Divemedic

An Ocala, Florida corrections officer was killed in an unintentional shooting at the correctional facility’s firearms range at 3:30 this afternoon.

Officer Jared Forsyth, 33, was rushed to a Ocala Regional Medical Center in critical condition and immediately taken into surgery, but he later died from his injuries.  According to a police spokesperson, the accidental shooting happened just before 3:30 p.m. at the shooting range at the Lowell Correctional Institution

The article calls this an accidental shooting, but I disagree. This was not an accidental shooting, it was a NEGLIGENT shooting. If a shooter is following the four rules of firearm safety, there can be no one unintentionally shot. In order for an unintentional shooting to occur, two or more rules must be violated. That makes ANY unintentional shooting an act of negligence, not an accident.
The four rules are:

1 All guns are always loaded. (Treat them so!)
2 Never point the gun at anything you are not willing to destroy.
3 Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target (and you have made the decision to shoot).
4 Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

The Wall Street Journal claimed on January 9 that the future of medicine is in your smartphone. The claim:

Let’s say you have a rash that you need examined. Today, you can snap a picture of it with your smartphone and download an app to process the image. Within minutes, a dedicated computer algorithm can text you your diagnosis. That message could include next steps, such as recommending a topical ointment or a visit to a dermatologist for further assessment.

The article goes on to claim that there are already doctors that will see you and prescribe medicines to patients for the same amount of money as a typical copay. I disagree that this is the future of medicine for one reason:

profit.

The entire medical profession revolves around money, and the medical profession is not to blame. The blame lies with the government. Right now, I have no insurance, and it is cheaper for me to travel to Mexico for care than it is to stay here in the States. Why? Because the government is sticking with an outdated system where the only people who may compete in the medical sector are people who do things the way that they have always done them. This stifles competition and innovation.

Who profits the most from this model? The education industry and the insurance industry.

Here is an interesting flashback of New York City in 1949:

In Orlando, a police officer is facing criminal charges for excessive force after beating a handcuffed prisoner in the jail. The officer in this incident was transferred into the jail after the city had to settle a lawsuit from March of 2014, because the officer had arrested and confiscated the cell phone of a witness who was recording him using excessive force on a person who was being arrested.

Officer Delio is accused of striking 41-year-old Robert Liese so hard in the abdomen with his knee that he ruptured the man’s spleen and tore his stomach lining. The incident happened Aug. 12 inside a holding cell at an Orlando Police Department substation downtown.

In fact, this incident is the fourth time this particular officer has faced criminal charges for excessive force.

 Tell me again how the police are the only ones we can trust to own firearms.

These three mental giants are lucky that they are alive: (From a press release)

On
March 20, 2015 at approximately 3:30 a.m. a Kissimmee patrol officer was
sitting in his marked vehicle in the parking lot of 1532 West Vine Street
observing traffic.  The officer noticed a black Ford Mustang convertible
traveling east on Vine Street with three male passengers inside the
vehicle.  As the vehicle came closer to him, the officer saw the back seat
passenger point a long barreled rifle directly at him and he heard a loud
bang.  The officer believed the male had just shot at him. The
officer requested assistance and began to catch up with the mustang.  Once
additional officers were in position, a felony traffic stop was conducted on
the Mustang.  The three occupants were identified as Daniel Velazquez
(D.O.B. 11/30/97) who was the driver, Kelvin Lopez-Beerbower (D.O.B. 12/17/96)
and Ruben Lopez-Beerbower, who was the individual that shot at the
officer.   Two long barreled rifle style pellet guns and pellets were
found inside of the vehicle.  When asked why he shot at the officer, Ruben
shrugged his shoulders and gave no verbal response.
 All
three men were placed under arrest.  Ruben Lopez-Beerbower was charged
with Aggravated Assault on Law Enforcement Officer.  Kelvin
Lopez-Beerbower and Daniel Velazquez were charged with Criminal Conspiracy
Aggravated Assault on a Law Enforcement Officer. Ruben and Kelvin were
transported to the Osceola County Jail held on $10,000 and $5,000 bond
respectively.  Daniel was transported to the Orange County Juvenile
Detention Center.

The cops in this case showed remarkable restraint.

Times article on Civil Forefeiture

To those who don’t think you need to carry a weapon in church:

St. Cloud police said that a woman was shot in the back of the head and
twice in the back in a domestic shooting at a church in St. Cloud.

Where I teach, like most schools in America, we have a drug problem. It isn’t as serious as most schools, but it is there. The police got wind of some drug dealing, and decided to show up with a drug dog, which they used to sweep the school parking lot. They uncovered some drugs and a couple of weapons. (One of the kids busted with drugs was one you wouldn’t expect- a National Honor Society, straight A type)

The weapons were knives, there were no firearms. After, the vice-principal (the same idiot from this post) was going from classroom to  classroom and talking to the students about the incident. One of the students asked him if they could bring pepper spray to school, and he told them yes, because the law doesn’t consider pepper spray to be a weapon.

He is wrong. The state of Florida defines weapon in 790.001 as:

(13) “Weapon”
means any dirk, knife, metallic knuckles, slungshot, billie, tear gas
gun, chemical weapon or device, or other deadly weapon except a firearm
or a common pocketknife, plastic knife, or blunt-bladed table knife. [emphasis added]

The latest it of gun ownership propaganda disguised as science and as news is that gun ownership is on the decline. They claim that there are fewer people buying guns. Of course, they can’t hide the fact that there have been so many guns sold in the last year, that the NICS system that performs background checks has been overloaded.
So how do they spin this fact? They do a survey to ‘prove’ that gun sales are up, but the guns are being sold to just a few people. The problem is that this supposed ‘fact’ is being proven because of a telephone survey. According to this survey, which is disguised as science, they claim that 20% of the US population owns 65% of the firearms. There are a number of problems with this claim. Let’s take a look:

The entire basis for this claim is a survey where a caller phones your home, and then asks you if you have a gun in the house. I don’t understand how anyone thinks that this method is in any way scientific. There are a number of flaws in this survey: selection bias, response bias, non response error, and other sampling problems ensure that ANY survey of sensitive issues will not reflect the true numbers.

The true test of gun ownership rates is not self reporting surveys, but other metrics like total gun sales. Of course, gun sales in a nation that does not register firearms don’t tell you how many people are buying firearms, only how many firearms are being bought. The closest remaining metric is the issuance of concealed weapons permits.

As of February 28 n my home state of Florida, there are 1,374,341 active concealed weapons permit holders. According to the US census, the population of people over 18 years of age in Florida is 15,795,277. This means that there is one
concealed weapons permit holder for every 11.49 residents.

In December of 2013, there were 1,278,246 permit holders in Florida,
with an adult population of 15,562,646. This means that 14 months ago,
there was one concealed weapons permit holder for every 12.21
residents.

This means that the rate of gun ownership in the state of Florida is 6
percent higher than it was 14 months ago, which translates into about a
5 percent annual increase in gun ownership.

In fact, the number of concealed weapons permits in the state of Florida has more than doubled since 2009, when there were 591,830, which
was double the number of permits from 2002, when there were 295,658
permit holders.
Look at the numbers:
In 1988, there were 32,814 permit holders. It took three years to double that to 65,497.
In three more years, that number doubled again to 132,150.
Another seven years, another doubling to 259,710.
Seven more years, and there is another doubling to 511,868.
Five years later, the number had doubled again to 1,098,458.
In 25 years, the number of adults in Florida increased from 10.0 to 15.8 million, which is a 158% increase, but there are 41 times as many concealed weapons permit holders, meaning that the number of permit holders is increasing 26 times as fast as the population as a whole.

That is hardly a decline.