I’ve warned about the dangers of due process-free “Extreme Risk Protection Orders. The lack of said due process, the way pretty much anyone can get one, the way the target isn’t allowed to know until it’s too late, the potential for abuse.
Let’s look at one of those points again: he way pretty much anyone can get one. It varies by state, but generally anyone who sort of knows the target can get one. Truly sucks if the requestor was simply trying to get his target disarmed, the better to kill or injure him with impunity.
Anyone who sort of knows the target…
Like Facebook.
Facebook rolls out AI to detect suicidal posts before they’re reported
“This is about shaving off minutes at every single step of the process, especially in Facebook Live,” says VP of product management Guy Rosen. Over the past month of testing, Facebook has initiated more than 100 “wellness checks” with first-responders visiting affected users. “There have been cases where the first-responder has arrived and the person is still broadcasting.”(emphasis added-cb)
[…]
Facebook’s tools then bring up local language resources from its partners, including telephone hotlines for suicide prevention and nearby authorities. The moderator can then contact the responders and try to send them to the at-risk user’s location, surface the mental health resources to the at-risk user themselves or send them to friends who can talk to the user.
Gee, I can’t see any possible way that could go wrong. Except when it does. A lot.
But assuming you survive the wellness/welfare check, what’s next? We have Facebook notifying the authorities that a person is suicidal; is that going to trigger an ERPO?
Perhaps not under most current laws just now — though several have been written to allow police to file for an order when they become aware of a situation — but given the fad for minority reportspredictive policing, and for mental health tests for gun ownership, I figure it’s merely a matter of time before the Pelosis of the statist world take note of Facebook’s snooping and require a FB report to trigger an ERPO. Just to be sure.
Unfortunately, after TechCrunch asked if there was a way for users to opt out, of having their posts a Facebook spokesperson responded that users cannot opt out. They noted that the feature is designed to enhance user safety, and that support resources offered by Facebook can be quickly dismissed if a user doesn’t want to see them.
Quickly dismissing the “first-responders” kicking in your door may be a little more difficult. Dismissing a gun-siezure ERPO is effectively impossible.
But the spokesman is wrong. There is an opt-out: drop Facebook for your own protection. True, FB permanently archives your account contents in case you ever want to come back, but at least you can avoid the near real-time telescreen psych monitoring.
Once again, I indulged in my hobby of confronting less than accurate media reports. This one turned out considerably better than some, and Ed Palm deserves some kudos. I think I taught him something, but he set me straight on something, too.
The ingratitude of the NRA
Along the same lines, I’m sure it’s fun to play with a “bump stock” — a device I hadn’t even heard of before Stephen Paddock used a few of them to kill 58 people and wound 546 more in Las Vegas on October 1. Soon after that senseless slaughter, we all learned that a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock can simulate fully automatic fire.
[…]
Such was my experience in 1967, when I was in Vietnam. The Marine Corps had just transitioned from the semiautomatic M14 to the new M16. Unlike the M14, all M16s featured a selector switch, allowing for semi- or fully automatic fire.
Regarding the first bump-fire point, I noted that: “Nope. A bump-fire stock is training wheels for people who have trouble pulling the trigger quickly. It’s inaccurate, and bump-fired rifles are prone to malfunctions. There’s a reason that police and military don’t use them, despite being far cheaper than automatic weapons. (And since LE sources reported the Mandalay Bay shooter had at least one rifle converted to full auto as well as bump-fire stocked rifles, and the sheriff claims the asshole fired over 1100 round s in 9 minutes — more than two rounds per second, even with weapon and magazine swaps — I wonder how many of the rounds came from bump-fired rifles.)”
Major Palm still had doubts:
“My understanding is that a bump stock will enable an AR15 to cycle more rapidly than by just pulling the trigger.”
To which I replied: “No. A bump-fire stock is a purely passive device in which the receiver slides freely, back and forth. It in no way changes the action of the rifle. For a somewhat more detailed description, written for someone who admitted knowing nothing about firearm so excuse the simplistic language, see “Training Wheels,” at the The Zelman Partisans (a Jewish pro-RKBA group).
“In fact, some rifles are less reliable when bump-fired, because the weapon is not properly supported; rather like limp-wristing a 1911. Add in the loss of accuracy, and I think they’re silly.”
He thanked me for the information. Score one for me, I hope. It may not change his mind, but he strikes me as honest enough to consider the point, unlike most to whom I’ve reached out.
Where I blew it was on the M14: “Since the M14 is actually a selective-fire rifle like the M-16, I find myself a bit dubious regarding your firearms knowledge. And military experience. It seems unlikely that your Vietnam combat unit had all been issued the M14M “developed for use in civilian rifle marksmanship activities such as the Civilian Marksmanship Program.” Or the M14 SMUD, unless yours was an EOD unit.”
And there I made my mistake. While I knew there were (and still are) semiauto variants, I didn’t think they were all that commonly issued in Vietnam. Obviously I’m a little too young to have been sent there to fight, so my impression was anecdotal, based on conversations with VN vets who had carried M14s. For whatever reason, each one I spoke to described a select-fire weapon (one with an amusing tale of alost front sight).
(And yes, I was unnecessarily rude. I apologize for that, too.)
Major Palm set me straight:
“I take it that you have limited knowledge of the deployment of the M14 in the Marine Corps. The M14 selector-switch is a modification that the great majority of Marine Corps M14s didn’t have. When I was stateside, and when I was in the rear with the gear in Vietnam, my M14 didn’t have a selector switch. Before the M16, the Table of organization called for one man out of each four-man fire team to have a selector switch and to be able to fire fully automatic. Whether that was really the case in infantry units, I don’t know.”
In fact, he checked with some other vets and found that one select-fire in twelve was more common than the TO 1:4
Major Palm is the first person I spoke to who admitted to having a semi M14 in Vietnam. Whether by chance I had previously happened on the one-in-four (or twelve), or they had original issue rifles before the need for the semiauto modification became clear, I don’t know. Maybe some of them were even blowing smoke up my… where ever.
Point is, I took tales for fact, and hadn’t checked it for myself. So I was wrong.
And this is one reason I continue contacting folks write on gun control. Sometimes it’s possible to get correct information across. And sometimes they can teach me something.
Thank you, Major Palm.
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Frum’s little parable, meant to represent the problem of “gun violence,” purports a town which has stupidly built itself in a locale guaranteed to suffer repeated natural disasters. The sensible folk of the town think everything should be raised up on stilts to avoid flooding, while the pro-gun reactionary do-nothings object to preparation because it won’t stop floods.
The reality of the “gun violence” problem is that 1) it’s man-made by a relatively few bad guys, and 2) the pro-gun folks don’t object to taking measures to protect themselves. In Frum’s water-logged village, we’d be the folks putting up our own houses on stilts, pilings, and mounds, while the anti-flood violence idiots like From pass laws designating the town a flood-free zone.
Frum’s “rules” illustrate the usual problems of irrationality on the part of victims disarmers.
Frum’s Rule 1.“The measures to be debated must bear some relationship to the massacre that triggered the debate. If the killer acquired his weapons illegally, it’s out of bounds to point out how lethally easy it is to buy weapons legally. If the killer lacked a criminal record, it’s out of bounds to talk about the inadequacy of federal background checks. The topic for debate is not, iWhy do so many Americans die from gunfire?’ but ‘What one legal change would have prevented this most recent atrocity?'”
My Rule 1a. If you are proposing a solution to a specific incident, the proposal should address characteristics of that incident.
My Rule 1b. General discussion of the many sordid causes of “gun violence” is a separate conversation.
Frum’s Rule 2.“The debate must focus on unusual weapons and accessories: bump stocks, for example, the villain of the moment. Even the NRA has proclaimed itself open to some regulation of these devices. After the 2012 mass shooting in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater, attention turned to large capacity magazines. What is out of bounds is discussion of weapons as in themselves a danger to human life and public safety.”
My Rule 2a. See My Rule 1a.
My Rule 2b. Any proposed solution must included a cost:benefit analysis, and not be based on the unicorn wishes of just one party.
My Rule 2c. Firearms are not a natural disaster; they are man-made tools, which must be manipulated by an external force — like a person — to do anything, good or bad.
Frum’s Rule 3.“The debate must always honor the “responsible gun owners” who buy weapons for reasonable self-defense. Under Rule 1, these responsible persons are presumed to constitute the great majority of gun owners. It’s out of bounds to ask for some proof of this claimed responsibility, some form of training for example. It’s far out of bounds to propose measures that might impinge on owners: the alcohol or drug tests for example that are so often recommended for food stamp recipients or teen drivers.”
My Rule 3. Since there are 55-120+ million gun owners, and the human race has not been rendered extinct in the US, one should start with the assumption that most gun owners are not murderous lunatics bound and determined to kill everything; if we were, you’d know… not know it because everyone would already be dead.
Frum’s Rule 4.“Gun ownership is always to be discussed as a rational choice motivated by reasonable concerns for personal safety. No matter how blatantly gun advocates appeal to fears and fantasies—Sean Hannity musing aloud on national TV about how he with a gun in his hands could have saved the day in Las Vegas if only he had been there—nobody other than a lefty blogger may notice that this debate is about race and sex, not personal security. It’s out of bounds to observe that ‘Chicago’ is shorthand for ‘we only have gun crime because of black people’ or how often ‘I want to protect my family” is code for ‘I need to prove to my girlfriend who’s really boss.'”
My Rule 4. Assume parties in the discussion mean what they say unless you have evidence to the contrary. An automatic assumption that ‘Chicago’ must be a racist codeword — in face of demographics of Chicago criminals — or that the only possible reason to have a defensive weapon is to abuse women says much more about the person who believes only that than it says about most lawful gun owners.
From there, Frum devolves into “discussion.”
“A requirement that gun owners carry insurance would not only protect potential accident victims—including gun owners, since many gun accidents are self-inflicted—against economic loss.”
As for preemptively-prove-your-innocence (“background”) checks: If they work, then lawful gun owners have already proved themselves “responsible gun owners” (FR3). If they don’t, then stop demanding something that doesn’t work and come up with something that would.
My Rule 5. There is no “gun violence” problem. There is a violence problem, most prevalent in certain economic/geographic demographics.
If a doctor conducted a study to determine if a chemical caused a certain cancer, and found that cancer in just 0.00124% of regular users of that chemical, he’d discard that hypothesis and go looking for another cause.
0.00124% happens to be the estimated number of lawful gun owners who are murderers in any given year.
Clearly, while guns are used, they aren’t the cause. People kill with guns, knives, clubs, cars, fists, feet… If guns are removed, the cause will remain until addressed and fixed; murderers will simply use one of the myriad other methods available, as they have through history.
My Rule 6. If you ignore the underlying cause and only treat symptoms, you will never cure the disease.
* Note the original URL.
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I heard on the news today there had recently been a shooting attack at a big box store called Costco. I have it on good authority that this is not possible!! Costco is a gun free zone! Admittedly they only came clean in 2014 that they were gun free. Before that they didn’t want to tick off gun owners by being proudly gun free.
But despite this gold standard of safety it seems an as yet unnamed man entered Costco today yelling and brandishing a gun. No word yet on what type of gun went crazy today and grabbed a nearby human and forced him to transport him to the gun free Costco. Even though the gun knew it was not welcome there, it forced the human to provide transportation. As the apparently distraught human entered Costco it was yelling. The employees tried to lower the security gates but were unable to lower it in time.
People fled for the exits as they realized what was happening and one little 82 year old lady struggled to keep up with the crowd as they stampeded towards safety.
But earthly angels need to shop too. And apparently one was shopping in the store when the out of control gun and the hapless shouting human made their entry. An off duty police officer. As panicked shoppers and employees fled out the store the officer pulled his gun and his badge and held them up so people could see. And as the defenseless fled towards safety a good guy with a gun went to confront evil. And he killed it. There were no other casualties. None. Apparently the good guy gun was better than the bad guy gun. Because after all, it’s all about an inanimate piece of metal right?
But I have lingering questions. Will the good guy with a gun be prosecuted by Costco? I mean, after all, he wasn’t on duty. And he obviously was carrying a gun in a “gun free zone”! Did the off-duty police officer check to see how many blacks vs how many whites were in the store? Aren’t they all suppose to be racist according to BLM? Are there any other types of Costco members that they have no concern for besides the 82 year old woman that struggled to keep up and escape? Perhaps they also have no regard for young children. They can’t run very fast either. Mothers carrying infants? They are sure to be slower. Questions for Costco to ponder, what is their “target” demographic? Either way, if shopping in a store that has made it clear that you must be defenseless and vulnerable to be welcome is your thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if Costco doesn’t have a sale on memberships err long.
I was told by someone I respect enormously I should be able to kill someone with a can of peas, should the occasion call for it, or the need arise. But do battle with a can of peas (not that I’m not willing, should the occasion call for it) instead of a gun? Inconceivable
Last Shabbat was Parsha Toldot. Genesis 25:19- 28:9. It talks about Yakov and Esav, when they were in the womb, born, the birth order (Esav first) and then the kind of men they each became. Esav, a skillful hunter and man of nature was favored by his father, Yitzchak. Rivka favored Yakov, who studied and basically stayed in the tents. Their desires were was different as the areas and activities they chose to pursue. .
28And Isaac loved Esau because [his] game was in his mouth, but Rebecca loved Jacob.
29Now Jacob cooked a pottage, and Esau came from the field, and he was faint.
30And Esau said to Jacob, “Pour into [me] some of this red, red [pottage], for I am faint”; he was therefore named Edom.
31And Jacob said, “Sell me as of this day your birthright.”
32Esau replied, “Behold, I am going to die; so why do I need this birthright?”
33And Jacob said, “Swear to me as of this day”; so he swore to him, and he sold his birthright to Jacob.
34And Jacob gave Esau bread and a pottage of lentils, and he ate and drank and arose and left, and Esau despised the birthright
His game was in his mouth, according to Rabbi Chaim, Esav talked a good game, a real good game. He pretended to be a serious Torah scholar to his father, but he was far from it. You think Esav was worn out from working in the fields all day? Um, probably not. He raped, murdered, and he married pagan women who sacrificed to idols in the camp. Esav didn’t love G-d, he wanted to destroy G-d’s presence in this world. Rivka had grown up in that environment, her father and her brother Levan, were both devious and deceitful. You find out just how much so when Yakov goes to Levan to meet a bride. Rivka knew BS when she heard it, she’d been there and done that. Yitzchak grew up with the faithful and hospitable Avraham and Sarah, he had much better role models, but was more innocent. When Yitzchak’s life was growing short, he called his first born son Esav to him, and asked him to go get him some game and fix it the way he liked it. I’m guessing sautéed with onions, mushrooms and Tabasco sauce? But Rivka came up with a plan to get the blessing for Yakov. One thing I’ve heard is Yitzchak was not fooled at all, but knew that Yakov would be the better character for the responsibility of the birthright. But at any rate, remember Esav had sold his birthright to Yakov for a bowl of soup and some bread. Esav had no love of his birthright, until it was gone. If you’d like to watch a short video on the Torah teaching, one is here.
It wasn’t valued? I guess I might point out to people who think Jews shouldn’t have all of the land that G-d alloted that they might want to remember G-d takes a dim view on those that don’t value their birthright. A way of living that has been good, and has sown benefits and opportunity that some discard as of no value because they don’t see the deep gift it really is. Rivka saw the birthright for the thing of value it really was. Esav wanted to claim the blessings of the birthright, but he wanted none of the responsibility. She understood about deceitful people. She’d seen bad, and wanted no part of it.
Sort of like one of my friends in school, she is from the Ukraine, and another lady I really like that is in a Torah study class I like to attend whenever I can, is from Russia. And they have no problem telling me what it was like. You could not openly worship G-d, or openly be a Jew. When talking about recipes for Matzah, my friend from the Ukraine was telling me how they fixed it. I asked what spices they used? She said “Spices? What spices? It was Russia, we were lucky if we had salt and pepper! I didn’t know what spices were until I left”. I’ve also heard her talk of the “dental care” you get under socialized medicine. But, it’s all equal, everyone is equal, everyone gets equally bad dental care. What little there is available.
“This troubling turn highlights widespread historical illiteracy in American society regarding socialism and the systemic failure of our education system to teach students about the genocide, destruction, and misery caused by communism since the Bolshevik Revolution one hundred years ago,” Mr. Smith said in a statement.
Millennials are more likely to prefer socialism and communism than the rest of the country. Fifty-nine percent of all respondents chose capitalism as their preferred arrangement, compared to 34 percent who said socialism, 4 percent fascism and 3 percent communism.
Some of communism’s luminaries are admired by millennials. Thirty-one percent said they have a favorable view of Che Guevara, 32 percent Karl Marx, 23 percent Vladimir Lenin and 19 percent Mao Zedong. Joseph Stalin is viewed favorably by just 6 percent.
In the poll, only 33 percent of millennials were able to identify the correct definition of socialism. They fared about as well as the rest of the country, which only successfully identified socialism at a 34 percent clip. Gen Z, the generation after millennials, ―was the most informed group, with 43 percent correctly identifying socialism.
Of course, I also think their college professors, especially the “cool” ones and the mainstream media play a big juicy role in this as well.
Thus the popularity of the Socialist/Communist Bernie Sanders. It seems Millinials think there is a “kinder gentler” form of socialism available. Like maybe small c? I seem to recall barry sotero, or BS for short, thinking Hugo Chavez was just dandy.
The government’s desire to control and monitor all economic activity led to the approval of a mass of inconvenient laws, which became enemies of investment, production, and innovation. The Ley Orgánica del Trabajo is just one example, which banned outsourcing, mandated 90 percent of a company’s employees be citizens, and impeded one’s capacity to remove unproductive individuals; it harms the national economy as well as the working classes. Since that legal instrument came into force last May, it has become increasingly difficult to create a job in the formal sector of the economy, while at the same time the productivity of workers has decreased at an alarming rate.
The price controls (or price-freezing process) and the fixed exchange rate (established in February, 2003) remain as a policy, regardless of the fact that they completely distort our country’s economy and against all evidence of their ineffectiveness and inconvenience.
And the Millennials and Snowflakes said to the Capitalists, “Pour into me some of that kitty stew for I’m famished and let me go eat it in my safe space so that no one might say any names or things that I don’t want to hear. I don’t want to hear about G-d and his tyrannical demands. I want the freedom of socialism where Uncle Bernie and Aunt Hillary say we get college and health care for free. I want business to pay their fair share of 99%, because I need things I can’t find a job anywhere. No company has over 3 employees these days! This Capitalism is so evil! I just hate it. I don’t want to have to do all the things that bosses want to make me do. I want to find myself. But until I do, give me some pigeon as well. Birthright? Freedom? Liberty? Of what use is that to me. Behold I’m going to die.”
Yes, yes indeed. The spirit of Esav is alive and well.
Anti-gun types are all upset now that they noticed the FBI was eliminating some folks with active warrants from the NICS database, making them eligible to purchase firearms.
The names were taken out after the FBI in February changed its legal interpretation of “fugitive from justice” to say it pertains only to wanted people who have crossed state lines.
Well… No. It isn’t so much as they changed the interpretation as that they noticed they weren’t in compliance with federal law. Again. (Kind of the inverse of the military not bothering to report felons.)
Allow me to explain, setting aside for the moment the unconstitutional prior restrain of preemptively-prove-your-innocence checks.
I find it interesting, but not surprising, that gun controllers think people should be denied rights based on a mere warrant… when it’s Second Amendment rights. But not so much when it comes to other rights.
Jews learned several harsh lessons in the Holocaust. One of them was to beware of snitches. The problem has not gone away.
Pennsylvania: Couple Sues Over Police “Drug” Raid That Mistook Hibiscus for Marijuana
Last November, a Pennsylvania couple’s home was raided by police who mistakenly believed the couple’s hibiscus plants to be marijuana. The couple is now reportedly suing Buffalo Township and Nationwide Insurance for “excessive force, false arrest, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy in their lawsuit.”
The couple’s ordeal began when Nationwide Insurance sent an agent out to assess a claim; the agent took pictures of the couple’s hibiscus plants and sent them to local police as evidence of the illegal planting and growing of marijuana. Buffalo Township police reacted by raiding the couple’s home and leading a partially-dressed and barefoot Audrey Cramer, 66, out to their patrol car. Her husband Edward Cramer, 69, was met with drawn guns and arrested upon returning home while his wife was still sitting, handcuffed, in the cruiser.
This police state worshipping “good citizen” narced on an elderly couple. An innocent elderly couple. A couple with whom he was in a business relationship to help. Instead, he exercised his ignorance to try to destroy their lives.
Perhaps you happen to believe the “War on Drugs” is a good thing. Maybe you think anyone using marijuana deserves whatever they get. I don’t, on either count.
But that’s beside the point.
What if this nasty little informer spotted a defensive firearm and reported that to police. What if he saw a semiautomatic AR-pattern rifle and decided — probably on the basis of lamestream muddia reporting — that it was an illegal machine gun?
Got grandad’s old deactivated WW1 artillery shell memento? Maybe he’d report an explosives stash.
I’m fairly careful who I let into the house. This is why.
In a bipartisan act of insanity, Senator Cornyn and cronies from both sides of the aisle have come up with a wonderful plan to “Fix NICS.” Basically, it bribes states to report more people.
But there’s a “penalty,” too. Sort of. If an agency fails to report properly the politically appointed agency chief bunghole boffer doesn’t get a bonus (presupposing that bureaucrats should by default get bonuses).
If we must be saddled with a background check system that forces people to preemptively-prove-your-innocence (PPYI), a clear prior restraint, in order to exercise a constitutionally protected right, then let’s fix NICS properly.
Simply not giving a bonus to a political bureaucrat for a failure is not sufficient. Penalties must be imposed at the individual level:
1. Any individual who, through malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance, fails to properly report a prohibited person under 18 U.S. Code § 922 to the NICS databases shall be guilty of a felony; the penalty for which shall be a prison term of no more than five years and a fine of no more than $10,000 for each offense.
a. In addition, if the failure results in a prohibited person obtaining a firearm and using it in a crime, the individual shall be charged and tried as an accessory before the fact in the prohibited person’s crime.
b. Should malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance in supervision at any level be a contributing factor in the failure, all supervisors, up to and including appointed agency heads, shall be guilty of a felony; the penalty for which shall be a prison term of no more than five years and a fine of no more than $10,000 for each offense.
c. “Sovereign immunity” shall not be a defense.
2. And individual who, through malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance, causes a person who is not prohibited under 18 U.S. Code § 922 to be denied or delayed the exercise of a constitutional right shall be charged under 18 U.S. Code § 242 – Deprivation of rights under color of law.
a. In addition, if the denial or delay of the right to a firearm results in injury or death, the individual responsible for the denial or delay shall be guilty of a felony the penalty for which shall be a maximum of life in prison and a fine of up to $1,000,000.
b. Should malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance in supervision at any level be a contributing factor in the failure, all supervisors, up to and including appointed agency heads, shall be guilty of a felony the penalty for which shall be a maximum of life in prison and a fine of up to $1,000,000.
c. “Sovereign immunity” shall not be a defense.
Private citizens — licensed dealers, private sellers, would be buyers — all face criminal penalties for their errors that could allow a prohibited person to obtain and misuse a firearm. It’s time for bureaucrats to join the party.
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I ran across a column a last night about how police can use those commercial DNA company data bases to try to solve crimes. You know, the ones with the cute commercials with the guy who thinks he is of a certain ethnicity and by the end of the commercial he’s wearing lederhosen? Or somebody ends up playing the bagpipes. I love bagpipes, so I don’t mind that, as long as they do it well. So people wanting to connect with their past, send in their DNA, and find out their origins, or some of their origins.
I’ve never sent my DNA into anything. I just sort of thought well, once someone has your DNA, they have your DNA. It’s a bell that can’t be un-rung. But I thought the column interesting, so I posted it to FaceBook. I got some interesting comments. One person pointed out they will delete your profile if you ask. Another pointed out that it’s like NICS deleting the information. I would agree with that assessment, somebody else commented Orwell lives. Indeed. And what could be wrong?
Well, what a co-inky-dink! I happen to watch a TV show tonight, 48 Hours I believe. Guess what it was about! DNA. Well, I must watch this.
The case involves the murder of Angie Raye Dodge. A young, beautiful woman not even yet 20 years old. She had moved out from her Mom’s home and got her very own apartment a few weeks before she was murdered in Idaho Falls on June 13, 1996. She hadn’t shown up for work and one of her friends went to check on her and found the body and called police. Idaho Falls having a small town feel, where neighbors likely know each other was horrified. The pressure was on to catch the killer who stabbed Angie to death and cut her throat. As I recall, the report said there was no sign or forced entry, she was found with her throat cut, partially naked, raped and someone had ejaculated near the body. The sample would be known as a pristine profile, meaning one man, to the exclusion of everyone else on the planet. So what could go wrong?
All the locals were checked, no matches. Her mother Carol, was desperate to find the killer, so in 2014 she called Dr. Greg Hampikian,and said the police can’t find my daughter’s killer. So he got involved. Dr. Hampikian is a DNA expert. The police had DNA, they just didn’t have any local matches, and there were no matches in CODIS, the Combined DNA Indexing System. Carol wanted to use a new DNA technique called Familial DNA matching. Meaning, ok, it’s not you, but maybe someone in your family. In other words, sort of a “close enough for government work” plan. Some states, Maryland and DC have laws against doing familial DNA criminal data base searches. Idaho forbids doing familial DNA searches of it’s criminal data base. So Dr. Hampikian, proposed something, using “public” data base searches. Such as those used by Ancestry and 23andMe to do the familial DNA search. What could go wrong with that?
Dr. Hampikian is probably a brilliant DNA researcher, but I think he’s a tad bit on the drama diva side. So they did their search and got a hit, 34 out of 35 markers. Which sounds like a lot. It was deemed a solid lead. It came back to the family of Michael Usry. Now lets look at how the data base got Michael Usry’s DNA in the first place. He had submitted it as part of a church genealogy project. Voluntarily.
Seemed like it shouldn’t be a big deal, I mean, it’s a church genealogy project, not a poster on the Post Office wall. What could go wrong with that?
The cops chose to use a lab linked to a private collection of genetic genealogical data called the Sorenson Database (now owned by Ancestry.com), which claims it’s “the foremost collection of genetic genealogy data in the world.” The reason the Sorenson Database can make such an audacious claim is because it has obtained its more than 100,000 DNA samples and documented multi-generational family histories from “volunteers in more than 100 countries around the world.” Some of these volunteers were encouraged by the Mormon Church—well-known for its interest in genealogy—to provide their genetic material to the database. Sorenson promised volunteers their genetic data would only be used for “genealogical services, including the determination of family migration patterns and geographic origins” and would not be shared outside Sorenson. Its consent form states:
The only individuals who will have access to the codes and genealogy information will be the principal investigator and the others specifically authorized by the Principal Investigator, including the SMGF research staff.
Despite this promise, Sorenson’s vast collection of data, like data in other public DNA databases, is available online and may be searched by anyone with “DNA results obtained from a commercial lab.” This means, without a warrant or court order, investigators were able to run the crime scene DNA against Sorenson’s private genealogical DNA data.
So how did Chris Tapp become a suspect?? Well, a friend of his Ben Hobbs was arrested in Nevada for raping a woman at gun point. So they looked into Ben’s friends and came up with Chris Tapp. Then we have our second variety of what could go wrong? The first being using familial DNA.
Chris was interrogated something 9 like times in 23 days and underwent 7 polygraphs. His story changed six times. Yeah, I realize people can change their stories, but apparently this was more than that. In some of the video clips it does appear the police are leading him to the answers they want. It went to trial and he was convicted of murder and rape and sentenced to 30 years to life. Remember, this guy had no DNA match at the murder scene or any other physical evidence present.
Michael Usry, 18 years after the murder has two Idaho Falls Detectives and Louisiana State Trooper show up at his house saying they’d like a word. He goes downtown with them, has no clue what this is all about so he’s cooperating a bit blindly not understanding what this is all about. Then in questioning they mention the murder mystery movies he makes, very scary stuff, and by the way, it’s about a murder case in Idaho Falls, open wide were going to swab your cheek. He has no lawyer present and still not much of a clue. They take him home, drop him off at the curb bewildered and dazed. He calls a friend, who in 20 seconds of searching tells him about the Angie Dodge murder case. The 15 years before DNA his Dad submitted for the Church project has come home to roost and poop on the head of the son.
Michael was so horrified and incensed by what Ancestry had done to him, he decided to do what he does, and do a documentary on this issue. But after he met Carol Dodge, who agreed to meet with him, despite thinking someone in his family must have murdered her daughter, because, you know, DNA said so, he changes to documentary to be about Angie’s murder. Then Mike wondered why anyone would confess to a crime he now says he didn’t commit. So he met with Chris and became convinced Chris hadn’t done it. Yes, this is a bit shortened. By this time Carol is convinced Chris did not kill her daughter and wants him freed, Michael doesn’t think Chris killed Angie, and Chris has been in jail for 20 years. I mean, what could be wrong?
Then it really got good. Judges for Justice headed by a retired Superior Court judge from Washington got involved. Judge Heavey saw the tapes of the 7 polygraphs and was appalled. Polygraphs are supposed to be used to assess the credibility of the witness. That’s when the team got involved. You can read all the reports from the team members here. The one from Steve Moore is 85 pages long.
They also talk about why the judicial system and the police are sometimes hesitant to look at things from a fresh angle in cases where they may have made a mistake. But what could have gone wrong?
I’m guessing it was after 48 Hours got involved along with Judges for Justice that the Prosecuting Attorney’s office decided to offer Chris a deal. Accept the murder charge, we drop the rape charge and you have no probation, and you’re out of jail in a couple hours. Chris had seen so much go wrong, that should never have gone wrong he took the deal. Within 48 hours Carol Dodge, Michael Usry, Dr. Hampikian and others were in the courtroom. The judge in the case had to accept or reject the deal. He asked Chris if he had read every line of the document and he said he had. So how I hear this? Yeah, we sent you to prison for 20 years for a crime you didn’t commit, had nothing to do with, and if we let you out 10 years or more early and don’t put you on probation for crimes you didn’t commit, you say “no harm, no foul” and go your way. Carol Dodge says Chris is another victim of the crime. He is. As is Michael Usry who after court that day was asked by a detective to come with him. They wanted to show him a composite using new DNA technology that can make a facial sketch based on DNA. Michael said he didn’t want to look at first, thinking ‘what if it’s someone I know?” But it wasn’t. It was a face he was unfamiliar with. On July 12th of this year, Michael got a letter with a DNA report that cleared his family with 87.63% certainty that the murderer was not in their family. Wow.
Another interesting person interviewed for the show was Dr. Erin Murphy, A New York University Law professor and author of Inside the Cell: The Dark Side of Forensic DNA. She points out that this familial DNA raises real privacy issues of law enforcement trolling data banks to see if your brother, father are breaking the law. Consider the government’s insatiable appetite for biometric data, REAL ID and that really is a concern. Murphy points out that Usry’s family may have had nothing at all to do with the murder. She maintains that 99% of the people match to one another on a genome, that there could be a match to someone completely unrelated on the other side of the globe. It’s all dependent upon the quality of the match. So what in this case, could have gone wrong?
And actually, that is the answer. When you are dead set on seeing a situation, object or person in a certain way because you have this set of clues, this set of (DNA) data, this set of preconceived notions (it’s a AR-15 that happens to spit shotgun shells) we do ourselves and no one else any favors to insist on not considering any other possibilities.
Yes, as one person posted on my Facebook linked story, you can request that your DNA profile be deleted. I have no idea how long they would take to do that, if they actually do delete it. I suspect it’s a lot more like a NICS check and once they have it, they have it. Would the sell it? Who knows. But who would ask to have their profile deleted in the first place? I mean it’s not like Billy Bankrobber is sending his DNA in to see if he’s really a Viking or Scottish or Kenyan. It’s nice people, who want to know if they should buy lederhosen or a dreidel. They would never think 15 years down the road this is going to get my son in hot water because ___________. I mean it’s not like the government has ever used it’s (IRS) power to go after people (Joe The Plumber) or groups (The Tea Party) it doesn’t like, right? I mean, what could be wrong with that?
As you may have noticed from previous number-crunching, I’m quite analytically inclined. When I see or hear something that doesn’t sound right, it gnaws at me until I check it out. Like this:
Emotions run high during Politech’s gun control forum
“So it’s really a touchy issue on a sense of security. Also if you want to go to domestic violence, most women who are around guns, 50 percent of the time will be shot using their own weapon,” Gavran said. “So there are a lot of challenges with that.”
Really? 50% of women around guns will be shot with their own weapon?
My guess is that emotions ran high because lies like that were allowed.
According to a MarieClaire.com and Harvard Injury Control Research Center survey 32% of women live in households with firearm. I think that counts as being “around” guns. 32% of 162,000,000 women would be 51,840,000. 50% of those would be 25,920,000 women shot.
The FBI’s 2016 Uniform Crime Report says there were only 1,217,400 violent crimes (male and female; murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) last year. Yet ditz Gavran claims that just women shot is more than 21 times that.
But maybe Gavran meant 50% of the MC/HIRC reported 12% of women who own guns. That gets us down to 9,720,000 to about 8 times the number of total violent crimes for males and females alike.
Let’s stroll over to the CDC’s WISQARS and see what they say about it. 6,368 total nonfatal firearms assaults, and 1,950 fatal firearms assaults, for a total of 8,318. A far cry from 25,920,000 or even 9,720,000.
OK, I’ll be generous. Rather than what she said, maybe she meant to limit the population strictly to domestic violence cases; so 50% of female domestic violence victims.
Uh oh. It says here that females are the victims in 85% of 960,000 estimated annual domestic violent incidents, giving us 816,000 victims, half of which would be firearms by Gavran’s claim: 408,000. Only 49 times the number of fatal and nonfatal female firearms injuries the CDC reports.
Wait. 12% of women own guns. So .12 times 816,000 is 97,920. Half of that is 48,960. Only six times as many as the total the CDC reports.
Pure. Effing. B. S.
But as the man said, there’s more.
Perry was able to speak on what he considered naivety in regards to fears of students carrying guns around the campus. Gavran responded to Perry, saying there were accidental discharges around some universities in Texas.
She went on to say there is no way of knowing all of the effects of Campus Carry because the Clery Act legislation does not require reporting of accidental discharges.
I searched. I found one. More than a year ago. If the ditz has better data, she should cite it.
Or STFU.
Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
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