Gun Free Zone

From the Montgomery Advertiser:

Suspected home invader critical after Elmore homeowner shoots him 4 times

Charles Virgil Bowne, 39, of Elmore County, was shot once in the head, shoulder, bicep and left leg, said Sheriff Bill Franklin. Bowne was taken by helicopter to a Montgomery hospital with life-threatening wounds, the sheriff said.

The incident occurred about 4:45 a.m. Monday in a home on Clemons Road in the Flatwood community.

Nothing good happens after midnight, “good time” resets at 6:00 a.m.

This is the statement from Sheriff Bill Franklin:

“I got a young couple in their 20s; daddy, momma and a young child at home when daddy hears a commotion in the front of the house,” Franklin said. “He arms himself with a 9 mm handgun and goes to investigate. He sees Mr. Bowne standing in the living room and Mr. Bowne tells him ‘Give me you (stuff).’ Mr. Bowne then makes a move like he’s going into his front pocket and the homeowner fires several times.

“There was evidence of forced entry into the home. We searched Mr. Bowne and didn’t find a weapon, but we did find a crack pipe tucked into his sock.”

Seems like a good shoot to me.

To add to the orgy of evidence that this was a good shoot, Bowne had broken into another home at 5:30 a.m. Sunday morning.

“Mr. Bowne was lucky he wasn’t shot Sunday morning.”

More words of wisdom from a down-home country Sheriff.

The homeowner was not charged by police.  The law requires that the shooting goes to a grand jury, but the Sheriff believes they will not return an indictment.

If I know anything about Alabama, you can put money on that.

“A crackhead breaking into a house on Sunday and gets runoff.  Then does it again Monday and gets shot.  Good thing that man shot him before he broke into my house and I’d have to shoot him.  No charge.”

The letter relates the city’s mandatory quarantine rules as China struggles to bring Covid-19 under control. When the virus runs rampant and hospitals are overrun, as in Wuhan in Hubei Province, the Case Fatality Rate soars to over 15%, according to many accounts.

Under the current quarantine rules strictly enforced in Chengdu and other cities, the CFR can be kept to below 2%, but only at the cost of crippling the economy.

Now, just imagine trying to enforce this level of quarantine in American cities. God help us as Covid-19 spreads.

CHINESE COVID-19 QUARANTINE RULES

There is a 20 rules/points list in the post. go read it.

Mortality rates will be high depending on the level of care and common sense. Korea has the most affected outside China and only a 0.5% mortality rate.
Italy with 1128 cases was up to 29 deaths fo a 2.57%
Iran screws the international  pooch with 593 cases reported and 43 deaths for a 7.25% mortality rate.

As for preparing for the virus itself . . . it’s a virus.  There’s no need to get hysterical about it.  We have experience of something similar every year.  It’s called the common cold!  COVID-19 appears to be more infectious than most of its ilk, but for the vast majority of those who catch it, it appears to produce temporary discomfort rather than a life-threatening condition.  Those most at risk are those with pre-existing conditions that can be made worse by the new infection.  If you suffer from (or have in the past suffered from) coronary or lung problems (former smoker, asthma, COPD, previous infections with severe bronchitis or pneumonia, etc.), or you’re over 60, you’re in a higher-risk group.  As such, take more precautions, and stock up on the same over-the-counter medications you use to deal with the yearly sniffles.  They’ll probably help most of us get through COVID-19 as well.  (I’d also recommend a pneumonia immunization shot, because a severe infection with COVID-19 may lead to that.)

COVID-19: Time for a dose of realism  – Bayou Renaissance Man

As of now and using only the numbers coming out of China and not the more civilized countries, if you catch the Cheap Beer Virus you have a 95.6% of staying alive.

Go read what Peter has to say about this latest madness. Makes a lot of sense.

This is not something very common down here or at least does not go advertised in Regular Media. I am not saying Miami Dade will suddenly turn red come election day, but I believe a lot of votes are not going Democrat.

Hat Tip Alex M.

Seen thiscase just now over Confessions of a Street Pharmacist. .

ORLANDO, Fla. – Markeith Loyd’s attorneys have filed a new motion that says Orlando police ignored evidence that suggests Lt. Debra Clayton fired first when the pair encountered each other in a Walmart parking lot in 2017.

Attorneys said authorities failed to look into Clayton’s actions the night of the shooting, claiming her actions could be against policy and change the course of his case.

Markeith Loyd attorneys say new evidence suggests Orlando officer fired first

Here is part of the description of what lead to the death of Orlando Police Lt. Debra Clayton

Clayton ran approximately 10 feet behind Loyd as he ran between two concrete pillars. Loyd looped around one of the pillars, drew his gun and pointed it at Clayton, the report said. Clayton pulled out her gun and turned to run toward the parking lot when Loyd fired three rounds at her, according to police.

Clayton was struck four times: one bullet in the hip, another going through her buttock and shattering her hipbone; one in the thigh and one going through her neck and lodging in her shoulder. (Bold are mine)

IANAL warning and proceed.

Dear Bad Guys, I have bad news: What your boy Loyd did pulling the weapon and aiming at the cop is called Aggravated Assault (F.S. 784.021) which includes intent and is considered a forcible felony. Legally it does not matter if he shot first of not because the legislators, in a strange moment of common sense, decided that it would be rather stupid to give a criminal a chance to shoot somebody first in order to prove intent and make a  Self Defense shooting legal.

The simple display of the firearm in what seemed to be a threatening gesture is enough and that is why it is classified as a forcible felony and that brings us to F.S. 776.08 Justifiable Use of Force against a Forcible Felony.  And if there were any doubts, we can always refer to F.S. 776.012 (2):

A person is justified in using or threatening to use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony. A person who uses or threatens to use deadly force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground if the person using or threatening to use the deadly force is not engaged in a criminal activity and is in a place where he or she has a right to be.

Now comes the question: Is Mr. Loyd’s lawyer dumb or does he know something about the judge that will make him buy this new “self-defense because I did not shoot first” tactic?

Potential Energy
po·ten·tial en·er·gy
the energy possessed by a body by virtue of its position relative to others, stresses within itself, electric charge, and other factors. (bold mine)

The contents  inside a spray can are under pressure and thus stressed.

I need to create the Miggy Principle: If you shoot at any vessel or container that Is under or will create pressure , it will come right at you and try to kill you.
And you deserve it.

Hat Tip Ziegfried W.

I’ve been watching the financial news as it relates to the Coronavirus.

Companies are having shortages of raw materials or vendor-supplied parts from China.

There is the beginning of a drug shortage from Chinese supplied pharmaceuticals.

The stock market is going down.

What are the talking heads on TV saying?

The next thing to happen is layoffs or reductions in force as companies try to cut costs as values take a dip.

This is the exact opposite, 180-degrees from right, absolutely wrong thing for companies to do right now.

The lesson that we should be learning is that we are overly dependent on China and South East Asia outsourcing.  That has put our economy in a precarious position.

It could be another flu, it could be a war, it could be social upheaval, it could be a local economic collapse, nobody knows, but the next time that China has a major shakeup (which will happen eventually) it will topple our house-of-cards economy.

What American companies should be doing is spending money hard and fast to onshore supply.  They should be dumping money into building stateside production and switching to stateside vendors.

They should be building economic breakwaters against a future Chinese economic typhoon.

After Hurricane Andrew, despite a major hit to the South Florida economy, billions were spent on infrastructure and upgrading buildings to new codes, to make sure the next time a Catagory 5 hurricane hit Miami, it wouldn’t wipe it off the map.

Subsequent hurricanes to hit Florida have, compared to Andrew, been minor inconveniences.  The after-effects of Hurricane Andrew are a lesson in how to recover from a disaster correctly.

We should be applying exactly the same lessons to the Coronavirus economic disaster.  We need to look at everything we are falling short on and immediately prioritize priority production of those items.

But we are not going to do that.  Why?

Because since the rise of McKinsey, the idea of long term corporate stability has given way to an all-consuming focus on stock value.

Spending money today to prevent a company from tanking five or ten years from now when the next virus in China takes out its sweatshop slave labor force doesn’t boost this quarter’s stock value, so it won’t get done and instead, people will get laid off.

A smart CEO would say:

“We’re running out of just-in-time vendor-supplied parts from China.  We need to build a machine shop, hire machinists, and start making those parts right now.  This Coronavirus shit is only going to get worse.”

A CEO trained by McKinsey will say:

“Our stock value dropped 20% as we announced delays in production due to a parts shortage.  RIF 20% of the company and let the shareholders know we’re cutting costs.”

Chasing stock values at a time like this is only going to worsen the economic crisis because you cannot fire your way to prosperity when the problem is sick Chinese workers not making parts overseas.

You would think that would be abundantly clear, but I guess that is the difference between learning Engineering Econ at a small midwestern tech school and earning a Harvard MBA.

If America ever gets to the point where we break out the guillotines to the C-suite executives, it’s because some company responded to running out of Chinese made parts in the middle of a virus outbreak in China by stopping production and firing its entire workforce instead of paying it’s machinists overtime to make the parts in house, because that’s what’s best for the shareholders.

Update:

Here is an actual economics expert says exactly what I just did:

China expert Curtis Ellis explains the root cause of today's crash #StockMarketCrash2020 #coronavirus
@AmericaFirstPol pic.twitter.com/pTGwyCTFqv

— Paul Greaney (@PaulGreaney_NTD) February 28, 2020