Two teens were arrested and police are looking for a third suspect after authorities say they used a dating app to rob their victim in a home invasion in Allapattah, Fla.
Roger Euceda, 18, and a 17-year-old suspect were arrested on charges of home invasion robbery, use of a firearm during the commission of a felony and resisting arrest without violence, Miami Police said Tuesday.
According to police, the victim set up a first-time meeting with a man through a smart phone dating app. When the man showed up Monday night, the victim let him into his home on Northwest 21st Avenue.

via Teens Used Dating App to Commit Home Invasion Robbery: Miami Police | NBC 6 South Florida.

Just because we live in a digital age and we can do many wonderful and amazing things with our smartphones, does not mean we take leave of our common sense.

But what would make anybody allow a total stranger into their place of residence? I am sure the victim is not as naive as to say yes to the first person that comes along on the street, so what happened in this case? It is simple: everything looked OK.

Bear with me for a bit.

We are visual input animals. If it looks good/pretty/professional/etc, it gets our approval specially if it conforms to what we have seen before. This is known by the counterfeiter that prints $20 bills to the street hustler that comes to you with a lotto ticket with the winning numbers and a sad story about not being able to collect because “X” but he is willing to share with you the windfall if you help him.

But it gets worse when a real item is used to commit the crime. It could be a police/utilities/military/common carrier uniform and you open the door without much thought to what turns out to be not a member of the profession. We just saw a gun control group opening a faux Gun Store in NYC and people went in because it looked real (to the average New Yorker anyway.)

Probably in this case we have a dose of the above with the added spice of the victim wanting it to be true. He might have used the app before with good results, so he threw caution to the wind and managed to snag the one guy who was using the same app for criminal deeds. Digital Era Tools used for Old School Crimes.

We all have the capacity for self-deception. Nobody is immune. The best we can do is to discipline ourselves and keep loses to a minimum by being extremely cautious, specially if we are talking about contacting another human for the first time. It is a game of percentages, there are no 100% guarantee or your money back.

Or you can be a hermit living in a remote cave, and hope Amazon Drones deliver to your location.

This one is actually hilarious. They did this for every state of the Union, but Florida’s is special:

First, Florida has always been used by Gun Control groups as example of BAD CWP requirements. Floridians are the bogeyman of the good-standing, God-fearing people of NY that worry we Crackers and Imported Poeples from south of Key West would engage in Scarface-Type shoot outs in the middle of Times Square.

But probably thanks to an underpaid/overworked, who by the way made a glaring mistake stating that violent criminals would be allowed to carry under Federal Reciprocity Bill (and had to change it later, but the published damage was done) and a cookie-cutter mentality we have the impression that Florida is now the target of Evil CWP carriers from other states, something that never has happened before…except for those states which already are into reciprocity agreements with us, 33 so far.

Also notice that Senator Marco Rubio is missing, wait, you didn’t think that Florida only has one senator, right? Bill Nelson is a sure vote against Federal Reciprocity. He loves any Gun Control bill you can put in front of him by sheer reflex. So what we have here is the standard Everytown/Moms Demand tactic to later say” “Senator Nelson heard us and voted against Congress Imposed Carry. We have the power, yay!”

Which they don’t.

Gardening Astroturf is not easy.

Rep. Steube’s House Bill 19 is the most high profile and the prickliest. The bill allows current or former military members or law-enforcement officers in good standing to carry a concealed weapon at elementary, middle and high schools. Each “school safety designee” would have to pass a background check and receive training from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

……..

No doubt, the measure reveals a real societal fear Americans harbor living in an armed country. However, turning public schools into armed camps is not the answer. The proliferation of firearms, their availability, is part of the problem.

Assign more officers to protect schools and use technological devices such as cameras. We have said it time and again: Schools need more pencils and computers for their students. Schools need more resources, but not guns.

via Schoolbooks, not bullets | Miami Herald Miami Herald.

This is a perfect example of Double-Speak as you can get.  You heard them before saying that they are not against Concealed Carry or even owning guns, but they are bothered by the fact that people are not properly trained and that only police and the military should have guns. This bill proposes exactly that: Military (active or retired) and Police (active or retired) having to undergo training (again) and more training (Active Shooter) even a psych evaluation are not good enough and the concept is awful-evil-horrendous and must be snipped at the bud right this minute.

And I bet they don’t even realize the contradiction or even what they wrote.

It is never about the guns, it is about control. (Yeah, I know you heard it before.)

Note: Last year’s version of this bill included the possibility of non-LEO or Non-Mil but with a CWP to be a part of the School Security. That was removed and STILL they think it is a bad idea.

Mark S. was kind enough to send me this Twitchy post about a tweet by Everytown:

Does it sound familiar? You are right. I fisked the original Washington Post article the day after it came out and it has been one of, if not the most, visited post so far this year.

I know I am known to the Everytown/Moms Demand machine (not a big letter of commendation there) So I guess they were busy that day and forgot to check the blog or simply thought “Meh, that is like his opinion, man. Nobody else will think the same. Gimme another White Russian.”

I guess they were wrong.

And to quote somebody else in that same vein: I’m sorry, Smokey. You were over the line, that’s a foul.

In case you live in some cave in Bora Bora, this is another picture of Dakota Meyer.

When I saw the CSGV bit pop in my timeline, I went: “Oh dear God, you didn’t. Nothing good is gonna come out of this.” The issues seems to be the 1911 with the hammer down, on the night table.

I was not disappointed at the reaction from the Laddites:

I really do not want to be in the shoes of the CSGV intern when Marines (and I am sure others in different uniform too) discover this absolute display of disrespect to Sgt. Meyers.

I will get me a huge bag of popcorn though.

So there is some sort of viral malady affecting the household. I have a couple of posts that are not quite well cooked, so they go back to the Draft folder till my brain regains processing power.

In the meantime, I leave you with monster kitty destroying a house.

PS: Best advice I ever got about house buying: Bathrooms, always more than one.

Gun Control groups must be wondering what the hell has happened. There is a definitive smell of confusion permeating in their social media with a big dash of desperation. Legislatures everywhere are chock-full of pro-gun bills and they are not only being proposed but advancing, What was supposed to be their secured battlefield with a Congress firmly in the hands of Republicans, they made no bones about gong after the State Legislatures for this year’s fight, but it seems we were already occupying the high ground.

Even the all-but-deceased Open Carry bill in Texas is back in motion (no thanks to the OCTarados), Campus carry is being debated in several states, some with a decent chance of passing while other states are on the road to Constitutional Carry.

Even at the Federal Executive level, part and parcel under control of an administration not fond of the Second Amendment, took a hit when the ATF had moonwalk its ban om M855 ammunition.  And even though Senate Democrats want to introduce a bill that bans any and all ammo that defeats body armor, the chances of passing that are somewhere the same of reciting the Declaration of Independence in space without a suit and helmet and remain alive.

Maybe the people are waking up to the Opposition’s tactics. And certainly they do not like being insulted. I had the chance to catch the tail end of the testimonies on Campus Carry at the Texas Legislature (Thanks Rachel Malone) and one that stayed with me was a Chemistry professor who wasted about a third of his time reciting his accolades (I am smarter than you) and about his work with 20 graduate students in some project or something, and then he proceeded to tell the members of the committee how bad the law would be because college students were /drunk/druggies/stupid/immature/depressive/etc. This guy on the record, insulted his students without giving it a thought. If they are supposed to be so dangerous, how come you are teaching them chemistry? Anybody with a basic knowledge of chemistry can produce explosives far more deadly than an Evil Black Rifle with a 30 rounds per second Assault Magazine Clip.

Will we get all the bills passed & signed into law? Nopers. If we pass 50% it will be a triumph and even those bills that did not make it, we will probably see again next year. Ours is a war of attrition and we have the numbers and the patience…plus we are sneaky shits.