Friday Tour d’Horizon, Week 44

This week’s Tour d’Horizon is upon us. Too many tabs, too little time. UPDATE

Guns

I don’t wanna work, I just wanna bang on my gun all day.

Colt Super-Sizes the Competition Pistol

That would be .38 Super-sizes a pistol made for modern power-factored accuracy games. The blue grips are an acquired taste, kind of like goth girls with blue-koolaid hair. The press release mentions the .38 Super “cambering” but it all looks pretty straight to us:

“Competitors are very selective about the caliber they rely on to win matches,” said Mark Redl, Pro Shooter and Product Manager for Colt. “The .38 Super round has a lot of advantages in competition when considering power factor and capacity, and the 1911 platform offers many advantages as well. By offering our excellent Colt Competition Pistol™ in .38 Super, we allow match shooters who love that round to take advantage our well thought out, race-ready platform. It’s a winning combination.”

The Colt Competition Pistol™ (also available in .45 ACP and 9mm) offers several features that competitive shooters will appreciate, including Colt’s innovative Dual Spring Recoil System™ which reduces felt recoil and helps keep shots on target at critical moments. Other features include Novak’s new patent pending adjustable rear sight and fiber optic front sight, competition ergonomics including an undercut trigger guard and upswept beavertail safety, and a National Match® barrel. The Colt Competition Pistol™ in .38 Super with blued finish is SKU: O1983CCP and carries an MSRP of $999.

It’s not going to sell in humongous numbers, but it will save some shooters a bunch of money on custom work on a 1911, and be particularly appealing to competitors on a budget. Many of the mods competitors like are already in the pistol when it leaves Hartford. You can get similar firearms from many competitors, but the prancing pony still carries weight with the buying public.

Poly-Ticks: Gun Ban Groups Try Out a New Name

In South Carolina, local gun ban groups’ volunteer PR dolly Cynthia Roldán is test-flying a new name for the pressure groups that started off as the National Coalition to Ban Handguns and Gun Control Incorporated. “Ban” didn’t test well, so they tried the euphemism “control,” which didn’t test well, so they tried “gun safety,” about which they know less than our well-known illustration of the guy with the ventilated metatarsals, and when that, too, was exposed by their own words as a fig-leaf for “ban,” they launched the risible “gun sense.” As if “sense” were a synonym for “irrational terror.” That having reached its expiration date, as all propaganda based on falsehood must, the banners are now test-flying “gun reform.” The “reform” they want in the article is just “common sense,” like a mandatory 28-day waiting period, national computerized licensing and registration (something useful for, and only useful for, confiscation), and giving appointed police chiefs powers of decision over what citizens merit a right to self defense and which do not. (SC’s permit law was enacted for just that purpose in Jim Crow days).

“Ja, ze new name is ‘Refform,’ now papers, pliss.” (Extra WeaponsMan points for IDing the weapon the foreground Sturmmann has slung).

Just the common sense gun laws that were in force in Mitteleuropa on Kristallnacht. Reform indeed!

Usage and Employment

The hardware takes you only half way. The wetware in your brain housing group is what makes your weapons work. 

Nope, This is Not Lawful Self-Defense

Robert Antley started off with a good idea. His bike chop kept getting hit, over and over again, by burglars. The cops didn’t seem to care (really, in most cases, the cops don’t care about burglaries or other property crimes, not enough to meaningfully investigate them. They know the perps will drop in their laps sooner or later. So Antley resolved to stat sleeping in the shop. So far, so good.

And sure enough, along came two career skells, Michael Eller and José Gonzalez, a-bustin’ into the shop. And there was Antley, waiting, with a gun. All he needed to do was call 911, and two bums would learn that even when Crime Does Pay, there’s an expense side of the ledger.

Here the stories diverge. He says that he couldn’t call 911 because his phone battery was flat.

…Eller and Gonzalez told deputies, Antley allegedly made the two men strip down to their underwear and face a wall. The report said the burglars told deputies Antley jabbed the gun into both men’s sides and threatened to kill them.

Eller told deputies that at least an hour passed before Antley’s brother, Joshua, 24, and his girlfriend, Kathryn Pellicio, showed up.

Eller and Gonzalez said they were then led to a bathroom in the back of the store where they were beaten for more than an hour.

All five: the burglars, the owner, his brother, and bro’s girlfriend, got to ride in the limo with no inside door handles, and a judge is going to have to sort out the sheep from the goats.

You can go from lawful defender of life and (in some states) property to guy-in-the-mugshot just like that. So you have to, either, call the cops before inflicting vigilante justice on your burglars, or inflict the vigilante justice instead of calling the cops. Only one course of action is legal; but would anybody but their probation or parole officers miss the likes of Eller and Gonzalez?

Some Valuable Advice

Sure, this is a gag. But did you know the Dalai Lama is actually a supporter of armed self-defense? He is.

Cops ‘n’ Crims

Cops bein’ cops, crims bein’ crims. The endless Tom and Jerry show of crime and (sometimes instantaneous) punishment. This week, we have a local ‘Shire bias in the stories.

The Cop Was a Crim, I

Meet Julian Archuleta, late of the Denver PD. We’re on record that dash and body cams exonerate a lot more cops than they incriminate (in largest part, we think, because most cops are not crims). But Archuleta, an exception, was undone by his own body cam, when he couldn’t resist the temptation of a drug dealer’s cash roll left behind in a wrecked car.

Archuleta did more than just take photos after sifting through the car and finding some of the suspect’s clothes, which had been removed by paramedics.

The 12-year department veteran is observed in his own body camera footage finding a stack of cash with a $100 bill on top hidden in one of the suspect’s pieces of clothing, an arrest report says.

Fortunately, there was a cell freed up for Archuleta — because of his misconduct, detectives had to cut the dope peddler loose.

One Law for Commoners, One for Celebrities

This is an old mugshot, but then, he has an awful lot of them.

Rapper manqué Coolio (aka, as his lengthy rap sheet says, Artis Leon Ivey Jr.), was one of those knuckleheads who carries a gun into an airport and gets caught by the TSA and arrested by local law enforcement. Where LA County’s “celebrities walk” corrupt criminal justice culture kicked into high gear, and he walked out of jail a free man, despite not only carrying the gun into LAX, or even that and carrying the gun when he’s a felon with a lifetime prohibition, but also carrying a gun that was stolen in the first place.

He was well coached to Say The Right Thing, so as not to endanger his ongoing Hollywood earnings.

It was a misunderstanding. I do not condone the use of firearms, legal or illegal. Thanks to the court and the attorneys handing this for me so I can still do the work that I do.

How do you misunderstand a stolen, loaded Glock into your backpack, when you’re already a three-time loser on felony charges. (What, “three strikes you’re out?” Silly peasant. That’s for the little people. This is at least #4 for Coolio).

Coolio family values: his son is not Artis III, he’s “Grtis,” but he’s a chip off the old block with a violent and prison record. (Maybe we should geld felons. How many generations of crimbeciles is enough?)

No word on whether the prosecutor, Richard Santiago, and the nameless judge who cut this sweet deal with this sour thug were paid off with cash, or just an autograph.

The Cop Was a Crim, II

Open wide!

A New Hampshire deputy is in prison out of state for rape — he was transporting a female prisoner, and he let nature follow its course, and then the law followed its course. Cons, like kids, can’t consent. Now he’s an RSO, and in prison. The article is worth reading because most of it is not about this foolish fellow, but about the National Decertification Index, a master list that some 39 states subscribe to, to blacklist LEOs found to have committed misconduct. This protects those jurisdictions from unknowingly hiring a problem child from another state or municipality. Another five states do blacklist cops, but only internally, and the remaining six don’t disqualify cops at all.

For what it’s worth, a lot of cops and corrections officers get in sex trouble with suspects and inmates. Not a large percentage, because most cops have enough control of their urges and enough common sense, but enough of them that almost everybody knows of one and almost every large jurisdiction had to deal with one. Learn from the other guy’s experience so you don’t have to learn from your own. Thus endeth the lesson. (It also suggests that you might not want to schedule transports that leave one inmate alone with one officer. It’s mostly a male-female and secondarily a female-female problem).

Justice for a Defamed Dean

Rolling Stone magazine and writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely were found responsible for defaming University of Virginia dean Nicole Eramo. In a report titled “A Rape on Campus,” Erdely wrote a lurid story of how a UVA co-ed was violently raped by an entire fraternity, and savaged Eramo for alleged cruelty to the “rape victim.” But there was never a rape: Erdely and one of her sources made the whole thing up, and the magazine’s editors never checked. They were cool with fabrication, as long as it was helping newsstand sales.

After the verdict, the magazine uttered a very strange sorry-not-sorry statement in which they at once minimized Erdely’s deliberate fabrication as “journalistic mistakes… missteps…” and defended the made-up story as “the highest reporting and ethical standards, and with a humanistic point of view,” that tried “to tackle the very serious and complex topic of sexual assault on college campuses.”

Yeah, by making it up.

Evidence presented in the trial showed that Erdely and her editors had already framed the article, including the “heartless dean” angle, according to a preselected Narrative™ before she went to the campus and started reporting.

That’s journalism, these days. In the next phase of the trial, the defamed dean’s lawyers will argue that Rolling Stone and the journalistic fabricator Erdeley should pay up, and their lawyers will argue the “bitch had it coming” position.

Eramo, the defamed dean, may never see a dime, but Erdely will be back at work making things up in no time, based on the experience of past fabricators from Peter Arnett, Mike Barnicle and Dan Rather to Michael Bellesiles, Steven Glass and Jayson Blair. Because it’s what reporters do. 

Butterfingered Cops Catch Unpaid Suspensions

In NYFC, crims are getting away from the NYPD. A lot — to wit, seven escapes from custody since June. The latest, a skinny shoplifter named Barry Tune, slipped out of the cuffs, the car, and the custody of officers Leoncio Montezuma and Ruben Salce-Aleman.

Both officers caught 30 days unpaid, followed by retraining, and transfer to a new precinct from the much sought-after Lower Manhattan First Precinct. (There’s usually openings in the 44th in the South Bronx, for some reason. What’s the over-under on at least one of these fellows winding up there, on mid-shift?)

Tune? You might outrun the police man but you can’t outrun the police radio. He’s in jail. No doubt after complaining during his perp promenade, that the cuffs were on too tight.

The Perils of Kathleen: She’s a Con, Baby

In the aftermath of Kane’s sentencing there isn’t much new news, as she’s free for a month before she even has to file her appeal, which could take months itself. Still, there’s a few things. And we thought we’d reward all of you who have suffered through months of Kane trivia with the picture to the right (it embiggens, like most do, with a click).

Truly, it breaks our heart to see an up-and-coming anti-gun politician put on the lifetime firearms ban of the convicted felon… wait, no. No, it doesn’t.

Amazingly, this year’s Dem candidate for AG, Josh Shapiro, is even more anti-gun than Kane (he is a big Kane supporter who donated thousands to her campaign and/or get-out-of-jail funds).

• Item 31 Oct: Jailbirds Use Kane’s Disbarment to Get Out of Jail Free. Or they try to. In the instant case, a kiddie-porn-collecting perv named Matthew Swanger, argued that because he was prosecuted by an AG appointee, during the period in which the AG had no law license, he should walk. To quote the Beatles, “The judge did not agree, and he tells him so, oh oh oh.” Well, denied his usual recreation, Swanger has the next 28 to 76 years to work on his appeals.
• Item 31 Oct: Kane Betrayed the Public Trust, says a letter to the editor approving her prison sentence. With a prison sentence, justice has been served.
• Item 30 Oct: 5 Key Stories in the Wake of Kathleen Kane’s Sentencing. We think we covered all these last week, but if you want the key news in one place, this article’s OK.

She’s still in the news. How can we miss her, when Pennsylvania is taking its good sweet time putting her away?

Unconventional (and current) Warfare

What goes on in the battlezones of the world — and preparation of the future battlefields.

The Navy’s Getting Along Fine without Ratings!

Hat tip, Old NFO. (Who was in the navy so long ago, it still had men (and -men) in it!)

The Army Celebrates Sexual Minorities, I

Ever notice how all the Unique and Special Snowflakes™ are in MI Branch? Not for nothing is the branch brass called “The Shafted Pansy.” How many paragraphs of whiny entitlement can you get through? More than we did, probably.

How’s Them Refugees Working Out for You?

In la belle France, the answer seems to be, “Pas bon.” Pity, but scarcely unexpected.

The Army Celebrates Sexual Minorities, II

Hillary promises to “Draft our Daughters.” Hey, as long as they don’t have to serve under Princess Chelsea of Wall Street.

They Swiped the LAW, and the Law Won

Things you should not take home from the Army for $500, Alex: The M72A5 Light Antiarmor Weapon. And if you do take one home, don’t run your mouth about it. Especially, don’t use it as a party favor and have everybody and his brother take selfies with it. (That’s not legal advice, because a lawyer would not give you advice about this: he’d just slap you upside the head). Anthony Laitta, Victor Naranjo and Kyle Nespory…

…all pleaded guilty to their charges, but received reduced sentences because of mental anguish brought about by war.

Lord love a duck. Laitta (or Liatta, the story uses both spellings), the one who actually stole the rocket, pled to a felony, the others, misdemeanors; all got a year of probation. But believe it or not, the case is not over. Because…

The supply clerk who turned a blind eye as Liatta stole the device … Keller Bellu, faces charges of possession of stolen explosive materials and possession of an unregistered destructive device— both felonies, for which he is a fugitive at large….

Lord love another duck.

Veterans’ Issues

Is it time to disband this thing yet, and letting all its bloatoverhead seek its own level in the Dreaded Private Sector™?

Let’s Stop Treating Pain to Fight Opioid Abuse

Some SES genius at VA, Linda Schwartz, (one that NPR really loves and keeps interviewing) says she’s figured out why so many vets have drug problems.

[W]e ask every time somebody comes in. We ask them to rate their pain from one to ten. So you’re calling attention to the pain…. Through many tragedies, actually, of overdosing, or too many medications, it has become abundantly clear that VA has to change

So they’re not going to ask about pain any more! Problem solved.

Is it time to disband this thing yet?

Item: Get That Book Out of Here

Some things are just too dangerous to let veterans have them. Like the Bible.

Mikey Weinstein: portrait by Hieronymus Bosch

Militant atheist of Jewish extraction (deracinated; sensible Jews don’t want to claim him, either) Mikey Weinstein heads an anti-Christian group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which seeks to impose state atheism — Weinstein’s own religion — as the established religion of the United States. On learning that there was a Bible in a waiting room in a Chillicothe, Ohio VA clinic, Weinstein wrote a nasty letter demanding its removal, and threatening a lawsuit.

(Weinstein and his son both graduated the Air Force Academy, but turned their back on the troops and became lawyers).

The VA immediately removed the bible. Hey, it was probably making some of the demons in the Senior Executive Service ranks uncomfortable. Like it does Mikey Weinstein.

Tick, tock…

VA Drags Feet on Reform

Yeah, no doubt that will just flat shock you. But that’s the GAO finding, as reported at Stars and Stripes, and in the GAO report here[.pdf].

It’s about time for something. The fat lady is running through some scales in her dressing room.

It’s Bonus Season Again

And the VA senior executives have examined themselves and found themselves deserving of almost $200 million in bonuses. 300 SES officials get over $10k each, and another 189,000 rank and file vet abusers get just under $1k apiece, on average.

Ah, but that’s just the good ones, right? Let’s quote a bit:

Among those receiving bonuses were:

Dr. Darren Deering, who was fired as chief of staff of the Phoenix VA … for … “negligent performance of duties and failure to provide effective oversight.” Deering was paid a $5,000 bonus in February 2016.

Jack Hetrick … who retired after receiving a notice of pending removal [firing] ….in February 2016. He had received a $12,705 bonus on Jan. 10. …Barbara Temeck, acting chief of staff at the Cincinnati VAMC, was prescribing medication to Hetrick’s wife without a proper license. Also, employees claimed … cost-cutting measures hurt quality of care. Hetrick was suspended … The VA … did find misconduct in Temeck providing prescriptions and other medical care to members of Hetrick’s family. Temeck was paid a $5,000 bonus in January 2016

Stella S. Fiotes … executive director of VA’s Office of Construction and Facilities Management ….responsible for planning, design and construction of … VA facility in Denver that was hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. In September, a bipartisan group of lawmakers asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Fiotes and other VA executives lied to conceal the massive cost overruns. She received a bonus of $9,120 in January 2016. She received a bonus of $8,985 in January 2015.

The bonus is just part of the entitlement package. And these are the worst of the worst, because it’s all but impossible to terminate a dud at VA. It needs the moral equivalent of “nuke the planet from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.”

What time is it, kids?

Army Backs Off Attempt to Screw Reservist

The Army’s well-connected contractors who mishandle military medical programs like to play games with “line of duty” determinations for on-duty reservists and Guardsmen. But they hate being called on it. In the case of a New Hampshire man serving in a USAR Cyber Command element at Fort Devens, the contractors folded as soon as the press got involved.

Capt. Shane Morgan, 43, an Army veteran of the war in Afghanistan who is now in the Reserve, suffered a heart attack during a drill weekend at Fort Devens in Massachusetts last November.

He and his wife, Jaime, have been battling ever since to get the Army to cover his medical expenses. At issue: whether his heart attack, which occurred during a mandatory physical fitness test, was a “line of duty” illness.

Last month, the Army informed Morgan it had determined his illness was not in the line of duty, and thus was not eligible for coverage by the military insurance program.

Like the VA, every dollar used to provide services is a dollar those payroll patriots would rather spend on themselves. But in this case a little sunlight cleared things up (if you’re on duty when the illness strikes, it’s line of duty, but nobody handling these medical programs has a shred of integrity).

Lord Love a Duck!

The weird and wonderful (or creepy) that we didn’t otherwise get to. 

Don’t Forget to Set Your Clock Back 700 Years

Here’s a picture for you.