LETHAL FORCE AND WOKE VIOLENCE

  

Less than three years ago, America was burning.  Yet some people seem to forget.

 

A perfect storm of political-cultural unrest and the worst pandemic in a century combined to produce deaths and injuries among months of rioting, arson, and looting.  Liberal mayors and governors, eager to demonstrate solidarity with the “protesters,” did little or nothing to quell the violence in Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, and elsewhere.  National figures in the Democrat Party were largely silent, although the current vice president said that the “protests” needed to continue and would continue. 

 

Spurred by controversial police use of force, political partisans and hell-raisers seized the opportunity to run rampant in extremely permissive jurisdictions.   

 

Nationwide riots followed George Floyd’s May 2020 death in Minneapolis, spurred by emotionally-charged video of a white police officer kneeling on the black man’s neck.  Aside from at least 25 ensuing deaths, the national mayhem was estimated at $2 billion by insurance companies although many businesses were uninsured or underinsured.  Some of those—operated by black and other minority owners—would never recover.

 

Caught in the political crossfire are minority police officers who, like their uniformed brothers and sisters, are vilified and heartsick as their cities are torched and trashed, and a precinct house was burned in Minneapolis, ground zero for the riots.  Meanwhile, at least two reports by CNN and MSNBC featured reporters commenting on “mostly peaceful protests” while stores burned in the background.

 

More recently some focus shifted to abuse of Asian Americans, as if it’s something new.  In March 2021, six Asian women were among eight killed in three Georgia massage parlors. Some media assumed the gunman’s motive was racial when subsequently it appeared that he was spurred by conflicting religious and sexual beliefs.  

 

Meanwhile, a California State survey in 2019-2020 reported nearly a 150 percent increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans.  The presumed reason: devastating effects of the Chinese-Wuhan-Corona Virus.

 

In fact, the trend was widely covered nearly 20 years ago during the Los Angeles riots of 1992.  Four LAPD officers were acquitted in the prolonged beating of Rodney King, a black parole violator captured after a highspeed drunk driving spree.  Eventually two of the cops went to prison.

         

Public response to the acquittals was immediate and violent.  Four days of arson, looting and vandalism left about 50 people dead and perhaps 1,000 injured.  Monetary loss was reckoned at $1 billion with more than half sustained by Korean-American or Korean immigrant businesses.        

 

Left to fend for themselves, store owners’ family and friends took turns standing guard and patrolling rooftops—popular antigun imagery in the mainstream media.   Missing from reports was that many of those business outlets doubled as residences, often on the second story.  Gun-toting citizens were protecting their homes as well as their livelihoods.

 

Last June a St. Louis couple, both attorneys, brandished an AR-15 and a handgun in the face of a mob that broke through their community’s gate, intending to protest at the mayor’s nearby house.  Instead, the crowd confronted the homeowners with threats of violence and arson.  The city attorney announced charges against Mark and Patricia McCloskey, saying, “We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation or threat of deadly force will not be tolerated.”

 

Missouri’s Republican governor quickly stated that if the couple were convicted for defending their home, he would issue a pardon.  Eventually the attorney and her staff were removed for conflict of interest in linking personal agendas to the case.  Apparently no charges were filed against any trespassers but the case against the home owners was resolved when they received probation for a year.

Whatever the circumstances, when business or home owners defend themselves with police absent or overwhelmed, armed citizens are branded “vigilantes.”  The media, almost universally lacking in knowledge or context, apparently neither knows nor cares about San Francisco in the 1850s.  Absent adequate law enforcement, and amid obvious civic corruption, “committees of vigilance” filled the vacuum.  The comparison between Then and Now are readily apparent. 

 

Politics is not the only reason for large-scale riots.  Look no farther than Detroit “celebrations” of the Tigers’ World Series victory in 1984 and the Pistons’ NBA win six years later.  Mobs numbering thousands caused multiple deaths, rapes, arson, and property destruction.  

 

Regardless of the timeframe, facing a determined, unarmed attacker can be high risk.  Year by year the FBI Uniform Crime Report shows 600 to 700 people killed by blows from fists or feet.  (Youtube has numerous videos of gangs stomping victims on the ground.)  So what are the odds of escaping a swarm of enraged assailants?  Or those armed with pipes, bricks or skateboards?  (Google for Kenosha and Skateboard.)

 

Whether the police or DA would acknowledge the “unarmed” threat is of course another matter.  

 

So: assume that everything you do will be filmed—that’s the world today. It could be a Good Thing if it shows you had to defend yourself, although remember this is the XXI century, and often facts do not matter. 

 

A new option for armed citizens is body cameras.  They’re usually affordable (up to $250 online) and can provide valuable context in court.  The problem with body cams, as often seen on police videos, is limited field of view, sometimes mainly showing the officer’s hands and bottom of his pistol grip.  In those cases, audio can take up some of the slack.

 

Perhaps of more relevance to citizens is the potential shooter’s perspective.  Viral video from the St. Louis incident only shows the home owners holding firearms.  Viewers did not see through their eyes, facing a hostile, trespassing crowd.  So consider withdrawing inside the doorway, limiting a mob’s ability to surround victims, and clearly showing criminal trespass at the entrance or inside a home.

         

Train for muzzle awareness.  The St. Louis couple was prosecuted partly for pointing guns at the mob.  Check your state laws on “brandishing.”  If you have a long gun, maintain low ready until-unless you reach your trigger decision.  With a sidearm, certainly low ready is an option but consider “holster ready” with hand on the grip because you know how long it takes to draw and shoot. 

         

As for “nobody needs 30 ‘bullets’” consider facing a vicious mob with 10 rounds in your firearm.  You’re surrounded by urban jackals with no cops in sight—and the Supreme Court has twice declared (1989 and 2005) that police have no obligation to protect any individual.

 

Be sure to check state and local laws.  For instance, here in Arizona, trespassing charges usually require a knowing violation of posted or spoken notice to offenders.  Meanwhile, arson of an occupied building justifies lethal force—not necessarily valid elsewhere.

 

As the ancient wisdom notes, there is strength in numbers.  Consider the case of Kyle Rittenhouse in August 2020.  He was armed with an AR-15, voluntarily patrolling the troubled streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, reputedly to protect a car dealership.  Other citizens also augmented the overwhelmed police.  In the turmoil Rittenhouse was separated from his partner—a significant factor.  A rioter grabbed the AR’s barrel; the teen shot the assailant and retreated, pursued by an enraged crowd.  Eventually Rittenhouse killed another attacker who struck him from behind and wounded a third who threatened him with a handgun.  Over a year later Rittenhouse was acquitted of criminal charges, but a “wingman” might have averted or at least reduced the violence level.  

 

Ultimately, avoidance is the preferred tactic whenever possible.  You can still contribute by serving as an observant, objective witness.  But sometimes that option is unavailable, and you become your own first responder.

BALLOONS VERSUS AMERICA IN PERPSECTIVE

 The current focus on Chinese and other balloons in U.S. airspace probably is so popular in part because it’s  so unusual.  But America’s experience with hot air and other balloons goes far, far back.

The French Montgolfier brothers captured France’s imagination with their hot air creations in the 1780s.  Though other nations took note, the first large-scale military use of balloons occurred during our Civil War (1861-1865).  Professor Thaddeus Lowe, a prolific inventor with four years ballooning experience, emerged as President Lincoln’s “chief aeronaut.”  His unit deployed several hydrogen balloons for observation of Confederate forces in the next two years, then was disbanded.

However, Lowe’s influence extended abroad.  His success drew European attention, including Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin who returned to Germany with optimistic reports.  Subsequently the Prussian returned to obtain more information, leading to the rigid airships of Great War fame.

Before Zeppelins caught the world’s attention in 1914, tethered balloons were recognized as excellent observation platforms.  They were especially suited to modern artillery, which could engage targets far beyond visual range on the ground.  Usually filled with hydrogen, depending on winds aloft, “kite balloons” could fly at 4,000 feet, bearing one or two men armed with binoculars and voice communication with the ground crew.

Nearly 80 fighter pilots became “balloon aces” by flaming five or more “gasbags.” Thirty were German or Austrian; 26 were French; 15 British Commonwealth.  Due to limited opportunity, only five U.S. Air Service pilots achieved that distinction, led by Lt. Frank Luke, the famed “Arizona Balloon Buster” credited with 14 before his death in September 1918. 

America’s first balloon unit arrived in France at the end of 1917, training alongside French aeronauts.  By the end of the Great War in November 1918 the U.S. Army balloon corps logged nearly 7,000 hours aloft, losing 48 to all causes.  Contrarily, Yank pursuit pilots were credited with 69 German drachen destroyed.

A lighter-than-air sidebar involves hydrogen-filled barrage balloons.  The unmanned, tethered items were deployed by WW I combatants to deter air attack, some floating as high as 15,000 feet.  They were far more prevalent in WW II, especially in Britain to foil German dive bombers and later V-1 “buzz bombs.”  U.S. forces used them at the Normandy beach heads in 1944.

Though the Chinese spy balloon of early this year astounded millions of Americans, almost none knew of the offensive use of balloons almost 80 years before.  Japanese scientists had discovered the high-altitude jet stream in the 1920s when weather balloons revealed extremely fast winds aloft.  Eventually the northern stream was determined to flow west to east well above 30,000 feet, often at more than 100 mph, sometimes twice as much.

During WW II, Japan lacked the ability to attack the continental United States in any meaningful way.  A handful of submarine shore bombardments and a single sub-launched aircraft were limited to 1942.

However, the Japanese Army proved innovative and resourceful.  Beginning in late 1944, thousands of fu-go balloons were launched against America.

The paper or rubberized hydrogen balloons were about 30 feet in diameter, armed with as much as 80 pounds of incendiary and explosive bombs.  The goal was to ignite forest fires in the U.S. and Canada, but the Japanese recognized the low prospects for success.  One estimate held that 10 percent of fu-gos would survive a trip of perhaps 6,000 miles in two to four days.  That guess proved optimistic.

Fu-go engineers devised a sophisticated system for maintaining altitude during the Pacific crossing.  Aneroid barometers monitored air pressure, controlling duplicate systems for releasing weights to maintain desired altitude.  At the end of the journey the balloon descended to begin releasing its ordnance.  The timing of course was wildly erratic, with impacts spanning thousands of miles.

The balloons alit across the continent, in 18 states as far east as Michigan and six Canadian provinces.  A few even reached Mexico.  Among 9,300 launched from November 1944 to April 1945, at least 300 were found during the war, but the timing was poor.  When the fu-go campaign began, a record winter in North America severely limited the balloons’ potential effects.

But one balloon inflicted lethal damage.  In May 1945 a Sunday school outing in southeastern Oregon ended with six   dead when youngsters found a balloon and apparently wanted to play with it.

Fast forward to this month.

For reasons yet unexplained, the Biden administration allowed a Communist Chinese surveillance balloon to complete an eight-day, 4,000-mile mission across our continent.  The device finally was shot down off the East Coast on February 4.

The Pentagon embarrassed itself with obvious duplicity.  A general refused to tell reporters where the balloon was at a particular time owing to National Security Concerns when civilians not only tracked the object but photographed it.  Subsequently the defense secretary claimed that the U.S. refrained from downing the intruder to avoid damage on the ground.

That was absurd.

The balloon transited huge wide-open expanses in Alaska, western Canada, and the Great Plains.  The odds of harm to humans hovered around Absolute Zero.  According to FAA statistics, during the week-long transit, about three dozen planes crashed in the United States without any reports of harm to groundlings.

My current and retired airline friends with US Air, Delta, and Continental confirm that airliners seldom fly as high as 40,000 feet.  So the balloon usually was above commercial traffic, but of course there was no way to know if it would stay there.

When the thing finally was downed, an Air Force fighter expended a missile reckoned at $400,000 to accomplish the deed.  Some knowledgeable pundits asked why the far cheaper option of a jet’s 20mm cannon wasn’t used, at a cost of about $27 per round.  I asked some fighter pilots and learned that at 40,000 to 60,000 feet, often jets cannot maneuver precisely enough to line up for a gun kill.

Obviously embarrassed by the growing scandal, the government tried playing catch-up in a frenzy of balloon assassinations.  In the ensuing week or so, a variety of Air Force fighters downed four objects over Alaska, the Yukon, and Lake Huron.  The fact that rules of engagement permitted pilots to destroy unidentified objects (apparently including a Hobby Lobby toy) demonstrates the administration’s desperation to repair its image.

As ever, politics uber alles. 

INVENTIONS TAKEN FOR GRANTED

 

Reprinted courtesy of The American Thinker.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/12/inventions_taken_for_granted.html

Around Y2K the internet and media were full up with everyone’s list of Most Important Inventions.  Many were slam-dunks: the wheel, gunpowder, telegraph, radio, steam and internal combustion engines, airplanes, rockets, nuclear power, etc.

Near the top, often just below the wheel, was the printing press.  Well, no argument there, for all the obvious reasons.

But…

What good was Herr Gutenberg’s 15th century invention without paper?  In half a dozen random lists I found paper on most of them but paper money rated high on two.  Paper generically was not included in two others.

(For those interested in pursuing the subject, the websites were Big Think, Cadcrowd, Tom Triumph, Live Science, History.com, and the Exeter Daily.)

Alright then: we have a printing press and we have paper.

What’s missing?

You got it: ink!

Writing and/or alphabets are strangely missing from some lists, but both existed long before paper.  Consider Egyptian hieroglyphics and Sumerian cuneiform in clay tablets.  It took the combination of paper and ink to achieve written communication on a broad scale.  Even when many or most texts were laboriously copied by monks in candle-lit monasteries.  

So, I nominate ink as a leading contender among inventions that we take for granted—without a thought.

Did you ever wonder where ink comes from?

I’m a professional author with 40-plus books and 800 published articles, but the question never occurred to me until lately.  So I did some Googling.

According to Wikipedia, ancient-ancient Egyptians used red and black ink once papyrus was available.  Chinese and Indian civilizations also developed ink millennia ago.  Formulas varied as you would expect, involving iron, ochre, phosphate, animal hide glue, carbon black, and so on.

The ink in your disposable ballpoint pen is composed of colorants (pigments or dyes) and binders, or vehicles.  Pigments cost more but are color-fast whereas dye inks contain solvents for quick drying.

Which probably is more than you want to know the next time you write a check.  Or even when you endorse one.

Other taken for granted inventions

I consulted my email circle, composed of really bright, accomplished professionals in various fields.  They include mostly retirees from the military (submarines to jets), law and law enforcement, journalism and academia (one-each Rhodes Scholar.).  Some remain active authors.

Early responses included the button.

Think about that—which is the object of this exercise—where would we be without buttons?

Who first thought of sharpening a bone fragment, poking a hole in one end and using it to draw a string through a piece of leather or wool?  What was the string?  Plant fibers?  We’ll never know of course, but buttons are traced to the Indus Valley at least from 2,000 BC.  

Button holes also are found in surviving Roman garments.  So give a nod to 3,000 years of progress the next time you button your shirt or blouse.  

Then there are horses.

Saddles should feature in history’s significant inventions for obvious reasons.  

Enter the stirrup.

When my grandfather’s black gelding spooked and started bucking, my six-year-old feet remained in the shortened stirrups, avoiding a long fall from Omack’s quarter deck. 

Otherwise, even as an adult, getting aboard—and staying there—was problematical. As an Oregon ranch kid, when I swung onto Shorty’s saddle, or Rooster’s in Arizona, it was because of the stirrup.  

The Mongols probably did not have many horse whisperers—the Khan’s minions were not known for subtlety or kindness—but the steppes reverberated with racing hoofbeats for centuries.  Archaeology indicates that the Mongols likely perfected the metal stirrup around the 11th century, with advantages over the simple leather loop.  Metal imparted rigidity, the better to stand while galloping and aiming the powerful recurve bow.

Mounted knights could not joust or fight absent stiff stirrups, and Europe’s history might have been different otherwise.  

The foregoing examples remind us that much of what we take for granted is or has been essential to our civilization.  In a period when supply chains lapse or back up with items as basic as toilet paper, we might ponder everyday items such as paper, ink, and buttons, and what they mean to us.