BATFE: Gun Advocates Arming Chicago Gangs

From WGNTV:

“It remains constant from year to year that about 40 percent of the crime guns recovered in the City of Chicago come from Illinois, and about 20 percent come from Indiana. The core mission of the Crime Gun Center is to identify these shooters, or these ‘three percenters,’ and the traffickers that sell them guns and get them off our streets,” said Carl Vasilko, ATF Special Agent in Charge.

See, now here's the rub,  'three percenters' (or threepers) are, in gun vernacular, a more uncompromising, absolutist element of the firearm rights advocacy movement. So is Agent Vasilko claiming that people like Kurt Hoffman and David Codrea are smuggling guns?  

In a sense, yes.  A report leaked from the 'New York State Intelligence Center' plays 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon' to try and connect the Oath Keepers, 'Three Percenters', and Mike Vanderboegh to the actions of the Miller shooters and other 'far right extremists'.  As usual, they use references from the anti-gun, left leaning ADL and SPLC as their sources.

So are we witnessing the beginning of a smear campaign against firearms rights advocates, attempting to relabel them as criminals and domestic terrorists?  It certainly wouldn't surprise me.

CO Gov. Denying Bloomberg

He's such political poison (except when people want his money) that CO governor Hickenlooper tried denying he'ld even spoken to Bloomie during the gun ban fiasco.

During a meeting Friday in Aspen with a number of sheriffs, a majority of which strongly oppose the new gun laws, Weld County Sheriff John Cooke asked Hickenlooper why he didn’t listen to the state’s top law enforcement officers as much as he did to Bloomberg.
“Well, lets, let’s stick to the facts,” Hickenlooper responded in a video clip of the exchange. “I never talked to Mayor Bloomberg. I…Again, that’s been out in the press and all this stuff.  Just for the record.  You know, I met Mayor Bloomberg when I was a Mayor, and I know him, uh, I think he’s a pretty good Mayor.”

But, just like most gun control advocates when faced w/ the reality that '90%' DON'T support their crappy laws, he lied and obfuscated:

On Monday afternoon, Hickenlooper’s office acknowledged that the governor spoke carelessly....
“When the governor told an audience of sheriffs that he had not talked to Bloomberg, the governor was attempting to convey he never had a conversation with Bloomberg that influenced the decision he made. In no way did the governor intend to mislead the sheriffs or anyone else.”

Yeah. OK. So he STILL didn't listen to his sheriff's and is just trying to distance himself from whatever Bloomie gave him. 

Liar.

OGRE: Pocket Edition $2.95

This is a reprint of the original game from 1977 at the original price. * Basically a mini version of OGRE 6E.



How can you go wrong? 

Seriously though, this is a great starter game for kids and adults.  Fairly simple to learn, easy to transport, and can keep you entertained for hours. 

*I am in no way getting compensation for this. I just really love the game and want to help SJG out.

Confusion Makes Chicagoans Angry

15 people shot since mid-day Friday 

Teen killed, 11 wounded in city shootings 

And the really upsetting day is only half over.

And for all those who say that this is the NRA's fault, let's take a look at some of the shooters from this week:

A 17-year-old boy was ordered held on $800,000 bail this afternoon after being accused of shooting another boy in the shoulder Wednesday in the city's Englewood neighborhood.

 Half a dozen laws broken right there even before the shooting.


4 charged in Aurora shooting that critically injured a woman 

Trejo, 20, of 400 block of North Lancaster Avenue, and Martin, 32, of the 300 block of Old Indian Trail, were each charged with two counts of attempted murder, two counts of armed violence and one count each of aggravated battery with a firearm, aggravated discharge of a weapon, unlawful use of a weapon by a gang member and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, according to the release.
Turner, 21, and Benavides, 20, both of the same address where the search warrant was executed, also were charged in the shooting. Turner was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, unlawful possession of a firearm without a gun card and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.

This is the norm, not the exception.  90% of Chicago murderers have prior arrests/convictions.

Even More Made Up Mom's Demand Numbers

Just yesterday morning I posted a bit on how MDA-IL inflated numbers by 5x to make their support seem more than it really is. 

Well apparently they're taking direction from the higher ups as Shannon Watts throws out more BS:

THIS IS WHAT CHANGE LOOKS LIKE: Earlier today, more than 1,000 moms, dads, survivors and citizens marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to take a stand for gun sense.

Again, Bullcrap.  almost no photos of the marching crowd outside of a few closeups.  These are the closest I could find:



See that brown sign top left?  Here it is from the front. The VERY front of the crowd:



A bunched up shot showing maybe 200 people:



Even if they did get 1000 people from 'across the country', they demonstrated in a city of over 8 million people not even counting the MSA (near 20 million) and THIS is the best they could do? How pathetic is that? This is a group that just got tens of millions from their financier Bloomberg (who didn't show, btw), they couldn't afford a cameraman?  IGOLD gets a dozen professionals, volunteers, and supporters on the bridge along the march alone to get crowd shots. Wonder if a big chunk of that money is being used to bus in 'activists', armed, private security and 'non-salary' compensation for Shannon.

But I digress, there's nowhere near '1000' people in any way, shape, or form but it sure sounds impressive, doesn't it?  Much better than the real numbers which are little more than an enhanced tour group.

Not Your Grand-Parents' Maleficent

 

Went and saw the movie w/ various #powers.  This is the latest in a string of CGI enhanced 'live-action' re-imaginings of classic fairy tales.  This ones design heavily influenced by the Disney classic "Sleeping Beauty", especially that of Maleficent's costuming and the three fairies. 

Two highlights of this movie was the performance of Angelina Jolie as Maleficent and the visualizations throughout the movie.  Jolie overshadowed every other performer in the film and you can tell she really got into the classic part.  The rest of the actors were mediocre to wooden. The scenery and CGI was beautiful.  If you're going to imagine a fairy land, this is pretty close to what you would get.

The modernized story was above average and very 'Disney'.  Entertaining but formulaic although it is very much a departure from the original animated film.  I definitely enjoyed it and it was worth a theater trip.  Likely will pick this one up when it comes out on DVD. 

4/5 stars

More Made Up Numbers From Mom's Demand Action

While there's always some dispute over attendance numbers at rallies, making up amounts so ridiculous that they're easily refuted does nothing to help your cause.  From MDA-IL: (Note MDA only shows closeups and small groups)

On June 13, Moms Demand Action joined more than a thousand people for a huge Peace March calling for a safe summer in Chicago.

Wow, those are some good numbers.  Too bad they're complete BS, even according to the anti-gun Chicago Sun-Times:

Some 200 people turned out Friday night for St. Sabina’s annual end-of-the-school-year peace march, joined by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a host of other dignitaries.

A video of the crowd shows about 200 people.

So multiplying numbers by 5 seems to be the default for MDA right now. If we multiplied the IGOLD numbers by that, we would claim over 15,000-25,000 attendees.

If they have so much support, why the need to lie?

How Many More Laws Rahm-bo?

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanual is supporting yet another Chicago based 'anti-violence' (read: Anti-gun) group built on the corpse of 15yr old girl shot last year.

"Three-quarters to 80 percent of the guns taken off the streets are coming from outside the city: Downstate, Indiana, Wisconsin," he said.

A useless statistic as Chicago has NO gun shops or gun shows where people can legally buy firearms.

Now let's look at the background of the shooting:

Police say Michael Ward, 18, and Kenneth Williams, 20, opened fire on Pendleton and a group of friends last month in retaliation for a shooting last year in which Williams had been injured. 

 Ward was the shooter.  So how many laws did he break even before the shooting?  No FOID, carrying a loaded handgun, illegal purchase by someone under 21. Both were gang members. And more:

The reputed gang member accused of gunning down 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton last month was on the street even though he had been arrested three times in connection with break-ins and trespassing while on probation for a weapons conviction in recent months, the Tribune has learned.

 Yep, skippy was on 'probation' for countless other petty crimes AND possession of a loaded firearm ALREADY.

THIS is the kind of sh!tbag committing most of the crimes.  Long histories of crime that the courts are doing little to nothing about, letting them run around the city committing even more crimes of which they have about a 15-20% chance of being caught at.

But yeah, MORE laws that won't be enforced would have made him think twice. Sure.

Oh, and the exec director of this 'new' group?  A former Joyce Foundation exec.  So w/ all their chatter on the 'youth' jobs etc, we know where 90% of their efforts are going to be focused on. 

Ban on 90% of Guns 'Reasonable'

You really have to love 'reasonable', 'common-sense' solutions from people that have no clue what they're talking about. It's got all the standard uneducated talking points:

NRA hate
Gov't has Nukes and tanks
banning semi-autos is 'reasonable' (but likely can't say what a semi-auto is)
Yelling 'fire' in a theater is against the law so we can ban guns
crime is skyrocketing (no, it isn't)

Then she delves into strawmen like 'you want to get rid of all laws' nonsense.

You know what, let's call this what it is, the arguments of a child.  Seriously, reading this was like dealing w/ 4thpower Bravo when she's feeling petulant.  Acting like she knows what's best for everyone and is an expert on every subject. Arguing just for arguing sake. And she really has no clue on any of it.

And that's what gun control is. The arguments of children thinking their 'parents' (iow the gov't) will feed them, change their diapers, and tuck them in at night after checking for monsters under the bed.

Also seems to be some 'Reasoned Discourse' going on as at least a dozen comments have disappeared and other aren't being shown at all. 

Update: The reality is unsurprising:

She's a limousine liberal who has suddenly become an expert on gun laws because she's watched the news.  Like the majority of her ilk, she doesn't know nor care about things like facts, those kinds of things are just 'petty differences' because 'guns are horrible'.  At the same time she won't go anywhere near places like Englewood or Back of the Yards even though she doesn't 'believe' that people can be good or evil. 

Like I said, she has the mentality of a child.