Divemedic

Juries

The standard we expect from juries today just isn’t realistic. We expect a jury to enter a courtroom with no preconceived ideas of the case, no knowledge of what happened, and to not personally know anyone involved with the case. I listened to a conversation about the Clancy trial recently while I was at work and marveled at the direction it took.

To be completely honest, I haven’t followed the case much at all. I know the bare basics, but some of the women (yes, I work with a room full of women) have watched the trial from beginning to end.

One of the women, a paramedic, said she is getting her degree in forensics. She claimed that the husband did it, and further stated that, should this case result in a mistrial, they should charge the husband with the children’s deaths. It’s as if she has been watching a television show whodunit and is trying to figure out the plot.

A second woman agreed, saying there is no way that the mother killed her kids.

I chimed in, and admitted to not knowing any of the facts of the case, but I did say that the mother had confessed. The response was “Well, she said she doesn’t remember anything from that day, so how can she confess? I think the husband drugged her, and the only reason she says she did it is because everyone told her she did.”

Then they went on to say that, since this trial has had so much press, there is no way to find a jury who hasn’t heard about the case, therefore the woman can’t get a fair trial.

That isn’t how juries work. Do you think in 1790, when the right to a trial was created, the small towns where people lived could contain a jury of people who didn’t know anything or anyone about a criminal case?

A great example of this is Princeton, New Jersey. James Madison, who wrote the initial proposals for the constitutional amendments guaranteeing the right to a jury trial, lived there. It was a small village during the founding era: the Princeton Battlefield Society describes 60–80 families in 1776, and Princeton’s alumni magazine estimates no more than 300 residents living in the town in 1783. Any criminal trials in that town would have had a jury who knew either the case or the persons involved.

That’s fine. In Irvin v. Dowd (1961), the Supreme Court explained that jurors need not be “totally ignorant of the facts and issues involved.” They must be able to set aside prior opinions and decide on the evidence presented in court. (The Court nevertheless overturned that conviction because of actual prejudice.)

However, if reports I am hearing are correct, some of the jurors are interacting and participating in online support groups for the defendant. That is not allowed at all. The lawyers in the next trial will have to do some significant scrubbing and scrutiny of prospective juror’s social media presence to ensure there aren’t any activists from either side of the debate who wind up on the jury, then the jury will need to be strictly sequestered for the duration of the trial to ensure no insertion of bias.

By Divemedic, ago

Gun Ownership

A study performed by the RAND corporation has been picked up by leftists on social media. The claim is for the number of households who have a firearm in the house. Read:

I replied that I think these numbers are wildly inaccurate. For example, Florida has a claimed household firearms ownership rate of 35.3%. Florida has approximately 8,752,810 households, so the claim is just over 3 million households have a firearm in it. Here is why that number is demonstrably inaccurate:

  • Florida does not require concealed weapons permits, yet 2.5 million people in the state have a CCW.
  • Since the Brady Act begin requiring NICS checks in 1998, Florida has seen more than 30 million of them performed.

Those two data points alone point to more than 3 million households with a firearm. Still, I pointed out there is no way to be sure, because no one keeps a registry of firearms and their owners. The leftists made the the claim that the numbers were close to accurate because:

  • It’s likely from firearms purchased through an FFL where data is collected through the 4473.
  • The FBI does the background check. A transfer to you is in their database.
  • It could be a household of five all with five firearms but it is still just one household with a firearm.

So to boil it down: The ATF has your data because they somehow have a record of your gun purchases because 4473. Even though that is illegal, and once a firearm is sold by a dealer, no one knows for sure who it was sold to, unless it somehow winds up being resold to a dealer. That’s why the left pushes so hard for universal background checks.

I pointed out the law in the second- the FBI doesn’t do NICS checks, the state police do. He replied how the FBI is better and more trustworthy with your data than the FDLE. Whatever, that still doesn’t validate the above state level data, which actually came from a RAND report created from summing up telephone surveys.

Then there is the antigun trope of claiming just a small minority of people owning a large number of firearms creating an illusion of widespread firearm ownership. That’s simply not true. I have already blogged about that ridiculous claim:

the top twenty percent of all gun owners actually owned 55% of the guns. In terms of absolute figures, ten million people owned 105 million guns – for an average of ten guns per person, and the remaining 87 million guns were owned by 34 million people – for an average of 2.6 guns per person. The population of the U.S. was 263 million in 1994 – indicating that only 16.7% of Americans had actually owned a weapon.

I wrote about this in June of 2016, and I guessed at the time that there were somewhere between 400 and 500 million firearms in the US. Since that time, there have been another 310 million NICS checks.

Again, let’s look at Florida’s demographics- there are just over 8.7 million households in Florida, and those households contain 19 million adults. With over 2.5 million CCW permits, 200,000 known NFA items, and approximately 100,000 active law enforcement officers, there are just about 3 million people right there. That doesn’t account for people with granddad’s hunting rifle, criminals who have a firearm but aren’t going to tell some random survey caller, and others. On the other hand, there are households like my sister and her crotch fruit who don’t own any guns at all. Of course, none of them have a CCW, either.

Looking at the numbers, they seem to support a household ownership rate closer to 60% than to 35%. However, I also admit that my estimate is just as much guesswork as the RAND corporation’s report, because no one can know for sure.

By Divemedic, ago

To the Commenter Who Just Tried to Post Stupidity

If you come to this website and urge or ask me to commit an act against the law, I am not going to post it. If you email that same idea to me, I am going to toss it in the trash. As much as I like my readers, I don’t know any of you well enough to entertain or allow such ideas, even if I were wanting to break the law (which I am not).

I’ve had a few of them through the years. A guy offered to sell me a full auto M2 carbine for $1500. Swore up and down he wasn’t a cop. Yeah. Another guy actually came to my house and asked me to build him an AR with some unlawful features. That’s what happened at Ruby Ridge, I am not dumb.

In 2022, someone came on this blog and suggested we form a group and take some kinetic action against some lefty targets. They were specific about details. They were dumb enough to post that comment from an IP that traces back to a Federal Law enforcement office in the DC area. For Christ’s sake, the Feds in that case were too stupid to even spoof an IP?

All of this happened in the same time frame that the ATF was looking for people to sick their informants on. Like this poor guy who got busted for having an SBR when he took a friend to the range, but the friend was being forced to inform on other shooters. In this case, the informant was an illegal immigrant who was cutting a deal:

In her complaint, Shaw never says why she targeted Mejia, or why the informant was sent to his home.

The informant, or CHS, wasn’t paid for setting up Mejia. Instead, they were cooperating with the FBI to avoid prosecution by ICE.

No one here is going to tell you about how they are plotting violence, or how they are flouting the law. This blog is being run in the public eye. I am not stupid enough to be locked up in a cell without bail, getting beaten every day while I await a trial that isn’t going to happen. This blog gets a couple of million hits a year, and I am certain some of them are law enforcement. I will not break the law on this blog or anywhere else, and I will not join in with your militia group or your little club. If there are ten of you in the club, I would bet at least six of you are informing on the others, but likely don’t even know the others are informants as well.

Like this case, where 13 people in Orlando had their charges dropped after an informant was paid $40,000 to set them up. For that kind of cash, there are informants out there who routinely trick people into breaking the law. Those informants make a living at it. Two or three of those cases a year, and a person can make a pretty good living for almost no effort.

Anyone who has been paying attention to the J6 case know that the Feds operate by getting you to say inflammatory, illegal things and then framing you for it.

I recently read the book about the OKC bombing and how McVeigh was actually a Federal informant. In fact, there were several informants located in the circles McVeigh was traveling.

Then there is this:

There is an old saying I repeat on this blog from time to time: How do you spot the Fed or the police informant? He is the one urging you to break the law.

Nice try, though.

EDITED TO ADD:

And if you AREN’T a Fed or an informant, I would apologize for that, but you are stupid. This blog is read by the PUBLIC. Why would you advertise in my comments about your future illegal adventures? So even if you aren’t a Fed, and I was in the mood to break the law, I would not want to have anything to do with you or your activities because you are too stupid to remain uncaught.

By Divemedic, ago

Words Are Violence

Tyler Robinson’s attorney is in court arguing Kirk’s murder is justified because Kirk engaged in what he refers to as “hate speech.” This is a pattern we have been seeing for awhile- the youth of today have been taught that objectional speech is violence that justifies a physically violent response, including deadly force. To quote him:

some hatred can’t be negotiated out… It is true that Mr. Kirk spoke hatefully of certain groups of people…he spoke hatefully of people who have sexual relationships outside of marriage

The left is now declaring anyone who utters words in opposition to their beliefs is committing violence, and deserves to be killed. We are so close to a civil war in this nation, it is frightening.

First, it was young people saying that the First Amendment protection of speech doesn’t apply to anything “hateful.” The bar is low, because even disputing the results of an election isn’t protected speech.

Now we are at “Chud the Builder deserves to have his ass kicked for saying things I don’t like, and if he defends himself from that violent beating he should go to jail,” and “I can murder you if you say things contrary to my beliefs.“

By Divemedic, ago

Cancer

Borepatch announced today his diagnosis of prostate cancer. I was going to comment over there, but my comment became lengthy, and I know he reads my blog, so here are my thoughts on this:

1 You will be inundated with people telling you to try this or try that. Don’t listen to Internet randos who claim to be cancer experts this week, but were experts on police procedures last week, Constitutional law the week before, experts in building construction last year, etc. Everyone has an opinion, and most of them are wrong, and in the case of cancer, fatally wrong for you. When my mother in law was diagnosed with breast cancer a decade ago, her sister sent her a book written by Suzanne Somers of all people. She advocated fighting off cancer with diet changes. I posed about it here, and retards came on here bleating “But COVID.” My MIL was going to take the advice and refuse treatment in favor of diet changes. I talked her out of that plan, and she is still alive and as cheap as ever. Oh, and cancer free for about 8 years now.

1a Look guys, Ivermectin isn’t the cure for everything. Jesus, I see people advocating for Ivermectin as a cure for everything from heart disease to cancer. Just stop it with the snake oil. This is a real issue with real consequences for the person with the disease. Not everything is a conspiracy, and not every disease is treated by Ivermectin or special fad diets.

2 Cancer is a complex disease. It involves problems with a cell’s dna, and with the immune system that is supposed to catch cells that have “gone rogue” and destroy them. There are many different types of cancer with many different causes and treatments. My advice to you is this: do some research and find the facility that is the best at whatever cancer you have. Then seek them out. My brother was diagnosed with B cell lymphoma, and the form of cancer he had is fatal within 5 years in 85% of cases. His doctor (also neighbor and good friend for decades) told him that he could get chemo for it in the office, or could see a specialist. My brother called me for advice, and I told him there was a top 10 cancer facility right here in Orlando. I advised him to go there.

My brother didn’t take my advice. Instead, he told me top 10 wasn’t good enough, he wanted the best. That’s what he did- he found a cancer center 1000 miles away that specialized in his cancer. They put him in a study group, and he traveled to that center every 6 weeks for chemo for a year and a half, followed by follow-up visits every 3 months for another year. He also went to support groups to help him deal with it, and got more and more depressed as members of his support group died off. We went together to my father’s grave outside of New Orleans, and we stood over my father’s grave as he cried on my shoulder in fear of what was coming. It was as psychologically hard on him as it was medically, but we got through it.

He goes in every year to be tested for a return of the cancer. Yet here he is, 9 years later, still cancer free.

Not everyone beats cancer, but medicine is getting better and better at it every single year. Among males, age-adjusted cancer deaths per 100,000 population decreased from 210.9 in 2009 to 172.9 in 2019. It’s not the automatic death sentence people fear, but it does need to be respected. Contact the best cancer specialist you can, discuss your case with them, and make a joint decision between you, your family, and that specialist.

Good luck, my friend. Dealing with cancer is difficult, but it is a battle that can be won.

By Divemedic, ago

Winning the Internet

The MSM isn’t an unbiased agency that’s just here to report the facts. They are the PSYOPS division of those who would seize the reins of power in this nation. Let me show you:

A CNN anchor called the person who threatened to kill the President an “undocumented immigrant” and insisted she was doing so to “humanize the debate.” Miller responded with this:

Miller: “Humanize? Then let’s humanize the Penal Code too. The bank robber becomes a ‘specialist in unscheduled withdrawals’. The con artist turns into an ‘entrepreneur of alternative financial narratives’. The guy who breaks into your house uninvited is just a ‘visitor with pending documentation’. How about that?”

CNN: “That’s a crude analogy.”

Miller: “Crude is pretending federal law vanishes because CNN’s copy desk cooked up a cuddlier euphemism. ‘Undocumented’ sounds like someone who forgot their wallet in an Uber. No. It’s someone who crossed the border without authorization, stayed, and now the press treats the legal statute like it’s a matter of writing style.”

CNN: “But many contribute to the economy…”

Miller: “Ah, the classic argument: crime stops being crime if the person washes dishes or builds roofs. By the same token, the cigarette smuggler ‘contributes’ too, creates jobs in transport. Want us to call him an ‘informal logistics entrepreneur’? Would CNN go for that?”

CNN: “You’re polarizing.”

Miller: “No. I’m rejecting the marketing dictionary. You change the word, then accuse anyone who uses the legal term of being ‘inhumane’. It’s the oldest trick in the book: first soften the vocabulary, then declare moral victory. The United States is tired of this theater. Call it what it is. Or admit the goal was never clarity—it was narrative control.”

I stopped trusting the MSM during Hurricane Katrina. I was deployed there as part of the FEMA response to that particular disaster. I saw MSM reports about how no one was helping the people there, how there were no supplies anywhere. Meanwhile, we were standing just a few yards away handing out food, diapers, and giving Tetanus and DPT shots. One reporter had to start over when the segment he was filming about George Bush ignoring Katrina victims and not sending food was ruined when a guy walked by casually in the background with a sandwich and a soft drink.

Here we are, proving you can put 8 pallets of supplies into an ambulance. No, I am not in this picture, nor is anyone from my old department.

I was there when a plane crash happened at an airshow. The press was interviewing this moron on the news who claimed he wanted to go help the pilots, but the fire department wouldn’t let him, held him back. He says we held him from helping the injured pilot, and blamed us for the pilot’s death. What they failed to mention is the two aircraft hit head on at a combined 800 miles per hour, both pilots were killed on impact, and he was being held back because debris and aircraft fuel was still raining down over the area and we didn’t need the crowd rushing in to get in our way.

That was when I discovered that the media isn’t in the business of selling truth. They are in the business of selling advertising space. The best way to do that is to pander to the masses. The MSM is nothing more than bullshit clickbait, and has been since, well, forever.

There is no Pravda in Izvestia, and there is no Izvestia in Pravda.

By Divemedic, ago