MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. (WWSB) - The Manatee County Sheriff’s office is continuing to investigate a shooting that occurred on Dec 26. They have also identified one suspect arrested in connection with the incident that left one dead after the homeowner fought back with a gun.
Sheriff Rick Wells stated during a press conference, “This is the state of Florida. If you break into someone’s home, you should expect to be shot.”
ORLANDO, Fla. – A man was fatally shot during a vehicle burglary early Thursday in Orlando, according to police.
Officers responded around 5:18 a.m. to the Summergate Apartments off of Conroy Road, the Orlando Police Department said in a statement.
The man who died — referred to by police as a suspect — was identified Friday as Widlerson Pierre, 21.
Pierre was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
On December 4th, 2024, at 6:45 ET, an assassin killed United Healthcare executive Brian Thompson in New York City, in front of the Hilton Hotel. Video of the assassination shows the assassin with what appears to be a pistol with a suppressor attached. The assassin fires at least two shots, possibly three, while manually working the action at least twice. This would leave two shell cases and a potentially loaded round or three shell cases at the scene of the crime.
On December 9th, 2024, a suspect was identified in a McDonald's at about 0914 a.m. in Altoona, PA. Altoona police officers approached the suspect, with was wearing a mask and a beanie type cap. The suspect, later identified as Luigi Magione, was seated at a table and had a silver computer and a backpack. Officers asked Magione to pull down his medical mask. The recognized the suspect as matching images of the assassin in New York.
The officers asked if the suspect had been in New York City recently. The suspect became visibly nervous. The officers then asked for identification. The suspect offered a New Jersey Driver's license bearing the name of Mark Rosario. When the officers attempted to validate the license, they could not do so. The suspect was told he was under investigation. If he lied to officers, he would be arrested. The suspect then identified himself as Luigi Mangione. Magione was placed under arrest for forgery and false identification to law enforcement.
Mangione's backpack was searched as part of an inventory search when he was arrested. The search uncovered the "Ghost gun" and a silencer. Both of the items were described as 3D printed.
From the Altoona Pennsylvania police report:
During a search of the Defendant's backpack, Officers located a black 3D-printed pistol and a black silencer. The pistol had a metal slide and a plastic handle with a metal threaded barrel. The pistol had one loaded Glock magazine with six nine-millimeter full metal jacket rounds. There was also one loose nine-millimeter hollow point round. The silencer was also 3D printed.
Luigi Magione was charged with five counts under Pennsylvania law, in this order:
Magione was not charged with possession of an unregistered silencer/suppressor, because Pennsylvania does not prohibit the possession of silencers/suppressors.
There is a statute, 18 908 (C) which includes in the definition of prohibited offensive weapons: "firearms specially made or adapted for concealment or silent discharge". A typical silencer does not meet this definition, because it is not a firearm under Pennsylvania state law, and it does not produce a silent discharge.
As reported on Reuters.com, Witness Christian Diaz heard shots from just outside the University Club. The assassination was in front of the New York Hilton Midtown. Using Google maps, the University Club is a bit over 300 yards from the front of the New York Hilton Midtown. Police were at the scene in seconds. The weapon used in the assassination was far from silent.
The fact the "Ghost gun" had no serial number played no part in the investigation and arrest. The firearm was not found until the suspect was under arrest. If the firearm had been marked with a serial number, it would have made no difference in this case.
Before 1:59 p.m., December 11, 2024, AP reported the firearm found in Magione's backpack matched shell casings found at the scene of the crime in NYC. This is incredibly fast forensics work, worth of a television series. The suspect was arrested after 6:45 a.m. on December 9. The firearm was discovered a little later, say 6:59. In less than 55 hours, the suspect firearm was test fired with similar ammunition, and the cases compared to determine extractor, ejector, and firing pin marks, between different jurisdictions. This is unusually fast cooperation! No serial number was needed for this investigation.
This correspondent wonders if the Altoona Police Department might have an agreement with U.S. Immigrations, Customs and Enforcement. ICE has a sophisticated ballistics laboratory in Altoona, PA.
Opinion: Some have claimed the CEO of UnitedHealthcare is "greedy". Brian Thompson's salary was one million dollars a year. With stock options, which are not guaranteed, the total compensation has been estimated at 10 million dollars a year. The number of people covered by UnitedHealthcare is 49 million. The compensation of Brian Thompson amounts to between 2 cents and 20 cents per year per person covered by UnitedHelathcare.
The total income of the portfolio of UnitedHealthcare managed by Thompson was 74 billion in the last quarter, or about 296 billion annually. Thompson's share was about 1/3 of 1/100 of 1 percent of the income he managed (.0000338).
©2024 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, the homeowner called 911 just before 4 a.m., claiming he shot the men after they broke into his home on N. Bulldog Drive in Madison.
Deputies arrived at the house minutes later and found two men dead. The Jefferson County Coroner's Office identified them as Dalton Keith Skirvin, 27, and Kaleb Adam Skirvin, 29, both from Madison.
Charles Pruitt lives across the street and said this was not the first time someone broke into his neighbor's property.
"[He] called me a couple nights ago and told me that somebody broke into his garage," Pruitt explained.
The victim told detectives they were headed north of McDonald Road towards I-10 when she observed a burgundy Hyundai driving ahead of her. The burgundy Hyundai with a Virginia tag began to slow down and make multiple break checks. The suspect’s vehicle slowed down and was driving parallel with her when she observed an unknown black male operating the vehicle. The Victim stated the driver of the Hyundai smiled at her and fired a shot striking her vehicle. The second victim, who was in the passenger seat, then returned one shot to the suspect’s vehicle. Both victim and suspect exchanged fire while driving.
The victim driving told detectives she saw where her passenger was slumped over on his side with a serious gunshot injury to his neck and then drove him to a local hospital.
The weapons system "Rods from God" is being made possible by Elon Musk and breakthrough engineering technologies created as part of SpaceX. In the 1950's, Dr. Jerry Pournelle came up with an idea for a space weapon system known as Thor. It consisted of rods of Tungsten, about a foot in diameter and 20 feet long. It contains a guidance system, and a way to launch the projectile from orbit to a precise location on earth. Over time, the name was changed to Rods from God. A rod from god would kinetically deliver energy to a target equivalent to roughly 11 tons of TNT. It would be extremely difficult to defend against. It could attack surface targets with extreme precision, by some estimates, about 15 minutes from launch.
Rods from God has the potential to offer a much cheaper and more usable alternative to nuclear weapons. It could be the 21st century equivalent of the 19th century warship used for gunboat diplomacy.
The concept has been investigated by the Department of Defense, several times over the last 60 years. The nextbigfuture.com by Brian Wang, reconsidered the concept in 2018, with a look at possible cost reductions by SpaceX. Wang noted the major impediment to implementing such a weapon is the cost of taking it to orbit. Another major problem is insuring a precise guidance system.
SpaceX, with its reusable Super Heavy Booster and Starship, along with Starlink, has the potential to solve both problems. The initial rod from god (Thor) weapon was projected at a mass of 8,000 kilograms, about 17,000 lbs. SpaceX and Starship are projected to reduce cost to orbit to $12 to $17 per pound.
With SpaceX, the cost of orbiting rods from god are reduced from hundreds of millions of dollars per rod in the 1960's to hundreds of thousands of dollars in a few years. This is based on a reduction of the cost of launching a pound into orbit from $5,000 twenty years ago, to $800 now, to about $10 in ten years with mass production of the reusable Super Heavy Booster and Starship.
This compares favorably with weapon systems such as the patriot missile system, which costs about $4 million per missile.
The two weapons systems have different functions. A Rod from God system is extremely hard to defend against. No fixed earth bound system, fortification, large surface ship, or concentration of troops would be immune, anywhere on the planet.
With the Starlink system, the guidance problem is overcome. The fifth Spaceship test flight demonstrated how the Starship kept telemetry through a very hot re-entry. Communication with an orbiting system above you is much easier than sensing a target below you. A constellation of thousands of orbiting satellites (Starlink) tracking your progress and making corrections is very difficult to block.
An alternative method has been demonstrated by Sandia labs, with reasonable potential for a super accurate, cheap, small inertial guidance system. it does not depend on communications. It is just coming out of the laboratory stage.
It is plausible such a system would not have to depend on kinetec energy. It could delivery thousands of minaturized drones anywhere in the world as well, using ablative materials, steel tubing, and perhaps parachutes to deaccelerate. Picture a drone the size of a hummingbird, with a range of a few miles, thousands of them linked together to a constellation of satellites, each one capable of disabling a human without killing them.
Control of low earth orbit gives control of earth, if power can be brought to bear. Rods from God, minature drone swarms, and potentially, directed energy weapons make such control a serious possibility.
Radically decreasing the cost to orbit makes all this possible. Elon Musk is 90% of the way there with SpaceX. Such systems have the potential to make defense of America's borders cheap, because large troop masses or ships would be fairly easy to attack and destroy. Rods from God systems are more precise than nuclear weapons, without radioactive fallout. They have the potential to be much cheaper to build and maintain. With Elon as co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency, it seems likely the Trump administration will be looking at the Rods from God concept.
Conventional, large scale invasions become extremely difficult while borders are guarded with a Rod from God defense. Asymmetrical warfare becomes more attractive, just as it has with has nuclear weapons. Infiltrating individual soldiers across borders becomes a useful tactic. Militias become more useful as a dispersed defense. Weapons which can be concealed on an individual become more useful. China's strategy of "capturing the elite" is unaffected. From cepa.org:
China’s ability to capture elites is a particular and distinctive threat. The party-state’s long-term, patient, and sophisticated strategy of exploiting the opportunities presented by globalization has led to many individuals, organizations, and corporations having stakes in good relations with China. An important subset of these stakeholders acts and speaks (or refrains from words and deeds) in ways that prioritize Chinese interests over their own countries’ national security. The wider effect of this is collective self-censorship and self-restraint amounting to self-harm: our response fails.
Cheap access to orbit gives the United States a distinct strategic advantage, if we seize it. Elon Musk estimates the Chinese are 10 years behind SpaceX at this point. If they seize control of space before us, the advantages become theirs.
©2024 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
HPD Homicide Division Detectives M. Barrow and J. Caten reported:
Officers responded to a report of a shooting at an apartment complex at the above address and found the male in his apartment suffering from a gunshot wound. Responding Houston Fire Department paramedics pronounced the man deceased at the scene.
Further investigation determined the male was shot as a result of a domestic dispute with a female, 24. She is cooperating with the investigation and self defense appears to be a motive.
Police identified Deshawn Roberts, of Osyka, Mississippi, as the victim.
Demarcus Blount, of McComb, Mississippi, was booked into the Tangipahoa Parish Jail for second-degree murder and illegal use of a deadly weapon after initially attempting to flee the scene in the aftermath of the incident. Police say Blount surrendered when an officer caught up with his vehicle northbound on US 51.
The shooting occurred just before 11 p.m. on Wednesday (Dec. 25) outside of the 4 Way Quick Stop on US 51 and Avenue E, according to police. Investigators say an argument began inside the store and continued into the parking lot. Both individuals brandished firearms and investigators say surveillance footage suggests Blount was the only one of the two that fired shots.
Lt. Daniel Lowe said both men were visiting the resident of the apartment. The suspect and the victim began fighting of a handgun, with Russell eventually gaining control of the weapon.
The weapon discharged several times, with at least two rounds striking McIlwain.
Russell was taken into custody at the scene.
Detectives presented the evidence to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office which issued the murder warrant, Lowe said.
Police said a man called them and reported that three men approached him and demanded his jewelry. They fired several shots at him, and the victim returned fire.
No injuries were reported, authorities said.
Miami police were processing the crime scene as the sun rose, including a black Mercedes.
In an article by whyy.org, the National Public Radio station quotes retired police officer Randy Sutton, who says banning "Ghost guns" will not stop people from getting them. The reporter added interesting commentary to the quotes by Sutton.
Sutton added that because ghost guns are not regulated, making them go away outright is unrealistic.
Sutton's words might be interpreted in such a manner. It seems clear Sutton meant the guns would not "go away outright" whether they were banned or not, whether they were regulated or not. Here is a quote from Sutton in the article.
“There’s not a chance in the world we’re going to ban these
weapons. It’s impossible,” Sutton said. “You can make them illegal to
possess. But the techno barn door has already been opened.”
This graphic from the Philadelphia police department is in the article. It shows a declining percentage of privately made firearms in the last two years.
Sutton understands the reality, including the political reality. The technology to make guns without a factory has always existed in the United States, as has the legal right to do so.
Most guns were made in small shops during the revolutionary era. At the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, manufacturing was in a period of rapid change. In a few decades, interchangeable parts would become a common technique. The first successful attempt at interchangeable parts for firearms was in France, in 1785. Thomas Jefferson witnessed the successful demonstration. The French Revolution destroyed the workshop where the French demonstration happened, and even the memory of its success.
Thomas Jefferson took the concept to America. The United States pushed for interchangeable parts in its military small arms. In 1824, at Harpers Ferry Armory, the attempt succeeded.
In most cases, firearms continued made by hand, assembled from a collection of basic units, and hand fitted to work, mostly by individual craftsmen, well after the Harpers Ferry success story. Individuals would often purchase a barrel or make one, purchase a stock or make one, then most often purchase a lock, and fit them all together to make them work.
No license was required to do this. The potential of serial numbers were known. They were not required. They were seldom used outside of the military. As making firearms moved into factories, some manufacturers used serial numbers, most did not.
Individuals could always make firearms for themselves. Even relatively complex firearms such as revolvers were and have been made by individuals up to the present. Items such as bombs and grenades were and are much easier to make than firearms.
As precise metal working machines became cheaper and as metal shapes, such as steel tubes became standardized and mass produced, it became easier and easier for individuals to make their own firearms. Firearms are commonly produced in small jungle workshops around the world. They have commonly been produced in the United States by hobbyists. Where people are forbidden from legally obtaining firearms, the number of homemade firearms increases to meet demand. In the United States, in restrictive jurisdictions, the number of homemade firearms has always been higher than where firearms are easily and legally obtained.
Image of countrymade pistols in India
In the United States, in one of the most highly restricted jurisdictions, the District of Columbia, in 1977, 20% of the guns seized by police were homemade. In 2010, 12% of the firearms in DC and Prince George's had no serial numbers. As seen in the Philadelphia PD chart, personally made firearms are a lower percentage there than they were in DC 48 years ago or in DC and Prince George's 14 years ago. These numbers are far from precise. The strong possibility of selection bias exists. The numbers show the percentage of homemade guns is not necessarily increasing, and may even be dropping. This makes sense as Second Amendment rights are being restored across much of the United States.
In a nation with over 500 million firearms in private hands, it is usually easier for people who desire an untraceable firearm to purchase one on the unregulated market, have another person purchase one in the regulated market, or steal one, than to make your own. Hundreds of millions guns in the United States are unregistered and untraceable.
A few thousand or a few million "Ghost guns" will not make a measurable difference.
Analysis: Homemade firearms have always existed. The right to make your own firearm has always been part of the Second Amendment. The push to require government permission to make your own firearm is part of the Progressive ideology to ignore or destroy limits on government power. It has very little, if any effect on criminals. It has significant effect on law abiding citizens. The desire to require serial numbers on homemade guns stems from the desire to impose universal registration of guns on the population of the United States. The ability to make your own gun defeats the idea of Universal Registration. Registration of Guns is, in effect, confiscation of guns.
The right to make and have your own guns, independent of government permission, is embodied in the ability to make and keep "Ghost guns".
©2024 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
Police believe the 24-year-old and another man had knocked on the door of the residence and "rushed in" and assaulted another man inside the home before being shot.
A 24-year-old man was shot dead after being involved in an "altercation" inside an Akron home early Sunday morning, with the alleged shooter claiming it was in self-defense, police said.
OAKLAND, Calif. - A robbery was thwarted after a store employee at a local store fired a gun at suspects Saturday morning, Oakland police said.
The robbery occurred in the 9700 block of Edes Avenue just before 7 a.m., police said. Many individuals tried to use their cars to break into a business.
An employee fired a weapon, which caused the suspects to run and leave empty-handed.
The suspect reportedly walked into the house, and when the homeowners spotted them, they ran from the scene.
The homeowners shot at the suspect but did not hit them, according to the sheriff’s office.
Deputies stated that they now have the suspect in custody, whose identity has not been released.
On December 12, 2024, USAtoday published a hit piece on "Ghost guns", attempting to use the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as a reason to impose unconstitutional restrictions on homemade firearms.
It appears Brian Thompson was assassinated with a homemade firearm. However, the manufacture of the firearm did not interfere with the investigation of his murder. The suspect was arrested without any assistance from gun tracing data, as is the case with virtually all violent crimes. Gun tracing has no measurable effect on solving violent crimes. It is difficult to find any violent crime which was solved with gun trace data. The USAtoday article misleads from the first paragraph:
For decades, America's detectives have made breakthroughs in crime using gun traces. A homicide investigator typically uses ballistics and serial numbers of weapons checked via a vast network of gun shop records, manufacturer IDs and crime databases.
The unstated conflation is from crimes of possession or illegal gun sales to homicide. Homicides which are solved by the use of trace data seem to be non-existent. It may have happened, but this correspondent has not found documented examples. If there were examples, they would be shouted out by the ATF and those who want a disarmed population. They are not. The USAtoday article does not cite a single violent crime solved by using trace data.
Canada has required all handguns to be registered since 1934. The Canadian handgun registration is far more effective and intrusive than the United States gun trace system. In 1995, when the Canadian handgun registry had been in use for over 60 years, the Canadian Department of Justice could not identify a single instance where handgun registration helped to solve a crime. From publicsafety.gc.ca:
Department of Justice officials admitted that they could not identify a single instance where handgun registration helped solved a crime (Hansard, 1995, p. 12,259)
Gun registration is not an effective way to solve violent crimes. Gun tracing in the USA is far less effective than gun registration.
The USAtoday article uses the scare tactic of citing increasing numbers of homemade guns found by law enforcement agencies. It is an irrelevant number. Most firearms in the United States are unregistered and untraceable. A few thousand, or a few million more, given the over 500 million firearms in private hands in the United States, is not going to make a significant difference.
This is the scare tactic used to demand legislation no matter how minimum or irrational the actual threat is. A person who is shot with a manufactured gun is no more or less injured or killed than a person shot with a homemade gun. Manufactured guns will always outnumber homemade guns by thousands to one.
The article spends considerable time considering how people make illegal devices to circumvent federal and state laws. So... what is the point? The devices are already illegal to make. Making them double or triple illegal will not change anything.
At the end, the article gives a realistic assessment, quoting a gun control advocate from the Giffords Law Center. More laws will not stop people from making their own guns.
“The genie is out of the bottle,” he said.
Analysis: This scare tactic is used to promote the idea of government control of firearms. Fortunately, most people realize this is an area where government will control law abiding people, but criminals, government agents, or criminal government agents will always be able to obtain firearms. The use of a few cases and bogus or non-existent statistics has been a favorite way of passing bad laws for much of American history. A good examples is the ban of switchblade knives. Short barreled rifles were banned because of a stupid, ignorant, or Machiavellian representative from Minnesota in 1933.
Laws restricting the freedom to have and carry (keep and bear) firearms do not reduce homicides or suicides. Gun registration does not reduce crime or suicides. Registration is gun confiscation stretched over time, perhaps generations. Homemade guns fall outside of gun registration schemes. Americans have always had the legal right to make their own guns. The courts should recognize this inalienable right.
©2024 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
Spivey then started to hit and punch the man, the report said. He began to defend himself and they started to fight on the ground.
A second man came out of the car that Spivey arrived in and ran onto the porch to break up the fight, the report said. However, the man on the porch thought the other man was attacking him, so he pulled a gun and shot him in the groin.
According to the report, the second man said, “He shot me,” before crawling back to the vehicle. Spivey then got into the car and drove off with the victim.
On November 18, 2024, the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery issued a statement of support for the use of firearms suppressors as a means of reducing the risk of hearing loss. From entnet.org:
The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery endorses the use of firearm suppressors as an effective method of reducing the risk of hearing loss, especially when used in conjunction with conventional hearing protective measures.
The article contains a paragraph making clear the publication and organization are not making a legal or political statement. They are stating medical fact.
The references listed with the statement make clear suppressors are superior to hearing protection which is worn (such as head sets or earplugs). Using both firearms suppressors and worn hearing protection is even better at reducing risk to hearing from the noise of shooting firearms or being near to where they are being shot.
References:
Reference #1 measures the dangers of firearms blast for hearing loss.
Reference #2 measures reduction in sound levels using firearms suppressors compared to hearing protection devices which are worn on the person. Branch found this result:
Conclusion:
Modern muzzle-level suppression is vastly superior to ear-level protection and the only available form of suppression capable of making certain sporting arms safe for hearing. The inadequacy of standard hearing protectors with certain common firearms is not recognized by most hearing professionals or their patients and should affect the way hearing professionals counsel patients and the public.
Reference #3 reaches these conclusions:
Sound level suppressors (also known as “silencers”) on firearms reduce—but do not eliminate—hazardous noise exposure, especially for AR-15 or similar semiautomatic rifles. At this time, the best advice is dual use of both HPDs and suppressors—particularly for those shooting weapons that produce dangerously high sound levels. For shooters who are reluctant to use HPDs, electronic HPDs should be considered as an option.
Analysis: the scientific evidence is clear. Silencers offer a significant way to reduce the risk of hearing loss. The commonly used term "suppressor" is more realistic if more recent. Silencers/suppressors do not make firearms silent. They reduce the noise from a firearms blast to levels which are less dangerous to the user. Those who desire a disarmed population put forward two contradictory reasons as to why silencer/suppressors should be tightly regulated.
First they argue silencer/suppressors make firearm noise "too quiet" so that crimes can be committed more easily. Second, they argue silencers/suppressors do not make firearm noise "quiet enough" as the noise can still damage the users hearing with some suppressors in some conditions.
This is a form of Goldilocks gun control. Silencer/suppressors are always either too quiet or too loud. In the eyes of those who want a disarmed population, they can never be "just right". When firearms suppressors were initially included in the controversial National Firearms Act in 1934, the science of hearing protection had not been developed. It wasn't until 1948 that the U.S. Air Force took hearing loss seriously.
The American Air Force instituted the first recommended noise exposure limits in 1948 and the first enforceable noise regulations in 1958. Soldiers who experienced hearing loss from service in WWII or Korea had a much different experience than their grandfathers who served in WWI.
The military realized what workers know today – loud noises can impair situational awareness and decrease safety even beyond hearing loss.
The $200 tax on a silencer in 1934 was equivalent to about $4,000 today. A laborer in 1934 would make $200 in six months. It was effectively a ban for most people.
The effective economic ban on the use of firearm suppressors or gun mufflers has been one of the greatest governmental medical disasters of modern times. Certainly millions, likely tens of millions of people have significant hearing loss because of this regulatory misstep. The inventor of the firearm gun muffler invented the automobile muffler at virtually the same time. One became mandatory, the other was banned. The difference was the overreach of government power by the FDR administration in 1934.
©2024 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
Pine delivery van shooting: Police say a delivery driver shot a man trying to steal his van early Saturday outside Pine’s PIVOT Apartments. According to SPD’s report on the 4:45 AM incident, the driver was coming back out of the building when he found the suspect inside the delivery van and ready to speed away. Police say the victim pulled out a handgun and opened fire as the suspect struck him with the van as he tried to speed from the scene. The victim was able to track the van a few blocks away where police found it parked near a downtown hotel with the suspect bleeding inside and multiple bullet holes in the van. Seattle Fire was called to the scene where its crew treated the suspect for a gunshot wound to the chest before transporting him to Harborview. The victim was not reported seriously injured in the melee.
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