FORT MYERS, Fla. – A 16-year-old Cypress Lake High School student, who wrestled a loaded revolver away from a teen threatening to shoot, is being punished.
The student grappled the gun away from the 15-year-old suspect on the bus ride home Tuesday after witnesses say he aimed the weapon point blank at another student and threatened to shoot him.
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The teen we spoke to and authorities both confirm the Revolver was loaded. According to the arrest report the suspect, who Fox 4 is not naming because he is a minor, was “pointing the gun directly” at another student and “threatening to shoot him.”
That’s when the student we spoke with says he and others tackled the teen and wrestled away the gun. The next day the school slapped him with a three day suspension.
“It’s dumb,” he said. “How they going to suspend me for doing the right thing?”
According to the referral, he was suspended for being part of an “incident” where a weapon was present and given an “emergency suspension.”
I’m not sure if this is the result of another idiotic zero tolerance policy or if the school faculty are trying to discourage students from coming to the aid of their fellow students. Either way this reaction on behalf of the school seems incredibly idiotic unless there is a great deal more to the story than is being reported.
Defense Distributed just released a video demonstrating their 3D printed AR-15 lower surviving 600 founds:
In my opinion this video demonstrates two important things: the utility of 3D prints and the fact that gun control is dead. When I said gun control is dead I don’t mean the state is going to stop passing laws, I mean that gun control laws are no longer relevant. Technology that allows an individual to easily construct a firearm in their home is now growing out of its infancy.Once a technology evolves beyond its infancy it cannot be stopped from continuing to grow. It is only a matter of time before all parts of a firearm can be produced on a 3D printer. In all likelihood it will only be a few years until affordable 3D printers capable of working with metal hit the market and enable the construction of parts such as bolts, barrels, and gas tubes.
While it may be easy to paint Wilson [the developer of the lower] as a 2nd Amendment-touting conservative, the 25-year-old second-year law student at the Univeristy of Texas, Austin told Ars on Thursday that he’s actually a “crypto-anarchist.”
I say it’s ironic because crypto-anarchism has been pooh-poohed by statists and many anarchists alike. Criticisms against crypto-anarchism revolved around the claim that it only dealt with cyberspace and was unable to affect the real world. What its critics failed to predict was the fall of the barriers separating cyberspace from the real world. 3D printers, in my opinion, were the tool that destroyed the last major barrier. With the invention of 3D printing it became possible to create real world objects based on designs created and distributed online. Suddenly the fabrication of goods is no longer relegated to a handful of individuals. Anybody with a 3D printer, material to feed the printer, a computer, and an Internet connection can download and fabricate a mind boggling number of goods. As the technology matures it will likely become common for basic goods to be replicated in homes instead of factories.
Social anarchists believed one day a worker revolution would occur. In their imagination they believed workers around the world, who finally became sick and tired of capitalist conditions, would rise up, seize the means of production, and usher in a world free of oppression. Things haven’t worked out that way and, if current technology trends are any indicator, things will not work out that way. The revolution won’t be violent, it won’t involve fighting in the streets, it won’t involved people rising up and overthrowing the governments of the world. What the revolution will involve is the continuous decentralization of power. Technology will continue to evolve in a manner that empowers individuals to separate themselves from their rulers. Powerful corporations who have enjoyed protection from competition through the state’s decrees will lose their power as an ever growing number of people are able to replicate their goods from the safety of their own homes. Enforcing patents and regulations will become impossible. As people begin to fabricate needed goods themselves the large corporations and the state will bring in less wealth. People will no longer be forced to buy goods from politically connected corporations or pay sales tax to the state.
The world is changing in a way that power is becoming more decentralized. Eventually, if technological trends continue, the concept of centralized power will be all but extinct.
Michael Paymar, one of Minnesota’s most zealous gun control advocates, has unveiled his gun control plan now that the numerous hearing have concluded. Not surprisingly he said an “assault weapon” and standard capacity magazine ban will not be pursued at this time, instead his band of merry men will be looking at universal registration (to make a later implemented “assault weapon” ban easier):
After hours-long hearings on gun violence in both chambers this month, Rep. Michael Paymar has released a package of policy changes that focuses on expanding background checks and stepped up penalties for gun crimes, but tosses out proposed bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazine clips.
The St. Paul Democrat and chair of the House Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee rolled out his “Gun Violence Prevention Act” at a press conference on Thursday. It includes his proposal to expand background checks and closes the so-called gun show loophole. The bill would also increase penalties for gun crimes and illegally selling firearms.
I’m not surprised to see the “assault weapon” and standard capacity magazine bans being tabled. As I mentioned in my post about the proposed increase of taxes on alcohol, the bans were likely a “worse option” presented primarily to make the serfs more accepting of a “better option.” Now that Paymar and his goons have been so magnanimous by removing the bans from the table they expect Minnesota gun owners to comply with stricter background checks out of gratitude. Beating people into submission with fear is probably the most common tool in the statist toolbox.
Pursuing stronger background checks and prohibiting private sales is a smart move on Paymar’s behalf. It’s easy to spin those bills in a positive light and gun rights advocates have practically handed them the ability to enact stronger background checks by focusing on mental health. Because the gun rights movement has spent so much time blaming mental illness the gun control advocates can propose strong background checks, under the auspices of preventing the mentally ill from possessing firearms, and claim it’s something both sides can agree on. Instead of proposing databases and more restrictions on those who have suffered from mental illness, the National Rifle Association (NRA), and other gun rights organizations, should have been explaining how the stigma of mental illness in this country encourages people to not seek treatment and proposed working on overcoming that stigma. Now the gun control advocates have ammunition to use against us, much of which we supplied them.
On the upside any law that makes it hard to legally acquire a firearm will encourage more individuals to illegally acquire firearms. The more commerce that happens on the “black” market the less tax dollars the state can collect and the sooner it will collapse.
We are proud to announce that within a matter of days we will be going live with a new program. Due to a bill currently moving through the Colorado legislature, there is the possibility that Colorado residents’ ability to purchase standard capacity magazines will soon be infringed. Before that happens, and Magpul is forced to leave the state in order to keep to our principles, we will be doing our best to get standard capacity PMAGs into the hands of any Colorado resident that wants them.
Verified Colorado residents will be able to purchase up to ten (10) standard capacity AR/M4 magazines directly from Magpul, and will be given immediate flat-rate $5 shipping, bypassing our current order queue.
Our customers outside of Colorado, please know that our PMAG production will continue at an ever-increasing rate until we do relocate, shipments to our distributors in other states will continue, and that we do not expect relocation to significantly impact PMAG production. We are also aware that Colorado is not the only state with existing or pending magazine capacity restrictions; we are working on programs for other affected states as well.
Full details and instructions will be announced when we are able to go live; please watch here for the coming announcement.
While I understand this program may delay the availability of PMAGs for those of us living outside of Colorado I’m more than happy to deal with that inconvenience. Magpul is fighting Colorado’s gun control bills the right way by planning to leave the state if the laws pass and ensuring as many standard capacity magazines are in the Colorado market as possible. Even if the prohibition against standard capacity magazines can’t be stopped from passing it can be ensured that the market is flooded with standard capacity magazines, making the ban mostly irrelevant.
A life has been saved by a gun-free zone! Prohibiting the legal possession of firearms in certain zones worked! It’s a miracle:
Amanda Collins is a young rape survivor. While in college in 2007, she was raped 50 feet away from the campus police department office at the University of Nevada-Reno and was lucky to get out alive. Her attacker was James Biela, a serial rapist who raped two other women and murdered another. He attacked her at gun point in a gun free zone. At the time of the attack, Collins was in possession of a concealed weapons permit but was not in possession of her firearm due to university policies prohibiting carrying concealed weapons on campus. She was also a second degree blackbelt at the time and walked to the parking garage with a large group of people. Today, Collins did an interview with NRA News host Cam Edwards to tell her horrific story.
Had Amanda Collins been in possession of a gun that night her rapist may have been shot!
For your personal enjoyment I leave you with pictures of weapons jury rigged by Syrian rebels. If the Syrian rebels can fabricate mortars and urban assault vehicles it shouldn’t be too hard to Americans to fabricate parts for verboten firearms.
During the last election the Republican Party had an apparent monopoly on members saying stupid things regarding women and rape. Earlier this week the Republican Party lost its monopoly when a Colorado Democrat declared that women shouldn’t have firearms because they may shoot somebody because they wrongly feared that the person was going to rape them:
“It’s why we have call boxes; it’s why we have safe zones; it’s why we have the whistles — because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop a round at somebody,” Salazar said.
In the opinion of Salazar women shouldn’t have a firearm because they were mere slaves to their emotions. What makes Salazar’s statement even dumber is the fact he believes call boxes, safe zones, and rape whistles are effective defenses against rape. A call box does you no good if you can’t reach it, safe zones exist in name only, and rape whistles do nothing to actively deter a rapist. Of course Salazar’s sentiment isn’t unusual for a statist. Statists generally believe that the average person is too irrational or stupid to make their own decisions and must have their decisions made by the state. In fact Salazar’s apology does nothing to indicate he believes otherwise:
“I’m sorry if I offended anyone,” Salazar said in the statement. ”That was absolutely not my intention. We were having a public policy debate on whether or not guns makes people safer on campus. I don’t believe they do. That was the point I was trying to make. If anyone thinks I’m not sensitive to the dangers women face, they’re wrong. I am a husband and father of two beautiful girls, and I’ve spent the last decade defending women’s rights as a civil rights attorney. Again, I’m deeply sorry if I offended anyone with my comments.”
Note that he wasn’t sorry for implying women are too irrational to possess a firearm, he was merely sorry that he said something that was found offensive by some people. These are the types of people who are referred to as leaders by so many. We’re told that these people know what’s best for us and that if they make a mistake we’re supposed to beg them to reconsider. When you listen to the people who comprise the state and look at the decisions they make it’s almost impossible to justify statism.
On a Sunday talk show, as reported by the Illinois State Rifle Association, police Superintendent Garry F. McCarthy said that firearm owners who lobby their representatives, or who donate money to political campaigns, for pro-Second Amendment issues are guilty of corruption and of endangering public safety.
This is only one step away from labeling gun rights advocates of terrorists, which McCarthy will likely do sometime in the near future. Regardless of labels it’s hard to take McCarthy seriously on public safety. He heads the police department of a city where homicide rates are increasing in spite of the general decline experienced nationwide, officers won’t respond to 911 calls unless they decided an immediate threat to life exists, and reports homicides that occur indoors and outdoors separately in order to make the numbers look better. If McCarthy had any valid incite regarding public safety you would think the homicide rate in Chicago would be decreasing, police officers would respond to 911 calls, and homicides would be uniformly reported. It’s also hard to take McCarthy’s accusation of corruption seriously when he advocates for the disarmament of the general populace but fails to provide them protection. Demanding that the general populace be at the mercy of Chicago’s criminal element creates a valid reason to accuse him of being on the mob’s take.
The Minnesota Senate will not act to ban assault weapons or high-capacity ammunition clips this year, a DFL leader said Monday.
Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, who is chairing the Senate’s gun hearings this week, said he will focus on closing the loopholes in background checks and leave the issue of banning weapons or ammunition to Congress.
“The assault weapons ban and high-capacity magazine ban proposals are highly divisive,” said Latz, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Legions of concerned gun owners turned out for three days of hearings on gun issues last week, and Latz said such bans also do not have strong support from law enforcement.
On the other hand, he said, the idea of filling loopholes in background checks has strong public and police support, and he believes it can pass this year.
“Law enforcement does have broad consensus in favor of universal background checks, closing loopholes in existing statutes,” he said. “I want to focus on what has broad public support.”
In all likelihood the politicians weren’t intending to pursuer the “assault weapon” and standard capacity magazine bans in a serious manner. Those bills were probably the bait whereas the prohibition against private sales is the switch. The state has a history of presenting very bad legislation, getting the serfs to beg them for leniency, and then presenting legislation that appears to be less egregious. It’s an effective strategy because it allows the state to grab more power will making the serfs breathe a sigh of relief because things didn’t turn out as bad as they could have.
With that said, the “assault weapon” and standard capacity magazine bans may be pursued during a lame duck session or as an amendment to a “must pass” bill at a later date. One thing is certain, the state isn’t going to allow the serfs to remain armed permanently. Armed serfs are harder to expropriate from and the state exists to expropriate.
Limits on the size of ammunition magazines and universal background checks passed the Colorado House on Monday, during a second day of emotional debates that has drawn attention from the White House as lawmakers try to address recent mass shootings.
The bills were among four that the Democratic-controlled House passed amid strong resistance from Republicans, who were joined by a few Democrats to make some of the votes close.
I’m not going to advocate that gun owners in Colorado start betting state Senators to vote against the bills, obviously that tactic hasn’t delivered any goods so far. Instead I’m going to urge gun owners in Colorado to make it known that they will not comply with any new gun control laws. Few things stand to embarrass a politician more than blatant disobedience by the general populace. Such blatant disobedience helps to tear down the illusion that the state enjoys the support of the people and the state needs to keep that illusion alive. Because of this need the state is less likely to pass legislation that it knows will be openly ignored by the general populace. I believe it would be more productive to inform Senators in Colorado that they can pass gun control laws but those laws will be openly disobeyed.