Today’s Oleg Volk

Quick! Is this a hunter or a sniper? Is it a hunting rifle or a sniper rifle?

Sage words and an excellent photo by Oleg Volk.

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Guns Save Lives

Yes it’s true, no matter what the anti-freedom activists would like you to believe. Here’s a snippet from the WND article about the brief submitted by the LEAA to the Supreme Court on the side of freedom in the D.C. gun ban case.

Good stuff!

“When sexual assaults started rising in Orlando, Fla., in 1966, police officers noticed women were arming themselves, so they launched a firearms safety course for them. Over the next 12 months, sexual assaults plummeted by 88 percent, burglaries fell by 25 percent and not one of the 2,500 women who took the course fired a gun in a confrontation.

And that, says a new brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court by police officers and prosecutors in a controversial gun-ban dispute, is why gun ownership is important and should be available to individuals in the United States.

The arguments come in an amicus brief submitted by the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, whose spokesman, Ted Deeds, told WND there now are 92 different law enforcement voices speaking together to the Supreme Court in the Heller case.

That pending decision will decide whether an appeals court ruling striking down a District of Columbia ban on handguns because it violates the 2nd Amendment will stand or not. The gun ban promoters essentially argue that any gun restriction that is ruled “reasonable” is therefore constitutional, such as the D.C. handgun ban.

Deeds said this probably is the largest unified law enforcement statement in support of the 2nd Amendment ever, and includes nearly a dozen organizations that represent tens of thousands of police officers across the country, dozens of state attorneys general, dozens of prosecutors and a long list of federal law enforcement experts up to and including federal judges.”

Read the rest here.

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Update: Bad Cop No Donut

Here’s an update on a story from my neck of the woods. Last December, a Cop (that’s him on the right) got pissed at the owner of a meat market for not putting hot pepper flake in his jerky. The argument escalated until the Cop pulled his gun on the store owner.

Anyone who tells you there isn’t a double standard for Cops is lying. If I had done what he did, I’d be in jail right now…and so should he.

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Cop, butcher in clear after dispute

Thursday, February 28, 2008
By Stephanie Rice, Columbian staff writer

The Great Meat Fight of 2007 has been declared a draw.

Criminal charges will not be filed against Vancouver Police Officer Roger Evans or Top Choice Meats owner Mike Brannan, a special prosecutor said Wednesday.

The Dec. 21 altercation started when Evans, who went to the Orchards shop to pick up a venison order while off duty, became upset that market employees failed to add pepper flakes to his venison jerky.

According to witnesses, Evans and Brannan had a lengthy, heated exchange that ended with Evans drawing his gun, customers ducking for cover and a flurry of calls to 911.

Clark County Sheriff’s Detective Rick Buckner, who investigated the incident, found no fault with Evans. He recommended misdemeanor assault charges against Brannan based on Evans’ claim that the butcher shoved a heavy box of venison at the police officer’s chest outside the store.

The Vancouver city attorney prosecutes misdemeanors within city limits, but Charles Isely and James Senescu, a former assistant city attorney and a former deputy county prosecutor, respectively, were asked to review the case to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest since a police officer was involved.

Isely said there was a lack of credible and consistent evidence to support any criminal charges.

Therese Lavallee, Brannan’s attorney, received the special prosecutors’ report and said no witnesses corroborated Evans’ claim that Brannan shoved the box at him.

Witnesses did, however, say that Evans drew his weapon without provocation.

That could support a charge of second-degree assault with a firearm, prosecutors said in their report, but they declined to file such a charge because they said Evans could argue self-defense.

Evans has said he pulled his weapon because he feared Brannan was going to pull one out first.
The prosecutors reasoned that, as a police officer, Evans has a heightened sense about predicting what a person is going to do, Lavallee said.

But what about his SWAT training on how to defuse a situation? Lavallee asked.

“There’s no justification I can see to pull a loaded gun,” she said.

Lavallee said Evans should be charged.

“It should go to a jury. That’s what our system is for,” she said.

Any other person who pulled a gun on a store owner would have been arrested, Lavallee and Brannan said.

“He’s a city official. They’re just covering up to protect him,” Brannan said. “I’m just a citizen.”

Attorney Tom Phelan spoke on Evans’ behalf Wednesday but said he couldn’t discuss the situation because of a pending internal affairs investigation.

Evans, who remains on administrative duty, is a respected SWAT and K-9 officer. Evans also made the news last year when his German shepherd partner, Dakota, was shot and killed by a suspect in Brush Prairie.

When Evans drew his weapon Dec. 21, Brannan said he was dumbfounded.

“I’ve never had a gun pointed at me. Hey, it’s pretty scary.”

He and his wife, Patti, have lost sleep over the situation.

During Buckner’s investigation, a few people came forward and described Brannan as a hothead.
“None of them were there,” Brannan said.

Besides, “if I was a mean, rude person you would not want to come and buy meat from me, and I’ve been there seven years.”

He said his customers have teased him about the meat fight, either coming in with their hands up saying, “Hey, Mike, I don’t have a gun,” or inspecting their order and pretending to be upset about missing pepper flake.

But he hasn’t found too much to laugh about.

He said he has tried to conceal his stress at work.

“Like our sign says, ‘Customer service with a smile,’?” Brannan said.

Stephanie Rice can be contacted at 360-735-4549 or stephanie.rice@columbian.com.

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Restraining Orders Are Worthless

Sadly, once again we learn that the only good restraining order is one printed on a sheet of Kevlar.

—-

Watch the story

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — Police say a man kicked in the door of his ex-girlfriend’s house and shot her to death before taking his own life on Sunday.

Deputy Chief Terry Gallagher said the woman’s two daughters ran upstairs and called 911 to report that the 41-year-old man was in their house with a gun.

Officers heard two gun shots as they arrived at the house in near the intersection of West 13th Street and South Oak Street, and found the man and woman dead inside.

The two girls, age 9 and 11, were found hiding in a closet and were not hurt.

Gallagher said the man and woman, whose names have not been released, broke up about five months ago. The 35-year-old woman who was killed had also filed for an anti-harassment order.

Detectives cordoned off the area and had to wait for a search warrant before going back in the home to begin collecting evidence.

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RIP "Grits" Gresham

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More Defensive Gun Use

If the Brady’s had their way, these two women would not have been rescued and very well might now be dead. It is my belief that the criminal in this story got what he deserved, and now thanks to a Good Samaritan with a gun, this piece of trash won’t be clogging up our already heavily overcrowded prison system and costing the tax payers thousands and thousands of dollars.

-Yuri

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Sex offender fatally shot

Brighton man kills man attacking pair of women

By Sherri Drake (Contact)
Wednesday, February 20, 2008

A Brighton man shot and killed a 44-year-old registered sex offender who attacked two women in their home early Tuesday morning, officials said.

According to Dist. Atty. Gen. Mike Dunavant, David Fleming charged into the home of two women at about 3 a.m. Tuesday.

Fleming bound the women but one escaped and ran to a nearby home. Dunavant said Fleming, who lived in Munford, intended to rape the women.

The woman who escaped went to the home of Keith Ingram for help, Dunavant said.

Ingram, carrying a .40-caliber handgun, ran to the house and found Fleming attacking the other woman, officials said.

When Fleming tried to attack Ingram, Dunavant said Ingram shot Fleming once.

Tipton County Sheriff’s deputies and Brighton Police officers found Fleming dead on the front porch of the home.

Fleming had been convicted of attempted rape in Tipton County. He’s listed on the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s sex-offender registry.

Dunavant said Ingram has no criminal record and has a permit to carry the handgun.

The women who were attacked were treated at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Tipton.

TBI officials are assisting with the case. The Shelby County Medical Examiner will conduct an autopsy. Investigators took statements from several witnesses Tuesday. The shooting is still under investigation.

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Disaster Preparedness

I’ve been thinking for a long time about improving my preparedness for an emergency situation. I have food in the pantry to last a short time, but no water, which bothers me. Plus, a lot of the food I have needs to be cooked.

According to the American Red Cross, I should have at least three days worth of food and water on hand at all times. They go on to say that the food should be of the ready to eat variety and require no water or cooking. It seems to me that three days food is actually too little based on the length of some recent emergencies. Katrina anyone?

As far as ammunition goes, I’ve got a decent amount for the guns that I have, but not enough to last in a prolonged emergency. As soon as I get ahead financially I intend to rectify that situation.

As for the gun situation, I have a decent shotgun and some old, but still very capable mil-surp rifles and decent handguns in common calibers. I have to say though that I’m considering selling the SKS. No matter what I do I can’t seem to hit the broadside of a barn with it. *sigh*

I’d like to get peoples opinions on what consumables and ammunition I should be stocking for a “rainy day”. I feel uncomfortable in my current situation, supplies wise.

Any suggestions?

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Good Tunes

Marty Robbins has always been one of my favorite singers. He died in 1982 of complications following cardiac surgery, and the world is poorer for his absence. Here’s a couple of songs by him for your listening pleasure.

The first is one of my favorites, “El Paso.” I tried to find a good video of the follow up song “El Paso City” but the one I found had severe problems with the audio. I do however suggest that you all give it a listen. It and “El Paso” bookend each other nicely. The second song here is the gun fighter classic “Big Iron” over scenes from one of my favorite animes Cowboy Bebop. Enjoy!

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I’m alive

Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated…

Some of you may or may not have noticed I haven’t posted anything in over a week. There is an explanation for this, and if you’re interested read on. If not, then don’t worry about it.

The Sunday before last I started feeling sick around 1pm or so; a kind of crampy, nauseous feeling in my stomach. Thinking I was hungry, I went with my brother to get some lunch, but the feeling didn’t go away. Later on it turned into a familiar achy, throbbing, sharp abdominal pain I’ve had before. No amount of Vicodin or Percocet would make it go away. About 11:30pm I drove myself to the emergency room of the local hospital and waited another 2.5 hours before being able to seeing a doctor and getting some pain relief through my IV. At the end of this ordeal a doctor suggested I go home and take some pain medicine (the doctors notes disagree on this, CYA). I really thought I should have been admitted, but I went along with this.

Stupid stupid stupid…

Later on Monday in the early evening I was in still in agony. It seriously felt like I had a baby Alien trying to claw it’s way out of my stomach. My brother drove me this time and stayed with me until I got into the back to see the doctor, only a 1.75 hour wait this time. This time the doctor (a different one) himself suggested I be admitted and I agreed. I was admitted into the hospital to deal with a bowel obstruction.

The various x-ray’s and CAT scans showed I had a section of distended bowel. Another doctor there suggested I talk with a surgeon colleague of his and I agreed. The surgeon suggested that he would be able to laparoscopically go in and correct the problem and I’d only have a few small incisions instead of being opened wide. Seeing as how I’ve had this pain several times before and I had every expectation that I would again in the future, I decided to have the procedure.

Now for the complication. I have a serious problem with my blood clotting too fast and I take medicine every day to keep that from happening. This medicine takes 3-4 days to take affect and the same to wear off. This meant that I had to be switched from Warfarin to Heparin, which has a much faster response time. Several days passed with me in bed doing nothing, in pain and having my blood drawn twice a day to see if my clotting time was right. I was poked with needles around 60+ times during my hospital stay.

Finally on Saturday morning it was time for the operation. The operating table looked identical to the ones I’d seen on TV that are used to strap prisoners down to for lethal injection. I’ll admit it, I was scared. The OR was as cold as an ice box too. They asked me some questions and then had me breath some oxygen from a mask. Shortly afterward the anesthesiologist injected something through my IV that burned like fire and then my head felt like it was being pricked by a thousand needles and I went out.

After a short dream about cowboys (I’d been watching Wild West Tech just before they took me down) that made no sense I awoke in the recovery room.

The next two and a half days I spent in a really nice room with a great southern view. The doctor told me he removed some adhesions and some scar tissue where my bowel had kinked back on itself, forming a restriction in the size. He thinks I’ve had this all my life and it’s only recently become an issue. Hopefully from now on I won’t have this issue again. I can only hope.

I’m still sore, and don’t expect me to post a lot until I get completely over this, but I’m back and still alive. Thank God!

Now, to catch up on the thousands of emails I’m sure have collected in my inbox while I’ve been out of commission…

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Channeling Helmke to the masses

It’s inevitable that editorial boards (typically composed of liberals who know nothing of combat, tactics, guns, life, earth, reality, etc.) are going to come out with high-minded baloney against right to carry laws on college campuses. However, you have to wonder whether or not they are actually thinking for themselves or channeling Paul Helmke while pretending to think for themselves:

In dormitories, more guns will undoubtedly mean more gun-related accidents, more suicides and more senseless tragedies brought about by immaturity, lack of judgment, impulsivity, alcohol consumption or mental illness. But whatever their root cause, each of those incidents will only have been made possible by the proximity of guns.

So there it is. They’ve written off all college students as immature, idiotic, impulsive, drunks and sociopaths (just like Paul has almost word-for-word). They seem to forget that there are a lot of non-traditional students out there who would like to be safe in a classroom too.

Of course, I can think of a place where there are a whole lot more people of the similar ages to the average college classroom who are all sitting in “dormitories” with fully automatic firearms. It’s probably even more frightening to said editorial boards that these young people tend to be conformist and all wear the same clothes and speak respectfully of tradition, authority, and discipline.

Let’s also not forget that some of these guys are coming back and going to college. And now, the editorial boards are screaming that they are too immature to handle a firearm in a dangeous situation? Come on. They’ve been in combat how much more training do you need?!?!

This seems to me more like a case of projection. Go back and read that description again and you’ll probably get a good picture of what a bunch of hippie kids were like before they got a chance to be on editorial boards at local newspapers. You know, immature, idiotic, impulsive, drunks and sociopaths…

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