Update on Freddie Gray

I found this little tidbit of information on the Reuters site. It was supposedly information already in the hands of Ms. Mosby when she pursued the charges against the 6 BPD officers.


Freddie Gray, whose death after being injured in Baltimore police custody sparked rioting in the city, was "banging against the walls" of a police van and "was intentionally trying to injure himself,” a prisoner being transported with Gray has said, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The prisoner's account was contained in an application for a search warrant that was sealed by the court, the Post said. The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him, the paper said.
Gray, 25, was found unconscious in the van when it arrived at a police station on April 12. He had suffered a spinal injury and died a week later.

All Charges have been Dropped in the Balitmore Police death of Freddy Gray

 So, another "racially motivated Police killing of a black man" has been shown to be a lie. First, through the use of the FBI, Justice Dept, and multiple Medical examiners, it was proven that "Saint" Michael Brown, the "misunderstood gentle giant", didn't have his hands up and was charging a Police officer who was more than 150 Lbs lighter, and 7 inches shorter than himself. Now the city of Baltimore is dropping all charges against the remaining BPD officers that haven't yet been tried. Those that had faced trial, were acquitted.


"Whoa there big fella, he did die in Police custody, so why did he die?"
 Freddy Gray died from a fatal spinal injury sustained while being transported in a BPD "Paddy Wagon" (by the way, why isn't that racist?  it stereotypes the Irish).
 
 "Wait a minute!! The BPD officer drove the Wagon/van so erratically he died? Why isn't that a homicide?!?!"

 Hold on there Bucky, they could not prove that the officer drove in any way that would be considered too fast, unsafe, or unusual.

 "OK, so how did he injure his back enough to be killed then?!?!"
  It seems that the press has had a habit of leaving out a significant piece of information about Mr. Gray. He had only recently been released from the hospital after undergoing spinal surgery (just a coincidence?). He was to be on bed rest at home and not to partake in any strenuous activity. Therefore his spine wouldn't take much of a blow to cause him problems. You need to ask yourself why Freddy was out that day when he wasn't supposed to be? Why was he riding a bicycle? Why did he go to a known open air drug market? Why did the Police try to stop him to talk to him and why did he run?
  Let's try to answer these questions. Why he was out, and riding a bicycle when he wasn't supposed to is a mystery. The Police were raiding the location because it was a known open air drug market, and a Baltimore Alderman lived nearby. This Alderman used political influence to get the Police to perform the raid. The Police saw Freddy Gray, and ordered him to stop for questioning. He took off on his bicycle. Why did the Police single out Mr. Gray? He was a KNOWN drug dealer with a history of prior arrests. Therefore when he took off, there was a reason to chase him. So why he went to an area that was a known drug market, on a bicycle, when he was under Doctors orders to rest quietly at home will never be known. We know why the Police wanted to talk to him when he appeared at the location. We don't know why he took off. By the way a BPD bicycle Police officer rode him down and knocked him off of his bike, which could have also caused the damage attributed to the Wagon/Van ride.

 We must ask ourselves, was his death caused by the Police not securing him in the Wagon/Van? Or was it a combination of that and the fact he had just had spinal surgery. At best, if those were the causes of death, it was negligence on the part of the BPD, not homicide. The fatal injury could have most likely been caused by being knocked off his bicycle. I suggest that once he left his house, he was attempting suicide. If I had just had spinal surgery with the directions to rest quietly at home, that is where I would be until told otherwise.
  Have there been questionable Police killings? Yes, are they predominately Black, maybe. We have to ask ourselves why? In fact, a recent study showed that more whites are killed by the Police than blacks.

 "Wait a minute there Big Fella, blacks are only 13% of the population, there SHOULD be more whites killed than blacks."

 OK, so let's look at an example of crime breakdown:-


2012 (Jan-June) New York City arrests by Race (from the City of New York)

Crime                                                          White    Black    Hispanic    Indian/Eskimo     Pacific Isl.

Murder and non-negligent manslaughter     11.2%   55.3%     29.4%             0.0%               4.1%

Misdemeanor Criminal Mischief               23.3%   34.9%     37.7%             0.3%                3.8%

One final surprising set of statistics from the FBI details the crime rates perpetrated by white juveniles compared to white adults, and black juveniles compared to black adults. In 2011 for all crime among all categories perpetrated by minors, white juveniles were responsible for 65.7%. That percentage jumped to 69.2% for white adults. By comparison, black minors were responsible for 32% of all juvenile crime. But that number dropped to 28.4% for black adults.

So what do these statistics tell us? Well for one thing if you are white and commit a violent crime, you are more likely to be killed by the Police. Yes I know that these stats are from NYC, but if we get the rates from any major metropolitan area (to include Baltimore), we might see a percentage change here and there (more Eskimos and Indians?), but it will not change perceptibly. Blacks in general, and Black juveniles in particular are more likely to be involved in criminal pursuits. Therefore they are more likely to be confronted by the Police, yet, less likely to be killed than a white criminal.

I would suggest that the state of the Black family in modern Democratically controlled urban areas is the issue, not racism. I believe that the Democrat party is guilty of "Soft bigotry of low expectations".





"There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs -- partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."
  --------------Booker T. Washington (nod to Dr. Walter Williams)------

The 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution and Mass shootings

I have, for years, been listening to, and reading the rants and tirades of the Totalitarian/Monarchist faction of American politics (aka the Left), about the 2^nd Amendment. They rarely let the actions of a mentally unstable person, or Islamist Jihadist (did I repeat myself?) go by without blaming the tool, and not the perpetrator. It is never the fact that the person was unstable, it is always the fact that he/she could get a gun… Of course there have been mass killings all over the world where the perpetrator didn’t use or have access to firearms. They used swords, knives, and explosives. Further, in countries like France, that have no legal private ownership of firearms and no legal way to purchase them, Jihadists still find ways to get firearms and explosives.

The current administration would have you believe that guns sales in the US also are responsible for Mexican Drug Cartel gun violence. They even instructed Gun shops in the US sell guns to Cartel front men so they could have proof (operation Fast and Furious, it was supposed to trace weapons). The Cartels import hand grenades and rocket launchers from China, but they, for some reason, would rather pay $1600.00 for a semi-auto American firearm, rather than pay $200.00 for a fully automatic AK47. Makes Perfect sense.

Therefore they wish you to believe that if Firearms were made illegal, that no Jihadist would be able to get a fully automatic AK47 from Mexico. Miraculously restricting law abiding citizens from owning firearms, or a class of firearms, will suddenly make all of the Jihadists, that the current administration has allowed into the US (and the ones sneaking across the southern border from Mexico) stop killing Americans.   

 But BigMan, the 2^nd Amendment is archaic, it meant that citizens could own Muskets for hunting and protection from abused Native Americans, they weren’t supposed to be military grade weapons. Anyway they couldn’t have foreseen the advance in weapons that have occurred in that last 200 years!!

Let’s respond to these statements seriatim:-

The 2^nd Amendment is archaic, it meant that citizens could own Muskets for hunting and protection from abused Native Americans, they weren’t supposed to be military grade weapons.

Not so fast there Bucky, reading the Federalist Papers and other writings of the founders, it is clear that the 2^nd Amendment was about 2 things:

1.       Free men (in this case it means women too) have a god given or natural right to self-protection.  In fact one of the symbols of a free man in the UK and Europe for Centuries prior to the American Revolution was the ability to own weapons. In fact the yeoman of England who could not afford weapons nor had the “Right” to own weapons became proficient with the Quarter Staff (think Robin and little John’s meeting on the log bridge). Therefore the possession of Arms is a God given or Natural Right that existed prior to the Constitution being written. That is the meaning of “The Right….Shall not be abridged.   

2.       The Right had absolutely nothing to do with hunting, it was to protect yourself from attacks from indigenous people and most importantly, the Government. One of the lessons of the Revolution was that an armed populace could stand up to an oppressive Government. By the way, the founders defined the militia as “every abled bodied citizen between the ages of 16 and 60”. So if you fit that description, you are in the militia. Not the National Guard.  

 Well it didn’t include military grade weapons like an “Assault Rifle” like the AR-15!! Its name says it all, Assault Rifle 15!!

Actually, the colonists had, what were at the time, not only military grade weapons, they were actually better than the military grade weapons that the British Soldiers had. The American Long Rifle (they weren’t Muskets, Rifles weren’t considered Muskets until the 19^th Century, when Muskets began to be rifled) was more accurate, and accurate from a longer distance than the smooth bore Muskets used by the British. So yes the 2^nd Amendment did mean that citizens should and could own military grade weapons.

Also the name “Assault Rifle” is a pejorative, invented by the Totalitarians to describe a semi-auto firearm that “LOOKS” like a military grade rifle. The first rifle ever to be described as an Assault Rifle was the MP-44/Sturmgewehr invented by the leftist Totalitarian-Light Regime that ruled Germany in the 30’s-40’s, the NAZIs. No American military weapon has ever been called an “Assault Rifle”. Further, the name “AR-15” doesn’t stand for “Assault Rifle 15”, it stands for “Armalite Rifle, model 15”. AR-15 has become the name of any semi-auto, civilian rifle, based on the Armalite design, which uses direct gas impingement to cycle the bolt.

In fact here is a photo of a Ruger 10-22 semi-auto rifle (.22 Cal). It is based on the M1 Garand and M14 actions. It doesn’t use direct gas impingement, the gas instead actuates a transfer bar that then cycles the bolt. Ruger’s Mini-14 and Mini-30 work in the same manner. The rifle at the top of the photo is a standard 10-22, the bottom has an aftermarket stock, flash suppressor, bi-pod, and magazine. The mechanism hasn’t changed. If there weren’t any labels on the photo, and you asked a Totalitarian to pick out the “Assault Rifle”, they would select the bottom picture. As I said, the only difference is cosmetic… The magazine (it’s NOT a clip) will work with either of the configurations.

Anyway they couldn’t have foreseen the advance in weapons that have occurred in that last 200 years!!

They also couldn’t have foreseen the advances in communications. At the time of the American Revolution, mass communication was through Newspapers, pamphlets and handbills. Does that mean that Free Speech should be restricted to Newspapers, pamphlets and handbills? That Televison, Radio, and the Internet should have restricted speech? DON’T ANSWER THAT TOTALITARIANS!!! You also want to restrict any speech that you don’t agree with. You have even suggested that those who don’t believe in Anthropomorphic Global Warming, excuse me, since there has been no warming in 20 years, Climate Change, should be jailed. So you actually don’t believe in the Bill Of Rights at all unless it furthers your agenda. Like Totalitarians pleading the 5^th (the right to not self-incriminate). Also the attacks on political speech that Totalitarians do not agree with. That is why the Obama administration got away with something that even Richard Nixon couldn’t do. Use the IRS to attack and silence its’ enemies. Who just so happened to be Conservative, Libertarian and Tea party groups.

Well, there should be some restrictions!! After all you can’t own a Nuclear Bomb or a Tank!!

**Sigh** What could I possibly do with a Nuclear Bomb? I guess technically we should be allowed to own one, but to what purpose? It’s not like I can go the Range and practice shooting it. By the way, my going to the range with any rifle or hand gun for practice, doesn’t affect the rights of anyone else. Using a Nuclear Bomb would ruin the day of thousands or even millions of people.

As for owning a tank? Why yes I can, if I have the money to purchase and maintain it. Not only that, I can also equip it with Machine guns (fully automatic weapons that will fire as long as the trigger/paddles are depressed). All I would have to do is pass a back ground check (as I would for the purchase of any firearm), and pay the tax stamp. The main gun would have to be disabled, but even if it weren’t ammo would be expensive..

Well what about common sense gun control? Like universal background checks, closing the gun show loop hole, and registering your guns?

What may seem common sense to you makes no sense to me. Universal Background checks means that if my father wants to give me a firearm, or I wish to give one to my children, they have to pass a background check. Why? Doesn’t my father know me and don’t I know my children? I would also have to require a friend to pass a back ground check prior to selling/giving him/her a firearm. Why? Is my judgement that bad? If so, I wouldn’t have passed the multiple background checks I have had to go through.  I wouldn’t sell/give a firearm to someone I didn’t know or trust in the first place. A person that would probably didn’t get it legally, and they don’t obey other laws.

As for the “Gun show loophole”, I have yet to go to a gun show where back ground checks weren’t required or available. I have heard that they exist, but I have as of yet never been to one, and I have attended a lot of gun shows.

As for registering any guns I may own? Not going to happen. The only reason for registration is so that Law enforcement has a list of who owns guns, and what they own, in order to confiscate them. It has been done in the UK, Australia, NAZI Germany, and New Orleans LA USA (NOLA) after Hurricane Katrina.

In NOLA, the Law abiding citizens were disarmed and the thugs still had weapons. The brave police officers even tackled a scary octogenarian woman who wouldn’t turn in a pistol her late husband left her..

Further the supreme court of the US has ruled that a criminal can’t be prosecuted for not registering a firearm. Since it is illegal for them to own one in the first place, it would be against their 5^th Amendment right to not self-incriminate, to register, or tell the Police, that they have a gun. So registration and a criminal punishment for failure to do so, would, like all Gun Control measures, only affect the law abiding. By definition, criminals, or Jihadists, wishing to do harm to people, will do whatever they want no matter what the law is. They will procure weapons, and they will continue to commit crimes and violence, because that is what they do. After all, murder is already illegal..

OK, so what is your solution? Every one go around armed like in the Wild West?

First, I would get rid of “Gun-Free Zones”. They are laughable. Do you think that a Jihadist, bent on shooting a lot of infidels, will walk up and see a “Gun-Free Zone” sign and just say “Damn” and walk away? Actually almost all of the mass shootings in the US over the last 20 years have been exclusively in “Gun-Free Zones”. Why? Because they are sure that nobody will shoot back.

Everyone doesn’t have to be armed, (everyone wasn’t armed in the old west contrary to what Hollywood shows) if there was one person that was armed at any of these shootings, they could have stopped them. It has happened multiple times in multiple locations, but since there wasn’t a sexy body count, and an armed citizen or off duty Police officer stopped it, it barely makes the 24 hr. news cycle and is quickly forgotten.

We will not be able to stop the mentally ill or the Jihadists (did I repeat myself again?), from killing people, we may stop them from doing as much damage as they want. We won’t stop them by restricting law abiding American’s civil rights. None of the laws proposed by the Totalitarians would have prevented the shootings.

Islam, Sharia, and mental healthcare is the problem, not the tools that the perpetrators use.

"Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is
the queen of personal weapons.
 
The rifle is a weapon. Let there be no mistake about that. It is a tool of
power, and thus dependent completely upon the moral stature of its user. It
is equally useful in securing meat for the table, destroying group enemies
on the battlefield, and resisting tyranny. In fact, it is the only means of
resisting tyranny, since a citizenry armed with rifles simply cannot be
tyrannized.
 
The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own.
Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more
good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of
righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men
with rifles."

Jeff Cooper, The Art of the Rifle 

Finding Love

As a child, and then as a teen, I had always heard stories and songs about this mystical, everlasting love. I had always hoped to find it. It sounded so wonderful and fulfilling. You know how the stories ended “and they lived happily ever after”. I know, it sounds silly, those stories were full of D.I.Ds (damsels in distress), but they were rescued by Knights in shining armor. I always wanted to be one of those Knights and find a beautiful woman that I could rescue and who I could live happily ever after with.

Here is what I have learned since then. Everyone is looking for the same thing…Even if they don’t know it. I also learned the secret to finding it.

Are you ready for it?

Here it is----

Love the one you are with…

It’s that simple. Once you have fallen for someone, you both have work and cultivate it. Like I explained recently to my son, love is not unlike hate. They both are like a fire, if you don’t feed them, they can’t survive. Therefore, I don’t hate anyone, because if I don’t care for you, I don’t think about you. In order to hate someone you have to consistently think about it to keep that hate smoldering. I refuse to let anyone or thing control me like that. Loving someone or something is exactly the same, you have to feed that love. Remember what it was that made you love them in the first place. The little things you do for them is the kindling helping it grow. Then every so often you do something really wonderful for them and it’s like a big log, it gets the fire really going. You have to tell them that you love them and mean it with the same feeling and emotion as the first time you ever said it. You have to learn to get pleasure out of making them happy

I think that many people are unhappy or have had bad luck with relationships because they are in love with being in love. They are addicted that wonderful feeling of infatuation that comes at the beginning of a romance. Once that initial excitement wears off, they lose interest and look for the next fix. They never discover that that feeling is still there, you just have to find it again. It takes work. It isn’t always there, but in between, there is that comfortable warm feeling of companionship. That there is someone that you can have a conversation with, without saying a word. Someone that pleases you because they want to, without expecting anything in return but love. Someone that you please because it makes you feel good, just to see a smile and know that you are loved.

I have also discovered that when you are unselfish in your physical relationship,  making sure that you are doing everything possible to please your lover, it is reciprocated, and making love is that much better… And more frequent.

So… Well, I’ll leave it to Stephen stills…

War on Masculinity or Why “Nice Guys Finish Last”

I saw an article the other day in which some “Nice Guy” left a note on a young ladies vehicle, lambasting her and all women who claim that they can’t find any “Nice Guys”, because she kicked him, a self-proclaimed “Nice Guy” to the curb. Here is the issue as I see it. Women think they want nice guys, what they really want (WHOA, you claim to know what women really want? Yes, just read on..) is a MAN. Women want one thing in a man, whether they recognize it or not, they want a masculine man. That’s why it seems as if most women prefer “bad boys”. Bad boys are, above all else, very masculine. Bad boys also have a tendency to treat women like shit. If they can find a “Nice Guy” that happens to be a MAN, that is just icing on the cake.

I don’t care how liberated, feminine, modern, independent, or feminist a woman may be, subliminally she wants a MAN. She wants a protector (whether she needs it or not), she wants a provider (even if she is better educated and makes more money than him), and she wants good genes for her offspring (whether she wants children or not).

The modern dichotomy is this, women, since the 60’s, have been beating men about the head and shoulders with the “We want sensitive men” club. They have been forcing the medication of our sons for acting like boys (Ritalin). They punish little boys for stealing kisses, pretending a chicken nugget, pop-tart, or finger is a gun. One six year old was suspended from school for bringing in a GI Joe that had a small toy pistol in a holster!!! Back before most of this really got started (thank god), I was a little boy in the 60’s and early 70’s. I was a military brat and went to eight schools by the time I finished the eighth grade. You know what I did for the first six to eight weeks of almost every school I attended? I fought. I would get into two to four fights before it ended. Little boys have to figure out a pecking order, and fighting was the way it used to be done.. I guess now they play video games or something. The result of all of this “War on Boys” is that these boys don’t grow up to be MEN. Don’t get me wrong, they are “Nice Guys”, but when I was a kid, they would have been giving up their lunch money and getting wedgies every day. Many of these “Nice Guys” are just checking out, there is a new phenomenon in the western world called the “Sexodus”. Young men are giving up on relationships with women, settling for “hook ups” (aka one night stands), porn, or just celibacy. They fill their days with drinking, or drugs; video games and or sports; and just hanging out with the guys.

So what we are going to end up with are women, and men, living alone, and childless…