In doing some research for another post, I came across an article so mind blowingly stupid, I just couldn’t let it go.

Neoliberalism Is Destroying Almost Everybody’s Lives—How Many People Even Know What It Is?

This is how far I got before my brain started to turn into soup and run out of my ears:

“Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.”

The article then goes on to say how this type of political/economic system makes us all miserable and lonely and is bad for the soul.

Personally, I love my job and am happy that I live in the US, with all of its freedoms, that has allowed me to do what I love.  But I realize my anecdotal evidence isn’t enough.

So allow me to counter this two-day old article with some other 48 hour old news.

Venezuela, which is the 10th largest oil producer in the world, is too broke to print money.  The rate of inflation is Venezuela is about to hit 1,000%.  It is now rationing electricity because it can’t produce enough subsidized power.  Now, of course, the capital of this planned economy is a utopia the murder capital of the world.

But maybe I’m thinking about this all wrong.  Perhaps a centralized, planned economy is a good thing.  I guess when the government can only afford to pay me to come to work for two days a week that means there is more time to be at home with my family.  Well… not at home really, but I can stand with my family in line for our food ration.  There is another good thing.  Massive food shortages means that I won’t have to suffer from the obesity epidemic that Western, capitalist nations do.  Even inflation won’t be a problem in the long run.  Sure, government controls may lead to toilet paper shortages, but after that I can wipe my ass with worthless $100 bills and feel like a Hip-Hop mogul.

I guess I’m starting to come around.

So the human filth at Jezebel got a hold of a Craigslist ad for a booth girl for the upcoming NRA Annual Meeting in Louisville.

As one can expect, the anthropomorphic vomitus mass that wrote the article took umbrage at the “no visible tattoos, odd piercings, etc.”  requirement.  Her response was brief, and fully befitting the level of class possessed by this syphilitic ulcer of journalism.

“We’ve sent an email seeking guidance on whether our existing piercings and advanced decrepitude are acceptable, and will update if we hear back. We won’t.”

I think in that sentence, the author proved beyond a reasonable doubt, that she doesn’t understand what the person who posted the ad wants.  The ad pretty much describes a look or trope known as the “girl next door” or the “all American girl.”  This look is appealing because it is simultaneously attractive and wholesome, sexy without being raunchy.

There are companies that build their market on this look.  The most famous is Hooters, which mandates its “all American girl next door” look in employment contracts.

I should be offended by this, but it’s kind of hard to be.  Keep in mind that Jezebel is the angry feminist wing of Gawker Media, which is much less a media company than is it a stinking, purulent discharge of words on the internet.  Gawker just had its balls sued off (that’s being technical) to the tune of $115 Million, by Hulk Hogan.  During deposition, which I must remind you is sworn out-of-court testimony, the editor of Gawker stated that he would draw the line at publishing a celebrity sex tape if the celebrity was UNDER 4 years old.  This is the caliber of bipedal venereal disease that runs the website.  It’s hard to be let someone associated with something that bad have self-righteousness over you.

As bad as the article is, the comments are worse.  If this article is a piece of shit, what can you expect from the flies that buzz around it?

A few tried to paint the NRA show attendees as perverts or prudes, with weird psycho-sexual issues.  So far par for the anti-gun course.

Ah yes, criticism about lacking personality from a miserable social justice type who probably believes that personality is defined by dyed blue armpit hair.  

Several made expected but gratuitous comments implying NRA members are racist.

And then there were others that were just plain insulting.

Let the haters hate.  I’ve never been a booth girl, but I have worked security at conventions like this and $525 for three days is not bad at all.  The University of Louisville is out for the summer by then, so this seems like the perfect job for a college student on break.  I can tell you from experience, I had worse jobs over the summer.  I hope the girl that gets this job enjoys the show.  If I go (I really want to) I can’t wait to meet her.

While stumping for her mother, Chelsea Clinton talked a little bit about gun control and the Supreme Court.  Her conjecture is that the Court was inconsistent in how it interpreted the Second Amendment and that was all Justice Scalia’s fault.

I’m not exactly sure what inconsistencies Chelsea Clinton is referring to.  There have been three notable SCOTUS decisions on the issue of gun control in the last several years: DC v. Heller, McDonald v. Chicago, and Caetano v. Massachusetts.  The first two (Heller and McDonald) upheld the right to keep and bear arms as an individual right that belongs to the people and applies to both the Federal Government and the states.  Caetano, while not exactly being about guns (the case was about possession of a TASER), established that the 2A applies to “bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”  It should be noted that Caetano was both unanimous and decided after Scalia’s death.

The way Court has treated the 2A and gun rights actually seems pretty consistent since 2008: the people have the right to keep and bear arms, even if those arms weren’t around when the Founding Fathers were drafting the Constitution.

I may be persuaded to agree that MAYBE the majority opinion on in Heller was a little muddled, since the Court didn’t completely reverse Miller.

We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.’ 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.

Heller did establish, however, that handguns are in common use and therefore protected and a total ban on them is unconstitutional.

The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of “arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose. The prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights, banning from the home “the most preferred firearm in the nation to “keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,’ would fail constitutional muster…  It is no answer to say, as petitioners do, that it is permissible to ban the possession of handguns so long as the possession of other firearms (i.e., long guns) is allowed. It is enough to note, as we have observed, that the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon.

What is more interesting is that Heller paved the way to overturn any future AWB as the guns targeted by those bans (semi-auto facsimiles of military rifles) are the most popular long guns sold in America, and therefore are definitely in common usage.  Combining Heller and Caetano – protection of guns in common use and protection of arms not known by our founders – is the big medicine to knock out virtually every argument for an AWB.

Since 2008, because of Heller and Mc.Donald, America has seen a tidal wave of gun rights expansions.  All 50 states now have a CCW provision and many states are adopting constitutinal carry.  Illinois, which was the last holdout, was forced into adopting CCW by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, who very explicit quoted McDonald in their decision.  There has been some push back against gun rights in the very bluest of states, but at the national level, we are winning.

This is where Chelsea Clinton’s statement becomes troubling.  The implication in her statement being (at least IMO) is that if Hillary can stack the court in her favor – fill Scalia’s seat with a liberal justice – the Supreme Court could uphold gun control legislation if a challenge to a piece of gun control legislation were to make up to the Court.  Chelsea seems to believe that her mother could somehow persuade SCOUTS to effectively reverse if not completely overturn Heller, McDonald, and Caetano.  I don’t know how Hillary would be able to do that, then again, I don’t know how Hillary has managed to get away to doing everything she has done, so there.

My point is, SCOUTS has rung the liberty bell of gun rights three times.  They cannot unring it.  They cannot go back and say “all those gun rights that we affirmed were in the Constitution,  we’re taking them away and giving power to the state.”  More importantly, If you want America to survive a Hillary presidency,  I wouldn’t even think about trying to unring that bell.  The American people would not stand the complete reversal of America’s trajectory on gun rights.

Given all of Obama’s executive actions, America is approaching a tipping point where we don’t care what comes down from DC, we’re just going to ignore it.  There have been dozens of law enforcement agencies across America that have sworn no to uphold any executive action on gun control.  A revolution doesn’t require gunfire.  It just requires the majority of people so stop obeying the law.  You literally can’t arrest us all, especially if local law enforcement is revolting.  I could almost guarantee you that if Hillary coerced SCOTUS into reversing Heller and McDonald, the majority of Americans would say something to the effect of “Well, Queen Bitch Clinton managed to scare five traitorous cowards into tearing up the Constitution. F*ck them.  F*ck her.  F*ck that decision, were not listening anymore.”

Chelsea’s little “if we put one more liberal on SCOTUS and my mom can get everything she wants” daydream, is a dangerous fantasy.  If replacing one associate justice is all it takes to undo the Constitution, than the future of this country is on thin ice.

On a side note.  While I was doing research on this post I had a thought.  The majority opinion could, conceivably, overturn some parts of the NFA if the Court ever accepted the case.

We may as well consider at this point (for we will have to consider eventually) what types of weapons Miller permits. Read in isolation, Miller’s phrase “part of ordinary military equipment” could mean that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected. That would be a startling reading of the opinion, since it would mean that the National Firearms Act’s restrictions on machineguns (not challenged in Miller) might be unconstitutional, machineguns being useful in warfare in 1939. We think that Miller’s “ordinary military equipment” language must be read in tandem with what comes after: “[O]rdinarily when called for [militia] service [able-bodied] men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. The traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing arms “in common use at the time” for lawful purposes like self-defense. “In the colonial and revolutionary war era, [small-arms] weapons used by militiamen and weapons used in defense of person and home were one and the same.” State v. Kessler, 289 Ore. 359, 368, 614 P. 2d 94, 98 (1980) (citing G. Neumann, Swords and Blades of the American Revolution 6–15, 252–254 (1973)). Indeed, that is precisely the way in which the Second Amendment ’s operative clause furthers the purpose announced in its preface. We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns. That accords with the historical understanding of the scope of the right, see Part III, infra.

 It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment ’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.

The way I read that is: The militia clause allows for the possession of machine guns as military arms necessary for a militia of the people, furthermore, machine guns were in common use by civilians at one time, which is EXACTLY WHY the NFA was passed.  Even if the machine gun clause of the NFA was upheld by SCOTUS on challenge, I believe that the Hughes Amendment could be overturned.  The government’s refusal to issue new tax stamps is a de facto ban on arms necessary for a militia, and therefore unconstitutional.

Two news items straight from academia:

1)

Selena Spier, a student at Pitzer College, painted a mural of a gun with flowers coming out of the barrel.  Pitzer College is a private liberal arts college in  in Clairmont, CA.  Pitzer’s mission statement is a follows:

“Pitzer College produces engaged, socially responsible citizens of the world through an academically rigorous, interdisciplinary liberal arts education emphasizing social justice, intercultural understanding and environmental sensitivity. The meaningful participation of students, faculty and staff in college governance and academic program design is a Pitzer core value. Our community thrives within the mutually supportive framework of The Claremont Colleges, which provide an unsurpassed breadth of academic, athletic and social opportunities.”

Uh oh… They encourage Social Justice, AKA Progressive Jihadism.  That is never good.  You KNOW that something is going to happen now.  No bygones will be let to be bygones.  Somebody made a public statement about something, this case in the form of art.  Now, in the interest of Social Justice, somebody else who’s opinion doesn’t align exactly 100%, or just needs some attention, is going to engage in a Robespierrian wave of terror.

This manifested itself in one student, Gregory Ochiagha, responding to the mural with a campus wide email stating:

“It’s truly in bad taste to have a large depiction of a gun in a dorm space—especially when students of color also reside there…  My Black Mental and Emotional Health Matters. I shouldn’t be reminded every time I leave my dorm room of how easy my life can be taken away, or how many Black lives have been taken away because of police brutality. This is emotionally triggering for very obvious reasons. And if you want to belittle or invalidate by [sic] black experience, I live in Atherton, come thru, let’s have that idiotic conversation.”

OK.  I’m going to have this idiotic conversation.  By “Atherton” I assume Mr. Ochiagha means Atherton, California.  A city of about 7,000 people, it is listed by Forbes as having the No.2 most expensive zip code in the country with a median home price in excess of $4 Million.  It sounds like Mr. Ochiagha grew up in the ghetto.  I can’t imagine all the police brutality he must have faced from the town’s 21 police officers.  Mr. Ochiagha is lucky to have gotten out of Atherton alive.  His experiences must have earned him some sort of hardship scholarship to attend a $63,880/year day care college.

I know, it terrible of me to belittle his black experience.  It’s just that when one dives deeper into an understanding of police brutality and police shootings, you find out that wealth, education, and class are  better predictors of a violent encounter than race.  Statistically speaking, a young black man living in the second most expensive zip code in the country, attending am elite private college is unlikely to face much in the way of abuse by police.

Given the way he phrased his statement “I shouldn’t be reminded every time I leave my dorm room of how easy my life can be taken away, or how many Black lives have been taken away because of police brutality.”  It sounds like he himself has never experienced police brutality.  He is being triggered by proxy because of violence other people, he has never met, have been the victims of.

That’s a lot like saying you have PTSD from the War in Iraq, not because you were deployed, but because you marathon watched Generation Kill on HBO GO.

Of course he’s going to get what he wants. “Spier plans to modify her mural. ‘I spoke with Gregory earlier and we agreed on a modification that preserves the integrity of the original piece while avoiding any potentially triggering content—it’s a change I was absolutely happy to make in the interest of creating a safe and inclusive environment for everyone in my community.‘”  He brow beat somebody else into changing their work to appease his feelings.

Good news is at least a few student disagreed with him:

“I love our radical liberalism. However, I’m not in love with the trend of shutting down voices that don’t align with liberal ideologies.” – Alessandra Elliott

““I actually love the mural and thought it was obvious that it was about the flower power movement/a message of anti-violence.” – Jennifer McNamara

But they both sound like white women, so their opinions don’t matter.

2)

A professor at an unidentified western state college has decided that it is her duty to render one of her students a unperson for the egregious act of thoughtcrime.

See, one of the professor’s students, a girl name Sarah, demonstrated an interest in firearms by stating that she fired an AK-47 over winter break and that she was looking forward to obtaining her CCW permit.  This last statement was not made to the professor but to another student and the professor overheard it.

This, by the way, led to an incredibly woefully ignorant and bigoted statement by the professor:

“I overheard her confiding that she was looking forward to getting her concealed-carry permit. (Disclosure: I don’t teach in Texas.) I hadn’t known we had such permits in our state but apparently we do. Or did. Students could legally come to the campus armed until recently, when our legislature banned weapons from all state university campuses.”

“Disclosure: I don’t teach in Texas.”  Oh god forbid she teaches in Texas.  Do you know that THOSE PEOPLE are like?  They are not safe for civilized, gun-fearing liberals to be around.  You can just feel her hatred for the Texas drip from the page.  Knowing that she went to MIT (because everybody who went to MIT feels the need to mention it whenever the situation allows, and when it doesn’t allow – name dropping is the true mark of an Ivy Leaguer), her hatred and steryotyping of everyone below and Mason Dixon and Lone Star State is not socially acceptable, but encouraged.

“I hadn’t known we had such permits in our state but apparently we do. Or did.”  Yes, your state does have such permits.  All 50 states do.  It’s not just Texas anymore that you can walk down the street wearing a gun.  We permit holders are everywhere.  I know, you must be terrified that they let us crawl out from our double-wides and moonshine shacks and mingle among you decent folk.

Now that the professor knows the truth about Sarah, that she is one of us.  The professor is having second thoughts about writing Sarah a letter of recommendation to a carrer boosting, credential program.  Sarah likes guns and the professor is now tempted to destroy Sarah’s chance at a rewarding career because of it.

But it’s not what you think.  The professor doesn’t hate guns.

“I belonged to a family with guns. They were used for hunting and trap shooting. I can’t remember ever not knowing where both the shotgun (a Browning over and under with the most lovely filigree you ever saw), and the rounds (little red tubes with shiny, cupped copper bottoms) were stored. They were in separate locations, as per standard gun-safety practices, but eventually they both disappeared. At some point my mother let it be known that she had gotten rid of them.”

Let me make one thing clear.  If you are anti gun, but you try to make yourself look like a moderate by talking about daddy’s trap gun or grandpa’s squirrel rifle and that you are not scared of guns because you shot a .22 at pop cans when you were a kid; that is the anti gun equivalent of saying you are not a racist because you have one black friend, and you’re not scared of black people because your black friend is a CPA from the suburbs.  Guess what?  You’re still anti gun… and a racist.

But back to Sara and the fact that the professor agreed to write her a recommendation BEFORE she found out Sarah liked guns, and now the professor is trying to figure out how to wiggle out of it while maintaining the moral high ground.

Allow me to clue you in on something professor, you lost the moral high ground already.  You’re a bigot and you are trying to act on your bigotry without getting in trouble.  You sort of know this already, because your are feeling uneasy about your moral quandary.  You just don’t get WHY you feel uneasy because you are putting your political ideology above a passionate student’s future.  You are going to stand in the way to Sarah’s career because her political leanings don’t align with yours.  That makes you a good Liberal and a terrible person.

If you had the courage of your convictions, you would have published this article with your real name and where you went to school, so that Sarah, and her parents, and all the other students, and their parents, know that if they want the chance to live productive lives and own guns, they needs to make sure that they don’t let you get anywhere near them.

You are a bigot and a coward and you don’t deserve to entrusted with the shepherding of student’s lives.

Everytown reported on the tragic death of Jajuan Hubert Latham, a 12 year old boy, killed in a gang shooting following a memorial for Jujuan’s cousin Zaevion Dobson who was also killed in a gang shooting.  Zaevion Dobson was a 15 year old boy who died protecting three girls from crossfire in gang shooting late last year.

This story is heartbreaking and I feel nothing but empathy for this family that lost two innocent children in gang shootings.

Enter the antis over at Everytown who know EXACTLY who to blame for this tragedy, and why.

Of course it is the NRA’s fault.  If the NRA didn’t donate to politicians these boys would still be alive.

Except, not. Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch chimed in on this shootings with an amazing level of wisdom and insight:

“The violence has got to stop, this can’t go on. We do not need to bury anymore children.  It’s my gang is better than your gang. That makes no sense to me.  They’re cowards.  A coward shoots blindly at a crowd.”

Chief Rausch laid the blame for this not at the feet of the NRA or politicians or law abiding gun owners but on gang culture that perpetuates violence.  Be it Knoxville, New York, or Chicago, it is this gang honor culture that results in bloodshed.

But that fact doesn’t fit the anti’s narrative, so rather than going after gang culture, they go after gun culture – which are not synonymous.

I am reminded of the quote by former Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, explaining the moment that Israel will find lasting peace:  “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

I believe that this applies to gang culture as well.  Gang violence will end when the predominate culture values life more than it values territorialism, reputation, vengeance, or the other cultural attributes that make it acceptable for gang members to shoot each other on sight.

Law abiding gun enthusiasts (or dyed-in-the-wool guns nuts such as myself) are not a contributing factor in gang violence.  If I had a nickel for every shooting I’ve ever read about, caused by some member of Ducks Unlimited wandering into Safari Club International territory… I’d be broke.  Because it doesn’t happen.

BTW, you can spot those Duckers by the Mossy Oak Shadow Grass Blades camo they wear.  Realtree AP for life, bitchez!!!

Also, I love how Ms. Maxie seems to have no problem with gang violence as long as it is conducted without guns.  If fist fights are OK by her, does she have an issue with knife fighting?  Sure some people got killed in in West Side Story, but since there were no guns in it, it was just a cute little rom-com musical.

There is an old expression: when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Well, for the antis at Everytown, when all you have is an anti-gun dogma, every problem looks like the NRA’s fault.  Of course it isn’t, which is why these true-believers will never solve anything.

I am reading a book right now called Robopocalypse.  It is a cross between World War Z (the book) and The Terminator.  It is a faux-historical account of a genocidal war between AI robots and humanity.  It is, for the most part, good.  I’m a fan of sci-fi and this is well done.

Reading it brings me to a point that both annoys and frightens the hell out of me: the lack of a manual override.

This comes across in sci-fi and real live one of two ways:

1. There is no manual override when there obviously should be.
2. There is a manual override and it get ignored because… plot.

In the beginning of Robopocalypse, scientists create an AI program.  It becomes sentient and decides to wipe out humanity.  OK, I’ve seen this plot a number of times before.  You find out that the scientists have created this same AI a bunch of times before, it always wants to wipe out humanity, so they delete it and start over.  On the last try, it “escapes” the system it was programmed in as a computer virus, etc., etc.  Here’s the thing.  The scientist in the lab, talking with the AI, has a “fail-safe” that is supposed to shut down the system.  The AI compromises the “fail-safe” which means it’s not a real fail-safe.

Now, I’m not a computer engineer, so I don’t think digitally.  If you said to me “J.Kb. there is a computer, in an underground lab, not hooked up to the outside world, and we put an infinitely intelligent, homicidal AI in it, and you need to design a fail-safe to keep it from getting out.”  You know what I would do?  Explosives.  Explosives in the machine, attached to det-cort, attached to a firing device on the scientist’s desk.  You know why?  It is 100% un-hackable.

I see this same crap over, and over, and over again.

I can’t tell you how many TV shows I’ve seen where the plot of the episode is: hacker hacks something and uses it to kill people.  This drives me up the wall and onto the ceiling.  So the hacker uses his hacking ability to lock the people into the building.  Then the hacker threatens to release poisonous gas into the building to kill everyone.  First of all, who connects a poisonous gas line to the ventilation system when designing a building?  But what really gets me screaming at my TV is WHERE IS THE SAFETY CHECK VALVE?  I’ve worked around dangerous chemicals my entire adult life.  You know what?  When you have a line carrying flammable liquid or toxic gas, there is always, always, always a manual shutoff.

Character: “The hacker has locked us in the building, there is no way out.”

Me: “Seriously?  There isn’t one emergency exit that has a manual door push-bar for fire or power outages?  That got built to code?”

Character: “OH MY GOD, THE HACKER IS GOING TO FLOOD THE BUILDING WITH HALON!!!”

Me: “THERE SHOULD BE A KNOB ON THE HALON TANK, RIGHTLY TIGHTY LEFTY LOOSEY YOU FREAKING MORON!”

Don’t believe me?  That was the plot of the Scorpion episode, Cliffhanger.  Except instead of Halon, it was Sarin that was going to be pumped through the ventilation system.  No, not kidding.  First, who was the HVAC engineer that agreed to plug a container of Sarin into the AC unit?  And who was the building inspector that signed off on that without some sort of manual shutoff valve?

As the idea of smart houses becomes more and more real, the idea of a hacker murdering someone with their smart home becomes a plot point.  The very excellent sci-fi show Almost Human did an episode on this called Disrupt.  If I’m going to have a smart house, there is going to be an good-ol’-fashioned deadbolt on at least one door.

Wife: “Honey, hackers have locked us into the house.  They say if we don’t hand over all the jewelry, they will turn up the heat and roast us all to death.”

Me: (Walks over to back door) *click* (walks out of house).

Now, sometimes there is a manual override, and everybody conveniently forgets about it.  In that episode of Scorpion, the Scorpion team is running around trying to out hack the hacker before they all die.  Again, not being a computer engineer, I’m curious why nobody decided just to trip the breaker on the smart building’s computer?  No power, no hacking.

This was infuriating in Die Hard 2 when the terrorists raised the floor on the airport ground approach system to crash a plane.  Here’s the thing; airport runways are equipped with Visual Approach Slope Indicators.  These are lights that can only be seen at certain angles, so a pilot knows that he is on the right approach angle and how far from the runway by the lights visible from the cockpit.  These lights are bright enough to be seen in any weather, like an airport lighthouse.  This system is designed so that no matter what the autopilot does, the pilot can still look out the window and see that he is approaching the runway correctly and judge the distance to ground.  Except in the case, of Die Hard 2, the pilot was asleep at the stick or something, for purposes of plot.  This many not exactly be a manual override, but it is a way for a pilot to land with all his instruments out.

Yes, I know.  I’m ranting about books, TV, and movies.  If I had my way, there would be no plot and so I have to accept this for the sake of the story.  Except that life is imitating art.

A pair of hackers (security consultants) figured out how to hack a Jeep using the internet comparable entertainment system.  Using the auto-park, they can control the steering and breaks.  They could pretty much drive the car remotely.  This was right out of the The Sontaran Stratagem episode of Doctor Who, except the Sontarans use the remote control of carts to kill people.  With Drive-by-Wire tech, it is even easier to control the car by hacking the ECU.

But forget hacking for a second.  My dad had a 2015 Mercedes with drive-by-wire.  A piece of construction debris fell off the back of a truck in front of him on I-95.  He ran it over.  Killed the car.  At 60 MPH he had no steering.  The engine shut off and he lost his drive-by-wire and electronic power steering.

I had my 2003 Chevy truck cut out on me once while at speed.  Clogged fuel filter.  I lost engine power.  I could still steer and break.  Steel on steel on steel on rubber on asphalt.  No power meant that I lost the hydraulic assist to my power steering, but the mechanical linkage was still there.  Manual override.

BMW has no manual override  in its security system.  When you lock a BMW from the outside, it is locked.  If you are inside, you are trapped.  The door handles, lock buttons, they don’t do anything without the car unlocked.  The ECU cuts control and there is no mechanical linkage to manually unlock the car.  If a grown woman can die from being locked inside a car, you know you made an unsafe design.

I have two gun safes.  One has a nice digital lock on it for quick access.  The other has an all mechanical S&G lock.  My collection is split between the two safes, so that no matter what happens, I still have access to guns by spinning a dial.  You can’t hack or EMP gears and tumblers.

Red dots are getting cheaper and getting better everyday.  Optics make shooting easier and have made getting into shooting easier.  But batteries die, glass cracks, and sometimes electronics don’t handle cold weather.  I’m not going to deride optics, but all my defensive guns have irons on them.

It saddens me that so many new guns come with such terrible iron sights, especially .22 rifles. Shooting with irons is an invaluable skill.  If you can hit with irons, you can hit with optics, the reverse is not true.  A fundamental skill of every shooter, especially every shooter who keeps a gun for self defense is the ability to hit a clay pigeon size target at, at least 15 yds with a pistol and 50 yards with a rifle using iron sights.  I know it’s not tacticool, but if Sergeant Alvin York could capture a German battalion with a bolt gun and peep sights, you should be able to do a little better than just hit the broadside of a barn with the same.

I know.  By know I’ve ranted myself way off course.  I get that digital technology is great and all.  It has made our lives better in many ways; and as an engineer, it would be hypocritical to not embrace new technology.  But as good as digital technology is IT NEEDS TO COME WITH A D—N MANUAL OVERRIDE!!!

We here at the Gun Free Zone have covered just how deadly a punch to the head can be.  Not all lethal blows require head trauma.

The nut shot is many things.  It is one of the soft spots that women’s self defense instructors tell women to aim for during an attack.  It is an illegal move in contact combat sports.  It is a staple of comedy.  Everybody loves watching some guy get kicked in the boys.

It is also, apparently, lethal.  A man in Cleveland died after getting kicked in the bits so hard a testicle ruptured, became infected, and caused gangrene.

An unarmed attack is no laughing matter.  Just because an assailant doesn’t have a knife or a gun doesn’t mean you will survive.  Death can take you in many way.  Above all, be prepared to defend yourself.

P.S.

I just can’t imagine how painful dying from an infected, ruptured testicle would have been.