Category: Current Events

The first shots I saw in a video were about 10 seconds of very regular fire… something that you’d expect from an honest-to-God machine gun. But people have reported that some video sounded like a crank fire mechanism to them, like you’d find on a gatling gun. I have to say, I agree after seeing this video:

This guy must have done extensive planning for this to have this much hardware staged and ready to go. But what’s his beef?

UPDATE: Here we go. I’m not aware of a cranked firearm ever being used in a crime before, but that’s not going to stop attempts to reclassify them. Is it possible the shooter used a bump stock as the article mentioned? Sure. But it strikes me as rank speculation. Not that I’m not doing a lot of that here, but I’ll admit it’s rank speculation. The media won’t.

It occurred to me this morning that a drone or two with a tear gas grenade might have been able to change the situation in Vegas faster than a SWAT team ultimately did. Fly one or two through the shot out windows, and at least it might stun and delay the shooter long enough to save lives and give the police better odds on entry. Might also make the dirt bag off himself ahead of schedule.

Too late now, but maybe something police should consider for future high-profile, target rich venues. Drones are cheap and relatively easy to fly these days. My club now has a cadre of drone pilots who spend the weekends using our ample open space to practice.

Police departments wouldn’t have too much trouble training officers on drones. Keep a few on standby and ready to go, or actively in the air. I would have issues with drones being armed with lethal force, but I’m OK with less-than-lethal force like tear gas or a flash bang. The problem with something like this is that it just gave a new template to the next whack job looking to go out with his name becoming a household word, and people hanging on learning every detail of his life.

David French at National Review:

This was the University of Texas tower attack on steroids, conducted out of nowhere, with meticulous planning and at great expense, from a person who doesn’t seem to fit any normal profile of a mass shooter. There is much we have yet to learn, but for now, this is one of the most chilling and mysterious events I’ve ever seen.

In a decade of blogging, I’ve followed a lot of public mass shootings, and this busts the profile for sure. I’m glad there are people out there relieving ignorance about the legal status of machine guns.

I’m still going to stick with my initial speculation that this guy lived in a 400k house, had two planes, and a clean record: he fits the profile of someone who could have afforded a legal machine gun. I’m not going to be surprised if that turns out to be the case.

Henry Kissinger is rumored to have said, in regards to the Iran-Iraq war, “It’s a pity both sides can’t lose.” That pretty much sums up how I feel about what happened in Charlottesville. For those of you who are wise enough to avoid social media, it has been non stop “fascism and nazism descending on America because a few hundred idiots got together and Charlottesville and did what idiots tend to do.

I’m told variously I have to speak out. No I don’t. I down own kooks. I don’t own those people any more than people who voted for Bernie own that dude who shot Steve Scalise, or people who voted for Hillary who own this guy. Let’s establish that we all think murdering people is wrong, that violence is bad, socialist authoritarianism, whether national or international flavor is bad, fascism is bad. I’ve always been more of a pragmatist than a hard ideologue, so I’m OK condemning a whole host of isms.

So no, I definitely don’t own a few hundred loser white supremacists or antifa protesters who decided to get out of mom’s basement for a day and beat each other up over a statue.

I’ll leave you all with Ace of Spades:

But as John Sexton points out, you can’t expect a culture to praise all sorts of Identity Politics — flat-out racist groups and gender supremacists — but say that one group doesn’t get to play by the same rules.

Either it’s all poisonous garbage, or it’s all got something of merit to it.

I believe the former. But the media — and the establishment right political class — cannot continue with this incoherent claim that Identity Politics are permissible for e everyone except The One Group Which is Truly Odious and Cursed by God.

People will not accept that. No one will accept his subordination without a fight of some kind.

I agree. It’s all poisonous garbage, and if we don’t abandon it for the good of the country, it’s only going to get worse.

Tam commenting on the recent shooting of an Australian woman by an apparently jumpy Minneapolis cop:

Policing is generally something folks get into because they knew they always wanted to as a kid, or because it’s a reasonably easy gig to land getting out of the military. It’s the ones who suddenly decided in their thirties that they wanted to drop everything and be Batman and a Force For Good that worry me.

I think people also go into law enforcement because their parents were in law enforcement. But the point is very well taken. Read the whole thing.

Greg Ellifritz, of Active Response Training, and a police officer, has some advice for both cops and carriers that’s worth reading:

Look at this shooting. The reason for contact (only one functioning brake light) is valid legally, but what do people think about cops pulling people over for minor infractions like that?  They don’t like it.  Following the logic, they will like it even less when someone gets shot as a result of a “bullshit” stop.

I know what the cop was doing, he was likely hunting for criminals and people who have warrants. I see it pretty regularly. Cops pull over crappy cars for equipment violations, hunting for an arrest. Poor people who can’t afford to fix busted tail lights often can’t afford to pay their tickets, their child support, or their court fees. Their driver’s licenses are frequently suspended and they regularly have warrants.

So, aggressive cop looking to arrest “bad guys” pulls over a beater car and runs everyone inside for warrants. About 25% of the time he gets lucky and gets an arrest or a bunch of tickets. Every once in awhile, bad shit happens, innocent people die and the cop ends up in the national media spotlight.  Is it worth it to take the chance of such a negative outcome to enforce a relatively inconsequential  traffic violation ?

Read the whole thing.

I linked to this multi-part Twitter rant by journalist Julian Sanchez in the last post, but since I know some of you don’t Twitter, I thought I’d preserve it here for posterity, because this is probably the best summary of the problem I’ve seen to date:

The Castile case reminds me of a weird pattern we always see in the inevitable defenses of police who've shot innocent people.

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

However objectively unreasonable the officer's conduct might seem, we're reminded of the fog of war, the stresses of the job, etc etc

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

…while the conduct of the victim is held to an oddly higher standard: "Oh, he should have known NOT to keep pulling out his wallet…"

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

"…even though that's what the officer had told him to do. He should have instantly deduced the officer would now take it for a gun…"

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

Which seems rather backwards. Civilians get nervous when they're stopped by police. Especially when the police are shouting!

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

Which is unsurprising, because civilians don't get extensive training on just how to behave in such situations. Police do.

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

As in law or medicine, part of being admitted to the profession is that your conduct can reasonably be held to a higher standard.

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

These defenses perversely invert that. It's like excusing gross malpractice because the patient didn't describe his symptoms in Latin jargon

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

OK, a last thought on this: Imagine a civilian in similar circumstances. Hell, even imagine the situation being a little more ambiguous.

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

Two men arguing after a fender bender, outside a shooting range say—so there’s actual conflict—and one suddenly reaches into his car.

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

The other panics and shoots him, imagining he *might* be reaching for his gun (though it was just his insurance card).

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

No prior physical altercation, no weapon actually seen by the shooter. Would anyone defend the panicked shooter?

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

Would anyone take his somber pronouncement that “I had to make a SPLIT SECOND decision” as anything but a pathetic rationalization?

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

I hope not. We’d recognize the urgency, even if sincerely felt, as an objectively unreasonable product of the killer’s imagination.

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

But my imaginary panicked shooter would at least have the (weak) excuse of not being trained or prepared for the situation.

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

So it seems weird that we are willing to make excuses for people who should be the best prepared for such scenarios that we wouldn’t make…

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

…for a civilian who made the same kind of panicked decision without the benefit of training. OK, all done now.

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

After that, the inevitable question of “But what do we do about it?”:

Well, for starters a consensus rejecting this sort of rationalization.

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 21, 2017

And that is the tough nut to crack. The more I write on topics like this, the more convinced I become that there are very few problems we face as a country that have easy answers, and very few controversies that have simple causes. The Castile case is not as simple as straight up racism, even if race is a factor. It’s not as simple as police are too militarized, or too quick to use force. It’s not as simple as “NRA doesn’t care about black people.” It’s representative of a lot of pathologies we carry as a nation, and I don’t have easy answers.

I’m not surprised by the result in the Philando Castile. I disagree with the assertion that the system is broken. Trial by jury is one of the best things we ever inherited from the British, and while it’s flawed, like every human endeavor, a properly functioning jury system is one of the ultimate checks the people have on the power of the state.

But the system only works as well as the people who comprise it, and the fact of the matter is that jurors will give cops breaks they wouldn’t give you and me under similar circumstances. It might not be right, but it is a fact. So it was always an uphill battle for Castile to get justice.

The Washington Post and other outlets are trying to make hay out of NRA’s silence. I’ve seen other outlets suggesting the reason for NRA’s silence is racism. That’s nonsense. The reason for NRA’s silence is that a not insignificant number of NRA’s membership are police officers. Hell, a not insignificant number of NRA’s staff and Board are former police officers. They aren’t going to be speaking out against a jury verdict acquitting a cop. NRA doesn’t care very much about pain coming from the media, anti-gun groups, or politicians. As I’ve noted, they actually thrive on that. NRA does care about internal pressure from its membership. If you don’t believe that, just ask Harry Reid.