

Seriously, you know how this will eventually end, small details such as the final borders and other geopolitcal details aside ... small details in comparison to the human pain suffering, and the grief by the survivors of the dead.

Dial 911 and die

Another person who called 911 for assistance has died, as the dispatcher sent rescue to the wrong house.

First they lost 18 minutes figuring out the right street, but even after the confusion (Wells ... Wales, I can see the confusion) it took another 19 minutes before an ambulance was dispatched!

This person died from medical issues, maybe she could have been saved.
Imagine the same situation with somebody beating down your door, or with an abusive spouse ... a burglar or anybody else who intends to injure or kill you; how long would it take for you to get through to the operator, would he/she be able to send help immediately and how fast would help arrive?

Survive untill it does.

Firebombing spree? blame it on video games.

So about a month ago, multiple verhicles ware set on fire by criminals with firebombs. Now, the confessed culprits are in custody and they blame ... grand theft auto IV, a video game.

what, "I didn't mean to, the video game made me do it!" ?

Seriously, at some point their parents should have told them that setting other peoples stuff on fire is a big no-no right? Should the store cashier not have been a little suspicious about some kid/kids checking out glass bottles, rags/fabric and lighter fluid? I'm not blaming the cashier, don't worry, he/she did her job and it is not a cashiers job to make sure kids are well brought-up.

This does show how easy it is to construct such a deadly weapon, all it takes is a trip to the local grocers according to the news report. In reality, a glass bottle of coleman fuel would make a rather crappy incendiary weapon, but they did their intended purpoe so I'll just keep that can of worms shut.

Now we can expect another run on GTA:IV, "it teaches our little ones to make molotovs, eeeek! Ban it! Ban it! Think of the children."

First off, minors shouldn't be playing that game, and parent should be taught the habit of checking esrb rating, (pegi.info for y'all brits), or even better: "what they play".
Secondly, where was all this stuff before? People have been doing some pretty (omitted) things since way before video games, and the games of ages past weren't quite the peacefull platform hopping, cuddely entertainment that people like Jack Thompson seem to think of it.

As a matter of fact, Cracked.com released an article about the worst games from before.
I guess release in 1995 meant that "phantasmagoria" didn't make the list (Video, not for the faint of hearth!)

A couple of kids who haven't been properly raised if you ask me ...

Is that a real cop?

Cnn has got an article showing how easy it is to imersonate a policeman, and how you might be able to tell the difference.
Interesting read to say the least ...

• There have been several case of women being abducted and raped by thugs impersonating police -- and most departments are very sensitive to people's legitimate concerns on this score.

• This is pretty scary, since we're all taught to obey the commands of law enforcement officers -- and when a police-looking car is trying to get us to pull over, every instinct tells us to comply.

Firebombing, not just for limeys

• "The methodical and calculated steps these extremists took showed blatant disregard for the safety and welfare of our community,"

Said police chief Skerry, whose name does not instill fear. He was talking about presumed animal rights activists who firebombed a mans house and also set fire to his car.

I've only just recently written an article on firebombing, here's some more:

Guns are "dangerous" which is to say they've got abuse potential in part because they can be used to kill at a distance according to many gun control activists. Well, firebombs do not even require a line of sight! They can easely kill multiple people, cause enourmous amount of property damage and may end up causing a serious multy-building fire in the inner cities.

Demonising guns is not going to be the answer to the violence epidemic that plagues most of the world.

Beliefs you can ... believe in?

Fresh from pundit chicken:



see Obama pictures

I remember when change was about something else, other than (neo)socialism:

What's "mota policia" in Chinese?

Bringing shame to all mexican gangsters armed with what amounts to an overowered .22, Chinese terrorists from the Xinjian province managed to kill 19 policemen before being captured.
(ABC,CNN)

Their weapons?

1. Heavy trucks
2. homemade explosives
3. knives

Heavy trucks as seen in Israel in recent history, homemade explosives available to all with the inclination of learning how to make them, and knives which are supposed to be the scorn of England.

Nineteen fatalities, that's considerably "better" than the average school shooter stateside, and the dead were trained policemen, not high school/collge kids who are constantly drunk or on drugs (according to those who whish them banned from CCW).

The truth in Olegs words

Oleg Volks site, a human right once convinced me of the merits of the gun rights movement, he got me to hop off on this side of the fence so to speak. Still, I took his words with a grain of salt, cautious not to assume anyone telling the truth.

One thing on his site that would definitely be up for discussion is the following piece on his page concerning aesthetics:

• Guns are used to kill lots of people in the US every year. They're much more convenient for killing than, say, a knife or a crowbar, and marginally more convenient than, say, a Buick or a gasoline bomb.

That last part is what I'd like to focus on today, the manner in which a gasoline bomb (molotov coctail) could be used to kill somebody, or rather -as I like to use reality as my witness over my imagination- I'll show you how somebody was killed in an intentional fire.

• After an arguement, somebody set fire to a womans apartement, effectively killing her and seriously injuring her son.

Arson kills, and dead is dead. Had he shot her, she could have died, had he stabbed her, she could have died ... she would have been dead. No more, no less, lost to the world all the same save but for the choice of casket, an open coffin is out of the question now I suppose ... unless she slowly died of smoke inhalation ...

This is not a horse ...

• "If there's anything history has taught us, it is that the adoration of one great leader, forwarding him as holding the solution to all problems is the hallmark of fascism"
  

Dozens sit idely by as man is stabbed over 50 times, decapitated

You've all heard about what happened on that greyhound bus by now, if not, check out sayuncle or the munchking wrangler.

I'd like to point to a similar event where somebody was stabbed dozens of times, but the people around did in fact fight back, and the victim ived to see her assailant tried in a court of law.
In case you weren't around back then: this is what a stabbing looks like.

Self defence, to include the defence of people around you, saves lives!

Monitoring kids: done

After two weeks of pulling ten and a half hour shifts for no money watching peoples children and keeping them entertained, I'll be having some spare time again!

It's been a great two weeks, lots of fun with the kids, a lot of them I see walking through the streets, one of them who lives just around the corner (cutests little girl ever who yells hi whenever I'm in sight) ... I try to chip in for the neighbourhood and this is the way.

But now I'm off to some time of lazing it out and rubbing my feet, and some less halfassed blogging too.

Oh yeah, I directed a play wearing a comical ghilley suit today, I'll see if I can get the video up if I get my hands on it.

Teenager mutilated with battle axe

I'm ... I'm not even going to comment on this ...

Bombing plot foiled.

On this side of the pond, a man was convicted to seven years in prison for activities relating to a terrorist plot:

• A jury was told that the physics graduate, who had also studied chemistry, attempted to make bombs using nitrocellulose, fertiliser, white spirit and acetone, and had made handwritten notes stipulating the design of the devices.

What? I don't know which fertillizer exactly, but Nitrocellulose and (I can only guess) ammonium nitrate are far from practical explosives by themselves, and getting the resources to detonate ammonium nitrate plasticised with nitrocellulose (which is what the acetone is for) is no simple feat!

So I read on:

• "It's true that the materials you in fact had were so inferior, so third rate, that they would not themselves have made a viable bomb.

  "But the fault was with the quality of materials and not in the concept.

  "If you had developed this concept into a working bomb, there would have been great potential for destruction, injury and death."

Not so conforting after all ...

No post for you!

After spending over ten hours at the playgrounds I had to attend the mandatory "meeting" ... it's eleven o clock and I'm burning up here, so no post for you today.

I'm just going to stroll about my blogroll and enjoy a nice glass of award winning JP Chenet medium sweet (2007) before turning in and getting rested for another day of looking after children in the blistering summer heat for no money.

Aint volounteering grand?

On the brighter side, a new kid dropped by today, and he's coming back to pick up the great time he had but couldn't take with him! :)

"My son got bombed"

The words of a mother whose son was hit with a piece of shrapnel from a home-made explosive device. A neighbour tried to build a pyrotechnic device (a fountain if I get this correctly), unfortunately the middle aged man is a complete idiot who doesn't know the first thing about pyrotechnics safety ...

A metal casing ... what was he thinking ... no, he wasn't thinking!
Uhng, this really gets to me, I can only feel horribly sorry for the kid and his familly.

Now, as for the ability of people to manufacture explosive devices "like IED's straight out of Iraq", I've said it before and I'll say it again: the internet is full of information, some of which is accurate. Can you imagine the damage one could do if he had bad intentions and the ability to learn?

What's the point of carrying a gun in a national park?

Any questions?

Originally published by Theo Spark.

Current events in the UK

Welcome all to the gun debate critic on Sunday, as I glance at the other side of the pond and see if the UK is starting to become a peacefull utopia yet. Just a quick glance this sunday:

Starting off with the hint of mystery, a man was killed in a street attack, cause of death undisclosed.

Two people were stabbed but will likely live, another man was stabbed to death. Two others were injured, one of them a 17 year old. Another mas was stabbed with a broken bottle, I can only assume that after the obviously succesfull laws concerning knives, we'll now be seeing the outlawing of glass bottles as well.

A man was shot to death in London and a woman set a van with an acetylene cilinder on fire, acetylene is a highly explosive gas.

Nope, not quite there yet ...

Fox attacks woman, man shoots fox, and wife.

A fox attacked a woman, to the great displeasure of the womans husband.
He came out with a .22 rifle and shot seven times at the critter, killing it but also injuring his widfe in the leg.

Redux?

• Be sure of your target and what is behind it
• shot placement is everything, aim!

Stay safe.

another fatality that doesn't count?

A man was beaten to death by three teenagers. According to some, it is "swapping" if I dare to say that this poor woman is as dead as if she had been shot. Today I'll step further.

The victim endured a long and painfull attack by a gang of attackers before suffering some more in a hospital bed. I do dare venture to say that being shot in the head would be considerably less horrific.
Then again, since she was not "murdered by a gun" her death will not be considered a tragedy (or rather, a fundraiser occasion) ad this is all supposed to make us feel better?

A rose by any other name, death by any other cause ... the flower blooms as beautiful on the grave dug just as deep.

Should I be flattered?

Awalk is back and going strong, putting up a rather large amount of words about how he percieves "pro gun" people to debate.

Should I be flattered? If anything, I'm baffeled ... more than a full (IRL) pages worth of writing, and not a single link!? It's my fault really ... no seriously, such behaviour should have ceased to surprise me ages ago.

No less than torture

Tasers were supposed to be an alternative for guns, to be used to prevent serious injury or loss of life while not greatly injuring the initial agressor.
Soon however, tasers were being used to force compliance, torture people into obedience. Once a gain, a sworn officer of the law has used a taser to such an excess that a man has died.

Details? The victim was HANDCUFFED ON THE GROUND, he was shocked nine times ... not to excess? He may have died before being able to endure the last two! And the lawyer defending this policeman claim this is standard procedure ...

At least the guy got fired and the death was ruled a homicide, but I doubt this murderer will be facing a lot of hard time ...

post may be coming in late

I'll be volounteering at the local supervised playground for two weeks, posts may be later than usual, or absent.

not so gun free after all?

A post master was shot in a post office, which we all know to be "gun free", which means to say that only law enforcement and criminals have guns in those places. Criminals like the man who shot the postmaster twice with a shotgun, police officers who weren't at the scene to protect her.

Not a sneer at law enforcement there, not at all! They cannot be everywhere, and if they could, I for one would not want them too. These fine men and women probably had something better to do than post as armed guards in a small town post office. I can only guess this was one the rare occasions that their presence had actually been warrented in that place.

Gun free zones, still aren't.

And ... two blasts from a shotgun, but she lived to call 911? Shot placement is still everything, and fortunately, the attacker wasn't a good enough marksman to kill his victim. I doubt this will do much to the familly she leaves behind, but at least the police have got a head start in finding her attacker and bringing him to justice.

Current events in the UK (updated)

Welcome back to the gun debate critic on sunday with this weeks events in the UK.

Starting off with this weeks teenage victims of violence

1. A young woman was found murdered in what apperas to be an isolated event. The manner of her death is yet to be determined.
2. A sixteen year old boy was stabbed downtown, he himself will likely survive and his assailant is in custody.
3. A thirteen year old boy was beaten in a robbery, but is doing alright.
   

Northern Ireland authorities are planning to be even more severe in the face of knife crime, having all but doubled the penalty for carrying a knife.

After last sundays post, two men were stabbed at a music festival. While one will survive his woulds described as "horrific", the other one has passed away at the hands of an attacker who is yet to be found. Another man was stabbed and seriously injured along with a girl who suffered minor injuries. A man was shot to death in Dublin, the second shooting fatality in 24 hours.
Showing that robbers don't restrict themselves to guns and knives, four men armed with sledgehammers carried out a brutal robbery of a jewellers.

Now for some good news! The elderly man who confronted a gang of louts (obnoxious, anti-social scum for y'all yanks) has been cleared of charges by a jury of his peers

Saturday off ...

I'm taking the day off, but as to not leave you empty handed, here's a vid with the fastest "draw from concealment" you've ever seen:

Blood for oil!

Now in a package that even the most liberal tree hugging hippie can embrace!
Give blood, get gas.

Guns at work ...

There's been some devellopment in the Henderson workplace shooting that left six people dead.
The shooter did not have a gun with him that day, know that and remember it.

He had an arguement with his supervisor before going home and returning half an hour later with a hi point .45 handgun. He used this gun to shoot and kill six people, reloading in the proces*.
Some of his victims were caught off guard and "executed", others tried to run. Some of the runners made it, others were gunned down.



None of these people fought back, most of them died ... seriously, if this ever happens to you, at least hurl a chair at the guy to cover your retreat (and the retreat of others).

I support the right of people to keep a gun in their car as if it were their home, I also support the right of people in posession of the required licences to carry a firearm on their person where the owner of the premises allows for it. I don't know if the owners of the plant would have allowed CCW, but if they had, this might have been an entirely different post alltogether.

*Let this, in addition to the Virgiania tech shooting serve as proof that spree killers have no probem reloading their weapons of small capacity.

shot placement is everything

This story dates back to the 29th of novermber 2006.

A man armed with a .45 caliber handgun ambushed and fought law enforcement personell who arrived oin their cruisers. One of his first shots woulded an officer in his cruiser, his injuries in combination ith him wearing a seatbelt prevented said officer from returning fire. Multiple of his colleagues did however. They ended up firing 107 rounds of .40 speer gold dot and .223 (from m4 rifles) at their attacker, and still he lived to fight back!

It was not for a lack of hitting him! his left arm was shattered by one round, he took multiple hits to the torso and abdomen, 17 hits in total. This does amount to less than 16% accuracy, which is a different can of worms. Point is, if you shoot an attacker 17 times, should you not be allowed to reasonably expect him to be inanimate?

Law enforcement personnel had to struggle with the man to get him in cuffs!

No, he was not under the influence of drugs, fact is, and it sais so in the end of this report:

• Determined individuals can sustain many gunshot wounds in areas that produce great pain and continue to fight a long time, even without the aid of drugs or alcohol.
• Shot placement is everything in a gunfight
  and always the key to stopping a threat
  effectively.

A couple of points I'd like to push through here about magazine restrictions:

• 17 shots is almost twice the rounds that you can have in a gun in California.
• the criminal reloaded his gun from a box of cartridges!
  

Now that you know this, go out and buy a FAL!

"The worst killing we'd ever seen"

Over in California a woman was killed by her husband. He stabbed her to death with a sword as her children stood by.
Now he is on the run, and is claimed to have a gun ...
So, a man who has access to a firearm prefers a bladed weapon over said gun? Quite counterintuitive, no?

On another note, 911 was called almost immediately after the attack, police got there in time to collect the murder weapon the killer had left behind, and to draw the chalk outlines around the expired victim.

Accidental death at the range

A senior citizen was fatally wounded while attending a skeet shooting tournament in California. Police say the shooting was accidental, the article by KCRA3 sais the gun "accidentally discharged" without providing further details. Accident or negligence? The muzzle *is* supposed to be facing a safe direction after all.

The club where this happened has been entertaining marksmen for 58 years, and now this happens ...
My heart goes out to the people who survived this man

Recreational shooting is one of the safest sports in existance, but there are still risks involved and negligence can kill! Don't get lazy, don't get careless never compromise on the four rules, never! Don't allow these things to happen.

An american icon torn down?

Over here in Belgium as well as in the US, the takeover of Anheuser-Busch is headlining news. It sure is an important bussiness matter as well as a significant event for beer-lovers. American beers will now find their way into Europe (and Russia, south-america ...) much easier. European beers will be more available to the US.

But have we, Belgians, taken down an American Icon?

Interviewed Americans in Belgium didn't seem to think so, they love the beer, not the fact that it's American. I might add that us Belgians have had some very bad experiences with attempting to uproot a beer from its native region, fear not; it's most unlikey we'll ever try that again, bush will stay in the US.

Even then, is there an American icon gone now that it isn't primarely under American ownership?
Is a browing machine gun any less American now that the Herstal group "owns" Browning? Doesn't the name Winchester not still inspire images from the wild west, frontier men and lever-action rifles? The multi-national owners may have reduced winchester to an ammunition plant, but is it any less American so? The FBI ordered ammunition from them for (up to) 54 million dollars on ammo day none the less! They don't have any problems with the fact that a group of bussiness me originating from a peanut sized country across the ocean pulls a lot of that manufacturers strings.

FN and Browning were close friends a long time ago. The man Moses himself entrusted a Belgian, (a French Belgian at that!) with the unfinished design of what is now one of the most monumental handguns on the market ... was there as much of an uproar then? Or maybe, did people realize that that Saive guy just might be fit for the job?
For what it's worth: the high-power is still a world class weapon and recreative plinker alike, loved by many across the world ... why not the same fate for Bush lite?

Soon, I'll be able to enjoy a nice yankee brew in pubs near my home, and the fine Beers of Belgium and Brazil will start to seep into American bars ... all those products of their respective brewers will become available to more people than ever before ... is that a bad thing? What is there to dislike about that? Job loss? You don't think the Bush familly was keeping people employed for the hell of it, do you? How many people could the new owners possibly give the boot before the gears stop turning?

For what it's worth, soon your drinking habits may be as queer as mine, and you too will be enjoying a naturally fermented cherry beer while reading through your blogroll.

Epic weapon:

The tank catapult!



Remember: Tanks are legal and so are catapults! Now that the Supreme court has confirmed your right to keep and bear arms, be sure to pick up one of these pretties at your earliest convenience!