I’ve been thinking a lot about side effects lately. You know, when you try to fix one thing and other unintentional things happen, some of which are as bad or even worse than what the original thing you were trying to fix. We mostly associate the term with health care and medications, but it also happens in day-to-day business, and for today’s rant, the tech worker vs. downtown.
Whatever the underlying purposes of the “Great Reset” brought into play by the COVID pandemic shutdowns, the side effects for the business world have been dramatic and devastating. During the two-plus years of two-weeks-to-flatten-the-curve, state and local governments grabbed unprecedented control over private businesses, and private individual’s, day-to-day lives, all in the name of public good.
Thousands and thousands of businesses were closed, many never to reopen. Larger businesses were deemed “essential” and allowed to stay open with heavy modifications to their business practices and even what they could sell.
Companies whose employees were mostly technology workers sent their teams home to work, even if their home environment wasn’t suitable for work. But they persevered, many setting up their ‘offices’ on kitchen tables and bedrooms, battling for space with partners and children, now doing Zoom school at home, did the same thing. Some struggled, but most did well, and overall productivity wasn’t negatively impacted. As time wore on, many companies decided they could do without having their employees in the office and said employees could expect to work from home forever. Employees scattered across the country and across the world to find a better and less expensive work/home life. When businesses were granted permission to reopen, most of the employees did not come back to the office.
This change in work also prompted a change in pay. In big national/multi-national corporations’ location-based salary was, and still is, standard practice. Human resources would go through absurd mental gymnastics to explain how you in a small city making $50,000 less than someone doing the exact same job in a bigger city was a good thing for you. Value-based salaries do away with that. You are paid the same rate no matter where you are.
Should it really matter if you live and work in Ottumwa, Iowa instead of New York City? Not really, and remote/work-from-wherever broke that mold. It also opened the talent pool to the entire connected world vs. just the people who are willing and able to work in a densely populated metropolitan area.
But then those pesky side effects started kicking in. Big city downtowns turned into big city ghost towns. Businesses that relied on the office workers that had not already shut down, began to close shop. But it’s not just the downtown stores that were impacted, it’s everything the office worked touched in relation to going to work. Childcare services, bridge, bus, rail and taxi fees, parking and fine revenue, gasoline tax, restaurants, bars, food services, clothing, entertainment, and recreation venues – everything the tech workers touched throughout their day was negatively impacted and downtowns everywhere declined. If downtowns were to survive, the tech workers had to be brought back.
Of course, this wasn’t the only thing contributing to the downtown decline. Progressive, pro-crime/anti-law enforcement polices such as defunding the police, decriminalization of illegal acts, failure to arrest and prosecute offenders, no-bail laws, releasing previously incarcerated inmates and closing prisons, have all lead to the lawless, violent free-for-all found in many big cities now. Why would office workers, tourists or conventions want to go to a city where they have step over human urine and feces, drugs, needles and trash, risk being robbed and assaulted, just to walk down the street?
Enter the campaign to get workers back in the office. From CEOs to sycophant business writers, the news and social media platforms have been inundated with articles on how in-office/in-person work is ESSENTIAL to business success and remote workers are nowhere near as productive as the in-office workers. Everything from corporate visibility to promotion potential would be impacted, so getting workers back in the buildings was deemed critical. Some even called it unfair/unethical to allow technology workers to work from home when manufacturing, production and other jobs had to be performed on company property. Yes, there are some functions that must be done on company premises. But most tech work is location independent.
Workers who were previously told they could work from anywhere forever are now being forced to return to the office or find another job, even as the CEOs openly admit there is no evidence that in-office work is more productive than remote work. Sadly, all lessons learned, and productivity achieved under forced adverse conditions meant nothing. Still, they preach about the “surge in energy and collaboration” by being back on campus!
You’d also think enticing your employees back to the office would follow a carrot and stick model. First offering incentives to work in the office, the carrot, then punishing those who don’t comply, the stick. Unfortunately, there has been no carrot. The famous tech worker perks like free or low-cost meals, on-site dry cleaning, health care, childcare and entertainment have been eliminated in cost cutting measures. The only thing offered now is the stick, being terminated if you don’t come into the office x days per week. Even if you work remotely for part of the week, the forced return to the office keeps you locked into the metropolitan area where you are assigned, helping to save downtown.
At first, I speculated this was just the old management style of having to keep your eyes on the underlings to see what they are doing every minute of the day, but then there are the two words nobody is talking about, real estate.
Companies, especially the bigger ones, have BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars invested in their real estate portfolio. Class A buildings with the company name in huge lighted letters on the top is a measure of success. The more visibility, the more you have succeeded. The more you spend on your gigantic offices, the more success you have achieved, and everyone should do business with you. Apple’s new headquarters building alone is over 1.2 million square feet to house 12,000 employees and cost $5 billion to build. It’s no surprise that Apple is leading the way when it comes to forcing their employees back into the office.
Shedding excess office space is one option, but with the current inflationary boom and more companies reducing space than acquiring it, nobody is subletting or buying. The once in demand, big city downtown business districts are now showing record high, and increasing, vacancies. San Francisco’s vacancy rate as of the second quarter of 2023 was at nearly 32%,
Should it be the technology office worker’s responsibly to save the downtown economy? Hell no! Whatever the actual goals behind the COVID pandemic shutdowns and the Great Reset were, the side effects of changing the way business’s function are here to stay. Legacy companies with gargantuan real estate portfolios can either adapt to the changing times or lose out on the top talent who understand they can now work for anyone in the world, from anywhere in the world.
Adapt or get left behind.
Bob
Rant over.
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Tag: #CrimeAndViolence
Parenting and Firearms
On Friday, January 6th, 2023, a six-year-old male child shot his first-grade teacher. The “properly secured” firearm owned by the child’s mother was smuggled into the school in the morning. At around 2 pm, the child shot the teacher without warning. The bullet traveled through her hand and into her chest. The teacher was able to escort the other children in the classroom to safety before seeking medical aid herself.
Last week I mentioned the child’s mother had reached a felony plea agreement to serve 18-24 months in prison on the federal charge of lying on the ATF Form 4473 about her current or prior drug use.
As a reminder, lying on a 4473 is now punishable by up to 15 years in prison. But as has become painfully obvious lately, this crime is either not a priority for the ATF and US Attorney’s or is eligible to be sent to diversion if you are well enough connected.
The federal plea deal has nothing to do with the state charges surrounding the shooting. There she has been charged with felony child neglect and misdemeanor recklessly leaving a loaded firearm so as to endanger a child.
At first glance this sounds like another stereotypical child-gets-hold-of-a-gun story the gun-control zealots love to put out as an example of why guns are bad and more gun-control is needed. That is not the case here.
As for the firearm itself, the child’s mother has maintained that the legally purchased firearm was secured on a top shelf in her closet and had a trigger lock.
“Our family has always been committed to responsible gun ownership and keeping firearms out of the reach of children. The firearm our son accessed was secured.”
Under Virginia law, it’s a misdemeanor for an adult to leave a loaded, unsecured firearm in such a way it could endanger a child under the age of 14. It is prohibited for a person to unknowingly allow a child under the age of 12 to use a firearm.
Then there was the lack of concern and action at the school. According to the family, the child suffers from “acute disability and was under a care plan at the school that included his mother or father attending school with him and accompanying him to class every day.” Yet on this day, the mother dropped the child off and did not attend with him, yet the school took no action. The child had a history of random violence, including attacking students and teachers alike.
The school administration was warned three different times by teachers and staff members over several hours starting at 11:15 am that day the child may have a weapon at school but failed to take it seriously. His backpack was searched once, but no firearm was found. Neither security nor law enforcement were contacted. One administrator said to “wait the situation out because the school day was almost over”. The incident was downplayed by the school administration as the boy had “little pockets”.
Since the incident, two administrators have been terminated and the teacher who was shot has filed a lawsuit against the school, the administrators, and the school board. The response from the school to the lawsuit? While acknowledging the teacher was “clearly injured while at work, at her place of employment, by a student in the classroom,” it should be covered by worker compensation instead of a lawsuit. The board rejected the teacher’s claim she could reasonably expect to work with young children who pose no danger, pointing to numerous incidents of violence against teachers across the U.S. and in Newport News.
A good friend of mine asked how many jobs do you know where there is a reasonable likelihood of being shot as part of the job AND you are not allowed to carry a firearm for self-defense?
The clear negligence of the parent’s firearm storage and the school’s lack of response aside, there is a question of parenting. This 6-year-old child did not have a random, violent temper tantrum, this was a premeditated attack. The child knew his mother was not going to be attending school that day, was able to access and enable the “properly secured” firearm, hide it while the mother drove him to school, during the first part of the day, then without provocation, aim and shoot his teacher.
Was the child never taught the difference between right and wrong?
Why did the child feel it was okay for him to steal a firearm from the parent?
Who taught the child that shooting another human being was acceptable?
Where did the child learn this was an acceptable response to a disagreement with their teacher?
I’ve known lots of six-year-old kids in my life (including my own), most with firearms in the home. NONE of them would ever have considered a) touching a firearm without permission or b) using it in an act of violence. The difference is being an actual parent. There are FREE programs available for children of different ages to help parents talk to their children about firearms and safety, you must only care enough to ask.
This incident wasn’t a gun-control failure, it was a parenting failure, clear and simple. Someone taught this child about this level of violence. Someone taught that child it was acceptable to shoot someone if you felt had wronged you. The child acted the way they were taught.
Personally, I don’t think the mother can get enough time in prison. I just hope the child winds up with someone who can undo the damage.
Bob
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If They Said It, It Must Be True
In the world of gun-control, having the President of the United States make statements on gun control is the ultimate credibility test. If our President says it, it must be true and the correct thing to do, right? Sadly, no. In fact, some of the things our commander in chief says are bold face lies. Even when the most prejudiced internet search shows the statements are a lie, the President said it so YOU must be wrong.
Where are the fact checkers now?
Following a horrific school shooting, we have the 44th President of the United States saying: “We are failing our children. Guns are now the leading cause of death for children in the U.S.” This is a carefully crafted lie.
The so-called “research” the former President is quoting is from the gun-control community’s own funded study that carefully manipulates statistics to get the results they wanted.
For instance, the study only included data from 2020-2021 and;
The children are aged 1 to 19.
Excluded from numbers were 0-1 aged children whose unique morbidity rates would throw off the numbers and included 18- and 19-year old’s whose number greatly inflated the rates, even though 18- and 19-year-olds are legally considered adults.
Removing the bias numbers puts the leading cause of death for children as accidents.
The study also claims, “The U.S. has by far the highest child and teen firearm mortality rate among peer countries”. Again, a carefully curated lie.
Starting with the dubious definition of “children”, it compounds the bias error by comparing to “peer countries”. This is a cherry-picked list of countries with low firearm ownership rates – including near total bans – and other legal difference all combining to ensure the US rate looks shocking in comparison. This other country list is frequently called other “rich countries”, “developed countries”, “industrialized countries”, “wealthy countries” and “advanced democracies”. Conveniently, there is no published definition of what gets a country on this list, but the result ALWAYS shows the US is horribly violent.
By the way, if you look at the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) homicide rate, a number which excludes suicide, self-defense, law enforcement interventions and non-intentional homicide (accidents), you’ll find the United States down around # 60.
Definitions matter and manipulating the results to arrive at a predetermined conclusion is a lie. This is why I always treat “research” by the gun-control lobby with suspicion.
Then there is our current President’s recent quote. “You’re not allowed to go out and own an automatic weapon. You’re not allowed to own a machine gun. You’re not allowed to own a flamethrower.”
While you might be tempted to dismiss this statement as another one of our often-confused President’s ramblings, let’s call it what it really is, a lie.
Automatic weapons & machine guns (we’re assuming he means the same thing here, but who knows) are in fact legal to own. NFA (National Firearms Act) firearms may be purchased or transferred by any legal resident of the United States, over 18 (21 for some items), not prohibited from firearm ownership, and not living in a non-NFA permitted state. There is a $200 tax and a background check that can take up to a year, or more to compete. NFA firearms are extremely expensive and come with a number of restrictions, but they are legal.
Flame throwers are legal in all 50 states, with only two currently imposing additional licensing or equipment restrictions. The reason is simple too. Flame throwers are not firearms and not subject to NFA or FFL background check restrictions. Although I’m going to bet now that the President has declared them persona non grata, the nanny states are going to jump all over this and start restricting them.
Having our President stand before a national audience spouting off lies about firearms, the Second Amendment or the law is nothing new. The firearms community is used to it, and we all do a collective face palm when we hear these blatant lies. The problem is this information influences people who do not know any better, or simply don’t care to know fact from fiction.
Following the principle of “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.”, the gun-control zealots flood the airwaves, news and social media with emotional messages to “do something” following the horrific deaths of innocent victims. Facts don’t matter at a time like this, only that they have the ONE and ONLY solution that will stop so-called gun violence once and for all – gun control.
Remember, gun control does absolutely nothing to increase public safety and the answer to fix that shortcoming is always to implement more gun control.
In the real world, firearms are used to defend and save lives in this country every single day. A 2013 CDC (Centers for Disease Control) study found civilian defensive use of firearms outnumbered felonious use by a rate of 3 to 1, to the tune of 2.5 to 3 million uses per year. YOUR right to purchase, own, possess and carry a firearm in defense of your life and the lives of your family is what is at stake.
Know the facts, share the facts. Just because they said it doesn’t make it true.
Bob
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I Believe In Gun Control, Even Though…
All these years I’ve been so horribly wrong. I’ve been fighting against gun control when I should have been fighting for it. It’s time for me to correct my ways by stating the obvious.
I believe in gun control, even though it has never actually worked to prevent crime and violence, anywhere.
I believe Gun Free Zones repel shooters, even though 98% of all mass shootings in the United States since 1950 have occurred in Gun Free Zones.
I believe common sense gun laws save lives, even though the areas of the country with the strictest gun control laws have the highest crime, murder and “gun violence” rates.
I believe universal background checks will stop criminals from getting guns, even though most criminals steal their guns or get them through straw purchases (which include background checks) and the only purpose for universal background checks is to create a national gun registry.
I believe 10 round magazines are “standard capacity”, even though most firearms are designed for and intended to use magazines larger than that.
I believe in restricting concealed carry in “sensitive places”, even though this restriction only applies to law abiding citizens not criminals who don’t obey the law anyway and now have only unarmed people to victimize.
I believe the Second Amendment only applies to the state militia (the National Guard) even though the Bill of Rights clearly defines our rights in relation to the government and guarantees civil rights and liberties to the individual.
I believe there is no such thing as “a good guy with a gun”, even though civilian defensive use of firearms outnumbered felonious use by a rate of 3 to 1, to the tune of 2.5 to 3 million uses per year.
I believe red flag laws are fully constitutional, even though they deprive a person of a constitutional right without due process, through a secret civil hearing, at a lower legal standard than for an arrest, are not afforded legal counsel, and must prove their innocence vs. being proven guilty.
I believe red flag laws are effective, even though they are only used to strip firearms away from someone and do NOTHING to help someone in a mental health crisis or protect from the person who is supposedly dangerous.
I believe the previous assault weapon ban saved lives, even though the government’s own data says any impact was far too small to measure.
I believe Constitutional Carry is criminal carry, even though Constitutional Carry laws explicitly forbid those who are not allowed to legally possess or carry firearms.
I believe California, rated #1 for gun control, is a shining example of the success gun control can achieve, even though their cities and streets have become safe havens for crime and violence, including four mass shootings in one week.
I believe gun control areas only have more crime because of non-gun-controlled areas, even though the non-gun-controlled areas have less crime and violence.
On second thought, believing what I believe on April 1st might be a little bit foolish, even though you already know what I really believe.
Bob
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A Round In The Chamber
I’m often amazed at the level of creative indignation for firearms some law enforcement agencies have in their press releases. It’s not enough to just report what happened, they have to add in that little extra spice to make it sound even more insidious. A recent arrest report included “three loaded handguns were seized, two of which had rounds in the chambers”. Isn’t that where rounds are supposed to be?
Don’t get me wrong, arresting bad people carrying guns is a very good thing and we are all better off for it. In the case this quote came from, there were drugs in the car, one of the guns was stolen and one of the people with a gun was a convicted felon. What I am pointing out is the anti-gun establishment making what is normal sound treacherous.
When I started seeing the round in the chamber comments, I thought maybe this was a gun-control throwback to the old west cowboy days where it was common to leave the chamber under the hammer of a single action revolver empty since a blow to the hammer from being dropped or bumped could set off the round. Of course, this isn’t true of modern-day firearms which incorporate effective drop safeties*. But then I remembered anti-gun zealots don’t recognize the right to bear any type of firearm made after the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. Foolish me.
Whenever a pro-gun-control department seizes a firearm, whether it’s just one, a few or dozens, it’s always reported as an “arsenal” or “huge weapons cache”. Add in ammunition, and it’s “the biggest horde of weapons I’ve ever seen”. These seizures are carefully arraigned and displayed for the press on cloth covered tables or, if from a residence, uncased and spread out in the driveway so the press can get all the photographs they need for a sensationally graphic article. Damn the jury pool, full coverage ahead!!
So first off, people own firearms in this country. Some only one or two, some dozens or more. According to a recent estimate, there are approximately 466 million civilian owned firearms in the United States, with one million new firearms being purchased every month for the past 43 months in a row. It is estimated that 46% of households own at least one firearm, with the average owning five. Yet every time the number of firearms someone owns is reported by the press, it is presented as a huge, out-of-ordinary, scary/danger number.
Second, the round is SUPPOSED to be in the chamber. There’s nothing insidious about it. In the firearm/self-defense community, having a loaded semi-automatic firearm without a round in the chamber – Condition 3 for you purists – is just about as unsafe as an unloaded firearm. It assumes in a self-defense situation you’ll have the additional time after you draw your firearm to use your other hand or closest hard object to rack the firearm before you can use it. Considering you are responding to a life-or-death threat; you are already WAY behind the reaction curve and time is a bit of a factor here.
Oh, and keeping an empty chamber on a revolver? Unless you are carrying a period correct antique single action revolver, that’s just silly. Why would you purposefully reduce your already limited number of rounds?
Again, I’m not advocating against arresting bad guys with guns. It’s actually kind of refreshing since so many of the ultra-far-left progressive prosecutors refuse to press charges against them as part of the pro-criminal policies. What I’m against is the propaganda from the law enforcement agencies and news outlets who are trying to normalize everything to do with firearms are bad and should be banned.
A firearm is not evil.
A loaded firearm is not evil.
A round in the chamber is not evil.
A standard capacity magazine is not evil.
A hollow point defensive round is not evil.
A firearm carried in public is not evil.
The ONLY thing evil about any firearm is the intent of the person carrying it. While there are those who will use firearms for criminal behavior, there are many more who will use them for lawful purposes and in defense of life.
So, when you see these press releases and news stories, you can start to understand the bias of the departments and community, and what needs to be changed.
Bob
*Does not apply to Sig Sauer P320.
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Crime and Violence: The Keys to Successful Gun Control
If you’ve noticed huge spikes in crime and violence occurring at the same time as a massive push for more and more gun control, it’s not a coincidence. The higher the crime rate and violence in your community, the more you will be inclined to accept the one and only answer for how to stop it, gun control. Of course, it’s a lie.
Don’t feel safe in your home or community? Gun control is the answer. People assaulted, robbed, raped and killed in broad daylight? Gun control is the answer. Stores and businesses closing because of so much crime? Gun control is the answer.
Rest assured this IS the plan, and your life and the lives of your family are the pawns in the game. If you’re thinking there’s no way anyone in our country would purposely allow people to be assaulted, robbed, raped, and killed just to help implement gun control, think about what is at stake.
It’s all about control of the masses. People who are not 100% dependent on the government for their most basic needs like security are much harder to control than those that are dependent. They also tend to value things like freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to associate with others, freedom to purchase what they want, when they want and freedom to make their own decisions about issues affecting their families. If some lives need to be sacrificed along the way to accomplish this, so be it.
This all begins in your own community.
Progressive prosecutors are taking the lead in promoting criminal-first policies in their communities. They are ignoring the will of the people and their state’s criminal code by using “prosecutorial discretion” to avoid charging those who commit crimes. At the same time, they are actively working to reduce the sentences and release those who are in custody, turning their backs on the victims of crime in the process. The result? More crime and violence.
The ranks of local law enforcement are being decimated because the system is, supposedly, systemically racist. The remaining officers are not allowed to proactively fight crime and, in some places, even stop cars or arrest offenders without direct permission from supervisors. The standards for replacement officers, when it’s allowed, have been lowered to the point where they are no better than the criminals themselves. Acceptance and trust of local law enforcement is destroyed, and the eventual consequence is the elimination of local law enforcement. The result? More crime and violence.
Public schools are undoubtedly the most important places when considering safety, yet they are the most neglected. Instead of effectively hardening the buildings and classrooms, providing on-site, law enforcement protection, and allowing staff and teachers to be armed, most schools are protected by little “Gun Free Zone” signs. The result? More crime and violence.
At the same time our communities are purposefully being made more crime-ridden and violent, the extreme left politicians and gun control zealots are presenting us with one, and only one answer, more gun control. Removing firearms and the ability to use them from law abiding citizens is portrayed as the only “common sense” solution.
Never mind that the areas with the most gun control also have the most crime and violence. We’re told that this is because of all the non-gun-controlled areas, even though they don’t have the same crime and violence there. Nowhere do they ever describe how they will get criminals to stop illegally carrying and using guns.
Completely dismissed is the concept of holding those who commit crimes and acts of violence accountable for their actions. Arrest, prosecution, and incarceration are considered nonsense. Gun control zealots point to their own self-funded “research” that UNEQUIVOCALLY PROVES tough-on-crime policies have the reverse effect and only make crime worse. Besides, tough-on-crime policies are (supposedly) systemically racist, so they can’t be supported.
Let’s not forget firearms are used to defend and save lives in this country every single day. A 2013 CDC (Centers for Disease Control) study found civilian defensive use of firearms outnumbered felonious use by a rate of 3 to 1, to the tune of 2.5 to 3 million uses per year. It is critical to note that not all the events involved the discharge of a firearm by the civilian. Often, the mere presenting or challenge to the criminal with a firearm was enough to stop the intended crime. It’s also important to realize this number ONLY includes persons who were not performing defensive duties as part of their employment such as law enforcement or security services.
In case you go looking this study on the CDC website, all references to it were removed in 2021 under pressure from the gun control community who labeled it “highly misleading” “out of context” and “misinformation”, just like all other information that refutes an extremist’s position.
Gun control is definitely not the answer to crime and violence, but we are being force-fed this propaganda as if it is the word of god. You and your family are being put in more physical danger every day by the same people who want to strip you of your right to defend yourself at home and in public. They are hoping that you won’t notice the game is rigged and the only choice you are being given is to support more gun control.
Remember, gun control does absolutely nothing to increase public safety and the answer to fix that shortcoming is always to implement more gun control.
Bob
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