News from the great Northeast:

First came the rat — and then, the rat-a-tat-tat.

A Harlem postal cop, startled early Thursday by a rambling rodent outside the W. 125th St. post office, accidentally fired his gun while investigating a building alarm, sources said.

Both the rat and U.S. Postal Service Inspector Neville Harper escaped injury in the 12:35 a.m. shooting that came after the rodent bolted suddenly from a pile of garbage, the sources said.

Harper was doing a perimeter search of the building with his service revolver drawn when the rat appeared and the gun went off, sources said.

I’ve heard of those guns that just “go off” with no one pulling the trigger, mostly from cops under investigation when their gun “goes off.”  But in this case, this particular gun “went off” when the rat bolted.  That must be some sensitive trigger (trigger pressure of, oh, I don’t know, a nano-Pascal?).  Those changes in air pressure when things move, you know.

And remember kids.  Only the cops can be trusted with guns.

WFLA.com:

HOMOSASSA, Fla. (WFLA) — School officials have identified the owner of a gun that was found at Rock Crusher Elementary school Tuesday morning.

School staff and detectives found out the gun fell out of a man’s pocket while he was dropping his child off. Roy Caffera said it fell through a hole in his cargo shorts.

When parent Monique Guertin heard about the gun at her child’s school, she panicked. “Yeah, it’s very scary,” Guertin said.

Citrus County school authorities said the weapon was discovered sometime after 8 a.m. in the area where parents drop off their children for a pre-care program in the back of the school.

“A parent noticed the weapon, contacted one of the employees. They came out, secured the weapon. They thought the weapon was a pellet,” Asst. Superintendent Mike Mullen said.

A janitor fired the weapon, trying to discharge the pellets. That’s when he learned it was a pistol.

That’s what I do too when I’m not sure.  If I’m not sure whether it’s a gun, I just pick it up and pull the trigger to see if I can dislodge anything in it.  If it fires, we all laugh, and laugh, and laugh.  As long as no kids get hurt.

News about boy-billionaire:

One booming business in Silicon Valley is security — but not the digital kind.

Insiders tell Page Six that the young tech billionaires are forced to hire armies of guards after threats from unstable users.

Sources told us that Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg has 16 bodyguards now working at his home.

“He has guards over at his place,” said a Palo Alto, Calif., insider, adding that tech moguls around town are all quietly upping security.

We hear that Zuckerberg’s 16-person detail are not all on the scene at the same time, but work in shifts.

Pro immigration, anti-gun nut Mark Zuckerberg wants to curtail your liberties, buy he wants his.  Because he is more special than you.  He has the money to hire 16 bodyguards, and you don’t.  And he doesn’t care that you don’t.  Just like when he conned his partner out of his share of Facebook.  His only statement to his partner was something like “you should have gotten a better lawyer.”  Oh, and if you have a Facebook account, Zuckerberg thinks you dumb.  Well, that’s not exactly the way he put it.

The Washington Post:

Senate Republicans clashed Wednesday over how to battle President Obama’s expected Supreme Court nomination as the White House left open the remote possibility that the president might sidestep a confirmation fight by making a rare recess appointment.

Obama has the option, while the Senate is in recess, of naming a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, who died Saturday. A recess appointee would serve until the end of the current Congress in January 2017. White House officials did not dismiss the idea that the president could use the recess maneuver if the Senate fails to hold hearings and a vote on the nomination Obama has promised to send to the Senate.

“Our intent is to nominate an indisputably qualified individual to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday. “And our expectation is that the United States Senate will fulfill their constitutional responsibility to give that individual a fair hearing in a timely up-or-down vote.”

[ … ]

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared in the hours after Scalia’s death that his seat “should not be filled until we have a new President.” But since his statement Saturday, his Republican colleagues have not agreed on where precisely they ought to make their stand: Should they refuse to take any action whatsoever, responding to the demands of the conservative base? Or should they at least schedule hearings and procedural votes in order to blunt political attacks from Democrats?

The hand wringing is so dramatic, yes?  “Blunt political attacks from Democrats.”  Attacks.  Okay folks, listen up.  Relax.  Take a deep breath.  These aren’t attacks.  Attacks are what my son sustained in Fallujah.  Attacks are what happens when someone comes at you with a knife attempting to disembowel you.  Attacks are what happens when someone shoots a gun at you, and attack is when black thugs gang up on a notable and decorated Marine Corps veteran within six blocks of the White House and beat the hell out of him while they scream, “do black lives matter?”

You are not under attack.  You sit in comfortable chairs every day, rub shoulders with colleagues, go to the Congressional cafeteria and gym, and have your aids do all of the heavy lifting.  Your job is a cake walk.  Your strategy is this: You do nothing.

You don’t have hearings, you ignore overtures from the White House, you don’t give them the time of day, and you don’t respond to reporters when they harass you for not kowtowing to the communists in the executive branch.  There.  I’m glad I could be of help.

And all of these hand-wringing articles written by propagandists about “heavens, what are we to do,” yea, those, they are just so much end of the world propaganda.  Don’t waste you time with them, and don’t give them quotes to use against you.  Grow up, and don’t act like pansy-ass little girls.

Bloomberg:

With Hopkins’s approval, I spend three days observing from behind the counter at Westside Armory, on the condition I won’t risk driving away customers by interrupting to ask to quote them by name. On the floor, I listen to the sales patter and consumer comments. I observe diligence, for the most part, about following the rules. And yet I also witness some troubling slip-ups, including one that leads to a visit to the store by two agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “We’re not perfect,” Hopkins says.

Yea, that’s right.  A Bloomberg hack was allowed in the building to write his propaganda.  One thing that struck me was the nexus of memes.

The persistence of demand for firearms in the U.S. becomes the subject of a get-together at the store with Stuart Anderson Wheeler, a visiting fellow big-game hunter who runs an eponymous business in London that manufactures bespoke hunting guns. Anderson Wheeler finds American gun culture perplexing, especially the shrill tone of the National Rifle Association. “I mean, all the talk of terrorism and shootings—it’s pretty extreme. Can they be serious?” he asks.

“They know what sells,” says Hopkins.

“I’m all for guns,” Anderson Wheeler responds. “But how many does a person need?”

“You Brits don’t have our traditions,” Hopkins says. “To Americans, owning a gun is a connection back to the settling of the Western frontier: cowboys and Indians and all that.”

“And fear,” says Anderson Wheeler.

The store owner and a hunter (not just a Fudd, but a British Fudd), engage in a bit of condescending snark towards American gun owners.  “Fear.”  “Extreme.”  “They know what sells.”  That’s right, Hopkins.  It’s the extreme language of the NRA or the NSSF which convinces us to buy guns.  If it weren’t for them, we’d just park our ass on the couch and watch sitcoms at night and football games on the weekend.

Truthfully, it’s folks like these who don’t understand how the NRA and NSSF is being dragged kicking and screaming into the twentieth first century.  They are even less informed than the progs, because at least the progs get the significance of their gun control schemes and why we buy guns.  Their (NRA and NSSF) irrelevance to the current trends is missed by the Fudds and the sellouts like Hopkins.

David Codrea noticed this (I couldn’t bring myself to read this far).

Like many FFL holders, Hopkins would have no objection to universal background checks for all gun transfers. 

David comments:

Anyone in the business who’s not leading in the fight against universal registration, especially now in the time of great need, and actually telling that to a Bloomberg reporter, deserves to have his business go belly-up as far as I’m concerned. And the FFLs who look forward to it as a new business opportunity are no better than damn kapos.

Yea, Hopkins just went from being a stooge to being an enemy.  Understand, Hopkins, that universal background checks will bring out the guns, and not in a good way, if you know what I mean.  That is a line that cannot be crossed by anyone.  It won’t happen, and your willing adultery with the Bloomberg position is most disappointing.  As for this particular shop, I would drive hours before I would do business with them.  I hope the good folks in Nevada read this article and adjust their business practices accordingly.

This issue has special interest for me, since my own employer prohibits the carrying of weapons in the work place, but also knows that it cannot prohibit the carry of weapons in the public parking lot adjacent to my place of work.

On a personal note, I’ve pressed this issue up the chain of command, to no avail.  They want to maintain, how do they say it, “a safe work place.”  So in order to effect this end, they prohibit self defense and show us those idiotic active shooter videos where they enact an active shooter event and show you what to do.

It’s embarrassing to watch it, and it’s even more embarrassing to work for a company where they show such juvenile rubbish.  So the recommendations?  Hide under desks and be very quiet.  If the shooter sees you, throw potted plants at him.  Run.  Run very fast.  Wait for law enforcement to show up 15 minutes later – after 100 people have already perished.  Then when the dust settles but people are still in mourning, the company gets to go to court or negotiate with lawyers over those 100 preventable deaths, and give away a billion dollar class action settlement.  That’s the way that would work out.  Only lawyers could dream up something so stupid.  All in the interest of a safe work place.  A jury will know what I’m talking about, because most of them have seen the same idiotic video.

So this case interests me.

A Universal Orlando worker who was fired after someone stole a gun from his car at work has sued his former employer.

Dean Kumanchik’s lawsuit was filed in Orange County Circuit Court on Thursday. According to a copy of the complaint sent by his attorney, Universal fired Kumanchik the day before Christmas. A ride technician who earned more than $30 an hour, Kumanchik had worked at Universal more than 20 years.

The lawsuit gives this account: A licensed concealed weapons holder, Kumanchik regularly took his gun to and from work and kept it locked in his vehicle. He parked in an area accessible to both employees and the public. In December, someone broke into his vehicle and stole the gun. He reported it to police. Upon learning what had happened, Universal immediately fired him.

Kumanchik’s lawsuit asserts that Universal violated an eight-year-old law allowing Floridians with concealed-weapons permits to keep firearms locked in their cars at work.

A Universal spokesman said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

Orlando’s big theme parks have previously claimed they are exempt from the law, however.

After the law went into effect, Universal cited an exemption for school property as a justification for its ban. Orange County Public Schools runs an alternative education program called the Universal Education Center on the property.

Claiming that exemption is “nonsense,” Kumanchik’s attorney Richard Celler said. “In our opinion the school they claim is some little building way out of the way, nowhere near the premises or parking lot where he was performing work.”

After the law went into effect, Walt Disney World cited an exemption for property owned by an employer who has a permit for explosives. Disney has such a permit for the fireworks used in its theme parks.

The notion of a “school” on the property is an accidental feature of the decision to fire the employee, and not the reason Universal has a policy against guns.  They reflexively fired him because of discriminatory policies, and then the lawyers hunted for some justification for what they did in the law.  They landed on the fortuitous wording of a “school” on the property (in some cataloged training literature or procedures, or maps they give employees), which is likely nothing more than a training center, something all corporations have.  A jury will know what I’m talking about.  I can guarantee you that the legislature didn’t have corporate training centers in mind when they used the word “school.”  My own state prohibits weapons on school property and playgrounds as well.  Do you think “playgrounds” includes pick-up games of football after work in the nearest open field?

One commenter has this to say:

Florida is an at-will employment state without the Covenant of Good Faith Exemption. That means employers do not even have to pretend to be fair when they fire you. You can do everything right, follow orders to a T, excel in every way, and the boss can give you the axe with no justification at all. Sucks to be employed in Florida, but Universal is within its legal rights.

He thinks he’s smart, but this isn’t even nearly right.  I’m an at will employee too, but the company cannot discriminate against, for example, the elderly, or black workers, or women, and claim that something like that is justifiable due to at-will employment contracts.  That’s why corporations offer attractive separation packages to workers in their 60’s rather than firing them outright and claiming the existence of at-will contracts.  The jury will know exactly what I’m talking about.  Universal fired this worker because of discriminatory attitudes concerning self defense and the second amendment.  Counsel had better be ready for this strategy during trial.

Associated court documents.

NRO:

The Washington Post:

On the livestream, Fry was rambling almost incoherently about the government, abortion, the Middle East, nuclear power plants, drone strikes in Pakistan and his belief in UFOs. He railed against “monopolies” and “chemical castration” by the government. He was angry that he couldn’t “find a way to make an income without paying taxes for atrocities.” He complained that nobody would bring him any marijuana. He spoke about killing himself and said he had his weapon at his side.

[ … ]

“David, this is Ammon Bundy,” he said on the 96-second clip. “I want you to know that there is a future out here. You have a future. . . . Your actions here really mattered and we love you. Please come out of there.”

After several silent minutes, Fry lit a cigarette and said, “Well, alrighty then.”

He shouted that he wanted everyone there to say “Hallelujah.”

The FBI agents yelled “Hallelujah!”

Thirty miles away, at an FBI command post in an old schoolhouse in Burns where top state and federal officials were watching a live video feed, everyone shouted “Hallelujah!”

And Fry walked out of the tent.

Oh dear.  So there are a number of tactical, logistical and strategic lessons learned in this set of events.  According to Robert ‘LaVoy’ Finicum, Bundy started this occupation on the spur of the moment, rather unplanned.  Whimsical, ad hoc outings perhaps have a place in romantic relationships, but not in military operations.  They had no logistical support, they had no means of egress, escape and evasion, they didn’t know if they would have the support and agreement of anyone else, and they carried guns with them on what they apparently intended to be a peaceful protest.

Don’t ever carry a gun you don’t intend to use.**  This group wasn’t prepared to pull their triggers, so the guns should have been left at home.  It should have been a old fashioned sit-in like the hippies who protested the Vietnam war.  If they were intent on taking guns and using them, they should have planned this set of events much differently.

Their communications was a disaster, and sadly, the presentation of the issues was so bad that it harmed the cause of reducing the size and influence of an out-of-control federal government.  Many of us can agree over the offensiveness of forcing us to fund planned parenthood and other progressive causes with our taxes, as well as socialized medicine for people who choose not to work.

But nuclear power plants are a great contribution to the clean, cheap electrification of America, and very few of us believe in UFOs.  At least, I don’t.  I’m surprised that Fry didn’t bring up notions of the American government taking down the WTC, and fake moon landings.  None of this, by the way, is related to the mistreatment of ranchers, the horrible prosecution of the Hammonds, and the ownership of land by the federal government.  They didn’t stay on point because they apparently didn’t have a point.

Finally, if you’re armed and occupying a federal building, demanding that the fedgov bring you marijuana is probably bad press.  You know what I mean?

UPDATE: ** To address idiotic comments I’ve seen about this remark on Mike’s web site, this remark has nothing to do with concealed carry, and you know it.  Carry a rifle, pistol, ammunition and tactical gear if you intend to conduct close quarters battle or small unit maneuver warfare.  Do not bring an AR-15 or a scoped rifle to a sit-in.  If you do, you’ll be charged with obstructing a federal officer in the performance of his duties and spend the next three decades in federal prison, while other men have to work to support your wife and children.  And nothing good will have come of it.

When I found out about Scalia’s death on Saturday, I yelled “No, No, No, No,” fifteen or twenty times at the top of my lungs.  Much badness will follow.

While Mitch McConnell has said that the vacancy will be filled by the next president, he is a traitor like Paul Ryan.  The Senate and House have given Obama everything he’s asked for seven years.  They won’t stop now.  Ted Cruz has promised to filibuster any nominee, and good on him for planning this ahead of time.  I predict that the other senators will hang him out to dry like the worthless, quisling traitor, spineless crap weasels they are and like they did on his filibuster of Obamacare funding.

As to Scalia, I found that his Heller decision was his weakest, and leaves us with much work to be done by the Supreme Court in the future.  Perhaps it was the best he could get past the other justices, but he is now dead and the balance of the court may change for the worse.  This is a lesson for future justices.  Don’t do things incrementally.  We may not have you around long enough to finish the job.

His best work was in his dissents, and if you haven’t read the book “Scalia Dissents,” you owe it to yourself to get it and read it.  Not only is it educational for the cases that have been before the court (you need some understanding of them in order to understand his dissent), but it is a window into one of the great minds of the twentieth century.  His jurisprudence is a demarcation of the legal landscape for generations to come.

On a personal note, I do not know and have never met Scalia.  But my brother, who graduated from Emory Law School, has met him and had a chance to discuss his writings.  One question my brother posed went something like this.  “I admire your decisions and dissents, but what I really wanted to ask you pertains to your writing style and abilities.  Your writings can be understood by scholar and layman alike, and in my opinion it is part of what has made you so successful.  How did you learn to communicate the way you do?”

Scalia responded something like this.  “Thank you, I spent time reading and studying everything C.S. Lewis wrote.  Read and study his writings and you’ll find someone who can communicate to both scholar and layman.”  As for my reaction to what my brother relayed to me, I’m not surprised.  I know someone who visited England recently and took the C.S. Lewis tour, in which they saw his home, where he taught, personal effects and other such things.

The tour was given by one person, and my friends were the only ones on the tour.  “England,” said the tour guide, “has forgotten about Lewis.  The only people I guide now are Americans.”  How tragic.  Lewis was a national treasure.  So too, Scalia was a national treasure.  I fear we will not really know what we had and be able to miss it with necessary earnestness for a very long time.  But at least with me, I will not forget C.S. Lewis, and I won’t forget Scalia.  National treasures are like that.

AP:

Right fight; wrong strategy.

That’s what many ranchers and sympathizers opposing federal control of public lands in the West concluded after the armed occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon.

[ … ]

“We’re not backing off,” said Greg Whalen, a military veteran from Las Vegas who supports the Bundy ranching family that led the occupation. “We’re actually going to fight harder – peacefully.”

Whalen and others say protests must remain a key part of the strategy – but they must be civil to avoid giving a reason for arrests.

Others suggest the battle should shift to the courts to pry authority over open space from the federal government. State lawmakers, notably in Utah, are considering a legal way to take control of U.S. lands that account for a majority of the West, including most of Nevada; about two-thirds of Utah, Idaho and Alaska; and half of Oregon.

Oh how sad.  They may as well read nursery rhymes and fairly tales to themselves.  I’ve done my share of criticizing the tactics employed by the occupiers at Malheur, but relying on the black robed tyrants to protect you from the beltway tyrants is a bad strategy.  No one has shown any proclivity for stopping anything this president has done, and they won’t start now.  Just to show you how bad it is, consider this.

President Obama declared three national monuments in Southern California on Friday, creating the world’s second-largest desert preserve and nearly doubling the amount of land he has unilaterally protected while in office.

The new Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow and Castle Mountains national monuments cover more than 1.8 million acres of land and include sand dunes, Native American petroglyphs and one of the continent’s youngest volcanoes. The designations under the 1906 Antiquities Act connect an array of existing protected areas, including Joshua Tree National Park, Mojave National Preserve and 15 wilderness areas, creating a nearly 10 million-acre arid land reserve that is surpassed only by Namibia’s Namib-Naukluft National Park.

[ … ]

Obama has now conserved more than 265 million acres through the Antiquities Act, which allows him to put federal lands and waters off limits to development without congressional approval.

This is breathtaking.  Consider this again.  Obama has unilaterally confiscated 414,000 square miles of land for use of the elitists, rich, and corporate robber barons who make the deals with the politicians.  414,000 square miles.  This is equivalent to a square block of land 644 miles on each side.  By one man.  With no one objecting, no one with the backbone or moral fiber to stop him.

Too bad for those who think politics considers the common man.