Prison? I WISH

If what we’ve been hearing for years is even partly true, LaPrick should go to prison.

NRA’s LaPierre Voiced Fear of Prison Time, Ad Exec Testifies
Makris testified that he asked LaPierre at the meeting why he was turning his back on everyone who’d helped him over the years in favor of Brewer and his Dallas law firm. LaPierre responded that “Bill Brewer is the only one who can keep me out of jail,” Makris said.

Makris didn’t specify why LaPierre feared jail, but The Wall Street Journal reported in October that the Internal Revenue Service is investigating the former NRA leader for possible criminal tax fraud related to his personal expenses.

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Updated TZP Column

I have an update to [Update] Indianapolis Prosecutor Still Lying.

I contacted the prosecutor’s office to ask why IMPD didn’t comply with IC 35-47-14-3. Now the prosecutor has changed the story from we didn’t want chumbucket to win in court and get his gun to we didn’t have time.

I’ve contacted the MCPO again.

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“Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis”

A study out of Stanford, published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information

Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis

Conclusion

The existing scientific evidences challenge the safety and efficacy of wearing facemask as preventive intervention for COVID-19. The data suggest that both medical and non-medical facemasks are ineffective to block human-to-human transmission of viral and infectious disease such SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, supporting against the usage of facemasks. Wearing facemasks has been demonstrated to have substantial adverse physiological and psychological effects. These include hypoxia, hypercapnia, shortness of breath, increased acidity and toxicity, activation of fear and stress response, rise in stress hormones, immunosuppression, fatigue, headaches, decline in cognitive performance, predisposition for viral and infectious illnesses, chronic stress, anxiety and depression. Long-term consequences of wearing facemask can cause health deterioration, developing and progression of chronic diseases and premature death. Governments, policy makers and health organizations should utilize prosper and scientific evidence-based approach with respect to wearing facemasks, when the latter is considered as preventive intervention for public health.

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Prosecutor: Cops didn’t do their job

I told you so.

Prosecutor: Man who fatally shot 8 at FedEx facility never had ‘red flag’ hearing, even after mom warned of suicide risk
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Prosecutor: Man who fatally shot 8 at FedEx facility never had ‘red flag’ hearing, even after mom warned of suicide risk.

Added:More

“Absolutely there needs to be some intervention and absolutely the firearm needs to be taken away. … But the risk is if we move forward with that (red flag) process and lose, we have to give that firearm back to that person,” Mears said. “That’s not something we were willing to do.”

Translation: Better to get the shotgun off the street than to get the dangerous person off the street and keep him from getting another gun. You peasants are expendable. Doing our jobs is too much work.

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Wordy guy

What AOC Just Got Wrong About the Supreme Court and Separation of Powers
Like every new member of Congress, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pledged to uphold the Constitution when she was sworn into office. But the socialist congresswoman’s latest criticism of the Supreme Court reveals that she lacks even the most basic understanding of the document she promised to protect.

Sheesh. Almost six hundred words to say Occasionally-firing-Cortex is an idiot who hasn’t read the Constitution and doesn’t grasp the difference between a constitutional republic and an unrestrained direct democracy.

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“Assault rifles”

I was struck by the lack of identification of the weapons used by the Indy FedEx shooter, by any official source, other than “assault rifles.” News reports cite the ATF as the source of the acquisition info, so I went to them for for more details.

  1. What is the make and model of each assault rifle?
  2. Which was purchased on what date?
  3. How was it established that these were select-fire rifles?

Astonishingly, less than two hours later on a Sunday I got a response (if you’ve ever tried communicating with the ATF, you probably realize how amazing that is). Not that it helped much.

Please direct your inquiry to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. Here is their email: IMPD.PublicAffairs@indy.gov .

I asked the ATF, because they’re the ones who told the press. But whatever. I sent the same questions to IMPD.

I got a response in three minutes. Not much of one, though.

None of this information is being released at this time.

I find that somewhat odd, since the sole alleged shooter is already dead and they’ve already traced the firearms. And they’ve already said they are assault rifles (yeah, right; select-fire; sure). What could be the big secret?

I asked to be sent any press releases on the subject that they may issue in the future. We’ll see.

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Just how often do .50 caliber weapons get used in crime?

This report got me to wondering about that.

NJ Gov. Phil Murphy Pushes Ammo Purchase Database, .50 Caliber Rifle Ban
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) is fighting gun crime in his state by calling for a database of ammunition purchasers and banning .50 caliber rifles.

So I did a quick search and discovered that the anti-rights Violence Policy Center has a list, “Criminal Use of the 50 Caliber Sniper Rifle”. It goes back to 1989, and was last updated in 2019. They list 51 cases.

51 criminal uses in 30 years doesn’t sound like much. But it’s even better.

  • Only ten cases were criminal use of a .50 cal.
  • Of those ten, one occurred in Mexico.
  • Another one was the Branch Davidians at Waco. I’d call that self defense, not criminal use.
  • All the other cases were unlawful possession, unlawful transfer, or the gun was found when the person was busted for something else; not use of the firearm.
  • One was a stashed weapon found in Canada.

But even if we take the prosecution’s argument about the Branch Davidians, we have ten criminal uses in 30 freaking years. An average of once every three years. In two countries. Let’s drop that Mexico murder (by a cop, no less); NINE cases. In thirty years.We’ve all heard how deadly .50s are, right? In the 9 US cases, we have three people wounded in two cases, and four people killed in three cases. One of those was a double murder, but it’s not really clear that the .50 that inflicted the deaths because he also used three other guns including an SKS. No casualties listed for the other four cases.

Oh, one of those terrible crimes that didn’t result in injury, fatal or otherwise? The crime was starting a wildfire by stupidly plinking with incendiary rounds. Not the sort of thing you’d expect to hear about from the VIOLENCE Policy Center, eh? But they’ve got to get those numbers up somehow, I suppose.

30 years. Three wounded. Four killed.

That definitely calls for regulation. Especially in New Jersey where… oh. Just once case in New Jersey; felon in possession, not used.

So maybe that doesn’t call for a .50 cal rifle ban, Murphy.

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“Silencers are not tools of self-defense, they are tools of murder”

Thus speaketh congresscritter Watson Coleman [Dim-NJ]. The full quote is:

“Silencers are not tools of self-defense, they are tools of murder,” said Congresswoman Watson Coleman. “They have no legal application which is why law enforcement officials around the country have been calling for their elimination. The HEAR Act will save lives and is part of the common sense approach to firearms legislation that polls show has widespread support among voters on both sides of the aisle.”

Really? Let me quote someone else. Three guesses who it is. And my regular readers probably don’t need to guess.

“Moreover, consistent with this low number of prosecution referrals, silencers are very rarely used in criminal shootings. Given the lack of criminality associated with silencers, it is reasonable to conclude that they should not be viewed as a threat to public safety necessitating NFA classification, and should be considered for reclassification under the GCA.”

Yep, the “AFT” said that back in 2017. Suppressors (the legal term is silencer, but I prefer the more accurate “suppressor”) are used very, very rarely in crime; from 1995 to 2004, there were approximately 15 cases of criminal use of a suppressor. An average of 1.5 per year.

In that study time frame, there were roughly a quarter-million suppressors registered. That would be a criminal use rate of 0.0000006%. These days, there are more than two million registered suppressors. A sane person might think that two million cases of murder-with-suppressor are something we would -ahem- “hear” about.

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