Divemedic

Incredible changing of attitudes

My fiance, who I began dating two years ago, is from New York, and was initially mildly antigun, and was definitely anti-concealed carry. Her mother was even more so. Her mother would tell me stories about how one of their friends carried a concealed weapon, and how ridiculous and paranoid it was in this day and age, what with all of the police here to protect us, all the while ignorant of the fact that I was carrying a firearm at the time.

Eventually, they discovered my position on carry. There wan’t too much fuss, because they had already known me for some time, and they knew that I wasn’t prone to paranoia or violence. Two years later, we reached a breakthrough:

Yesterday my fiance and her mother, both from New York and both (formerly) moderately antigun, attended a firearm safety course in preparation for applying for their Florida Concealed Weapons permits. The course was billed as “taught by women, for women, with a focus on women’s issues with firearms.” At $100 a person, it wasn’t the cheapest course, but after looking around, I thought it was the best. All ammo and targets were provided, but there was an extra charge of a dollar for eye and ear protection.

According to them, the class began with a review of how crime affects women, and the laws behind firearms in Florida. Then they reviewed firearm basic terms, function, and safety. One woman began crying out of fear, and the instructors handled it well. After lunch, they went to the range, where they spent four hours firing 3 different semi-automatics and 3 different revolvers. They began with a 22 auto, and also fired .38 revolvers, a .380ACP, and 9mm handguns. My fiance’s favorite of the ones they tried was a brand that I had never heard of before. The instructor told them that they can retake the course once for only $10, if they do so within the next year. I thought it was a good deal.

I paid for the course, and now gun rights have two more people who won’t be voting antigun. It was the best $200 I have ever spent on gun rights. If every shooter did that for just one person, that $100 we each spend would double the number of progun people in the US, and the antigunners would virtually disappear.

As for my fiance, she has already made an appointment at the district office to get her CCW permit.

This is how we win: one shooter, one voter, one range trip at a time.

By Divemedic, ago

Truth o meter tells lies

A Florida lawmaker advocating for a law that would allow teachers with concealed weapons permits to carry firearms claimed that school shootings happen in gun free zones, and used the shooting at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College as an example. He stated that this college was a gun free zone.

Truth o meter from Politifact called him a liar. What did they use as the basis for this lie?

The school’s student code of conduct lists the “possession or use, without written authorization, of firearms,” among other weapons and dangerous chemicals or devices, on college property or at college-sponsored events as a punishable offense. There’s a similar policy spelled out on Umpqua’s website.
The clause “without written authorization” is important.
There is a policy prohibiting guns at Umpqua Community College, as Steube said. But students are allowed to have guns on campus if they have a concealed carry permit — essentially what Steube’s HB 4001 wants to codify in Florida.

That talking point can be found all over the liberal media. So who is correct?

It turns out that the anti gun forces are stretching the truth here.

In 2011, the Oregon Court of Appeals overturned the Oregon University System’s longstanding ban of firearms on college campuses, allowing those with concealed carry permits to bring weapons on university grounds.
The following year, the Oregon Senate considered a bill that would have again prohibited the carrying of guns onto school, college, or university grounds in the state. That legislation lost by a single vote.
The day after the vote, the Oregon State Board of Higher Education took up the issue, setting a policy that allows guns on campus, but bars them from college buildings and sporting venues. Umpqua Community College upholds this ban, making an allowance for those “expressly authorized by law or college regulations.”

This is where even Florida law stands: In Florida, a concealed weapons permit holder can have a weapon in his car on school grounds, but cannot have the weapon inside the building. When a shooter is rampaging through my school, the pistol that is in my car 200 yards away from my classroom is useless.

As usual, the anti gunners have only one tool in the tool box: lies.

By Divemedic, ago

Fishing

While reading a news story about police in one town planning to stop people who are not breaking the law, in order to reward their law abiding behavior with coupons and other free goodies, I was appalled. This is another tool that will be used as a police state tool. Let me explain:

The law in the United States is that police must have some idea that you are committing a crime in order to stop and question you. This is called “reasonable suspicion” and it must be based upon some specific set of facts that a person would reasonably believe to be an indication that the person being stopped is breaking the law.
In this case, the police would be stopping someone that they believe ISN’T breaking the law. This stop would then result in the police being able to stop anyone at anytime, for no reason at all. Of course, if a person is then found to be breaking the law, they can be searched and arrested. These stops would soon be used as a method for police to stop and detain people who the police would like to find reasons to arrest, and allow the police to go on a fishing expedition.
I am glad the idea was scrapped here, but there are other places where the policy continues.
By Divemedic, ago

Only ones professional enough to hide in the shadows

In Arizona, a former cop turned lawmaker wants to make it a crime to record a cop’s activities in public. The law states that

people must be at least 20 feet away while recording “law enforcement activity” or farther if officers decide that’s needed. Recording inside private buildings such as homes would be allowed from “an adjacent room or area” unless an officer objects.

The whole reason why people feel the need to record the cops is that police are the ones abusing their authority. Filming the cops is a way to keep them from doing things like planting drugs on people (click the link to see a cop planting drugs on a suspect.)

This law would allow cops to get away with behavior like this cop in Missouri who threatened to plant evidence and even kill the kid:

Especially since it always seems to go one of two ways: the video shows the cops acting properly, or the video is mysteriously “unavailable for technical reasons.”

The lawmaker in this case claims:

“I’ll never forget how I was distracted by someone being behind me while I was making an arrest,” he says. “He could have pulled out a gun just as easily and shot me. And now you have people everywhere with these video cameras in their phones who are walking up behind cops when they are making an arrest.”

I am willing to bet that the number of cops who are shot by a person with a camera are far less than the number of cops who are caught on film committing crimes.

Honest cops should have nothing to fear from a camera. The police have become a criminal gang with badges.

By Divemedic, ago

Active shooter

As a teacher, we are  spending the month training on active shooters. Here a link to an article that we have been asked to read as a part of that training. I want you to read the money quote:

“Never call an unarmed man ‘security’,” Grossman said, “Call him ‘run-like-hell-when-the-man-with-the-gun-shows-up’ but never call an unarmed man security.”

The article talks about having redundant, overlapping layers of security. It talks about how this approach to fires has resulted in a 50 year period in which not one school child has died in a fire. Not one.

One of the points mentioned in the article are:

Armed citizens can help.  Think United 93. Whatever your personal take on gun control, it is all but certain that a killer set on killing is more likely to attack a target where the citizens are unarmed, rather than one where they are likely to encounter an armed citizen response.

Banks have armed guards to protect your money, why don’t we have armed guards to defend our children?

In Florida, if a school decides that they want to hire armed guards, they cannot. It is against the law. If a school wants to allow teachers to be armed, they cannot. It is against the law.
The only option that schools have is an armed police officer on campus. That is NOT defense in depth. It is not redundant.

Yet the schools, and parents, scream that arming teachers would be wrong. They claim that no one should be permitted to have guns around children. They never mention what happens when someone ignores that law, and begins shooting kids.

Now I am not suggesting that we arm ALL teachers, but if just a few teachers, volunteers, were to undergo the training, doesn’t it make sense to arm them?

I became a teacher after I retired from over 20 years as a firefighter and paramedic, where I spent part of my career working with the SWAT team. I spent years as an IDPA competitor, and I am a military veteran. I have carried a concealed weapon for more than 25 years. A permit that has allowed me to carry a weapon into McDonald’s, Disney, public parks, streets and sidewalks. Not once have I used that weapon in a threatening or illegal manner. I have not even had a traffic ticket in more than a decade.

I have spent more than 30 years wearing one uniform or another, defending the people who could not defend themselves, saving lives, and helping others. In that time, I have had dozens of background checks for security clearances, teaching, firefighting, and paramedic licenses, as well as for concealed weapons permits. Again and again over the past three decades, I have proven my character, my devotion, and my trustworthiness.

I would, if necessary, lay down my life in defense of the children that have been placed in my care. Even in Kindergarten. Possibly YOUR children, if you are reading this.
Except the politicians have declared that I am not permitted to do so, because they don’t trust me. So instead, I must sit in the dark, unarmed, unable to protect those children, hiding and waiting for help that may not come, wait with your children to die at the hands of a madman who didn’t obey your laws or your signs.

By Divemedic, ago

Meanwhile, at school

We had a teacher workday recently. During that day, we had a meeting of the science department. Here is how part of it it went:
Head of Science Department: “If we actually graded our students’ performance against the standards, and gave them the grades that we should, two thirds of them would have an F.”
Anatomy teacher: “If we do that, we will all be out of a job.”
Department head: “You got that right. Just give them good grades, and send them down the road.”

It is a losing battle. You assign homework, less than half the class even attempts to do the work, and of that half, three quarters of them copy the answers from another student. I caught a student cheating on an exam by using his cell phone. As per policy, he got a zero and a referral. The parent, rather than being angry at the child for cheating, defended her child by saying that there is no proof that using a cell phone during a test is cheating.

She said that the child was simply texting his mother about picking him up after school, and claimed that we cannot prevent a child from texting his mother. The Vice Principal asked me if I had actually seen the child using the phone to lookup answers. I replied that I cannot see that, because the kid puts the phone away as soon as you approach.

I was told that I must allow the student to take the test without penalty, unless I actually see the student looking up answers. Simply having a phone out during a test is not sufficient, because a phone can be used for doing other things besides looking up answers.

The kids learn nothing, because they cheat on tests all year, do not do homework, and refuse to study. However, if the child gets anything less than a B, parents complain. If more than a handful of the students receive a failing grade, the teacher is in danger of losing their job. The school famously says “There are no bad students, only bad teachers. It is your job as a teacher to find a way to motivate them to learn.”

At the end of the year, the students are given a standardized test to see what they learned in the past year. The test is 30% of the student’s grade, but the score is adjusted. If a child misses every question, the minimum score that is used for their grade is a 58%. This makes it impossible for them to fail the test. The students know this, and unless the student is an honor student, which most are not, they don’t care what grade they get.

However, the school gets graded on how the students do, as do the teachers. If the students of a given school do poorly, the school gets less money from the state. The teachers are also graded on how the students do. If your students do poorly, then you are out of a job.

It is the craziest, most dysfunctional system that I have ever seen. My job depends, not on my performance, but on the performance of a third party, who faces no consequences for poor performance. I have high school seniors as students who are reading at a second grade level, and who cannot even convert grams into kilograms without using an App on their phone. How can I teach them Chemistry?

My job depends on two things:
Keeping parents happy by ensuring that most kids get good grades.
Hoping like hell that the kids do well enough on the standardized tests at the end of the year.

By Divemedic, ago

You want a raise?

On Friday, we went to McDonald’s for breakfast. After 24 minutes, we had still not received the 2 breakfasts that had cost us $16.88. I told an employee that they were going to make us late for work. She replied “It’s OK, I am late for work all of the time, no one cares. You will be fine.” I finally left without getting my food, because I was running late.
Maybe that attitude is the reason why you are stuck working at McDonald’s. I can’t believe that you idiots want $15 an hour.
I wrote the company an email to complain. All I got was this reply:

Hi –
Thanks for your feedback and I apologize for your experience.  I will certainly discuss this matter with our General Manager

That’s it. I will just go to a sit down diner from now on. It will take the same amount of time, likely cost about the same, and at least I will receive my food.

By Divemedic, ago

Blame

By now, all of you  have read about the Muslim who tried to kill a police officer in the name of Allah using a stolen police firearm as his weapon of choice. His mother stated that he was a “devout Muslim.” I want to make sure that some facts of this shooting see a wider audience:

A few facts from this story at Philly.com:

Edward Archer confessed to investigators that he had acted “in the name of Islam,” authorities said.

In the name of Islam, eh?

 In the fall of 2011, he traveled to Saudi Arabia for a pilgrimage to Mecca and stayed for several weeks, an FBI spokesman said. The next year, he went to Egypt for reasons that are unclear and spent several months there.

After reading that, look at this gem of a statement:

Investigators are scouring Archer’s Internet activity to see if he may have had contact with ISIS members or other radical Islamic groups. A law enforcement source said late Friday that so far they have not found any indication that Archer had been in contact with known terrorism suspects.

Maybe the fact that he traveled to two countries that are known hotbeds of terrorist activities is a hint? The usual suspects then chime in:

Jacob Bender, executive director of the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said the incident “should not be seen as representative of Muslims or the faith of Islam,” and called for a thorough investigation of the shooting.

The shooting was carried out with a handgun that had been stolen from a police officer:

Archer was armed with a semi-automatic 9mm pistol – a police-issued firearm that had been reported stolen from an officer’s home in 2013, Ross said. He said it was unclear how Archer got the gun.

The shooter was a convicted felon:
In January 2012, Archer threatened another man with a gun in West Philadelphia. He pleaded guilty to simple assault and carrying a firearm without a license. He was sentenced to 9-23 months in jail and two years’ probation. He was still on probation at the time of the shooting. He was immediately paroled, without serving time.

He was convicted and awaiting sentencing on charges of forgery, careless driving, and driving on a suspended license, and more. He was to be sentenced on Monday.

The Mayor stated that this shooting shows that there are too many guns on the streets. He also had this to say:

 In no way shape or form does anyone in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam has anything to do with what you’ve seen on the screen. In no way shape or form does anyone in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam has anything to do with what you’ve seen on the screen.

The District Attorney doubled down on the stupid:

This shows us the need for smarter laws when it relates to guns on the street. 

So let me get this straight:

A Muslim who is a convicted felon on probation for other crimes shoots and attempts to murder a police officer using a firearm that was stolen from a cop’s home during a burglary. He then admits and states that he did it to further the cause of Jihad. We are told that this is not related to terrorism, and that we should in no way use this shooting as a yardstick with which to judge all Muslims.

Then we are told that this indicates that the one group of people who were not in any way involved in this incident must be punished, because gun owners are to blame when a police officer’s weapon is stolen by a terrorist criminal and is used in an attempt to kill another police officer.

By Divemedic, ago