NBC4, Washington:

Police say a 17-year-old boy has been arrested for shooting at a group of fellow teens who approached him in an attempt to rob him.

According to the Mason Police District in Fairfax County, a group of five 17 and 18-year-old teens approached a 17-year-old boy they knew and demanded his cell phone in the 9300 block of Tovito Drive.

The five teens then confronted another 17-year-old they knew. However, that teen had a handgun he fired at the group. One 18-year-old was struck and transported to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The 17-year-old who fired the weapon was arrested and charged with malicious wounding and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

The report is short on details.  One possible course of action during a scenario like this is what I’ve discussed before, i.e., evasion, egress and escape.  Backing away and thus changing the circumstances is better than getting shot or shooting someone.  However, this isn’t always possible, and in fact a decision to evade can be foolish and life threatening if you are outnumbered, outgunned or even simply naive and overestimate your abilities.  In most cases I would treat an aggressive approach like this as life threatening and I would defend myself accordingly.

Interestingly, the police seem to concede the point by saying that the gang attempted to rob him.  As far as anyone knows, including the police, the gang never intended to stop at demanding loot.  It must be assumed that they intended to harm or kill him, or that it could have evolved into such a situation.  And given that knowledge, this report is beautiful in its simplicity.  The gang threatened the life of this young man, he defended his life, and now he is under arrest for it.  I suppose that the police would rather he have perished at the hands of the gang.

Welcome to Amerika, comrade!

From reader Michael:

I found you via Sipsey Street links and have been reading intermittently.   I had some free time this weekend, so after going to the range both days (yay), I was catching up on some articles I missed and when I saw some of the articles about abuse by police it reminded me of a recent encounter with our county sheriff’s deputies.

I went to the courthouse to renew an expired passport.   When I got to the metal detector, I started to empty my pockets.  I told the deputy manning the walk-through that I had a pistol and reached to unholster it, something I have done several times at this courthouse without incident (they have lockers to check any weapons).  The pistol was pointed toward the floor the instant it cleared the holster.  As soon as he saw it, he started screaming at me to give him the pistol.  He was quite abrupt, unneccesarily I thought since I was the one holding a pistol.  I told him I was going to clear the chamber before I handed it to him, but he continued to scream so I just handed it to him hot.  Once through the metal detector, the sheriff approached and asked if I was law enforcement.   He did not recognize me, disappointing since I take care of his wife, daughter and son-in-law, as well as having taken care of his late mother.  He was polite, but clearly of a superior attitude. When I came back, Seargant Schultz was on break and another deputy retrieved my pistol, but refused to return it to me until we had reached the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, about 100′.  During the entire walk, he kept asking “Why do you carry a pistol? (because I can), “Don’t you have a locked compartment in your car? (I have had several cars broken into, and I can’t protect myself with a pistol that is locked in my car), “Maybe you shouldn’t bring a gun to the courthouse” (your rule to not have it inside, so you should provide a place to check it).

This sheriff is new, currently serving his first term, but he apparently runs a rather loose-cannon department with disrespect for the people he allegedly serves.   Never had any problems like this with the prior sheriff, who retired after about 25 years.   Guess I know what campaign I will be working on the next time a sheriff election is held here.

Thanks for the writings.   Being a physician in this day and age is especially distressing, as I have a better idea than most (I think) of the mayhem that lies ahead in our already collapsing “health-care” system.  Your take on events (as well as that of Mike Vanderbough, David Codrea, and WRSA) is a reassuring boost to a flagging spirit.

The Kansas City Star:

Some 30,000 people in the U.S. die each year by gunshot, and one reason there aren’t more effective efforts to stop the carnage is that “the faith community has been asleep — fast asleep,” says a pastor who has worked for decades to reduce gun violence.

PTR Industries released a statement not long ago that read in part:

With a heavy heart but a clear mind, we have been forced to decide that our business can no longer survive in Connecticut – the former Constitution state.

Furthermore, we feel that our industry as a whole will continue to be threatened so long as it remains in a state where its elected leaders have no regard for the rights of those who produce and manufacture its wealth. We are making a call to all involved in our industry to leave this state, close your doors and show our politicians the true consequences of their hasty and uninformed actions. We encourage those in our industry to abandon this state as its leaders have abandoned the proud heritage that forged our freedom.

This is a strong statement, and pertains not only to what PTR Industries intends to do with their own business, but their admonition to other manufacturers in Connecticut (are you listening, Colt and Mossberg?).  But now we know where they are headed.

Michael Bane:

So I’m in charge of taking care of the menagerie tonight and the television is on to keep me company. I’m listening to a Republican — let me restate that…Republican — analyst state how excited he is about a 2016 Presidential match-up between Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie. Because, see, Chris Christie is the bestest conservative Republican candidate in the whole wide world!

I have to say that Chris Christie would be the final straw…I have been as pragmatic as anyone on wading through this political cesspool…sucked it up for McCain…sucked it up for Romney…but I will be damned if I’ll cast a vote for an antigun floating…well, whatever it is that floats in cesspools…like Chris Christie.

Right.  Chris Christie is a gun-grabber, and take careful note that he appointed a Senator who is the same thing.  His record speaks volumes.

David Codrea notes that the NYPD was rebuffed concerning purchase of a sniper rifle (see WRSA too).

The Survivalist Blog publishes a piece on why one writer got his concealed carry permit.  David Codrea notes why he didn’t.

The Yankee Gunner has a nice piece on open carrying in Connecticut at Newtown.  Yes, Newtown.  You heard that right.

Finally, The Charlotte Observer has a piece on Police Chief Rodney Monroe on his support for gun controls.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Rodney Monroe called for a national assault weapons ban on Tuesday, joining a growing number of police chiefs across the country who have said the assault-style weapons should be outlawed.

Monroe said he feels strongest about restrictions on guns with high-capacity magazines, like the one used in the Newtown, Conn., shootings that left 20 children dead.

“We should not be seeing those kinds of weapons on our city streets,” Monroe said. “Back in the early ’90s, when we had the assault weapons ban, we saw a significant decrease in multiple shootings, multiple gun violence, so it only makes sense that we consider that again.”

Monroe called for the assault weapons ban during a meeting of the Business Leaders of Charlotte, a group that brings high-profile Charlotteans in as speakers every month to discuss issues of the day.

“I hope today that we can take away an honest understanding of the gun-control debate in the country,” said Michael Barney, the group’s president.

Monroe also told the group he thinks everyone who buys a gun should be subjected to a background checks.

You know, it’s really a shame.  Years ago the functions of Sheriff and Police were separated in order to stop politics within the functions of police – because the police ought to be policing, not politicking.  Guess it didn’t work out so well.

Via David Codrea, N.C. Sheriffs on purchasing weapons:

The North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association (NCSA) is pressuring both House Speaker Thom Tillis (R, Mecklenburg, GRNC ****)  and NC Governor Pat McCrory (R, GRNC-***) to oppose GRNC’s repeal of the antiquated pistol purchase permit system that has been in place since 1919. As part of omnibus gun bill HB 937, which contains restaurant and limited campus carry, the purchase permit law would be repealed IF the House votes to concur with Senate improvements to the bill and IF Gov. McCrory doesn’t veto it.

The purchase permit law slated for elimination through HB 937 was designed to grant discriminatory power to NC Sheriffs and enable them to subjectively deny handguns whoever they consider “undesirable.” To this day, several counties abuse the permit system in ways that make it difficult for law-abiding citizens to rightfully obtain handguns.

Ironically, as documented by The Charlotte Observer, the law sheriffs defend is  letting untold numbers of felons bypass background checks to buy guns. Why? Because the untrackable slips of paper issued by sheriffs after background checks can’t be repealed and are good for 5 years. Eliminating the system would mean that checks using the National Instant Background Check System (NICS) would be done at the point of sale.

I don’t want to turn this conversation into one on open carry of firearms, but it’s relevant.  I’ve discussed before that I openly carry a weapon from time to time, mostly when I am trying to avoid sweating my weapon and don’t want to carry IWB.  The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police respect that choice, and smile and wave when they see me.

But it isn’t like that everywhere.  Even the CMPD has to be reminded of our rights.

Sean Sorrentino notes an instance where the 4th Circuit had to reprimand the Charlotte Police for using openly carrying a weapon as a reason to stop an individual, even someone who later turned out to have been guilty of a crime.  Even worse, I know individuals who live around the Lake Norman / Huntersville area (North of Charlotte) who openly carry, and one particular individual has been stopped by both local and state police.  Both times the law enforcement officer unholstered his weapon and pointed at my friend for doing nothing more than walking on the sidewalk.

Note to law enforcement in North Carolina.  The answer above by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police (“not breaking any laws …”) is the right one.  You cannot lawfully detain or arrest someone for openly carrying a weapon.  It is legal in North Carolina, as North Carolina is a traditional open carry state.  LEOs need to know and understand the law.  If you continue to unholster and point your weapons at someone who is behaving legally, an innocent person will eventually be harmed or killed and you will be responsible for it.  Don’t be ignorant.  Be thinking men and women.

Isn’t it ironic that the only ones who want final say over who can carry a weapon are some of the very ones who will unholster their weapons and point them at law abiding citizens?  I would be arrested and charged with brandishing a firearm, assault with a deadly weapon (assault can mean perceived intent), and a host of other things if I did that.  But then again, I don’t get to argue in front of the court that I wanted to make sure that I “went home at the end of the day.”  Only LEOs get to do that.

Local LEO approval of firearms purchases is a throwback to Jim Crow laws, plain and simple.  Their approval does nothing that form 4473 doesn’t accomplish.  And LEOs who point their weapons at law abiding open carriers should be prosecuted for crimes in court.

USA Today (via WRSA):

When a National Security Agency contractor revealed top-secret details this month on the government’s collection of Americans’ phone and Internet records, one select group of intelligence veterans breathed a sigh of relief.

Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe belong to a select fraternity: the NSA officials who paved the way.

For years, the three whistle-blowers had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from U.S. citizens. They had spent decades in the top ranks of the agency, designing and managing the very data-collection systems they say have been turned against Americans. When they became convinced that fundamental constitutional rights were being violated, they complained first to their superiors, then to federal investigators, congressional oversight committees and, finally, to the news media.

To the intelligence community, the trio are villains who compromised what the government classifies as some of its most secret, crucial and successful initiatives. They have been investigated as criminals and forced to give up careers, reputations and friendships built over a lifetime.

Today, they feel vindicated.

They say the documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former NSA contractor who worked as a systems administrator, proves their claims of sweeping government surveillance of millions of Americans not suspected of any wrongdoing. They say those revelations only hint at the programs’ reach.

Some are saying that Edward Snowden is a hero.  That word is bantered about too casually for me these days, and frankly, I would never have worked for the IRS, NSA or any division of the DHS (including the ATF).  I’m not being a snob, I’m just pointing out moral choices and the fact that I would never have even been in the position of relinquishing this information to the public.

Furthermore, I’m not sure what he’s telling the government of China right now, but if they asked me I would tell them where they can stick their questions.  You see, I don’t cotton to communists.  Totalitarianism in any form or manifestation is wicked.

No ruler becomes a totalitarian by mistake, looking to do the right and good thing and just overreaching because he let himself go too far.  No.  Totalitarians are what they are by choice.  They are evil men with evil designs, and their plans are wickedness and abomination in all cases and all of the time.  God hates them – every one of them, whether they are Chinese or American.

On the other hand, there are those who say that Snowden is a traitor and villain.  Of course, this is silly talk by totalitarians.  Those who say this don’t really believe it, they just feel threatened that Snowden said the things he did.

Listen carefully.  Edward Snowden didn’t divulge any secrets.  We have all known for a very long time that the government was dumping every one and zero that went across the lines to a government data base.  Snowden simply brought it to the attention of a nation because he found a main stream media outlet that was willing to publish it.

If someone argues that Snowden is a traitor because he divulged secrets being used to protect American citizens, you can tell them that the American government doesn’t now and has not been protecting American citizens.  Anyone who argues that Snowden revealed American “secrets” and should be prosecuted for treason is either a moron or takes you to be a moron.  Snowden simply used his voice to inform the stupid American people that they had better wake up and look the Leviathan in the face.

I’m doubtful that the American people will have the attention span to do anything about it.  As long as idiot workers have their stupid sitcoms to watch at night, and as long as little girls can text naked pictures of themselves to their boyfriends, American will stay fixated on bread and circuses.

Ms. Magazine:

My hands are shaking; my adrenaline is surging.

No, it’s not from the latte I just inhaled or because this is the first time in two years I’ve been in a Starbucks since declaring a boycott on its open-carry gun policy.

What’s got me jittery this morning is the 9mm Glock that’s holstered on my hip. Me, lead gun policy protester at the 2010 Starbuck’s shareholder meeting. Me, a board member of the Brady Campaign. Me, the author of a book about the impact of gun violence, Beyond the Bullet.

Yes, I bought a handgun and will carry it everywhere I go over the next 30 days. I have four rules: Carry it with me at all times, follow the laws of my state, only do what is minimally required for permits, licensing, purchasing and carrying, and finally be prepared to use it for protecting myself at home or in public.

[ … ]

It was obvious from the way I handled the gun that I knew nothing about firearms. Tony sold it to me anyway. The whole thing took 7 minutes. As a gratified consumer, I thought, “Well, that was easy.” Then the terrifying reality hit me, “Holy hell, that was EASY.”  Too easy. I still knew nothing about firearms.

Tony told me a Glock doesn’t have an external safety feature, so when I got home and opened the box and saw the magazine in the gun I freaked. I was too scared to try and eject it as thoughts flooded my mind of me accidentally shooting the gun and a bullet hitting my son in the house or rupturing the gas tank of my car, followed by an earth-shaking explosion. This was the first time my hands shook from the adrenaline surge and the first time I questioned the wisdom of this 30-day experiment.

I needed help. I drove to where a police officer had pulled over another driver. Now, writing this, I realize that rolling up on an on-duty cop with a handgun in tow might not have been fully thought through.

I told him I just bought a gun, had no clue how to use it. I asked him to make sure there were no bullets in the magazine or chamber. He took the magazine out and cleared the chamber. He assured me it was empty and showed me how to look. Then he told me how great the gun was and how he had one just like it.

The cop thought I was an idiot and suggested I take a class. But up to that point I’d done nothing wrong, nothing illegal.

On the contrary.  She’s done everything wrong, from refusing to get adequate training on her firearm and the laws of her state, to asking a cop about anything.

The drama is exhausting and breathtaking.  But the thing that really worries me isn’t that she has a gun.  It’s that bimbos like this can purchase an SUV the size and weight of my Ford F150 and drive it down the road with screaming kids in the back whilst jabbering on the cell phone attached to her ear, after qualifying with a driving test that a monkey could be trained to take.

Makes you stop and ponder, no?  It’s one reason I drive so defensively on the road nowadays.

David Codrea:

An elementary school toy gun “buyback” conducted Saturday in Hayward, Calif. offered children a chance to win bicycles in exchange for violating a school policy that does not authorize exceptions.

“Playing with toys guns, saying ‘I’m going to shoot you,’ desensitizes them, so as they get older, it’s easier for them to use a real gun,” Strobridge Elementary Principal Charles Hill maintained in a Mercury Daily News report, with absolutely nothing to substantiate his ignorant, offensive and absurd claim.

“If we want older kids to not think guns are cool, we need to start early,” Hill proclaimed, revealing his interest is manipulating the way children entrusted to his care perceive and react to issues, that is, by adopting the beliefs that agree with his. In other contexts, this would rightfully be perceived as educational malpractice and psychological child abuse.

I am proud to report that my two year old grandson already knows that papa has guns, and he wants to look at them.  We are already teaching him that guns are cool.  As soon as he is able to handle it, he will be the proud recipient of a .22 rifle and he will learn all about the rules for gun safety.

Because guns are cool.

Read the rest at Examiner.

In July 2012 the Small Wars Journal published Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A Vision of the Future.  It was a touchstone marking their descent into weird collectivism and illegal military operations by the armed forces of the U.S.

The specific scenario was stupid beyond belief, where “extremist militia” takes over the government of Darlington, South Carolina.  My son and I got a good laugh out of that one.  The only insurrection against the local government of Darlington might occur as a result of losing the one remaining NASCAR cup race, but as an aficionado of South Carolina, I can vouch that federal troops won’t be the savior of Darlington.  They might be the target, but the local Sheriff is just as likely to side with the militia.

But laugh as we might, this is serious business, and marks a dark moment in the history of our military.  They are now willing to say out loud what wouldn’t have even been thought a hundred years ago.

Small Wars Journal continues its theme with Political Violence Prevention: Profiling Domestic Terrorists.  The paradigm the author seeks to build is right up front.

… the process of becoming a violent extremist is a series of steps that leave footprints we should be able to track”. A national standard from which to identify individuals who have left these footprints and are on the path to becoming violent would be invaluable to law enforcement, especially at the local level. Without a set standard each local law enforcement agency interprets who may or may not be a threat and what is worth reporting or investigating differently as they have different experiences and expectations about domestic terrorists and terrorism. Domestic terrorists can be identified prior to committing any terrorist attacks through a profiling systems based upon identifying factors that influence committing acts of terrorism.

The entire effort is worthy of funding and support, according to the author.

The area in which profiling could be useful is in identifying Lone Wolf terrorist attacks as they are executed nearly twice as often as other attacks. This is under the assumption that Love Wolf attacks are more successful because the clues that alert the general public and law enforcement are less apparent or non-existent. It would also involve an intelligence agency to track the individual over an extended period of time. An agency that is not concerned with arresting or detaining would be free from the pressures of cased based intelligence enabling them instead to pursue preemptive intelligence where the profiling may be useful (Chalk & Rosenau 2004).

In order to prevent domestic terrorist attacks resources should be allocated into improving existing efforts that have proven to be effective as well as into the development and implication of concepts that improve weak areas of domestic terrorist threat detection such as a profiling system.

Make no mistake about it.  If you believe that the second amendment exists to keep government tyranny in check, you make the grade.  The “thinkers” are figuring out ways to watch you and profile you before you become “violent.”