Law and Order is not the normal state of a society. Only highly functional societies have working law and order. The phrase sometimes used is “rule of law”.

The rule of law is when there is a written system of laws that applies to everybody equally. If the laws are not applied equally then the system starts to break down. Unfortunately even in good societies it is possible to subvert the rule of law based on the actions of law enforcement, prosecution and judicial employees.

If the cops turn a blind eye to crime based on who is committing the crime the rule of law starts to break down. If the prosecutors fail to bring charges or bring reduced charges based on who is committing the crime then the rule of law starts to break down. If the judges give out punishments that are based on who is committing the crime then the rule of law starts to break down.

This can even extend into the corrections facilities when who committed the crime affects how they are treated.

This happens in both directions, under arresting and over arresting, under charging and over charging, under sentencing and over sentencing. It happens.

Our current society has a feeling of the rule of law breaking down. An old man is attacked behind the counter of the store, he defends himself, he’s arrested and charged. A suburban couple fears for their lives and property and stand armed are arrested and charged. A young man is chased by a older stronger violent man intent on taking the young man’s weapon defends himself and is charged and arrested.

On the other side of the equation are all the criminals with long lists of arrests, charges and convictions that are still out committing crimes.

Of course there are the “An’t don’ n’ting” where it is very questionable as to how much nothing wasn’t done. Unfortunately these situations are often used to make still more people feel that the rule of law is breaking down.

When the rule of law cease to exist the people band together to enforce the laws they think should be enforced. This leads to strange fruit hanging from southern trees.

Lynchings were the results of people enforcing the laws that they felt should exist in the way they felt they should be enforced. The cattle rustler hanging from a tree was a lynching. The murdering scoundrel pulled from the town jail to be hung from the nearest street post was a lynching. The black man pulled from his horse and hung for daring to look at a white woman was a lynching.

The white men moving south bringing the sounds of freedom hung from trees were lynchings.

When law and order breaks down, strange fruit come to hang from the trees.

Nina Simone’s version with graphic images:

Full report at cnn.com: READ: The Uvalde report

Of necessity, this report will describe the shortcomings and failures of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and of various agencies and officers of law enforcement. At the outset, we acknowledge that those same shortcomings could be found throughout the State of Texas…

“There is no one whom we can attribute malice or ill motives. Instead, we found systemic failures and egregiously poor decision making.”

Wow. Harsh words but nowhere near the anger I feel for the cowards that stood hiding from the shooter while children died.

There is a screen capture of one officer checking his phone constantly as he stands behind the corner far from the shooter. He has the Punisher screensaver. There was an article that stated the reason that he kept checking his phone was he was waiting for a message from his wife, a teacher at the school. The report implied that his wife was one of those killed.

If his wife was one of those killed I feel for him. I also hope he lives in torment for the rest of his life because he stood there with his body armor, his side arm, with access to a rifle and refused to advance to the sounds of gun fire. He refused to save his wife and those children.

Checking his phone for a message from his wife isn’t an excuse, it is condemnation..

… While the school had adopted security policies to lock exterior doors and internal classroom doors, there was a regrettable culture of noncompliance by school personnel who frequently propped doors open and deliberately circumvented locks. At a minimum, school administrators and school district police tacitly condoned this behavior as they were aware of these unsafe practices and did not treat them as serious infractions requiring immediate correction. In fact, the school actually suggested circumventing the locks as a solution for the convenience of substitute teachers and others who lacked their own keys.

It wasn’t that some teacher left the door propped open, it was that the door didn’t lock like it was suppose to. It didn’t lock like it was suppose to because the school didn’t get the doors repaired. The door to room 111 had a faulty lock. It had been discussed but nobody had bothered to write up a work order to get it fixed.

In addition to all of the above there were around 50 security alerts at the school between February and May of 2022. These were caused by “[the] frequent occurrence of human traffickers trying to outrun the police, usually ending with the smuggler crashing the vehicle and the passengers fleeing in all directions.”

That is almost one every other school day. Given the holidays in that time period darn close to one per day. No wonder the teachers were tired of security alerts.

Other factors delayed the reporting of the threat to the campus and to law enforcement. …

What??? We have the 911 call made while the shooter is still outside the building. That isn’t a delay. The most you can say is that the first shots at the men coming to the crash scene might have been delayed, but there was at least one teacher on the phone with 911 within a few minutes of the shooting starting, outside the building.

His entrance into the building that morning was unimpeded because ALL of the exterior doors to that building were unlocked. In violation of school policy.

At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety.

Cowards, all of them.

… The chief of police was one of the first responders on the scene. But as events unfolded, he failed to perform or to transfer to another person the role of incident commander. This was an essential duty he had assigned to himself in the plan mentioned above, yet it was not effectively performed by anyone. …

Looks like the Chief wanted the glory but when it came to perform he failed at every level.

The US military is given training on “illegal orders”. Every member of the US military understands that “I was just following orders.” Is not a defense. Thus they are required by law to evaluate every order given to make sure they are legal. In addition they are trained to work as a team and as individuals and to work without a leader.

One of the more interesting aspects of this is that killing leaders in the US military does not cause as much devastation to the battle as in other armies.

This style of leadership supposedly is followed within Law Enforcement.

There was no Incident Command Post on scene. No officer responding took it upon themselves to establish that command post nor to make sure that there was an actual incident commander. The Chief was the first domino of cowardice. There were more that fell from his failures.

There is a show I watched The Closer. One story arc details how they are going to get money for their budget by doubling as part of the terrorist response team for the LAPD. These officers went through the training, had all the documents and plans and people in positions of power signed off on it.

They were not actually qualified to be a part of a terrorist response team. They had those qualities on paper only.

That was a fictional story.

Uvalde is more of the same. It looks like there was money dangled in front of the school system for having an active shooter plan in place. So the chief had one of his minions write it up, likely cutting and pasting from other plans they found. The chief assigned himself to the part of “incident commander” and handed out parts to his other officers in the play they had written.

They then went and performed the full dress rehearsal to qualify for the (assumed) money.

When it was time to actually perform, they failed at every level. It all started at the top and the rank and file refused to accept responsibility for following IMO illegal orders.

Page 22 of the document is a massive condemnation of the chief. He had all the training required to do the right thing. Every failure that happened at Robb Elementary is discussed in the training he received. There is no excuse for his behavior that day.

He took an entire module on how to enter locked buildings and rooms with outward opening doors. He had the training to know that you don’t wait for keys. If you have them, great, if not move on. The module included information on how to breach using physical means.

… Uvalde CISD parents became so concerned about the number of bailouts occurring near the elementary-school campuses that they offered to hire off-duty police to supplement the Uvalde CISD police presence.

It appears that the offer to provide more security was turned down by the school district police. It makes you wonder why?

When the Internet was first being introduced to the world at large the people that had been using it were all the same sorts of geeks and nerds. Nobody would ever consider doing bad things on the internet. Besides, we’ve secured our equipment.

And then Windows got internet capability and all that changed. Windows had(has?) horrible security. The answer was firewalls. Put a moat around your campus and everybody inside would be safe.

At our campus Wi-Fi was just starting to be used, it required a boatload of paperwork to get an access point installed and more money than people wanted to spend.

Instead people hooked up their own modems to the internal network, bridging the moat/firewall, with no security. They plugged access points they purchased at Best Buy/Circuit City into the local network, letting anybody sitting in the picnic area to connect to the network, with no security.

The security policies did not take into account humans. When you get in the way of a person that wants to do something they will find away around it. Even if the thing they are doing is destroying security.

Th Uvalde CISD purchased an alert system that required a smart phone with a good signal or to be logged into a computer in order to receive or send alerts. They had such poor wi-fi in most buildings that teachers turned off their phones. Teachers didn’t carry their phones with them.

The alert system was bound to fail because the human factor was ignored. In addition, everybody that was able to receive alerts through the system could initiate an alert. This lead to alerts when a user heard about bailouts near the school campuses.

Over used and not handy, the alert system was a failure and nobody noticed.

Page 32 of the document describes the asshole. If you want to know more about him, read if from the linked document.

This 18yo dropped over $3k on rifles and ammunition. He didn’t have a car, he didn’t have a license, he didn’t know how to drive. Yet somehow he saved up over $3K. It is an interesting question of where he got his money.

At approximately 11:37a.m., the officers converged from both sides of the hallway on Rooms 111 and 112. Coming from the north, Lt. Martinez peered into the vestibule for Rooms 111 and 112, and he faced gunfire, getting grazed by fragments of building material on the top of his head. He immediately retreated to the north end of the hallway. On the opposite of the hall, fragments also hit SSgt. Canales on his ear. He likewise retreated and exited the building on the west side. No shots were fired at that time toward the attacker by the law enforcement responders.

And there we have the names of the cowards that were shot at and ran.

The report confirms that BORTAC made the decision to breach. They stacked up. When they did others stacked up with them. BORTAC made the breach. The chief testified that he did not give BORTAC the order to breach.

Cdr. Paul Guerrero stands as somebody who actually did. His is the first discussion that seems like he knew what he was doing and took charge. He was the acting commander of BORTAC. He arrived at 12:30 and by 12:35 was already testing a Halligan breaching tool. He then ordered Border Patrol agents to start setting up triage and medical. He and another agent were at the head of the stack unlocking the door and opening it for the breach.

This guy arrived and took charge of his men, evaluated the situation and did. Read page 61.

The chief appears to be in complete CYA. His basic statement is “I was just a police officer doing a police officer’s job. I was never in charge.” He failed completely at his duties.

Notes: The report on CNN is a series of images of the report. I transcribed the blockquotes and quotes from the images. Any errors in grammar or spelling in the quotes is entirely my fault.

Around 1800 on Sunday some asshole went into the Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana. He was armed with a rifle and multiple magazines.

Unfortunately he was able to kill 4 females. Two others were wounded and are being treated at a local hospital.

His shooting spree was ended by a good guy with a gun. A licenced CCW holder used his carry weapon to end the shooting.

No information is given on the asshole so my guess is that he is one of the protected classes. We’ll find out in the coming days. Also unmentioned is the type of rifle used. So that means it is unlikely to be an AR-15.

For the Democrats this is another fortuitously timed event as the Assault Weapons Ban of 2021 is going to a vote on the house floor this week.

4 dead, 2 wounded in shooting at Greenwood Park Mall; police said ‘good Samaritan’ shot and killed shooter
3 dead, 2 injured in shooting at Greenwood Park Mall, suspect killed by armed citizen

H/T to one of our readers for the Fox 59 link

UPDATE: The articles quoted have been changed. The article now reflects coroner reporting that there were two male victims and one female victim and one male asshole.

It is also being reported that the mall is marked as guns for criminals only. The hero choose to ignore the sign and carried.

When an article contains the following:

The new measure, containing 21 pages of carefully drafted verbiage, provides for pre-licensing background checks, mental health, social media screening and training in the use of a firearm, all of which will probably pass muster.

But the act also designates much of the state as a “sensitive location” where legally permitted guns will be legally prohibited. Sensitive locations must be “clearly and conspicuously identified with signage.” What makes a sign “clearly and conspicuously identified” will keep lawyers and judges busy for a decade.

You know you are in for a roller coaster ride of twisted logic.

The author is obviously looking at the new bill through the lens of a pre-Bruen decision. There is nothing in the text or tradition of the second amendment to allow for the sort of screening put into this bill. Nothing to allow for training requirements. The only place they have any hope is in the “sensitive locations”, but since they went overboard and made NYC a sensitive place, it is highly unlikely it will survive a judicial review.

He laments that there are so many different sensitive places it will be difficult to move through the city:

The six conservative justices have not thought it through. The court’s decision is virtually impossible to administer. The practical problems are enormous. If I can legally carry a revolver in my pocket and capriciously decide to approach a “sensitive location,” what do I do with the gun before entering?

And, if I can legally keep a gun in my apartment, and legally carry it on the street, how do I legally carry the weapon through the halls and public areas of the building without violating the law? The law says no guns on private property unless the landlord says OK

Finally we get to his real concern, his concern for the police.

And what of the burden on the police? It used to be that an officer, seeing someone with a bulge in his pocket in a high-crime area late at night, could “stop and frisk” the suspect for unlicensed weapons. But how does the cop distinguish between a licensed bulge in the pocket and an unlicensed one? Erased is the requisite “reasonable suspicion” that a crime is being committed.

The author is studiously ignoring the reality of the new law. The new law is not concerned about the burden on the police because their is no burden. If a gun owner manages to get a permission slip to exercise his right of self-defense there is no way to safely navigate through the waters of NYC. Everywhere he turns there is another mark on the map “Here be a felony”.

The law isn’t a burden on the police because it is a slap in the face of the Supreme court and every gun owner in the country. Having been told they must issue permits the state of New York has made it impossible to exercise the right to carry.

Is it any wonder that gun rights organizations are filling lawsuits left and right? How does somebody look at the fact pattern and decide that this is a burden for the police and not citizens?

— The Hill Is New York about to become the Wild West?

Well we’ve made it a full week on the new server with the new versions of software and things haven’t totally failed yet.

The site seems to be responsive and we haven’t had any great issues yet:

For those of you that want to send in tips and links for J.Kb, Miguel and AWA to consider, hit us up at gunfreezone (at) troglodite.com

We should be starting the roll out of some changes for the comment section shortly. These will be a link next to the reply links to allow people to login or signup. We will also be putting a mark for our comment snipers. It won’t do anything right away but it is the first step.

We had a member request that we use “usernames” instead of signup names. We are going to take a look at the membership roll and see what can be done.

Next Friday we are going to roll out a Friday Feedback post that will have open comments, no membership required, for everybody to be able to give us feedback.

Thank you again to everybody that has signed up to be a member, your support is greatly appreciated.

If you want to support gunfreezone please consider becoming a member by Registering

We are so use to the headlines screaming about “Gun Violence Prevention”. It almost always means that somebody is calling for restrictions on people that didn’t do anything. “To prevent gun violence we must ban assault weapons”. “To prevent gun violence we have to ban 18, 19 and 20 year olds from buying firearms.” “To prevent gun violence we must only allow criminal guns into sensitive places.”

It is always the same, these groups always have another rule to apply to you and I. They never focus on the criminal, they never focus on education, they never focus on safety. They always focus on restricting our gun rights.

One of the questions that sometimes gets asked of the groups claiming to be “gun safety” groups is to ask “How many gun locks have you given out?” “How many safety classes have you run?” “How many gun safes have you given out or discounts on gun safes?”

The answer for most is “None.”

From New Orleans comes a different story. A story of people trying to actually prevent accidental shootings.

In response to a two-year old shooting himself after finding his brother’s firearm a group is giving away gun safes. The brother’s firearm happened to be stolen so it is unlikely that any law would have prevented this tragedy.

Thanks to funding from the Centers for Disease Control, the program is partnering with the city’s health department to start giving away gun safes for free, trying to prevent more incidents like the one at Costco.

“You can buy a biometric lockbox that your fingerprint is the only thing that opens it, it might have a backup lock, for about $100, that’s small enough to fit in your car and I think that’s a little bit about education and just having more access to it,” Fleckman said. “We’re seeing it as a really big need now.”

Those gun safes will be offered starting next week only for patients at University Medical Center who are there for a gun related injury.

Later next month, there will be about 300 to give away to the general public. Locations and times are still in the works. Eyewitness News will bring you updates on how to get one when we receive them.
— Free gun safes available soon through Tulane’s Gun Violence Prevention Lab

We are a power hungry country. We use so much power and we are not even aware of it. The numbers can tell us exactly how power hungry we are.

The computer I’m using right now has a 1000W power supply, that’s because the original 500W supply wasn’t big enough. That doesn’t count the other computers that are part of the overall system, just this one computer. Let’s assume we are only using 750W of power.

This is 1HP. My knee mill uses a 1HP motor. My lathe uses a 1HP motor. My recut bandsaw uses a 1HP engine. These are big metal monsters. My computer is a 1HP computer. This should be mind boggling.

Our home has a 100A feed, it is rather old. Many new homes have 200A feeds. My grandparents home had 4 circuits and a 40A feed.

Our power consumption keeps going up.

And all that power has to come from somewhere. And it has to get to us.

The power grid does that. When politicians push electric vehicles they are adding to that pull on the grid. There isn’t enough power in the grid to charge the EVs that they want us to use. There aren’t enough transformers on the poles or big enough transformers on the poles for that sort of power pull.

But there is another part of the power grid that is sort of amazing. During times of lower demand they push less power into the grid. During the night people use less power and thus there is less need to push that much power into the grid. As people get up in the morning and start their morning routines they start to use more power and the power plants start to push more power into the grid.

Which brings us to this article:

Smart thermostats, which the paper said were present in around 40 percent of US homes in 2021, are programmed by default to have different night and day modes. In hundreds of thousands of homes across the US that means a sudden jump in electricity use right before residents wake up – if people aren’t changing default settings, which the paper suggests is the case.

Those hundreds and thousands of smart thermostats, typically configured to switch to day mode around 6am, “can cause load synchronization during recovery from nightly setpoint setbacks, increasing the daily peak heating electrical demand,” the paper said.
— Smart thermostat swarms are straining the US grid

Yep, all those smart thermostats have clocks that are often very accurate and they all want to start at the same time. Thousands and thousands of homes all kicking in at exactly the same time.