My mother was a big fan of Mr. Wizard when he was on TV when she was a kid in the 50s and 60s. When I was a kid, his TV series aired by Nickelodeon was one of my favorites. Today he died at the age of 89. He will be missed.
Category: Current Events
Masquerading Criminals
This type of incident has happened before in my area, and now it seems to be happening again. I have a special level of loathing for criminals who masquerade as police officers, because it erodes the public’s level of trust in law enforcement.
It’s one reason I’m understanding of Bitter’s disdain for officers removing weapons from license holders during stops. I understand why officers do it, but I also can understand a woman’s reluctance to be disarmed by any male, even one claiming to be a police officer.
We’re probably the only country…
… that goes bat shit crazy over stuff like this. How many of us got alcohol from our parents before we were 21? To me, her sin was lying to the other parents. Had she been truthful, I might question her judgment, but I wouldn’t say she did anything horribly wrong.
By the way, MADD is totally out of control, and it’s high time people stopped taking them seriously.
Jack The Dripper Out
I’ve always believed that if a person wants to off themselves, that’s their right as a free individual. It’s one reason using gun control to prevent suicide is particularly unpersuasive to me even if it actually worked.
But Jack Kevorkian has always given me the creeps, and now he’s out of prison. If someone out there is in pain and wants to off themselves, be a man (or woman) and do it yourself. Please, for the rest of us, keep this goof out of the media.
Shooting in Moscow, Idaho
Joe Huffman would appear to be the man to watch in regards to news about the Moscow shooting, since he lives there.
UPDATE: He now has some pictures.
New Jersey Fires Under Control
Apparently the fires, which were caused by a military jet dropping a flare, are now under control. This blaze apparently caused my grandparents former trailer park in the Pine Barrens to be evacuated.
As much as I support military strikes against New Jersey, FormerSpook reports that many residents are none too happy.
“I don’t think they should be doing it,†said Brenda Schoeneberg, 46, on Tuesday evening as she prepared to evacuate her sprawling neo-Colonial home in Warren Grove, N.J., where a stand of pine trees was silhouetted against the blaze 200 yards away.
The Times dutifully reports that this is the fourth time in eight years that Guard jets at Warren Grove have started fires or caused other damage in the local area, leaving “residents feeling as if they live in a war zone.” In 2004, the pilot of another F-16 fired an inadvertent burst from his 20 mm cannon that struck a school about three miles from the range. The incident occurred at night (when the school was empty), and damage was minimal. Two years earlier, practice bombs at Warren Grove touched off another fire that burned 11,000 acres, and a smaller fire in 1999 scorched 1,600 acres of area woodlands.
He later points out:
Warren Grove is located in the Pine Barrens, a rural portion of New Jersey that the Times describes as the largest piece of open space between Boston and Richmond. The remote location is one reason the range was established in that area almost 50 years ago. It’s also convenient for ANG F-16s based in Atlantic City, and Pennsylvania Guard A-10s from the Philadelphia area. Without the Warren Grove range, New Jersey and Pennsylvania guard pilots would have to fly farther south–perhaps to the Dare County Range in North Carolina–to accomplish their training, at a considerably higher cost in flight time, maintenance and jet fuel.
The military says it has no plans to close the range–nor should it. While occasional accidents will happen, they are an unfortunate–though thankfully rare–by-product keeping combat pilots prepared for their mission. The Defense Department will compensate property owners who suffered losses from the fire, just as it did after previous incidents. It’s a small price to pay for training that may save the life of an F-16 or A-10 pilot in combat, or improve their ability to kill terrorists on the ground.
I agree completely. Â Read the whole thing.
Fort Dix Six Trained in Poconos
Looks like the Fort Dix Six trained at a Pennsylvania Game Commission range in Gouldsboro, PA, the PGC Shooting Range at State Game Lands 127. See this article in the Pocono Record, with map locations of where they lived. Also see this article, where a local shooter describes them as lousy shots, who were breaking range rules and never bothered to clean up their mess.
From one of the suspected terrorists:
“You are in the mountains in the Poconos … In Pennsylvania. It is about two hours away from here. We went there for a week walking in the mountains and shooting in the open shooting range.â€
The video showed 10 young men in their early 20s “shooting assault weapons at a firing range … while calling for jihad and shouting in Arabic ’Allah Akbar’ (God is great),†the complaint said. The 10 included six of those arrested, authorities said.
Scary stuff. I repeat the call for shooters in Pennsylvania to be vigilant, on the look out for people that look out of place, and are breaking the range rules. Report suspicious activity1. Carry at all times, if you have a license to do so.
Pennsylvania Game Wardens have just been put on the front lines of War on Terror. Hopefully they will step up patrols of public shooting ranges. Welcome to asymmetric warfare in the 21st century.
Hat tip to Nathaniel for the links
1Use your judgement here. I think everyone would agree that someone on the range taking video of themselves shouting “Allah Akbar!” would fall into the realm of suspicious activity. Anyone flagrantly breaking range rules, or being unsafe would fall under this as well. We must take care not to be unfriendly to new shooters.
Fort Dix Six Were to Train in Pennsylvania
Check out page 9 and 10 on the affidavit:
DUKA told CW-2 that the DUKAs go target shooting with firearms, but cannot go to regular gun ranges becausenone of them are legal residents of the United States. DRITAN DUKA showed CW-2 a video on DRITAN DUKA’s cell phone which depicted individuals shooting firearms. DRITAN DUKA stated that this activity took place in Pennsylvania.
I’m wondering where? We certainly have enough private land in the state that people could use to shoot. There are also PGC public ranges, which are quite often, especially in rural parts of the state, unused for the better part of a day. This would seem risky though, as they are regularly patrolled by game wardens, and I can promise you, anybody shouting “Allah Akbar!” at any PA gun range in earshot of another shooter is going to get the police called on them.
SHNEWER specifically named the United State Army base at Fort Fix, New Jersey and a nearby United States Navy base. SHNEWER explained that they could utilize siz or seven juhadists to attack and kill at least one hundred soliders by using rocket-propelled grenades (“RPGs”) or other weapons. SHNEWER further explained that they could train for the attack in Pennsylvania.
Shnewer was quoted as saying, “There is a nice area where we can train … in Pennsylvania … It is two hours away from here.” Shooters in Pennsylvania need to be vigilant about this stuff. Use your local public ranges. Watch for suspicious activity. I think these guys probably would have set off alarm bells to anyone who came across them “training”. If you’re unsure about someone on the range, call a Game Warden. Also we must monitor the media response. Once the anti-gun crowd learns of this, they are going to be quick to blame Pennsylvania’s “weak” gun laws.
Hat tip to Clayton Cramer
Fort Dix Plot
This is big in the news here, since Fort Dix is close by. It sounds like these guys had a plan, but I wouldn’t say they had a good one. It seems to me that assaulting a large military base with conventional small arms would mean a very quick beginning and end to one’s terrorist career, with not much to show for it.
UPDATE: Formerspook has a different take. He’s 100x more of an expert on than I can even pretend to be:
Finally, the aborted plot seems aimed at one of the key security “weaknesses” found on many military installations. While bases are often depicted as armed camps in books or on TV, in reality, many installations maintain only “routine” arrangements inside the perimeter, with most security assets concentrated around “high value” assets, such as the flight line at an Air Force base. The conspirators at Fort Dix apparently planned to blow through the main gate at Fort Dix (against outgunned MPs and civilian security guards), then concentrate their attacks in lightly-defended areas where soldiers gather (dormitories, BX, bowling alley, base club, etc). It’s a simple plan, but the terrorists could have inflicted significant damage before security teams responded. The obvious solution is more security, closer to potential entry points and “soft” targets.
So it would seem commenter GeorgeH brings up a good topic. Why are the military afraid to allow soldiers to be armed on base? We’re not thinking enough about how to fight assymetric wars, where everyone could have to become a soldier and fight, with little regard to areas that are supposedly “safe”. It would seem to me that allowing soldiers to carry weapons on base would be a no brainer.
KC Shooter Was a Prohibited Person
Turns out the Kansas City Mall shooter was another prohibited person. This guy actually was committed involuntarily to a mental institution. For a whole six hours. As best I can find from news source he was armed with a .22LR pistol, and what is described as a .30 caliber carbine rifle, with a 20 round magazine. I’m guessing an M1 Carbine, World War II era rifle. So much for the AK-47 originally reported by Fox.
We have to be ready for a fight over mental health issues in firearms ownership. I think it’s acceptable for people who’ve been found, after due process, to be mentally incompetent, from possessing arms. But the other side will want to push this as far as they can. We have to be ready to stop them. Otherwise that therapist who prescribed you some Prozac to get over a bout of depression in your 20s is going to be enough to get you on the list of prohibited persons.