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There is some confusion on background checks in Florida. The papers are all abuzz, because Pinellas County and Fort Lauderdale are requiring gun shows to conduct background checks on all sales that occur at gun shows. This is allowed because in November of 1998, the voters of the state of Florida passed the following amendment to the state constitution:

(b) Each county shall have the authority to require a criminal history
records check and a 3 to 5-day waiting period, excluding weekends and
legal holidays, in connection with the sale of any firearm occurring
within such county. For purposes of this subsection, the term “sale”
means the transfer of money or other valuable consideration for any
firearm when any part of the transaction is conducted on property to
which the public has the right of access. Holders of a concealed weapons
permit as prescribed by general law shall not be subject to the
provisions of this subsection when purchasing a firearm. 

 Note that there are two important exceptions to this provision: the holders of a CCW are not subject to it, and only gun sales that occur on land where the public has the right of public access. What does this mean? This means that a county may pass an ordinance prohibiting the sale of firearms on public property (which is the only land where the public has a right of access).

Fort Lauderdale is in Broward County, which along with Pinellas County, have both enacted laws requiring background checks and waiting periods for firearm purchases on public property. The local officials are threatening to shut the shows down or not renew their lease.

“If they continue to challenge our enforcement, it’s much easier to not have a gun show,” Seiler (the local official) said.

If I were the gun show promoter, I would look for a new venue NOT owned by the public immediately, and then I would open the show as before, but I am in your face like that.

To be placed in the “friend zone” has a different meaning. To be put
there means that the woman placing you there wants you to do all of the
things that a boyfriend or husband would do: take her to dinner, travel,
movies, etc, with one important exception:
You will never see her naked, nor will she ever be yours.

The song that I think is the saddest and most beautiful song about this phenomenon is this one by Harry Connick, Jr. I know I’ve posted this before, but it is simply a beautiful song.

A woman in Oregon calls 911, and is told that there are no police officers available. The dispatcher says that she should ask him to leave. Her ex-boyfriend breaks in and rapes her.

I take a few lessons from this post:
– First, the obvious: No one is responsible for your protection but you. When you are depending on others to protect you from harm, you are subject to their whims.

– The citizens refused a tax increase that would have funded services like police. The tax on a $100,000 is now $59 a year. The proposal would have raised it to $148 a year.

– The residents of this county lost their police protection when Federal budget cuts forced the Sheriff to reduce the number of deputies to 6.

– The people of this county are, in other words, wholly dependent on Federal tax dollars for their local government’s needs. They would have me here in Florida foot the bill for the police to protect them in Oregon.

If the citizens of Josephine and Curry counties of Oregon don’t care enough about their own safety and well being to fund their own police force, why should I here in Florida be forced to do so through Federal tax dollars? They don’t want to pay a property tax of $148 dollars a year, so I am forced to pay it for them? Even though MY property taxes are $1600 a year for a $120,000 home?

This reminds me of the people in Tennessee who were angry when the neighboring town’s fire department refused to respond to their home when it caught fire, because they didn’t pay the fire fee.

I used to teach paramedic school. In 2006, two of the students in my class were best friends. They had joined the Army together in 2001 under the “buddy” plan, they went through Army Corpsman training together, and were sent to Iraq together.
While they were there, they saw some pretty horrendous fighting. One of the young men, we will call him Steve, was awarded the Silver Star for running to another soldier’s aid during a fairly intense firefight, and shielding that injured young man with his own body. The other buddy, Sam, never came back whole. Sam had severe problems adjusting to the things that he saw over there.
They were discharged in 2005, and enrolled in Paramedic school. Sam had his demons, and was able to keep them in check with the help of his buddy Steve. They were roommates, and Steve was the steadying influence that Sam needed. Even though Steve got married in 2009, Sam remained their roommate, and was able to cope.
All of that came to an end in 2012, when Steve’s wife became pregnant. They asked Sam to move out, so they could have room for the baby. Six months later, Sam killed himself.
That is a common story. We are sending our young men off to war, and then we are punishing them when they come home broken. They can’t call for help, because they will be persecuted if they do, and still will not get the help they need.
Shame on all of us.

There is an 18 year old woman by the name of Kaitlyn Hunt who has been arrested for two counts of lewd and lascivious behavior on a child between the age of 12 and 16. Ms. Hunt was engaged in a lesbian relationship with a 15 year old girl.
There are many who are claiming that Ms. Hunt’s crime is that she is a lesbian. Wrong. Her crime is that she is a CHILD MOLESTER. She began her relationship with a 14 year old girl.A sexual relationship between an adult (18) and a child under the age of 16 cannot be consenting. A minor under the age of 16 cannot legally give consent for sexual activity.
The people who are defending this would not be defending this if it were an 18 year old boy having sex with a ‘consenting’ 15 year old, the Huffington post would not be coming to his defense. As long as homosexuality is involved, there is no limit to what they will defend.
The parents of Ms. Hunt (the 18 year old) have this to say:

They are trying to send an innocent young girl to prison because they
are full of hate and bigotry. These girls are teenagers in high school,
who had ONE mutual consenting sexual experience. My daughter isn’t a
criminal, she isn’t a predator.

 Actually, she IS a criminal. Florida law (800.04(5)) says:

A person who intentionally touches in a lewd or lascivious manner the breasts, genitals, genital area, or buttocks, or the clothing covering them, of a person less than 16 years of age, or forces or entices a person under 16 years of age to so touch the perpetrator, commits lewd or lascivious molestation…An offender 18 years of age or older who commits lewd or lascivious molestation against a victim 12 years of age or older but less than 16 years of age commits a felony of the second degree

The law goes on to say:

PROHIBITED DEFENSES. Neither the victim’s lack of chastity nor the victim’s consent is a defense to the crimes proscribed by this section. 

This is not about lesbian sex. People are getting their undergarments in a twist because the perpetrator’s life will be ruined. Guess what? She was an adult, and the law says that adults can’t have sex with children. The same people who are crying about ruining the girl’s life for this would have no problem ruining her life if she were being arrested for having a shotgun in the trunk of her car that was in the parking lot.

The difference between training and education is this: we train to know how to do something and educate to know why to do something. Training is therefore easier than education, but remember that the man who knows how to do a job will always have a job, while the man that knows why he’s doing that job will eventually be the other man’s boss.
Too many paramedics want to be trained, and not educated. This is because training is much easier than education. This is the main reason why paramedics must fight so hard NOT to be called “ambulance drivers,” and a large part of why the rest of the medical profession doesn’t give them more respect.
Strive to know the why. Don’t just learn how to intubate, learn why. Learn the why not. Too many paramedics brag about how good they think they are at intubation, but very few of them can explain WHY they are intubating.
That goes for many of the skills that paramedics perform. Do yourself and your patients a favor: don’t train yourself, educate yourself.

So it is the law of the land in Florida that “mentally defective” people who have been adjudicated as being a danger to themselves or others cannot own a firearm. Hey, most folks will support this law, if asked about it. After all, we don’t want crazy people to have guns, right?
Until you start to redefine what “adjudicated” means. Now, thanks to a change in Florida’s law, if a cop takes you involuntarily to a mental facility for evaluation, and you allow the doctor to voluntarily admit you for treatment, the doctor can have your right to ever own a firearm taken away. So a doctor gives you a choice: be involuntarily admitted and be declared incompetent, thus losing the legal ability to make your own decisions, or voluntarily submit yourself to outpatient treatment and merely lose your right to own a firearm.

The bill amends the definition of “committed to a mental institution” … to include persons who have had an involuntary examination under the Baker Act and who have voluntarily admitted themselves for outpatient or inpatient treatment

But hey, a judge reviews the paperwork. So much for due process.

It seems to me that the only way to avoid this is not to let yourself be Baker Acted. Here is how: Cops, like most people, are lazy. They want to get back to whatever they were doing, and voluntarily going to the hospital keeps them from having to do all of the paperwork of performing a Baker Act. Simply agree to go to the hospital voluntarily, rather than make the cop take you into custody and Baker Act you.

so CJ, in a thinly disguised attempt to say that supporting laws that restrict people with mental illness from firearms ownership proves that the Second Amendment is not absolute fails to overlook the obvious portion of my reply:

We are a nation of individual rights, and it doesn’t matter if everyone else committed a certain act yesterday, I didn’t.

 Today, there is a story from CBS Atlanta that proves my point: 1 in 5 children in the US has a mental disorder, according to the CDC. Now this doesn’t mean that our kids are any different than we were, or even than our grandparents. What it means is that the definition of what constitutes a mental disorder is being expanded to include nearly everyone. That is why trying to predict who should have their rights preemptively removed is wrong and will result in a short ride to tyranny.

If you are so mentally ill as to be a danger, then you are too mentally ill to be out in public. If you cannot be trusted to own a firearm, then you can’t be trusted to have gasoline, fertilizer, matches, or pointy sticks. In other words, you can’t be trusted to be without a custodian.

I was a part of the fire party when I was stationed onboard the USS Dwight D Eisenhower during the years of 1987-1992. One of the major events that occurred when I was stationed on her was when we collided with another ship that was sitting at anchor. (PDF warning) At the time of the collision, I was standing less than 100 feet away on the flight deck. I was a fire team leader of a pair of impromptu hose teams that put out a small fire, and I was reassigned to do a damage investigation by a Lieutenant that had taken over damage control. Even though several compartments were damaged, and opening one watertight door revealed that the compartment beyond was GONE, the Navy called the damage to the ship “minor.”

The Navigation Officer and Commanding Officer’s careers both ended that day, even though the Captain was not present on the bridge when the collision took place. The reason for this is simple: When you are in charge, you get to take credit for what your subordinates accomplish, but you also have to take the ultimate blame when your subordinates screw the pooch.

That is why I don’t begrudge the fact that President Obama gets to bask in the reflected glory of SEALS finally bagging Osama Bin Laden. They did the job, and the guy at the helm gets some of the credit. That is what it means to be in charge. At the same time, the IRS fiasco, the Beghazi disaster, and the other problems that we see unfolding are 100% laid at Obama’s feet.

When I was in the military, we were taught the principles of leadership. There are three of them, and leadership cannot exists where any one of them is missing: Accountability, responsibility, and authority. One cannot lead if they do not have the authority to change things, be held accountable for the results, and take responsibility for the outcome. It seems that Obama has mastered wielding the authority, but has not learned a thing about responsibility. One can only hope that he will be held accountable.