Gun Free Zone

Caught this Chavista/Madurista talking about food in Venezuela:

The translation is somewhat weird, bur I will explain as I go.  Toddy in Venezuela is what we would call a chocolate-flavored powder you add to milk or water to obtain something that hints as a chocolate beverage.

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Unless you liked the flavor (mostly because chocolate from Chuao was available at a decent price and that shit rocks) only poor people drank Toddy and the really poor people drank Taco which is God’s punishment for you liking chocolate.

The “diablitos” mentioned is nothing more than the good old deviled ham that we called “little devils”  for some branding reason. Again only if you had a liking for it, you’d eat that stuff (I like it, but I pay with heartburn of death so it is a yearly event.

So, during the pre-revolution times, any meal that comprised Toddy and diablitos happened in a poor household in the country. If you could not afford the pre-cooked cornmeal to make “arepas” (Venezuelan biscuit/bread) you went with cheap spaghetti which was sold subsidized for cents the pound.  “Espagueti con Diablitos” was the step above eating moldy day-old bread and then doing without food.

The Venezuelan Bernie Bro the says “The peel balls eat arepa with butter.” Lost in the translation, peel balls is literally “pela bolas” which in the Venezuela slang means be broke and poor, without coin. Here is what made me laugh about that line: Butter has always been expensive in Venezuela because it had to be imported  if you wanted to eat anything decent. We got butter from Europe that came in cans and was only to be used for the holidays and when you had people for dinner, Christmas and the such. The rest of the time, you had margarine.  Oh yes, we had locally made butter, but it sucked so bad, margarine (Mavesa and Nelly were brands we used at home) they actually tasted better.  To summarize: if you ate anything with butter back in pre-revolutionary days, you were making some money.

So our young idiotic revolutionary, managed to elevate the status of the dishes eaten by people in abject poverty and brand them as culinary delicacies only eaten by the dirty capitalists.

No wonder they have people going through the garbage trying to eat something.

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Someone in one the comments about my job box gun storage post said that Kryptonite bicycle locks could be picked with a Bic pen.  I had to look that up.  Apparently it’s a little harder than that, and it only works on the older style of barrel lock and not what I have.

I found a YouTube video that demonstrated it.

The YouTube algorithm did what it did and recommended me two more videos on lock testing.

First is that son-of-a-bitch the Lock Picking Lawyer.

I know about boron steels, it’s part of being a metallurgist.  Boron is a very powerful hardening element in steel at low concentrations, about 1%.  Boron steels can achieve a hardness of about 45 HRC, while still being ductile enough to be formable.  To get harder than that, you have to start adding very high carbon contents which make the steel more brittle.  Even in the annealed condition, hypereutectoid steel is hard to form.

Given the need to make a lock manufacturable and cost-effective, boron steel is a good choice.

So the Lock Picking Lawyer busts out with a $100 pair of hydraulic bolt cutters and breaks the lock.

Those are hydraulic bolt cutters.  The ones he has are listed on Amazon as having an 8-ton capacity.  That’s 16,000 lbs.

What the fuck does he expect the locks to do?  Even going up to tungsten and vanadium carbide tools steels, I doubt a lock will take 8-tons of load.

I know never say anything is impossible but given the design constraints of padlocks: the shackle size, the fact that people don’t want to spend $100 on a lock, etc.  I can’t think of a commercial material that would handle an 8-ton hydraulic bolt cutter.

Then there was this video from the UK.

Not just are they testing locks against 42 inch bolt cutters, but a DeWalt 18v angle grinder?

Again, not exactly sure what they expect to happen.  I’ve used wheels like that to cut through M3 tool steel broaches.  It takes a bit of time, but that is what Silicon Carbide blades are supposed to do.

I cannot stress this enough.

Nothing is impenetrable.  Every security system in the world can be defeated.  It is simply a matter of time and the tools used to do it.

Thieves can only be deterred.  The entire thought process of security is “make it difficult enough to steal that a potential thief doesn’t want to try because there are easier pickings elsewhere.”

Crime, like all other economic activities, is risk vs. reward.

But there is one other part of the deterrence equation that we’ve seem to have forgotten.

Punishment.

Maybe we need to ask ourselves why is it that criminals feel emboldened enough to carry around hydraulic bolt cutters and angle grinders?

Then I remember that Prop 47 passed in California and while you can go to prison for carrying a potato peeler in the UK, they won’t arrest you for moped theft.

Because the criminals know that they can carry around hydraulic bolt cutters and angle grinders and steal everything they want and not get in real trouble for it.

That is what we need to change.

You know what would make my neighborhood more secure than better locks?

The dissected body of the last criminal caught in the neighborhood hanging in a gibbet in front of the HOA clubhouse.

How about we go back to the 1800’s and start hanging horse thieves again?

The UK loves it’s Muslims.  How about they adopt a bit of Sharia law and start cutting off-bike thieves’ hands and feet.

Rather than put signs in the windows of their cars telling thieves that there is nothing inside to steal, the people of San Francisco hire some dudes to patrol parking lots, and if they see someone smash in a window, they go all Railroad Bull on him and beat him to within an inch of his life with an axe handle.

Let the store owner who just watched $950 worth of his merchandise walk out the door follow the thief into the parking lot and shoot him in the back with a shotgun.  Watch shoplifting stop dead overnight.

Maybe the penalty for stealing guns or being caught with a stolen gun is a mandatory death penalty.

Before I have to spend $20,000 on a security system, give me the right to defend not just my life but my property with lethal force.

I am getting sick and fucking tired of being told no matter how much I invest in security, it’s never enough because any thief who is willing to spend as much at a Northern Tool or Harbor Freight as they do on a pair of sneakers can defeat whatever you have.

I’m all for stop of frisk, and if you are caught with a bolt cutter or angle grinder down the leg of your pants, it’s 10 years mandatory, no parole.

Am I being cruel?  Probably, but clearly the criminals don’t fear the law anymore.

The ultimate deterrence isn’t a thief thinking “should I try to break into this safe or take the TV,” but “if I get caught, how much will it hurt before I die.”

Having never had the pleasure of meeting him, this is a thrill.

IMHO the last great Billy Joel album.

From NBC News:

What is the ‘boogaloo’? How online calls for a violent uprising are hitting the mainstream
The movement says it wants a second Civil War targeting liberal political opponents and law enforcement.

An anti-government movement that advocates for a violent uprising targeting liberal political opponents and law enforcement has moved from the fringes of the internet into the mainstream and surged on social media in recent months, according to a group of researchers that tracks hate groups.

While calls for organized and targeted violence in the form of a new Civil War have previously circulated among some hate groups, the emergence of the term “boogaloo” appeared to be a new and discrete movement. NCRI researchers who analyzed more than 100 million social media posts and comments found that through the use of memes — inside jokes commonly in the form of images — extremists have pushed anti-government and anti-law enforcement messages across social media platforms. They have also organized online communities with tens of thousands of members, some of whom have assembled at real-world events.

I think I’ve used that term once or twice so guess what guys, we’re on a hate group list.

“Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI): where we can’t tell a Hispanic immigrant and a borderline libertarian Jew from Stormfront, but you should totally trust us.”

The current boogaloo movement was first noticed by extremism researchers in 2019, when fringe groups from gun rights and militia movements to white supremacists began referring to an impending civil war using the word “boogaloo,” a joking reference to “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo,” a 1984 sequel movie about breakdancing.

The term is used to describe an uprising against a seemingly tyrannical or left-wing government, often in response to a perceived threat of widespread gun confiscation. For many, the word “boogaloo” — silly on its face — is used jokingly or ironically, but for others, the boogaloo memes are shared alongside violent text and images, seemingly to inflame an eventual confrontation.

David Hogg gets a national platform to call us all murderers with blood on our faces.

Beto gets a national platform to say that “hell yes, we’re going to take your guns.”

Eric Swalwell says that he wants to nuke middle America and have the military go door to door to take our guns.

Joe Biden says he’s going to confiscate our guns.

Governor “Blackface” Northam considered activating the National Guard if his gun confiscation bill passed.

But a bunch of gun rights activists meme a reply and all of a sudden it’s an existential terrorist threat?  Ha ha, fuck you.

Boogaloo extremists have used social media to “strategize, share instructions for explosives and 3-D printed firearms, distribute illegal firearm modifications, and siphon users into encrypted messaging boards en mass,” according to the NCRI report. The report also notes how the boogaloo concept has been monetized, through merchandise advertised through Facebook and Instagram ads, and marketed to current and former members of the military.

Miguel, you’re an “extremist” now for your “Can’t stop the signal, Mal” posts about 3-D printed guns.

Much like the OK hand symbol co-opted by white nationalists who later denied the association, the ambiguity of the term “boogaloo” works to cloak extremist organizing in the open.

You mean that complete hoax cooked up by 4Chan to show just how much Trump broke the media?  The one where the media can’t stop embarrassing itself, going as far as to say that Army and Navy cadets at the Army/Navy game were closet white supremacists?

NBC is really just slathering itself in glory as it loses all of its credibility.

The term “boogaloo” has also been seen in real-world activism. At the Virginia Citizens Defense League’s annual Lobby Day in Richmond in January, a group of protesters who go by the name Patriot Wave wore Pepe the Frog patches emblazoned with “Boogaloo Boys.” One man carried a sign that read, “I have a dream of a Boogaloo.” The rally was held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The rally filled with guns and not a single shot fired?  For a group that is going to engaged in armed insurrection because of internet memes, when you got a shitload of them together, they were harmless.  The police response to that was minor as well.  No tear gas or pepper spray had to be deployed.  Just some cops standing around, mostly it seemed, to keep the Leftist from starting some shit.

That Virginia rally was a real dangerous group of anti-cop insurgents, wasn’t it.

Let us compare that bullshit to how NBC News covered Antifa.

Far-right rally in Portland met by anti-fascist protesters

A rally of far-right groups was met by a large counterdemonstration in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday.

One antifa protester at the rally, Skyler, told MSNBC that she wants “to show is that the far right has no place in America.”

This was the same rally that saw Antifa throwing concrete milkshakes and attacking people with hammers.  But according to NBC they were just a counterdemonstration.

Portland leaders send unified message ahead of Proud Boys rally: Stay home

This is the image from that article, with the caption.

The guys in masks with the Communist hammer and sickles painted on their helmets, carrying homemade shields, they are just “counter-protesters” to the real threat.

Portland’s Rose City Antifa, the nation’s oldest active anti-fascist group, says violence against right-wing demonstrators is “exactly what should happen when the far-right attempts to invade our town.”

Members of antifa have also been at odds with police after it was revealed a Portland police lieutenant and the leader of the far-right group Patriot Prayer shared friendly text messages. Wheeler ordered an independent investigation into the potential existence of bias in the actions of the police leading up to and during demonstrations involving the far-right and anti-fascists.

But this is different than the anti-cop Booglaoo because the Portland cop was on the Right.  It’s okay to fight the police when the chief is on the Right.  When the police are on the Left, going door to door disarming citizens in violation of the Second Amendment, resistance to the police is bad.

As Portland deals with Proud Boys protests, here’s what Trump doesn’t get about antifa
Why the debate about the status of antifa is likely to be guided more by political ideologies rather than hard evidence.

The concrete milkshakes, attacking journalists, hitting people with sticks and hammers, spraying people with bear mace and pepper spray, that’s not hard evidence that Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization.  Who are you going to believe, your lying eyes or the experts at NBC who create your opinions for you?

Many on the right now argue that the failure to label antifa a terrorist group proves that the mainstream media supports a double standard. Those on the left respond that the failure to counter right-wing extremism in the 1930s allowed the disastrous rise of fascist political parties in the first place. Indeed, anti-fascist opposition groups can be traced back to the 1920s and the 1930s, when militant leftists battled fascists in the streets of Germany, Italy and Spain. Antifascist movements faded with the end of World War II but began to rise again in Europe and the United States in the late 1980s, in response to a perceived growth in neo-Nazism.

That’s right.  Antifa in Portland are just like Dietrich Bonhoeffer because Trump is a Nazi.

Antifa illustrates these complexities. Thus far, it is more of an amorphous movement than a group. People who call themselves antifa or are labeled by others as antifa are most often engaged in legal behavior. 

Right….  Legal, pro-Communist behavior.

Clearly NBC is totally biased.  That is no surprise to anyone.  Just when the people who defend Anitfa try and slander the entire gun rights world as a bunch of white supremacist insurrectionists, because we don’t want to comply with gun confiscations, we’re allowed to call out their bullshit.

From Fox News:

Ex-Sanders consultant arrested after allegedly planting weapons in jail for ‘evil’ escape plot

A former consultant for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign was arrested after he allegedly planted loaded weapons and ammunition inside a Tennessee corrections facility that was under construction in an attempt to carry out a future jailbreak, authorities said.

Criminal justice reform advocate Alex Friedmann, who was not an inmate but allegedly was plotting to help prisoners escape when the facility opened, was arrested Tuesday on one count of felony vandalism, but Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall said during a press conference Wednesday that the allegations go far beyond that.

“Throughout the last several weeks it was discovered that Mr. Friedmann, over many months, had developed and implemented an extremely deliberate – and in my opinion evil – plan,” Hall said during the press conference, which was broadcast by local NBC affiliate WSMV. “Understand, this plan went far beyond vandalism. Ultimately it included planting various tools, weapons, security equipment throughout this facility. All designed to assist in a massive escape plan.”

Hall went on to describe how the weapons included loaded guns and ammunition.

Nashville News Channel 5 had this report:

Who is Alex Friedmann? A look at the advocate accused of planting guns inside the Metro Jail

Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall said criminal-turned-advocate Alex Friedmann masterminded an “evil” plan to hide guns inside the unfinished Downtown Detention Center.

“What disturbed me most is not that this was about an escape, it was all about loss of life,” Hall said.

Over the last 15 years Friedmann has become a leader in advocating about criminal justice issues across the state. He took up the cause after he was sentenced to ten years in prison on an assault charge. Since his 1999 release he’s written legal journals and pushed prison-reform policy, including testifying on Capitol Hill and at the Tennessee State Capitol and even speaking with NewsChannel 5 about prison safety concerns.

Alex Friedmann was a criminal justice reform activist and consultant for the Bernie Sanders Campaign.

He also is an ex-felon who tried to set up a jailbreak in which prisoners could arm themselves and kill guards.

This man is not about criminal justice reform, he’s simply pro-crime.

Keep in mind that Bernie, who is popular with the whole “abolish prisons” crowd, has gone on the record praising the Soviet Union and Castro’s Cuba.

The Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Communist Cuba, China, Cambodia, and Chavez’s and Maduro’s Venezuela all employed violent thugs to empower their regime.

These governments rule by fear.  Most human beings find it hard to deliberately hurt others, it is our empathetic nature as a gregarious species.

Remember that we have to train our soldiers to be killers.  That’s not an easy thing for most people to do.

Criminals have proven that they possess the temperament, the lack of empathy, which makes it possible for them to engage in casual cruelty and violence.

So if a government needs thugs to be enforcers for the regime and terrorize the population into submission, the first place for the government to turn is to criminals.

It was easy for a dictator like Hitler, Stalin, or Castro to just put violent thugs in uniform.  In the US, that is still a challenge.  It’s a federal offense to give a felon a gun.  So criminal justice reform stops felons from being felons.  No bail,  diminished sentences, banning criminal background checks for government jobs, giving welfare to ex-felons, all empower criminals.  When the Left in the US needs its Brownshirts and Blackshirts it has a ready and willing group that is already loyal to it and has demonstrated that it is more than capable of preying on the ordinary, law-abiding citizens.

That is why an ex-felon who is pro-crime is going to be a big-time Bernie supporter and consultant.

In a civil society he would be a pariah, in a Bernie society he would be a paid skull breaker making sure anybody who wouldn’t vote for Bernie spends election day in the ER.