FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – As Gov. Ron DeSantis prepares to “make a statement on holding government officials accountable” later Friday in Fort Lauderdale, sources told Local 10 News two names are on the short list of candidates to replace Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel if he is removed from office as expected. ..

…DeSantis is making his statement at 3 p.m. at the Broward Sheriff’s Office headquarters. A news release from the governor’s office said DeSantis will be joined by Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez and Attorney General Ashley Moody.

With DeSantis’ announcement looming, this could be Israel’s last day as sheriff.

This is a political way to say:  “I am coming to kick you out personally.” You have to give DeSantis kudos as he could have done the same from the comport of the Governor’s Mansion.

He is coming with back up and that is interesting, specially the Attorney General. Are we talking State intervention in BSO to examine training and procedures? A clan up of the department would be nice, but the Broward Democrats would have kittens having a Republican Governor “interfere” with such sacred institution and they still do not like to be reminded of former Sheriff but Felon Ken Jenne.

Maybe I am seeing too much into the whole thing,  The legislature will have to approve  Israel’s suspension and I do not foresee any trouble there.

No, not a bad joke about your Significant Other.

The intruder allegedly arrived at the residence brandishing a semi-automatic handgun and a fight erupted with the man who lives at the home….Police say that during the altercation the resident was able to get control of the gun and fired — hitting 29-year-old Terrence Coulanges, of Old Bridge, who died later at an area trauma center.

Scuffle Ends in Deadly Shooting Outside New Jersey Home

What is with the use of stupid euphemisms? I do not care who he is: If a person goes to somebody’s noise waving a gun and looking for trouble, they are NOT visitors, unwanted or otherwise. What was the stations thinking? Not to hurt the guy’s feelings? He is done having them!

Oy coño!

Hat Tip Keith G.

Representative  Cindy Polo (D) thinks carrying a gun while dropping off or picking up the kids at Day Care is a danger.   How many times have we heard about shootouts in Child Care facilities through the decades of CWP in Florida? For some reason I can’t seem to shake the idea that Ms. Polo is trying to make Churches Gun Free Zones by sheer proximity knowing that most Houses of Worship offer child care on days of service. It would force parents to disarm before dropping the kids or force the church to have people getting the kids from the parents outside the child care area.
As they say, the devil is in the details with HB 197.

Text of the bill.

Via Wirecutter

Starbucks is installing boxes for safe disposal of syringes in the bathrooms of certain locations, following workers’ reports of discarded needles and sometimes concerning conditions.

The coffee giant is exploring remedies after employees expressed fears about being pricked by uncapped needles and experiencing related health risks. Starbucks is testing solutions, including installing sharps-disposal boxes, using heavier-duty trash bags to prevent needle pokes, and removing trash cans from certain bathrooms.

Drugs and syringes have become such a problem in Starbucks bathrooms that the company is installing needle-disposal boxes in certain locations

I love the fact that Starbucks’s experiment in “inclusiveness” is exploding badly in their faces. However, the health risk to its employees is no joke. If I were a very disgruntled employee, I would begin a careful recording of daily occurrences and when I have about 3-4 weeks, contact OSHA and have an inspector come over to see how the company is not properly avoiding blood borne pathogen contamination.

Corporations hate OSHA like vampires hate sunlight in a field of garlic.  Starbucks deserves what it gets when it decided that being all SJW-company was more important than the health and life of its employees.

OK, I get it. You are a Gun Owner that hates the NRA for whatever silly-or-not reasons you may have. And you can give me a litany of points where the NRA has screwed up lately in your opinion, but please, I beg of you, do not use the passing of the national Firearms Act of 1934 as you raison d’être.  It makes you look like the ignorant you probably are and confirm you are just regurgitating what somebody else has said without checking for facts.

Why am I being insulting? Because it is always NFA 34 but somehow GAC 68 is never mentioned by these “patriot partisans.”  That tells me they are bleating sheep just blasting talking points that sound more like shit written by Michael Bloomberg for Shannon Watts and Moms demand than from Gun Rights organizations.

I am going to be magnanimous for once and give you a hint: The Cincinnati Revolt.

Senator Dianne Feinstein waited no time to drag her favorite topic back out into the spotlight.

Gun control.

Last year we saw tens of thousands of students take to the streets to demand action to stop mass shootings and stem the epidemic of gun violence that plagues our communities. This generation has grown up with active-shooter drills, hiding under their desks. #EnoughIsEnough

— Senator Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) January 9, 2019

This thread goes on for a while with the usual talking points until it gets to this.

And it bans magazines and other ammunition feeding devices that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, which allow shooters to quickly fire many rounds without needing to reload. Information on all of the bill’s provisions can be found here: https://t.co/2sMmdPeSpJ

— Senator Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) January 9, 2019

Senators Introduce Assault Weapons Ban

Washington—Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) today led a group of senators in introducing the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019, an updated bill to ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

In addition to Feinstein, Murphy and Blumenthal, cosponsors of the bill include Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.).

Oh look, it’s every fucking Democrat in the Senate who wants to run for President in 2020.  How was this not totally predictable.

“Last year we saw tens of thousands of students nationwide take to the streets to demand action to stop mass shootings and stem the epidemic of gun violence that plagues our communities. Our youngest generation has grown up with active-shooter drills, hiding under their desks—and now they’re saying enough is enough,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein. “Americans across the nation are asking Congress to reinstate the federal ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. If we’re going to put a stop to mass shootings and protect our children, we need to get these weapons of war off our streets.”

I think if there is a common theme in these mass shootings, it’s not an issue of assault weapons, of which there are some 20+ million in US civilian hands.  The problem seems to be Democrat controlled counties and cities, and their sheriff and police departments being unable to nip these guys in the bud.

“Military-style assault rifles are the weapons of choice for mass murderers. There’s just no reason why these guns, which were designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible, are sold to the public,” said Senator Chris Murphy. “This past year, we’ve seen Americans rise up and demand Congress change our gun laws. Banning assault weapons would save lives, and I’m proud to join Senator Feinstein in introducing this bill.”

*Yawn* Boring…

“Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are deadly and dangerous weapons of war that belong on battlefields—not our streets. They have no purpose for self-defense or hunting, and no business being in our schools, churches and malls,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal. “By passing this legislation, Congress can honor the memory of the beautiful lives cut short by military-style assault weapons in Newtown, Parkland, Las Vegas, San Bernardino and far too many other American cities. This is the year for my colleagues to turn our rhetoric into reality and finally end America’s gun violence epidemic.”

So there are going to do the same thing that has never worked, isn’t going to reduce crime at all, but will reduce the rights of millions of law abiding people who will never hurt anybody anyway because it’s not about crime, it’s about these people hating guns.

Key provisions:

• Bans the sale, manufacture, transfer and importation of 205 military-style assault weapons by name. Owners may keep existing weapons.
• Bans any assault weapon that accepts a detachable ammunition magazine and has one or more military characteristics including a pistol grip, a forward grip, a barrel shroud, a threaded barrel or a folding or telescoping stock. Owners may keep existing weapons.
• Bans magazines and other ammunition feeding devices that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, which allow shooters to quickly fire many rounds without needing to reload. Owners may keep existing magazines.

Exemptions to bill:

• The bill exempts by name more than 2,200 guns for hunting, household defense or recreational purposes.
• The bill includes a grandfather clause that exempts all weapons lawfully possessed at the date of enactment.

Other provisions:

• Requires a background check on any future sale, trade or gifting of an assault weapon covered by the bill.
• Requires that grandfathered assault weapons are stored using a secure gun storage or safety device like a trigger lock.
• Prohibits the transfer of high-capacity ammunition magazines.
• Bans bump-fire stocks and other devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at fully automatic rates.

So it’s the 1995 AWB with bump stocks and universal background checks.

Useless law plus useless ban plus useless law is useless.  Except for restricting the rights of law abiding gun owners, that is.

Updates to Assault Weapons Ban of 2017:

• Bans stocks that are “otherwise foldable or adjustable in a manner that operates to reduce the length, size, or any other dimension, or otherwise enhances the concealability of a firearm.”

Those six position carbine stocks have become so popular because dad, mom, and the kids can all fit the gun to themselves with the push of a button.  I guess those have to go.  Also, is concealing an AR really that big of a problem?

• Bans assault pistols that weigh 50 or more ounces when unloaded, a policy included in the original 1994 ban.

And here we go after AR pistols.

• Bans assault pistol stabilizing braces that transform assault pistols into assault rifles by allowing the shooter to shoulder the weapon and fire more accurately.

I knew that was coming.  I’m not saying I have one, but I will say I know a lot of people who are really going to hate this.

• Bans Thordsen-type grips and stocks that are designed to evade a ban on assault weapons.

I had to look that one up.  They are getting smarter to our end runs around their arbitrary bans in their anti-gun states.  This kills the whole market for slightly neutered assault weapons that grew from the 1995 ban.  It seems like no more removing a feature or two to go from pre-ban to post-ban configurations will be allowed to fly.  That’s a real problem.

What worries me here is that I don’t see grandfathering mentioned in any of these updates.  Your AR might be grandfathered but your AR pistol and brace, may not be.  Neither will your thumb hole stock and pinned muzzle break instead of flash hider.

Also, I do not see a sunset provision anywhere in this bill.  Once it’s in place, it’s there for good unless we get SCOTUS to hear a challenge and then overturn it.  Yes, it could be repealed, but how often does a federal law get repealed?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Congress will pass this easily.  The Democrats have gone too far left and gun control is no longer the third rail of American politics.  Yes, that’s our fault, we got complacent.

I have hope the GOP controlled senate will hold out, but I can’t guarantee it.  Once upon a time I respected Romney, now I worry that he’d go Left on an AWB.

Trump is a toss-up.  I wish I didn’t have to say that, but after his call for the ATF to ban bump stocks, I really don’t know what he’ll do.

The margin of safety that we had for this not getting passed is a lot narrower than I’d like it to be, if it is there at all.

We have to start fighting again, and hard.

I’m with Miguel.  We need the NRA more than ever now.  This is a time where we have to unite against this common enemy, because if we don’t hang together, we’re all going to go to jail for our braced AR pistols and carbine stocks separately.

From a tip by a reader, I looked into a shooting that recently happened in Chicago.

Woman with concealed carry license fatally shoots would-be robber in Fernwood, police say

A woman fatally shot a man who was trying to rob her at a bus stop Tuesday morning in Chicago’s Fernwood neighborhood, Chicago police said.

The shooting and attempted robbery occurred at a bus stop in the 500-block of West 103rd Street at about 6:15 a.m., police said.

The incident was captured by surveillance video. The victim, a 25-year-old woman, was waiting for her bus when a 19-year-old man attempts to rob her at gunpoint.

The woman, who has a conceal carry license, was armed as well. Surveillance video shows as they struggle, she pulled out her gun and shot him in the neck.

This woman defended herself.  It was caught on security camera.  In many other places in America, I would say this is a good shoot, no questions asked.  Being Chicago, there are complications.

Neighbors in the area say they are proud the victim protected herself.

“It’s tragic that he did die, but the lady had to do what she had to do,” said neighbor Bianca Daniel. “She’s on a bus stop, probably going to work, you know, and she has to encounter that early in the morning. I’m kinda of proud that, like, that’s what she did because she stuck up for herself.”

Those that know the area well say it’s unfortunate someone was killed, but the victim had the right to fight back.

This doesn’t surprise me.  One of the stories that goes untold by the national media is just how much the working class black population of Chicago absolutely hates the criminals that have taken over their neighborhoods.  There are good cops in Chicago, but the political machine of Chicago, which includes the high ranking CPD brass, doesn’t care about working class blacks because they are already in the pocket of the machine.  As a result, these neighborhoods are under patrolled and people feel like they have no choice but to defend themselves.

“I’m glad that she had concealed carry and good aim, because there is so much going on in these streets,” said one neighbor.

Yep.

The man has been identified to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office as Laavion Goings.

I’ll get to him in a minute.

The woman suffered a minor injury, but is expected to be okay. Area South detectives are investigating, though they said no charges will be filed.

Thank God for that.

I said in Chicago there are complications.  Concealed carry in Illinois is very restrictive.

430 ILCS 66/65 Prohibited Areas.
(a) A licensee under this Act shall not knowingly carry a firearm on or into:

(8) Any bus, train, or form of transportation paid for in whole or in part with public funds, and any building, real property, and parking area under the control of a public transportation facility paid for in whole or in part with public funds.

If this woman was carrying concealed and was waiting to take the bus, she was in violation of 430 ILCS 66/65.  In fact, just standing under a bus stop in Chicago with a concealed firearm is a violation of 430 ILCS 66/65.

This has been a problem as muggers know that people on train platforms are unarmed by 430 ILCS 66/65 and make for easy targets.

I am very surprised that this woman was not charged with violating 430 ILCS 66/65, which would result in the suspension of her CCW and a misdemeanor charge.  The cops investing this shooting must have been some of the good ones.  I hope it stays that way because you never know what some shit-ass prosecutor in Chicago will do to score and easy conviction to pad his numbers and say he is tough on gun crime, when what he really did is nail a woman to the wall for carrying with a permit at a bus stop.

As for the dead guy.

Teen shot dead while trying to rob woman had been accused of attacking Chicago cops last year

Laavion Goings Jr. was out of jail only two months when the 19-year-old walked up to a bus stop about a block from his home, pulled out a gun and tried to rob a woman on the Far South Side.

Only out two months, boy he’s an eager beaver.

The teen had a record of arrests, mostly for drug charges. But last June, he was charged with attacking a sergeant and a police officer after he and his father were arrested during a narcotics raid in Englewood where the father lived, according to court records.

Goings was charged with six counts of aggravated battery to a peace officer but they were dropped in October after the teen pleaded guilty to a drug charge. He was given probation and released from jail in early November, just days before his 19th birthday.

He is a real scumbag.

His father remains in Cook County, charged with illegal possession of guns and being an armed habitual criminal.

Unpossible, Chicago has all that gun control, even universal background checks.

Maybe I’ve become too cynical after a my few years of blogging, but my parting thought on this shooting is, I am glad that the woman who defended herself is black and from a working class black neighborhood.

I think that might be the loophole that prevents Junior here from being ballistically beatified into a good kid, who was just turning his life around, and about to enroll in community college or the seminary.