My Blog

Category: Crime

  • Thoughts on Colorado – Freedom vs. Safety

    This is was written as a comment on this NYT piece.  I’ve made it much longer here because the NYT limits space.

    —

    Restricting access to firearms will never stop these kinds of attacks.  As a society we need to resolve ourselves that some people are crazy and will drive cars into crowds, shoot other people en mass, and otherwise engage in spree killings.

    Many believe it’s as simple as restricting access a/k/a gun control.  But what happens when a police officer’s gun is stolen?  What should we do with the 5+ million firearms already owned? What about hunters?  People who think that food comes from a store don’t have decent solutions that play nationally.

    Vermont has nearly no restrictions on firearm ownership or concealed carry.  One never hears of people shooting-up a Home Depot in Vermont.  Why should Vermont be required to change their laws – which appear to work and the citizens clearly want – because of actions in New York or Colorado?

    In Chicago (where I live) we have the most restrictive gun laws in the country.  It’s not working.  In addition to gangs using guns to solve problems they routinely use knives.  In Chicago over 500 people are stabbed each year.  Should we outlaw knives?

    Chicago has also been the city where three times in as many years we’ve made national news because people have been beaten with baseball bats or a 2×4.  One Irish girl is still in a coma as a result of a beating; another H.S. student is dead.  Dozens of others have been seriously injured.  Should Chicago ban baseball bats and lumber?

    Additionally, at least 4 kids have drowned at local pools and the lake this year.  Should we close them too?

    Of course the last example are accidents.  I recently read a story about “who’s to blame” for the recent drownings.  The story quoted one dead child’s uncle who asked where the lifeguards were.  I wondered where we was.  It is not patently irresponsible for a parent to send a child to a pool if they cannot adequately swim?  While the parents may be negligent, they surely did not intend for their children to drown.  That’s a very very different situation from Colorado — that is recognized.

    But accidents deserve to be included in the analysis because of how society reacts to the event.  And also because how society deals with “means” vs. “ends”.  The end result is the same, people are dead.  We as a society accept that while tragic, we should not close down pools and beaches because they take hundreds of lives each year.  We believe those losses are tragic but the risk / reward (pleasure) ratio is acceptable.

    This is similar to driving.  Traffic accidents kill over 40,000 people each year.  We believe that the risk of being injured or dying in a traffic accident is acceptable given the benefit we receive by not having to walk everywhere (or take a horse which is probably more dangerous.)

    As a society we do our best to reduce the risks.  At pools and beaches we employ lifeguards.  In Chicago lifeguards are paid for by the taxpayer who may or may not utilize them.  On the roads we have laws against drunk driving; we don’t let 12 year-olds drive either.  We, through our government, demand that cars have seat belts and air bags.  It appears that society in general is content with the risk / reward balance.  But of course we could do more.

    It would be very easy for the government to mandate that every vehicle be equipped with a sobriety tester.  It would prevent drunks from driving.

    We, through our government, could also mandate a speed control device on all cars so that they’re limited to the speed limit.  It would prevent high speed crashes not to mention high speed police chases.

    Why do we not have these existing technologies in our cars already?  Because society does not want them.  We’re happy with the balance of risk / reward that is involved with driving.  We value our freedom to drive drunk and fast more than we demand additional safety.

    And that is how we need to address gun control.  Do we wish to give up more freedom in order to provide more safety?  And would we in fact be safer with less freedoms?  Those are two different questions.

    There is no doubt that lifeguards and air bags save lives.

    There is a lot of doubt as to banning guns would save any lives.

    The facts are clear that More Guns Equal Less Crime.

    So however tragic the recent events in Colorado may be, further restrictions on our freedom will not result in additional safety.

    We morn those who we’ve lost.  We pray for their families.  We struggle to find answers to unanswerable questions.

    But most importantly, we get on with our lives recognizing that evil is present in the world and that bad things happen to good people.  In the end we also know that we cannot prevent these events from happening by passing additional laws.

  • New Govt Laser Reads You At Molecular Level

    The Department of Homeland Security will soon be using a laser at airports that can detect everything about you from over 160-feet away.

    Gizmodo reports a scanner that could read people at the molecular level has been invented. This laser-based scanner – which can be used 164-feet away — could read everything from a person’s adrenaline levels, to traces of gun powder on a person’s clothes, to illegal substances — and it can all be done without a physical search. It also could be used on multiple people at a time, eliminating random searches at airports.

    The laser-based scanner is expected to be used in airports as soon as 2013, Gizmodo reports.

    via CBS DC.

    Really?!  Is this what we’ve come to?

    I wonder what the ACLU’s position is going to be on this.  At the airport I kinda understand; you are giving your consent to be searched.  That’s the bargain for what is supposed to be a safe flight.

    But how long before Mayor Bloomberg decides that he wants to use this on people just walking down the street?

    1984 here we come!!

  • John Kerry = Inside Trader and Profiteer

    Another oldie but goodie:

    For years, Kerry has invested millions in a number of green energy companies that have benefitted from the president’s efforts to aggressively subsidize the industry with taxpayer dollars.

    These companies include Exelon, which received a $646 million taxpayer-guaranteed loan in 2011 to build a solar facility in California and created only 20 permanent jobs, as well as Fisker Automotive, the fledgling electric car company that offshored its manufacturing operation to Finland after receiving a $529 million federal loan guarantee in 2010.

    The loan guarantees, approved by the Department of Energy, were made possible by funding allocated in the 2009 stimulus bill, which Kerry supported. According to Kerry’s own office, the Senator “played a key role” in crafting the portions of the legislation designed to offer federal support for green energy projects.

    Additionally, Kerry co-authored the controversial cap-and-trade legislation that would have effectively imposed a tax on carbon-dioxide emissions. Though the bill ultimately failed, the New York Times noted that Exelon and companies like it “would emerge as financial winners” if the legislation was enacted.

    Kerry has hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), a venture capital firm run by John Doerr, a prominent Obama donor who served on the president’s Economy Recovery Advisory Board.

    The firm, where former vice president Al Gore is a partner, invests heavily in alternative energy companies such as Fisker Automotive and Amonix Inc., a Nevada-based solar panel manufacturer that laid off two-thirds of its workforce earlier this year despite receiving nearly $6 million in federal tax credits.

    Amonix was one of 16 companies (out of 27 overall) listed in Doerr’s “green-tech” portfolio to receive some form of federal support under Obama.

    via Washington Free Beacon.

    People — the problem in NOT in Washington.  The problem in on Main Street.  The goofballs in Massachusetts keep voting for this guy (the Lord knows we have our own corrupt politicians.)  That said, how is the not a crime? And, where is the MSM on this story?

  • NSA to Spy on Everyone… Everyone.

    Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.

    But “this is more than just a data center,” says one senior intelligence official who until recently was involved with the program. The mammoth Bluffdale center will have another important and far more secret role that until now has gone unrevealed. It is also critical, he says, for breaking codes. And code-breaking is crucial, because much of the data that the center will handle—financial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents, confidential personal communications—will be heavily encrypted. According to another top official also involved with the program, the NSA made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its ability to cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption systems employed by not only governments around the world but also many average computer users in the US. The upshot, according to this official: “Everybody’s a target; everybody with communication is a target.”

    via Wired.com.

    Like most Wired articles this one goes into incredible detail about how the government spy’s on you and me.

    Frankly, it’s kinda terrifying.  I wrote in an earlier post about how we’re at the point in time where Fahrenheit 451 meets 1984.  The government now has all the data in needs to know everything about your life.  All they have to do now is choose to control it… oh, wait.  Check out the Obama health care bill.

    Somewhere right now a government jack-booted thug is ordering a few rat masks.

  • Cell Carriers Asked for Your Data

    In the first public accounting of its kind, cellphone carriers reported that they responded to a startling 1.3 million demands for subscriber information last year from law enforcement agencies seeking text messages, caller locations and other information in the course of investigations.

    The cellphone carriers’ reports, which come in response to a Congressional inquiry, document an explosion in cellphone surveillance in the last five years, with the companies turning over records thousands of times a day in response to police emergencies, court orders, law enforcement subpoenas and other requests.

    via NYTimes.com.

    We’re very close to the junction of Fahrenheit 451 and 1984.

  • Give a Lamb a Gun

    Herman Cain has a new website complete with video.  My first as so far favorite video is entitled Give a Lamb a Gun.

    It’s a priceless quote from Benjamin Franklin.

    The video is under 2 minutes… go check it out.

  • Less Cops = Less (Reported) Crime

    In the city’s most violent districts, police officers say, they may be assigned half a dozen jobs or more—covering everything from traffic accidents to assaults—at the start of a shift. Their watches are spent racing from call to call, while anything that requires investigation stacks up. Officers describe having to weigh whether to make an arrest. The process “downs” their car, taking it off patrol for a few hours or so, which leaves their beat uncovered and puts more pressure on their fellow officers.

    Sometimes, they say, when it comes to minor offenses, they just look the other way.

    via Chicago magazine – August 2012.

    This is from a fairly long piece about Garry McCarthy but it’s this paragraph that struck me.

    In Chicago No Report = No Crime.  You have beat cops who are overworked / overloaded they and cannot focus on the little things.  So what happens?  They let some of the little things go because they have more important — higher priority — calls already waiting for them.  When this happens the little things don’t get reported.  It’s like the crimes never even happened.

    Of course Compstat is at the center of this.  It gives the Mayor and McCarthy the plausible ability to say things like, “Well overall crime is down.”

  • Obama Must Speak Out on Chicago Carnage

    Headline:

    Obama Must Speak Out on Chicago Carnage That Kills Too Many Kids

    via The Daily Beast.

    The story in generally not worth reading.

    But my comment is:

    1. Chicago has the most restrictive gun control laws in the country. What’s needed is not any new laws but enforcement of the current laws. Find me one — any one single — murder committed in Chicago with a legally held firearm. You can’t!! Enforce the laws already on the books and violence will decrease.

    2. Chicago has not elected a single Republican in over 40 years. There is no way that the NRA or the GOP is in any way responsible for the gun violence in Chicago. The violence in Chicago is the direct result of 60 years of unchecked modern liberalism. First Detroit, then Chicago, then Oakland, then … 


    The people voted for Chicago politics in Obama. They got what they voted for.

  • Muslims Attack Christians in Dearborn MI

    Very bizarre behavior on the part of the young Muslims.

    Very bizarre behavior on the part of the local police.

    The whole thing is very disturbing.  I frankly don’t know what to make of it.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnJBW49afzg?rel=0]

  • Police Boss: No Emergency = No Police

    As Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy tries to streamline the way his department fights violent crime, he is stepping up his potentially controversial plan to reduce his officers’ load of 911 calls.

    Facing heat over a surge in homicides as he enters his second year in Chicago, McCarthy has expressed frustration over the pace of making the logistical and policy shift necessary to free up officers from what he considers nonessential responsibilities.

    “I’ve been told we handle more types of calls for services than any other place in the country,” McCarthy said.

    He wants to keep officers from wasting their time with what he labeled the “my son won’t eat his peas” type of call.

    “We would set the policy. We’re not responding to calls for A, B and C,” McCarthy said, noting that he hasn’t yet defined “what standard would we apply.”

    via chicagotribune.com.

    Now that I’ve written about Comstat we all understand the manipulation of crime statistics.  Comstat was Plan A.  This is Plan B.

    Imagine the ability to set crime statistics by simply listening to a 911 call and right there without any other information saying what qualifies a police response.  And we already know that in Chicago no report means no crime.  By simply choosing to not send police to the scene of a crime it is nearly assured that no report will be created and thus no crime will be reported.

    When this is implemented McCarthy and Rahm are going to oversee the greatest crime reduction is city history.  Of course blood will still be flowing in the streets, thousands of cars will be stolen, drugs will be available everywhere, homes will be broken into hourly, and tourist beatings on Michigan Ave will continue.