Saturday, January 21, 2012
An interesting post on NPR
Can be found here.
I'll give them a pass.
When most people hear “NPR,” they think Cokie Roberts, Nina Totenberg, Robert Siegel, and for some on the far right, all that is wrong with the mainstream liberal media. But beneath the veneer of the "Minnesota nice," a simmering battle has been waged, and in the balance hangs NPR’s future and perhaps even its soul—as either a nonpartisan defender of in-depth journalism or a target of the partisan sniping of the sound-bite era.Better yet:
Apart from the occasional stories about gays or Palestinians (and maybe even gay Palestinians), there's precious little on NPR these days for conservatives really to hate. For them, despising NPR and cutting off what amounts to the few pennies it collects from the federal budget has increasingly become more a matter of pandering, or habit, or sophomoric sport, than of conviction or serious policy. The editor of the Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol, once confessed to former NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin that he really didn’t believe NPR was liberal; he just said so "to keep you guys on the defensive." And that still seems true.When you hear about new NPR boss Gary Knell talking about his desire to "depoliticize" the debate, what he means is try to do more to placate people like Kristol. Since that's not going to happen, the only real consequence is to push NPR to the right.
I'll give them a pass.
You want, you'd settle for, you get.
You want trial by jury.
You'd settle for Trial by media.
You get pummelled to a pulp in the back of a paddy wagon.
You sure you want to go around carrying a gun?
You'd settle for Trial by media.
You get pummelled to a pulp in the back of a paddy wagon.
You sure you want to go around carrying a gun?
Man Fires Nail into Brain
What do you think? Should this guy lose his rights to own guns?“It’s a miracle,” his fiancee Gail Glaenzer said. “Un-freaking-believable.”
She said the accident happened when Autullo was standing on a ladder and working on a project in the garage. He had fired several nails when the recoil of the final shot sent the gun near his head.
With his finger still on the trigger, a sensor on the top of the gun recognized a flat surface, and unloaded a nail into his brain.
Please leave a comment.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Legal Gun? Or ANOTHER Formerly Legal Gun Transferred from the Care, Custody and Control of the Legal Gun Owner to a Criminal?
Cameras are doing more to solve and to prevent crimes like this than more guns.
This person will be held accountable by cameras, far more safely than a vigilante style shootout.
From MSNBC.com:
This person will be held accountable by cameras, far more safely than a vigilante style shootout.
From MSNBC.com:
Labels:
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Another Reason to Have Fewer Guns, Because Fewer Guns Equate to Fewer Crimes with Guns
This gun started out as legal. Someone who bought it legally was careless in not researching who they traded it to or to whom they sold it. That legal buyer didn't care about anyone else who might end up on the wrong side of that gun, a victim of gun violence or the threat of gun violence.
It is this lack of care, this problem with legal guns becoming illegal guns, that proves our so-called law abiding gun owners aren't really very good about preventing their firearms from ending up in the hands of criminals. Because they do not take the care and are not as responsible as they need to be voluntarily, we need regulation to penalize them for those deficiencies that harm us all.
We need the gun nuts to have some skin in the game, to have something on the line for what happens with their legal firearms when they become illegal firearms.
I favor regulation, licensing, and some form of bonding where they lose money if they transfer their legal firearm to a prohibited person, or if their firearm is used in the commission of a crime.
From MSNBC.com and news services:
According to WCSC in Charleston, authorities responded to the St. James United Methodist Church around 8 p.m. Wednesday after reports of an armed robbery.
One of the victims told police that a man entered the church through an unlocked door and aimed a shotgun toward the choir area, WCSC reports. According to the station, the suspect then told the choir to get on the floor and keep their heads down.
The robber made off with purses, wallets and cell phones from the choir members. No one was hurt, WSOC-TV reports.
Investigators say the suspect is a black male between 5'10" to 5'11 and 230 pounds.
The robber escaped on foot. Police are continuing the investigation.
It is this lack of care, this problem with legal guns becoming illegal guns, that proves our so-called law abiding gun owners aren't really very good about preventing their firearms from ending up in the hands of criminals. Because they do not take the care and are not as responsible as they need to be voluntarily, we need regulation to penalize them for those deficiencies that harm us all.
We need the gun nuts to have some skin in the game, to have something on the line for what happens with their legal firearms when they become illegal firearms.
I favor regulation, licensing, and some form of bonding where they lose money if they transfer their legal firearm to a prohibited person, or if their firearm is used in the commission of a crime.
From MSNBC.com and news services:
Cops: Gunman robs choir group at church
By msnbc.com staff and news services
Police in Goose Creek, S.C. say a man armed with a shotgun robbed a choir group as they practiced at a church.According to WCSC in Charleston, authorities responded to the St. James United Methodist Church around 8 p.m. Wednesday after reports of an armed robbery.
One of the victims told police that a man entered the church through an unlocked door and aimed a shotgun toward the choir area, WCSC reports. According to the station, the suspect then told the choir to get on the floor and keep their heads down.
The robber made off with purses, wallets and cell phones from the choir members. No one was hurt, WSOC-TV reports.
Investigators say the suspect is a black male between 5'10" to 5'11 and 230 pounds.
The robber escaped on foot. Police are continuing the investigation.
Why Gun Sales are Up
published a fascinating article by Frank Miniter, who, as you can see by his bio, is completely unbiased and objective about the gun debate.
I am a bestselling author and a freelance journalist who concentrates on man’s struggle to keep the state in balance with the American dream. My latest book is Saving the Bill of Rights. I am also the author of The Ultimate Man's Survival Guide. My website is www.frankminiter.com.
Here's the best part.
Don't you just love that "conclusively prove scientifically" part?Steve Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) explained that in 1959 some 70 percent of the American public favored handgun bans, whereas today that number has flipped. “We’ve been able to conclusively prove scientifically that, as John Lott wrote, more guns do equal less crime. Other factors include the fact that the number of hunters has actually risen in a number of states. Then you have returning servicemen and women who are staying with the shooting sports. Meanwhile, the advocacy of the NSSF, the NRA and other groups have shown that the Second Amendment is a fundamental part of our freedom.”
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Another Gun Nut Violates the Carry Laws
Did this woman really have a need to carry, or is she another gun fetishist?
Once again we have those who want their guns ignoring the rules when they think they can get away with it. So long as they get their way, the laws and rules be damned.
That this woman must have known she was in the wrong is evident by her disappearance. She could have attempted to resolve the problem, but she didn't.
Guns, grenades, C4 explosives? No. These don't belong in the cabins of our airlines. I don't believe anyone needs to be transporting either a live grenade or C4 plastic explosives on a commercial flight, and I seriously question anyone legitimately having these items AT ALL.
Not even in Texas, which is a state that sometimes has an air of unreality about it.
Confiscating a cupcake on the other hand? You've got to be kidding.
From the Huffington Post:
Once again we have those who want their guns ignoring the rules when they think they can get away with it. So long as they get their way, the laws and rules be damned.
That this woman must have known she was in the wrong is evident by her disappearance. She could have attempted to resolve the problem, but she didn't.
Guns, grenades, C4 explosives? No. These don't belong in the cabins of our airlines. I don't believe anyone needs to be transporting either a live grenade or C4 plastic explosives on a commercial flight, and I seriously question anyone legitimately having these items AT ALL.
Not even in Texas, which is a state that sometimes has an air of unreality about it.
Confiscating a cupcake on the other hand? You've got to be kidding.
From the Huffington Post:
American Airlines Passenger Arrested With Gun On Plane
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Authorities say that a 65-year-old woman was taken into custody Wednesday after carrying a gun on to an American Airlines plane at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
An airline spokesman said Wednesday that the plane was headed for the runway when it returned to the gate and was met by airport police.
Security screeners detected a handgun in the woman's carry-on bag, but she "picked up the bag and left the checkpoint before the screening process was over," said Greg Soule, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, which operates the checkpoints.
Soule said he didn't know if the gun, a .38-caliber revolver, was loaded. He said that when TSA screeners spot a gun in a bag, they are supposed to seize the bag and notify police.
It was not clear how authorities tracked down the woman's flight. It was about an hour and 40 minutes later that she was taken into custody by DFW Airport police, Soule said.
Airport officials declined to talk about the incident but issued a brief written statement saying that the woman would be charged with carrying a gun into a place where weapons are prohibited, a third-degree felony in Texas and punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
People who bring a gun to an airport checkpoint are subject to civil penalties. It's up to local law enforcement agencies to decide whether to lodge criminal charges, according to the TSA.
American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith said the woman was removed from Flight 2385, scheduled to fly to Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport. The flight was delayed for just over an hour and other passengers were screened again before the plane took off, he said.
About 10 other flights were also delayed up to 25 minutes after the TSA closed DFW's Terminal D, Smith said. The terminal, one of five, is used for international flights and some domestic flights.
The incident comes amid heightened criticism of TSA.
A soldier arrested on Dec. 31 at the Midland, Texas, airport with C4 explosives in his bag said he probably carried the bomb material on a flight from North Carolina to Texas. Screeners delayed him after finding and confiscating a smoke grenade, but let him on that first flight.
In other cases, screeners have been overzealous. TSA Administrator John Pistole said in letters made public this week that screeners at New York's Kennedy Airport violated procedures this fall by asking 85- and 88-year-old women to show them medical devices concealed under their clothes. The women said they felt as if they had been strip-searched.
Screeners in Las Vegas were criticized this month for confiscating a traveler's frosted cupcake.
New Tech Tested for Gun Detection
First high tech undies, now this.
This could take the concealed out of concealed carry.
From the HuffPo: NYPD Testing Long-Distance Gun Detection Device
The New York Police Department, with assistance from the Pentagon, is testing a scanning device that can remotely detect concealed firearms, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Tuesday.
The device measures natural radiation emitted by people and can detect when this flow of energy is impeded by an object, such as a gun.
"This technology has shown a great deal of promise as a way of detecting weapons without a physical search," Kelly said in a speech before a police group in Manhattan.
Known as terahertz imaging detection, the technology functions similarly to night-vision goggles, which detect infrared radiation. But unlike much infrared radiation, the terahertz wavelength is not blocked by clothing.
"With terahertz, you will be able to identify a gun as a gun," said John Federici, a physics professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
The device is being developed in conjunction with a Department of Defense counter-terrorism unit, which has expressed interest in the technology to thwart suicide bombers and similar threats. The device could be mounted in a squad car or placed in an area with a high number of shootings.
A prototype is being tested at a police shooting range in the Bronx and has proven effective at distances up to 16 feet, Paul J. Browne, an NYPD spokesman, told The New York Times. The department hopes to increase the detection's effective distance to around 80 feet, Browne said.
Kelly did not specify when it would be ready for the streets. "The development work is moving forward and we hope to utilize the sensor as soon as it meets our requirements," he said.
Civil libertarians took a cautious stance on the technology, which Kelly said would only be used under "reasonably suspicious circumstances." "We find this proposal both intriguing and worrisome," Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
If effective, Lieberman said, the device could essentially bring to an end the NYPD's controversial "stop-and-frisk" campaign, which subjects more than half-a-million New Yorkers per year to largely random search by the police. Police officials have defended the searches as necessary to remove illegal guns from the streets, but civil liberties groups have decried them as a racially biased and unconstitutional invasion of privacy.
Yet the scanners could themselves be considered a breach of privacy. "The ability to walk down the street free from a virtual police pat-down is a matter of privacy," Liberman said.
"If the NYPD is moving forward with this, the public needs more information about this technology, how it works and the dangers it presents," she said.
Some terahertz detection devices, particularly those designed to work at long distances, emit radiation when scanning an object or person. But that radiation would not be at a high enough level to cause harm, according to Federici, the physicist.
"This is a lot different than nuclear radiation or X-rays," he said. "It doesn't really cause any damage."
This could take the concealed out of concealed carry.
From the HuffPo: NYPD Testing Long-Distance Gun Detection Device
The New York Police Department, with assistance from the Pentagon, is testing a scanning device that can remotely detect concealed firearms, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Tuesday.
The device measures natural radiation emitted by people and can detect when this flow of energy is impeded by an object, such as a gun.
"This technology has shown a great deal of promise as a way of detecting weapons without a physical search," Kelly said in a speech before a police group in Manhattan.
Known as terahertz imaging detection, the technology functions similarly to night-vision goggles, which detect infrared radiation. But unlike much infrared radiation, the terahertz wavelength is not blocked by clothing.
"With terahertz, you will be able to identify a gun as a gun," said John Federici, a physics professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
The device is being developed in conjunction with a Department of Defense counter-terrorism unit, which has expressed interest in the technology to thwart suicide bombers and similar threats. The device could be mounted in a squad car or placed in an area with a high number of shootings.
A prototype is being tested at a police shooting range in the Bronx and has proven effective at distances up to 16 feet, Paul J. Browne, an NYPD spokesman, told The New York Times. The department hopes to increase the detection's effective distance to around 80 feet, Browne said.
Kelly did not specify when it would be ready for the streets. "The development work is moving forward and we hope to utilize the sensor as soon as it meets our requirements," he said.
Civil libertarians took a cautious stance on the technology, which Kelly said would only be used under "reasonably suspicious circumstances." "We find this proposal both intriguing and worrisome," Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
If effective, Lieberman said, the device could essentially bring to an end the NYPD's controversial "stop-and-frisk" campaign, which subjects more than half-a-million New Yorkers per year to largely random search by the police. Police officials have defended the searches as necessary to remove illegal guns from the streets, but civil liberties groups have decried them as a racially biased and unconstitutional invasion of privacy.
Yet the scanners could themselves be considered a breach of privacy. "The ability to walk down the street free from a virtual police pat-down is a matter of privacy," Liberman said.
"If the NYPD is moving forward with this, the public needs more information about this technology, how it works and the dangers it presents," she said.
Some terahertz detection devices, particularly those designed to work at long distances, emit radiation when scanning an object or person. But that radiation would not be at a high enough level to cause harm, according to Federici, the physicist.
"This is a lot different than nuclear radiation or X-rays," he said. "It doesn't really cause any damage."
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