Gun Free Zone

Chilling video captures crazed customer swing machete at hapless deli clerk

Chilling video shows the moment a crazed, angry customer — known only as “Ricardo” — marches into a Hell’s Kitchen deli, swings a machete at the clerk behind the counter, then spins on his heel and leaves without appearing to say a word.

The blow to the victim’s left shoulder sends the injured man to the floor of the store, Liberty Bagel & Deli on Ninth Avenue between West 48th and 49th streets.

Here is the video from CBS.

What a fucking shit hole.

What is with people in New York City that they can see a man walk down a street with a machete, clearly not doing yard work (because nobody has a yard there) and just sort of ignores it?

“Here’s this angry dude with a big fucking knife coming my way and I’m just going to take a step to the side and keep texting.”

And the slashed guy’s coworker responds with no alacrity what so ever.

It’s always the places where you can’t carry a gun that you need a gun.

What a shit hole.

North Carolina requires a permit to purchase a pistol.  Unlike the Illinois FOID system, North Carolina requires a new permit for each pistol to be purchased.

The process to obtain a pistol purchase permit is burdensome.  It requires filling out an application, having the permit notarized, taking it to the local Sheriff’s Office, paying $5 for the application, the notary fee, then waiting 28 days for the permit to arrive.

A bill going through the North Carolina legislature is trying to amend the process.

Bill allows unlimited handguns per permit

Legislation rolled out Wednesday would let people buy multiple handguns without getting multiple permits from their local sheriff, a change supporters billed as a “streamlining.”

“This is not opening up more guns. It’s just cutting out some bureaucracy,” said Eddie Caldwell, executive vice president and general counsel of the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association.

Under current law, people who don’t have concealed carry permits have to get a pistol purchase permit from their sheriff for each handgun they buy. They can get more than one permit in a day, and there’s no limit how many permits they can get, but each purchase requires separate paperwork from the county sheriff.

That is a pain in the ass.

Senate Bill 90 would change that, making a single permit good for five years, regardless of how many handguns the person buys.

“It’s streamlining the bureaucracy … without jeopardizing public safety,” Caldwell told the Senate Judiciary committee on Wednesday

I love eliminating bureaucracy for the common man.

The bill has Republican backing, and the sheriffs’ association endorsed it, attaching a high-priority designation to their support.

I have a feeling that most North Carolinas sheriffs are tired of handling the paperwork of new purchase permits for repeat gun buyers and that at $5 a permit, it is a money-losing venture for the department.

Moms Demand Action, a group that works against gun violence, is against the bill, and a representative called it “a step in the wrong direction.”

Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, called the proposal “an intrinsically bad idea.”

“I don’t know what benefit is derived,” McKissisk said. “If anything, we already have enough handguns out there.”

See, it’s not about stopping criminals from having guns, it’s about making it too inconvenient to buy a gun.  This isn’t going to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, it is going to keep guns out of the hands of working class people who can’t take time off from work during business hours to do the paperwork.

Sponsoring Sen. Danny Britt, R-Robeson, a former prosecutor, said many guns used in crimes are obtained illegally and that the bill makes “it easier for folks who buy firearms the legal way.” He noted people can buy long guns – rifles and shotguns – without visiting their sheriff at all “and do the same damage.

That is a whole lot of honesty from a former prosecutor, someone who should know a little bit about the subject.

“I think we’re moving in the right direction,” Britt said of the bill. “Personally, I’d be fine with no pistol purchase permit at all.”

The committee doesn’t plan to vote on the bill until next Tuesday to give more people time to weigh in on it.

Readers in North Carolina, contact your state representatives and tell them to pass this bill. 

Eliminating bureaucracy and letting the law abiding citizens of the Tar Heel State have a little more freedom is a good thing.

Via Michael Bane’s Facebook.

Yes, you read it right. And no, it is not a joke.

Victims of domestic violence will have their kitchen knives replaced with blunt utensils to prevent their partners attacking them in their own home.

Nottinghamshire Police are piloting the scheme where around 100 ‘no point’ knives will be handed to victims who have either been threatened or attacked with a knife.

Police are concerned about the high level of knife-related incidents that happen in the home, and are hoping the new scheme has the potential to save lives.

Police handing out blunt knives to domestic violence victims to reduce stabbings in the home

Here is a picture of such knives:

And yes, they can still cut. They can still slice throats and generate dozens of deep cuts that will kill somebody, just not stabbing. Stabby Stabby Bad, Colombian Necktie Good.

Institutionalized idiocy.

I things I never thought I would see, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got one right.  Not just right as in “correct” but right as in she accidentally adopted a Republican idea.

Psst! ? Birth control should be over-the-counter, pass it on.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 7, 2019

Yes, yes it should.

This is not a new idea on the Right either, Republican Governor and Presidential candidate Bobby Jindal had this as part of his platform.

It made sense.  In all the fight over birth control under Obamacare and should nuns be forced to pay for it, some Republicans said: “fuck it, just make it OTC and then we don’t have to worry about it.”

This is one of those topics that unite Republicans and Libertarians.  The truth is that in the 60-year history of hormonal birth control, the drug has gotten better and safer and is on par for safety and efficacy with other popular OTC medications.

The fact is that oral birth control is OTC in Canada and most of Europe.

So why is it not in the US?  Democrats.  Planned Parenthood gets buckets of money from the Federal government to provide birth control.  With birth control going OTC, that service is greatly reduced and they could see a funding cut.  The Democrats would rather support Planned Parenthood as a money laundering operation than actually help women.

I guess AOC didn’t get the memo that she shouldn’t pitch that idea.

Well she did, and in one of the strangest cross-over arcs in politics, Senator Ted Cruz took her up on this.

I agree. Perhaps, in addition to the legislation we are already working on together to ban Members of Congress from becoming lobbyists, we can team up here as well. A simple, clean bill making birth control available over the counter. Interested? https://t.co/7kh3kqxN1w

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 12, 2019

I honestly hope something comes of this.

Now, I said in the title that AOC got this mostly right.  Here is where she got it wrong.

(It should be free, too – like in the UK!)

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 7, 2019

No, it shouldn’t.  That is the opposite of helping people.  It will drive up costs instead of lowering them and pass the burden onto taxpayers.  The whole point of making it OTC is to get the government out of the birth control game, not get further into it.

This is where I see an AOC/Cruz bill falling apart.

What really shook me what the replies by AOC’s followers.

I have to say, she really represents the crazy of her constituents well.

What?  I’m guessing this darling assumes that it is the GOP who is standing in the way of OTC birth control because they are a bunch of moralizing old white bible thumpers.

Of course, she has to pitch this as a ‘regulating woman’ thing.

She’s not alone in making this into a gender victimhood thing.

Since the GOP ran with OTC birth control first, who is really about controlling women?  Yeah, the party engaged in Handmaid’s Tale cosplay.

Then there were these women who have no fundamental grasp of economics.

See, when you make a drug OTC and let companies compete on the free market with name brands and generics, the price goes up.  Only with the government pay for, or making insurance companies pay for the drug will the price remain low.

Also, that last Tweet is straight 1984 “Freedom is Slavery.”  A free market isn’t really free because the lowest priced option may not be the best for her.  No wonder these people want socialism so badly, everything they know is wrong.

Perhaps second worst in the groups of replies are the male feminists.

Yeah… make all the stuff for women free because they are not able to be self-sufficient on anything.  Feminine hygiene products are necessary but these people treat them as sacred items too precious to be subject to the market like everything else.  I can only see taxpayer provided women’s hygiene products being the worst idea for women ever.  I don’t know what buying said items in Cuba or the Soviet Union would have been like, but I guess there was one option and it was rough.

This guy is really running for Congress in Washington.  That Tweet thread is an example of how Progressive he really is.  With that much male feminist virtue signaling, I’m pretty sure he is a rapist and is Tweeting shit like this to white knight his way into AOC’s pants.

But I think the worst group of replies came from the “I’m not a doctor but I read a pamphlet once” crowd.

Remember when I wrote a post about John Oliver and him shitting on the medical device industry? CBMTTek made a comment which was accurate.

These people often fall prey to the Nirvana fallacy, i.e., something is terrible if it’s not perfect.

For the overwhelming majority of women, most oral birth control is safe and effective.  Only a small percentage suffer from serious side effects, about 0.3%.

Yes, women should see a doctor or physician assistant before starting birth control for the first time.  But once a woman finds a drug that works well for her, does she really need a new script once a year?  Sure, there are plenty of reasons to get a checkup, again, I’m not arguing that, but birth control shouldn’t be one of them.

For these women, you’d get the impression that AOC was suggesting making Warfarin an OTC recreational drug.  That is will help 99.7% of women is just not worth the risk and we need to keep the terrible status quo.

Just for good measure, I found one thread that was a delightful bouillabaisse of internet doctor and male feminist.

I’m surprised Lyle there only snipped the boys instead of taking them off altogether with that attitude.

First, for Ms. Lila Rose, men don’t take oral birth control because the science of making a male hormonal birth control is very difficult. Sure, there are drugs that can suppress sperm production by reducing testosterone, and that is called chemical castration.  The side effects are terrible.  Stopping ovulation in women is fairly easy, the body does that naturally when women get pregnant.  Just make the body think it’s pregnant with an added hormone and mission accomplished.  It’s not a conspiracy against women unless you believe that a few billion years of evolution is a conspiracy against women (I bet she does).

Second, So what is Lyle or Vamo’ Nessa’s husband supposed to do before they had kids and potentially between kids if they have more than one?

I pretty sure doing and undoing vasectomies as a means of family planning is way worse than taking a pill.  I may be a man and I know that means my opinion doesn’t count, but objectively, it’s still surgery.

I actually want AOC and Cruz to win this one.  It will be funny watching the Democrats fight their media darling on this, with so much planned parenthood money riding on it.

I just can’t wait to see the backlash from her followers who are too stupid and Woke to get just how wrong they are about everything.

A buddy of mine sent me this:

US Jewish community looks to defend itself as attacks rise

Good.  It’s about damn time.

Armed guards, safety assessments and now even a “Tactical Rabbi” to train volunteers on the use of weapons — such is the reality today at synagogues in the United States facing mounting anti-Semitic attacks.

You are your own last line of defense.

It is at a shooting range in the hills overlooking Los Angeles that a team of AFP reporters met recently with Raziel Cohen, dubbed the “Tactical Rabbi,” who was sporting a 9mm pistol on his hip and carrying a semi-automatic rifle over his shoulder.

Cohen was trying to determine how well books can stop bullets. The idea is to transform a library at a synagogue or Jewish school into a shelter in the event of an active shooter situation.

“We’re trying to bridge the gap between the time that the shooting begins and law enforcement arrives,” he told AFP.

Those critical minutes are almost always the determining factor of how many live and die.  Having a plan and being ready to execute is vital for saving lives in this time.

“The expression that goes on is that we carry guns because we can’t carry police officers, which is not just a joke,” added Cohen. “The reality is that there can’t be police everywhere all the time.”

Fact check: True.

Cohen, who has been passionate about guns since his youth, is a security expert and certified shooting instructor who has taken part in counter-terrorism courses given by retired and elite active-duty military personnel.

I like this rabbi.

Born into a religious family, Cohen is also a rabbi for the Chabad-Lubavitch community in Los Angeles. Chabad is a sect of Hasidic Judaism, and Los Angeles is second only to Brooklyn, New York in its number of Chabad congregations.

That explains it, Chabad-Lubavitch are no known for their Liberalism.  These communities are more insular and self-reliant, many Orthodox religious communities are that way.

Cohen said his expertise in security took on more meaning after the April 27 shooting at the Chabad Poway Synagogue near San Diego that left one dead and three wounded.

It came six months after a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue left 11 people dead — the worst attack against Jewish people in the modern history of the United States.

Which is why I won’t go to synagogue without a gun, and not a pocket pistol either.  A full-size fighting pistol.  John Moses Browning’s (Peace be upon him) own, 1911A1 in 45 ACP.

“One of the Ten Commandments that’s taught very incorrectly is ‘Thou shall not kill’,” Cohen said. “It’s not ‘Thou shall not kill,’ it’s ‘Thou shall not murder.’

“In fact, in the Bible it says that you have the obligation to protect yourself.”

Yes, you do.

Anti-Semitic incidents in the United States remained at near-record high levels in 2018, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which recorded 1,879 incidents, the third-highest level since the 1970s.

2017 had marked an unprecedented rise in such incidents, with 1,986 cases of harassment, vandalism or anti-Semitic attacks recorded, the organization said.

Cohen said given the uptick, it was the duty of the Jewish community to learn to fend for itself.

Yes, it is.

But not everyone agrees with Cohen’s reasoning.

Ivan Wolkind, chief operating officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and founder of the federation’s security program, said some 500 groups have joined the program, exchanging information and security tips with police or the FBI.

Hooray, the Progressive Jews have an opinion.

Wolkind, a reserve officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, said while he wholeheartedly believes in prevention, he is not convinced that arming worshippers is the answer.

And a cop saying “wait for the cops.”  Also, what kind of reserve officer, because most LAPD reservists are Level III and can’t carry guns.

“I can’t make a judgment as to whether or not people should have weapons in their place of worship but what I can say is to have people carrying weapons without a huge amount of training… is potentially very very dangerous,” he told AFP.

The LAPD police qualification course is not terribly difficult.  Again, I fully believe in training, but having a cop from a police department known for poor shooting skills (albeit better than the NYPD) talk about “a huge amount of training” is hypocritical.

There is training and there is experience.

He said his program focuses on prevention rather than encouraging worshippers to arm themselves.

“So we put 98 percent of our energy into what we call left of bang,” he said. “So if you think of a timeline where there is pre-incident — everything that happens before an incident — and then the bang is what happens and then there’s everything to the right.

“We put 98 percent of our energy into left of bang — recognizing, preventing and mitigating the effects of an attack.”

That is valuable, I’m not deying that.  But if the bang happens, you are still your own last line of defense.

Wolkind said he fears that people who undergo weapons training may feel overconfident and ignore warning signs leading up to a shooting.

“They may stop looking for some of the pre-incident indicators that I feel are so important,” he said.

He said his security program has been so successful that churches, mosques and even the Church of Scientology have reached out for advice.

“We’ve got a lot of experience,” he said. “And we are absolutely open to sharing that with anyone and everyone as other people try to do the same thing in their communities.”

By all means, harden your facility.  I don’t want to get into a gunfight.  Protection comes in rings.  The outer rings are vital, but you can’t forget the inner ones too.

From what I’ve seen of Rabbi Cohen’s presentations, he covers preparedness as well.  He just goes the extra step of teaching people how to respond if and when shit goes south.

Over-reliance on the outer rings of security creates its own blind spots.  Relying on others to protect you, causes you to respond poorly when that protection fails.

I’m going to have to look into this Rabbi some more.

I’ll end with this.  I shoot in Huntsville, Alabama.  I know some of the shooting community down here.  There are a number of Churches that have gone in for parishioners to be armed as volunteer security.

You drive by a church on a Sunday morning and every other car in the parking lot is a truck with an NRA window sticker.  Come hunting season, half of them are still covered in mud from Saturday’s drive out to the tree stand or blind.

A mass shooter might be inclined to try to rack up a body count at one of these houses of worship, but I don’t think it will go well for him.

Only if Synagogues were the same way.

The story is simple: Old man Conrad was found dead and after an investigation, the local sheriff arrested the two sons. The town folk wanted to lynch them, but authorities convinced them to let the justice system work. The trial was done and the sons were found not guilty.

That was not what the people wanted, so several nights later, a mob (some sources said “whitecaps” were the leaders) congregated and went to the house to “speak” with the  sons who responded with shotgun shot and revolvers. No lynching.

Helping doing this research I am involved with, has allowed me to read more about lynchings than anybody should as there are some seriously horrifying  cases I wish I have never knew about. Only two things I have seen that have frustrated a mob from committing this evil deed:  A sheriff moving the prisoner from jail to a secret location ( the minority of times and with about a 50% failure rate) or the use of firearms and the dropping of bodies.

The lesson for today: Keep your guns and keep your very high capacity magazines to help you keep mobs in check.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Tuesday painted a bleak picture of the United States’ current efforts and ability to halt the influx of drugs from foreign countries.
Pompeo appeared before a Senate committee focused on ways to stop the flow of illegal drugs into this country.
…
“I know many people that have been impacted by this set of issues,” Pompeo said. In a 10-hour period last month, the former Kansas congressman said, seven Kansans died from drug overdoses.
An estimated 70,000 Americans died of overdose deaths in 2017.

As overdose deaths rise, Pompeo says the U.S. struggles to halt drug trafficking

Item One: Imagine if there were 70,000 homicides by firearms happening in the US. We would be talking Martial Law, 24 hours a day bombardment in the media against guns and gun owners. And if 70% of those guns were coming from Mexico? There would be M1 Abrams cruising around the remains of Mexico City, the Marines ransacking every bottle of tequila and Honduras with a huge refugee problem.  How many of you heard about Pompeo going to the Senate yesterday? How much pomp and circumstance was given in the media?

70,000 OD deaths a year translates to 191 overdose deaths a day.  Las Vegas shooting is the deadliest active shooter event with  58 deaths and we were bombarded with hate for months with it. We have three times the Las Vegas amount of deaths by overdose  every day and the Media barely stops their coffee break to mention it.

Item Two:  Why is Pompeo appear to be laughing? This is a very serious issue, right? Wait, the article states he was addressing a Senate Committee and that does not look like the Senate chambers.  Are we trying to convey (once more) that Republicans are cold hearted, uncaring individuals that want to see people dead?