1 Of 57 Um 50

Tennessee did a solid for the law-abiding and passed a bill making it legal to defend property with deadly force.

While it might only be stuff, it's MY stuff.

It's not a case of me valuing my stuff over someone's life.  It's them not valuing their life over my stuff.

It wasn't that long ago we put the heads of thieves on pikes to warn others of the price of stealing.

That's extremely unsanitary, but it underscores that Western Civilization didn't always condemn the idea of defending hearth and home by any and all means at hand.

Perhaps if the police embraced Peelian principles more, it would not have come to this, but they appear to have reneged on the deal that they would handle thieves if we surrendered shooting them in the back when they were fleeing with our property.

Well, Officers, how many burglaries have you solved?

Does your state have a "good faith" clause that lets pawn shops out of being charged with dealing in stolen goods?

If the answer to that first question is, "not many," or, "a very small percentage of burglaries reported;" and the answer to the second question is, "yes." then it's time to let the honest citizen waste some criminals.

Remember, a dead criminal has a 0% recidivism rate.  Also, liberal judges and district attorneys can't release a dead criminal to commit more crimes while they fail to appear for trial, no matter how much money George Soros spends on electing them!

Being able to legally shoot criminals is a solid win for society!

Wanna know a secret?

I doubt we're going to see more than a handful of criminals shot stealing from a home.

For the same reasons that conceal carry liberalization had a chilling effect on assault, rape and robbery.

Thieves don't want to get shot committing crimes.

Hunting Over Bait

While entrapment is illegal, arresting people for breaking the law in response to someone else being arrested is not.

If we had a properly function justice system, any protests that fell to being a riot would result in scads and scads of people being arrested and the fomenters who changed it from a protest to a riot would suffer heavy charges.

Without bail.

Someone who (allegedly) instigates a riot is clearly a threat to the community and too dangerous to be at large while their innocence is proven.  Though if they're at the center of a second riot because of their arrest...  What a great piece of damning evidence!

For example, (Only) Black Lives Matter protests that turned to violence, destruction and arson because a career criminal's life long arc led to it's logical conclusion to police gun fire should be welcomed as probable cause to get professional agitators locked away for a good long time.

Florida has a good example of doing it right, actually.

Saint Petersburg had a race riot in 1996.

"What do we do next time?" loomed big in everyone's mind.

That the cops came up with was:

1. Identify the leaders.

2. Swiftly arrest them.

3. Hold them incommunicado for as long as the law allows.  24 hours.

4. Hold them for the maximum amount of time allowed without charging them.  30 days, 40 with good cause.

5.Turn them loose, uncharged.

Number three derails the third parties who provide bail money.  In 24 hours the momentum for most riots dissipates without these leaders.

Number four, once a threat to the community is expressed by the arresting department, means they get to stew and be ineffective at foment.

Number 5 kills their ability to use their incarceration as a form of martyrdom.

It works!

It worked in St Pete while Minneapolis burned.

Excellent News!

Getting some convictions against Antifa!

Andy Ngo, also remains a thorn in their sides.

Corollary

I have long held that once someone has served their sentence they should be returned all of their rights without prejudice.

Successfully completing that sentence is predicated on them being SAFE to be among the rest of society.

Here's what happens when no real sentence is applied and the perpetrator is not safe to be among us.

Douglas Kraft, 68, and James Puchan, 68, of Columbus and Galena, respectively, were fatally shot Jan. 17 near Kissimmee, Florida, in what families said in a statement was a "random, tragic act." Kraft's brother – Douglas Kraft, 70, of Holland, Michigan – was also killed in the shooting.

Authorities arrested Ahmad Jihad Bojeh, 29, on three counts of murder, Dispatch news partner NBC4/WCMH-TV reported.

The three men were staying in an Airbnb to attend Kissimmee's Mecum Car Show, according to the families' statement. While they were waiting for help after "rental car trouble" and preparing to travel home, they were "being observed from a distance by an unknown individual who was well-known to local law enforcement."

"There were no known interactions between the men and this individual prior to the event; they were then approached and senselessly murdered," the families' statement reads. "This was a random, tragic act."

Deputies were called around noon on Jan. 17 to reports of shots fired in the Indian Point subdivision near Kissimmee, NBC4/WCMH-TV reported. Authorities found the three men dead from gunshot wounds in front of a residence in the 200 block of Indian Point Circle.

Not long after, law enforcement detained Bojeh, who lives nearby. Investigators said deputies reported seeing the suspect flee toward his home, later finding two firearms in Bojeh's residence after obtaining and serving a search warrant, according to NBC4/WCMH-TV.

In May 2021, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office arrested Bojeh for shooting at random into cars at a Wawa gas station in Kissimmee

While Bojeh faced attempted murder and aggravated battery charges, court records show a judge found him not guilty by reason of insanity.

The court ordered Bojeh to undergo mental health treatment, to live at his parents’ home on Indian Point Circle, and he “shall NOT own, possess or have access to firearms or any other illegal weapons."

 A judge found him...  Not a jury.

Well, the suspect was known to law enforcement, who did nothing to prevent it.

He was arrested and found to be too insane to understand his actions and was put back among us.

I think it might just be time to apply some damned liability to judges who let dangerous people loose in society when those dangerously insane people go on to hurt someone.

88 Years Ago Today

The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years.

Something that takes a little digging to find is that Hollywood really WAS infiltrated with Communists by 1947!

The current liberal condemnation isn't that they were being unjustly accused; it was that they were being accused and exposed at all!

Remember.  If you're paying Hollywood; you're paying for Hollywood.

You don't need them.  You will not starve without them, like you would if there were no farmer.  You will not freeze in the dark, like you would without linemen or electricians.  You will not drown in your own waste, like you would without plumbers and sewer technicians.

What happens if the TV remains blank?

The worst that can happen is an awkward silence.  But conversation might happen.

But what happens to the dancing monkeys if we stop paying them to dance?

While I doubt that many would starve, they would not be living lavish lifestyles any longer.  Their political clout would be reduced to that of normal citizens, which they are.

Boycotting dancing monkeys leads to nothing bad.  Encourage it! 

Not Really That Amusing

It is sadly amusing watching the rest of the nation learn what Florida already knew about Pam Bondi.

I can remember when they told us that she was a good choice and we were exaggerating.

Well.

Welcome to the party, Pal. 

Unanimous

9-0 Ruling on excessive force under the 4th Amendment in Barnes v Felix.

Actual Ruling (pdf)

As someone who's long held the cops are too trigger happy, I think this is good news.

Reason on the original case. 

The tragic parts:

The toll violations were on the plate of a rental car.  Likely from before Barnes girlfriend rented it.  Not even an arrestable offense.

Despite the claims of Felix that he smelled marijuana in the car, none was found.

Barnes trying to drive off was stupid.

I cannot help but think that if Felix had returned to his vehicle and resumed pursuit that Barnes would be alive today.  If Felix had done this, he would not have been in the danger he felt he needed to shoot Barnes over.

The Supreme Court just agreed.

Corollary

The corollary of "the police aren't coming" is "the police aren't coming."

Criminals haven't thought this all the way through.

Citizens in Italy, apparently, are ahead of the curve and vigilantism is getting a resurgence.

Fun fact!  Did you know the organizations we know as the mafia originate from vigilance societies?

So far the Italian police have been as ineffective in stopping vigilantes as they've been at stopping crime.

Vigilante is what you get when the government abdicates it's side of the criminal justice agreement.

There's solid reasons to have a neutral, not directly involved in the crime, party do the arresting and trials.

Not least of which vigilantes mete out "justice" when their blood is up and they have a tendency to snag the wrong person for lynching.

But it's not as big a percentage of those punished as you'd think.

The Long Slow Slog

It appears that the criminal enterprise that was Corinthian Colleges is finally being made to pay.

The Lovely Harvey got an email today about the discharge of her student loans due to the college's criminal malfeasance.

Discharge of loan.  Removal of it from her credit report.  Refund of any and all payments made.

Wowsers!

To be clear to the boomers who don't (won't?) understand; this is not related to the big student loan forgiveness that Biden was pushing.  This is normal for when a college defrauds its students, the hold up was how damn BIG the department of education let the situation get and how much Corinthians tried to get away with.

It's taken almost two decades to get justice out of this.

Maybe it will make my car insurance go down with a better credit rating coming.

I Beg Your Pardon

Hunter Biden has gotten a sweet deal of a pardon!

Do not despair!

Biden the Younger may no longer plead the 5th if someone makes him testify now.

Everything has a silver lining!

Not that I expect anyone to supoena him...

High Middle And Low

Fantasy role-playing often has trouble with feudalism.

The games were written by egalitarian informed authors for an egalitarian audience.

Fantasy is right in the name of the genre.

Traveller is where I first noticed some of what I later learned.

Nobles in a feudal society can mete out justice without consulting a higher authority.  All the way up to and including the death penalty.

Only under very specific circumstances will their decision even be questioned, let alone challenged.  Judge, jury and executioner is the noble who can give justice high and low.

You get a lot for a simple dice roll in Traveller.  Your points can go a long way in GURPS, depending on if the GM has considered something I pondered a while ago.

The implications always hit me when watching The Four Musketeers when Athos, as the Comte de la Fere, sentences Milady to death without a trial.  He's empowered by his title to do so.

It's not really so clear cut in real life, there are, of course, rules for when a count can sentence someone to death.  Milady de Winter is a very clear cut case of someone, whom once caught by someone with the powers to do so, can be executed without trial because she's had her trial and condemnation years ago.

But in gaming...

A GM will have to spend a lot of time and effort figuring out the checks and balances of the society they've created and communicating it to the players.

I've played in several worlds where I understood the feudal power structure better than my GM and where they ended up deferring to MY judgement about it when they should have been telling be how their world differed from medieval France.

Already Paid For

The made for TV movie about the FBI shootout in Miami, "In the Line of Duty: The FBI Murders," is available for streaming on Amazon.

At no additional cost because we plunk down for Prime.

It's not a great movie, but might show that shootout as accurately as can be expected from actors and the restrictions of the media.

They, at least, got the FBI's guns right.

Burn In Hell Motherfucker

A criminal who personally harmed us has died.

Of old age, but he got to rot in prison for a few years too.

I read his obituary with great pleasure.

By the way, gun control people, I had just cause to end this motherfucker and I was able to restrain myself.

Despite all the highcapacityfullysemiautomaticweapons here.

Arrested For The Bad Shoot

Former Deputy Eddie "Triggerhappy" Duran has been arrested in connection with the shooting death of Airman Roger Fortson.

Good!

Even with Crump's involvement, this is good news.

Manslaughter seems light.  I'm in favor of laws that up the charge for an agent of the state by at least one level when they break the law.

35 Miles Per Gallon

35 mpg now!

35 mpg tomorrow!

35 mpg forever!

(How's that for an inflammatory way to say it?)

Now that Chevron Deference is nuked, let's do the EPA.

Did you know that the fleet average fuel economy, as defined by law, is 35 miles per gallon for model years 2010 through 2020?

For 2021 through 2030 it's the maximum feasible fuel economy.

No definition beyond that.

So Biden's economy killing EPA standards have no definition in black letter law.

Without the power of Chevron, the lawyers for the automakers are going to have a field day saying that going past the current rating is infeasible.

Fingers crossed!

Can We Talk About Prosecutorial Incompetence Now

Or is it simple corruption?

Alec Baldwin walks because the prosecution suppressed evidence.

I'm no fan of his, but... Good!

When the government lies, the accused should walk even if caught red handed.

Justice should be an unimpeachable neutral party in every case.

The accused should be putting all the weight needed on the scales, no additional thumbs necessary.

Let The Hate Flow Through You

I applied for and received a discharge of my student loan.

Contrary to the conservative narrative it was not a Biden policy initiative that granted the discharge.

It's a long running program for the victims of school based fraud to not be held accountable for the crimes of the institution.

A Reagan era program.

If your school was shut down by the Department of Education for cause, then you're eligible to have your loans discharged too.  You might even get back what you've already paid if you meet certain other requirements that I don't.

I'd paid a pittance to keep the loan out of delinquency; so this doesn't help the day to day finances much, but I do hope that the sudden shift in my debt to income ratio will cause my credit score to improve enough to make insurance cheaper.

Comment moderation is on full steam because people hate that these programs exist.

Tell your congress creatures, not me.

Hypocrite Me?

I am absolutely giddy that Hunter Biden is on trial over gun charges.

The press would have it that I am a hypocrite for being happy about it.

They're missing the nuances, like they often do.

We gun owners aren't happy because he's being charged with bullshit unconstitutional laws.

We're happy because people like him are never charged with the bullshit.

We'd be fucking THRILLED if his trial resulted in those laws being found unconstitutional and the charges tossed.

Hunter being charged is a failure of the 2-tier justice system that's been, increasingly, on display for Democrat politicians and their families for a long time.

And it makes us happy to see Justice's blindfold put back where it belongs.

Felon Voting

Normally when one mentions felony and voting, you're talking about letting a felon vote.

Now we're in new territory for me and considering voting FOR a felon.

Not that I think that Mr Trump's conviction is going to stand through the appeals process.  There was a lot of impropriety on display for the world in that trial.

To the point that Australia is demanding we stop impugning the good reputation of kangaroos and their justice system.

The big thing from this is how this will affect the generally more corrupt Democrat politicians.

You wanted railroaded show trials?

Two can play that game.

LA Police Murder Black Man With Tree

Darwin never sleeps.  Unlike this driver at a light.

113 on surface streets and thrown so far from the car he could have been charged with fleeing the scene.

I also note that Lambo's are better at felling trees than Corvettes.