Right to Opine

A pair of thieves try to steal an orange grove owner’s SUV, which was parked in a barn on his property. When it appeared they were going to run him over he fired a handgun, killing the passenger. The CNN reporter displays apparent surprise that he won’t be charged with a crime. Fortunately for the victim (that would be the SUV owner for those who aren’t clear) Florida has strong Castle and “No Retreat” laws to protect him.

You have to love the gun-grabbing Brady Campaign’s spin on the incident:

The Brady Campaign to prevent Gun Violence says Florida is one of 16 states that have enacted “no retreat” laws, which some call “shoot-first” laws. The laws extend the right to use deadly force beyond a person’s home and into public places.

“The shoot-first law is not needed,” said Brian Malte of the Brady Campaign. “This person, regardless of the situation, may have done the right thing, but he cannot be prosecuted for doing something wrong if he hit an innocent bystander,” he said.

As is usual for this group, the statement is a deliberate lie and, as CNN so often does, the reporter let him get away with it.

First, “No Retreat” laws do not “extend the right to use deadly force beyond a person’s home and into public places.” Rather, they remove the requirement of retreat when a victim is in a place he has a legal right to be. The right to defend yourself in public existed prior to enactment of the “No Retreat” law, but previously you had to demonstrate that you had done everything in your power to flee the situation first. This gives a blatantly unfair advantage to criminals, who are often stronger and faster than their victims. Turning to flee gives the criminal time to close the distance with the victim and press the attack directly. Now victims can use that time, instead, to present a weapon for self defense. That change in law was most certainly needed. (Note that, in any case, this crime was perpetrated on the victim’s own property rather than in public.)

Second, Florida’s laws do not allow indiscriminate use of a handgun. In order to avoid prosecution, the victim must have reasonable belief that he is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury. Further, Florida has nothing on the books which would prevent prosecution for shooting bystanders. Gun owners are responsible for every bullet they fire, regardless of intent. In this case the criminals had a deadly weapon (the SUV) and were approaching the victim—a classic case of failure in the victim selection process which resulted in a dead criminal.

This headline (from the NY Times, of course) is indicative of one significant problem in our left-dominated education system:

Test Results Show Persistent Racial Gap in School Achievement

The article goes on to explain that under No Child Left Behind, the test scores of minority children have increased since 2004, but so have the scores of white students. So NCLB is a failure because all of our kids’ scores are improving? We can’t have that, now, can we? We really must do something that improves minority scores without improving whites’.

And the left accuses us of being racist. You really have to be a liberal to understand that logic.

What should we do when the high school dropout rate is around 30% and many students aren’t meeting standards? Lower the standards, apparently. Failing grades appear to be somehow unfair and engender a culture of failure. Good Lord we’re raising a generation of namby pambies. As Michael Petrilli of Stanford University comments,

This is clearly about dumbing down expectations for our students. Some of these children are just a few years away from being in the workforce, in college or even in the military, and in none of those environment will they be coddled like they are in these programs.

Next time you’re in an elevator on the 50th floor or driving across a freeway bridge, ask yourself who you’d rather have designing that structure: the product of a “no fail” education system or an engineer who had to pass a rigorous exam with no regard for his self esteem? I’ll take the latter, thank you.

How do you repel pirates? Fire back. Seems too simple, no? My only criticism is the choice of weapons:

A team of Israeli guards hired by the vessel’s owners immediately began firing back with pistols and spraying the attackers with fire hoses.

The security team should have been armed with, at the least, Uzis or similar compact submachine guns. They were, however, effective.

Ignoring the obvious, the “head of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme” offered this gem:

“There are a number of other methods which can be used to deter the pirates, having weapons on board is dangerous because it raises the stakes for the pirates,” he said.

“There is a far higher risk that a crew member of a merchant vessel, or a passenger, could die if the pirates feel they must fight harder to win the ship.”

Or they might, um, give up and look for an easier target.

That may sound callous, but as we “celebrate” the ten-year anniversary of the murder of 12 students and a teacher at Columbine, make note that their deaths resulted in absolutely zero improvements in the safety of our children at school. Think about it for a moment then send a letter to your state representatives and school boards. What, exactly, have they done to make our kids safer?

I should note the single exception, at least as reported in the American media: Harrold Independent School District (Harrold, TX) has changed their policies to allow teachers who have a CCW and who have taken specialized courses to carry concealed weapons on campus. Sadly their lone example of clear thinking doesn’t appear to be contagious.

Make sure to hug/kiss your kids goodbye before school each morning. There are a couple dozen parents in Columbine who can’t enjoy that simple pleasure.

If anyone doubts that music is God’s gift to the rest of us…Those of us who are not glamorous, pretty, and camera-ready, take a gander at this. For the second time in only a few years we have a pure example of what happens when someone pushes aside what the world says and just lets joy erupt from within. The package may be ordinary, mundane, homely,…but close your eyes and you hear the voice of an angel. God smiles as the rest of us bow our heads, with the judges, in shame.

1 Corinthians 1:27

Mexican authorities have arrested a woman in possession of an anti-aircraft gun, grenades and a grenade launcher. Not surprisingly, the article eventually gets around to the usual lefty bashing of America’s lax gun laws being responsible for arming the Mexican drug cartels. You can be sure that the AA gun, grenades, and launcher weren’t purchased in a gun shop here and smuggled across the border. Weapons of that type simply aren’t available in stores. So where did they come from?

Authorities did not release any other details about the gun, including its make, where it was manufactured, or where it was sold.

But of course. We can blame America for smuggled small arms, but can’t identify the origin of heavy weapons. Guess what? If the drug cartels can get their hands on arms like these, it really doesn’t even matter if we completely seal our border with Mexico—they’ll get their small arms elsewhere. The real problem is a dysfunctional Mexican government and until that fact becomes a regular headline, and is dealt with, the cartel violence isn’t going to end.

Sob stories like this should become more frequent if we handle illegals correctly. Julie Quiroz’s mother was deported to Mexico, having given birth to her in the U.S.

“It’s not right what they’re doing — separating families.”

Let’s correct the record:

1. “They” didn’t separate your family. You did. You were given the choice of going to Mexico and living with your mother and siblings or staying in the U.S. without them. No one forcibly separated you.
2. What’s “not right” is that your mother put you in this situation by entering our country illegally. Unfortunately for you, the illegal acts of one party often have consequences for others as well.