Gun Free Zone

It is perfectly legal for a citizen to record police activity. This issue has been addressed recently by two federal appeals court circuits, both circuits upheld the practice as protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court refused to take either of the cases on appeal thus letting stand the rulings of the lower courts.

via Recording Police Activity and Identification Issues | Chief Weems’ Blog.

Read the whole thing and not just the parts you like. A very interesting point is made about a traffic stop.

Found this video and I think there is a lesson to learn…OK, more than one.

We have Mr. Douchebag and Mr. Puppy on this video. For the sake of this post, let’s just concentrate on what is visible (important clue here) and not what the added subtitles say. No doubt that Mr. Douchebag started the hoedown by throwing and landing a punch on Mr. Puppy, a very stupid proposition since Mr. Puppy appears to be the strongest and most fit of the pair (Disparity of Force.) Mr. Puppy returned the favor and even though Mr. Douchebag was retreating (perhaps he finally had that “WTF did I just do?” moment of clarity) I can see Mr. Puppy actions somewhat understandable up to and including throwing the left hook and knocks Mr. Duchebag out and he lands on the bottom of the fence.

However what comes next is pure retribution from Mr. Puppy. A kick possibly to the shoulder or possibly to the head followed by a stomp to the head and another to the ribs/back to a person that is not fighting against you and was pretty much out for the duration. Yes, heat of the moment and all that, but the initial fight had already ceased and there was no longer a threat to Mr. Puppy who now becomes Mr. Suspect. And let us remember that fists/pushes/kicks/stomps have killed more people in the US than ANY AND ALL kinds of rifles including the “Eeevil Assault Weapons.”

I have no idea how this event progressed afterward or if any arrests were made. Anyway, our take here is to only use the necessary force to stop the attack when it happens (initial attack probably did not meet the requirement for use of deadly force) and that sometimes and even after your manhood has been breached by the slap of a tiny asshole neighbor, your best course of action is to reign in your Ego and go home.

One pastor stood at the meeting and told Patterson he believes Miami will be “Ground Zero” for violence and looting.

His colleagues were quick to say the city has matured since the riots of 1980.

via South Florida Prepares For Zimmerman Verdict « CBS Miami.

Yup…more guns, less tolerance to BS. I would not be surprised if some idiotic community organizers are somehow trying to incite crap for their purposes and we may get to see some excitement. But for tension on the streets as of now, I still don’t see any.

However and speaking from experience, even astroturf riots can get seriously out of hand. If that happens, I know we will not have a thorough investigation by the Feds or the local PD looking into who started it. It does not cost much to be ready.

While following the #zimmermantrial tag I saw that Miguel had received his preorder copy of The Law of Self Defense by Andrew Branca. Since Mr. Branca is Monday’s guest on the podcast I asked Miguel for to do a review of the book… to my surprise he read it and reviewed it in 2 days!

via Book Review: The Law of Self Defense by Andrew Branca. | When the Balloon Goes Up!.

So I eat books like potato chips. Sue me 🙂

Seriously people, get this darn book. I am not kidding about its importance.  And if you are not building a library of your own, start now and start with this book. I may have to write a post about other must have books later.

If you are an IDPA Safety Officer, you should have an email from HQ announcing the Online test. This is for active SOs only; if you are not yet an SO, you will have to attend a class with an SOI and under the new rules.

And I made the decision to let my SO creds die. That way I cannot be shanghaied into working a match other than pasting holes on cardboard. That means I may get to shoot from time to time, criticize what the SOs are doing and enjoy the company of other people.

Time for me to be a Shootin’ Tourist.

We are in the closing stages of the trial. I am smart enough to try to predict what the Jury will do, but I do believe that Zimmerman should go free if for nothing else than the way this whole affair has been handled by the Prosecution.

The moment that the case landed on the arena of Mainstream Media and the Prosecutors either felt they needed to do something for appearances’ sake or latched onto it because of their feral opposition to Stand Your Ground, or trying to discredit ALEC members or incite racial strife for either money or political grandstanding, any semblance of dispensing Justice was lost. Any idea about finding the truth was relegated to the back of the house.

Here in Florida, the Zimmerman case was about repealing Stand Your Ground. Some prosecutors, lawyers and judges complicit with local media, made a grandiose case after Zimmerman was initially released. “See that guilty man go free! We cannot stand for that!” appeared to be the rallying cry. A panel was formed, many meetings all over the state taken, media tried to influence as much as they could…. and they lost. Badly if I might add. Floridians simply did not want to lose a simple and logical law that would protect them from both criminals and overzealous prosecutors. If my mind is not playing tricks on me, polls indicated that some 70% of Florida residents gave SYG their support.

This failure and rejection must have stung pretty damn hard. They were so cocky and so sure they were going to be triumphal that they charged Zimmerman with Second Degree murder to the astonishment of the Legal community who knew that the lesser charge of Manslaughter, although tough to prove in this case would be easier to achieve. And when even ultra-liberal defense attorney Alan Dershowitz said that the prosecution behaved in an  “utterly unprofessional manner” overcharging as a 2nd degree murder case for political reasons, you know that the stench coming from that courtroom is overpowering.

The trial itself became a legal mockery for the prosecution. With witnesses possibly perjuring themselves or their testimony favoring the defendant more than the prosecution or simply spaced out as if they were in another case altogether, probable tainted evidence (and let’s not get into suppressed evidence & testimony with possible benefit for the defendant) and presentations that made seasoned prosecutors and defense lawyers scratch their heads in disbelief. This trial ceased to be about justice and all about saving face and obtaining a conviction, damned the People.

“The duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice, not merely to convict.”
American Bar Association.

The above quote is clear and easy to understand. However clearly is not what we have seen through the trial and specially at the end of deliberations when they tried to shove other charges, some amazingly stupid so the jury could throw them a bone.

So what we have now is a trial so tainted by prosecutorial misconduct and political pressure it has become something you see on TV about kangaroo courts in Third World countries, a very dangerous precedent to have. And I don’t care if you think Zimmerman is guilty and that he should spend the rest of his life in prison, this is not the way that a verdict of guilty should be achieved and we should not be accomplices on the travesty because it will make us feel better. If we let feelings corrupt our rights to a fair and impartial trial, you can bet your life  it will be used against others and even yourself.

But by then it will be too late.

• Your gun sucks and you’re holding it wrong.
• That caliber is ineffective. You would do better to pick something bigger.
• That caliber is too big / expensive. You would do better with a smaller caliber that is cheaper and gives you higher capacity.
• I am not a lawyer, I have never argued a case, and in fact I tend to get confused when watching Matlock, but if you do not follow my legal advice to the T you will spend the rest of your life behind bars and that’s after you get the lethal injection while sitting on the chair.

via Sharp as a Marble – A post in which I concentrate the entire Gunternet into a single bullet list.

BEVERAGE ALERT! Now go read the rest of the list. 🙂