Divemedic

They Used to Lynch Horse Thieves

Remember when I said when the police can’t or won’t enforce the law, citizens will begin DIY law enforcement? It bears repeating: Police are actually there to protect people who have been accused of crimes and protect those people to ensure that their rights to a fair and impartial trial are protected. Once people feel like there is no justice to be had, they lose respect for the law. Anarchy can be the only result of this.

That happened on Friday afternoon in Birmingham, AL. A man whose car was stolen didn’t feel like the cops were doing enough to find his stolen vehicle. They tracked it down to nearby Birmingham and followed it. When they eventually confronted the thieves, a shootout ensued. Two thieves received life threatening wounds, with two others being hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries. No bystanders were hit. The police can’t have citizens making them look incompetent, so they want to arrest the owner of the vehicle for taking the law into his own hands. The press refers to the thieves as “victims” of a shooting.

The running shootout caused 2 miles of the Interstate to be a crime scene, with shell casings littering the roadway. This happens because the police can’t or won’t enforce the law. In the nine years that I have lived in this house, my vehicles have been the target of attempted burglaries twice: Once resulted in no arrest. The second time, the burglar got probation and his record expunged, even though he broke into four vehicles, stealing one of them. One of the cars broken into was a police cruiser that he stole a fingerprint reader from, another was a truck where he stole a handgun, on top of stealing one of the vehicles.

In the last 23 years, I have had 13 interactions with with the police, and I can’t say that any of those interactions were positive:

  • In 2000, my car was broken into, and my stereo, radar detector, cash, and other items totaling about $600 was stolen from it. The crime scene investigator came out and took fingerprints. They got a hit, gave me the name of the person, and asked me to sign a paper saying that this man did not have permission to be in my vehicle. A month later, I was told that the criminal would not be arrested because the crime was too minor to waste resources on.
  • In 2001, I was pulled over for running a red light. I let the cop know I was carrying, even though Florida law doesn’t require me to. He then threatened to kill me. I don’t inform any more.
  • Same year, I got a traffic ticket for $184, which I paid. Eleven years later, the court sent me a letter saying that they miscalculated the fine for the ticket, and I owe them another $32. I refused to pay it because the statute of limitations had passed and there was nothing that they could do about it.
  • In 2004, a cop told my girlfriend how to use the courts to steal my stuff by claiming that I had committed domestic violence. It took me months to get it straightened out. 
  • I foolishly told the above story to a GF in 2012 and that one copied the scheme. When I beat it in court, she openly told the judge that her new boyfriend was a cop, and he would find a reason to have me arrested. My attorney asked the judge to make sure that statement was entered into and part of the record for the trial.
  • In 2005, I had someone steal a check for over $200 from my mailbox, forge my name and deposit the money into his bank account. The number of the account that the check was deposited into was printed on the back of the check. I went to the station to report the crime. I had a copy of the check. All the cop had to do was go to the bank, get the name of the account owner, and make the arrest. Anyone could have done it, it wasn’t a hard crime to solve. The cops told me that they didn’t have the manpower to solve a crime for such a small amount of money. On the way home from the police station, I passed 6 cops with cars pulled over, writing traffic tickets.
  • As a paramedic in 2010, I ran a call on a report of man who was unconscious and slumped over the wheel at an intersection. When I got there, he was obviously drunk, so I reached in and took the keys out of the ignition and put them on the vehicle’s roof. When the cops got there, they let the man call his girlfriend and let her give him a ride home. They said that they couldn’t prove that he was behind the wheel. I told them I would testify, but then the cop told me that his shift was over soon, and he didn’t want to stay late to do the paperwork. I found out later he was a friend of one of the cops.
  • In 2016, I had to draw a gun on someone who then fled the scene when he claimed to be a cop and tried to “arrest” me but wouldn’t show ID or a badge. I called the cops and the one who showed up didn’t even take a report. Exactly zero effort was made to catch the guy.
  • In 2018, I had a police supervisor tell me that silencers and machine guns were illegal. I offered to bring in NFA items with the proper paperwork, so the cops could be trained to recognize the proper forms and know the law. They refused, and told me “Keep that stuff out of my town or you will be arrested.”
  • Also in 2018, an armed man was burglarizing cars in my neighborhood. He was caught on my security cameras. The cops used my footage to catch the burglar, but he reached a plea deal that included expunging his record. All he got was probation, even though he broke into four vehicles, stealing one of them.
  • In 2022, I was assisting in the treatment of a patient who got violent with me and had to be physically restrained. He was a retired NYPD detective. He swore that I attacked him for no reason and tried to choke him. He called me a “punk ass bitch” and said that he was a retired NYC police officer, and that he would find me on the street and “fucking kill” me. I was interviewed by police detectives, and suspended without pay until I was cleared of criminal wrongdoing.
  • In January of this year, a woman threatened me at work. She threatened to follow me home to see where I lived, then wait until I went to work and murder my family. I formed my employer to call the police, but they did nothing but take a report. That’s fine. At least there is a record if I have to smoke the crazy bitch at the end of my driveway.
  • Then I watched a police officer use his Taser to attack a prisoner while the prisoner was shackled by all four limbs to the hospital bed.

As the wheels come off, you will see more and more of this. People WILL lose faith in our legal system. Things WILL get much worse.

By Divemedic, ago

Deal Alert

I have no technical problem with Glocks. They are well functioning firearms, and Gaston’s invention changed the way pistols are made and marketed. I own several. With that being said, I don’t like shooting or carrying them as much as I do other handguns. It isn’t a quality problem. They just don’t feel right in my hand.

My preferred handgun is the Smith and Wesson M&P series. I own them in multiple models and calibers: M&P, the M&P 2.0, the Shield, Shield EZ, and the Shield Plus. I have them in .380, 9mm, .40S&W, .357Sig, and .45ACP. I’ve even been considering a 10mm. Still, I think that Smith & Wesson hit it out of the park for concealed carry when they came out with the Shield Plus. I own several or three of them.

I did a review of a Performance Center Shield Plus about a year and a half ago. Smith and Wesson hit a home run with this handgun. It may very well be the ultimate concealed carry handgun. A micro compact 9mm holding 10, or 13 rounds, and it is the same size as 8 shot 9mms. Smith and Wesson also sells magazines for the Shield Plus that hold 15 rounds. The only real issue is that the pistol with a microdot installed isn’t always convenient for EDC. It won’t fit in my Vaultek Slide, and I had to have a Milt Sparks holster custom made to fit it. For that reason, I also have a couple without the microdot sight on them. The Shield Plus comes in a few versions.

If those prices aren’t low enough, Smith and Wesson is offering a $50 rebate for every Shield pistol sold during November and December. A new quality EDC handgun for $350? Yes, please. (I just got one with the microdot slide cut for $400, after the rebate. I paid for it with a cashback credit card, so that cuts the price down even more.)

Disclaimer: I don’t advertise, and receive nothing for my reviews or articles. I have no relationship with any products, companies, or vendors that I review here, other than being a customer. If I ever *DO* have a financial interest, I will disclose it. Otherwise, I pay what you would pay. No discounts or other incentives here that you can’t get. I only post these things because I think that my readers would be interested.

By Divemedic, ago

ID Theft

Because of a major data breach, I get free credit monitoring for the next 5 years. This morning, I got multiple alerts from the monitoring service that multiple banks are reporting that someone is using my identity to try and open bank accounts using my name and address. One of those banks is Bank of America. I tried calling them, but their automated systems won’t let you speak with a representative unless you enter your account number.

How am I supposed to know a fraudulent account number? So I am trying a number listed for their fraud department. As of the time of this post, I have been on hold for 12 minutes.

By Divemedic, ago

Censorship

Remember that the courts are allowing the government to censor social media. That’s why these pictures:

Are being pulled down and censored by social media just as quickly as they can, IMO. We are living in a dictatorship where the government is using intermediaries to censor the speech of its citizens.

By Divemedic, ago

Winners Get to Punish Losers

Scotty claims that I am outdated in my opinions on the so-called “rules” of warfare. This is what he claims are the “rules” of war. Let’s take a look at what they really are.

  • The Hague Convention(s). There were two- held in 1899 and 1907. The one in 1899 concentrated on the outlawing of poisons in warfare, the killing of enemy combatants who have surrendered, looting of a town or place, and the attack or bombardment of undefended towns or habitations. Inhabitants of occupied territories may not be forced into military service against their own country and collective punishment is forbidden. I would point out that every signatory of the treaties arising out of this convention has violated them whenever it suited them.
  • The second Hague convention in 1907 was a set of rules for naval warfare and was passed to help Britain (then the largest and most powerful Navy) to retain its supremacy at sea. It didn’t work.
  • The Geneva Convention(s). The Geneva Conventions concern only protected non-combatants in war and how they can’t be imprisoned. I will let the prisoners in Gitmo explain that one to you.
  • The 1925 Geneva Protocol. It bans the use of chemical and biological weapons in war. That one has been violated numerous times, and the US had a sizeable poison gas stockpile until July of this year, with plans of using them against the Soviets in a European land war. The only reason they weren’t used is that the anticipated war never happened.
  • United Nations Charter. This is an international debating society that is largely funded by the US. It spends most of its time slamming the US, while it’s ‘peacekeepers’ spend their time raping the civilian populations in the areas they are nominally observing.
  • Nuremberg Trials and Nuremberg Principles. This was nothing more than an ex post facto declaration that permitted the winners of WW2 to punish the losers. This has been done after every war, ever. (See the southern ‘reconstruction’ after the Civil war, the salting of the farmland of Carthage by Rome, etc.)
  • 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. More ex post facto punishment of the losers of WW2 by the winners.
  • 1974 United Nations Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict. Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict. The UN themselves violates this on a regular basis.
  • 1977 United Nations Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques. This one bans the use of weather modification during wartime to protect the environment. This treaty is followed simply because the technology doesn’t exist to break it.
  • 1977 Geneva Protocols. This one is there to protect the wounded, the sick, the shipwrecked, prisoners of war and civilians who find themselves in enemy hands. One of the things it does is ban the arming of medical personnel marked with either the Red Cross or the Red Crescent.
  • 1980 United Nations Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW). This one bans the use of land mines, booby traps, incendiary devices, blinding laser weapons and demands the clearance of explosive remnants of war. Many countries, the US included, has used each and every one of these in conflicts around the globe. The US is currently suppling many of these weapons to Ukraine for use against Russia. The US didn’t clean up shit in Afghanistan. I would also point out that the US has always used what they euphemistically call the “mechanical ambush”- for example a tripwire set to detonate a claymore mine that is aimed down a trail. Just read many of the field manuals published by the US Army as an example.
  • 1997 Ottawa Treaty. This one prohibits the use of landmines. Need I point out how many nations and conflicts are still using them today?

The simple fact is this: Countries set these rules to attempt to prevent their enemies from using effective weapons, but continue to violate these “laws” whenever it suits them. Don’t begin to tell me that the US cares one whit about civilian casualties. Just ask the residents of Dresden, Nagasaki, or Hiroshima about that. Even the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts saw more than half a million civilian deaths, and the US has never held anyone accountable for that.

But post Nuremberg, post Yugoslavian civil wars, post Serbo-Coatian Civil war, and Kosovo war the international community has laid teeth to the idea that if you violate the rules of war, the laws of war, you will not get away with it. We are still having discussions about 90-100 year old men maybe having been concentration camp guards or complicit actors to genocide.

That’s complete bullshit. By “international community” you mean that the US and their allies are using those deaths as an excuse to push their agenda on the rest of the world, while turning a blind eye to its own and China’s abuses. (See the Uyghur massacre)

Are there rules of war? I dunno ask those Abu-Ghraib guards who went to prison

Those guys went to prison while even worse abuses were happening in US “extraordinary rendition” policies around the world. Those guys went to jail for embarrassing their chain of command more than for what they actually did.

I would take on the rest of his comment, but it wandered off topic into the reasons why we need to support the Ukraine conflict, nuke Russia, and other neocon warhawk talking points before supporting the Israelis wiping out the residents of Gaza, which of course violates most of the “laws” he pointed out in the beginning, which supports my point-

The point to me saying that there are no laws of warfare other than to win is this- the only people who have ever been punished for violating “the rules of war” are the people who lose the war, because winning the war is the ONLY thing that matters. To the winners go the spoils, might makes right, etc. After the war is over, the winners get to punish the losers by using the “international laws” as a pretext for show trials that are designed to humiliate the losers of the conflict.

By Divemedic, ago