FL: Domestic Defense? Woman Injured, Shoots, Kills Man

According to a press release from GPD emailed to WCJB, they responded to the Treebecka Park Apartments on SW 20th Avenue when a woman called them to report that she had just shot her ex-boyfriend in self-defense.

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Followup CO: No Murder Charges in Fight where Kelly Kiess was Killed

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. – Prosecutors said Friday they will not formally charge two men involved in an October fight at a Lone Tree apartment complex in which two handguns were pulled and a woman was shot and killed.

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Followup GA: Robbery Suspect who was Killed Identified as Chaplain's Son

An alleged robber who was killed during a shootout with his intended victim outside a DeKalb County gas station over the weekend has been identified as the son of the chaplain for Auburn University’s football team.

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Candidate Elizabeth Warren: #EndTrafficViolence

Image from twitter

Candidate Elizabeth Warren has opened a window into the Progressive mindset. It does much to explain the war on guns and the Second Amendment.

Ride Fast creates great satire with his comment:

No one needs a car that was originally designed for war.

In previous articles I have elaborated on how "gun violence" is an Orwellian phrase, designed to force you to think about disparate issues in a specific way.  It is designed to link suicides, murders, accidents, and justified homicides all together with only  one solution: infringe on Second Amendment rights to possess, carry, and use guns.

Given the intense support of the legacy (Progressive) media, the term "gun violence" works well to program those who do not look deeply into the issue. They often weakly support restrictions on gun ownership and use, especially after particularly horrific crimes are broadcast in the media for weeks or months.

Elizabeth Warren, called Pocahontas by President Trump, (for her decades long benefits from a false claim to be of Cherokee extraction) has decided to clone the term for draconian regulation of transportation. The new term is "Traffic Violence".

Both terms are rooted in the fairy tale fantasy of a perfect world created by Leftists.

Violence is neither good or bad. For some things to live, other things have to die. We cannot have foxes and bears and wolves without other animals being violently killed. We cannot keep a country without using violence to prevent invasion, subversion or rebellion. You cannot keep food, shelter and your family safe without either being willing to use justified violence yourself, or to delegate to the government the power to use violence for you, or both, to prevent people from stealing your means of survival or killing, raping and enslaving you and yours.

The fantasy driven left has pushed the idea that violence, in itself, is evil.

Violence is neutral, like gravity. It can be used for good or evil.

Traffic accidents tend to be violent events. When most people think of violence in a political context, they think of crime, of willful violence committed against another person. From the  Google dictionary, violence:

behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.

There is a legal definition: 

the unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force.

There is a secondary definition:

strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force.

The term "gun violence" takes most people's assumption of the primary definition and the legal definition, and twists them with the secondary definition to include suicides and accidents all under the "gun violence" propaganda term.

Warren's #EndTrafficViolence takes the word twisting a step further, to include all three definitions into one Orwellian phrase, mostly applying to traffic accidents.

I do not think it will work. It is a step too far, taken by a far left candidate desperate to cater to far left activists in her presidential primary bid.

It is a good example of the Orwellian word games the legacy (Progressive) media and the Democrats use to fuddle and emotionalize debate, to rule the nation. It has lost its punch as alternative media exposes its perfidy.

©2019 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

MI:Gunfight, Berrien County Resident uses Rifle to Stop Armed Home Invasion

The Benton Township Police Department said when officers arrived on scene, residents of apartment said two masked gunmen forced their way into the apartment and ordered the people in the living room to “get down.”
A person inside a bedroom heard the commotion, got a rifle and left the room. The resident saw one of the suspects who was armed with handgun, at which time gunfire was exchanged, according to the BTPD.

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TX: Road Rage may have become Defensive Shootng

Both vehicles exited the freeway and stopped at a stop sign. Gilliland said that was when a man in the sedan got out of the car, walked up to the box truck and started trying to open the driver’s side door. The driver of the box truck pulled out a gun and shot the man in the face, Gilliland said.
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Followup OH: Two Suspects of Armed Home Invasion in Rootstown Arrested in Ravenna

According to police Bryson Miller, 18, and Demario Underwood, 22, were wanted in connection to the robbery.

Investigators say the two men forced their way into a home in Rootstown on November 3 and exchanged gunfire with the homeowner. The homeowner and one of the suspects were shot.
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TX: Gunfight, Armed Customer Shot, Killed by Armed Robbery Suspect

According to Houston police, two customers and an employee were inside the store when two armed people walked in and announced a robbery. One of the customers -- later identified as Austin Michael Thomerson -- who was also armed, intervened and was shot in the chest, police said. The two robbers fled the scene, police said.

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MS: Homeowner Shoots through Door of Poolhouse, Wounds Suspect

According to Griffith, the homeowner said he heard someone in his poolhouse, fired a gun through the door and struck a man in the stomach.

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VP Biden Combines Several Absurdities in One Gaffe

From bolk-antiques.nl

Vice President Joe Biden is known as a gaffe machine. He regularly produces headline inducing gaffes. How much of this is simply the changing media landscape is uncertain. It may be many Progressive politicians produced copious gaffes, but they were simply not reported to the American people. 

John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson's industrial level womanizing and promiscuity were well known in Washington, D.C. The American public was kept in the dark for decades. 

From the seattletimes.com:

While saying he supports the Second Amendment, Biden called the absolutist arguments of some gun-rights supporters “bizarre.” Noting people can’t own machine guns or bazookas, Biden said, “Why should we allow people to have military-style weapons including pistols with 9-mm bullets and can hold 10 or more rounds?”

Military-style pistols 9mm and more, which hold 10 or more rounds, and which fire a shot with every pull of the trigger, have been available for over 160 years.  The Chaineux double action revolver was patented in 1853; the LeMat revolver held 9 rounds of .42 caliber (10.5mm), and 1 of 20 gauge (15mm), and was used in the Civil War. The C96 Mauser was chambered in 9mm in 1916. They are not a new phenomena, and for most of that period were essentially unregulated, in much of Europe until after WWI, in the United States to the present day.

They were commonly available in England until after WWI. In England, crime was much lower and murder far less common when those firearms were easily available, including homicide with firearms and mass murder. It is clear 9mm pistols, which hold 10 rounds or more, are not a cause of crime and mass murder, or, at minimum, not a significant cause.

There are several answers to Biden's question: Why allow them?

1. Because not allowing them is a violation of the Constitution and the rule of law.

2. Because not allowing them violates the principle that the federal government is limited in what it may do, under the 9th and 10th Amendments.

3. Because not allowing them is bad policy based on emotional simplicities.

4. Because not allowing them is likely to invite a backlash ranging from civil disobedience, to black markets, to civil war, any one of which is far worse than the problems mentioned.

5. Because there is no demonstrable harm associated with their legal possession and use, which is not offset by a greater good.

Far left Democrat Vice President Biden continues:

He called the anxiety among young people over being shot in school these days “overwhelming” and “not just in tough neighborhoods but in great neighborhoods like this.”

Yes, the anxiety level is high, not because of the existence and common availability of such pistols; rather because of the hype and hysteria promulgated by the Progressive media.  In the media's unhinged desire to ban citizen ownership of common guns, there is much emotion, but little logic. There is much evidence the media hype is far more responsible for the current uptick in mass killing at schools, than the availability of guns.

Biden continues his irrational tirade, apparently believing the Progressive media will cover for his silliness, as it has for decades.

Mentioning his own shotgun ownership, Biden talked about Delaware goose-hunting restrictions that limit hunters to three shotgun shells. “We protect geese from Canada more than we do people,” he said.

Nationwide restrictions on shot gun hunting magazines were put in place, nationally, in 1937. They were a response to declining populations of waterfowl, both ducks and geese. The international treaty with Mexico was ratified in 1936. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had issued emergency orders to protect migratory waterfowl in 1934, 1935, and 1936.  From a letter by J.N. Darling, to FDR, on 4 February, 1935:

A short open season, while not so productive of immediate increase in the duck population as a closed season may be so regulated as to contribute more permanent results in the long haul toward our final objective, if by prohibiting all artificial baiting, prohibiting the use of automatics and repeaters of more than three-shell capacity, and reducing live decoys to a minimum, the hunting of migratory waterfowl may be permanently rid of those pernicious practices which have been responsible for the heavy slaughter and commercialization of the sport.

Following Biden's inappropriate comparison of people to geese, we should have unlimited hunting for humans, and not reduce magazine capacity of the instruments used until human populations have been reduced by 90% or more in all of North America. We should have butchered humans carcasses sold in grocery stores; we should be selling people to farmers to raise for human consumption. Given recent leftist suggestions about the benefits of cannibalism, a sarcasm tag is in order.

The silliness of the comparison is so egregious, it serves as a reminder of the irrationality of the entire debate. I am reminded of a roommate in my freshman year in college, who was offended by deer hunting. He said deer should be given rifles to even the odds. I would have been happy for him to leave dozens of rifles scattered about the woods, available for easy pick-up.

The idea that deer should be armed to "even the odds" when hunting them is absurd. Deer are not people. Humans are qualitatively different from animals.  

It is not surprising that modern leftists have routinely equated humans and animals. It explains much of the willingness of the Left to slaughter vast numbers of humans.

©2019 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch
 

Followup IN: Apartment Dweller with AR15 Shot Armed Home Invader

The man who shot him was with his girlfriend when they they heard glass break and realized it was the front door.

The man grabbed his Tactical AR-15 pistol after hearing what he thought were multiple people entering his apartment and took a position on one knee, pointing his firearm toward his bedroom doorway, documents said.

Calligan appeared wearing all black and a mask and came into the doorway pointing a semi-automatic handgun.
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FL: Gunfight at Home and Driveway, no Injuries

A neighbor told Action News Jax a small gray car — possibly a Honda — drove up onto the curb and the occupant began firing bullets into the home and at the white car in the driveway. A young man was inside the white car at the time. A witness said he fired back in self-defense.
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TX: Gunfight, Manager Stops Armed Robbery, no Injuries

A store manager and a pair of would-be robbers exchanged gunfire Saturday at a store on Texas Avenue, police said.
No was injured in the gunfight and police Sunday still were searching for the two men involved in the aggravated robbery.

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OH: Gunfight, Employee in Akron Shoots, Kills 1 of 2 Armed Robbers

Police say two masked men, armed with guns, came into the store to rob it.

Two employees were working at the time, and a 26-year-old clerk drew his gun and fired. The shot killed one of the suspects, according to WJW.
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TX: Homeowner Disarms Armed Robber, Shoots, Kills Same

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A robbery suspect was shot dead by a homeowner in a neighborhood in southwest Houston, police say.

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GA: Gunfight in Statesboro, Roommate and Home Invader both Wounded

Detectives say once they started talking to witnesses, they learned Tillman and another suspect forced their way into the apartment with guns.

One of the people living in the apartment had a permit for the gun he had and shot Tillman. The second man, a roommate, was wounded accidentally.
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MS: Gunfight, Armed Homeowner Wounds 1 of 3 Suspects

After a sheriff's deputy responded, he heard several gunshots up the road and headed to a nearby home.

There, a different homeowner who said he saw two men in his car and another man nearby, came out with his shotgun and exchanged gunfire with one of the suspects, according to Calhoun.

Calhoun said the homeowner believed he had struck one of the men and deputies later learned from a local hospital that someone arrived with a gunshot wound.

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ME: Disarm, Intruder Disarmed, Shot, Killed

During the break in, the intruder and another man, who also wasn't supposed to be there, struggled for the weapon resulting in the suspect being shot by the other man. Maine State Police report that the suspect then fled the scene and died outside.

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GA: Gunfight at Gas Station, Armed Victim Shoots, Kills Suspect

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A man is dead after an attempted armed robbery in a convenience store parking lot developed into something much worse.

Police told 11Alive that they were called to the QuikTrip located at 3975 Flat Shoals Parkway, Saturday. Police initially believed that the victim and the shooter got into an argument after a crash. But new information shows that it was actually an attempted armed robbery.
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How Judges Ignore Law and the Constitution on the Right to Arms

For the last 50 years, I have been hearing or reading versions of this argument:

The Second Amendment is clear. All we have to do is bring a case before the court(s) and we win. Why doesn't the NRA, local lawyer, local defendant or whoever, just push a case forward? The law is clear!

When I was young and naive, I wondered the same thing. Why wasn't the NRA bringing a Second Amendment case before the courts, and specifically, to the Supreme Court?

A more general question is: How do judges routinely escape consequences when violating their oaths of office; when implementing their preferred policy instead of enforcing the law? How are they able escape consequences when they do this instead of enforcing the U.S. Constitution and state protections of the right to keep and bear arms?

Men are not perfect. Men will always be tempted to abuse power. Men will always be tempted to accumulate power for their personal benefit. If men were perfect, we would not need government. Because they are not perfect, we need limits on governmental power.

The designers and writers of the Constitution set up a system to limit governmental powers through checks and balances inside and outside the government.  The legislature has power to set up courts and impeach judges; the President has power to appoint judges; Judges have power to judge cases, which involves an intrinsic ability to interpret the law, as written by the legislature.

In addition to internal governmental checks and balances, the writers of the Constitution depended on the people to limit governmental power through elections and by petitioning the government, informed by a free press and freedom of speech. That depended on people's understanding the governmental processes and having a common understanding of natural law and Judeo-Christian moral law. Public outrage can result in a check on judges who put their political preferences above the law. A final check against tyranny was the right to keep and bear arms.

An insidious ideology undermining of all these concepts crept into the United States about 1900, though it had beginnings much earlier, and has always had a following.  It was the philosophy known as Progressivism, or more generally Leftism. Secular Humanism contains many of its elements.

Two of the main differences in Progressive philosophy are: man is perfectible, not limited; man is unconstrained by outside forces, either God or nature.  Progressivisim is, essentially, a religion which substitutes government for God.

In a brilliant address to the Federalist Society, Attorney General William Barr explained the disadvantages Conservatives have in a contest with Progressives:

In any age, the so-called progressives treat politics as their religion. Their holy mission is to use the coercive power of the State to remake man and society in their own image, according to an abstract ideal of perfection. Whatever means they use are therefore justified because, by definition, they are a virtuous people pursing a deific end. They are willing to use any means necessary to gain momentary advantage in achieving their end, regardless of collateral consequences and the systemic implications. They never ask whether the actions they take could be justified as a general rule of conduct, equally applicable to all sides.

Conservatives, on the other hand, do not seek an earthly paradise. We are interested in preserving over the long run the proper balance of freedom and order necessary for healthy development of natural civil society and individual human flourishing. This means that we naturally test the propriety and wisdom of action under a “rule of law” standard. The essence of this standard is to ask what the overall impact on society over the long run if the action we are taking, or principle we are applying, in a given circumstance was universalized – that is, would it be good for society over the long haul if this was done in all like circumstances?

For these reasons, conservatives tend to have more scruple over their political tactics and rarely feel that the ends justify the means. And this is as it should be, but there is no getting around the fact that this puts conservatives at a disadvantage when facing progressive holy war, especially when doing so under the weight of a hyper-partisan media.

Progressive ideology has been accepted by most of the knowledge elites in the United States for decades. It has taken over academia, particularly the "elite" colleges. It has taken over the mass media for 50 years or more. It has taken over almost all the educational establishment, and most of the entertainment industry. Here are some key Progressive themes:

• Man is not limited by God.
• There is no absolute right or wrong.
• Limits on government power are bad.
• Rule by administrators is better than rule by representatives 
• Policy should be made by experts, not politicians
• The elite have the right and duty to rule. 
• The elite have the right and duty to create public opinion and control the flow of information.

One of the most pernicious ideas promoted by Progressives is the concept of a "living Constitution". This eliminates effective Constitutional restraints on government.  Judges are to implement Progressive policy preferences that exist at the time the ruling is made. Those preferences change with time and whim.

Conservatives or originalists believe the only way Constitutional law should be changed is by the amendment process.

When originalists talk about a case, they talk about the law and the intent of the law; when Progressives talk about a case, they talk about outcomes. If a particular outcome is not what a Progressive wants, they feel free to change the law with judicial rulings.

The Progressive agenda is fluid and changeable, dependent on what is in vogue with the knowledge elites at the moment.

100 years ago, promoting racism against blacks was a prime part of the Progressive agenda. 50 years ago a colorblind society was a Progressive value. Now, anti-white racism seems to be a prime Progressive value. 50 years ago, the First Amendment was favored by Progressives, because it empowered the knowledge elite. Now it is out of favor, because it fractures the power of the knowledge elite. At any time, the Progressive agenda is aimed at concentrating more and more power in the hands of the elite.

In the American judicial system, Judges are to follow the law fairly and impartially, with reference to the written law and deference to the legislature. They are *not* to create their own law, or to work to advance a particular agenda, or to advantage or disadvantage particular groups. When they create law contrary to the U.S. Constitution or state constitutions, they violate their oaths. When they advance a political agenda by their selective interpretation of law, they violate their oaths.

Judges should not invalidate law because of the outcome of the law. They should only invalidate law if a particular law violates basic principles of law or Constitutional principles.

Progressive theory holds that judges should always judge the law by the outcome of the law, in particular, as it affects the Progressive agenda. This makes judges into super-legislators, or worse, tyrants.

Most judges, in ordinary cases, do not have the ability to change law. Judges and justices change the law in appellate courts and supreme courts in the states and the federal system.

Honorable people expect judges to be constrained by their oaths; judges who subscribe to Progressive ideology do not believe oaths should be adhered to, if they interfere with the Progressive agenda. Progressive ideology considers oaths to be mere superstition, if not backed up by the ability of someone to enforce them.

Honorable people expect judges to be constrained by moral outrage; but the people are informed by the Progressive media. The people are told the judges are doing what is right and correct, because it advances the Progressive agenda.

Honorable people expect the legislature to impeach judges who violate their oaths. Most of the legislature has been accepting Progressive premises for 40-50 years or longer. Those who have not accepted Progressive premises fear the outrage of the Progressive media.

A short and incomplete list of the legacy (progressive) media is the New York Times, AP, the Washington Post, The LA Times, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and many more.

Image how different appellate and supreme court decisions would be if the legacy (progressive) media consistently and routinely castigated judges for violating their oath of office. Image how different the decisions would be if the legacy (progressive) media called for judges who violated their oaths to be impeached.

What would have happened with Justice Ginsburg if the legacy (progressive) media had claimed she was as much a threat to the Republic as they have claimed President Trump is a threat?

Instead, the legacy (progressive) media have consistently promoted Progressive ideology.

The checks and balances of the Constitution have been disabled, undercut, and broken as Progressive ideology became the ideology of the elite in our educational and media institutions.

We have judges who ignore the Constitution, because they do not see the Constitution as any real constraint; they do not see their oath as any real constraint; they do not believe in objective reality, honor, or truth.  They believe in the Progressive agenda.

It is easier for a population to change their elite, than it is for the elite to change their population.

In the U.S. Constitutional system, there is a remedy. The remedy is to elect a President who appoints the judges, a President who will appoint individuals who have shown they respect the Constitution, who respect the rule of law.  Those individuals must have honor and integrity. By definition, this rules out judges who value Progressives ideology above truth or honor.

President Donald Trump is appointing a record number of Article III judges. Article III judges are those in the federal district and circuit courts, and at the Supreme Court. He has appointed 160 out of 870 Article III judges so far. He will likely appoint another 40 during his first term. He may appoint another 100 during his second term. That would be 320, or 37% of all the Article III judges. There are already some judges on the bench who are originalists and textualists. Originalists and textualists  can not be ideological Progressives.

When a clear majority of the Supreme Court Justices are originalists and textualists, and a majority of Article III judges are originalists and textualists, we will have a chance of obtaining consistent Constitutional decisions from the courts.

It is not enough. It is important to break the Progressive ideological strangle hold on the information flow in society. It has to be broken, so honorable judges are honored, dishonorable judges are dishonored, and legislators are not in constant fear of a dishonorable Media elite.

President Trump is in office because the Progressive media is losing its grip on the information flow in American society. As it loses its grip, legislators will be less fearful; the population will be better informed, and the checks and balances in the American Constitutional system will work better.

As Progressive judges are replaced with honorable judges, an expectation of judicial rulings consistent with the Constitution will no longer be a naive.

No elite gives up power willingly. The media elite are fighting to keep their power with all their might.

©2019 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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