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SSCC #395 – Baton Rouge

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An 18-year-old was shot and killed by a deputy. That teen’s family has now filed a federal suit claiming it was a wrongful death. Could the deputy’s past have foretold the future?

What did this young man do to deserve such a reaction from the officer?

“He was approaching the police to help them. He was telling them you’ve got the wrong person. You’ve got the wrong person. He had his hands in the air when the officer turned and shot him point blank, and he fell. When he hit the ground, he still had his hands above his head,” said attorney Donna Grodner.

This isn’t even an issue of he said she said.  The Sheriff supported the statement and continue on further to add the following:

“We have no reason at this time to believe that this 18-year-old did anything wrong and certainly, I want to make that clear. He was unarmed. I’m not saying he violated any laws what so ever,” said Sheriff Edwards.

So given the Sheriff is supporting the family, why would this be a SSCC?  It’s a prime example of why I do this and why I want officers fired immediately upon misconduct.

“Chief Nelson was the police chief at that time, and he recommended the city council terminate his employment because of numerous complaints against him,” said Chief Ambeau.

Complaints like verbal and written warning notices regarding his unauthorized absence, failure to follow the law and leaving well before his shift was over.

The minutes from that August 2001 council meeting showed the chief and council members frustrated with all the complaints against the officer. It only got worse when it came to then-St. Gabriel Mayor George Grace.

That’s right folks, this officer had a history and now someone finally ended up dead because of this officer.  Worst thing about this is I have no doubt that officer went home and slept like a baby.

The fact is officers don’t normally jump into the deep end off the bat. They slowly work their way up and administrators and public officials need to pay attention to the warning signs and have the balls to say, “Son you’re not going to work here.”

State Sponsored Criminal #395:  William Phebus

Because really what you see when an officer has been fired numerous times is a cheap employee, don’t worry about why he was fired, he won’t want to do it again.

Quote of the Day – @JeremyAllan (8/24/2012)

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@barronbarnett @linoge_wotc I want her disarmed, yep. I don’t want her to be prey.

@JeremyAllan – Tweet
August 24, 2012

[Those two statements are mutually exclusive and I tried multiple analogies.  He also couldn’t understand how group punishment wouldn’t serve any purpose and is unfair.

That “conversation” on twitter was long and drawn out in the end three things were blatantly obvious.

First he suffers from Peterson Syndrome.  He would gladly have a higher overall crime rate for fewer “gun deaths”.

Second he cannot comprehend that disarming the law-abiding public makes them prey.  To most illustrate this point here was his final tweets:

@GunFreeZone @barronbarnett @linoge_wotc I truly hope you’re never in a position where you would feel the need to use your guns for defense.

@GunFreeZone @barronbarnett @linoge_wotc Because I don’t wish you or any of your loved ones harm. The opposite. Rather, prosperity.

Yet he admits he would prefer my wife who has a physical disability to be disarmed unable to effectively defend herself.  How can you be prosperous when you’re dead because you weren’t able to effectively defend yourself?

This also completely ignores the analogy I made for group punishment for alcohol and holding everyone who drinks responsible for the actions of others.  He dodged the question at first.  Then when he came back around, he said he would give it up if the law told him to.  Except history says that prohibition doesn’t work and any attempts to outlaw “insert noun here” always fail.  His solution was to say that didn’t matter and my argument was invalid.

Lastly he lives in a world of complete denial.  How warped is his denial, I linked to the Harvard study I talked about yesterday.  This was his response:

@barronbarnett @linoge_wotc @dthurstonHarvard is not infallible. This is propaganda.

When presented with facts and evidence, that has been peer-reviewed mind you, his response is to dismiss it as propaganda.  When someone is so ready and willing to dismiss any facts brought before them without a second thought what else is there?

I will add that throughout that entire debate, Linoge, Miguel, and I were the only ones backing our statements with examples and evidence.

All they offered was that guns should be banned and that would solve the problem.  What they don’t realize is that option has been examined, and the conclusions have been proven false, and the adults in the room have moved on in the conversation.  Their solution is to bring new people to the debate to scream for the same old thing as if some how doing it again, this time only harder will work.

I have some bad news to our opponents though.  No matter how badly you outlaw guns, people will have them.  Especially when it’s as easy as pressing the print button.  The debate is over, we’re merely still here because you’re currently grieving. -B]

SSCC #394–Spring Valley

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This one is a good one:

An investigation was under way Monday into a deputy-involved shooting in which a Spring Valley woman was shot by a deputy who was checking her backyard for a masked man. 

The reasoning behind the shooting:

Gore said the deputies thought Orey’s open gate looked suspicious, so they went into her backyard. The deputies ran into Orey, and one of them had a "spontaneous reaction."

Where I’m from, that’s called a Negligent Discharge.  When it strikes another person, you or I would be held criminally liable for negligence.  This man obviously violated 2 of the 4 rules and shot an innocent woman in the chest, who was unarmed, and had nothing in her hands.

Have no fear though:

Morgan said he believes the sheriff’s department is downplaying the shooting.

Of course they would, heaven forbid they admit that the anointed were criminally negligent.  Surely they will not fire that officer either, instead he will receive “extra training”.  Probably in some Panama City sailor want to hump hump bar.

Here’s the thing folks.  Yes people are human, yes people make mistakes.  But there is no calling a bullet back, there is no undoing shooting someone.  So if you screw up like that, you damn well deserve to go home permanently at a minimum.

Negligent discharges can and doe happen.  I am guilty of just such an offense.  The thing is it requires two rules to be violated to plug a person.  That is unacceptable and non-negotiable.  Go work at McDonalds sir because frankly you have no business being a cop.

State Sponsored Criminal #394: Officer John Doe

Because when a woman identifies her as a home owner as you are prowling her property without informing her you are doing so, you method of informing her should be a rapid deployment of hot lead into her body.

Denial – It’s their current state…

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Via Tango I came across this wonderful study done by Harvard in 2007.  Lately I have reiterated more and more that our opponents are living in a serious state of denial and this is yet another nail in their coffin.

The money shot from the conclusion:

This Article has reviewed a significant amount of  evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra.  To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world.

(Emphasis mine.)  Even more entertaining though was this comment after that shot.

Over a decade ago, Professor Brandon Centerwall of the University of Washington undertook an extensive, statistically sophisticated study comparing areas in the United States and Canada to determine whether Canada’s more restrictive policies had better contained criminal violence. When he published his results it was with the admonition:

If you are surprised by [our] finding[s],  so [are we]. [We] did not begin this research with any intent to “exonerate” hand‐guns, but there it is—a negative finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless a positive contribution. It directs us where not to aim public health resources.

Are you grinning yet?  If not you should be because remember this is coming out the liberal bastion of Harvard.  Not to mention the comment made about a study done by the University of Washington, another liberal bastion out of the Peoples’ Republic of Puget Sound.  Back to Harvard though, this is the same Harvard who said the following about the 4th of July in 2011.

 “Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation’s political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party,” said the report from Harvard.

Even 5 years ago Harvard saw the writing on the wall and indicated the burden of proof is on the anti-rights cultists.  Further often as of late we see the following across twitter from our opponents how gun ownership is at its lowest rate ever.  That guns are not being bought in record numbers, yet the facts clearly state otherwise.  Again, some of it comes right out of their own back yard such as this piece out of a New York CBS affiliate:

Statistics show a new trend — an increasing number of gun owners are now women.

For reasons ranging from sport to protection, the number of females buying guns has seen a spike in the last few years, CBS 2′s Ann Mercogliano reported.

Yet remember, gun ownership is at an all time low.

Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE: RGR) is on pace to beat its own record of 1,114,700 firearms produced in one year, set in 2011. On August 15, 2012 Ruger produced its one millionth firearm of the year, a Ruger® SR1911™ pistol which will be hand-engraved by Baron Technology, Inc. and auctioned off to support the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action.

Yet remember, gun ownership is at an all time low.  Not to mention “fewer and fewer people are interested in owning firearms”.

So I have a question.  If ownership and interest is at an all time low, who pray-tell is buying all these firearms?  Where are all these firearms going.  I know the ATF bought bunches of them and were sending them over the border to Mexico, but that little hole has been plugged up for a while now.

Our opponents do not understand their logical fallacies.  They cannot grasp that just because there are fewer gun deaths they’re not actually safer.  They cannot comprehend that violence is violence no matter the tool.  The honestly believe that you’re safer with more crime as long as guns are used less often.

Denial is a stage of grief and honestly this abundance of Peterson Syndrome is a symptom of their grief.  They have lost and not just by a bit either.  We dropped a 105mm Howitzer in the middle of their happy parade and have exposed them for the evil bigots that they are.  The worst part about those evil bigots though is they prey upon the fact that many people honestly want to do good and help people.  They then spread their lies, misinformation, and logical fallacies corrupting good people.

Honestly though, I wouldn’t mind if a majority of our opponents forever remained in the first stage.  If they do progress I want them to rapidly progress to bargaining and skipping over anger.  Given their propensity towards violence, especially when on the losing side, it would be a very bad and dangerous thing.  Doubly so if they started trying to engineer failure in an attempt to “aid” their cause.

Denial, it’s not just a river in Egypt.  It is the current home of our opponents and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  I can live with that.

SSCC #393–Virginia Beach

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At least this one’s getting prison time.

A former Virginia Beach police officer was sentenced to 10 years behind bars Monday for child sex crimes.

But it’s bad, very very bad.

He’d been on suspension without pay since he was arrested in December 2011 for aggravated sexual battery and taking indecent liberties that occurred over three years with a child younger than age 13.

Have no fear though because the judge did the following:

The judge Monday imposed a 30-year sentence and then suspended 20 suspended years, Commonwealth’s Attorney spokeswoman Macie Pridgen told WVEC.com.

Honestly, he should have left it at the maximum sentence.  Even then I don’t think it’s really enough

State Sponsored Criminal #393: Michael Alan Chilldres

Because after 18 years with the department, he felt he was free and clear to do as he wanted.

I’m totally doing this…

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So on my way to a meeting this morning I was talking with some coworkers and the subject of these stupid decals came up.

I said it was stupid, explained why and hit the end with the classic comment of,

My family walks single file to hide our numbers.

I am not the only one to agree with that sentiment.  Then I had an epiphany and said the following immediately there after.

Me: You know something though, they have those zombie decals and I would totally put those on my rig….

Coworker: But you just said it was stupid and listed off numerous valid concerns.

Me: I never said it would be representative of my family.

Coworker: What the hell would it be then?

Me: Confirmed Kills.

Considering CSGV’s current decent into PSH over the zombie meme(link safe), I seriously will put them on my truck once I get my hands on some.