Divemedic

I compiled a list of the 19 deadliest attacks in US history. In compiling this list, I only included killings that were the result of a single event. In researching this post, I found that there were serial killers who carried out their crimes over years or months, and those were not included in this list.

1 On 9/11, there were 2,996 dead and over 6,000 injured. The weapons used were box cutters and airplanes.

2  October 31, 1999: Gameel al-Batouti cried out “I entrust myself to Allah” 11 times in Arabic as he deliberately piloted a plane full of passengers into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 217 people.

3 The Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995. There were 168 dead and over 680 injured. The weapon used was a bomb made from fertilizer and diesel fuel.

4 The Hartford Circus Fire. 167 dead, 682 injured. Weapon used: fire

5 The Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857. There were 120 settlers killed when their wagon train was ambushed by Mormons. (I hesitated to include this one since it was a group of 20 Mormons who committed the killings, but if you are going to include 9/11, I figured you should include this one.)

6 The Happy Land fire of 1990: 87 are killed when a man sets a nightclub on fire.

7 The Pulse Nightclub shooting, 2016. 49 dead, 53 injured. The weapon was an MCX rifle.

8 The Bath School massacre of 1927: 45 dead, and 58 injured. The weapon used were a pair of bombs.

9 Pacific Air Flight 773 of 1964: 45 killed when a man murdered the pilot and copilot of an airplane, which subsequently crashed.

10 Continental Flight 11 bombing of 1955: A man blew up the plane with a bomb.

11 Pacific Southwest Flight Flight 1771 of 1987: 43 people were killed when a man shot and killed the pilot and copilot of the plane, which subsequently crashed.

12 New York Bombing of September 1920: There were 38 killed and several hundred injured. The weapon was a bomb.

13 National Airlines Flight 2511 of 1960. 33 people killed by a bomb on an airplane.

14 Virginia Tech massacre of 2007. 32 dead. The gunman was a South Korean student that had been showing signs of mental instability.

15 The Upstairs Lounge Fire in New Orleans on June 24, 1973 was an arson that was intended to kill the patrons of a gay bar. It worked, killing 32 and injuring dozens. It was started with a Molotov cocktail.

16 Newtown School shooting of 2012. 33 dead. The shooter used an AR-15 rifle that he acquired by murdering his mother.

17 Dorothy Mae Arson of 1982. 25 killed. The arsonist claimed he didn’t mean to kill anyone, and only set the fire because he was stoned on marijuana and angry at his uncle, who was in the building.

18 The Luby’s Cafeteria Massacre of 1991. A total of 23 people were killed by a spree shooter.

19 The LA times was attacked with a bomb in 1910, killing 21.

Murder weapon
Of the above 19 killings:
4 of them included an airplane as the murder weapon
6 of them were committed by people using a bomb
4 of them were committed by arsonists or people with an incendiary device
4 were spree shootings
1 (The Mountain Meadows Massacre) was committed by a group of people with multiple weapons, including gunfire, knives, and clubbing)

The fact is that guns have nothing to do with spree killings. In fact, 80 percent of spree killings were not performed by firearms.

The first is a 12 year old playing Texas Flood:

The second is a guy playing Pride and Joy on a toy guitar at Wal Mart.

We keep hearing how not all Muslims are terrorists, and how Islam is the religion of peace. Since I love looking at data, we will do that here.

There are 3.3 million Muslims in the United States. According to a 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center, 65 percent of the Muslim-American population are first-generation immigrants, and 61 percent of the foreign-born arrived in the 1990s or this decade. In fact, the US admits approximately 250,000 Muslims per year into the country.

In the fifteen years since 9/11, approximately 2 million Muslims have immigrated to the US.

Since June 17, 2015, there have been 5 confirmed terror attacks on US soil, involving at least 8 suspects. There have been a total of 73 killed and 86 injured.

Eight terrorists out of 2 million doesn’t sound like a lot, since that is only one terrorist out of about 250,000 people, until you realize that this is far higher than any other demographic.

Chattanooga TN military attacks, five dead and two injured. The attacker was a Muslim born in Kuwait.
San Bernardino shooting, sixteen dead and 23 injured. Two immigrant Muslims are the suspects.
Ohio machete attack, one dead and four injured, the suspect is a Muslim Immigrant.
UC Merced stabbing attack, one dead and four injured, US born Muslim attacker (first generation)
Orlando nightclub shooting, 50 dead and 53 injured, an US born Muslim attacker who was a first generation American, with his Muslim Jordanian wife, who has since disappeared.

For some reason, the earlier post about Gary Johnson and gun control is having issues.

Here is the video of a Libertarian campaign spokesman:

He favors it, as long as it is done right, and as long as they let him have pot and hookers, I guess.

I despise that companies with anti-gun and pro-child molester policies, like Disney. However, far too many of my friends want to go there, so I have passes to all of the major Central Florida theme parks: Sea World, Disney, and Universal Studios.

These parks are all what is called a “non permissive” environment for people with concealed weapons. That is, no one is permitted to have weapons on property, but this is only a corporate policy, not the law. It is perfectly legal to have a concealed weapon on your person, but if you are caught with one, they will ask you to leave. As far as I know, this includes police officers who are not on duty. To enforce this policy, security has a mandatory bag inspection and randomly runs those entering through a magnetometer. For some events, ALL persons entering are required to pass through the magnetometer.

I have used my pass to thoroughly test the theme park security systems. They all failed spectacularly. Let me explain the flaws that I saw:

1 About a month ago, I went to one of the parks and, as usual, skipped the bag check because I had no bag. As it turns out, every person who didn’t have a bag was asked to go through the magnetometer. The security failure here is that the magnetometer is not random. If a person had a bag, they were not being asked to go through it. So, bring a bag, and no magnetometer. Non random checks are easy to beat. I had no firearm on me that day, because we were there to experience some adult beverages with some friends, and I do not carry firearms when drinking alcohol. Even so, the search still missed a can of pepper spray and a push knife.

2 When going through the bag check, the security guards only give a perfunctory look into the main compartments of a bag. On multiple occasions, a Coronado Concealed carry Hobo bag, with its hidden compartments, was used and not thoroughly searched. As a result, a Smith and Wesson 642 was missed every time this method was tried.

3 Even if you are asked to go through the magnetometer, it proved easy to beat as well. Wear a belt with a large metal buckle, like this one. Then carry a small handgun like a Smith and Wesson Bodyguard or a Smith and Wesson 642 in a Thunderwear holster or a pair of boxer briefs with a pocket for a cup. (The Bodyguard is more comfortable in these holsters). When the security guard wanded the front of my body, the detector went off…exactly as expected when the detector is placed in close proximity to a large metal belt buckle.  I lifted my shirt so he could see the buckle.  When the alarm sounded, he already expected it and attributed the alert to the belt buckle instead of the gun stashed just underneath it.  The rule is: “show security what they expect to see.”  The guard expected that his wand would go off when passed over a large metal belt buckle.  It’s up to me to use this expectation to my advantage when I conceal my weapons.

Keep in mind that most of these places are paying security somewhere in the area of $12 an hour or so. These rent a cops are not that sharp, or they would be making double or triple that as real cops. They are being asked to screen tens of thousands of people a day, and just like garrison troops, they become lazy and complacent. They must sit there and check thousands of people in the hot Florida sun for hours on end, and do it for very little pay. They aren’t going to be thrilled to investigate your crotch too closely, and if they do, it is inevitable that they will eventually get sued, so they don’t.

In short, it is easy to get a weapon into a non-permissive environment with just a little forethought and ingenuity. I am sure that there are other ways, but these have worked for me so far. Let me point out a couple of things:

Nothing that I did here was illegal. If I had been caught, the most that would happen is that I would be asked to leave, and perhaps given a trespass warning. Don’t carry a weapon in any place where you are prohibited by law from doing so.  Use these techniques only in places where it is LEGAL, but against company policy, to carry a weapon.

One other thing to keep in mind.  It was EASY for me to get weapons into a “secured” venue.  I could have very easily taken more or larger weapons.  Do you think that an active killer or terrorist couldn’t do the same thing?  Don’t think you are “safe” because there is a rent-a-cop with a metal detector at the front door of the event you are attending. If this were to happen, don’t think for a minute that Disney, or any other large company, is going to take the blame for what happened. You will be dead, and they will absolve themselves of all responsibility for creating a defenseless victim zone.

We already know that the Orlando shooter looked at Disney theme parks as a potential target. ANY place where people gather is a potential target for terrorists. Keep your eyes open, stay armed, and be ready to take action.

To all of you who support Gary Johnson and his “weed and hookers” platform, he is now in favor of destroying due process and using a secret list to deny firearm rights.

EDITED TO ADD: Here is the link I should have included.

Anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time knows that I think Disney is a horrible company, and I rarely defend them, but in the case of the alligator attack, I think placing blame on Disney is wrong.

A gator is a wild animal. They are EVERYWHERE in Florida, as are other animals that have been known to attack and even kill in Florida:  rattlesnakes, bees, Black widow and Brown Recluse spiders, Black Bears, Bobcats, wasps, and Cottonmouth Moccasins, not to mention sharks. All of these animals can and do kill people, especially small children. As a child growing up here, there were some things that I was taught:
1 Don’t put your hands or feet anywhere that you cannot see.
2 Step on logs, not over them.
3 Piles of debris like firewood and leaves are home to rattlesnakes and vnomous spiders. Do not let children play in them.
4 Assume that all natural bodies of water have alligators in them.
 5 Breeding and egg laying season is April through September. Alligators are dangerous and territorial during this time.
6 Do not let toddlers and pets play near water. They are small enough to be food for alligators.
7 Do not swim in the ocean, ponds, lakes, or any other natural body of water from a half hour before sunset to a half hour after sunrise. The dark hours are when predators hunt, and are the times when human senses are degraded.

The local theme parks hire off duty police, fire, and EMS personnel to staff their parks. I had part time a job at one of them in the Health Services Department. I once saw a man and a small child feeding a squirrel, and told them to stop, because the squirrels are known to be aggressive. The father told me, “Mind your own f**king business.”

Ten minutes later, I was called to return to that area for an animal bite. You guessed it, the squirrel had bitten the little girl. The father was there, demanding that we locate and kill the squirrel to make sure it wasn’t rabid. I laughed and explained to him that we were not likely to find the same squirrel again (there are hundreds of them in that area) and that his daughter would have to go to the doctor for the rabies vaccines.  I made sure to document the earlier contact in my report, because you just know he was going to hire a lawyer.

 This alligator attack would not be national news if the child had been killed by a swam of bees, a spider, a snake, or had drowned. There was a no swimming sign there for a reason. Now there are people who claim that the “No swimming” sign should have been more specific, and specifically warned of alligators. I disagree, because what would have happened if the sign had specifically warned of alligators, and the child had been bitten by a water moccasin? Should the sign warn of snakes as well? Just how large and comprehensive should these signs be?

When you go swimming in a body of water that is plainly posted with a “No Swimming” sign, you have no one to blame but yourself when something goes wrong.

Yesterday, I posted a little test. Here are the answers:

1:
Rifles A, B, E, and G are fully automatic.
Rifles C, D, and F are semi-automatic

2:
Rifles C and D would have been illegal, because they are semi-automatic rifles with a folding stock and a pistol grip.

The fully automatic guns would be legal to own, as they were not part of the law. Even if all could be modified to semi-automatic operation only, they would still not have been illegal.

3:

Rifles C and D are the only ones on this list that have not been issued to the soldiers of any military.

4:

The criteria used to ban these rifles in 1994 were based only upon cosmetic features, none of which affected the operation or lethality of any of these weapons.

The weapons were:

A: Soviet Ppsh-41 Submachine gun
B: Model 1921 Thompson Submachine Gun
C: AR-15
D: Sig MCX
E: M-2 Carbine
F: M-1 Garand Rifle
G: M-14 Rifle