Divemedic

I detest security theater. The security measures that have been put in place at various public venues have not done a thing to actually make us safer, and actually make us less safe. All these measures have done is make people FEEL safe, while providing no real safety. There is a lot of crime on the property of the theme parks, even being perpetrated by the very employees of the parks themselves, and not just a few times, either.

A few years ago, I took a class on terrorism at a local college in pursuit of my degree in Public Safety. One of the things that I did for the class was plan a terrorist attack on a soft target in the area, and then see what steps should have been taken to prevent it. As a result, I saw that the security at these locations was there only for show. I continued to check other locations and saw how flimsy the security was, and used some of these checks as the basis for a post or two.

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.

The latest theme park to be tested is Sea World. This park announced that they are tightening security, with multiple police officers working off duty, in uniform, as Sea World screeners. Supposedly, all guests entering the park must pass through magnetometers. It seems like it would be difficult for a terrorist, deranged criminal, or other person with ill intent to get into the park. I decided to try.

It turned out to be trivially easy. I signed up to dine at SeaWorld’s “Dine with Sharks” restaurant. We were told to meet the employees at a side entrance of the park, where we had our bags checked before boarding a shuttle bus. Since I didn’t have a bag, I got right on the bus while carrying a Smith & Wesson Shield in 9mm with a spare magazine, and a can of pepper spray.

The bus drove through a back gate, where we were released into the theme park itself in order to eat dinner and then explore the park. We didn’t have to circumvent security, the theme park’s employees did it for us.

Even though a man with a gun entered the park, nothing happened.

Keep this in mind:

People want to be able to live their lives by the rules they set for themselves. That is universal.

The second thing that many people want is to be able to force others to live by rules that they themselves set for those others. Those many who would force others to live by those rules do so through strength. That strength can be obtained through physical toughness: the weak are overpowered by those who are larger, faster, or can lift heavier things. It can be obtained through force of numbers: the many overpower the few.

We establish governments to support both of those goals. A limited government can support the goal of freedom. The danger is that the government with enough power to allow one group to overpower the other, and force rules on others, has enough power to take everyone’s freedom, leaving all citizens at the mercy of the governing power at the helm.

The founders wrote about this (emphasis added):

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

When we established the government, the intent was to restrict its powers, so that the second goal of using it to control others was impossible. When that fails, people will want to part ways with that government. Just as the citizens of Catalonia are doing, or at least trying to do. Their government is responding the way that governments always try to do. They are using force and clamping down.

This is going to be instructive.

I have a few magazines and parts for some firearms that I no longer own, and I wish to sell.

I have 13 magazines that fit G3 pattern rifles, such as the H&K91, or the PTR91. They are missing some bluing on the edges, but work fine. $2 each.

I have a 40 round steel AK pattern magazine. Like new $10.

Also, 3 Glock 19 magazines, factory. Like new. $20 each.

I will sell all of the magazines as a lot for $85.

I also have a stainless steel extended, threaded match grade barrel for a Glock 19. It has had less than 200 rounds through it. Storm Lake manufacture, 1/2″  28 threads for suppressor. With thread protector. It is 4.75″ long. I am selling this barrel for $170. 

All prices are plus shipping. Let me know where you are, and I will quote you a price for shipping. I will not ship to places where I know they are illegal to possess, such as NY, MD, MA, HI, NJ, CA, CO, or CT. I will also not ship to IL. Also, I make as much effort as I can to weed out prohibited areas, but you are responsible to ensure that the items are legal to own in your area.

If you are interested, let me know in comments and make an offer.

My wife was watching a show called “Chicago Fire” where some people, including an off duty paramedic, were trapped in a building collapse of a parking garage. One of the vehicles had a CB radio in it. The trapped people were listening to the CB, and heard the rescuers on their radios outside saying they were pulling back.

This is stupid. CB radios operate in the 11 meter band, meaning that the wavelength is about 11 meters. That makes the frequency near 27 mHz. This band is exclusively used for CB radios. The signal is an AM analog signal.

Public safety radios are allocated different bands. Chicago is operating in the 460 mHz band, and they are using FM digital signals. There are some channels in Chicago that are analog, but they are still in the 460 mHz band.

This requires different radios, different antennas, and the two are nowhere near compatible.

In short, there is NO WAY that an AM CB radio in the 27mHz band can receive an FM digital signal in the 460 mHz band. 

For years, police have arrested anyone who harms a police K9, claiming that the dogs are defacto police dogs. There is a Federal law that makes it a felony to harm police dogs.  I have long said that, if it is a crime for a private citizen to harm a dog, then police officers should also face charges if, through negligence or deliberate action, they bring harm to a police dog.

Well, a police officer left his K9 in a police car outside of the courthouse for hours. The dog died, and the cop is facing criminal charges. He is trying to get them dismissed. I think he should face charges and pay the price.

After the hurricane passed, many of the people in my area filed for disaster assistance. Two weeks later, many of them received checks for $800 or more. No inspections, no questions asked. I asked them, and the ones who got the cash said that they had no damage to their homes, and told FEMA so. They got a check anyway. All I got was an inspector who came to my house, and a denial letter saying that we didn’t have enough damage to receive anything.

The inspector told us that the $800 was only given away during the first two weeks, and now that the disaster was more than a  month ago, that money was no longer available. The thing is, we applied just a week after the storm, and were told we had to wait for an inspection.

The government makes no sense at all.

So a man who was arrested for possession of Methamphetamines, after two field test kits said that white flakes found on his floorboard were drugs, sues the city of Orlando after the state crime lab certifies that they were actually the frosting from a glazed donut and wins $37,500.

The problem here is that the cops use their own pocket knives to put the sample into the test kit. The knives are contaminated with drugs from previous tests. So the test turns out positive.

Cops should have to report when they screw up arrests like this, so a person arrested is able to bring up the cops error rate in court. Drug dogs, too. When the police department makes a mistake like this, at least part of the money should come from the cop’s pocket.

Just a week ago, I posted that the casinos in Las Vegas would not be able to search everyone entering the casino. It turns out that I was right:

I ran across this post where a guy is claiming that the shooter in Vegas knew nothing about guns because guns are hard to shoot, and courts can’t issue secret gag orders.

Here is my open letter as a reply:
There are plenty of courts that issue sealed orders, beginning with the FISA court. Even regular courts routinely issue gag orders that are sealed. I myself have been involved with a court case that involves a gag order, and that order has been in effect and sealed for nearly five years.

Bump stocks affect accuracy because it is impossible to hold the weapon on target with high precision while the thing is bouncing back and forth in the stock. The distance isn’t that great, according to Google maps, it is only 280 yards from the hotel to the stage. It is 400 yards to the center of the concert area. My ballistics table says that you only have about a 25 inch drop at that range, and a 55 grain bullet still has more than 300 foot pounds of energy at 400 yards.

The guy is full of crap when he talks about the shooting distance being the hypotenuse. The bullet only sees the horizontal component of the distance when computing drop, but sees the flight distance (hypotenuse) when computing energy. Even so, the hypotenuse of the triangle formed by a 32 story hotel and a 400 yard horizontal distance is only 414 yards. That really doesn’t matter a whole lot to energy.

As to accuracy: At 400 yards, one minute of angle is equal to approximately 4.18 inches. This means that the concert venue at 500 feet wide, being 400 yards away, is more than 1400 minutes of angle wide. The shooter wasn’t trying to hit individual people, which I admit would take quite a bit of skill. Instead, he was shooting into an area the size of two football fields, and hoping to hit any of the 22,000 people who were densely packed into that area. This would be the equivalent of shooting at a standard highway billboard (which is 48 feet wide) at a distance of about 100 yards. NOT a difficult shot. Stevie Wonder could make a shot like that.

Only about 200 of the injuries/deaths were due to GSW. The rest of the injuries were due to being trampled or otherwise injured while taking cover. There were 22,000 people in the venue, and he hit less than 1% of them- meaning he missed more than 99% of the time.

I don’t know why I am getting sucked into these discussions.