Divemedic

The Only Winning Move

The left is using the shooting in New York and is going to come at us with every gun control move that they have. There is nothing that they love as much as pools of blood that they can joyously dance in while they call for more control that everyone knows will not work.

  • You could counter their arguments by pointing out that the US, despite having more guns in private hands than the rest of the world combined, still has fewer homicides than half of the nations in the world.
  • You could argue that, even in nations where guns are banned, suicide rates are much higher than the US. The US has a combined suicide/homicide rate of 16.6 per 100,000 while South Korea, where firearms are virtually illegal, has a rate of 29.8. Canada, where there is severe gun control and handguns are virtually illegal: 18.3 per 100,000.
  • You could argue that the US counts all deaths where one person kills another as homicides, while some countries like Australia only counts a death as a homicide if someone is arrested and charged for the killing. Unsolved murders don’t count. Murders where the killer is already dead don’t count. This skews the statistics.
  • You could also argue that population density has a larger correlation to homicide and suicide rates than does gun ownership.

At one point or another, we have all made each of these arguments in gun control debates. They are based upon logic and facts, and backed with scores of studies and mountains of statistical evidence.

And they are always ignored.

The left bases its arguments on emotion and catchphrases. The don’t care about science, don’t care about evidence, unless it is convenient to do so in support of their position. All other facts are ignored. Arguing something like this is a waste of time. I know, because I have wasted my time like this for decades.

As they say in War Games, the only winning move is not to play. So don’t.

I will not turn in my guns. Just in case you feel that confiscating them is the answer and you send the cops over to take them, there are two outcomes of that plan.

  1. You will lose a lot of cops. Eventually, the cops will stop taking the chance.
  2. You won’t get anywhere near all of the guns

So my answer to gun laws is this: No.

Your move.

By Divemedic, ago

Shut Out Opposing Opinions

There is a local media story about the New York mass shooter. One of the comments on the story was “Why didn’t a good guy with a gun neutralize him before he killed?”

I typed a great answer: “Because NY has made sure that very few good guys can carry guns. Especially not in black neighborhoods. It is a difficult and expensive process that requires a visit to a judge and must be repeated every 5 years. Despite having similar populations, Florida has ten times as many concealed weapons permit holders than New York.
On top of that, New York doesn’t allow anyone to own magazines that hold more than ten rounds. The bad guy in this case ignored that law.”

That comment lasted less than 20 minutes before it was “deactivated” because it violated the community standards. Since the left can’t defend their ideas with logic and facts, they resort to all they know how to do- shut down the debate.

By Divemedic, ago

On Arson

On last week’s post about the use of force to prevent arson, there were some commenters who pointed out that all arson doesn’t justify the use of deadly force. That is correct, especially in one person’s example of someone burning your garden shed. Burning a garden shed or a backyard doghouse usually wouldn’t be a forcible felony. (Although it could be) Still, it is more complicated than that. Of course it is, because any time lawyers get involved, it always is.

Even armed robbery is not always a justification for the use of deadly force. For example, if the other side’s attorney can prove that, for some reason, you knew that the assailant’s firearm wasn’t functional, then you can’t use deadly force. Let’s say that you knew that the pistol in the robber’s hand was either unloaded or that the firing pin was missing. Even if some critter is pointing a gun at you, you can’t just blow his ass away, no matter how much you want to.

Some argued that, if a structure isn’t occupied, arson isn’t a forcible felony. The courts in Florida don’t see it that way. In fact, this particular legal argument has been made numerous times, and Florida courts have struck it down each and every time. See Woody v. State, 847 So.2d 566 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003); Perez v. State, 840 So.2d 1125 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003); Rodriguez v. State, 826 So.2d 464 (Fla. 3d DCA 2002), rehearing denied with opinion, 837 So.2d 1177 (Fla. 3d DCA), review denied, No. SC03-444, 848 So,2d 1155 (Fla. 2003); Diaz v. State, 837 So.2d 436 (Fla. 3d DCA 2002); Delsol v. State, 837 So.2d 428 (Fla. 3d DCA 2002).

Early laws in Florida (before 1979) stated that setting a building on fire was only arson if the building was occupied. That definition was changed in 1979 because many people were finding and using loopholes.

So my thought here, and I can’t find any case law to the contrary, is that an occupiable building (like a church, a house, a business, etc) is presumed to be occupied and this makes it arson. Going back to the “reasonable” belief standard that all gun owners are familiar with means that if you KNOW that no one is inside the building, shooting someone to prevent the arson would be seen as not reasonable.

However, seeing someone beginning to toss a “destructive device” at an occupiable structure would, absent other mitigating factors, be legal, IMO.

By Divemedic, ago

Venezuela as a Map

The Fed is asking businesses to enact a hiring freeze to help fight inflation. The thought here is to cut off the demand for labor, which will prevent wages from increasing. This will in turn lower the amount of money available to chase goods, which will reduce demand and thereby control inflation. In other words, they want to make everyone poorer by keeping you from being able to get a job or run your business.

This is a common scenario for socialism/communism:

  • They enact policies of free stuff, which causes runaway inflation.
  • To combat that inflation, they begin wage and price controls.
  • This causes shortages of goods and labor.

How long will it be before we are eating our pets?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdld7SqnIxE

Inflation won’t be controlled by keeping people poor on purpose. It will be controlled by stopping leftist idiots in the government from doing things like mailing out checks so people can have free Internet.

By Divemedic, ago

‘Ghost’ Gun

Governments are jumping on the boogieman of so-called ‘ghost’ guns, which as you all know, are privately made firearms. That isn’t how they are defining it, though. Just like how the anti-gunners redefined “assault weapons” to be a moving target that no one really can define or understand, ghost guns are a made up term that can mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean.

Cities are passing bans against possessing or even looking longingly at ghost guns, which they are defining as any gun without a serial number. This casts a wide net that will capture such things as C&R firearms. Many firearms made before GCA68 became the law of the land do not have, and were not required to have, serial numbers. To engrave a collectable firearm with a serial number would destroy its value, while not engraving that firearm with a serial number makes you a criminal.

Yet passing a law that prohibits privately made firearms will do as much to stop criminals as it did to stop illicit drug dealers. When a person can make a submachine gun for less than $100 of Home Depot parts and some common hand tools, there is little that can be done to stop them. They are making firearms in caves in Pakistan, and in the jungles of the Philippines:

By Divemedic, ago

Paid Leave for Menstrual Cramps

Spain is proposing a law that would force employers to give women up to 5 days’ paid leave each month so they can stay home when having menstrual cramps.

If this comes to the US, I am going to declare myself to be a tranny so I can get a week of paid leave every month.

Seriously, though: why would any employer hire premenopausal women under such conditions?

By Divemedic, ago

Physics are a Bitch

Florida agriculture commissioner Niki Fried announced that she is adopting the Biden plan of selling gasoline that is 15 percent Ethanol (E15), instead of ten percent (E10). This move, they claim, will save motorists 10 cents per gallon, or about 2 percent.

The problem is that E15 has about 3 percent less energy per gallon than does E10, meaning that you will spend the same amount per mile because of increased fuel usage, making this plan a wash. The left is just hoping that you are too stupid to notice.

By Divemedic, ago

Yesterday

About yesterday’s post. It’s been a trying week. At work in the ED, I had a guy with a serious heart attack (STEMI alert), some COVID patients, and more. The one that took the cake was the woman who was a mother of 3 kids. She was in the middle of a miscarriage and was bleeding to death. Her pulse was 120, her blood pressure was 72/42 and a MAP of 52. Her ER bad looked like a movie murder scene. Watching her fight to save her own life as well as the life of her unborn child, while at the same time watching other people literally fight to kill others. It made for a tough day at work. Emotionally draining.

On top of that, I am trying to complete my CEN certification while at the same time completing my BSN, all while working PRN in the emergency department. This will mean completing my 6th college degree. Lots going on that was physically tiring. Oh, did I mention that I am on the HOA board, my wife is dealing with some (minor) health issues, and I also had to do some minor repairs on the rental?

There are times when the cup is empty, when you are simply out of the energy that you need to do all of the things, and yesterday was one of them.

Today will be better, once I am done with today’s scheduled 3 hour class. I expect to be back to my usual opinionated self this afternoon. Thanks for listening to my venting.

By Divemedic, ago

Tired

For nearly fifteen years, I have been writing this blog. For decades before that, I was active on all sorts of websites and in person, trying to convince and debate Natural Rights: Locke’s theories on rights in general, and RKBA specifically. Even the old Packing.org There are some times in that you just get tired. You feel like the people you debate are true believers, and it doesn’t matter what you say, they aren’t prone to logic.

Seeing the cheating on elections, the violent protests, the other violent behaviors makes you think that talking is pointless. You see that a violent conflict is coming and wonder if those who are rushing us to a seemingly inevitable civil war will come to their senses.

It makes one tired. Couple that with my incredibly busy workweek, and there are times when it is hard to string words together. Don’t worry, I am not shutting down the blog, but there are times when it is hard to find words to say that haven’t already been said.

Maybe tomorrow.

By Divemedic, ago

Nailed It

Revisiting the police shooting at a Central Florida Target store, it looks like the police DID get this one right. There was a gun in the car (a gold plated Glock with a 30 round magazine) and the criminals tried using their car to ram police vehicles and run over a deputy.

The deputies involved were detectives and were not road deputies, so did not have body cameras. However, the police did release security camera video from the Target store that shows the Audi with the critters in it ramming police vehicles.

Of course, there are apologists for the criminals. Sandman USAF had this to say:

There is no law in Florida that says I can’t carry an extended magazine just like I can have a military style rifle thay I have used in Afghanistan. No one should die for petty theft of some trading cards.

My reply to that was this:

Lie. The rifle you would have carried in Afghanistan would have been a military M4, which is classified under US law as a “machine gun” and has been outlawed since 1986. There is a law that says you can’t carry a handgun unless you have a permit, which people under 21 cannot get. They didn’t die for Pokemon and Pizza. They died because they tried to use their car as a weapon against cops.

Had they surrendered to the cops, it is likely that nothing would have happened to them. Target doesn’t want even charges pressed. Even if Target wanted to press charges, a plea deal would have meant misdemeanor petty theft charges and some probation. Instead, these pillars of the community (/sarc) turned what would have been a stern talking to into attempted murder of a cop and a police shooting. Stupidity.

By Divemedic, ago