June 16, 2017 Newsletter by Jeff Pittman
US Rep. shot in Virginia; massacre prevented by good guys with guns
When US House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), 51, and at least four others were shot by a man with a rifle and a handgun who fired what was reported to be dozens of (perhaps a hundred) shots over a 5-to-10-minute span at a GOP congressional baseball practice for a charity game in Alexandria, VA, Wednesday morning, two US Capitol Police officers, Special Agent Crystal Griner and Special Agent David Bailey (Scalise’s security detail, i.e., good guys with guns), returned fire and wounded the attacker during a running gun battle that lasted several minutes until other responding officers arrived and joined the fire fight. The perpetrator then died in custody. The two officers were among the wounded after putting themselves in harm’s way. At least 21 members of Congress were at the field, but no other politicians there have security details and no other officers were reported initially present.
Scalise was playing second base and the attacker was near the third base dugout. Rep. Trent Kelly, R-MS was playing third base.
The first shot fired was aimed at Kelly who was the closest person to the shooter at the time. The attacker was reportedly 20 to 30 feet from Kelly and fired the first shot at him and missed (!), then the second shot at Rep. Scalise, who was hit.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) told Fox News he “felt like I was in Iraq, but without my weapon.”
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said “It’s not easy when you see people around you being shot and you don’t have a weapon yourself. Â You feel helpless.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said “Without Capitol Hill police, it would have been a massacre — we had no defense — we had no defense at all.”
Either Wenstrup or Paul — reports vary — also said “I think we’re lucky Scalise was there because this was his security detail and without them, it would have been a massacre.” Â This sentiment was pretty universally echoed by other lawmakers present.
Rep. Mike Bishop (R-MI) said that “The only reason why any of us walked out of this thing, by the grace of God, one of the folks here (security detail traveling with Scalise) had a weapon to fire back and give us a moment to find cover. (Read that again.) We were inside the backstop and if we didn’t have that cover by a brave person who stood up and took a shot themselves, we would not have gotten out of there and every one of us would have been hit — every single one of us. Â He was coming around the fence line and he was looking for all of us who had found cover in different spots. But if we didn’t have return fire right there, he would have come up to each one of us and shot us point-blank.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) issued a statement saying the perpetrator apparently had volunteered on his presidential campaign and that “violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society.” Â Well Bernie Boy, “violence of any kind” includes that necessarily employed by the police officers to stop this massacre.
The perpetrator, an under-educated, unemployed man living out of a van and gym bag, reportedly belonged to a number of anti-Republican groups, including a violent, abhorrent, disgusting Facebook hate group called “Terminate the Republican Party,” whose members celebrated the attack. (This is the same leftist Facebook that in numerous instances doesn’t allow innocuous, benign pro-gun related content.)
Of the apparently hundreds of these Farcebook group members celebrating the attack or promoting violence against Republicans, we found a few names*:
- Darryl W. Riley
- Robert Blanch
- Mari-Ellen Cain
- Wade T. Heilig
- Matthew Dunham
- Nate Wong
- Thomas K. Wilson Sr.
- Alicia Isabella Buitrago
- Chester Halsey-Hill
*My apologies to any innocent folks who share any of these names.
I wonder if lawmakers will ever recognize that we don’t and can’t all have armed police officers following us around and guarding us all the time like some of them do. And I wonder if these GOP “pro-gun” politicians can be trusted since apparently NONE of them had a gun. Do they not themselves believe their own rhetoric?
Well, the very next day, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced the DC Personal Protection Reciprocity Act, which would grant carry reciprocity to anyone with a permit issued by their home state to carry legally in the District of Columbia. But folks from socialist states with no permits would remain subject to D.C.’s Black Code laws.
Original Cosponsors include Reps Trent Franks (R-AZ), Scott Perry (R-PA), Steve Chabot (R-OH), Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA), Ted Budd (R-NC), Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), Mark Meadows (R-NC), Jody Hice (R-GA), Justin Amash (R-MI), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Alex Mooney (R-WV), Rod Blum (R-IA), Ken Buck (R-CO), Todd Rokita (R-IN), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Keith Rothfus (R-PA) David Schweikert (R-AZ), Rick Allen (R-GA), Tedd Yoho (R-FL), Randy Weber (R-TX), and Bill Posey (R-FL). I see no Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, Greens, Progressives or Mississippi reps on the list.
Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) said “I can assure you from this day forward, I have a carrier permit. I will be carrying when I’m out and about,” while Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) suggested that members of Congress (but not the rest of us) should be allowed to carry guns. “I think we need to look at some reciprocity for members here but we also need to look at security details,” he said.
I wonder if the perp didn’t know that there were two (and only two) officers present. It seems that if he had known, they would have been shot first, thereby giving him free access to kill everyone else, as was recognized in the statements above.
A bystander walking a dog at a park near the baseball field told Fox News he/she (reports vary) heard a female officer (Crystal Griner, who had emerged from the dugout moving toward the attacker) yelling at the perpetrator to “Drop your weapon.” Immediately afterward, someone in the dugout, who was openly exposed to the perpetrator’s gunfire, screamed back: “Just shoot him!” Â That was when the perp shot the officer in the ankle.
- Cell phone video (mostly audio) of the incident
John Farnam’s “Points everyone needs to take away from this:
- Decisive and IMMEDIATE return fire doubtless prevented a much larger massacre.
- Who go armed routinely, and have IMMEDIATE access to guns, are the only ones who can possibly influence these kinds of terrorist incidents in any meaningful way.
- Competent training is the only way through which one can adequately prepare to deliver precise, war-winning fire on pernicious threats, at the moment it is required. Simply ‘giving guns’ to the incompetent accomplished nothing!
- ‘Armed and well trained,’ is the solution to terrorist attacks, whether you’re protecting a dignitary, your family, or just yourself.
- ‘Helplessly waiting to be rescued’ holds out scant hope!”
Meanwhile, security at Capitol Hill was immediately elevated, and numerous liberals took to social media to castigate the Republican ball players for their past pro-gun legislation. I don’t know why they’re complaining — apparently none of the politicians were packing.
Finally, Joe Huffman made the suggestion that Congress drop baseball as the annual sport competition between Democrats and Republicans, in favor of shooting. If this had been practice for a three-gun match or even a IPDA, USPSA, or steel match fewer innocent people would have been injured.
San Francisco — Three innocent victims killed in “gun-free” zone where only the killer had a gun
At least three United Parcel Service drivers (plus the killer) were shot dead and several people were injured by a uniformed UPS driver at the company building in the Potrero Hill area of San Francisco this week.
UPS facilities are “gun free” zones. Police said the killer was armed with something they called an “assault pistol,” which is a fantasy that only exists in the warped minds of certain liberal politicians. But regardless, I strongly suspect that this weapon was illegal in California.
Terrorism
The New York Post reported that Bill Bratton, former New York Police commissioner, says that terror attacks in Europe are “the new normal” and they are almost certainly coming to the United States.
Meanwhile in the UK, local Police and Crime Commissioner Alison Hernandez “caused alarm among rank and file officers by suggesting that members of the public who own guns could help defend rural areas against terror attacks.” Deputy Chief Constable Paul Netherton slapper her down with an emphatic “NO.” But he won’t be there when it happens.
Litigation
The 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a sheriff’s deputy was justified in fatally shooting the driver of a car coming toward him in a threatening manner, even though the deputy deliberately stepped into the vehicle’s path and stayed there when he had the opportunity to move aside.
The court said “[F]rom the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, the totality of circumstances… powerfully support [the deputy’s] position that his use of deadly force was reasonable [and therefore he was] entitled to qualified immunity [from a claim that he violated the driver’s constitutional rights by using excessive force].”
Marty Hayes on the NRA
Marty Hayes, J.D., of the Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network and the Firearms Academy of Seattle, wrote an open letter to NRA about its Carry Guard product.
I agree with Marty, and especially resent the NRA’s kicking its previously reserved and paid clients (competition) out of this year’s NRA show. This is OUR NRA and should not be trying to steal business from its members. It is an association, not a business. And this is just after the debacle of NRA’s failed training program changes. One wonders what the new NRA President, Pete Brownell, of Brownells gun parts company, would think about NRA starting up a gun parts business and kicking his company out of its NRA show booth.
This topic was also discussed on Tom Gresham’s Gun Talk radio last Sunday. There seems to be a consensus.
FWIW, the NRA reported that its six NRA-affiliated organizations, including its political action committee, collected $433.9 million for total revenue and other support for 2016.
- Jeff Knox on the recent NRA bylaw changes
Calling a Spade a Spade
Colion Noir, NRA TV show host, released a video last Friday questioning celebritwit Kim Kardashian’s mental health and whether or not she should be allowed to own a gun, after she and her armed guards shilled for gun control for the rest of us. NRA has since deleted the video. Noir said to Kim in the video, “You have a book of selfies. You are the epitome of a narcissist, which, last I checked, narcissistic personality disorder is a mental illness. Not to mention your self-admitted dealings with anxiety and the PTSD you suffered from being robbed at gunpoint.” He went on to say that those mental illnesses, by her own standards, disqualify her from gun ownership.
Although those of us in the pro-rights camp would not accept Noir’s nor my amateur assessment of anyone’s mental health, it does seem to me that Miss/MS/Mrs./whatever Kardashian/West/whatever has literally made a career of her own narcissism. (narcissism, noun. Excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one’s physical appearance.) Just sayin…
Burglar survey
“…and the inmates also said, ‘Get a gun.'”
When Your Child is a Psychopath
“I don’t know what you call this emotion,” one psychopathic prisoner said, looking at a photo of a fearful face, “but it’s what people look like just before you stab them.”
Dept. of Idiocy
Some parents of Shawnee Mission School District students in eastern Kansas were unhappy when they learned the district has bought eight semi-automatic rifles for its school resource officers.
Apparently they don’t want their own kids protected from lethal violence.
In Hobart, IN, Eric Hummel was charged with 5 felonies after he fatally shot his 9-year-old daughter in the head while “teaching” his two sons not to play with guns. I have no words.
Former Secret Service agent Evy “pompous” Poumpouras, who apparently got her federal job due solely to her looks and is now NBC’s gun “expert” (probably for the same reason), said after the Virginia attack that the difference between a semiautomatic pistol and a “semiautomatic” rifle (the attacker apparently had a pistol and an SKS rifle) is that a pistol fires one round per trigger pull, but that a “semiautomatic” rifle is switchable to full auto fire.
Anti-gun Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe repeatedly said in response to the Virginia attack that there are “too many guns on the street” and that “we lose 93 MILLION Americans a DAY to gun violence.” Â The population of the US is about 325 million. Do the math. Maybe he’s talking about how many brain cells he’s losing… Â And Governor, if you want to get rid of guns, dismiss your security detail and relinquish all your guns. You can do that TODAY.
The Only Ones
Pike County, MS officials reported “an officer-involved shooting” in the county last weekend in which the fatally-shot woman’s husband is a McComb, MS police officer, and that the officer’s department-issued shotgun was used. The officials declined to report whether the husband was the officer involved, but said that he has not been charged with anything. I’m hearing an implied “yet” in that statement. The deceased was identified as Jasmine Nicole Ceely, 30, and her husband as Frank Ceely, 51. The cryptic information released and not released by the Sheriff’s office seems quite fishy.
24-year-old Cumberland County, ME, corrections officer Matthew Begner accidentally shot another officer while they and a third officer were in the third man’s vehicle in a gun-free zone — the criminal justice academy. Â The gun belongs to the third officer.
Police say they had no record of permits to film, so our heroes thought it was an actual robbery and started shooting at two men who appeared to be holding guns. Or maybe the police first ordered the folks to drop their (fake) guns, shooting when they didn’t comply, and later learned that it was a video shoot without permits, depending on which source you believe. Regardless, nobody was hit.
An unidentified Jackson, MS, police officer shot a driver in a stolen car who tried to avoid a police checkpoint and then drove toward him in a threatening manner. The injured driver then reportedly drove himself to a hospital in the stolen car. Say what? Since when do officers shoot criminal suspects and then let them drive themselves to the hospital, in a stolen vehicle, no less?
Hinds County, MS, Sheriff Victor Mason refuses to provide departmental weapons qualification scores for open records request.
Sweetwater, FL, Police Sgt. Reny Garcia, 46, was arrested on charges of organized scheme to defraud, racketeering and conspiracy. Â Also charged was former Det. William Garcia, 42, who is not related to Reny Garcia. William Garcia is currently in federal prison on unrelated identity theft and fraud charges. The new charges came after accusations of the officers breaking into homes, stealing cars, water-boarding suspects and taking “trophy photos” of them for several years.
The Only Ones — Enemies Edition
Gulfport, MS Police Chief Leonard Papania and Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police executive director Ken Winter recently spoke out against your gun rights in The New York Times.
Meanwhile, the North Carolina Fraternal Order of Police, under leadership of FOP President Randy Hagler, who also serves as Chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Police, opposes “allowing” law-abiding adults to carry guns without a government permission slip, in order to “protect” cops. Hagler also says he never leaves home without a concealed weapon himself.
But what about Kenneth Dale Henson, the former cop in Hagler’s vicinity who committed a murder-suicide just three months ago after having been involuntarily committed for psychiatric evaluation? Is that who you’re protecting? Protecting from whom, exactly?
Enemies
Is it ironic that anti-civil rights gun-grabber and former US Rep. Gabby Giffords was “honored” for being a gunshot victim and anti-gun advocate by having a Navy COMBAT ship named after her? Maybe the gun companies should name guns after her too. The “Gabby Gat” or somesuch.
US Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-CT) said to liberals this week, “I’d never say gun control, never ever, ever say that. … we really should be talking about gun safety.” Â (When we really really mean gun control.)
Huffington Post writer Jesse Benn tweeted after the Virginia congressional attack, “For violent resistance to work it’d need to be organized. Individual acts can be understandable, but likely counterproductive/ineffective.”
Scumbag pro-communist brat freelance writer Malcolm Harris, 28 (who has a book contract with Little, Brown of New York), tweeted that the shooting of Rep. Scalise and staffers may have been tantamount to an act of “self-defense,” that “you can’t use ‘respect for human life’ to defend GOP house leadership,” and that he hoped the wounded congressman dies.
One Jim Devine from New Jersey, a self-described “masterful Democratic Party campaign strategist,” created new #HuntRepublicans and #HuntRepublicanCongressmen Twitter hashtags. And there are others. They call themselves “progressive,” but I have other names.
A Better One
Meanwhile, Sheriff Wayne Ivey of Brevard County, FL, has made a video regarding the many recent terrorist attacks and how his constituents can combat them by carrying a weapon. The Sheriff recently posted a video on the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page with the warning “We can’t afford to sit back and wait for the next act of terrorism.”
Too late. See the attack reports above in this newsletter.
Worth watching.
A good guy with a gun
Murderous escapees captured by armed Tennessee homeowner after “desperate” manhunt.
Knife Record
Bowie, Texas now holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest Bowie knife. 20 feet, 6 inches. Everything’s bigger in Texas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9_GlqRRs0s
- The Army is looking for a new Squad Automatic Rifle
- Chinese Full-Size Tank Model made of 48,356 Cartridge Cases. 6.5 tons.
Bass Pro Shops’ reputation honored
Bass Pro Shops has been named one of “America’s Most Reputable Companies” by Forbes magazine in recognition of the public’s trust in the organization, based on a national study compiled by The Reputation Institute. BPS ranked 19th on the list of 100 nationally distinguished companies, above such other iconic national brands as Disney, Home Depot, Marriott, Harley Davidson, and FedEx. The recognition is based solely on direct voluntary feedback from consumers — companies could not apply for the award.
Products
- Ruger’s SR1911 is now available in 10mm Auto. The stainless steel pistol features the same Bomar-style adjustable sights as the SR1911 Target model, a black nitride coated, ramped, bushingless bull barrel, a full-length steel recoil spring guide rod, Hogue rubberized grip panels, a lowered and flared ejection port, titanium firing pin, an integral plunger tube, beaver-tail grip safety, extended magazine release, oversize thumb safety, skeletonized hammer and skeletonized aluminum trigger. Â 5″ barrel, 40.4 oz. Â Two, 8-round magazines included. Â $1019.
- Cimarron Firearms has a reproduction General George S. Patton Peacemaker revolver. $766.
- SOG’s Sync multi-tools are designed to easily be worn with the detachable base as a belt buckle or simply clipped on a pack strap or boot. While the tool can be conveniently detached from the base with one hand, it stays locked and secure to it under active movement when not needed. The Sync II ($80) fits belts up to 1-3/4″. Thinner belts up to 1-3/8″ are best used with the Sync I ($67).
- Blue Force Gear lets you build your own sling. Not real cheap.
