dti, john farnham 051321

 

“Civilization was a blessing you never truly appreciated, until it threatened to collapse around you.”

 

Peter Hamilton

 

“Safe” for violent offenders?

 

I remember when I was going through the Police Academy back in the early 1970s, and shooting at a paper target called the “B21, Police Silhouette”

 

Scoring zones were marked with the appropriate value, depending on whether you were shooting to “kill,” or shooting to “disable.” The target was a human form printed on a white background

 

For example, when attempting to “disable,” one received a higher score for shooting the target’s right arm than for shooting the left arm.

 

The whole dubious notion of trying to “disable” someone via gunfire, but not produce a fatal injury, was soon unceremoniously, and contemptuously, discarded by American police.

 

It was a quaint idea, dreamed-up by desk-bound bureaucrats, but in actual practice “in the field,” it didn’t work, as any idiot could have predicted!

 

When attempting to “disable” someone in range simulations, the paper B21 was always perfectly stationary.

 

There was plenty of light. Plenty of time. And, the target was not actually trying to murder you!

 

Even then, scores were consistently poor.

 

Teaching students to aim at, and uniformly hit, “center mass” proved eminently more likely to succeed.

 

We all decided that attempting to produce “non-lethal injury” while employing “lethal force” was inherently a pretty stupid idea!

 

Now, we’re seeing that a medium-sized department, LaGrange, GA, has suddenly dredged-back-up this dubious idea!

 

I’m sure it will spread to other departments with leftist chiefs.

 

They’re calling it “Shoot to Incapacitate,” and in order to exercise their “non-lethal gunfire,” they’ve produced a new, improved version of the B21!

 

It teaches officers to shoot arms, legs, and “abdomen” when their very lives are in deadly, imminent peril!

 

Leftists who promote this long-ago discredited rubbish claim to want to “preserve life,” but the lives of violent criminals are obviously the only ones they care about. Lives of police officers and innocent citizens are apparently of no importance.

 

When an officer “shoots to incapacitate,” but the VCA dies anyway, predictably the officer will be lose his job for “acting out of policy,” and will then be prosecuted for self-defined “excessive force.”

 

The “new standard” will be that the “incapacitation method” must always be used, in every police shooting.

 

And, when mandatory “non-lethal results” from the use of “lethal-force” is the expected norm, and it predictably fails completely, the new demand from the Left will be that all police be disarmed, stripped of all guns.

 

You know that’s coming, to the invariable cheers of Democrats!

 

Simultaneously, leftists are taking away our OC, tear gas, bean-bags, Tasers, batons, every less-lethal option we have. In addition police snipers and SWAT Teams are being disbanded.

 

Guns are next. Count on it!

 

Meanwhile, you can bet good money that hypocritical Democrat governors who pseudo-sanctimoniously join this bandwagon will make damned sure none of it applies to their own bodyguards. After all, they’re “essential,” while police officers and citizens are obviously expendable!

 

Currently, lawlessness in every Democrat-controlled metro area, from NYC to SF, is completely out of hand.

 

It’s growing worse by the day, and that is exactly the way they want it!

 

This is not co-incidence!

 

“An important sign of the collapse of the rule of law is the rise of a paramilitary, and its merger with government power.”

 

Timothy Snyder

 

/John

Second Amendment Decal Warning

From Instapundit

Ammoland

What a sad waste of time.

What I Know

I've previously said that all politicians lie and if I haven't, well, they do.

From The Hunt for Red October:

I'm a politician, Dr. Ryan. Which means that when I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops.

I love that line!

But another thing to remember is that "journalists", "the media", the people who cry that "the public has a right to know!" have an invisible agenda that always takes precedent over any responsibilities they might have to the public:

Let's you and him fight.

Saturday Poetry

Conrad Aiken
1889-1973

All Lovely Things

All lovely things will have an ending,
All lovely things will fade and die,
And youth, that's now so bravely spending,
Will beg a penny by and by.

Fine ladies soon are all forgotten,
And goldenrod is dust when dead,
The sweetest flesh and flowers are rotten
And cobwebs tent the brightest head.

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!—
But time goes on, and will, unheeding,
Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,
And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, remain!—
But goldenrod and daisies wither,
And over them blows autumn rain,
They pass, they pass, and know not whither.

Poem found at "American Poems"

Picture found at "Poetry Pearls", a Russian-language site

Pondering the Unthinkable

My daughter goes to a private school. As a parent, I volunteer my time there and so I'm fairly familiar with the physical layout of the school.

The front door of the school opens directly onto the administrative office. Someone opens that door, and steps inside.

*boom* *boom*

That was the two women at the front desks. They're dead or dying. No one has called 911.

*boom*

That was the large window that glasses in the director's office. He's dead or wounded.

*boom*

That was anyone at the copier, or anyone coming in from the hallway.

Three steps into the hallway and one step to the right is a K/1 classroom. Six steps to the left is a 1/2 classroom.

Is someone scrambling for a phone?

Farther down the hall are two K/1 classrooms that face each other. There are two more classrooms past them.

A teacher or teacher's aide might be opening a door, looking out in the hall.

At the end of the hall, a left turn takes you out onto a fenced-off playground. There's an exit gate in the fence.

This could be a lunatic, a vengeful ex-spouse or ex-lover, a gang banger. And unless they choose to take hostages, it's all over in less than a minute.

If I'm there, I'm probably dead in the hallway or the office. And there's nothing I could do to change the outcome. Aside from response time issues, California is a "may issue" state; the city of Los Angeles defers to the county of Los Angeles, and both of them are "won't issue".

I'm glad I often tell my daughter that I love her.

So. I'm at the mercy of fate, just like everyone else.