Researching the Second Amendment

Was the second amendment intended to secure individual gun ownership rights? I decided to look into the issue myself instead of reading the viewpoints of others since they could be shading the evidence. I read the most relevant Federalist paper. 

I read some original state constitutions, several of which are explicit in guaranteeing private ownership rights. Here's a selection:

Pennsylvania: § 21.  Right to bear arms. The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.

Ohio: The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be kept up; and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power.

Georgia: Paragraph VIII. Arms, right to keep and bear. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but the General Assembly shall have power to prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne.

Virginia: Section 13. Militia; standing armies; military subordinate to civil power. That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

I read about the House discussion on the draft amendment. It contains a great deal of original info, but its viewpoint seems like it might be skewed in its emphasis on the Quaker issue. Here's a long article on early gun laws because that can show what they considered acceptable way back then. Yes, there were restrictions on crazy people. 

My current guess as of late summer of 2023? (Yes, there was a long delay in publishing this.) The second amendment is mostly about militias, how every state could and should have one, that the federal government shouldn't be able to ban state militias, and how they are to be militias of the populace at large. As for limitations on gun rights, that was like many issues--up to the individual state to decide. 

Image: American Rifleman

Extras. Massachusetts gun rights discussion.

Update 6/24/24. This article discusses in detail the SCOTUS decision allowing restrictions based on laws from 1800 and prior, if the laws are similar in these times. 

Can we do anything about school shootings?

Database of shootings. 

Everytown (Bloomberg org) on school shootings. Other tabs have more info, but need to dig. 

Researchers found commonalities in school shooters. Very important. 

More research on what policies work. Fairly important, but not as incisive. 

Another website with data on school shootings. A website on mass shootings. 

Information about the Uvalde shooting at an elementary school. The shooter had a high power AR rifle, so the rounds went through doors and walls. The article also explains the design of the AR, its ammo, and the damage done. 

AR from shooter in the Uvalde school

Image: texastribute. com

Extras. Pew research into mass shootings. A graph there shows the increase in active shooter incidents, but it's still not a significant contributer to the overal murder rate. 

Long WaPo article on the experience of a mass shooting with AR15 type rifles. Lots of graphic pictures and description. 

February links

NYT endorses Warren and Klobuchar. (Didn't do any good for Warren.)

Virginia gun rights rally. Virginia Beach after mass shooting. Gun rights view. WaPo coverage. White supremacists arrested before arriving. Capsule report: it was peaceful. Solid people taking the issue seriously.

Questions for witnesses in abuse of power.

Strategy for Dems. Clear list, but do I agree?

Child abuse? A terrifying case of investigative abuse against a family.

Analysis on national-wide injunctions as judicial activism.

Bernie loves campaigning and hates governing. Oy, another one.

Did socialism ruin Venezuela? The article hedges, but it seems like it did. Moderate depth.

Trump is trying to demoralize his opponents so they give up.

US federal budgets continue to be smoke and mirrors and red ink. WE'RE DOOMED.

Written by socialists, this article tells why Bernie is just the beginning. Probably a fair representation of socialists, including their intense dislike of capitalism. Are we doomed again?

Image: latimes.com

November - December links

I wrote more posts in November than in any other month in the past year. The collection of links aside from the Ukraine scandal are paltry. Not much new in America.

Surprising Arizona politics. A tough, nasty, bigoted sheriff prompted many Latinos to run for elected office. This is another sign of the self-correction in the American political system. (But is it enough?)

Illegal gun sales. By law enforcement officials. Did they trust that the guns wouldn't be used on fellow police?

2nd amendment rationale. A viewpoint on the 2nd amendment, including its racial aspects. It's inspired me to look into the background of the 2nd amendment and try to sort out the contradictory arguments.

The GOP southern strategy. An article from back in 1970. It's the typical NYT style with a lot of side trips, but very interesting, focusing on the strategist who foresaw the realignment of voters.

How Kamala Harris failed. She lacked a clear strategy beyond being intelligent, black, and female.

Centrism is deluded. This article makes a strong case that there's no chance of working with Republicans. However, that's not the only reason to support someone like Biden or Buttigieg. Another reason is that those further left may not be able to win, not worth taking the chance, or just too socialist.

Flynn facing sentence. Mike Flynn tried to delay his sentence by promising he'd cooperate more with the Russian investigation. Then he fired his lawyers, brought in a new team to push the deep-state conspiracy narrative, and attacked the people he's supposed to cooperate with. The judge is not amused. A shorter version of the newstory and a longer version.

Media bias measured. Well, I'm not sure how the determination is made, but this site lists how biased a media outlet is, and how factual the reporting is. Plus it gives examples when there are issues with factual reporting.

Trump talking points. Someone allied with Trump launched a special site just for those holidays spent with your stupid liberal family members. It tells zipperheads how to argue, just in case they haven't watched enough Hannity lately. Are these good arguments? OF COURSE NOT. When do Trump supporters care about the quality of their arguments? Blather and blind, willful assertion are fine by them.

Image: snowflakevictory.com

September links

DAMN, I'M LATE POSTING THIS. 

Truth-telling about guns. Wapo

No Charlottesville in Boston. In my home state, some twerps tried to have a Straight Pride Rally. Poor turn-out. Related. An article from the end of 2015 predicting the rise of white nationalism in the US.

Unscrutinized law. So much of law is about examination, scrutiny, testing in cases that are written down and reviewed. So it's a surprise the some law isn't subject to this when it's DOJ policy.

Clear-headed assessment of mass shootings. How big is the risk? That's a very fair question to ask.

More mass killings being twarted. More people are taking threats seriously and intervening. This time a teenage girl was stopped after buying a semi-auto rifle.

Late-breaking story about Russia. Most of the news about Russia interfering in the US election, and the responses to it, are well-known at this point. Here are two reports about a highly-placed spy in the Kremlin who was spirited away to safety at the beginning of the Trump presidency because Trump might have been careless and leaked info exposing him. Also a large section of the report on Russian interference was released by the Senate committee that is striving miraculously to be non-partisan.

How Trump treats advisers. Disrespectfully, we know. With the firing of John Bolton, we have a few more stories with insights. Trump hires 'brands' and Bolton was a well-known brand. The four categories of official Trump advisers, from 'shiny new toy' to 'fired via tweet' and other pithy observations.

Very few swing voters. Less than 5.5% are both undecided and moderate.

Big story on the Supreme Court? WaPo reports that getting a justice onto the Supreme Court is now so important that the ethics are shunted to the side.

Image: usatoday.com

More August links

Antifa is not the biggest violent threat. ... no matter what GOP pols say. The alt-right, neo-Nazis, white nationalists are a much bigger threat, but it's not politically useful for Republicans to acknowledge. They want antifa as the boogeyman. Related: A guy wearing a MAGA hat was beat up. Oh, those violent lefties. Except that he went to several bars soliciting fights. In video, we can see the lefties telling him that no one is going outside to fight him. Ummm... never mind.

Dictator-like move in Great Britain. Boris Johnson pulls a nearly unprecedented move to prevent Parliament from unseating him. I think Parliament will have a few days in session, and hopefully will remove him. Update: The British Supreme Court struck down the closing of Parliament, so Boris Johnson will have to face them.

Learning about the 2nd amendment. Here. Quite comprehensive.

Problems with e-verify surface. After a major raid on poultry processors. Good info to know.

Election prediction succeeded in 2018. How about 2020? I'm not unbiased, but I see skewing of the prediction, with progressive being favored. The political scientist points out that progressive did better than expected in Texas and Georgia compared to blue dogs in Missouri and Indiana. But they all lost. What about in Arizona? Well, it was a centrist Dem who won there. Odd to ignore that. Related. The Trump campaign is very worried about suburban women - worried that they'll lose the 2020 election.

Red flag law in California. Not a big sample size, but none of them became mass shooters. Frankly, we can't know what was prevented, if anything. But prevention is a worthy goal, especially considering that we are preventing deaths. In the last two weeks, there have been a spate of reports of people arrested for having caches of guns and worrisome plans, but before anyone was shot. That seems preferable to me, right?

A moderate view on US intervention. Police the worst places to shut down the worst of the safe havens.

Image: joe.ie

Shootings and August links

In less than 24 hours, there were two major mass shootings, following up a mass shooting at a festival in California (so three in fairly short span). The shooting in El Paso, TX targeted Mexicans. The shooting in Dayton, OH was by a young man with a long history of violent fantasies, including having a kill list and a rape list while he was in high school. (Google these shootings for details. I won't choose one link as representative). This article about the background of the El Paso shooter is chilling: mostly 'normal' but with all too familiar undercurrents including bullying at school along racial lines, hopelessness about job prospects while automation continues, and open racist sentiments expressed after Trump was elected.

Ignore the headline of this article (Washington Post again - a good source). It's not so much that there's pushback from the NRA on gun legislation, as there is deep worry from GOP legislators. Can they stay in office if they sign on to gun legislation? Probably not if they depend on votes from GOPers, which they do. According to polls, the wide majority of Republicans are still against even partial gun control measures. So it's less the NRA standing in the way, but instead the very popular Guns R Us ethos among Republicans.

Faltering Dem candidates. A Politico author contrasts the Republicans, who understand the importance of legacy and a winning historical narrative, with the Democrats, who are sniping at each other over the party's recent past. Part of this is due to a leadership vacuum since Obama is gone and the Clintons are gone, and both failed in some major ways.

Stealth reform measures for Social Security. Why hasn't this been big news? With funding issues looming, the Dems in the House are working on a big change to SS. This should be drawing a lot of attention, debate, number-crunching, and fact-checking, but the press barely utters a peep. Sure, it's not likely to get through the Senate, but it's a real proposal with seemingly real numbers, and these numbers are likely to be the basis for future work on SS.

Zero interest on bonds. A big difference from when I was young is that now the return on bonds is almost nothing. I find this fascinating. The world is awash in money chasing after profits. We've created so much wealth, and so much paper or digital money that there isn't enough ways to spend it or invest it. This doesn't worry me, however. We won't turn dirt poor even if there's a crash. There will just be another inflation via QE (quantitative easing) as there was last time.

Update on Gaza. Tensions rise and fall, but nobody wants a repeat of the last useless, destructive war. Progress!

Image: wikipedia.org

Extras. Gun control (now called gun safety) advocacy group shows how common private sales are without a background check.

April links

Always more on Russia investigation. Now conservative media is pretending the Papadopoulus contact was a CIA asset trying to entrap him. Long WaPo article about adminstration action against Russian hacking before and immediately after the election. Also covering that period, and answering the snarky question 'What did Obama do to stop it?' Even more, though it sounds like maybe Steele gave his dossier to British intelligence and their heads exploded.

FBI scandal. I skimmed the Inspector General report on the Hillary investigation. Strzok looks bad in his handling of the Weiner laptop. Lawfare review of it.

Peace deal failure. Someday I need to write a long piece about why the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks failed. What next for Israelis in their outlook.

Gitmo holding camp. Military tribunals have failed. Slow, questionable decisions, not a firm legal basis.

2020 Election. This is BIG, and worth watching if the trend continues. A poll in Texas has Trump even with two Democratic candidates. These are named candidates, not a generic one. The rich will support Trump in 2020. Not because they like him or respect him, but because the Dems want to raise their taxes.

Midwest flooding. A long article about the Missouri River, and how our relationship to it and adjacent land use should change. Move further away, don't try to manage for navigation because it doesn't carry a lot of navigation.

Japan's economy. Japan is doing pretty well. Not a lost decade.

Trump non-news. Trump's tweeting is becoming unhinged. Is this new and repeat?

Stuff I want to remember

(Clues to my interests.)

Understanding quantitative easing. A good article, very readable, that gives an easy-to-understand analysis of QE. It asked good questions, but I ask even better questions. It tells how QE inflates the value of certain bonds. In rolling back QE, demand is lower and the bonds are worth less. True, except that QE is done with demand is especially soft and needs the boost. QE is rolled back when demand is stronger. Still, I think I have more work to do to understand the workings. QE also shelters borrowers from surges in interest rates, right? Prevents lenders from demanding higher returns.

Extreme crazy conspiracy site. The crazy flat-earth lady gets her news here. Oh, the imagination involved in spinning these tales. Microwaves are needing to cook food grown with fertilizer, but it destroys the nutrients. Ummm, wow.

Gun info database. Save the link to check. Country by coountry information.

Image: bloomberg.com

Belated March links

Did I let an entire month go without posting? I guess so. Life keeps me busy, so I don't have time to obsess about politics. I even missed the delivery of the Mueller report for two whole days.

My browser ate a bunch of good links, and I'm going to try to avoid that again.

More about the Russia investigation. How Mueller minimized leaks. I think he also tried very hard to maintain high standards of integrity. Others should learn from this. The full text of the letter from the Attorney General summarizing the Mueller report. Claims of complete exoneration are woefully exaggerated and expedient. A detailed timeline with good sources for verification. From that timeline, an article about the various sources on Russian interference during the summer of 2016.

Chinese interference too. In Australia. Especially ironic is the response for the Chinese government.

How scary is global debt? I've been wondering about this. Here's the beginning of a discussion.

Debunking that talking point, Nazi gun control version. Finally, here is a source that flays that talking point. Unfortunately, it will still be used because talking points are more important than accuracy to lots of people.

Alex Jones is such a creep. He claims the lies in the media drove him insane, so he's not responsible for his own horrendous lies. Another death from Sandy Hook. Related: a takedown of the argument that mental illness is the problem with mass shooters.

Image: bloomberg.com

October links: even more to catch up with

Writings by Jamal Khashoggi. Collusion and repression in Saudi Arabia, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered in a Saudi consulate in Turkey. A fast survey of power balance in the Middle East.

New bombing and terrorism. "Bet it's a Democrat." says a clueless commenter on Breitbart. Some people are either too stupid or too partisan to realize that there are extremists among them. The bomber talked a lot of shit, but complied with the work requirements of his boss, a lesbian. Here are some of the lies that the shooter in a synagogue believed.

Old terrorism. Again, there is some twerp claiming that the driver at Charlottesville isn't a murderer. How many times does this have to be refuted? Some people can't deal with the facts, and have to make up lies that allow them to excuse the actions. The videos taken of the car speeding. The lies about self-defense. White supremacists charged with violence at the rally.

Not a deficit hawk. The GOP doesn't care about deficits, and have increased it greatly in the past year.

How to lower healthcare costs. Focus on the providers. Limit payments to them. What doesn't work: making patients pay a higher share. Sorry, libertarians, but your theory is a bust.

Foreign policy inertia is good. Trump hasn't been able to wreck the foreign policy throughout the world, even though he is president and he's a foreign policy idiot. My comments on the thread: if you're going to scream about how bad the US is, step up and name someone who think would do a better job.

Humorous failed plot to smear Mueller. Try to bribe women to accuse him. Gosh, it fell apart. Who would have guessed. Incidentally, one of the crooks was behind the Seth Rich lies too.

Image: washingtonpost.com

Late July links

Manafort's trial will bare Putin's methods. Excellent article that clarifies the issues and the importance of Manafort's trial. It will reveal how Putin buys influence. See it with Manafort and multiply by hundreds.

Russian trolls still active. Facebook uncovers some. Same sort of tricks. No, it's not a hoax perpetrated by the deep state. Details here--screen after screen after screen.

Russia timeline. I'm parking the link because I may want to look at this again. Seems fairly complete, but I didn't look all that closely.

Socialists in the Dems. What they want now and in the future. Their hopes for the future include an end to capitalism. Yep, they are communists and want to nationalize the oil companies. Maybe communists-lite. Like Venezuela.

Scary loners. A detailed look at online groups for men angry that they aren't getting laid. They blame women, blame society, blame other men, and fantasize about horrific actions. These men are called 'incels' for involuntary celibates. Portrait of a scare loner/mass shooter. The Las Vegas police released their report on their invetigation into the man who killed 58 people using his arsenal in a hotel room. This is good, readable summary. In his case, there weren't enough warning signs.

Yet another conspiracy group. Yawn. This one is called QAnon. I'm not going to waste my time on a summary, but again Dems are running pedophile rings.

How to assess Trump. Ignore him, ignore what he says. Look only at what gets done. I kind of agree with this. Trump is trying to capture attention, but it's pretty useless to look at what he says. So I agree. Ignore him. Stay educated about what he's saying, but put no stock in it. Ignore the distraction and home in on what actually happens. A good read, and solid advice... for now.

Journalist survives her tweets. A controversial hire by the New York Times won't be fired even though she lashed out at white people. Good. Context is important, and so is putting the matter into perspective.

Image: pinterest.com

May links 2

Conservative Supreme Court prunes worker rights. I appreciate both sides of this argument in general, but I think this isn't a good ruling. If we want a strong middle class in this country, we need support for workers. That's how we got the middle class.

Shootings. An account of what the school shooter from Santa Fe, TX said and did while killing his victim. Not a vantage point we usually get. Some details of police actions. Young Texans will probably not being leading marches for changes in gun laws. Accounts from first responders to the Las Vegas shooting. There were a lot of first responders, and it was more like a military battle because the shooter was so well armed and prepared.

More on Russia. For reference. The fake ads that Russians put out. So many that they are condensed in zip files. I don't really want to look, but I know I should. Mueller apparently used a Russian oligarch for a sensitive mercy mission. Not scandalous. Background on an undercover FBI informant who tried to find out what was happening in the Trump campaign. Trey Gowdy, in his sometimes-straight-sometimes-hack way, says that the FBI use of an informant in the investigation was appropriate. Great background and historical perspective on Russia.

Memorial Day reflection. When war becomes mundane and most Americans become detached, wars can linger and not be resolved.

Sessions changed immigration enforcement. Revealing and fascinating article about how Jeff Sessions (the Attorney General) is changing immigration enforcement. Chilling, surprising.

Background on fentanyl. I have some knowledge of fentanyl, but this was instructive even to me.

Timeline on scandal. Trump friends Michael Cohen and Elliott Broidy were gathering a lot of money. At this point in the investigation, it may be a partial timeline, but it's already long.

Revealing more sexual harassment. University of Southern California is being sued over the behavior of one of its gynecologists. Surprise - complaints were ignored.

More on the gold standard. One of my pet peeves is people who dogmatically think that the gold standard is workable. Another revealing story about FDR and his odd relationship with the gold standard.

Well, then don't act like one. Lawyer claims he's not a racist after his non-racist rant went viral. And that kind of rant isn't popular in New York City, the home of large number of immigrants.

Image: thefirearmblog.com

April links 2

Red flag laws for guns. Florida passed one after the Parkland shootings. Vermont just did because they had a very close brush with a school shooter arrested as he was planning his shooting spree. Indiana has had one for a while due to random shootings in a neighborhood.

Also, here is a resource on studies of efficacy for certain policies about guns.

Comey's nasty book. I'm not a fan of Comey, who seems mealy-mouthed to me. However, he had enough backbone to stand up to Trump, which not everyone has. His new book seems to have a lot of filler, some of it being creepy. However, he does reveal a non-surprise: Trump trying to spin the Russian hacking.

US/French/British strike on Syria. Interesting detail. How they faked out the Russian/Syria air defenses. A broader discussion. The US isn't striking hard because it needs to have room to ramp up if Syria continues chemical warfare.

History lesson about the end of the gold standard. One of the important moments of history. However, the US hadn't really kept to the gold standard anyway. Fiat currency has its problems, but the gold standard was simpler impossible to make work.

$21 Trillion missing. A Russian shill wrote that the Pentagon had lost $21 trillion. This was just a shill, so he didn't have any real thought in his comment. Consider this: $21 trillion is a huge amount of money that might have worldwide implications. Just imagine the US having double its current debt, but nobody cares. I pointed this out to the shill. He lamely replied "Well, it's from Forbes."

I have to look into this some more, but I've got to clear those tabs off my browser. So here's the dump: Michigan, missing money, truth in accounting, more Michigan,  maybe some details, Reuters. I don't have a link to the Forbes article because it wasn't particularly readable.

Image: acephalous.typepad.com

Our American gun culture

I've thought about guns all my adult intellectual life, which actually started at age 12-13. I've observed the American cultural traits and myths about guns. First, I have to say that guns are pervasive in American culture. Not as pervasive as food or cars or television, which are practically universal. But about as common as: voting, home ownership, and exercising regularly.

Our latest example of toxic American gun culture was a school shooting with 17 people killed. This is no surprise in the US. We have so many mass shootings, though the death toll isn't usually that high.

Gun rights advocates come up with so many excuses. It's never the goddamn huge availability of guns. It's never the worship of guns to blame. It's always mental illness, or a tenuous connection to the Democratic party, or bad parenting, or liberalism to blame.

I'm not having any of it. The gun rights advocates own these shootings. They are the ones who fight EVERY SINGLE REFORM.  They fight any improvement to background checking (NICS), until there's another mass shooting. They don't try to improve reporting. They don't want the system checked, its flaws revealed. They need the background check as a scapegoat. Many of them don't even support the background check, but feel it was imposed on them. That leads me to wonder if they want totally open sales with no limits on who can buy guns.

Maybe some do. Maybe they think it's a constitutional right, like free speech and freedom of religion. However, my freedom of religion doesn't give me the capability of killing even one person, much less riddling scores of people with bullets. Possibly that's a defect in our Bill of Rights--that gun ownership can't be restricted. Or perhaps I should say that 5 Supreme Court justices decided that's what the 2nd amendment meant.

But the interpretation of the 2nd amendment is only part of the problem. There is a whole cultural issue. In some quarters, you aren't a man if you don't own a gun. You aren't a man if you can't legally own a gun. You aren't an adult if you don't own a gun. Ownership is a right, not a privilege. It's a right, with no attendant responsibility to have training, or good handling. They belief anyone who speaks about good handling is infringing on sacred rights. That anyone who questions the gun culture is unpatriotic and infringing on sacred rights.

My god, more people may worship guns than attend church. That's how pervasive the gun culture is in the US.

Please note, though, that I don't think every gun advocate is part of the toxic gun culture. Many support reasonable reforms. Even more would support reforms if enough Democrats made clearly that they respect the right of sensible, responsible citizens to own guns. However, they aren't loud enough in their support of reasonable reform. Too often, their primary concern is not losing their gun rights, not safety.

Then there are the full-fledged nutcases. They resist all restrictions. They don't even trust restrictions due to mental issues. They would rather mentally ill people have full access than risk being labelled as unable to purchase due to mental impairment.

Frankly, my opinion is that our standards for mental impairment are seriously too tight. Many more people need to be disqualified due to mental impairment. We need to have a procedure for health professionals to report dangerous people, have their gun rights curtailed, and have procedures to follow up. We need the same for family members to report someone who is dangerous, and have their rights curtailed. Most of all, we need to encourage families and all parts of society to support this--to agree that safety is more important. To say "yes, we are committed to preventing dangerous people from having and using guns." I want that to be a whole-society commitment. That is the only rational basis for a healthy gun culture instead of the current toxic culture.

Again...

Image: abc15.com

Extras. An example of a gun advocate who blames anything and anyone but except the proximate cause. A conservative supports the kind of measure I talk about. It even has a name - Gun Violence Restraining Order, or GVRO. However, he writes as though these orders are common, but they aren't.

The FBI is accused of mishandling warnings about the shooter. I wonder how deluged the FBI with warnings, and whether the number far outweighed their ability to check. The right wing and alt-right have so many liars who keep them well-supplied with fake stories.

Update 4/7/18. Here's one of the fake stories. The most visible, talkative survivors are actually actors, according to lying stories floating around on the right. And many who repeat those stories don't give a damn that they're spouting lies.

Last outpost of crazy headlines: Guns, confederate flags, Zimmerman

'Muslim-free' gun shop teams with George Zimmerman to sell Confederate flags

There's a double dose of stupid going on with this idea. Really, who was impressed with George Zimmerman and/or his intelligence and decision-making powers? George Zimmerman is an advertisement for stupid use of a gun, but I guess the shop owner isn't too smart either. 

Or maybe he is. He's getting plenty of free publicity. Maybe he should be jacking up his prices too. All the better to fleece the rubes.

Maybe it's just a trial partnership.

Image: vladtv.com

Update 9/28/15. That slimeball Zimmerman released a picture of Trayvon Martin dead on the ground. What a pig.

Analysis of the Cincinnati shooting video

Earlier this month, a security officer for the University of Cincinnati shot and killed an unarmed driver during a traffic stop. The officer was indicted for murder, and also indicted on the lesser charge of manslaughter.

He was wearing a body camera throughout the incident, and the video was just released. Now, accordingly to the prosecutor, the video shows "the most asinine act by a police officer I have ever seen."

That's not what I saw when I closely watched the video, though admittedly I wasn't able to watch it frame by frame.

The officer pulled over the driver for a minor infraction--not having a front license plate... or did he pull him over for driving while black? The officer asks for his license. The driver searches around for it, but doesn't produce it. That is an expedient move by the driver because his license had been suspended (as investigation showed after the fact). If he had produced his license, the officer would quickly confirm that he was driving with a suspended license. That would probably mean an arrest, towing the car, and lots of fines for the driver.

Here is a chronology of how the altercation unfolds:

• At 3:12, the officer starts to open the car door. The driver grabs it to keep it closed. He moves his right hand to the ignition. The officer's right hand is on the roof of the car. The driver says "I didn't even do nothing."
• At 3:13, the officer says "Come on and take your seatbelt off." His right hand is still on the roof of the car.
• At 3:14, the driver starts the ignition (can be heard) and the officer reaches with his left hand into the car to grab the ignition.
• At 3:16, the officer yells "stop, stop." At the same time, the sound of the engine revving is audible. The gun is visible in the officer's right hand.
• At 3:17, the officer fires this gun. The driver slumps to his right. The car is also moving forward.
• At 3:18, the officer is falling backward. The camera shows the sky.
• At 3:19, the officer is starting to stand up. His gun is clearly seen in his right hand.
• At 3:24, he is running after the car down the street.

Clearly, the driver was fleeing the traffic stop. Clearly, the officer reached for his weapon and shot within 3 seconds of the driver starting the ignition. Both men were acting and reacting very quickly. As the prosecutor said:

"You won't believe how quickly he pulls his gun and shoots him in the head."

The officer claimed he was dragged, and that doesn't seem to be true. However, the driver must have put the car in gear while the officer was reaching in, so the officer had good reason to worry that he might be dragged or knocked down and run over.

To understand and judge the criminal charges, we will have to consider how officers should act when a driver tries to flee a minor traffic stop. We have to consider whether the officer was in danger, or whether he was trigger happy, or both. This is not an open-and-shut case.

It does seem to me that many officials in Cincinnati have ganged up on the officer. It's not just the prosecutor, who laid on charges of intentional murder and incompetence, The university fired him. The mayor stated that he wanted charges. No one there wants Ferguson-type riots and demonstrations. The officer seems to have been thrown under the bus as Cincinnati tries not to be the next epicenter of race-based demonstrations.

This isn't my final word on this case. I might write a post on how the video refutes the claims that the prosecutor made in his (grandstanding) press conference. Maybe I'll learn more about police training that leads officers to shoot first and shoot fast. Maybe I'll unravel how a simple traffic stop ends up with someone dead, not just once, but too many times already this year.

3:12 -- Look where their hands are.

Image: youtube.com

Extras. USA Today's list of events at the end of this article differs from mine. They're wrong and they seem biased against the officer: "Without a word, Tensing fires a single shot," "the car rolls a short distance." The car didn't roll a few feet, but probably at least 150 feet. You can hear the rev of the engine as though it was accelerating, not 'rolling.'

More of the chronology:

• At 3:27, someone asks "Are you alright." The officer, while running, says "I'm good."
• At 3:41, he is close to where the car has crashed and we can see another security officer enter the frame.
• At 4:15, we can see that a third security officer is also already on the scene.

Were these other two officers already at the other end of the block? What did they see? Did they have body cameras too? Maybe their footage isn't important since we have video of the entire event at close range. Or maybe it is important if it is shows more of what happened.

Update 7/31/15. Video from the body cameras of the two officers who arrived just as the altercation erupted.

Update 8/1/15. A Cincinnati officer killed in June of this year.

Thoughts on the Ferguson shooting: No indictment

I agree with the grand jury's decision not to indict the policeman who shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. For what it's worth, that's my opinion. It's not worth too much because I haven't been one of the jurors or investigators, so I haven't had access to the evidence. Instead, I've had to rely on news reports.

With those caveats, here is my reasoning. It's clear that Michael Brown strong-armed a store just minutes before. He shoved and intimidated a clerk. It seems pretty certain that Michael Brown attacked Officer Darren Wilson, punching him while he was in his police car. It's likely that he tried to get this gun.

I think this adds up to Michael Brown being a dangerous person at that time. After he attacked Officer Wilson, Wilson wasn't out of line shooting him when he didn't immediately get on the ground. Instead Brown stayed standing, possibly still moving, and therefore still a threat.

Proponents for Brown and for an indictment ignore a lot of evidence, and they make excuses for why Brown should be forgiven for his aggressiveness, while Wilson should be held accountable for his response. That's a double-standard, and I won't be part of it.

Policing is a dangerous job. Police are definitely a target for too many criminals. Lately, the death toll among cops has been quite high. This job is going to be impossible if police have to put up with being attacked, and then made out to be wrong in their responses. So, the decision not to indict Officer Wilson was the correct one. Here is a good summation:

"The grand jury accepted that Brown was the aggressor throughout the confrontation and that Wilson feared he might be overpowered and lose his gun. According to the grand jurors, that justified the officer’s firing of a dozen rounds. Wilson, therefore, will face no criminal charges in connection with the deadly shooting."

So, what evidence (through news reports) did I use in coming to the same conclusion? The video of Michael Brown pushing someone at the store. The friend who was with Michael neglected to mention the incident, so his testimony is questionable at best. The reports (with physical evidence) that shots were fired inside the police car. A picture of Wilson showing bruising on his face. Michael Brown's blood on the gun. Reports that witnesses on the scene contradicted the story that Brown's hands were up (not enough of a surrender anyhow), and that these witnesses were frightened of telling their stories due to the likely reaction in their neighborhood.

There is some contradictory evidence, but it isn't as strong. As for those who say that Michael Brown's robbery a few minutes earlier is immaterial--uh, no. It's quite pertinent. This isn't a case of a cop gunning down a black teen with no provocation or due to a mistake. The boy (18 years old, 300 lbs.) provoked the incident. That is something that should matter to everyone.

Image: abcnews.com

Extras. Abysmal forensic procedures, including washing away blood evidence. The transcript of Officer Wilson's testimony, which I haven't read yet. Very detailed article examining some of Wilson's testimony. Eye-witness testimony that was shown to be wrong and likely fabricated.

What safety training do police get?

With the shooting in Ferguson and other frequent shootings by police, I have to wonder what kind of training police are getting. Are they trained to shoot when in doubt? Are they trained to decide quickly to shoot, or to take a bit longer before making that decision? Are they trained to follow a protocol when they expect a threat?

I have a lot of questions, but few answers. Unfortunately, I don't know any cops whom I can ask. And the internet has failed me. I didn't find much information about police training. In the bit of information I did find, there's lot of emphasis on handling of firearms, such as this training list:

... In addition to classroom instruction of deadly force policy and procedure and other topics, most trainers suggest the range work should include:

1.) Clearing stoppages with either hand

2.) Drills that simulate malfunctions 

3.) Emergency tactical reloading with either hand 

4.) Manipulation of safeties and de-cocking levers with either hand

As well as the usual and customary range topics like:

1.) Low-light and judgmental (decision-making) shooting 

2.) Shooting while moving to cover 

3.) One-handed firing  [etc.]

I wonder whether the heavy emphasis on gun handling leads to more gun use than required. When dealing with situations, you're usually going to use tools and approaches that you know, not try out new ones on the fly. So the training of officers is key, or so I would guess. (It's possible that officers are acting not based on their training, but based on their own preference to use firearms. I really don't know.)

In my research, I found one cop who wanted fewer guns and more non-lethal alternatives. This seems sensible to me, but I don't know how much other officers support this. What are the dangers in being equipped with rubber bullets if you might face an assailant armed with a gun? In our country, there are plenty of armed people that the police are likely to encounter, and I don't want the police to be handicapped in those encounters.

Perhaps police rarely need their guns, and they don't need to carry them on a regular basis, but only when going into situations that warrant it. This is another issue that I just don't have information on. Police departments in this country should be studying these questions--I certainly hope they are. If the mindset is that they need their guns at all times, it's no wonder that they're used too often.

Image: newhavenregister.com

Extras. Blog from a cop in the hood. Some research from New York City. Luckily, not that many police are killed on duty. That leaves room for them to be more careful. A horrible story of a police mistake.

Update 8/28/14. Here's a training video about handling an assailant who secretly has a knife. Note how quickly the officer could be stabbed, and also the emphasis on  "two rounds [in the] center of mass."

Update 9/10/14. There have been a lot of shootings of officers lately: Rochester, NY; Merrillville, IN; Topeka, KS; West Ashley, SC; St. Louis County, MO; and Vancouver, WA. This is what a cop potentially faces at every traffic stop. The training to shoot may be correct if there is a high level of danger on a regular basis.

Last outpost of crazy: Bring out your guns

It's show time for gun owners who want to carry openly and everywhere. Texas seems to be ground zero for these guys, so it's not surprising that there are two stories out of Texas. First, the Chipotle fast food chain is requesting that people leave their long guns at home or in the car--hand guns only in the restaurant, please. One of their restaurants was overrun with rifle and AR-toting customers who wanted a bite to eat and complete acceptance of the open-carry lifestyle. Perhaps we should consider it. We found out that people being openly gay wasn't dangerous, and maybe it's the same with large, semi-automatic weapons.

Earlier this month, this open-carry group scared the bejeezus out of the employees at a Jack-in-the-Box, who thought they were in for a robbery/murder/rape scenario. Gosh, what would make them worry like that?

Image: twitter.com/MomsDemand

Massacre NOT averted

Last year I wrote a brief post about a massacre that was averted. This time we weren't as lucky. The parents tried to stop their crazy son, but his demeanor fooled the police. Now six people are dead, 13 are injured, and countless are traumatized.

We should do something about keeping guns out of the hands of people in questionable mental states. We should be able to heed the warnings of friends and family and prevent the potential murder sprees that people are aware of. Here, despite the awareness, despite the actions of the concerned parents, the murderer was able to carry out his plans.

Maybe Senators Toomey and Manchin will resurrect their intelligent bill on gun purchase restrictions. However, it was a failure last year, and the NRA and knee-jerk idiot gun-rights nuts all over the country probably aren't any more reasonable this year. So we should do something, but we won't... because we live in the Land of the Free to be Idiots-With-Guns. This is one of the taxes we Americans pay, but it's a tax in blood and lives.

One of the many fathers

Image: cnn.com