Divemedic

I  have been in a relationship for nearly two years, and she is from New York. Her attitude towards gun ownership was initially a difficult one to swallow. I got her to agree to come shooting with me. I started her on a .22 pistol- my Sig Mosquito. She got the chance to see how a firearm is a tool, nothing more. A firearm is no more dangerous than a hammer, and frankly, it is much easier to learn to shoot a firearm than it is to drive a car.

Yet another international headline that flies in the face of Obama’s declaration that mass shootings only happen in the US because of our “lax gun laws.” France has gun laws that are MUCH more strict than the US, and there are more than 150 dead in this latest attack.

A Washington Post article from last January estimates that the number of illegal guns in France is now at least twice the number of legal guns

Tell me again that gun laws work to prevent anything.

I teach 4 classes of Biology, and 2 of Chemistry. I have a total of 122 students. So far this week, they have turned in a total of 372 papers and 118 exams. The final papers are due for their science projects.

We are now 15 weeks into the school year. In the county where I am teaching high school science, each science student is required to do a science project where they perform a scientific inquiry, using sound scientific principles. I break this project into several assignments over a 16 week period, so that the students have a chance to work through the process.

Each student, and their parents, are told that the project accounts for about 30% of their grade for the semester. I have about a dozen students who decided not to do ANY of the science project. As you can imagine, they are not doing much else in class, so 8 of them are receiving an F for the semester, and the other 4 are all earning a D.

I ate dinner tonight and checked my email right after, when I noticed that 5 students emailed me to tell me that they lost their login to the system and cannot turn in their projects, and want an extension. Another student is using a typo on the class website to try and go all bedroll lawyer on me, claiming that my typo means he gets a three day extension. His father just emailed me, demanding that I answer his son’t email tonight.

I AM OFF WORK. I am not at the beck and call of parents and students at night while I am home. They will just have to wait until tomorrow.

Vent complete.

Here is the updated list of mass murders:

If you claim that guns are the reason for mass killings, you are ignoring that the largest mass murders do not use a gun. Here are a few of them:


1 On 911, there were 2,996 dead and over 6,000 injured. The weapons used were box cutters.


2  October 31, 1999: Gameel al-Batouti cried out “Allahu Akbar” as he piloted a plane full of passengers into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 217 people.


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


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


5 New York Bombing of September 1920: There were 40 killed and several hundred injured. The weapon was a bomb.


6 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.


7 The LA times is attacked with a bomb in 1910, killing 20.





The fact is that guns have nothing to do with spree killings. The first mass murder in US history happened in 1780, and was committed by a man named Barnett Davenport. He killed an entire family (all 5 of them) during a pre-planned burglary. He used blunt instruments to beat the adults and one of the children to death, and then set the house on fire to kill the other children.

Here is what an anti-gunner had to say to me:

We are all human. Exception of gun nuts. Your argument is stupid or an excuse to act like sub human creatures. I am not oriental but still agree with their pro life style in my thinking. So what is wrong with you? Do you really think people cannot exits without murder weapons in a civilized country?

There can be no compromise with such people.

There has recently been a big deal made out of the South Carolina police officer who was caught on film, throwing a high school student to the ground. The officer was fired within 24 hours of the video being made public, which makes me believe that the firing had m ore to do with politics than the conduct of the officer.
Especially considering that in South Carolina, it is a crime to disrupt school, and against the law for a student to have a cell phone in class.

Law about disrupting class:

SECTION 16-17-420. Disturbing schools; summary court jurisdiction.
(A) It shall be unlawful:
(1) for any person wilfully or unnecessarily (a) to interfere with or to disturb in any way or in any place the students or teachers of any school or college in this State, (b) to loiter about such school or college premises or (c) to act in an obnoxious manner thereon

It isn’t just me, the South Carolina Bar has this to say:

Other students have the right to be free from interference in their education. It is against the law for any person to willfully interfere or disturb students or teachers of any school. Disturbing school includes being uncooperative with a teacher or principal, fighting or using foul or offensive language toward a teacher or principal. 

Law about phones:

SECTION 59-63-280. “Paging device” defined; adoption of policies addressing student possession.
(A) For purposes of this section, “paging device” means a telecommunications, to include mobile telephones, device that emits an audible signal, vibrates, displays a message, or otherwise summons or delivers a communication to the possessor.
(B) The board of trustees of each school district shall adopt a policy that addresses student possession of paging devices as defined in subsection (A). This policy must be included in the district’s written student conduct standards. If the policy includes confiscation of a paging device, as defined in subsection (A), it should also provide for the return of the device to the owner.

Again, lets see what the Bar has to say:

It is illegal for a student to carry a cellular phone or pager on school grounds or during school events. There is an exception for students needing to carry a cell phone or pager for a legitimate medical reason. There is another exception for students over 18 years old if the student is an active member of a volunteer firefighting organization or a volunteer emergency medical service organization. 

You can disagree with the law all you want, but the law was passed and is in the books, and police are charged with enforcing the law. They are not there to interpret the law, that is the job of the legislature and the courts.

The officer saw a person breaking the law. He told asked the person to comply. She refused.
He then ordered her to comply, and she refused. He tried to take her into custody, and she punched him. All of those things are crimes as well. He didn’t do all that much to her, and it appears to me that he did it with the minimum amount of force.

There are those who say that the high school student in question was just a child, and the disagreement was only over a cell phone. Look at the following video to see what happens when one of these “children” doesn’t want his cell phone taken away:

That is a video of a 16 year old boy taking down a 62 year old teacher for confiscating his cell phone in class. Why isn’t the press reporting on this? The answer is simple: the criminal is black, and the victim is white.

– How did marijuana get approved for medicinal use in states? The advocates were active, vocal, and visible
– How did that expand to recreational marijuana in  states? They were active, vocal and visible about it.
– How did the civil rights movement gain equal rights for blacks? They remained active, visible, vocal, and did not back down.
– How did the gay rights movement gain rights, including the right to marry? They wee visible, vocal, and active. They never gave in, and didn’t remain in the closet.
– How did we get concealed carry in all 50 states? By being visible, vocal, and active
The advocates for marijuana, gay rights, and equal rights for blacks were FAR more likely to be arrested (or worse) by cops than gun owners are at risk of being robbed, yet they remained active and visible. They eventually prevailed. There is a lesson there for gun owners: Remain active, visible, vocal, and do not back down.

In 1991, the United States had an incredibly high murder rate. There were 9.8 murders for every 100,000 residents. Just the previous year in New York City, 2,245 people were killed. In 2014, just 328 people were murdered, which is an 85% drop. The rate of violent crime in the entire world has been dropping since 1991. The US murder rate is now lower than any year since 1963.

In 1963, the US murder rate was the same as it is now: 4.6 per 100,000. This is less than half the rate from 1991. That year, there were 8640 murders, with the US having a population of 188.4 million. It is important to note that in 1963, it was possible to order firearms through the mail from places like the Sears catalog. Compared to today, firearms were nearly unregulated.

Puerto Rico is a US territory. Until June of 2015, gun laws in Puerto Rico were very strict. They had all of the gun laws that the Brady campaign asks for: permit to own a firearm, heavy restrictions, etc. The Puerto Rican murder rate is among the highest in the world at  26.5. In June, a Federal judge struck down nearly all of Puerto Rico’s gun laws as being a violation of the Second Amendment. it will be interesting to see what happens to the crime rate there.

It isn’t just murders. The US violent crime rate is now 367.9 per 100,000, which is the lowest it has been since the FBI began keeping track of that statistic in 1994. The entire world has been seeing a drop in crime since about 1990. What is fueling this?

There are numerous theories as to why crime is falling, but many of them fail under scrutiny when you consider that there are many differences between nations. Not all nations have increased their police forces. or have aging demographics. There are a couple that jump out at me: The widespread use of antipsychotic medications, and the banning of lead in gasoline and paint. Levels of lead found in human blood were reduced more than 80 percent from 1976 to 1999.

The effect of lead on children’s brains has been well documented: Exposure to the chemical causes aggressive behavior and cognitive delays. Economist Jessica Reyes estimates that phasing out lead was responsible for 56 percent of the reduction in violent crime (although she could find no relationship between lead and property crime). Experts still disagree about how plausible it is that lead alone could have been responsible for such a massive portion of the crime drop on a worldwide basis.

I think the lead theory has some validity. What say ye?