Archive for the 'Politics' Category

News from Missouri.

But to issue the charges, prosecutors must prove the guns were capable of lethal force–but they weren’t. Last week the McCloskeys former attorney Al Watkins said he turned over the pistol that Patricia McCloskey pointed at the mob because she worried about her personal safety. Watkins noted that the handgun he gave to the police wasn’t really kept for self-protection. It wasn’t a working gun. It was only used as an exhibit in the McCloskeys’ own law practice for a lawsuit against the handgun manufacturer.

During the incident with the mob, Mark McCloskey had the safety of the semi-automatic rifle engaged and did not finger the trigger. Per KSDK, A source familiar with the investigation told them that police did not find any ammunition at the McCloskey’s home, and the rifle was not loaded when they seized it. So neither firearm was capable of lethal force.

I have no way of knowing the accuracy of any of this, and I’m as limited as you concerning the details weapon status.

But let’s assume that this is true.  I won’t tell you what to do, but I would never do this.  This is a dangerous game of chicken with everything at stake and virtually nothing to gain if things go sideways.

The Blaze.

The governor of Missouri does not expect the armed St. Louis couple who defended their home to go to jail, and he would be willing to pardon them if it came down to it.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey garnered internet fame, condemnation, and praise after photos and videos of them defending their home went viral. Approximately 500 protesters marched into a gated community in the wealthy Central West End neighborhood on June 28. The two St. Louis attorneys were prepared to protect their mansion and were caught on camera wielding guns.

St. Louis police served a search warrant on lawyers the McCloskeys earlier this month. Police confiscated the couple’s firearms that they were armed with during the tense encounter with demonstrators in June – an AR-15 rifle and a handgun.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, the prosecutor who is handling the case, said, “We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation or threat of deadly force will not be tolerated.”

While there have yet to be charges filed against the couple, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) said he would pardon the McCloskeys if they are charged for brandishing firearms at a group of protesters outside their home.

Parson made the revelation on Friday during an appearance on “The Marc Cox Morning Show” on 97.1 FM in St. Louis. Parson said the McCloskeys “did what they legally should do” in protecting their property.

“A mob does not have the right to charge your property,” Parson stated. “They had every right to protect themselves.”

When asked if he would pardon the St. Louis couple if charges were filled, Parsons replied, “I think that’s exactly what would happen,” according to The Hill.

I don’t even think it will get that far.  And as for strategy, I believe that reader Ron has hit the nail on the head.

It’s NOT the Castle Doctrine that they should be talking about.

What they should be talking about is that Missouri has a “Stand Your Ground” law.

There is NO duty to retreat if in “imminent threat of deadly harm” ANYWHERE you have a legal right to be.
The same applies to protecting another person if they are in “imminent threat of deadly harm”.

PUBLIC or Private, as long as you have a right to be there. [see Missouri Revised Statutes Title XXXVIII § 563.031 below]

No rule about “within 21 feet” or whatever.

Missouri Revised Statutes Title XXXVIII. Crimes and Punishment; Peace Officers and Public Defenders § 563.031. Use of force in defense of persons

1. A person may, subject to the provisions of subsection 2 of this section, use physical force upon another person when and to the extent he or she reasonably believes such force to be necessary to defend himself or herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful force by such other person, unless …

3. A person does not have a duty to retreat:
(1) From a dwelling, residence, or vehicle where the person is not unlawfully entering or unlawfully remaining;
(2) From private property that is owned or leased by such individual;  or
(3) If the person is in any other location such person has the right to be.

Furthermore, Missouri is an open carry state.  So there is ample data to show that the McCloskeys didn’t do anything wrong, if they get a good attorney.

PJM.

Anders Walker, a constitutional law professor at St. Louis University, said that although it’s “very dangerous” to engage protesters with guns, the homeowners broke no laws by brandishing or pointing weapons at them because Portland Place is a private street. He said the McCloskeys are protected by Missouri’s Castle Doctrine, which allows people to use deadly force to defend private property.

“At any point that you enter the property, they can then, in Missouri, use deadly force to get you off the lawn,” Walker said, calling the state’s Castle Doctrine a “force field” that “indemnifies you, and you can even pull the trigger in Missouri.”

Well that should about cover it.  But leave it to the communist prosecutor bringing charges against this couple to continue the carnival, waste taxpayer monies, and continue her march through the halls of Marxist heroes.

News from Portland.

After nearly 40 days of unrest, demonstrators in Portland, Oregon, have successfully evicted law enforcement from a park in the city’s downtown, creating their own “autonomous zone” like the one that was dismantled last week in Seattle, Washington.

“Anti-fascist” protesters have been waging a nightly war against police and federal law enforcement agents in downtown Portland, centered around a federal courthouse that demonstrators were looking to “occupy.” The confrontations gradually became more violent until, in an incident earlier this week, a protester received a gruesome injury from a non-lethal pellet after allegedly throwing a “canister” at federal agents.

Tuesday night, the protesters gave up the fight for the courthouse and instead decided to set up an “occupied” area in the city’s Lownsdale Square, just across the street, according to Fox News.

“Demonstrators began erecting tents in downtown Portland’s Lownsdale Square, across the street from the federal Pioneer Courthouse, one of the federal properties Homeland Security sought to protect by bringing federal officers into the city two weeks ago,” the outlet reported. “A camera at the Portland Standard Building showed protesters beginning to assemble tents late Tuesday night in the same park where ‘Occupy Portland’ set up in 2011.”

The “Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front,” an “anti-capitalist” group that the Seattle Times reported Monday has organized and supplied protesters for their nightly attacks on the courthouse, informally announced the creation of an “autonomous zone” Tuesday night and asked for volunteers to staff the area around the clock.

The Portland Police also note that a “couple hundred demonstrators gathered at Revolution Hall in Southeast Portland and marched all throughout downtown Portland before ending their march at Pioneer Square,” where they blocked traffic, set up tents, and began erecting barricades using “industrial kitchen appliances, road blockades, and flashing traffic signs.”

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, like Seattle’s Mayor Jenny Durkan, blamed the unrest on President Donald Trump and federal agents charged with protecting federal buildings.

“I told the Acting Secretary [of Homeland Security] that my biggest immediate concern is the violence federal officers brought to our streets in recent days, and the life-threatening tactics his agents use. We do not need or want their help,” Wheeler tweeted earlier this week. “The best thing they can do is stay inside their building, or leave Portland altogether. Our goal is to end these violent demonstrations quickly and safely. And in the meantime, I asked him to clean up the graffiti on local federal facilities.”

The mayor sounds as much like a school child as the rioters.  Imagine the mental gymnastics it takes to allow the rioters to go unmolested, blame it on the victims, and then demand that the victims clean up the mess.

So this is what Marxists do.  When socialism fails in one place, they double-down and try harder.  If it was possible, I’d like to see the feds back off, allow the rioters freedom to do what they wanted to Portland, raise taxes on Portland residents to clean it up after they failed, and then imprison the mayor and city council who let it happen.

Shotspotter.

ShotSpotter has been tracking gunfire trends in response to the global pandemic followed by civil unrest in the US after the killing of George Floyd. The graph above shows gunfire per square mile per week across all ShotSpotter coverage areas in the US in the first half of 2020 and 2019. In 2020 gunfire appears to trend upward as the shelter-in-place orders for COVID-19 took effect in mid-March and then spike after the protests began. These unprecedented events appear to be fueling higher gunfire rates overall in 2020 relative to 2019.

Of course, the societal destruction the Marxists work towards may not go down as a civil war.  It may look more like Sarajevo.

Penses.

A HARD PLACE (UN, ANTIFA, BLM, LA RAZA, MBH, CAIR, MS13)

(you are here)

A ROCK (DEEP STATE, DOJ, FBI, DEA, DHS, BATF, DOD, Local police and sheriffs)

Unfortunately, that’s right on the mark.  The things unleashed at otherwise peaceable men are abominable, but just as outrageous is that the very people who should be punishing the evil-doers are protecting them.

Romans 13 doesn’t give the state the mission of fighting poverty, or fighting a war on drugs, or lording it over their people, or tyrannizing them, or confiscating guns, or performing COIN missions of community engagement.

It gives the police and courts one and only one mission: to punish evil-doers.  Just as the singular mission given to the armed forces, i.e., to protect the borders of the country, has been abandoned in favor of foreign misadventures, the police and courts are doing everything but what God has commanded and ignore the one thing He commanded them to do.

God: “I gave one one job.  Just one.  You failed.”

The Washington Post.

This sight of well-dressed homeowners emerging from an expensive house with firearms to stave off a peaceful protest appeared to strike many observers as incongruous. There are a slew of expectations about gun owners in the United States — rural hunters, suburban enthusiasts — but a pink-shirted lawyer emerging from a re-created Renaissance palazzo holding a long gun isn’t among them.

You see, that’s the way the MSM portrays self defense and defense of home and hearth.  “Stave off a peaceful protest.”

So it isn’t really true that they were threatened.  It isn’t really true that the mob had designs on burning the house to the ground.  It isn’t really true that the mob broke through the gate.

This WaPo commenter knows better, even though he wasn’t really there, and even though he just made that up about “peaceful” protesters.  He apparently knows the facts of the situation better than the people who were there – all from looking at photos and imagining things.

But if all else fails (and logic surely will too with the progs), why would anyone have to “stave off”a protest if it was peaceful?

His name is Philip Bump, and his email address is: philip.bump@washpost.com.

See them?  Reveling in the destruction of property and the harming of an old, disabled man?

“I was at the intersection, and I got the green light. I was trying to toot my horn, thinking, ‘Hey guys, look at the light,'” Hawkins told the station.

He was blocked — and video of the incident shows he tried backing up his car and hit a person on a bicycle with the rear bumper.

“He tried to get away from the situation and in doing so he accidentally struck — and I emphasize accidentally struck — an individual on a bike,” witness Phillip Hurst told WBNS.

Video shows the bicyclist, who didn’t fall to the ground, quickly began beating on Hawkins’ car — and a bunch of other left-wing George Floyd protesters followed suit and swarmed the vehicle.

“They threw a bicycle on my windshield and started kicking my doors and windows,” Hawkins said during last week’s city council meeting, the Dispatch reported. “It scared the life out of me.”

But you see, they weren’t really “George Floyd Protesters.”  They were Bolshevik communist revolutionaries, who want your sons to be sisgendered, your girls to act like men, to destroy your property, and to burn your houses to the ground.

Stay away from crowds.  But if you get into this situation, use your vehicle as a weapon.  Run them over.  You life may depend on it.

The rate of gun background checks and purchases has skyrocketed.  Writers Phillip Levine and Robin McKnight explain the data, but the graph below show virtually everything you need to understand this.

But this doesn’t explain the real problem that the progressives have with all of this.

You see, the schedule got mixed up, and it’s causing no end to the hand-wringing among the social planners and elitist chattering class.

There are more guns than people in the United States (400 million are in circulation for a population of 330 million).  In just the first six months of 2020, approximately 19 million firearms have been sold, representing more than one firearm for every 20 Americans.

The presence of so many guns complicates discussions of public policy. Injustices committed by the police, and systemic racism in society more broadly need to end. It is concerning that the necessary national discussion regarding racial injustice is leading to even more firearms in the hands of Americans.

This concern is particularly relevant in the context of discussions regarding defunding the police. When public goods are not provided by the government, or are provided on a scale that some consider to be inadequate, individuals turn to private provision of these services.  For example, parents often turn to private schools when they perceive public education to be inadequate.

Similarly, it would not be surprising for some citizens to respond to perceived limitations on police services with private provision. This may include purchasing more firearms. In a society fraught with racial tension, it is not clear that dismantling the police and seeing more private citizens purchase guns will lead to a safer world. Increased firearm sales are a potential – if unintended – consequence that merits attention as we endeavor to create a more equitable society.

They said this with about as much adroit skill as can be managed, but the mask slipped down nonetheless.

To begin with, it’s always been a myth that the police were there for protection.  Regular readers, and most other educated men and women, already know about cases Warren versus D.C. and Castle Rock versus Gonzales.  There are more, but these two cases demonstrate that police are not duty bound to offer anyone protection.

But at least it’s a myth that many people have believed.  The riots, looting, pillaging, beatings and murders of late have convinced many uninformed folks that maybe they do need protection in lieu of police.  In short, that myth has been shattered.

Here is where schedule comes in.  The social planners want America to be disarmed, and see it as an impediment to their plans that men and women can defend themselves.  To these writers, this is all an obstacle to be overcome.  T. S. Furey at NRO explains a related problem.

June has been marked in recent years by a flurry of orange-clad marchers promoting National Gun Violence Awareness Month. This year’s planned gatherings, however, fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic and were overshadowed by Black Lives Matter’s nationwide protests against institutional racism within policing. But the gun-control lobby’s reticence isn’t out of respect for the lives of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor but rather concern for its own preservation.

For decades, gun-control advocates promoted greater police power as well as known practices of institutional racism within police firearms-licensing divisions. Now that there are calls to “defund the police,” many leaders of the gun-control lobby, who are mostly white, should rightly fear that their history of siding with the police and promoting policies now deemed racist by progressives may make them the next casualty of cancel culture.

Progressives tend to eat their own.  The next most progressive manifestation uses the previous generation as food.  What is a good progressives to do?

On the one hand, they are pro-police, since that is the backstop for their gun control plans.  Pushing the myth of police protection has been their staple for decades.  On the other hand, siding with the police makes them anathema to the current manifestation of wokeness.  On the one hand, most progressives have sided with the rioters, looters, thieves and arsonists, and on the other hand, as that metastasized in America it has led to even more guns in the hands of men and women who now know that they have to defend themselves.

The good news for the progressives is that this is all just a fabricated problem.  Yes, many guns have been sold in the last few months, but hundreds of millions were already in the hands of men and women who already knew or are learning how to use them.  In addition to that, trillions of rounds of ammunition are in the hands of civilians in America.

It’s far too late for the progressives to worry over a few more guns.  That battle was lost years ago, and no law or social planning can turn it around.

Here is the real worry that should be keeping the progressives up at night.  I said earlier that police protection is a myth.  Yes, to some degree, at least in theory and law.  But not in practice.  In practice, most of the police protection in the last two or three months has been for the rioters, looters and arsonists.  The police are there to protect the criminals from the otherwise peaceable men and women, not the peaceable from the criminals.

The worry for progressives is that this abates one day soon, and the police turn their backs on the rioters.  That will be an awful day for the rioters, because they have subsisted on the backs of police protection these last months.  That’s the ultimate irony.  The police have worked thus far to protect the rioters and arsonists because of local politicians.  But local politics is a fickle thing.

The writers can actually take solace in the fact that their hand-wringing is to no avail, and they should just try to get some sleep rather than worrying over any of this.  These wheels were set in motion long ago, and more violence will only lead to bloodshed.  Violence can take many forms, from rioting and looting, to theft of property for so-called “reparations.”  More pressure by the social planners to change anything will eventually lead to more problems.

Uninvited, by the way.  Breaking and entering.

Over the weekend, masked antifa in Portland opened a black man’s car door during a violent protest. Watch how he responded to them: pic.twitter.com/p8gNADCkGM

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) July 13, 2020

Soibois with lisps, every one of them.  Using video equipment to encourage their followers when they show a cowering car owner when he gets beaten up, turned to use against anyone who doesn’t cower by telling them, “You’re being videoed.”  Hypocrites, every one.  Then when the man takes action, they call for more help from fellow rioters, hoping recover from their fright over a man defending himself.

And then there is this: “Is there a lost and found?”  Good Lord.  Lost and found?  Is this grammar school?

What you learn (again) about this crowd is that it is effeminate and frightful.  If the cops ever stop protecting the rioters and actually let people deal with them, this would all be over in a day.

But you have to admit.  That is an epic leg sweep and takedown.  Just epic.  Good job, buddy.  Nicely done.

This is an embedded tweet.  If the video doesn’t work, go to Andy Ngo’s tweet.