The Gadsden Flag is back in the news again, this time for a Colorado school kicking a 12-year-old boy out of class because he had a Gadsden Flag patch on his backpack. When his mother came to the school (and wisely recorded the interaction), the teacher explained it was because the flags origin in the slave trade and slavery. It seems Colorado teachers aren’t required to know about United States history.
“The reason that they do not want the flag reason we do not want the flag is due to its origins with slavery, and slave trade.”
The child’s mother properly corrected the teacher that it had nothing to do with slavery, it was a revolutionary war flag and was told they were just enforcing the policy of the district and she has every right not to agree with it.
The actual history and origin of the Gadsden Flag, dating from 1775 as a battle cry for American independence from British rule, is easily discovered by even the most basic internet search. Nowhere and at no time was it ever associated with slavery, the slave trade or racism.
Following the mother’s video of her interaction with the school going viral, the school’s board of directors held an emergency meeting. In an amazing bit of rational thinking, they ruled the Gadsden Flag was acceptable in school and the child could return to school with the patch.
“From Vanguard’s founding we have proudly supported our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the ordered liberty that all Americans have enjoyed for almost 250 years.” “The Vanguard School recognizes the historical significance of the Gadsden flag and its place in history. This incident is an occasion for us to reaffirm our deep commitment to a classical education in support of these American principles.”
Attempting to associate patriotism with racism or violence isn’t anything new and this is not the first time the Gadsden Flag has been vilified. Recall around this time last year the FBI put out a “Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide” on militia violent extremists (MVE) and the flags, symbols, and phrases they associate with them. Among them was the Gadsden flag, the Liberty Tree flag and Betsy Ross flag, as well as revolutionary war imagery.
Even though the bulletin correctly identified the Gadsden Flag as a “Historical American symbol” and contained the disclaimer, “The use or sharing of these symbols alone should not independently be considered evidence of MVE presence or affiliation or serve as an indicator of illegal activity, as many individuals use these symbols for their original, historic meaning, or other non-violent purposes.”, the direct association between MVE’s or “domestic violent extremism” (DVEs) and the Gadsden flag was established.
The bulletin also incorrectly labels the American Contingency in the MVE category even though the FBI itself determined they were not a threat two years prior.
A link to the bulletin itself is listed below. You may notice there are no flags, symbols, or phrases from any of the violent left-wing groups who looted and burned American cities and killed innocent people.
Patriotism used to mean love and devotion for your country, valuing our nation’s history, respecting law and order, a willingness to serve and defend it as well as the rights of individuals. Yet somehow, we’ve come into an era where patriotism is now being defined by our own government as anti-American and a threat to democracy.
Side note: Shortly after this bulletin leaked last year, I noticed a few houses in my neck of the woods flying a couple of extra flags. Seems patriotism decided to shine through the lies and rhetoric.
By stigmatizing the symbols of patriotism and forcing them from public view, the importance of our natural rights and liberty can be minimized and slowly but most certainly eliminated. The less people know about our nation’s history and their own rights, the less they will oppose those who aim to take them away.
Patriotism is what brought us together before we were even a country. Patriotism is what has protected it from foreign and domestic threats. Patriotism is what has brought us together to face adversity. Patriotism is what will continue to keep us together long after those who seek to divide and weaken us crawl back into the shadows.
There is no word from the school if the teacher and administrators have apologized to the 12-year-old they kicked out of school, how they’ve made up the instructional time he lost out on, or if they’ve been made to undergo remedial training in US history or acceptance & tolerance of ideas other than their own. Somehow, I expect that won’t happen. But I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if they had kicked out a student for having a BLM/Antifa or LGBTQIA+ patch.
Never be afraid of our history or your pride in what makes us who we are. As patriots, the principles we practice every day stands as an example of how we can ALL be stronger and more united.
Bob
http://oddstuffing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/FBI-MilitiaViolentExtremismSymbols.pdf
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Tag: #parler
To Preserve Liberty
One of the essential foundations of our country is the private ownership and use of firearms. Through this, we were able to free our land from oppressive rule and establish a new nation based on personal liberty and freedom.
Our natural rights are expressed in the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution. And despite what those who wish to creatively reimagine and reinterpret say otherwise, they are in-fact individual rights, not collective rights, and a limitation on the government, not the people.
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.” Richard Henry Lee
But then comes the so-called Republican authored Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) a massive new gun-control law passed in July 2022 as a knee-jerk response to tragic, targeted shootings – and law enforcement inaction – around the country. Ostensibly to “To make our communities safer”, it is now being used as the basis for numerous unwritten and unintended gun-control programs.
Once such measure is the United States Department of Education (DOE) using the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 to claim the BSCA “[precludes] school hunting and archery classes…from receiving federal funding.” The DOE based this decision on a “plain-text reading” of the BSCA.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), amended a subsection in the ESEA to prohibit any act to provide dangerous weapons or pay for “training in the use of a dangerous weapon.” Yet the actual legislative intent was for this was to not fund training programs for school resource officers. Funding for this was provided under a separate provision.
Archery and hunter education classes provide safe, responsible, community-oriented programs for thousands of children across the country to develop life skills, learn firearm safety and build self-esteem.
The BSCA itself contains absolutely nothing that would have prevented the tragic shootings the law was enacted in response to. Most of the provisions were already in place at the state level, and as always, proved to be completely incapable of doing anything to prevent them.
Remember, gun control does absolutely nothing to increase public safety and the answer to fix that shortcoming is always to implement more gun control.
What the BSCA DID accomplish was open a pathway for more do-nothing to increase public safety laws which target law-abiding citizens right to bear arms while doing nothing to punish those who break the law and prey on others.
Of course, this isn’t the only attack on youth hunting and sports. California and Illinois have both banned advertising they consider to be targeted at minors. Any firearm-related advertising that could be “attractive to minors” or be considered to target children is subject to severe penalties. This includes advertisement of training, competition, sports or even youth-models of firearms downsized in caliber and size to be suitable for use by younger individuals. Noting of course, that no firearm can be sold to anyone under the age of 18, or now in some states, under the age of 21.
As with the new interpretation of the BSCA, these laws have nothing to do with public safety. They are intended for only one purpose, to convince the next generation of Americans the Second Amendment does not exist, making it easier to restrict and eventually eliminate the lawful private ownership of firearms.
Our children are the future of firearm ownership, the shooting sports, hunting, and the Second Amendment itself. By systematically denying them safety, educational and competitive sporting opportunities, these laws erode the very foundation of our nation’s heritage and freedom.
By the way, if you’d like to thank your RINO congressional members for their vote on passing this do-nothing to increase public safety, gift-that-will-keep-on-giving gun-control package, their names are listed below.
Or perhaps the best thank you would be to vote them out of office.
Bob
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US House
1. Liz Cheney of Wyoming
2. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois
3. Tom Rice of South Carolina
4. John Katko of New York
5. Maria Salazar of Florida
6. Chris Jacobs of New York
7. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania
8. Peter Meijer of Michigan
9. Fred Upton of Michigan
10. Tony Gonzales of Texas
11. Steve Chabot of Ohio
12. Mike Turner of Ohio
13. David Joyce of Ohio
14. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio
US Senate
- Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senate minority leader
- Roy Blunt of Missouri
- Richard Burr of North Carolina
- Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia
- Bill Cassidy of Louisiana
- Susan Collins of Maine
- John Cornyn of Texas
- Joni Ernst of Iowa
- Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
- Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
- Rob Portman of Ohio
- Mitt Romney of Utah
- Thom Tillis of North Carolina
- Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania
- Todd Young of Indiana
Side Effects (Warning: Non-2A Rant Ahead)
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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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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No Gun Control Without Dead Children
I think I’ve been crystal clear at what is at stake with school safety and gun control. The extreme leftist gun-control activists are willing to sacrifice your children to achieve their goal of disarming law-abiding citizens. But it’s not just willing to, it’s actively working towards getting school children slaughtered to sway public opinion to the only so-called “common sense” solution, 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.
Apparently losing traction on the imaginary “school-to-prison pipeline” argument of getting law enforcement officers out of schools, the new approach is student mental health.
A recent social media post from the Moms Demand Action – ME shows the level of absolute disregard for children’s lives they are willing to go to keep parents, teachers and school boards from stopping school shootings.
According to a senior director of research at Everytown: “The cumulative impact of shooter drills, lockdowns, metal detectors, armed teachers and other school-hardening measures is an environment that feels inherently unsafe for American’s school children. The most effective way to keep kids safe in school is to implement proven school safety programs and programs that prevent gun violence, including secure firearm storage.”
Let me translate this for you. It’s better to remove any means to deter a psycho/murderer from targeting the school, or stop them once they do get there, or keep children from getting killed in event of a school shooting incident, because that creates an environment “that feels inherently unsafe”.
Yes, you read it correctly, secure firearm storage laws will prevent the killer who already has possession of a gun, right along with the violence shield created by a Gun Free Zone sign.
As states and cities are pushing to provide funding for armed school resource officers and staff on school campuses, Giffords Law Center, the free legal provider for gun-control states, cities, and towns around the country, produced another one of their biased “research” efforts showing incidents occurring when people bring guns to school grounds.
As you might expect, it conveniently leaves out many details. Some incidents were firearms found in restrooms, a sad but extremely preventable occurrence. Others were by parents/guests at the school, completely non-school related off-school property issues, or the horrific ‘saw a teacher’s gun’. Everything is stuffed in together to make the numbers appear larger than they really are.
How many of these incidents were by school staff screened and trained for carrying firearms? That is usefully ambiguous. Also unmentioned is how many school shootings there have been at schools where staff and teachers are armed. Hint: The number is zero, but Giffords won’t tell you that.
Even in my own state, there is the insanity of thinking Gun Free Zones actually protect lives. A simple wording change to clarify the current law banning the discharge of firearms on private property withing 500 feet of a school to explicitly exclude self-defense has been met by fierce resistance from the usual suspects/zealots of gun-control.
In one person’s testimony against the bill:
“Gun owners living close to school zones should consider moving for the safety of the children if they can’t abide by the law. The reason why it is prohibited to discharge a gun in a school zone is to protect the public, specifically children. Children who may be on the playground during recess, children walking to and from school, children being dropped off and picked up in school parking lots.”
From a criminal’s point of view, what a bonanza! Not only are you free to bring a gun and commit whatever crime and violence they wish (because they’re criminals, and criminals don’t obey the law) at a school without any fear of being stopped, injured, or killed, but also at homes and on the street within 500 feet of the school.
By the way, have you ever wondered why 500 feet? Like many of the ludicrous zoning laws around the country designed to keep firearms retailers out of their cities, the 500-foot rule is meaningless and has no basis in any safety metric. A modern pistol or rifle bullet can fly a mile or more, although with very little accuracy save a few highly skilled marksmen. Yet a 500-foot imaginary safety zone, where you can actually SEE what could potentially be hit by a bullet, somehow makes sense.
Even the gun-control activists occasionally say the quiet part out loud. Without enough news stories about dead children, they can’t get gun bans in place. So, they do everything they can to keep these horrific incidents occurring.
As we’ve seen time and time again, killers prefer unarmed victims and the best place to find them is in Gun Free Zones. 98% of all mass shootings in the United States since 1950 have occurred in Gun Free Zones. Statements and writings from the murderers themselves show they choose locations where there is no armed security, and their intended victims are not allowed to carry firearms for self-defense.
Sadly, this insanity is happening in cities and towns across the nation. The fallacy that burying your head in the sand under a little plastic Gun Free Zone sign is the best and only way to keep your children safe at school.
Bob
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San Francisco Price Drop!
While California in general and San Francisco specifically are known as the nation’s high price leaders, there’s at least one area where the prices are going down, down, down. I’m talking about the price of committing crime. Thanks to the policies of the politically woke left, San Francisco’s cost of crime is dropping to far more affordable levels for the city’s criminals.
Wait, you say you aren’t a criminal and this adversely affects you and/or your business? TOO BAD! You are NOT San Francisco’s priority.
Having worked in San Francisco years ago, I can attest it was a beautiful city. The key word is was. It’s now an open sewer where those who dare to walk the street must navigate the homeless encampments, aggressive and assaultive homeless and other armed street criminals, as well as human piss and poop.
Nearly every day there is a report of another retailer who is closing their San Francisco stores. And I’m not talking about the multitude of family run, mom & pop shops who have been the lifeblood of their local neighborhoods for decades and nobody in San Francisco politics care about, I’m talking about the big, national brands where the wealthy people shop. You’d think that would give the city something to think about, but no.
Stores like Nordstrom, Nordstrom Rack, Whole Foods, Saks off 5th, Anthropologiem, Abercrombie & Fitch, H&M, Uniqlo, Arc’teryx, The RealReal, CB2, Banana Republic, Crate & Barrel, The Container Store, DSW, Marshall’s, Gap, T-Mobile, and multiple locations of both CVS and Walgreens have closed or are in the process of closing now.
The reason? Crime. Rampant, uncontrolled crime. Not only are the stores being looted daily thanks to the softer-than-soft on crime city policies, but the stores cannot provide a safe environment for customers or staff. Violent assaults are common as is property damage, drugs and harassment from the city’s homeless and criminal population.
A recent photo of Target showed rows of merchandise behind locked gates in an effort to stem the cost of the daily lootings. While I’ll give them credit for being willing to go to that extreme to stay in business at this location, what kind of a shopping experience does this provide? Every item requires a store employee to retrieve it. Even the most tolerant of the city’s remaining left-wing residents admit to going to other stores because of the severe inconvenience. How long before San Francisco stores need to go to the high-crime-mini-mart model where no customers are allowed in the store and all business is transacted through bullet proof glass?
Maybe you’re thinking, “Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Children?” YES the children are involved too. No longer is mass theft, looting, assaults and property damage the exclusive activity of adults. Children, including pre-teens, are involved in these crimes. Apparently, the concept of parenting left San Francisco long before the businesses did.
San Francisco has boldly responded to the cries for help from some of the remaining malls and will be stationing two city police officers at each mall, every day. Keep in mind this is the same city that defunded the police department to the tune of $120 million dollars, is down hundreds of officers and responds to calls in hours, if at all. But pulling two officers for each for the malls off the streets won’t cause a problem for the rest of the city, right?
However, the recent killing of a tech executive illustrates the level of lawlessness in San Francisco quite nicely. Prosecutors have said the accused killer could face a sentence of up to 26 years to life if convicted of all charges.
I guess I’m old because I remember when a premeditated homicide, which is what this is being charged as, called for the death penalty, or at least a mandatory sentence of life. Not so much in the City by the Bay. Technically speaking, California does have the death penalty, but the governor/Presidential wannabee decided to do away with that for all the prisoners on death row. This despite the citizens of California TWICE voting in favor of the death penalty.
Of course, getting sentenced to 26 years and serving 26 years are two completely different things in California. Although, the victim was wealthy, high up and connected in the ever-deteriorating San Francisco tech community, so that might play into the sentencing. Still, with California’s policies of emptying out prisons, even for the most heinous of criminals, I’d be damn surprised if the murderer served 10 years. We’ll see if the victim’s two young daughters have reached adulthood by the time their father’s killer is set free.
San Francisco, like the rest of the country’s large, liberal run cities are seeing what happens when you shun the police and embrace criminals. Crime is rampant and unchecked, businesses, and their customers are leaving in droves because they know they are not safe and their city governments, defunded police departments and social justice soft-on-crime prosecutors will do nothing to hold the CRIMINALS responsible for their actions.
But hey, the good news is the cost of at least one thing in San Francisco, California is going down. The bad news is it’s crime.
Bob
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Nashville, Part 1
Like most of the nation, I struggle to come to terms with the shooting at an elementary school in Nashville. Not only for the horrific tragedy and loss of innocent life, but now for the absolutely bizarre aftermath of justifications and blame shifting. When the focus should be on the families of the victims and the survivors traumatized by the shooting, our woke society is telling us to be more tolerant of the shooter’s community. Sorry crazy people, I’m going to focus on keeping children safe.
Let’s start off with the most obvious fact. There is no justification, no understanding, no acceptance of anyone targeting a school and killing three defenseless staffers and three innocent nine-year-old children. Absolutely none.
While we grieve with the families of the victims, let’s take note of some facts.
The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) should be commended on not only their handling and prompt ending of the situation itself, but for the level of immediate and unprecedented disclosure of detailed information, surveillance, and body camera video from the incident. I don’t ever recall seeing as much information released, and as quickly, as done by the MNPD. Getting complete, detailed information out as quickly as possible minimizes the wild accusations, lies, rumors and spin that inevitably follow high profile incidents. Let’s hope this sets the standard for other law enforcement agencies around the country.
As for the individual officers who ran towards the gunfire and quickly eliminated the threat, there is no other word than heroic. They put their lives on the line and prevented the further loss of life quickly and effectively. This IS the standard every single law enforcement officer in the country should be held to.
But then the absurd started. The MNPD released the identity of the shooter as a 28-year-old female, based on the corpse of the person shot dead by police. But no, that wasn’t correct according to the transgender community. This was a trans person whose pronouns were he/him and it was insulting to refer to the killer as a female.
Just a thought here, but perhaps the trans community should implement a Medic Alert type system so officers, medics and rescue personnel can get the correct, up-to-the-moment gender and pronoun information on murderers before they make statements to the press. I’m sure this would avoid a lot of hurt feelings. In the meantime, let’s all just use the proper pronouns for someone who targets and kills children, psychopath/murderer.
A bit facetious? Absolutely. But it’s difficult to take anyone who comes to the defense of a psychopath/murderer of children any other way.
I’ll be honest. When the information about the shooter came out, I figured one of two things was going to happen. The shooting itself was going to get buried in the news since the shooter was not the right race and sex, or the news media/gun-control community/government would toss aside said transgender shooter the way they had with women after the #metoo movement and the black community after #blm. Boy was I wrong.
Instead, you’ve seen a full court press on both gun-control and transgender rights.
Anyone that argues against gun-control is contributing to the killing of children. Gun-control mouthpieces specifically blamed Republicans and the NRA for being directly responsible for these killings. Never mind that to date no Republicans or NRA members have ever committed any mass shooting OR that their policies are the only ones that have ever prevented or stopped mass shootings. But it’s still their fault.
Remember, gun control does absolutely nothing to increase public safety and the answer to fix that shortcoming is always to implement more gun control.
Anyone that attempted to connect the shooting to the trans community was labeled transphobic. The justifications ranged from bizarre to disgusting. Some saying it was the anti-trans and/or religious community itself that instigated this, to the shooter having no other choice. Yes, there was no other choice but to kill innocent children.
A Trans Day of Vengeance rally scheduled just days after the shooting was cancelled and references to the event poster by others were removed by social media companies. Even though the group organizers tried to rationalize “Vengeance means fighting back with vehemence”, the association with violence was proving difficult to sell. This led to the new, kinder and gentler, Trans Day of Visibility.
What we’ve seen from the extreme left politicians to the White House since has been sympathy for the trans community and calls for understanding, but no condemnation of the killer for the senseless violence or deaths of the three school staff and three nine-year-old children. After all, it was the GUNS that were responsible for this, not the psychopath/murderer.
Among the numerous writings the killer left behind was a supposed manifesto. It is currently in the hands of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit who is resisting releasing it for ‘public safety reasons’ as it is so detailed to be a “blueprint on total destruction.” There are also reports that the FBI doesn’t want to release it as the contents as would be unflattering to the transgender community. The FBI is rationalizing keeping it under wraps from an “investigative standpoint” vs. the public is only looking to see it from a “curiosity standpoint”.
Manifestos written by psychopath/murderers are notoriously nonsensical, self-centered, psychotic ramblings which often stray so far from the actual truth as to be considered fantasy. They are written to justify their actions to the world and increase their own notoriety once they’ve been killed for their cause. All of them should be read with a hefty grain of salt but reading them is important.
Shouldn’t the ordinary people who provide security for their local schools, churches, business, private event gatherings or even providing protection for yourself and family at home or in public have access to information that might help them prepare for and prevent future occurrences? Even if the text is 95% psychotic propaganda, knowing what a psychopath/murderer wrote can help save lives. I call that far more of a vested interest than a “curiosity standpoint”.
MNPD and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee have both recently commented the documents left behind by the shooter would be released to the public very soon. At the same time, the FBI has already ruled (ruled??) it cannot be released in its entirety, so we’ll see if full disclosure or restricting access to only the least accountable law enforcement agency in the country wins out.
In the meantime, let’s not forget what happened here. Three school staff and three nine-year-old students lost their lives at the hands of a psychopath/murderer. While mourn for the families and the community, we need to commit to placing someone who will stop further bloodshed between the innocent and the potential killers.
Bob
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And Nebraska Makes 27!
Yesterday, Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen signed LB77, a bill to allow the permitless carry of concealed firearms. The law takes effect September 10, 2023. This makes Nebraska the 27th state for Constitutional Carry. The new law allows Nebraska residents to conceal a firearm, knife or any otherwise legal weapon in their clothes and vehicles without a government issued permit or mandated training.
The law also repeals some local gun-control laws, notably in Omaha, who will see about a dozen ordinances go away on September 10th including their local police concealable gun registry, concealed carry permits and training requirements. This preemption is a critical factor to have a single, consistent statewide legal standard vs. a patchwork of conflicting jurisdictional regulations.
Opposition was from the usual suspects, the left-wing extreme gun-control groups who refer to Constitutional Carry as ‘Criminal Carry’ and the left leaning larger law enforcement agencies who did not want to lose local licensing control and fees.
It is important to note the ability to conceal carry without a permit is for people who could legally purchase a firearm. It does not authorize criminals, drug addicts and others who would be prevented from purchasing a firearm the ability to carry one.
In case you haven’t noticed, the trend across the country is clearly towards less firearms restrictions instead of more.
However, this isn’t the case in the nanny states such as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California. Even in the post Bruen era which should have put an end to the subjective concealable carry rules, these states have rushed to pass so-called “Bruen Response” laws to thumb their nose at the United States Supreme Court and impose even more severe restrictions for those who wish for nothing more than to defend themselves in public.
While many of the new “Bruen Response” laws have been suspended pending further legal proceedings, the quantity and scope indicate the utter contempt the state and local elected officials have for the Supreme Court.
These laws have impacted every aspect of legal concealed carry. At the application stage they have included massive increases in application fees, psychological exam fees, increases in training requirements and costs, along with shorter and more restrictive timelines, increased reference and family interviews and checks on social media accounts.
Should you be able to afford the increased fees and negotiate the multiple interviews to actually obtain a coveted concealed carry permit, the number of so-called “sensitive places” where permitted, concealed carry would not be allowed have increased to include nearly all private businesses, public parks, public transportation, public streets and your own vehicle. The restrictions go to a level where it would be practically impossible to leave your house and go anywhere without violating the law. And that really is the point. To make it so you can have a concealed carry permit, but it is essentially useless.
Of course, the impact is greatest for those who may need to defend themselves the most, those who take public transportation, work late shifts, go through, or live in areas wealthier people can just go around. Not everyone can afford the costs of multiple fees, training, and time off from work to get a concealed carry permit. This all contributes to restricting the ability to defend yourself and your family to those who can afford the ‘privilege’.
Crime and violence continue to skyrocket around the country thanks to extreme-left law makers and prosecutors who prioritize defunding police departments, rewriting laws to lower penalties for crime, release those previously convicted of crimes and fail to hold those committing new property and violent crimes responsible for their actions. The result is more and more people are taking responsibility for their own safety and the safety of their families. In many cases, this involves buying, owning and carrying firearms for self-defense.
Congratulations Nebraska!
Bob
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Nashville, Part 2*
Among the things we’ve learned from the horrific attack on a private elementary school in Tennessee is the shooter selected this site over another undisclosed location because the other site had too much security for the assault to be successful. Yet this painful truth, played out time and time again in our country, is glossed over by the gun-control zealots who ONLY want to impose more and more and more gun-control, for “safety”.
Remember, gun control does absolutely nothing to increase public safety and the answer to fix that shortcoming is always to implement more gun control.
Let’s keep in mind even though 98% of all mass shootings in the United States since 1950 have occurred in Gun Free Zones, yet this is the ONLY form of protection offered our children by the gun-control crowd.
It’s not like all those who support gun-control don’t also support hardened buildings and armed officers and security, they just don’t support it for your children. Politicians from the local, state and federal level all love having their offices and homes secured by publicly funded law enforcement officers, all carrying guns to protect THEM. Following the so-called insurrection, our Congress authorized millions of tax dollars’ worth of security upgrades to further harden it and secure the politicians. The Capitol Police were expanded nationwide with the sole purpose of protecting the politicians. Yet zero dollars are allocated to protecting the most vulnerable, most at risk segment of the population, children.
What is being done to keep children safe?
At the federal level, a bill has been introduced to provide funding to public and private schools across the country. It would fund training and hiring of veteran and former law enforcement officers, or off-duty law enforcement officers, and for the hardening of schools.
Note this is not the first time a bill like this has been introduced in the U.S. Congress, and with a split House and Senate, and a President who wants only gun-control legislation, it has zero chance of becoming law. Had it been introduced back when the Republicans held both chambers of congress and the White House, well… then we wouldn’t have something to blame the other party for. But that’s a different story.
At the state level, Tennessee has introduced a bill to require schools develop and maintain state approved plans for physical security, including drills and reviews on an annual basis. It does not offer funding from the state for the training and hiring of armed officers or security within the schools.
Unfortunately, what the good intentions boil down to is money. A disgraced and fired former FBI Russian interference hoaxer/adulterer decided to come up with a number for security at every school in the nation at $10.4 billion. But like most of his facts, this too is incorrect. Many schools are already staffed with armed officers and/or security. But this shockingly high figure is being floated around our nation’s capital to show the futility of the protecting children argument in order to advance the gun-control only agenda.
When looking at school security from the national level, you’re talking about a billion-dollar problem. State level drops it down to into the millions and local funding, thousands. While state and federal lawmakers love to get involved following a crisis (it makes them look like they are doing something), school security is a local matter. YOUR school board is the one responsible for providing security to protect children. If your school relies on federal or state grants to fund school security, what’s going to happen when those grants dry up, just like they always do. Priorities shift and grant money gets sent somewhere else, leaving schools unprotected down the road.
In fact, if your school wants to temporarily solve this problem until the local funds are raised to hire full time armed security, all the schools need to do is put out a call for veterans and ex-officers to volunteer at the school. I can’t speak for every community in the country, but I know in the ones I’ve lived in throughout my life, if you put that call out today, you’d have a line out the door in the morning. You would have men and women who would be willing to take any required training and certification, at no cost, to secure their local schools and safeguard the children.
Is this a long-term model? No, we need to invest in hard security and on-going armed resources, including training and arming teachers, as part of every school’s budget. But it would provide what our schools need RIGHT NOW using resources that already exist in the community.
Of course, the gun-control side says armed officers, security, or teachers “sends the wrong message”. I’m not really sure how having resources to stop psychopaths/murderers from slaughtering children in schools is the wrong message. Is providing armed, taxpayer funded security to politicians and NOT children the right message? Maybe our politicians would feel safer with little plastic “Gun Free Zone” signs.
I can’t think of any way to say this other than bluntly. The reason why you will never see the gun-control zealots support hardening schools or providing armed security or law enforcement in schools is because without dead children, gun control will never pass. Your children’s lives are expendable in the quest for stricter and stricter, do nothing for safety gun-control.
It’s up to you.
Bob
*Yes, you are reading Part 2 before Part 1. I am struggling with my own tone in the first part of this story. I’ve written, read, rewritten, reread and rewritten again but I’m still not happy with the way it comes across. As any moral person should be, I am outraged at not only the shooting in Nashville, but our government’s response and gaslighting. Being semi-objective about this is proving to be a bit of a challenge. So, Part 2 it is.
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And Florida Makes 26!
Today Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 543 into law. The new law strengthens the Second Amendment protected rights by allowing Floridians to carry a concealed firearm without a government issued permit, background check or mandatory training. The law goes into effect on July 1, 2023. Florida is now the 26th state to return to constitutional carry.
Florida’s move is significant as now more than half of the United States allows permitless concealed carry. Several more states also have constitutional carry bills working their way through their legislatures this year.
As expected, the usual suspects were hard at work trying to stop this. The gun-control zealots, led by the Democratic party, Moms Demand Action and a collection of other billionaire-funded organizations, all condemned the law as being reckless and claim it will lead to an increase in so-called “gun violence”. The usual comparisons to having to get tested and licensed to drive a motor vehicle (a privilege not a Constitutionally protected right) were argued, along with self-funded “research” PROVING the majority of Florida residents opposed it.
What the gun-control crowd doesn’t tell you is every time constitutional carry has been implemented in a state, violent crime has gone down. It has never been the “wild, wild west” or “blood flowing in the streets”, it’s been increased safety and security for the residents of the state. As for their polls, let’s just say research that starts with a conclusion then finds numbers to support it isn’t really research.
As was the case in Texas, ex-law enforcement/current firearm training company owners also opposed the law fearing the lack of mandatory training would negatively impact their business. What actually happened in Texas? More people sought out firearms training than ever before now that they were unburdened from the government permitting system. Go figure.
So, what is the big deal about not requiring a permit to carry a concealed firearm? It’s a barrier which keeps some people from being able to legally defend themselves outside the home. Even in more permissive states, permit requirements often involve application fees – sometimes substantial ones – interviews, fingerprints, and mandatory training. All of this takes time off from work and money which many people cannot afford. Requiring multiple trips for different stages to satisfy the requirements help keep those who can defend themselves a more exclusive club. How many other constitutionally protected rights are treated this way?
Crime and violence continue to skyrocket around the country thanks to extreme-left law makers and prosecutors who prioritize defunding police departments, rewrite laws to lower penalties for crime, release those previously convicted of crimes and fail to hold those committing new property and violent crimes responsible for their actions. The result is more and more people are taking responsibility for their own safety and the safety of their families. In many cases, this involves buying, owning and carrying firearms for self-defense.
Eliminating the need for government permission to be able to defend yourself in public is in the finest tradition of the Second Amendment.
Congratulations Florida!
Bob
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