Month: February 2015

Chilean Carabiniero (National Police) shoots at fleeing vehicle (NSFW, Graphic)

This is what full adrenalin dump looks like. Any semblance of gun safety went out the window. He muzzled the other officer while racking the slide, then he shoved him out-of-the-way to make the arrest. When the vehicle fled and in such a crowded area, he started shooting without any regard for backstop.

The pitch in his voice and the way he was moving after the shooting gives us a good idea of his emotional level.

I have no more info on the video, but if nobody else got hurt, we can say luck and a boatload of guardian angels intervened.

This is possibly also a demonstration of what in South America is called “Ley De Fuga” (Law of Escape): If you run away, police is within its right to shoot you no matter what crime you have committed or if one has been committed.  You can be pretty much handcuffed and hobbling without any hope to make it 50 meters you can get shot. Let’s say that the law has been abused over and over again specially if a perp has already been arrested but does not make it to jail because “he tried to escape.”

 

 

Lost Sherlock Holmes story published.

Being an unabashed fan since I bought “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” about 45 years ago, the news of an undiscovered tale makes me giggle with girlish joy.

An historian has unearthed the first unseen Sherlock Holmes story in more than 80 years that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote to help save a town bridge.
Walter Elliot, 80, found the 1,300-word tale starring the famous detective in a collection of short stories written for a local bazaar.
The wooden bridge in the Scottish town of Selkirk was destroyed by the great flood of 1902 and locals organised a three-day event to raise funds for a new one in 1904.

As part of the event, organisers sold a collection of short stories by locals called The Book o’ the Brig.
The famed author, who loved visiting Selkirk and the surrounding area, contributed a tale before opening the final day.

The full transcript of the short story is here. You can tell he did it in a hurry but it is Sherlockian through and through. But there is one part that is pure gold:

‘And you profess to be a journalist? Have you never heard of the telegraph, the telephone, or the phonograh? Go to London! And are you not aware that all journalists are supposed to be qualified members of the Institute of Fiction, and to be qualified to make use of the Faculty of Imagination? By the use of the latter men have been interviewed, who were hundreds of miles away; some have been “interviewed” without either knowledge or consent.

How little things change, huh?

Big Hat Tip to Bayou Renaissance Man.

Cops catch criminals via Facebook & CSGV gets mad.

So a criminal breaks in your house, steal your guns and then post pictures in Facebook trying to sell them. That leads to the arrest of the criminal and the recovery of 2 guns, but the Cult Coalition to Stop Gun Rights Violence does not like it!

CSGV Stolen Gun Facebook

So they would have rather have the burglar find a secure way to sell the stolen firearms instead of being lazy, make the mistake of posting in Facebook and get caught. If anything it is just one more instance that proves Gun Control favors the criminal and not the Law Abiding.

 

How much do you trust your friends? Your kid’s friends?

One thing I have been meaning to talk about is how much personal info can be put out there without your knowledge. I am not talking about being hacked or somebody cruising through your garbage nut friend, relatives and even workers that come to your house armed with a now commonplace device: smart phone.

If you are half awake, you have already gone thorough your phone’ and you kid’s phone setting and blocked any geo tags or exif data that may give too much info. And I am sure that you do not share more info than necessary on social media and your kids have been properly warned and being the nice angels they are, they follow your advice. But what about people coming into your house?

Traipsing around certain sites and social media places, I have noticed some people posting pictures the insides of private residences and certainly without the consent of the home owners. From what it is inside the medicine cabinet to some knickknacks it attracted their attention to big-ticket items. Cameras are no longer the cumbersome box that would attract attention (Unless you had a Minox)  but a simple item that is so common, nobody gives it a second look.

Your thoughts on how to counter/stop/control this unnecessary flow of private information?

 

Somebody won the Interwebs.

This story has been bouncing around the blogosphere:

A retired teacher is facing 10 years in prison and the loss of his state pension for possessing a flintlock pistol that may not have been fired since George Washington was alive, his attorney told FoxNews.com on Wednesday.

In a case that underscores the Garden State’s strict gun laws, Gordon Van Gilder, a retired English teacher and collector of historical items, has been charged with criminal possession of a handgun and faces up to 10 years in prison. If the 72-year-old is convicted, the charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 3.5 years and the pension Van Gilder earned as an educator could be revoked, penalties attorney Evan Nappen called “outrageous.”

via Flintlock from 1700s could land elderly NJ man in prison | Fox News.

Just like the Taliban destroying historical Buddhas statues because they were religiously “icky”, New Jersey considers that a flintlock built around the mid 1700s is a very dangerous weapon an in their minds probably even an assault weapon. They are stupid that way

So this meme came across my Facebook timeline and it needs to be shared:

flintlock arrest

Give that man a cookie!

Pharmacy Robbery Attempt

Armed Robber chooses the wrong pharmacy.

This is an interesting video. The Bad Guy enters the store with a covered face and even though it is winter and the weather is nasty, it is customary for people to uncover their head/face entering a locale. This guy did not: First flag.

The pharmacy technician (white robe with patch on arm) feels something is wrong, you can tell by his body language.  He is in a narrow place so he leans his upper body back trying to place distance from what he may not even yet consciously (but surely subconsciously) perceived as danger. The Pharmacist does appear to have noticed the Bad Guy and it seems to be some sort of quick exchange with the Pharmacist pointing his hand at the Bad Guy who finally commits to action by drawing his gun. The Pharmacist reacts by drawing his own gun out of the view of the Bad Guy and engages him.

My only “criticism” is that the Pharmacist shot single shots instead of controlled pairs or more. I have the feeling that the Bad Guy’s gun did not work for whatever reason, but in such a short distance and with innocents around, I would like to have seen more shots directed to the BG in the hope that the shock would stop him from even thinking about responding like we see in the video.

But it worked, the Bad Guy is under hospital care in handcuffs and everybody in the pharmacy is OK. So damned good job.