Gun Free Zone

Doing some prep work for an article, I bumped into Inside the Criminal Mind: Revised and Updated Edition by Stanton Samenow. Once I started reading it, I understood why I never heard of the guy in the traditional Media: he does not pull punches or try to sugarcoat things and manages to piss people on both sides of the “What to do with criminals?” debate.Although I think he has managed to piss more the Bleeding Heart cadre than the “Kill Them All, Let God Sort Them Out” Squads.

Quick summary: Criminals are scum. Why, who knows? Can they “be fixed”? No. Only they can fix themselves and it is not easy. For the most part, criminals have the game figured out and will tailor behavior and responses to fulfill the expectations of people they need to fool to either obtain money, power or freedom. OK, it is a crappy summary, but the book is a great trip exploring the way criminal thinks and their “logic.”

Depending where you are coming from, you will get an answer which might not be the one you are looking for but the truth you may not want to hear. If you are into self defense and crime, this will dissipate some remaining misconceptions and will make you reassess your plans. Get the damned book.

Available in Dead Tree Media and Kindle.

I am gonna have to buy a Kindle thingie myself, damn it.

Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a much needed book of Second Amendment quotes. Author Phillip Mullivor asked me to review the book and being the book junkie I am, could not pass the opportunity.

I have no doubt that the turning point in the war for the Second Amendment came about the same time regular citizens were able to bypass the Old Media and communicate with each other via the Internet. The fight is still here and raging hot because more and more information is being proved or disproved with the amazing access we have. But sometimes the data is not pure and sometimes is just plain BS, specially in the realm of quotes.

Phillip Mullivor took the time to research and gather a great selection of real quotes mostly in favor of the Second Amendment, but also some told by the other side. All quotes come with a respective footnote indicating original source and that is what makes this little book great.

Our cause is the noble one. We do not need to make up facts, figures or quotes like the opposition does. But we must make sure that whatever material we use is truthful and not accept it because it was pre-quoted by somebody else on our side.

The book is available both on Dead Tree Media and Kindle so portability and availability is not a problem.

I’ll be donating this copy of the book to the Miami-Dade Library system. It is worth being where others can read it.

Legendary Lawman. The Story of Quick Draw Jelly Bryce is a book that will leave you unsatisfied and wanting for more but unfortunately there isn’t much out there. It is not the fault of author Ron Owens at all but Del Bryce was an intensely private man surrounded by equally private people. Mr. Owens did his best extracting whatever little info there was and even separating fiction from reality and for that alone the book is worth the price of admission. Bryce was without a doubt a great pistoleer and an exceptional Law Man and one feels cheated that most of his life’s history will be lost.

I still recommend the book. Well written and whatever information is available is presented to the reader. One cannot ask for more.

Both sets of DNA would be removed from the gene pool making the World a better place.

Miami Herald’s Jim Morin rehashes old themes for today’s cartoon.

Let’s see how many prejudices can we catch in his cartoon: White Fat Guys (because there are no minorities in the NRA or the Florida Legislature, fat or otherwise,) check. Big bag of Cash, check. Cowboy-Style gun rig, check. Ammo bandoleer across the chest, check.  Body of cop and justice subdue by the evil NRA and legislators, check.

And the message? Florida legislators accepted money (bribes? Gasp!) from the NRA for the passage of Stand Your Ground and both Justice and Law Enforcement are dying because of it.

The concept behind Stand Your Ground is simple: If you are in a location outside your home where you have the right to be, are not committing a crime or incited a confrontation, you have the right to use deadly force to prevent death or grave bodily harm to yourself or others. It expands the concept of self defense to its rightful place: The Individual.

As asinine as it sounds, before Stand Your Ground, the value of your life was akin to Real State: location, location, location. If you were at home and somebody broke in, your life according to the law, was very valuable and worth defending it. But if you stepped outside the house, just like a new car leaving the dealership your life experienced a sudden drop in value and might not be enough to use deadly force. So, if you were coming out of a restaurant, attacked, you parry that attack with any means, the District Attorney would check his Blue Book of Life Values and determine if you used excessive force against the aggressor and are the one who should be going to prison. DAs all over loved to point out that the law made a provision called Duty to Retreat which said that if you made a reasonable effort to avoid or flee but couldn’t, then you wouldn’t be charged with a crime but ruled as self defense. As Massad Ayoob explains, nobody yet has outran a bullet and they don’t tell you how you are supposed to do it. So, the whole concept of Duty to Retreat is stupid on face value; you simple do not turn your back on people intending to do you harm, specially if they are younger of fitter than you. Stand Your Ground then makes sense but , Oh God It Is Hated So Much! But why? Answer is simple: It takes power away from the District Attorneys and they do not like that.

You will never hear a Government Official say “Gosh darn it! I have too much power. I wish the Legislature/Congress would reduce it so my burden is less.” Oh hell no, once they get a taste of it, they want more. If you try to reduce their power, they will bite your head off … figuratively. DAs love the power to determine who goes to jail or who goes free. Plus let’s not forget that if the DA has any political dreams to move to higher office, there is nothing like a controversial yet easy case to win to boost votes in the ballots when the time comes.

I shoot with Law Enforcement Officers at our club quite regularly. Still I have not heard one cop disparaging Stand Your Ground. Contrary to some members of the Media, political pundits and other dumbasses, cops are pretty saavy and intuitive: if a crime scene might be suspicious, they will delve deeply into it and will reserve opinion. But they also figure out that if Jose Smith, father of four, mortgage, steady job and with no criminal record whatsoever was attacked outside Publix,  used his gun to defend himself and the perp is now on his way to acquire room temperature, Mr. Smith should not be dragged through the Court System because a DA feels like he needs to “make an example.”  Cops have no pity for violent career criminals, but they do hate having to go to a house and inform the family that the innocent head of the household or the young mother was killed. And they do hate to attend a trial of a citizen that was forced to defend himself and they know in their hearts he is innocent, but a greedy DA wants to do his BS show for personal profit.

I firmly believe that my life is very valuable and worth the same independently of the location I might be. Duty to Retreat creates a Gun Free Zone Light (Reduced calories, no caffeinne) where you may or may not get in trouble and dependent on what somebody else might decide. So you basically get screwed twice: Once by the criminal and once by the DA. Stand Your Ground simply states that if you are a good person and doing nothing wrong, you should not have to pay for defending yourself from the misdeeds of a criminal third party or suffer the abuses of a Legal System drunk on power.

Great singer with a great soul for music.
May she rest in peace.

Since I was a kid, I have been an aficionado of the .357 Magnum. I am the proud owner of revolvers in that caliber but, a semi auto? Oh hell yeah!

The Coonan has been out for a while prior to the SHOT Show, but it is still that Dark Object of my Desire.

That damned Lotto still refuses to come my way!