What would so-called ‘red flag’ laws actually do? Far more harm than good is what they would do!

How does one actually implement the so-called “red flag” laws? It’s clear that neither Salvadore Ramos nor Payton Gendron were reported to law enforcement prior to buying his weapons, despite having left significant warnings via social media.

Nikolas Cruz had many ‘encounters’ with the Broward County Sheriff’s Department, but they always let him off with a warning. He assaulted a student in school, but the soft-hearted and soft-headed school board, eager to disrupt the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’, declined to report that to law enforcement.

If private citizens were unwilling to see Messrs Ramos and Gendron as serious enough threats to take some action, if the idiots in Broward County were unwilling to actually enforce laws already on the books, with what does that leave us? Nina Jankowicz and her Ministry of Truth scouring Twitter and Facebook, reading every message, trying to ferret out bad people? Perhaps some sort of government surveillance of email, looking for nut cases?

No, what we’ll have are people using the system to cause problems for their enemies, cheating wives or their boyfriends trying to get at husbands, beta males trying to take the alphas down a peg, gang members trying to get opposing gang members disarmed and into the ‘system,’ cheating husbands or their girlfriends trying to get cheated on wives checked on by the police, or just liberals trying a new form of ‘SWATting‘ against sensible people. How about #woke teachers or school administrators upset when they find out some of their students are hunters? We’ve already seen efforts to get physicians and their staffs to ask patients, especially children, if there are any guns in their homes! With the HITECH Act pushing making medical records electronic and transferable — with appropriate precautions, of course! — we already have records in place which the government could search to see who has admitted to having firearms at home.

I was asked that question one time, and I responded that not only was it none of their business, but that I found the question intrusive and offensive.

In the end, they’re typical leftist ideas to get more and more government supervision of our lives, Minority Report thinking that we can somehow police impure thoughts of people who may not have committed any crime.

You think that’s alarmist concern? Look at the way the government tried to track people — ‘contact tracing,’ they called it[1]In jurisdictions with testing capacity, symptomatic and asymptomatic close contacts to patients with confirmed and probable COVID-19 should be evaluated and monitored. For areas with insufficient … Continue reading — who tested positive for COVID-19, and tried to punish people who chose not to get vaccinated.

The left say that this is a minor thing, just something to keep us safer, especially after the recent massacres in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas. But these ‘minor things’ are just more attempts to get their foot in the door, just another ‘minor step’ to achieve their eventual goal of disarming the public.

References

References
1 In jurisdictions with testing capacity, symptomatic and asymptomatic close contacts to patients with confirmed and probable COVID-19 should be evaluated and monitored. For areas with insufficient testing support and/or limited public health resources, the following evaluation and monitoring hierarchy (Box 4) and the case investigation and contact tracing prioritization recommendations can be used to help guide prioritization. The hierarchy is based on the assumption that if close contacts listed in Priority 1 become infected, they could potentially expose many people, those at higher risk for severe disease, or critical infrastructure workers. If close contacts in Priority 2 become infected, they may be at higher risk for severe disease, so prompt notification, monitoring, and linkage to needed medical and support services is important.

Black lives don’t matter, at least not to credentialed media

While I have mentioned the censorship of The Philadelphia Inquirer previously, we don’t always get the evidence quite so directly.

Police Officer Miguel Torres, Badge Number 7191, reported on a shooting in Mantua:

16th District — Shooting Incident

35XX Fairmont Avenue on highway at 7L06 PM. Victim #1 – Black female 19 years old was shot 2X in the right side. She was transported to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center by RPC 16S6. She is in stable condition. Victim #2 – Black female 34 years old was shot 2X in the right leg. She was transported to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center by EPW 1601. She is in stable condition. Victim #3 – Black male 59 years old was shot 3X in the right leg. He was transported to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center by RPC 16S7. He is in stable condition. Victim #4 – Black male unknown age was shot multiple times in the right side. He was transported to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center by RPC 16T1. He is in critical condition. Scene held, no arrest and no weapon recovered.

So, how did the Inquirer report the incident?

Gun violence across the city Wednesday also included a quadruple shooting in Mantua. At about 7 p.m., while walking on the 3500 block of Fairmount Avenue, a 19-year-old woman was shot twice in her right side, a 34-year-old woman was hit twice in right leg and a 59-year-old man was shot three times in his right leg. A 19-year-old male was shot multiple times in his right side,. All of the victims were brought to Penn Presbyterian, police said. Three were in stable condition, but the teenage male was in critical condition.

Police told reporters on the scene that the four victims were walking to a prom send-off party when they were shot, possibly by someone riding by on a bicycle, according to FOX29.

Reporter Rita Giordano cited Fox 29 News as her source, but the Fox 29 report did not state that the victims were transported to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, so Miss Giordano had to have a second source. The police report noted that each of the victims was black, something wholly omitted from the Inquirer article. Why does the Inquirer censor the news?

The 19-year-old male victim appeared to be the person specifically targeted when the “gunman rode past the four victims on a mountain bike and fired at least 9 shots from a semi-automatic weapon,” according to the Fox 29 News report. The other victims were simply struck by “stray bullets.” Continue reading

Lies, damned lies, and statistics How The Washington Post manipulates statistics to mislead readers

Screen capture of Washington Post headline, May 25, 2022. Click to enlarge.

The headline was dramatic: More than 311,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine. Read that, and you’d think that half the schools in America were being machine gunned down, which is, let’s be honest about it, exactly what the editors of The Washington Post want you to believe.

But what, exactly, does “experienced gun violence at school” mean? From their methodology:

To calculate how many children were exposed to gunfire in each school shooting, The Post relied on enrollment figures and demographic information from the U.S. Education Department, including the Common Core of Data and the Private School Universe Survey. The analysis used attendance figures from the year of the shooting for the vast majority of the schools. Then The Post deducted 7 percent from the enrollment total because that is, on average, how many students miss school each day, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Reporters subtracted 50 percent from a school’s enrollment if the act of gun violence occurred just before or after the school day.

So, if a firearm was discharged on school grounds during school hours, but no one was struck, 93% of the school’s enrollment “experienced gun violence at school.

  • One of the incidents shown by the Post was on November 15, 2021, when an armed 13-year-old boy in Poughkeepsie High School, in Poughkeepsie, New York, fired “several rounds in front of the school, striking multiple vehicles”, but neither killing nor injuring anyone. The Post counted that as 570 students “experiencing gun violence at school”.
  • On November 19, 2021, at Hinkley High School in Aurora, Colorado, “Teenagers exchanged gunfire in the parking lot, wounding three students.” The Post counted that as 1,940 students “experiencing gun violence at school,” even though this was a gun battle between gangs, and not an attempt to shoot up the school.
  • November 29, 2021, at Cesar Chavez High School in Laveen, Arizona, a 15-year-old boy shot the 16-year-old who had just sold him the gun in a school bathroom. While it was hardly an attempt to shoot up the school, the Post counts this a 2,400 students having “experienced gun violence at school.”
  • December 1, 2021 at Sam Rayburn High School, in Pasadena, Texas, a 21-year-old man fired a shot into the air while robbing a student on campus, with no one injured or killed. The Post counts this as 2,530 students “experiencing gun violence at school.”
  • February 28, 2022, at Jonesboro High School, in Clayton County, Georgia, a student discharged a weapon in school, hitting nobody. The Post counts this as 1,282 students “experiencing gun violence at school”.

There are many, many more similar examples, of accidents, stray bullets, gang battles and one-on-one fights, things that make up the vast majority of the incidents compiled into the statistics, but which the editors hope you don’t read, which the editors hope the readers will conflate to thousands of Columbines or Marjory Stoneman Douglases.

Given that so many readers do not read closely enough, do not delve more deeply into the stories, the editors can reasonably hope that their propaganda is persuasive. Not lies, per se, but statistics compiled in such a way to have the effect of lies.

Here’s the money line:

The Post has found that at least 185 children, educators and other people have been killed in assaults, and another 369 have been injured.

Remember: that’s 185 killed, and 369 injured, since 1999. Both of those numbers are lower than the number killed and injured in Philadelphia so far this year.

Screen capture of The Washington Post’s website main page, May 25, 2022. Click to enlarge.

The school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, by a misfit high school dropout who was bullied while he was in school due to a “childhood speech impediment” was certainly a terrible thing, but in practicing journalism[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their … Continue reading rather than journalism, by publishing wholly sensationalized but nevertheless misleading statistics, the editors of the Post are pretty much lying outright in their attempt to push Congress into infringing upon our Second Amendment rights.

The Post had ten, ten! separate articles listed on their website main page on Wednesday morning, most geared toward a push toward unconstitutional gun control, because that’s what the editors do.

The Post, perhaps inadvertently, undermined its own gun control reasoning:

In cases where the source of the gun could be determined, more than 85 percent of shooters brought them from their own homes or obtained them from friends or relatives, according to The Post’s analysis.

The ranks of school shooters include a 6-year-old boy, who killed a classmate after saying he didn’t like her, and a 15-year-old girl, who did the same to a friend for rejecting her romantic overtures.[2]Why do I suspect that, from the language stating that the 15-year-old girl killed a “friend” who rejected her romantic overtures that the slain friend was another girl?

Seven in 10 of them, however, were under the age of 18, which means that — often because of an adult’s negligence — dozens of children had access to deadly weapons.

In other words, most of the weapons used were legally purchased by other people, people with no criminal intent, and then taken by those who did have criminal intent in mind. The only way that ‘gun control’ stops that is if private ownership of firearms by the law abiding is banned . . . which is, of course, what the editors want anyway.

Supporters of dictatorial government always want a disarmed citizenry. Their fellow travelers in the credentialed media are only too glad to help.

References

References
1 The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.
2 Why do I suspect that, from the language stating that the 15-year-old girl killed a “friend” who rejected her romantic overtures that the slain friend was another girl?

The Field Negro and #BlackLivesMatter Do #BlackLivesMatter only when they are taken by a white guy?

There is a Philadelphia blogger named Wayne Bennett who writes a site called The Field Negro.[1]If you are wondering about the name he chose, here is Malcolm X’s definition of the difference between a “house Negro” and a “field Negro. Several years ago, Mr Bennett had a box in his sidebar called Killadelphia, in which he kept track of murders in his hometown, though he ceased doing that a few years ago. Mr Bennett still maintains that blog, though he writes far less frequently than previously, with only three postings so far this month. Yes, he is fairly liberal, but I still used to enjoy reading his site, although it’s one which has almost totally dropped from my attention.

The City of Brotherly Love utterly destroyed its previous yearly homicide record with 562 killings last year, and if the totals are down 7.46% date-over-date as of last Sunday, as we pointed out yesterday that’s only because the gang-bangers’ marksmanship has suffered. The number of shootings in the city are almost the same — down 1.10% — and if the bad guys were as successful in their attempted murders as they were last year, the total number of killings would be just three fewer than the same date last year.

It didn’t surprise me in the slightest that Philadelphia writer Amanda Marcotte blamed the Buffalo massacre on Tucker Carlson and other evil reich-wing Republicans. At least as far as I can tell, she never writes about murders in her adopted hometown.

From Mr Bennett, I expected better, but I didn’t get it. Continue reading

References

References
1 If you are wondering about the name he chose, here is Malcolm X’s definition of the difference between a “house Negro” and a “field Negro.

Killadelphia All the News That's Politically Correct!

The WordPress software I use for The First Street Journal assigns numbers to posts with the same name; the system tells me that this is the 34th post entitled “Killadelphia”. That says something right there!

Robert Stacy McCain wrote too quickly:

The homicide total so far this year is 180 in “Killadelphia,” meaning that the city’s averaging about one homicide a day, but nobody seems to consider this an emergency, and Congress is sending billions to Ukraine.

If only it was just one homicide per day! The 180 murdered number was for Thursday, May 19th, the date for which that 180 total is accurate — the Philly Police do not update their statistics on Saturday or Sunday — was the 139th day of the year, meaning that the City of Brotherly Love is killing the brothers at the rate of 1.295 per day!

But, come Monday morning, and we get the update: there have now been 186 souls who have been sent early to their eternal rewards on Philly’s mean streets as of 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, May 22nd, upping that average to 1.310 per day. As of right now, the statistics project 520 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love for 2022.[1]Methodology: I have taken the number of homicides on this date in 2022 and divided that by the number of homicides on the same date in 2021, then multiplied that number by 562, the number of … Continue reading

As of the same date, 807 people had been shot in the city. Maybe the gang bangers had actually killed 180 people, but they tried to kill at least 807!

As of May 18th, ‘only’ 160 out of 180 homicides was committed by firearm; on the same day Philly reported 802 shootings, down from 807 on the same date in 2021. While homicides were down by 9.91%, shootings were down only 0.62%. Translation: the thugs are shooting at each other at about the same rate, but they have become poorer shots, killing only 19.95% of their intended victims.

Actually, it’s even lower than that, since we have no statistics on how many people were shot at, but missed completely.

Interestingly enough, The Philadelphia Inquirer actually reported on the weekend’s bloodletting, in a story which was linked on the main page of the newspaper’s website, which was yet another surprise to me! Continue reading

References

References
1 Methodology: I have taken the number of homicides on this date in 2022 and divided that by the number of homicides on the same date in 2021, then multiplied that number by 562, the number of homicides in 2021. I do this to account for the fact that homicides tend to increase as the weather warms up, and this approximates the trend as the year progresses. Other methods of doing this could be used. If I simply multiplied the current daily homicide number by 365, it would result in an anticipated homicide number of 478, but that doesn’t take into account the effects of warmer weather, nor does it seem anywhere like a reasonable number the way the trends are moving.

Why is Larry Krasner wasting time and money trying to set criminals free?

It’s perfectly understandable that when a city like Philadelphia elects a George Soros sponsored defense attorney to become District Attorney, that that District Attorney will be more interested in setting criminals free than prosecuting crimes. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Two judges have sparred with the Philly DA’s office recently over questions about old murder convictions

The developments — which prosecutors dispute — have offered a degree of pushback as DA Larry Krasner’s office has sought to free one man from death row and overturn another man’s murder conviction.

by Chris Palmer | Thursday, May 19, 2022

Judges in state and federal courts in recent weeks have raised questions about whether prosecutors under District Attorney Larry Krasner included incomplete or even misleading information in court documents seeking to remove one man from death row and overturn another man’s murder conviction.

The developments — which prosecutors dispute — have offered a degree of pushback to the post-conviction work of Krasner’s office, one of the most aggressive offices in the country in seeking to overturn cases it has viewed as flawed or marred by misconduct. Continue reading

Killadelphia Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.

Philly Police Department press release via Steve Keeley, Fox 29 News. Click to enlarge.

Two more Philadelphians bit the dust yesterday, but if The Philadelphia Inquirer was your only news source, you’d never know it. Nine people bled out their lives’ blood in the city’s mean streets over the last five days, but the “anti-racist news organization” won’t tell you anything. In December of 2020, columnist Heleb Ubiñas wrote, “What do you know about the Philadelphians killed by guns this year? At least know their names.” A year and a half later, the Inquirer, under publisher Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes and Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Gabriel Escobar, don’t want you to know that anyone was killed.

With 6,245,051 people according to the 2020 census, Philadelphia and its surrounding metropolitan area is the seventh largest in the United States. With a population of 1,603,797, the city of Philadelphia itself is the sixth largest in the United States. The Inquirer is the nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, older than The New York Times and The Washington Post. So why, then, does The Philadelphia Inquirer rank only 17th in circulation? Could it be because they censor the news?

The numbers are stark. At the end of Thursday, May 12, the city was seeing 1.295 homicides per day. Five days later, that’s up to 1.314 per day. More importantly, the City of Brotherly Love has gone from a projected 503 homicides in 2022 to 514.[1]Methodology: to compensate for the normal increase in homicides as warmer weather approaches, I have taken the number of homicides on a given date, divided it by the number on the same day in 2021, … Continue reading

So, if the newspaper does not report on homicides in its own home city, on what does it report? How about his gem? Continue reading

References

References
1 Methodology: to compensate for the normal increase in homicides as warmer weather approaches, I have taken the number of homicides on a given date, divided it by the number on the same day in 2021, and multiplied that fraction by 562, the number of homicides in 2021. I have also compared the numbers to 2020’s homicide rate, and come up with huge numbers, 623 and 642, but have not really given them much credence. There are several different ways of calculating the numbers, but I will note that I accurately projected 562 homicides for 2021 on July 9, 2021.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is still covering for tax cheat Larry Krasner

We noted, on May 13th, how Fox News had reported, the previous day, that District Attorney Larry Krasner’s private business ventures had not paid all of their taxes. We pointed out how The Philadelphia Inquirer, which had just sent out a begging-for-donations letter touting their “accountability journalism”, had not reported on Mr Krasner’s unpaid taxes.

As of 8:10 PM EDT on Tuesday, May 17th, there’s still no indication in a site search for Larry Krasner that the Inquirer has mentioned it. Well, they may have to do so soon:

It seems that the public, many of whom are loudly complaining about recent assessments which will increase their property tax bills, might not be that thrilled with Mr Krasner not paying what he owes.

I’ll check the Inky again later tonight, and Wednesday morning, to see if they’ve had the guts to tell Philadelphians the truth.

Update: Wednesday, May 18, 2022 | 8:20 AM EDT

As of this time, site searches for Larry Krasner, Krasner tax, and Krasner protest have not indicated any stories about the District Attorney’s tax problems. There was no story on the issue on the main page of the Inquirer’s website. What can anyone conclude other than the newspaper has simply chosen not to report anything negative about George Soros’ stooge?

The left worry about ten people killed by a deranged white shooter, but ignore the wholesale slaughter of young black men by other young black men There's just no political value for the left in worrying about street crime

Robert Stacy McCain wrote:

This reminds me of how anti-Semitic and anti-Asian hate crimes were spiking a few months ago, but because the perpetrators were black, liberals didn’t want to talk about the problem.

It is no longer enough to not be racist; you must now be anti-racist!

Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate actions which are intended to provide equal opportunities for all people on both an individual and a systemic level. As a philosophy, it can be engaged in by the acknowledgment of personal privileges, confronting acts as well as systems of racial discrimination, and/or working to change personal racial biases. Major contemporary anti-racism efforts include Black Lives Matter organizing and workplace antiracism.

Today’s credentialed media have taken that to mean that news which could “perpetuat(e) stereotypes about who commits crime in our community” — quote taken from the Sacramento Bee but could have come from any number of newspapers — must be soft-peddled if not outright suppressed. Maybe that’s why the two murders yesterday in the City of Brotherly Love — both committed fairly early in the evening so there was plenty of time — were not mentioned on either the main page or crime page of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Continue reading