Orders of protection are about as protective as the paper they’re written on . . . KSP: Man Killed At Home Of Ex-Girlfriend After EPO Filed
A Clay County man was shot and killed at the home of his ex-girlfriend Tuesday morning.
According to Kentucky State Police, a man was shot and killed after he showed up to his ex-girlfriend’s home on Highway 2467. Kentucky State Police also confirm that an explosive device was found in the man’s truck. That was later identified to be a legal firework. A bomb technician was called to the scene.
Jody M. Sevier was the victim in Tuesday’s shooting. Police say that Sevier was shot at his ex’s home by Matthew Caldwell.
I’m not sure that “victim” means what lex18.com thinks it means in this case.
The New York Times finally discovers “swatting” is a problem now that a Democrat Congresswoman has been swatted . . . When a SWAT Team Comes to Your House
After she introduced the bill, Ms. Clark herself was the victim of swatting. She was watching TV with her husband when police cars pulled up to her house; when she walked outside, she saw officers with long guns on the lawn. Even though she knew all about swatting, she felt a “moment of terror about what was unfolding.”
For the majority of victims, who have never heard of swatting before, the experience can be confusing and chaotic. “Because the homeowners know things are safe in their house, they don’t understand who they are seeing outside their windows,” she said.
Your tax dollars at work . . . More than 1,400 federal agents are wearing expired body armor, according to lawmaker
A senior employee of the U.S. Marshals recently provided documents to the Judiciary Committee showing that many of the agency’s 3,900 operational employees have body armor with expiration dates in 2016 and 2017. The employee told committee staff he had been pressing the marshals for months to update the vests without much response.
The committee’s chairman, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), is now pressing David Harlow, the head of the agency, to explain why so many of his employees have outdated body armor, and why he had previously testified to Congress that he was not aware of such problems.
Esquire film critic needs a safe(r) space . . . ‘Baby Driver’s’ Fetishistic Approach to Gun Violence Made Me Squirm in My Seat
Despite the chaos wrought by Baby witnessing a gun murder early in the film, gun violence is treated as just another cool part of the musical rhythm by the film’s climax. Gunshots are timed to the beat, and when co-stars Jon Hamm and Eiza González pull out their huge semi-automatic rifles in a public parking lot, they get sweet, low-to-the-ground hero shots. They may be shooting at cops and not at all minding any other innocent people, but Edgar Wright sure makes them look cool-as-fuck.
I don’t know when this first started to bother me. I do know that I felt the same way about John Wick: Chapter 2, which similarly featured cool-as-fuck gun violence, also set among civilians. I wasn’t the only one to get a pit in my stomach at the thought of so much gun action in that film. Jordan Hoffman wrote about John Wick: Chapter 2’s “lustily shot” gun violence for the Guardian, pointing out the presence of AR-style rifles in the film—the same guns used in Newtown, Aurora, and San Bernardino. Hoffman calls even the best of these sorts of films “ephemeral,” adding that “their mindlessness doesn’t stick, no matter how many minds are shown sticking to the wall.”
Maybe Corey needs to find a more peaceful line of work.
Because gun lobby….oh, and race, too . . . Why There Will Never Be a ‘Bianca’s Law’
The murders of Bianca Roberson and Miosotis Familia are less politically potent. Roberson was black, and Familia was Hispanic.
Roberson is reported to have been killed by a white man who became enraged when he and Roberson were jockeying for the same highway lane. Guns are freely, legally sold to insecure men with hair-trigger emotions and minimal self-control. Such men, when armed, are dangerous, as Roberson’s death once again confirms.
Yet Republicans in Congress aren’t eager to highlight laws that enable reckless, dangerous men to carry loaded semi-automatic weapons wherever they go. And the politicians have no intention of offering remedies for the violence that sometimes results.
Another ugly American . . . U.S. Woman Throws Live Bullets Into Japan Airport Trash Can
Isn’t it annoying when you get to the airport, and realize you’ve accidentally packed something in your hand luggage you can’t take on your flight?
For one U.S. citizen in her 60s, that something was 100 live bullets. Aftering arriving at Tokyo’s International Haneda Airport Wednesday with her husband to transfer to a flight to Southeast Asia, she noticed the bullets were in her bag and dumped them in a trash can, Japan Times reported.
Police arrested the woman, who has not yet been named, on suspicion of bringing 100 live bullets into to the country, which is in violation of Japan’s Firearm And Sword Control Law.
Not addressed in the article: The US airport TSA checkpoint she managed to pass through with 100 rounds of .22 ammo in her bag.
Don’t interrupt a man when he’s getting laid. He might just kill you. Lot of shotguns in KY.
That movie looks like another total pile of garbage, even the amount of firearms and car chases shown in this trailer won’t save it. But I’m sure it will be a box office success, like all the other junk which people call a ‘great movie’. 🙂
Too bad you’ve already decided upon the quality of something without actually experiencing it, because it’s a lot of fun and probably not what you’re expecting.
Ever notice that the majority of the movies critics like are NOT the same ones the majority of the public likes? Or that the ones the general public likes are not the ones which win awards?
The way to get an Oscar is to make a movie telling Hollywood how great it is. Everyone knows that.
I have seen a LOT of movies from across many eras, and I have picked critics whose tastes tend to be in line with mine, and I trust their reviews, to a degree. They are often in line with the majority of critics. I frequently disagree with the audience at large. I like the Coens and Charlie Kaufman and Terry Gilliam. The public at large likes Michael Bay. That doesn’t make me (or the critics) better people, we just have different tastes.
But we’re currently discussing a movie that is doing incredibly well with both critics and audiences (and, in my opinion, rightfully so). I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make.
My point is that most critics support the Hollywood elitists and thereby keep their jobs and income. Many critics, IMHO, were trained by liberal arts programs in colleges and universities and that is who they tend to support. They think the general public is crude and uneducated and therefore would not know a good movie if not for the critics. I feel art critics are much the same. If not for them, a lot of art would be considered so much garbage.
The general public attends movies for entertainment/escapism, not to be educated on things like political correctness. The general public is smarter than the critics give them credit for, because the majority of them realizes that movies are not real life. That the XMen, Batman, John Wick, James Bond, Gene Autry, and all the rest are fictional. And all those awards shows, with one exception, are just Hollywood patting themselves on the back. (My exception is The Peoples Choice Awards)
Needless to say, I place little store in what any critics have to say.
Gene Autry was a real person, Dave.
You’re right about Batman, though.
But he played a fictitious character, just like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.
Yep, Gene Autry, and Audie Murphy, a *highly* decorated WWII soldier (Medal of Honor and a number of others).
Murphy did 40 or so motion pics in his post-WWII career…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_career_of_Audie_Murphy
And Jimmy Stewart….
Don’t know about Baby Driver but John Wick 2 was as good as the first one – stunningly good!
TSA doesn’t care if you have a case of .22 in your checked bag…but maybe they should if it’s illegal for SGA to ship it to you 2nd day air…
I wonder if I should send the film critic my copy of The Wild Bunch for a review?
“Give ’em hell, Pike!”
“They may be shooting at cops and not at all minding any other innocent people, but Edgar Wright sure makes them look cool-as-fuck.”
This, people, is proof of *why* we are winning the culture war on gun ownership.
Guns *are* cool.
And it’s Hollywood that’s repeating that same message over and over and *over* again.
Hollywood’s greed of money is securing our gun rights, and they are too fucking stupid to see it.
Just imagine where we would be if Hollywood treated guns like they now treat cigarettes.
This is truly an example of selling the rope that hangs…
{Humming ‘God Bless America’}
John Wick: 3 John, a victim of political correctness is relieved of all his firearms and blades, and sits at home while bands of home invaders empty it of his lifetime accumulation of memories and valuables. PETA and SPCA fight over his dog as he looks on. 90min
But if they don’t take his pencils….
Don’t give Hollywood too much credit when we’re talking about a movie written and directed by a Brit, and produced by British production houses.
It’s symbiotic; Sure, it’s helping us, but if Hollywood did with guns what they did with cigarettes, where would Hollywood be?
“… if Hollywood did with guns what they did with cigarettes, where would Hollywood be?”
Exactly!
They may hate guns, but they love money *more*.
It’s *slightly* analogous to that old saying about the Arab – Jewish hatred: “There will only be peace when they love their children more than they hate each other.”
How do those babies taste, Hollywood?
*snicker*
You’ve blown the quote, and shown your ignorance equally blaming Muslim and Jews.
The actual quote was from Israeli PM Golda Meir:
“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us
as quoted in A Land of Our Own : An Oral Autobiography (1973) edited by Marie Syrkin, p. 242”
That’s why I stated it was *slightly* analogous.
Reading comprehension, it’s a thing, son…
Weak attempt at recovery, “son”.
You claimed the Hollywood phrase was analogous to ” to that old saying about the Arab – Jewish hatred”.
IOW, you considered your misquote about Arabs and Jews as real.
It wasn’t. A simple “oh, I had it wrong” would have sufficed.
You didn’t.
Yep guns ARE cool. Weenies are not. That reminds me…I need to watch my DVD of JohnWick 2 again?Saw the new Spider-Man today. Good! AND violent!
Hmmm, Melissa Bachman.
She is really nice and engaging in person.
“Police arrested the woman, who has not yet been named, on suspicion of bringing 100 live bullets into to the country,”
Always travel with dead bullets, never live ones. Dead bullets don’t come to life until their primers are struck. Hmmmm… does that mean they become undead bullets?
“Guns are freely, legally sold to insecure men with hair-trigger emotions and minimal self-control. Such men, when armed, are dangerous, as Roberson’s death once again confirms.”
Somehow, after naming two victims, in the emotional aftermath of a second murder — this timing is purely a coincidence, I am sure — the rant there fails to mention *the second shooter.* The second shooter who stalked the victim, and was prohibited from owning arms already.
So, I get why they didn’t want to mention the second murder beyond the first sentence. It appears that prohibited gun ownership made no difference, but they wanted the weight of the current tragedy, and two deaths behind their agenda.
Indeed, officer Familia’s killer may have been a “reckless, dangerous” man, yet, chillingly, he was deliberate and measured in carrying out his plan. “Hair trigger” reaction, this was not.
If they’re serious, let’s talk about doing something that might work. And maybe keep their examples on point to the agenda they are pushing.
I thought a writer from this website was the one freaked out by the “gun violence among civilians” in Baby Driver for a second. Phew, I’m glad you were just quoting to poke fun. Go see Baby Driver in theaters, it’s really enjoyable.
Firearm and…Sword Control? Are homicidal Samurai a problem in Japan?
Used to be. Why. samurai could cut down any peasant that got in their way without consequence. Now that they have sword control, not so much.
While stationed in Japan, my wife and I lived in a three story apartment building where out 3rd floor apartment balcony looked down on a banjo ditch. On the other side of the ditch was a house where every day a young Japanese male practiced martial arts every afternoon. One day he was down there working with his Samurai sword. At one point while I watched, he slipped while running toward the back wall, misjudged his move and sailed over the wall landing in the ditch. I had to go back inside to keep from laughing loud enough to be heard in Hawaii. Those Samurai warriors are deadly!
Just looked up benjo ditch.
Yuck!
(Thx for your service).
Oh yes. Evil rulers have a long history of attempting to disarm those that they would subjugate:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_hunt
“Firearm and…Sword Control?”
She’s in her 60s, got rid of them *before* customs… I don’t really see them tossing her into prison.
A few days in lockup, maybe a fine and deportation is my guess what they will do to her…
Japan is very strict about violations of their laws. I’ve lived there for 5.5 years. I also worked Customs and Immigrations there for the armed forces and worked closely with the GOJ.
I wonder what the D congresswoman thought SWAT was at her house for. I would pay good money to have read her mind….
Just got back from Baby Driver about an hour ago. Not going to lie, some of the automotive violence made me squirm a bit. And it is far more prevalent than the guns.
The scene the reviewer describes involves villains doing villainous things. The machine gun bursts (yes, fully automatic, not semi) timed to the beat of the music actually is kind of cool in that it’s a novel effect, but it in no way makes the sociopaths look heroic. The reviewer is probably more uncomfortable that the “hero” uses a gun to defend himself, somewhat successfully, despite his reluctance. In fact, he does so in defense of innocent life. A lot of what he does is in attempted defense of innocent lives. Pretty standard redemption story in a lot of ways, but particularly stylishly executed.
If anyone’s looking for a review: loved it. Fast pace, great soundtrack (which is structurally important to the film). If you like Edgar Wright’s previous work, you’ll like it, just don’t expect a comedy. Not that it’s lacking humor, it’s just not front and center like in Hot Fuzz. It’s a heist/car chase movie with jokes, not an action/comedy or horror/comedy or any other /comedy.
” The reviewer is probably more uncomfortable that the “hero” uses a gun to defend himself, somewhat successfully, despite his reluctance. In fact, he does so in defense of innocent life.”
Another example of Hollywood not demonizing guns. The young crowd sees *lots* of movies. It makes an impression on them, and in *our* favor…
“Orders of protection are about as protective as the paper they’re written on…”
They are very good protection- LEGAL protection. They won’t save your life, but they’ll help save your bacon after you blow the guy away on whom you have the order.
That’s a very good point.
To get a protective order, you must prove to an impartial party that you have a good reason to fear for your safety when the subject of the order is around. Most of the time, you have to prove that when the subject has an opportunity prove that you don’t have good reason.
You’ve basically already proven you are entitled to act in (non-deadly) self defense if that person is just around you.
The body armor thing… plenty of departments (especially smaller ones) used expired body armor. In fact there are programs where departments upgrading can donate used vests to departments that can’t afford them otherwise. Guess what happens when they’re tested? Still stop bullets.
They do need to be tested, but they’re not like milk where the expiration date means they’re going bad.
Properly stored and handled body armor won’t go bad within the lifetime of the original user. A SAPI plate is basically a solid chunk of ceramic and aramid. Aramid fibers are non-biodegradable and last more or less forever unless directly exposed to UV. Take care of your gear and it will take care of you. Now one thing to keep in mind is that I don’t wear my armor eight hours a day five days a week. In those cases, you need to make sure that your shell is properly fitted to the aramid panels and doesn’t subject them to repeated bending stress. You also need to be judicious about maintaining your carriers and replacing them when they start to wear out.
“Properly stored and handled body armor won’t go bad within the lifetime of the original user.”
I’m inclined to believe that, but didn’t that British security company guy Carter, who has commented here on occasion, make a claim that he tested some and they did become ineffective with age a while back?
I recall him saying something along those lines…
Its all about heat, moisture, and material.
Kevlar aramid, stored properly, has been tested as long as 30 years after production and found to meet its specs still. That same vest, used by a Florida cop, soaked in sweat 12hrs a day, in 95° heat, might be toast in a few years.
A laminate vest, taken from its new package and set in a hot trunk, is worth its weight in recycled milk jugs in 10 minutes; which it becomes molecularly similar to at that point. But submerse it in water, and its fine.
Grossly simplified, but that is what to expect.
If it’s all good with the expiration date then why put one on there? I have some and still use it BUT if I was told that I would be provided quality armor then why shouldn’t I have it?
“Directors” could maybe not get new furniture, do without an aide or three and maybe not fly around all the time. That’s where money can come from.
so are lead bullets dead bullets or not? Because live bullets sounds like Mexican jumping beans to me. I’m 63 and never yet chambered a live bullet, but when I do I will speak to it first, convince it to be sub MOA
Five years ago the story would be someone actually has 100 rounds of .22 ammo. And for sale third party for low price of $100.
Anybody else remember when Esquire was a magazine for men…?
Damn John Hamm has strong thumbs…look closely at that picture. And isn’t it funny how things are not an issue until they happen to a member of congress?
If you read the KY story, the EPO had not yet been served. A Kentucky EPO is easy to get, it doesn’t take much to convince a judge to sign one.
There is not enough in the story to decide if the man was a “victim” or not. It shooting is still under investigation.
For all we know, the ex girlfriend might have called the guy to come over.
“I’m not sure that “victim” means what lex18.com thinks it means in this case.”
I was going to post this same idea, Chris. Good post. The order hadn’t even been served yet, so we can’t say definitively that the man would not have been dissuaded from making further contact with his ex. Although, we do know from many other cases that some do decide against making contact, while others ignore the order and go commit murder. In this case, it’s impossible to know.
Moreover, as you mentioned, these orders can be easy to obtain, as TTAG itself is very quick to note and lament. As to the actual circumstances of the shooting, we only have a somewhat skimpy initial report to go by, which, again, as TTAG often points out, can vary from the final account of events reflecting the fullness of facts.
So is this a TTAG good landing at the wrong airport? Perhaps, but maybe more like a good landing at a fogged in airport and we’re not yet sure where we are.
Back in the late 1980’s, the gun store I worked for purchased some “used” body armor.
It was surplus from the IRS! About half of it was well worn and half looked brand new.
The labeling indicated it was about 3 years old,I still didn’t trust it.