Miami-Herald:

A Sweewater police officer was recovering Monday after his holstered gun discharged and hit him in the leg while he was chasing shoplifting suspects at Dolphin Mall.

The officer, Joel Bosque, was responding to a shoplifting report at the mall when he was injured. He was taken to the hospital and is “doing fine,” police spokesman Jorge Fernandez de Lara said.

Bosque, who has been with the department for a year, will likely be placed on administrative leave while Miami-Dade police investigate.

The incident happened on Sunday after four suspects took off through the sprawling mall, 11401 NW 12th St., from the Burlington Coat Factory.

According to police, four men were spotted shoplifting in the store by a loss prevention officer. When the officer tried to stop them, they took off in different directions.

Bosque and another officer were able to catch one of the four. The three others are still at large.

Darius Brown, 18, was charged with felony theft, robbery and resisting without violence.

Bosque’s gun went off while it was in his holster, police said.

There should be no need to rehearse what we’ve said so many times before.  Guns don’t just “go off.”  More than likely (almost certainly) he had his finger on the trigger of his weapon and stumbled, causing his finger to squeeze due to sympathetic muscle reflexes.  See my description here for more details.

The real issue here is that the officer was reaching for his weapon and had his finger on the trigger while chasing a fleeing suspect.  Now go back and read the Supreme Court decision in Tennessee Versus Garner to see if he should really be doing that.  Fill in the comments section with your homework.

Prior:

Gun-Mounted Flashlights Linked To Accidental Shootings

Chicago SWAT Raid Gone Terribly Wrong

The Moral Case Against SWAT Raids

The Las Cruces Sun-News:

The man accused of attacking an elderly couple in their Las Cruces home, striking their heads with a hammer then stealing their pickup truck last month, pleaded not guilty Monday morning in state District Court.

Guy Jaime Young, a 42-year-old from Hobbs, N.M., had been indicted on nine felony charges recently by a Doña Ana County grand jury. He’s facing two counts each of attempted first-degree murder and armed robbery, plus aggravated burglary, three counts of evidence tampering and unlawfully taking a motor vehicle.

Las Cruces police allege that on June 11 Young randomly selected the elderly couple’s home in the 800 block of Camino Del Rex, grabbed a hammer then attacked the 82-year-old man and his 79-year-old wife. Afterward, Young demanded cash from the woman, then left in their Ford F250 pickup, court documents state.

Assault hammers are nothing but violent instruments of death, and belong on the battlefield, not the streets of America.  They must be banned.  For the children and elderly.

Prior:

The Need For Ban On Assault Hammers

Concerning Guns, Hammers And Violence

David Codrea:

The Manic Latin Disciples ranking member and prohibited person due to gun and drug convictions is joined in problematic legal issues by former CeaseFire Illinois Director Tio Hardman, who was charged with domestic violence, and “CeaseFire worker Sylvester Hudson, who was charged last year with selling heroin to a federal informant outside CeaseFire’s headquarters at UIC.

Hey, it is Chicago, where bad people do politics, and politics is always bad.  Given what you’ve seen lately come out of Chicago, do you wonder why the anti-gunners aligned themselves with such ne’er-do-wells?

Via WRSA, Daniel Greenfield:

The Consensus isn’t for America. It’s for the world. It cares as much about Americans as it does about Guatemalans or Pakistanis. Its members vacation and live around the world and see themselves as human beings first and members of a people or a nation second. They have a “higher citizenship” in humanity. They will take what is good about America and apply it elsewhere.

What do they believe in? What are their ideals? They believe in efficiency. They believe in justice. They believe that everything can be constantly improved until it is perfected in a perpetual process of social evolution. They are not religious. Their religion is that of the factory floor. Their faith is in their own godhood as experts. They believe that man came from apes and that someone has to see to it that he behaves like a good ape, rather than a bad ape.

Well said.  It’s what my former (and now deceased) professor Dr. C. Gregg Singer wrote about and called social Darwinism.  Man is a tabula rasa, and failure of his actions redounds to failure of the system, failure to train him, failure to incorporate him, failure to teach him (although there are variants of detail such as Instrumentalism, Utilitarianism, etc.).  An individual’s failure is that s/he isn’t as well educated and socialized as the philosopher-kings who rule us.  Not coincidentally, this very philosophy also undergirds counterinsurgency theory (so called COIN).  Do you wonder, now, why it has failed so miserably where it has been tried?

Finally, here is something I want (well, there are many things I want, most of which I can’t have, and this is just one wish list item).  I want Rock River Arms or LaRue Tactical to engineer a 0.270 rifle in the AR (Eugene Stoner) platform.  Various web sites to which I have been discussed the need for work but no research.  Wrong.  Research would be necessary to get the chambering right, the buffer spring constant, the rifle barrel length and thickness to ensure proper harmonics, etc.

Forbes:

Random gun violence is a terrifying fact of American life, because of both the violence and the randomness. Terror bred by violence does not really require comment; they are twinned. But terror bred by randomness does, especially when it leads people to accept as true a reasonable story that is false, when a myth functions as an explanation. And that is what is happening with the way we talk about mental illness and random gun violence. Thankfully, a just published report in the Annals of Epidemiology pulls together the facts we need to consider if we really want to adopt evidence-based policies to reduce random gun violence.

The article, “Mental illness and reduction of gun violence and suicide: bringing epidemiologic research to policy,” is a comprehensive, critical survey of the available data (and it is surprisingly accessible and  well-written for an academic treatise). It concludes that “most violent behavior is due to factors other than mental illness.”

[ … ]

Jeffrey W. Swanson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine and lead author of the article in Annals of Epidemiology was quoted in the UCLA Newsroom saying ”but even if schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression were cured, our society’s problem of violence would diminish by only about 4 percent.”

That is not very much. When people with mental illness do act violently it is typically for the same reasons that people without mental illness act violently.

In other words, advocacy for mental health checks and blame of the “mentally ill” for violence in the U.S. is not only unfair, it is a ruse intended to hide the real reasons for the advocacy, which is to intrude on civil rights and the moral duty of self defense.

It’s nice to see the recapitulation of things already said about this issue, in fact things I have cataloged.

Clinicians treating patients hear their fears, anger, sadness, fantasies and hopes, in a protected space of privacy and confidentiality, which is guaranteed by federal and state laws. Mental health professionals are legally obligated to break this confidentiality when a patient “threatens violence to self or others.” But clinicians rarely report unless the threat is immediate, clear and overt.

Mental health professionals understand that, despite our intimate knowledge of the thoughts of our patients, we are not very good at predicting what people will do. Our knowledge is always incomplete and conditional, and we do not have the methods to objectively predict future behavior. Tendencies, yes; specific actions, no. To think that we can read a person’s brain the way a scanner in airport security is used to detect weapons is a gross misunderstanding of psychological science, and very far from the nuanced but uncertain grasp clinicians have on patients’ state of mind.

What about diagnoses?

If mental health professionals were required to report severe mental illness (such as paranoid schizophrenia) to state authorities, it would have an immediate chilling effect on the willingness of people to disclose sensitive information, and would discourage many people from seeking treatment. What about depression, bipolar disorder, substance abuse or post-traumatic stress disorder, along with other types of mental illness that have some link to self-harm and impulsive action? The scope of disclosure that the government could legally compel might end up very wide, without any real gain in predictive accuracy.

Diagnosis is an inexact and constantly evolving effort, and it is contentious within the profession. To use a diagnosis as the basis of reporting the possibility of violence to the authorities would make the effort of accurate evaluation much more fraught. And what of the families and friends of the mentally ill? Should their weapons purchases be restricted as well? A little reflection shows how unworkable in practice any screening by diagnosis would be.

“We’re not likely to catch very many potentially violent people” with laws like the one in New York, says Barry Rosenfeld, a professor of psychology at Fordham University in The Bronx….

A study of experienced psychiatrists at a major urban psychiatric facility found that they were wrong about which patients would become violent about 30 percent of the time.

That’s a much higher error rate than with most medical tests, says Alan Teo, a psychiatrist at the University of Michigan and an author of the study.

One reason even experienced psychiatrists are often wrong is that there are only a few clear signs that a person with a mental illness is likely to act violently, says Steven Hoge, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University. These include a history of violence and a current threat to commit violence ….

Perhaps most important, although people with serious mental illness have committed a large percentage of high-profile crimes, the mentally ill represent a very small percentage of the perpetrators of violent crime overall. Researchers estimate that if mental illness could be eliminated as a factor in violent crime, the overall rate would be reduced by only 4 percent. That means 96 percent of violent crimes—defined by the FBI as murders, robberies, rapes, and aggravated assaults—are committed by people without any mental-health problems at all. Solutions that focus on reducing crimes by the mentally ill will make only a small dent in the nation’s rate of gun-related murders, ranging from mass killings to shootings that claim a single victim.  It’s not just that the mentally ill represent a minority of the country’s population; it’s also that the overlap between mental illness and violent behavior is poor.

Whether folks engage in myth-telling because they believe in myths, or just want to mislead, the result is the same.  Communicating lies is both hurtful and sinful.  We are required to tell the truth, and the truth is that there is little to no correlation between mental health, whatever that is, and violence.

The setup for this has been occurring for quite a while.  The collectivists on the right have helped the leftists gain strength, but the rate and fury of activity that has been consequential in destabilizing the United States has increased almost beyond comprehension.

The long term evolution of America to a position where such a strategy might stand a greater chance of success began long ago with the move towards urbanization.  The flight from rural America was helped along with family farms bought out by Monsanto and Archer-Daniels-Midland, with low paid migrant workers on those farms, all subsidized by tax payers and rate payers who couldn’t see that there was a very high hidden cost for the low cost of produce.

The urbanized familes – at least, many of the uneducated families – have absolutely no means to earn a living in the inner city.  They are repeatedly told, “we’ll take care of you.”  And we do, via public transportation, food stamps, welfare, socialized medicine, public education, jobs programs, and a host of other entitlements.  The cost, of course, is borne on the shoulders of the middle class.

Furthermore, the previous administration had its wolves in sheep’s clothing.  Hank Paulson, father of TARP and bailout, has joined the anthropogenic global warming fanatics, and here is the catch, is now advocating a carbon tax.  The key here isn’t AGW, it is that Hank Paulson advocates a tax, which is the whole point of AGW.  But the current administration has accelerated implementation of the Cloward-Piven Strategy with a fury.

The Fast and Furious scandal is one manifestation of Cloward-Piven, with the administration fully expecting to pass onerous gun control and perhaps even so-called immigration reform from the influx of illegals due to the increased violence in Mexico.  But when that didn’t materialize due to folks like Mike Vanderboegh, David Codrea and [later] Sharyl Attkison, the chaos at the border had to be catalyzed some other way.

Enter the rumor mill, effective enough, it would appear, to make it into newspapers in Central America.  Don’t for a second doubt that this chaos is having the intended long term effect.

A flood of illegals has massively surged at our southwestern borders. The economic impact of medical care, education and incarceration for illegals forced on taxpayers is bankrupting Arizona.

Why are such swarms entering the U.S. illegally NOW, particularly children? Newspapers in Mexico and Central and South America are actually describing U.S. “open borders,” encouraging people to come with promises of food stamps or “amnesty.” It is textbook Cloward-Piven strategy to overwhelm and collapse the economic and social systems, in order to replace them with a “new socialist order” under federal control.

Carried by this tsunami of illegals are the invisible “travelers” our politicians don’t like to mention: diseases the U.S. had controlled or virtually eradicated: tuberculosis (TB), Chagas disease, dengue fever, hepatitis, malaria, measles, plus more. I have been working on medical projects in Central and South America since 2009, so I am aware of problems these countries face from such diseases.

A public health crisis, the likes of which I have not seen in my lifetime, is looming. Hardest hit by exposures to these difficult-to-treat diseases will be elderly, children, immunosuppressed cancer-patients, patients with chronic lung disease or congestive heart failure. Drug-resistant tuberculosis is the most serious risk, but even diseases like measles can cause severe complications and death in older or immunocompromised patients.

The costs are cascading down to the local level.  “Small towns and counties in states bordering Mexico are drowning in debt due to the swarm of illegals stealing and destroying property, requiring expensive medical care and needing proper burials, all of which the federal government has largely refused to pay for.”  In Brooks County, Texas, the concern is mainly public safety.

 Sex offenders, murder suspects and gang members are making their way through the vast rangelands of Brooks County.

The Vickers ranch is one of the many land spreads affected by the surge in illegal immigration. What is more concerning to the ranch owners is the type of people trekking through their land.

Linda Vickers never wanders away from her house without her trusty canine companions – Blitz, Elsa, Schotten and Tinkerbell.  The dogs provide a sense of security in a land of insecurity.

“The safety factor out here has changed,” Vickers said.

Vickers and her husband own and operate a nearly-1,000-acre ranch in Brooks County.  Vickers reports anyone who crosses her fence line to Border Patrol.

“As of yesterday, 196 illegal immigrants with 136 apprehensions by Border Patrol,” she said.  The dogs sniff out those hiding in the brush.

“There are some good, helpless people. Then, there are some really bad ones,” Vickers said.

Earlier this week, Vickers took a photo of a man on her front porch. She said the man had a Tango Blast tattoo.  Tango Blast is the largest and one of the most dangerous gangs operating in the state, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

“I sometimes have to take a step back and realize the jeopardy that could happen out here,” Vickers said.

It’s not just gang members that worry Vickers. Border Patrol agents arrested a wanted murderer near Falfurrias and sex offenders in the Rio Grande Valley last weekend.

“They’re everywhere,” Vickers said.

The goal of the administration is for the local and state governments to demand federal dollars, but with federal dollars comes federal control.  The ultimate aim of Obamacare wasn’t to work or function, it was to fail, thus driving America to a single-payer system.  Unless one understand everything this administration does within the framework of Cloward-Piven, you cannot understand them at all.

The corollary to the urbanized collective, the redistribution of wealth, and the single payer health system, is a heavy policing presence, whether regulatory thugs inside the beltway, uniformed thugs who enforce the laws, or militarized SWAT teams who kick doors down.  Or in other words, heavy policing is the corollary for the problems that modern society chooses to create for itself.  The problems themselves are not a necessary product or outcome; rather, we have chosen the problems, and an overbearing, statist police presence is the intended outcome, while the problems are the catalyst.

Via Mike Vanderboegh, DianaWest asks if the Southern border can be saved?  Mike points to Boehner’s treachery on immigration, while we will perhaps in the future point to the treachery of recently elected House majority leader.  For the House majority leader who wants border enforcement and then amnesty, they’ll fabricate phony metrics on border arrests and call the issue closed.  As for the reason both parties want immigration, both legal and illegal, the corruption runs too deep to be rooted out.

The alleged need for immigrants pertains to the desires of corporations to have low paid workers.  It doesn’t enrich you or me, it enriches the rich (heads of corporations, boards of directors, and so on).

Here’s how it works.  It helps the corporate bottom line by forcing the middle class to pick up the tab for medical care, which burden happens largely on the backs of nurses in emergency rooms (my daughter is a nurse in an ER), with medical insurance premiums escalating in order to pay for the service.  Food stamps (so called SNAP) also factor into the calculus, as well as driver’s insurance (for uninsured motorists coverage).

It isn’t that there is no cost for low paid workers.  It’s that the cost is borne by the middle class as welfare to corporations and the wealthy.  The GOP is connected at the hip to such interests in terms of money, while the Democrats are connected in terms of future voters.  With such powerful interests at stake, it should be obvious why the Southern border is a sieve and illegals are left in the country unmolested.

As to whether the GOP will ever be able to rely on votes from the Hispanics, that is a non-starter.  “Hispanics are not historically and ideologically aligned with what the GOP is supposed to be.  To point to Roman Catholicism and claim that Hispanics will vote GOP because of socially conservative viewpoints misses the bigger picture of the state of Catholicism in South and Central America.  It is a synthesis, or a hybrid mixture, of Catholicism, superstition, Marxism, and in some cases evil “patron saints” for the cartel criminals.”

The elaborate setup for the problem is far too embedded into American culture and government to eradicate.  There’s too many border crossings, too much border traffic, too many Mexican truckers driving in the U.S., too many Mexican workers, and too much corporate money at stake to reverse the course now.  It would take far more than simply “securing the border,” whatever that might mean given that the horse left the barn years ago.

I am not suggesting that we don’t try, but I am suggesting that we prepare for failure of the routine, typical political strategies.  Personal and family preparation for failure of the American system is the advisable course of action.

David Codrea:

In a peculiar combination of a “Catch-22” contradiction along with Soviet-style psychiatric controls, expect the desire to own guns to be proof of a mental disability. Especially if they’re the “non-sporting” kind and accompanied by a belief that keeping and bearing them is “necessary to the security of a free State.”

Kurt Hofmann:

[citing a gun controller] … but there must be plenty of people among the eight million Americans now holding Concealed Carry (CCW) privileges who don’t have the physical or mental dexterity that handling a lethal weapon requires.

Then advocate taking them off the road first, since automobiles are the most lethal weapon in America.  Let’s hear it.  I want to hear this weasel advocate taking cars away from people who need transportation.  Until then, he’s just a wind bag full of hot air.

 Via Mike Vanderboegh, Kevin Williamson:

Is there something magical about Albion’s seed — Protestantism? the English language itself? the combination of the two in the King James Bible? — that inoculates the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand against the European intellectual disease? That disease mutates every 20 years, but the primordial strain of the virus is always identifiable: more power, centralized power, consolidated power.

Yes, and to the degree which it wanes, totalitarianism will wax strong.  It’s called the philosophical problem of the one and the many, which totalitarian societies answer favoring the former, while anarchy answers favoring the later.  Only historical Christianity gets it right, with the balance of institutions – government, family and church – all answerable to God.

Via Uncle … oh my.  Just … oh my!

Radley Balko:

As part of the American Civil Liberties Union’s recent report on police militarization, the Massachusetts chapter of the organization sent open records requests to SWAT teams across that state. It received an interesting response.

As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area and overseen by an executive board, which is usually made up of police chiefs from member police departments. In 2012, for example, the Tewksbury Police Department paid about $4,600 in annual membership dues to the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, or NEMLEC. (See page 36 of linked PDF.) That LEC has about 50 member agencies. In addition to operating a regional SWAT team, the LECs also facilitate technology and information sharing and oversee other specialized units, such as crime scene investigators and computer crime specialists.

Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it’s here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they’re private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they’re immune from open records requests. Let’s be clear. These agencies oversee police activities. They employ cops who carry guns, wear badges, collect paychecks provided by taxpayers and have the power to detain, arrest, injure and kill. They operate SWAT teams, which conduct raids on private residences. And yet they say that because they’ve incorporated, they’re immune to Massachusetts open records laws. The state’s residents aren’t permitted to know how often the SWAT teams are used, what they’re used for, what sort of training they get or who they’re primarily used against.

The reddit comments are priceless:

If they are private corporations, then they shouldn’t have immunity from being sued. That’s just bullshit.

Can you say “secret police?”  Or Gestapo?  This argument is the most crass, brazen, insulting thing SWAT could have done concerning truthfulness in law enforcement.  Not even Soldiers and Marines get to claim secrecy like this if they get charged with violation of the ROE.

And this certainly doesn’t comport with Herschel’s law (named by Ned Weatherby).  As for the Massachusetts SWAT teams, they have long ago lost the mandate of heaven.  When that happens, it’s not immoral to treat them like the criminals they are.

David Codrea:

A recently promoted and parroted monopoly of violence cult talking point appears to be that women wouldn’t “need” guns if men were all good. And if wishes were fishes we’d all cast nets, or if “ifs” and “buts” were candy and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas.

Ain’t that something? It seems like James Madison, someone who had more than a passing interest in the Second Amendment, expressed related thoughts in The Federalist #51: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

David also discusses Alinsky Rule 5 ridicule centered around penises.  No joke.  Stop by and see what he’s talking about.  And many thanks to David for the attention at Examiner.

I’m reminded of a visit I took with my second son, Joseph, to King’s Mountain military park a while back.  While public school kids today are learning (through common core) about how cool Islamist jihadists are, the only other ones I saw at King’s Mountain that day were home schoolers (Joseph is grown, but we both learned a lot at the park).

One of the British commanders remarked in his letters that he had never seen men such as he was fighting at King’s Mountain.  They would ride on horseback by moonlight for weeks, he said, without food or provisions, just to kill a single man, and then turn around and go home – if they lived.  As word went out across the mountains about the British intentions, men would prepare to ride to the battle, with women in the trails and streets of their townships urging them on and singing hymns of blessing upon them and beseeching God’s grace on them.

Where are these sturdy women of today?  Men need you.

Via WRSA, Louis Awerbuck has passed away.  In honor of his life, I am posting these two training videos.

I find that Louis was a very good teacher, making use of repeat instruction to help the student and without any attitude or condescension at all.  This is the mark of a wise instructor.

As for his recommendations for use of pistol and tactical light in opposing hands, I no longer do that unless I have to.  I had to perform room clearing on a house recently, involving a lot of rooms, and as you know I shoot .45 ACP and I happened to be holding an XDm .45 with double stack 13 round magazine (my 1911 would have been even heavier because of the frame and 5.25 inch barrel).

By the time I was finished, I noticed that my single hand holding the pistol was exhausted (I was gripping the pistol in one hand, tactical light in the other).  Additionally, by using one hand you give up the stability of the two-handed grip.  I now use an attached tactical light when I can (although this also had disadvantages such as the need to use a holster that can carry both).

Kurt Hofmann:

What Perlstein doesn’t mention, but undoubtedly knows, is that if the armed federal muscle had not backed off, the only other option would have been a bloody battle. Killing in wholesale numbers, over a dispute about where cows eat. This guy wants the government to go into combat against American citizens, very possibly igniting civil war, and has the audacity to claim that it’s the “gun nuts” who “are terrorizing America.”

I don’t think the collectivists have thought through this point.  They have assumed that any advance by government forces would have brought capitulation by the folks at the ranch.  This simply isn’t true, and we’ve discussed the legality and morality of shooting back at the ranch should government forces fire the first shot.  The same lack of thought afflicts the suggestion that because the government has tanks and nuclear weapons, a citizenry cannot hold tyranny accountable – as if the government would, or should, wage conventional and nuclear war on its citizens!  As for that matter, these collectivists who believe that owning tanks assures their perpetuity don’t understand 4GW.

A good guy with a gun …

To be effective with a gun in a crisis situation requires not just instinct but training. Police officers and military forces go through extensive instruction for good reason. It isn’t enough to knock a few beer cans off a fencepost or to accurately line up a deer in a rifle sight.

A friend who is a former Captain with the [very large] Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department once told me that we both knew more about guns and tactics than most cops on the force, who shoot their weapons only when they qualify once a year at the range.  She believes the myth.  And let me tell you something lady.  I notice that you insulted boys with hunting rifles and scopes who hunt deer.  Don’t you mess with those boys.  They’ll put a hurting on you, in the woods or anywhere else.

You want to know why Thad Conchran won in Mississippi?  Mike Vanderboegh has the scoop.

Make sure to read David Codrea on Ted Cruz, Ronald Reagan, politics and guns.  The results may surprise you.  I find the positions held by Ted Cruz to my liking, regardless of what his wife does for a living.  As for his wife, I’ll hold judgment – well, no I won’t.  And I want to hear Ted on gun rights.

Finally, this is a note I sent to the webmaster of the Louisiana National Guard (because that was the only email address I could find on the site).

Sir,
 
I see no other way on your web site to contact command of Louisiana National Guard concerning my questions, so I am reaching out to you to forward this note to your superiors.  This is the first of several questions I have concerning Lousiana National Guard actions during Katrina, but we may as well start with the first one.  I would like to have a traceable paper trail for all of my communications, and if necessary I will fill out the requisite paperwork for FOI request.  Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that.
 
My first question concerns whether LNG soldiers were armed (with rounds in magazines and/or chambered) during your response to Katrina.  I would like a PDF copy of your arming orders for this if so.  Your CO will know what I refer to when I say “arming orders.”
 
Thank you,
 
Herschel Smith
http://www.captainsjournal.com/

I think you see where I’m going with this.  I don’t expect it to be easy or quick.