Mon. June 18, 2018 – slightly cooler

By on June 18th, 2018 in Random Stuff

9am and only 80F, although the humidity is a bit higher. The rain may have cooled it down a bit.

Swim meet tonight, and I’ve got the kids at home today, so busy me!

There’s a lot of things to take away from this story, keeping in mind that first reports are usually wrong:

BREAKING: Armed Civilians Shoot Would-Be Mass Shooter At Washington Walmart

But the most heartening thing for me, THREE armed civilians acted to stop the guy, and the fourth (interviewee) was armed too. And, stay away from wal*mart! (although it plays an incidental role in this story.)

Get your carry permit, get some training, and pay attention.

n

35 Comments and discussion on "Mon. June 18, 2018 – slightly cooler"

  1. Greg Norton says:

    But the most heartening thing for me, THREE armed civilians acted to stop the guy, and the fourth (interviewee) was armed too.

    Olympia. Well armed, lots of hunters, but, sadly, dependent on Government at various levels for employement. In other words, Progs … for the most part.

    The gun section of the Cabelas in Lacey, WA is the largest I’ve seen in one of their stores outside of the flagship of the chain in Nebraska.

  2. Hcombs says:

    Like my wife tells people when they learn she is armed, “We don’t carry because we expect trouble, we carry because you never know when trouble will find you”. My little old white haired greatgrandmother of a wife can be vicious when pressed and always has her little S&W .38 Bodyguard revolver in her purse. As the daughter of a Master Sgt. she learned self defense early and knows how to place her shots. Don’t mess with old folks.

  3. Nick Flandrey says:

    Wow, that is weird. I just pasted a link like always, but now there is the formatted summary thing….

    Maybe I never pasted a link in an actual post before?

    n

  4. JimL says:

    85º and cloudy. It’s gonna be a hot one today. Might hit 90º.

    Kinder and spouse, spouse’s cousin, Aunt, Uncle, & 2nd cousin took dear old Dad to the local amusement park yesterday. Great value – discount tickets can be found for $20 or less, and we got much less. $5/head for ride pass & water park. Entry to the park is FREE, as are the picnic pavilions. Only open 3 months of the year, and the owner makes enough to maintain, improve the park, and provide amenities. We have it pretty good here.

    The Washington Walmart thing puzzles me. That’s coastal WA, so I expect a rather liberal bent. Who would have thought that THREE armed civilians would respond so handily? Eastern Washington is where I would expect such a response.

    Just goes to show that I’m as guilty as lumping people together as anyone and I should check the facts any time I make an assumption about any group.

  5. Clayton W. says:

    Kitsap Peninsula was pretty conservative. Much of the economy is fed by the US Navy from the submarine base and the shipyard. I seem to recall some farm communities south/southeast of Tacoma as well.

  6. mediumwave says:

    Apropos an armed citizenry: The Mathematics of Countering Tyranny. Excerpt:

    “The current mass media-driven “debate” on firearms (actually more like paternalistic lecturing or chiding) seems to be leading toward greater restrictions by Congress. The collectivist gun grabbers have the dream of ignoring the Second Amendment and somehow magically removing all detachable magazine semi-auto rifles from civilian hands. But it is just that: a dream. If they think that they can disarm us, then they are thoroughly deluded. I’ll explain why, with some simple mathematics.”

    Commentary by ESR: The critical fraction. Excerpt:

    “That means that in order to stop attempted gun confiscations dead on a purely force-on-force level, only one in 317 American gun owners needs to remember that our first American Revolution began as spontaneous popular resistance to a gun-confiscation order. Only one in 317 American gun owners need to remember their duty under the U.S. Constitution as members of the unorganized militia – “the body of the people in arms”. Only one in 317 American gun owners need to shoot back.

    “Is that a plausible fraction? Yes. Yes, I think it is. Count me as one of them.

    “Why am I publishing these numbers? To persuade the would-be confiscators that their enterprise is doomed to fail in fire and blood, so freedom-loving people never actually have to take on the moral burden of killing them. The fact that we’re ready to do so if we have to does not mean we want that terrible day to arrive.”

  7. Nick Flandrey says:

    I ask gun confiscation supporters how many cops they are willing to have killed. Then I ask them if they are ready to gear up and raid houses themselves.

    Of course, they have never done the numbers, and would never undertake the dirty work themselves.

    The follow on question is “How many dead cops do you think it will it take before the cops stop executing the raids?” and if things get really ugly, how many dead kids and spouses before the cops give it up as a bad idea?

    n

  8. lynn says:

    “Trump administration could be holding 30,000 border kids by August, officials say”
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/us-could-be-holding-30-000-border-kids-by-august-officials

    “A senior administration official who asked not to be identified said the Department of Health and Human Services has been taking in about 250 children per day in recent weeks.”

    This needs to stop right now ! No more refugees, we are broke !

    Hat tip to (great picture right now with kids holding guns and making peace signs):
    http://drudgereport.com/

  9. Greg Norton says:

    The follow on question is “How many dead cops do you think it will it take before the cops stop executing the raids?” and if things get really ugly, how many dead kids and spouses before the cops give it up as a bad idea?

    As long as big city cops believe that the pension obligations will be kept, I think they’ll go pretty far enforcing a confiscation policy.

    And things would have to be really bad for the police to lose faith in the pensions. As things currently stand, Dallas and Houston are technically insolvent due to those obligations, but the cops still show up for work.

    Rural areas can be starved into submission. Food and fuel might be tough to control outside of the cities, but cutting broadband Internet service to a region would be simple. Most of the sheeple would voluntarily walk into a prison camp as long as the WiFi worked.

  10. Ray Thompson says:

    Most of the sheeple would voluntarily walk into a prison camp as long as the WiFi worked

    It better be decent WiFi with decent speeds and no blocks on FB and Twitter. Better have lots of power outlets to charge those phones. Without that many of the masses would look at their phones with a blank stare and blame Apple.

    I have seen kids at school where their phone charge would not last an entire school day. Many are too lazy to charge their phone at night, most are just clueless.

  11. lynn says:

    As long as big city cops believe that the pension obligations will be kept, I think they’ll go pretty far enforcing a confiscation policy.

    And things would have to be really bad for the police to lose faith in the pensions. As things currently stand, Dallas and Houston are technically insolvent due to those obligations, but the cops still show up for work.

    Yup on the Dallas and Houston cops blindly following orders. Note that I think that they would start in the wealthier areas before hitting the shooting zones.

    Small town cops and sheriffs, no way. They are elected, not appointed.

  12. SteveF says:

    As long as big city cops believe that the pension obligations will be kept, I think they’ll go pretty far enforcing a confiscation policy.

    Get a couple court cases going to deny pensions for any cop who participates in unConstitutional acts such as gun confiscation. Kill any of the judges who look like they’ll rule in favor of the cops. Judges are soft targets, and the survivors will get the message.

    Rural areas can be starved into submission.

    Urban areas can be starved much more easily. A few shootings at people loading the supply trains, a few shootings of semis on the highway or of truckers at rest stops, taking over a railway switch or two is all it would take. That wouldn’t stop everything, not by a long shot, but most cities run on a very thin “just in time” delivery system and a little grit in the cogs would cause panic all out of proportion.

    Cities don’t produce their own electricity, either. Interfering with electrical power transmission is trivially easy — drive a semi into a substation, or shoot at the insulators holding up high-tension lines if you’re a good enough shot. It’s possible a drone could carry a thick-enough wire to short two high-tension lines, though I’m dubious about that.

    You want panic with no actual harm done? Slip a few printed “Congratulations! You won the poisoned box!” papers into cartons of packaged food; cartons of PopTarts or dry cereal might have the biggest emotional impact becuz innocent widdle kiddies.

  13. lynn says:

    And, stay away from wal*mart! (although it plays an incidental role in this story.)

    Sorry dude, cannot do that. I’m not going to pay $12 at Amazon for my Heinz sweet relish in the squeeze bottle. And HEB does not carry it anymore.

  14. DadCooks says:

    Since today’s post started with Walmart…

    M.D. Creekmore’s post today has a basic Walmart Preppers Checklist that you can download for free. The download is painfully slow and some of the commenters say it will not download in Chrome. We can argue the completeness (IMHO, not) but it should start the brain to working. Hope some of you find a use for it.

    BTW, just for the fun/aggravation of it, I installed Grammarly on my laptop today. So far not too intrusive. We’ll see how much it bugs me to get (as in pay for) the “Pro” version.

  15. CowboySlim says:

    And things would have to be really bad for the police to lose faith in the pensions. As things currently stand, Dallas and Houston are technically insolvent due to those obligations, but the cops still show up for work.

    Well, also cops have no reason to go to McDonalds nor Wienerschnitzel where Obamacare and Pensions are not available.

  16. lynn says:

    BTW, when the gun grabbing starts, they will not be going door to door. They will have a list of people with “mental” problems that they will go to first. Then they will generate another list of people who ever got a Class A Misdemeanor. Then they will generate another list of people with automatic weapons. And another list. And another list. And another list.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_

    And all of this will be presented as reasonable limits to potentially violent people. People who it is dangerous to allow to have guns. At some point, when they have gathered up a significant amount of the weapons, they will outlaw weapons.

  17. DadCooks says:

    WA State is putting forth another attempt at taking away our guns, I-1639 is hitting the streets for signatures.
    This link is written from the progressive slant (some interesting comments):
    http://mynorthwest.com/1021071/i-1639-gun-control-washington/?show=comments#comments

    And this link is from the NRA-ILA (National Rifle Association-Institute for Legislative Action) before the initiative got its official number:
    https://www.nraila.org/articles/20180427/washington-state-gun-owners-targeted-by-another-misguided-ballot-initiative

    I can see that the gun stores are going to be real busy.

  18. lynn says:

    “The Supreme Court Strikes Down Law that Targeted Gun Owners’ Speech”
    https://www.nraila.org/articles/20180615/the-supreme-court-strikes-down-law-that-targeted-gun-owners-speech
    and
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/14/supreme-court-strikes-down-minnesota-law-prohibiting-voters-from-wearing-political-apparel-to-polls.html

    “The Supreme Court struck down a Minnesota law that forbade voters from wearing “political insignias” at polling places after the law was challenged by a voter who was told he must remove or cover his Tea Party shirt.”

    Hey, I did not see this in the main stream media !

    Note to self: buy an NRA shirt for voting day.

  19. lynn says:

    “Trump and the invasion of the West”
    http://www.wnd.com/2018/06/trump-and-the-invasion-of-the-west/

    “Pat Buchanan: ‘Where many Americans see illegal intruders, Democrats see future voters'”

    Preach on brother !

  20. Nick Flandrey says:

    Final swim meet went well. Rain wasn’t a problem. Microclimates. Sometimes they work in your favor.

    No shooting, no injuries.

    n

  21. lynn says:

    I can see that the gun stores are going to be real busy.

    Are there any left in WA State ?

  22. Greg Norton says:

    Are there any left in WA State ?

    See my earlier comment. The gun section in Cabela’s in Lacey, WA is the largest of the type I’ve seen in their stores outside of Sidney, NE … or at least it was when we left.

    Prior to Sandy Hook, the Bushmaster AR-15 was a regular staple in the Cabela’s Black Friday flier in WA. $499 out the door — don’t forget the ammo!

    WA is an interesting mix. Lots of guns, including “assault weapons” but many are in the hands of Progs, especially west of the Cascades, whose families have a long history of hunting.

    The WA Legislature is evenly split, but the Governor’s Mansion is typically center-left Dem. The current Governor was Costco’s chore boy for liquor deregulation — their lobbyists literally wrote the state’s new liquor laws — but, fortunately, he didn’t have much of a clue about what to do otherwise with the power of that gig.

  23. Greg Norton says:

    Well, also cops have no reason to go to McDonalds nor Wienerschnitzel where Obamacare and Pensions are not available.

    Generally, walking into McDonalds or Wienerschnitzel does not involve the risk of death. Pensions and early retirement are part of the deal with first responders to risk their lives on our behalf.

    Those restaurants will kill you … but slowly.

  24. JimL says:

    Re: Grammarly – I use it regularly. I am most definitely not a great writer, but I try to be adequate. Grammarly helps with those areas where I’m a little fuzzy, such as whether or not I should use a comma. Of course, there are a few cases where Grammarly just flat-out misses what I’m trying to say, so I ignore it. I also tell Grammarly that the instance in question should be ignored.

    It does not nag me to buy into the advanced program. I like it a lot.

  25. JimL says:

    Guns: What part of “shall not be infringed” is giving these people a hard time? The bar to remove a constitutional right should be very high indeed. We do it for felons. But I don’t like where that leads.

  26. DadCooks says:

    @JimL, thanks for the feedback on Grammarly.

    The only thing the dem-lib-progs (DLPs) understand about “infringed” is that they, and only they, have a “right to infringe” on anyone who thinks contrary to them.

    Recently I read somewhere on the interweb that the largest group of new gun buyers is the LGBTQXYZ123… community, for “protection”. I thought they were more interested in Trojans. /snicker off/

    The gun stores in my area tell me that sales are spiking up again and I can’t just walk in and get range time like I used to, I have to schedule a time. Small price to pay.

  27. nick flandrey says:

    Cops don’t even rank in the top ten most dangerous jobs, with logger and resource extraction ranking high for injury and death by accident, and convenience store clerk being very risky for death by shooting.

    So, no, cops aren’t especially at risk, except when they and their brothers have been riling up the populace and they get explicitly targeted. The current (new) emphasis on “officer safety” is especially egregious in that light.

    n

  28. nick flandrey says:

    more about this later

    gotta get the kids to practice,

    n

  29. Ray Thompson says:

    It’s possible a drone could carry a thick-enough wire to short two high-tension lines, though I’m dubious about that.

    A wire the size and length a drone could carry would simply vaporize with barely a blip on the grid. You would need something the size of an anchor chain to blast a high voltage line. The breakers would trip, wait a few seconds, then reset. Again not much of an interruption. Shooting insulators is your best best. Provides a continuous short and would take significant time to replace. Ramming a substation would just cause power to be rerouted. If a substation in a city only the facilities served by the substation would be affected.

    I had a chat with an EE that works with big power consumers, steel mills and aluminium smelters. His opinion of the grid was that it was quite resilient to damage and could quickly recover. The electrical mass of the system is enormous and would absorb most blips. Even lightning strikes are not much of a concern on the big lines as there are apparently hundreds a day. Local substations will open the breakers then quickly reset.

    The chat started with surge suppressors which he thinks are worthless. Lightning would get past all of them and destroy the electronics anyway. A five mile bolt jumping a few extra inches is not a big deal. Surges he thinks are simply marketing hype and people that think they were damaged by a surge really had a very high voltage spike from a local source. He stated that dips are more of an issue for motors and the amperage increases to offset the voltage loss and that means heat.

    He gets all this from data on the huge smelting pots and 200+HP motors that are switched on and off. So much of a draw that the steel mill has to notify the power company when they are starting up an arc furnace. If the power company was not notified the dip in voltage would be significant.

  30. lynn says:

    A wire the size and length a drone could carry would simply vaporize with barely a blip on the grid. You would need something the size of an anchor chain to blast a high voltage line. The breakers would trip, wait a few seconds, then reset. Again not much of an interruption. Shooting insulators is your best best. Provides a continuous short and would take significant time to replace. Ramming a substation would just cause power to be rerouted. If a substation in a city only the facilities served by the substation would be affected.

    Yup. I cannot say more without being labeled a threat.

    Ok, one word: auto-transformers. There are about 130 in the USA. Each one costs $10 million to $100 million. There are no spares.

  31. Ray Thompson says:

    For those that were curious about the nude beach here is a picture from above. Carrying a camera on the beach, and photographing, would probably get me shot.

    Only for the brave.

  32. SteveF says:

    You would need something the size of an anchor chain to blast a high voltage line.

    I didn’t think it needed to be quite that large, but I knew it would take a hefty cable.

    A wire the size and length a drone could carry would simply vaporize with barely a blip on the grid.

    What I don’t know is how much a drone or a few drones can handle. I know that some fairly beefy drones can be purchased, but don’t know much more than that.

    Ramming a substation would just cause power to be rerouted. If a substation in a city only the facilities served by the substation would be affected.

    Taking out all power to a city is not the point. Terror is the point.

    Besides that, I don’t think the grid is as robust as some claim. I know that it used to be heavily overburdened and was one glitch away from a cascade failure — ref the Northeast Blackout of 2003 Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s been quietly beefed up in the past fifteen years, but I won’t believe it without evidence. Rates would have had to go up more than they have been or government grants or tax breaks would have had to been handed out, and I’d think we’d have heard something about it either way.

    Plus what Lynn hints at.

  33. SteveF says:

    Oh, and Ray? That photo ain’t nothing. If you want to see a picture that’s only for the brave or the reckless, I can try to find that old picture of Hillary, Janet Reno, and Madeleine Halfbright nude oil wrestling. It’s a fake, of course — no camera lens or film could possibly withstand the noneuclidean juxtapositions — but it’s still horrifying.

  34. Nick Flandrey says:

    Like looking directly at chuthulu or another of the old ones, one look drives you insane.

    N

  35. Nick Flandrey says:

    Regarding good neighbors, they have a doctrine, for each percentage level they have a prescribed behaviour. Nice to nasty. Look at Londonistan to see it played out in real time.

    n

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