He said: “This year alone, here locally in Shetland, we’ve processed nearly 300 firearms and shotgun applications – a lot of that being renewals.“But what we’ve been finding is that a lot of people have been sitting with weapons – shotguns and firearms – that they don’t use, and can’t really justify having.“It’s just an encouragement for folk that are not using the weapons.“I’m keen to get them out of circulation, and encourage folk to come into the police station and hand them in.“Or, if they want, we can attend at peoples’ houses  and we will collect any weapons that they are not using.”

Source: Hand over your guns, says chief inspector | The Shetland Times Ltd

Sad commentary about those very cultured people across the ocean. But even beyond the Gun Issues itself: some cheap local Gov asshole gets to tell you what of your property is for you to be allowed and what needs to be renounced or removed on a whim.

And they will bow and answer “Yes sir, two bag-fulls, sir!

I am three episodes into Fear the Walking Dead, which is a spin-off of The Walking Dead.  I started watching The Walking Dead – I never read the comic – when it first aired and enjoyed the first season.  The second season was a snooze fest and was so massively disappointed by the ending of it that I gave up on the show.  I figured I’d give Fear the Walking Dead a shot.

Basic plot of the show is following a dysfunctional family (guy, his ex-wife and son, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend’s daughter and heroin addict son) in LA as the Zombie outbreak begins and society falls apart.

(SPOILERS)

So, like I said, I am three episodes in and think my tolerance is reaching its limit.

Dad/ex/son have just spent the night hiding out in a barber shop in downtown LA with the El Salvadorian barber who owns the shop along with the barber’s wife and daughter, as a five alarm riot is going on outside.  Everybody escapes the shop and makes it to the Dad’s house in the burbs to unite the dysfunctional family.

Meanwhile, girlfriend and her two kids decided the need to be prepared to defend themselves from zombies and so drug addict son, going through withdrawl, suggests they go over to the neighbor’s house to steal his shotgun they the son knows he has because he tried to steal it once before.  Neighbors are already zombies.

Dad and crew arrive home and zombie neighbor attacks.  Dad, DOES NOT WANT ANYBODY TO SHOOT THE ZOMBIFIED NEIGHBOR, even though it is on top of him trying to eat him.  El Salvadorian barber blows its head off.

Next day, bout 45 into the episode, scene opens with the barber showing the son (ex’s not the drug addict) how to load the shotgun, shoot it, how it patterns, and which shells to use – buckshot and No. 8 bird (actually pretty accurate).  Son is very interested in learning safe gun handling in case of further zombie confrontation.

Dad walks in and gets all pissy and demands the son put down the gun, which leads to one of the best exchanges in any TV show I’ve ever seen.

Barber:  “The more the boy knows, the safer he’ll be.”

Girlfriend: “I didn’t see the harm in it.”

Dad: “You know how I feel about guns.”

Barber: “The gun doesn’t care how you feel about it.”

Dad: “That’s enough.”

Dad than stops girlfriend from delivering the coup de grace to another zombiefied neighbor as El Salvadorian barber looks on in disgust.

Dad just escaped full on downtown LA, building being torched, cars flipped over, cops in riot gear firing tear gas, looting, etc.  Nearly gets killed by at least one zombie.  There is no power.  Phones are out.  Bodies of neighbors are lying in the street outside his home.  Civilization is collapsing and all hell is breaking loose around him and Dad still has the audacity to be smugly anti-gun.

I have never wanted to see a protagonist in a show die a horrible death so badly.

I’m a father, I believe to the core of my being that my first duty is to protect my family.  This Dad can’t get over his left-wing, LA suburb, smug, anti-gun attitude to do his duty!?! Did I mention Dad is a LA public school guidance counselor?  I want this guy to be munched on.

The funny thing is, I’m not the only person to feel this way.  Barber’s daughter says they should tag along with dysfunctional family as they head out of the city to the desert where they thing it will be safer.  Pleading to her father she says “they are good people.”  Barber dad says (and I love this) “good people are the first to die.”

If I continue to power through this show, I really want El Salvadoran barber to start kicking ass. I am predicting that he was a fighter in the El Salvadorian civil war.  He’s got that 1000 yard stare and has no compunction against shooting zombies.

There is an old expression: there are no atheists in foxholes.  In times of extreme stress, people who ordinarily have no faith will still appeal to a higher power for help.

I have postulated a corollary: there are no anti-gun activists during a zombie apocalypse.  When you find yourself to be the main course in a zombie buffet, the basic human instinct for self preservation will override any ideology.  I think that my corollary is accurate but not for the reason I originally thought.  There are no anti-gun activists during a zombie apocalypse because they all got eaten while moralizing about how bad guns are.

God do I want Dad and heroin addict son to get eaten and El Salvadorian barber to adopt the rest of dysfunctional family.

From the crowd that pushed for Gun Free & Zero Tolerance Schools.  Oy!

They do love to generate their own victims for their propaganda and fundraising purposes.

And there is a bit more from the original opinion piece written by the mother of the victim:

She was rushed to the hospital, where she spent two days in intensive care and 18 more days as an in-patient. We watched her suffer for weeks in great physical and emotional pain as she worked hard to recover, but tragically, our beautiful and vibrant daughter died of complications caused by her gunshot wounds.

Source: Maine Voices: A daughter’s death demands gun-sales change – The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

Now, the image we get was of a Home Invasion in which her daughter, sleeping by her lonesome, was shot, had to go to the hospital and after weeks of bedridden pain, succumbed to her wounds.

Except that was not quite the whole story. The greatest lies are grown around a kernel of truth and the story of Darien Richardson as told by her mother is a prime example.

To begin with, she was not alone sleeping in her bedroom. According to an article by Duke Harrington in Keepmecurrent.com, she was sharing the bed with her boyfriend. Why is this omitted? Because the whole shooting was suspicious to begin with. The unmentioned boyfriend is one Cory Girard who was also shot but only received a grazing wound in the arm. The attackers did not break in the apartment according to the evidence, went straight to the bedroom where Richardson and Girard were sleeping while ignoring the other bedrooms where Richardson’s roommates were sleeping. Nothing was taken from the apartment. The Portland Chief of Police back then suspected that Girard was targeted probably because of drugs and he refused to identify who attacked them. Darien probably was unaware of her newly acquired boyfriend’s possible activities but nobody is sure for certain, I am inclined to think she had no dealings with that kind of crap.

Now fast-forward to 2014:

Cory Girard was taken into custody Wednesday night on a charge of possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of a controlled substance, marijuana. The charge covers a period of several months, including the night Richardson was shot in 2010.

It is unclear whether the arrest indicates a break in the cold-case investigation of Richardson’s killing, which police believe was tied to the illicit sale of OxyContin.

Both Richardson and Girard were shot in an apartment on Rackleff Street while they were sleeping on Jan. 8, 2010. Richardson, 25, initially survived wounds to her thigh and hand, but died unexpectedly on Feb. 28, 2010, while visiting a friend in Miami, from a blood clot caused by her injuries. Girard was shot in the arm and survived.

Source: Boyfriend of Portland cold-case victim arrested on gun charge – Central Maine

Wait, What? Miami? Yes, she died in Miami visiting a friend and not wasting away as her mother craftily suggested in her op-ed. She was wounded on January 8 and dies in Miami either February 27 late or early the 28th. I’ll let you digest that piece of information on your own.

Unfortunately, the case of Darien Richardson went cold. That is something that happens and we can only hope somebody eventually comes around with information. But the story does not end here.

The gun used in Richardson’s attack was later recovered after another person was ambushed and murdered. Daudoit Butsitsi used the same pistol to kill Serge Mulongo, who was his roommate and according to thee statements collected, both individuals were having problems with each other to the point of physical contact. Butsitsi claims he “borrowed” the gun from a friend but when compelled to give the name of the person during the trial while on the witness stand, he refused and pleaded the 5th (kinda late for that an invalid.) Butsitsi was eventually found guilty and even though he appealed claiming the race card, his sentence was affirmed and is serving 38 years for the murder of Mulongo.

Now, we can assume two things: Either Butsitsi was part of the duo that attacked Richardson or obtained the gun from somebody that was the shooter or closely related the shooter. I could not find information on Butsitsi about any priors for drugs or any other crimes but obtaining a gun that already had a home invasion and murder on top of it makes me believe that it came out from the good old black market of firearms among the criminal element of the city. If so, no amount of background checks would have sufficed to solve Richardson’s murder. Everytown and Moms demand know by the Joyce Foundation report they even touted about, that criminals do not go to Gun Shows of Guns Stores to get their tools of the trade but got it from the criminals the are involved with and family of friends.

There is one more question to ask and that would be addressed to Judi Richardson, mother of Darien: I believe that Darien was the innocent party that night and I think most people would agree with me, so: Why the lies and the obfuscations? Why “embellish” her death when the simple and plain truth would have been more powerful? Is it standard procedure for Moms Demand to bleach out parts that may appear unappealing to the masses they consider stupid? And for the support of universal background checks that would have not been a factor in solving Darien’s case?

I am sorry. I hate to sound brutal but Mrs. Richardson’s op-ed looks like pimping the memory of her daughter for a political non-solution to the violence visited upon her by others.

I hope that the killers of her daughter are captured and put to trial. And I also hope to find out that she aligned herself with Moms Demand because she was misguided in her pain by unscrupulous vultures trying to cash on another corpse.

My friend Don has had two hospitalizations in the last year and no insurance to pay the bills.  He canceled his health insurance when the premium became too expensive and hoped to ride out the 2 years until he could be covered by Medicare.  That happened just after the cut-off date for signing up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act.First he had an aortic aneurysm burst which nearly killed him.  Now he has an esophageal stricture and was hospitalized because it had almost completely closed.  He had his esophagus “cleaned” but is still too narrow to allow anything but very small amounts of fluid.  He has to wait until testing to find out what is causing it before any treatment can begin.  He asked to be allowed to go home in the meantime to reduce the hospital bill that was mounting up.Since his aneurysm he has barely been able to work which means he cannot pay his medical bills.  Being self-employed he is not eligible for unemployment.  He is applying for Medicaid and will be applying for insurance under the Affordable Care Act when the next enrollment period opens up.  But those will not cover bills from before he is approved.Don’s a proud man and would not ask for help on his own.  His son is self-employed and cannot do much to help with the hospital bills.  His grandson is worried because “Poppa” keeps going to the hospital.His friends want to raise enough money to pay off most of his hospital bills, and if possible have enough to pay for treatment of his esophageal stricture until insurance starts.

Source: Don’s medical bills by paul henick – GoFundMe

Every little bit helps.

Weapons and Firearms; Provides for construction of statutes that implicate right to bear arms or engage in self-defense; specifies that law enforcement officer may arrest person for unlicensed carrying of concealed weapon only upon probable cause that such violation is being committed; provides that person licensed to carry concealed weapon may also openly carry such firearm or weapon; provides liability for person or entity who infringes on specified rights; provides exception; provides that certain persons & entities have no immunity; revises legislative findings concerning possession & carrying of weapons & firearms; revises provisions concerning construction of provisions.

Source: House Bill 0163 (2016) – The Florida Senate

Introduced by Sen Dan Gaetz. Here is the text. Although the Open Carry sections is mouth-watering, I believe the most important and yet under rated part is Strict Scrutiny.

Moms Demand is already making a fuss about the Open Carry section. Expect them to be visiting our fair state soon…bodyguards included.