Antifa member cries “I don’t want to lose my leg” as fellow members place a tourniquet on his leg after he was hit by a rubber bullet. It isn’t even bleeding any more. This is what we would be fighting, if we had the balls.
Hitler had the Brownshirts (Sturmabteilung) during his rise to power:
Mussolini had the Blackshirts (Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale) to assist in his rise to power:
Lenin managed to overthrow the Russian government by declaring himself to be a Social Democrat. Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party.
Now we see this:
The current troubles and riots are part of a well organized and well supplied campaign. There are over 20,000 National Guard Troops that have been activated.
The rioting is much worse than anything I have seen before, even the Rodney King riots weren’t this bad. As near as I can tell, the last time there was nationwide rioting on this scale was in 1968. Has the Socialist uprising gone from cold to hot?
Here is the Minneapolis Police Department’s policy on the use of force as applied to neck restraints (applicable emphasis added in RED):
5-311 USE OF NECK RESTRAINTS AND CHOKE HOLDS (10/16/02) (08/17/07) (10/01/10) (04/16/12)
DEFINITIONS
Choke Hold: Deadly force option. Defined as applying direct pressure on a person’s trachea or airway (front of the neck), blocking or obstructing the airway (04/16/12)
Neck Restraint: Non-deadly force option. Defined as compressing one or both sides of a person’s neck with an arm or leg, without applying direct pressure to the trachea or airway (front of the neck). Only sworn employees who have received training from the MPD Training Unit are authorized to use neck restraints. The MPD authorizes two types of neck restraints: Conscious Neck Restraint and Unconscious Neck Restraint. (04/16/12)
Conscious Neck Restraint: The subject is placed in a neck restraint with intent to control, and not to render the subject unconscious, by only applying light to moderate pressure. (04/16/12)
Unconscious Neck Restraint: The subject is placed in a neck restraint with the intention of rendering the person unconscious by applying adequate pressure. (04/16/12)
PROCEDURES/REGULATIONS II.
A. The Conscious Neck Restraint may be used against a subject who is actively resisting. (04/16/12)
B. The Unconscious Neck Restraint shall only be applied in the following circumstances: (04/16/12)
- On a subject who is exhibiting active aggression, or;
- For life saving purposes, or;
- On a subject who is exhibiting active resistance in order to gain control of the subject; and if lesser attempts at control have been or would likely be ineffective.
C. Neck restraints shall not be used against subjects who are passively resisting as defined by policy. (04/16/12)
D. After Care Guidelines (04/16/12)
- After a neck restraint or choke hold has been used on a subject, sworn MPD employees shall keep them under close observation until they are released to medical or other law enforcement personnel.
- An officer who has used a neck restraint or choke hold shall inform individuals accepting custody of the subject, that the technique was used on the subject.
Active Resistance: A response to police efforts to bring a person into custody or control for detainment or arrest. A subject engages in active resistance when engaging in physical actions (or verbal behavior reflecting an intention) to make it more difficult for officers to achieve actual physical control. (10/01/10) (04/16/12)
Passive Resistance: A response to police efforts to bring a person into custody or control for detainment or arrest. This is behavior initiated by a subject, when the subject does not comply with verbal or physical control efforts, yet the subject does not attempt to defeat an officer’s control efforts. (10/01/10) (04/16/12)
Officers Kueng and Lane stood Mr. Floyd up and attempted to walk Mr. Floyd to their squad car (MPD 320)at 8:14 p.m. Mr. Floyd stiffened up, fell to the ground, and told the officers he was claustrophobic.MPD Officers Derek Chauvin (the defendant) and Tou Thoa then arrived in a separate squad car.
The officers made several attempts to get Mr. Floyd in the backseat of squad 320 from the driver’s side.Mr. Floyd did not voluntarily get in the car and struggled with the officers by intentionally falling down, saying he was not going in the car, and refusing to stand still. Mr. Floyd is over six feet tall and weighs more than 200 pounds.
While standing outside the car, Mr. Floyd began saying and repeating that he could not breathe. The defendant went to the passenger side and tried to get Mr. Floyd into the car from that side and Lane and Kueng assisted
There are two camps in this nation. Some believe that people are individuals, each responsible for their own actions. A police officer who abuses that should be tried in a court of law, and be punished for anything that he may be guilty of, and set free if found not guilty.
The other camp believes that any part of the process that doesn’t go their way is evidence that the system is broken. The only result they will accept is complete surrender. They are willing to commit acts of violence to achieve that goal. Anyone who defends themselves, or even injures someone while escaping the mobs intent on killing them should be imprisoned or killed. They will accept nothing short of surrender.
These two camps are completely incompatible. The only good news here is that the riots for the most part appear to be the result of financing and organization from an outside party. Pallets of bricks being delivered to street corners in advance of protests, people caught on video paying agitators. Hopefully, this is the same thing that happens every election year, and it stops when the election is over.
I have one of two fears:
1 The amount of violence is dependent upon the LEAST stable person there. Sooner or later, a person will do a mag dump into a crowd, and things will escalate beyond anyone’s control.
2 The funding and organization will stop after the election, but it will be too late: the point of critical mass will have been surpassed, and the violence will continue to escalate.
Keep preparing, keep stockpiling, keep out of the way. By all means, stay away from protests.
Wayne raises a great question in comments. He wanted to know about George Floyd’s criminal history. I went looking for the answer, and I did find it after some time, but it was difficult because the story from Minneapolis is overshadowing Floyd’s history. I finally resorted to a search of Texas criminal records. Wayne asks:
Career criminal with a history of street drug use? Got a source for that?
So here is the story:
Keep in mind that Floyd would have turned 18 in October of 1991. Therefore, no criminal history would be available before that year, if indeed there was one.
He was arrested in 1997 for delivery of a controlled substance and received a sentence of six months in jail.
Floyd served ten months in prison stemming from a charge of aggravated robbery with a firearm in August 1998 (pictured) after a plea agreement to reduce it to “theft from person”
While he was awaiting trial for that one, he was again arrested for theft in December of 1998 and was sentenced for 10 days.
In 2001, he was sentenced to 10 days for failure to identify himself.
In April of 2002, he was convicted of criminal trespass and received 30 days for that.
In 2003, he served 30 days for trespassing in a structure, then later that year served eight months in prison for possession of cocaine stemming from an arrest in October of 2002. This was followed by ten more months in prison in 2004, after he was again arrested for possession of cocaine.
Then in 2005, Floyd was sentenced to 10 months in state jail for possession of cocaine, after being arrested for distributing cocaine and getting it reduced to simple possession in a plea bargain.
Floyd served five years in prison from 2009 to 2014 for second conviction for aggravated assault stemming from a robbery in 2007 where he entered a woman’s home, pressed a gun into her stomach and searched the home for drugs and money.
For the seventeen year period spanning 1997 to 2014, Floyd spent at least half of his time in prison. The majority of the remaining time was spent on pretrial release. Here is the record from just the one county in Texas that I searched (Harris).
He was also arrested under several aliases, but I thought I had a clear picture and didn’t feel like searching them. You can if you want.
Granted, his history is not admissible in court, but it certainly paints a clear picture of who he was. Now there are plenty who are claiming that he was “turning his life around,” but you will excuse me if I say that I have heard that song before.
I got this video from Facebook, but I am leaving it here in case they take it down.
We had a social obligation today that caused us to have to pass through Orlando. My wife wanted us to take her car, but it has built in emergency braking, which would prevent us from being able to bull through a crowd. Instead, we took my 4 wheel drive pickup.
I had a sidearm with 2 spare mags (52 rounds in total), an industrial sized can of pepper spray, and truck gun, a Skorpion EVO with 4- 32 round mags. Better to not need it than to wish you had brought it.
I picked the PDW because it is easier to maneuver inside of a vehicle than an AR if needed. The protest had already started by the time we were ready to head home, but once I saw the storm on radar, I knew the road would clear out. Hard rain, frequent lightning, and 60 mph winds generally discourage all outdoor activities, even riots.
It was fifteen years ago today that my father passed on. I still miss him.
My son remains in Harlem. He says that last night was busy with gunshot wounds, heart problems, stabbings, but no COVID. He is coming home finally, on Wednesday. Eight weeks of working in Harlem.
He also tells me that there is a protest scheduled in Harlem today. The people there were once happy that he was there to help, but no longer. Now he gets called cracker, honkey, and other racial epithets. He points out to people that he flew more than 1,000 miles to Harlem to help minorities in the middle of a pandemic, and yet still gets called racial names and told that he is a racist. He said that, as far as some are concerned, there is nothing that anyone with white skin can do, you will always be viewed as a racist and hated for it, simply because your skin is lighter in color that theirs.
So much for MLK’s dream.
From time to time, people suggest that I get into reloading. I periodically look at it, and I just don’t see any advantage. Let me explain:
Cost of equipment
First, I would have to buy reloading equipment. In order to make bulk ammo, it doesn’t make sense to buy a single stage press. It would just take too long. So, progressive it is. A Dillon progressive in a decent configuration will coast about $700. There are other things that you need as well, but I won’t even list them. Suffice it to say that you are already looking at at least $800 before you load a single round.
Cost of ammo
Second, the cost of expendable supplies. Let’s say that you want to load the ammo I go through the most of (besides .22LR): the 9mm FMJ. Using the cost calculator here, and prices from Midway USA, here is what I get:
115 gr 9mm FMJ: $88 for 1,000
Brass I will even consider as free
1,000 pistol Primers for $51
1 pound of Blue Dot powder $24
This brings us to a cost of $170 for 1,000 rounds, or if you prefer, $8.50 for a 50 round box- and that is assuming that you don’t need to get brass. If you have to buy brass, you can add another $100 for that, and assuming that you use each case 10 times on average before it is lost or damaged, still increases your cost to $180 for 1,000 rounds- again also ignoring the costs of buying your reloading equipment.
When it is in stock, I can catch 9mm on sale for between $7 and $9 a box for either Federal FMJ or Winchester. (I don’t shoot that Tulammo or Bear junk) If I buy bulk pack from Georgia Arms, I can get 1,000 round cans of 115gr FMJ for $230 even now, with the shortage.
Time
Third, my time. How long does it take to reload 1,000 rounds? I will admit that I am not sure. It sure seems that standing in front of that press, pulling that handle for hours would get tedious. Tedium leads to carelessness, which leads me to my next point:
Risk
Four: Mistakes. A mistake when reloading can cost you a gun, a finger, an eye. There is always that consideration.
Alternative
Yes, right now ammo is expensive and hard to get. So are reloading supplies. Many places that I looked were out of powder, low on primers, and out of projectiles. Who cares? I buy large stocks when I can get it cheap. A case here, a case there on sale will cost you less in the long term, and isn’t more of an investment than all that reloading equipment.
I have, not counting .22LR, nearly 10,000 rounds here in the house. I could tell you exactly how much, but all of my records (including inventories) were lost in my recent data breach. I know that I have at least 2000 rounds of 9mm, 700 or so of .380, as well as .40S&W, .357Sig, .45ACP, and that is just pistol ammo. I have about 25 ammo cans full of every caliber that I own, except .38 spl and .357 magnum.
The only reason I had to buy that expensive .38 the other day is that I just didn’t keep that caliber around for range ammo because up until last week the only revolver I had was the J frame, and I don’t practice with it as much as the others. Now that I have another, that will change, but not until prices come down.
Conclusion:
Reloading can save money when ammo is expensive, but actually costs more under normal conditions. When factory ammo becomes scarce and expensive (as it does periodically) reloading supplies also tend to become scarce and expensive.
There is no real benefit to reloading for me. Your conditions may be different.