“Quora” allows any goober to ask any goofball question, and anyone can respond. I have no idea when or why Quora decided to send me emails with some of the latest and greatest posts, but a couple times a day, there they are. Anyway, this one popped up today:
There are a bunch of answers of varying levels of wisdom. But one line that jumped out:
So whenever anyone says “I don’t think you should have guns” or “I don’t trust you with guns”, I must ask in turn, what are you planning to do to me that you think I’d shoot you over?
What are you planning to do to me that you think I’d shoot you over?
In this case, an ATF agent goes to someone’s door and demands to see such-and-such firearm; the homeowner does the smart thing and calls the cops and tells them some sketchy weirdo is going for her guns. Police show up, tell the ATF agent to comply… and he doesn’t, getting tased for his troubles. This happened a few years ago, and *of* *course* he’s suing the police for excessive force. It’s interesting to see how this Federal agent believes that his status sets him above the law. And politicians want to empower these types even *more.* It’s worth noting that this “lawman” was arrested for shoplifting back in 2015. He seems well acquainted with the practice of taking stuff that’s not his.
An ATF agent showed up at a citizen's home to question him about a shotgun he was not "permitted" to have.
The citizen called 911 and told them someone was at his door trying to take his guns.
— Young Americans for Liberty (@YALiberty) August 4, 2022
Police officer starts giving you lawful orders… you say “yes sir” and *obey.* Even if you think you’re in the right, you’re not going to win by resisting a guy with a taser, a sidearm and backup.
A brief documentary about some of the very best of America: immigrants and the children of immigrants using their wits and their rights to defend themselves and their livelihoods from some of the worst of America. They were the very definition of a “well regulated militia.”
There are important lessons here that should have been learned better. Had the riots and looters of 2020 been met with more gunfire, 2020 would have been less bloody, and much more of the blood that had been shed would have been that of people who, well, we don’t need.
“5 seconds into the trailer and you’ve already pissed me off,” one fan raged. “The guy has got a f–king AK-47! IN A STAR WARS SHOW! YOU’RE SO LAZY! You couldn’t be bothered to design a space gun. I’m so tired. So very tired.”
Oy. The guns in Star Wars were almost entirely based on real-life firearms, dressed up to one degree or another with added details to make them look like “space guns.” Han Solo carried a modified Mauser C96 “Broomhandle” pistol. The Stormtroopers were armed with Sterling submachine guns and MG34 machine guns and Lewis machine guns, all with minor to modest cosmetic alterations. That there would be something that looks a whole lot like an AK-47 in that universe – a galaxy with billions of inhabited worlds – should hardly be surprising.
Justin Johnson, 22, of Inglewood, Jamar Williams, 27, of Los Angeles, and Davon Broadus, 24, of Las Vegas, were each taken into custody in the hospital parking lot and booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center for robbery and conspiracy. They are being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.
The primary suspect, a 23-year-old male, remains hospitalized in critical, but stable condition, and his identity has not been released at this time. He will be booked into a Riverside County jail upon his release from the hospital, authorities said.
Heh. Weird that the guy who served as a buckshot sponge wasn’t named.
Seriously: screw those guys. Best possible outcome would be if that “critical but stable condition” upgrades to “room temperature.” Then not only is that oxygen thief deleted from the timeline, but his three buddies now get sent up on felony murder, hopefully staying in prison long enough to no longer be a threat to the gene pool.
UPDATE: the store owner is an 80-year old guy. A guy who had a heart attack not long after this, so the criminals should be charged with *that,* too. On the raw security footage you can hear the criminal screaming something; I couldn’t originally make out what it was, but now that I know it’s “He shot my arm off,” I can hear it clear as day. You can see on the video that his arm is still there, so the criminal might be exaggerating. Or, with luck, he’s not, and now he’s down one limb.
Someone has been trying to sell a lithograph on ebay for a *long* time without apparent success… probably because they want $650 for it. Move that decimal place to the left, and I would stand a decent chance of buying it… but for $650, it has to be the *original* art. No way for a *small* lithograph.
It’s not from the 1960’s, but the 1980’s. It depicts a General Dynamics “Midgetman” Small ICBM concept launching from a mobile launcher; a concept the Soviets (and Chinese, and Norks) ran with, but the US never really got behind. The launcher seems very likely to be the artists fantasy; these vehicles were designed to withstand a reasonably nearby nuclear strike, and one of the ways they did that was by not having a huge single piece canopy.
I’m sure we *all* can think of a lot of incidents that sure seem like they’d get more media traction. But here’s one that seems like it aught to be like catnip for the press… on July 29th, more than fifty shots were fired at a party in Albuquerque, New Mexico. With today’s media freakouts over Evil Guns, this should be a no-brainer. So… why the radio silence?
Possibilities:
1) It sounds like there are multiple guns going off. Possibly a substantial number of people blazing away. This of course means it’s far more likely “gang related” than “lone mass shooter.”
2) Reportedly, with all those bullets flying, only one person killed and two injured (if THIS is the same incident… one dead, four injured). That’s *terrible* marksmanship. Again indicating more like gangs than a lone shooter.
3) Fully automatic weapons are fired. Legally owned Class Three automatic weapons are vanishingly rarely used in crimes. Far more likely, this was an illegally modified Glock. Hard to argue that you need more gun laws to ban something that’s already banned (but they’ll try, of course).
Can’t see diddly on the videos below, other than people panicking in the dark. Can’t see any of the shooters. So it might well be that the shooters are, somehow, in some way, inconvenient to report on.
If this is gang related, then the viewer at home will wonder something like “gosh, why don’t they do something about the gangs.” And we can’t have that.
It bans the sale and transfer of standard capacity magazines and weapons that are in common use. It’s chances in the Senate are slim, though not nonexistent; Biden will of course sign it. If it gets that far hopefully the Supreme Court will tear it apart before it can foment a civil war.
There were a few Dems who had some sense:
Democrats Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Kurt Schrader of Oregon voted against the ban.
And there were sadly some backstabbers:
Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Chris Jacobs of New York voted for the bill.
