The Border & Illegal Aliens, And What We Are Doing About It.

[Bullheaded Texan]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said.

“We are not going to let this country be invaded!

We will not be stampeded!

We will not capitulate to lawlessness!

This is NOT business as usual.

This is the Trump era!," the Attorney General said.
 

[Bullheaded Texan]

Border Wall GoFundMe Campaign Reaches $3.2 Million In Three Days

by Bradford Betz about 3 hours ago 3.7k Views

Brian Kolfage, a disabled U.S. Air Force veteran, is raising money ...

 

A triple amputee U.S. military veteran says he was inspired to raise money for President Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall after reading a New York Post article that questioned why no one had taken up the mantle.

In just three days, Brian Kolfage’s GoFundMe campaign, “We The People Will Fund The Wall,” has racked up more than $2 million from more than 34,000 people, with a goal of raising $1 billion.

“If the 63 million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall,” the page reads. “That equates to roughly 5Billion Dollars, even if we get half, that’s half the wall. We can do this.”

Kolfage wrote that the campaign has been in touch with the Trump administration “to secure a point of contact where all funds will go upon completion.”

“As a veteran who has given so much, 3 limbs, I feel deeply invested to this nation to ensure future generations have everything we have today,” Kolfage’s page reads. “Too many Americans have been murdered by illegal aliens and too many illegals are taking advantage of the United States taxpayers with no means of ever contributing to our society.”

He added: “Democrats are going to stall this project by every means possible and play political games to ensure President Trump doesn’t get his victory. They’d rather see President Trump fail than see America succeed. However, if we can fund a large portion of this wall, it will jumpstart things and will be less money Trump has to secure from our politicians.”

White House officials say one way or another, President Trump will get the funding he wants to build the border wall.

Kolfage is a retired U.S. Air Force member who served in Iraq. During his second deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004, Kolfage was injured in a rocket attack at Balad Air Base. According to Kolfage’s website, a 107mm rocket shell exploded about three feet away from him. Kolfage lost both legs and his right hand and required 11 months of therapy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Kolfage continued to serve in the Air Force for several more years and was assigned to Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona as the base security manager. Kolfage is “the most severely wounded Airman to survive any war,” his website states. He is now a motivational speaker and has appeared multiple times on FOX News.

Kolfage graduated from the University of Arizona’s School of Architecture in 2014 and is now married with children.

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment. This week, the White House retracted its $5 billion figure to fund the border wall amid a looming government shutdown.

“We have other ways that we can get to that $5 billion that we’ll work with Congress,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told Fox News on Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Wednesday indicated the Senate will consider a stopgap measure to continue funding the government to avert a government shutdown – but it won’t include Trump’s desired allocation for border wall funding because of the “reality of our political moment.”

 Kolfage’s campaign is not the first crowdfunding effort to raise money for the border wall. In September the National Sheriff’s Association launched a website for donations. As of mid-December, the website has garnered nearly $160,000.

[Bullheaded Texan]

Border Wall GoFundMe Campaign Reaches $3.2 Million In Three Days!

by Bradford Betz about 3 hours ago

 

[Bullheaded Texan]

--------     fundthewall.com    ------>

Triple Amputee Veteran Launches Border Wall GoFundMe.

 12/18/18 by Jacob Engels 

A Florida-based triple amputee veteran has created a GoFundMe push to fund President Trump’s border wall through donations from the public. Brian Kolfage, who launched the GoFundMe, has also been an active free speech advocate who has spoken against censorship on digital media platforms. VIDEO: https://youtu.be/docNo9xKN2k

 Kolfage promises that he will make sure the United States government will be legally required to spend the donations on the wall and only the wall.

  His message, in full, is posted below.

“Like a majority of Americans we elected President Donald J Trump to Make America Great Again. President Trump’s main campaign promise was to BUILD THE WALL. And as he’s followed through on just about every promise so far, this wall project needs to be completed still.

As a veteran who has given so much, 3 limbs, I feel deeply invested to this nation to ensure future generations have everything we have today. Too many Americans have been murdered by illegal aliens and too many illegals are taking advantage of  the United States taxpayers with no means of ever contributing to our society.

I have grandparents who immigrated to America legally, they did it the correct way and it’s time we uphold our laws, and get this wall BUILT!It’s up to Americans to help out and pitch in to get this project rolling.

“If the 63 million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall.” That equates to roughly 5Billion Dollars, even if we get half, that’s half the wall. We can do this. 

 Democrats are going to stall this project by every means possible and play political games to ensure President Trump doesn’t get his victor. They’d rather see President Trump fail, than see America succeed.  However, if we can fund a large portion of this wall, it will jumpstart things and will be less money Trump has to secure from our politicians.

This won’t be easy, but it’s our duty as citizens. This needs to be shared every single day by each of you on social media. We can do it, and we can help President Trump make America safe again!

• How will we get the funds to the right place? We have contacted the Trump Administration to secure a point of contact where all funds will go upon completion. When get this information secured we will update. We have many very high level contacts already helping.

• Republican Representative Steven Palazzo of Mississippi is introducing legislation to direct the Treasury Department to issue government savings bonds to allow us to fund the wall as an option. This is just one option, there are others on the table being discussed.

• 100% of your donations will go to the Trump Wall. If for ANY reason we don’t reach our goal we will refund your donation. 

• We are working with a law firm on a legal document that will bind the government to using the funds for the border wall itself, nothing else.

• We will hold all funds and not release a single penny until we have all legal aspects covered to ensure our money goes only to the wall. 

• If we don’t reach our goal or come significantly close we will refund every single penny.

LET’S GET THIS WALL BUILT! And make America Safe Again!”

 **** MY HAT'S OFF TO YOU, SIR! ****

[Bullheaded Texan]

USDA will clamp down on work rules for food-stamp recipients.

 12/20/18  By CATHERINE BOUDREAU

A sign announcing the acceptance of Electronic Benefit Transfer cards at a farmers market in Roseville, Mexif.

 The Agriculture Department on Thursday proposed a rule to more strictly enforce existing work requirements on more food-stamp recipients by reining in states’ ability to waive time restrictions.

The release of the rule comes on the same day President Donald Trump is expected to sign the farm bill into law — and the timing is no accident.

 The proposal, which was initially expected to be released before the midterm elections, is the administration’s response to concessions House Republicans made on food stamps in the final bill. The bill doesn’t mandate stricter work requirements or tighten eligibility criteria for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, which accounts for more than three-quarters of farm bill spending.

 The White House and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue had backed the House Republican efforts to overhaul SNAP. Trump used his Twitter platform to press for stronger work requirements, even late into conference negotiations, where food stamps were a major sticking point.

 Ultimately, the farm bill dispensed with all the House GOP’s controversial SNAP proposals and left out an effort by Senate Agriculture leaders that could have blocked USDA’s regulatory action.

 USDA’s proposal targets a group of SNAP participants known as able-bodied adults without dependents, or ABAWDs, which includes recipients ages 18 through 49 who are not disabled or caring for children or other dependents. As of 2016, they accounted for a small slice, 3.8 million, of the nearly 40 million Americans who receive SNAP benefits to help them purchase groceries.

 Under current law, ABAWDs can’t receive food stamps for longer than three months during a three-year period, unless they are working or enrolled in an education and training program for at least 80 hours a month. However, states can waive this time limit when unemployment is high or there aren’t enough jobs available — an opportunity that was utilized widely during the Great Recession.

 “Nearly half of ABAWDs receiving SNAP now live in waived areas, despite the booming economy and low unemployment,” USDA said in a document explaining its proposal.

 “The department’s view is that waivers are intended to provide temporary relief to the time limit while areas face poor economic conditions and should be used accordingly!!”

 The proposed rule would tighten the criteria states must meet when applying for waivers from USDA, and it is projected to save an estimated $15 billion over a decade, Brandon Lipps, administrator of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, told reporters.

 Nearly 74% of the ABAWD population, or about 2.8 million people, is not working. That figure is tracked by states, according to the department. An estimated 755,000 of these individuals would lose SNAP benefits over three years if the USDA proposal is implemented. Lipps said the number of areas across the country with waivers would shrink by 75%.

 Currently, 36 states and territories waive the time limit for at least some portion of their ABAWD population. Seven have statewide or districtwide exemptions, including Alaska, Louisiana, New Mexico and the District of Columbia.

 Mexifornia, Florida, Texas and New York all have partial waivers. They are the four most populous states and also happen to have the largest ABAWD populations. Freeloading mexicans!

 In 2016, USDA estimated that there were 570,000 ABAWDs receiving SNAP benefits in California.

The proposal makes several major changes to the criteria used to determine whether states or regions qualify for waivers under SNAP. States have a handful of ways to qualify: Their unemployment rate can be above 10% or they can demonstrate that they don’t have enough jobs available.

 Lipps said clarity has been lacking in how an insufficiency of jobs in an area is substantiated, and that’s allowed waivers to be approved for states or regions where unemployment is as low as 4 percent. USDA’s plan would set a firm unemployment-rate requirement of 7 percent, Lipps said.

 Most states seek waivers for areas where the unemployment rate is 20% above the national average. That had been common after the 2008 financial crisis, but unemployment is now near historical lows at 3.7%!

 USDA’s proposal also would rein in so-called carry-over exemptions. States can exempt up to 15% of their caseload from SNAP time limits, a mechanism that can be used to extend eligibility for ABAWDs.

 Few states take full advantage of these 15% caseload exemptions. States don’t have to use the entirety of these exemptions in one year but can accumulate them indefinitely.

Mexifornia, for instance, has “stockpiled” 800,000 exemptions, Lipps said. The USDA wants to limit the carry-over allowance to just one year.

 Another proposed change would allow states to request waivers only for a one-year period instead of two. Further, USDA wants to ensure partial state waivers are granted only in regions that are “economically tied,” Lipps said, to curb states from “gerrymandering” parts of the state together to meet eligibility criteria.

 USDA said the proposal would not affect as many SNAP participants as the House GOP’s farm bill would have. Still, anti-hunger groups are likely to decry the Trump administration’s proposal as too harsh on low-income families.

 Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member debbie stabenow (D-Mich.), in a statement, said the USDA proposal “blatantly ignores” the compromise farm bill heading to Trump’s desk, as well as more than 20 years of history giving states flexibility to request waivers based on local job conditions.

 “I expect the rule will face significant opposition and legal challenges,” Stabenow said. “Administrative changes should not be driven by ideology. I do not support unilateral and unjustified changes that would take food away from families.”

 House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway (R-Texas) said in a statement that the USDA proposal would ensure that waivers are preserved for communities that truly need them.

 “Paired with the farm bill’s modernized [education and training] programming and increased investment, this proposed rule will allow ABAWDs to seek new opportunities and achieve their goals,” Conaway said.

The USDA plans to take comments on the proposal for 60 days.

 

[Bullheaded Texan]

GoFundMe campaign for border wall aims for a billion (at least).

 12/19/18 Updated 12/20/18  By BRENT D. GRIFFITHS

President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to shut down the government over funding for his border wall. 

 But as the question of money for his campaign proposal once again roils Congress, one man thinks he may have found a solution: crowd-funding.

 Brian Kolfage, a 37-year-old Florida resident who was severely wounded in the Iraq war, has started a GoFundMe campaign to complete Trump's signature pledge. The campaign has raised more than $7 million in the three days since it started, with an overall goal of $1 billion.    

 

The haul so far makes Kolfage’s effort one of the largest GoFundMe campaigns of the year, currently fourth on the site. The Florida veteran’s fundraising page ranks ahead of the nearly $4 million raised for the March for Our Lives in Washington, the anti-gun violence rally organized by students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but trails the largest campaign for the year, the Time's Up legal defense fund, which has raised more than $22 million.

Trump initially told congressional leaders that he would accept nothing less than $5 billion for his wall in a bill to keep most of the federal government open. Estimates for the total costs of a wall have varied — even Trump has changed his mind on an original vision for a continuous stretch along the entire border — but it usually falls somewhere in the $12 billion to $20 billion range. A staff report written for Senate Democrats argued that the price could be as high as $70 billion.

In a statement on the campaign’s site, Kolfage said the $1 billion is the current max for GoFundMe, but he is working to increase it. He added that if the roughly 63 million Americans who voted for Trump were each to donate $80, they would be able to raise the $5 billion the president is asking Congress for.

“Democrats are going to stall this project by every means possible and play political games to ensure President Trump doesn’t get his victor [sic],” Kolfage wrote. “They’d rather see President Trump fail, than see America succeed. However, if we can fund a large portion of this wall, it will jump-start things and will be less money Trump has to secure from our politicians.

 A representative from GoFundMe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kolfage says that he is in touch with the Trump administration to secure a point of contact for the potential donations and a legal firm to make sure Uncle Sam cannot use the money for other means. There’s also a pledge that all the donations will be held until the legal aspects are worked out — and that they will be refunded if the campaign does not come close to its goal.

 Americans crowd-funding their own government is not as unusual as it might seem.

The Treasury Department has a way for citizens to make unconditional gifts to the government. Among other things, one can donate to help pay down the national debt — in fiscal year 2018, just shy of $776,000 was raised this way.

 The National Park Service has its foundation for donations; businessman and philanthropist David M. Rubenstein has donated more than $18 million to improvements for national monuments like the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.

 Perhaps the most notable crowd-funding campaign in U.S. history was the one that raised the money to erect a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. “Let us not wait for the millionaires to give us this money,” implored Joseph Pulitzer in March 1885 in the 'New York World', his newspaper. More than $100,000 was raised, much of it from donations of less than a dollar.

 

The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York on this day in 1885 aboard the French frigate Isère — in 214 crates that held the disassembled gift from the people of France. Nearly a quarter-of-a-million onlookers lined Battery Park, while hundreds of boats pulled into the harbor to welcome the Isère.

 The Statue of Liberty was conceived to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the American Revolution in 1876. It faces East, greeting incoming ships while also looking back toward her birthplace in France. President Grover Cleveland, a former New York governor, dedicated the statue on Oct. 28, 1886, before tens of thousands of spectators.

 The statue is constructed of hand-shaped copper sheets, assembled on a framework of steel supports. Its construction was supervised by engineers Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel. To be transported across the Atlantic, the 151-foot iconic figure was broken into 350 pieces. The pedestal on which it sits was built using funds raised in the United States.

 Originally known as Liberty Enlightening the World, the statue was designed by Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, a French sculptor, in the form of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty. Her uplifted arm holds a torch.

 Bartholdi was inspired by Édouard René de Laboulaye, a French law professor and politician, who asserted in 1865 that any monument raised to U.S. independence should properly be a French-U.S. project.

 Work on the statue began in the early 1870s. In 1875, Laboulaye proposed that the French finance the statue and the U.S. provide the site and build the pedestal. Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these pieces were exhibited at various international expositions.

The torch-bearing arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, and in Madison Square Park in Manhattan from 1876 to 1882.

 Fundraising proved difficult, especially among Americans;

by 1885, work on the pedestal was threatened by lack of funds. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World started a donation drive to finish the project, which attracted more than 120,000 contributors, most of whom gave less than a dollar.

 Public access to the balcony around the torch has been barred for safety reasons since 1916. It was designated a national monument in 1924 by President Calvin Coolidge and underwent a major restoration in the 1980s.

 After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the statue was closed for security reasons. The pedestal was reopened to the public in 2004 and the statue itself in 2009. It was closed again for a year, until Oct. 28, 2012, so that a secondary staircase and other safety features could be added. However, one day after it reopened, Liberty Island — formally called Bedloe’s Island — was battered by Hurricane Sandy, forcing yet another temporary closure.

 

[Bullheaded Texan]

Senate approves Trump-backed criminal justice overhaul.

The Senate's passage marks a win for Trump, who lobbied Mitch McConnell to bring the bill up for a vote.

 12/18/18 Updated 12/18/18  By MARIANNE LEVINE

In a tweet celebrating the bill's passage, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) thanked Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) for working with him for years on the bipartisan proposal.

The Senate on Tuesday night overwhelmingly passed the biggest overhaul to the criminal justice system in decades, giving a win to President Donald Trump and a bipartisan group of advocates and lawmakers.

Tuesday's vote caps more than a year of negotiations to create more rehabilitation programs and ease mandatory minimum sentences for some drug-related crimes.

Story Continued Below

The bill, which passed 87-12, brought together many unlikely allies, including a group backed by the conservative Koch network, the American Civil Liberties Union, the White House and senators from both sides of the aisle.

“Every step meant a lot, and there were a couple of huge game changers, and one of the biggest game changers was the president coming out openly and aggressive for this bill," Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), one of the lead sponsors of the bill, said after its passage. "That made a huge difference. ... We got 87 votes for this thing. That says we did something right."

McConnell ultimately voted in favor of the legislation.

The House is expected to approve the bill easily this week, sending it to Trump for final approval.

Trump was quick to congratulate the Senate on the bill's passage.

"America is the greatest Country in the world and my job is to fight for ALL citizens, even those who have made mistakes," he tweeted. "This will keep our communities safer, and provide hope and a second chance, to those who earn it. In addition to everything else, billions of dollars will be saved. I look forward to signing this into law!"

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Lee led the effort.

“Our criminal justice system is a cancer on the soul of this country,” Booker said Tuesday. “One of the top reasons I wanted to run for United States Senate was to get legislation like this done.”

 All 49 Democrats voted in favor of the bill, and 12 Republicans voted against it. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was absent.

 The Republicans who voted against the bill were Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).

 The legislation, which was revised last week, provides incentives for some federal inmates to earn time credits if they participate in certain programs, reduces the three-strike penalty to 25 years from life in prison, reduces the disparity between sentencing for crack and powder cocaine and would ease mandatory minimum sentencing.

 The bill faced vehement opposition, particularly from Cotton, who said it would allow for the early release of violent criminals.

Cotton requested a Justice Department analysis of the bill that found individuals convicted of sex crimes could be released early. In addition, he introduced amendments to the bill, along with Kennedy, that would bar more offenders from participating in the bill’s earned-time credit program and imposed new reporting requirements on the Bureau of Prisons. The Cotton-Kennedy amendment failed Tuesday night.

 “How can anybody oppose telling a woman who has been raped that her rapist is about to get out of prison early?” Kennedy said Tuesday prior to the amendment vote. “It’s not letting her veto it. ... It just says you gotta tell her and let her offer her opinion. I mean, who could be against that?”

 The Senate bill’s passage comes after previous failed attempts to overhaul the criminal justice system, including an unsuccessful attempt at a more sweeping reform under President Barack Obama.

Advocates were quick to praise the passage of the bill.

 “Today was a resounding win for second chances, bipartisanship, and, most importantly, for the thousands of Americans families who are burdened by our broken justice system,” said Holly Harris, executive director of Justice Action Network.

 “In one of the most divisive political climates in decades, Republican and Democratic senators reached across the aisle and made history, ushering in a new era for a justice system that prioritizes rehabilitation, provides second chances, and, ultimately, makes us all safer," Harris said.

 

[Bullheaded Texan]

18 Deaths Of ICE Detainees Acknowledged Under obuma — But Not Investigated.   

 12/18/2018 Kerry Picket | Reporter

The Trump White House finds itself under scrutiny for the death of a seven-year-old Guatemalan migrant girl who was taken into custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, but 18 previous migrant deaths during the Obama years went nearly ignored by the administration’s critics in Congress. “Does the administration take responsibility for a parent taking a child on a trek through Mexico to get to this country? No,”

 White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said to a reporter who asked if the administration took responsibility for the child’s death. In July 2016, Human Rights Watch condemned the obuma administration for 18 migrants who died while in the custody of USCBP, claiming that seven or more of the 18 died as the result of the agency’s “substandard” and “inappropriate” care for migrants at detention centers. The detainees who died then were between 24 and 49 years old. 

 After 7-Year-Old Guatemalan Girl Dies Of Dehydration) TOPSHOT - A group of Central American migrants -mostly from Honduras- get over a fence as they try to reach the US-Mexico border near the El Chaparral border crossing in Tijuana, Baja Mexifornia State, Mexico, on November 25, 2018.

 - US officials closed the San Ysidro crossing point in southern Mexifornia on Sunday after hundreds of migrants, part of the "caravan" condemned by President Donald Trump, tried to breach a fence from Tijuana, authorities announced. A group of Central American migrants -mostly from Honduras- got over the fence as they tried to reach the US-Mexico border near the El Chaparral border crossing in Tijuana, Baja Mexifornia State, Mexico, on November 25, 2018. 

  “In 2009, the obuma administration promised major immigration detention reforms, including more centralized oversight and improved health care,” said Clara Long, U.S. researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But these death reviews show that system-wide problems remain, including a failure to prevent or fix substandard medical care that literally kills people.” The death reviews, HRW wrote, which surfaced through a Department of Homeland Security Immigration Customs and Enforcement FOIA request, were from mid-2012 to mid-2015. Migrant deaths along the U.S. southern border goes back years, and according to a 2014 report by the International Organisation for Migration, Smithsonian Magazine noted that over 6,000 people died at that point attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

 Presently, however, Democratic lawmakers are now more interested in investigating the one migrant death of Jakelin Caal Maquin.  

 Lawmakers within the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have demanded to speak to border patrol agents who arrested and detained the Guatemalan girl and her father before she was transported to a hospital and later died of severe dehydration, USA Today reported.

 Additionally, Mexifornia Democratic Sen. dianne frankenstein sent a letter to CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan asking for more information on the matter.

 “While DHS respects the oversight role of Congress, it is important to allow the review process occur unimpeded by politics,” DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman said in a statement to USA Today. “It is important to preserve the legitimacy of a fair and impartial process out of respect to the agents’ lifesaving mission and the family of the deceased.”

[Bullheaded Texan]

Woman Kills Escaped Prisoner Who Kicked Her Door In.

 12/16/18 by Tom Knighton

I’m not sure anything will get the collective heart rates of a community racing quite like an escaped prisoner in the area. Hollywood has told us countless stories of the horrors that can befall people at the hands of escapees. The fact that some of these are based on true stories certainly doesn’t help with that.

For one South Carolina woman, that fear became all too real, until she used her Second Amendment rights to rewrite the script.

An inmate who had escaped minutes earlier from a county jail in South Carolina was shot and killed by a woman after he kicked in her back door, the local sheriff said.

The inmate was still in his orange jail jumpsuit and had grabbed a knife sharpening tool from the woman’s kitchen in Pickens as he headed toward her bedroom around 3 a.m. Tuesday, Pickens County Sheriff Rick Clark said.

“This was a big guy. If she hadn’t had a weapon there’s no telling what would have happened,” Clark said. “I gave her a big hug. I told her how proud I was of her.”

The woman was home alone and had gone through training to get a concealed weapons permit, Clark said.

Bruce McLaughlin Jr., 30, died from a gunshot to the head, Pickens County Coroner Kandy Kelley said.

Sheriff Clark speaking on the incident sums it up pretty well.

Remember this when people ask why anyone needs a gun.

What were this woman’s options? Sure, she could call 911, but she’d probably have been dead before they got there. It’s unlikely that pepper spray would have been effective under the circumstances. A baseball bat – the preferred weapon for most who don’t own a firearm – would likely have been deflected and turned away.

No, she needed a gun. She had a gun, and she used it.

She’s the one still on the right side of the dirt.

There was no alternative. Further, this is what women’s empowerment really looks like. She used the best tool for the job and put a permanent end to the threat. She took responsibility for her safety and effectively utilized that responsibility.

Yet there will still be those who will claim she’s out of line. I fully expect to start hearing how the escapee “was a good boy” and how he “didn’t do anything wrong.” I’m sure this was all some nefarious plot by people who just dislike this sweet, innocent soul.

But it’s not. It rarely is.

To be sure, this woman may well suffer trauma from what happened, despite coming out on the winning side. She took a human life, something few are prepared to do. She may still feel unsafe in her home after what happened, and I don’t think I could blame her.

I hope that those around her will support her, get her any help she might need to get through this and help her get back to her normal life. She deserves it.

[Bullheaded Texan]

Caller Who Stopped School Shooting Was Boy’s Mother.

 12/17/18 by Tom Knighton

Last week, we covered a story coming out of Indiana where a 14-year-old would-be school shooter was met by police after a tip, thus aborting his massacre attempt. After a gunfight with police, the shooter took his own life, making him the only casualty. -- We now know who the tipster was.

 The Indiana State Police confirmed Friday afternoon that the mother of the suspect called in the tip warning police about a “potential violent act” at Dennis Intermediate School after the boy took another family member hostage and forced the family member to drive him to the school.

 Dennis Intermediate already was on lockdown and police were on the scene when the thug arrived.

The thug shot at a door to get into the school before exchanging gunfire with officers.

He died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

No one else was injured in the incident.

 I was going to say that I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for the mother to make that call, but then I thought about it for a moment or two. It probably wasn’t all that hard. After all, he had taken a family member hostage. He was forcing someone else to participate in his atrocity, and he was probably going to take his life anyway. It was probably more of a no-brainer than I originally thought.

 That doesn’t diminish the importance of her call. That call saved lives. Possibly, a whole lot of lives. She stepped up and did what needed to be done by not pretending her son was a little angel who could do no wrong. Granted, that’s easier to do when said “angel” has a gun and is taking family members hostage.

 At the end of the day, she did what we want people to do, and this incident resolved pretty much the way we all would prefer these incidents be resolved.

 That doesn’t mean there aren’t still questions. We don’t know where the gun came from, for example. We also don’t have any clue what pushed a 14-year-old to try and slaughter innocent people. Was he trying to be famous? Was he outraged with the entire world? The questions of “why” are still there, and will likely never be answered, unfortunately.

 For me, that’s a big problem. We don’t know why these things happen. We do know that a significant number of these shooters–something like 90% or more if memory serves–come from single-mother homes, but we also know that most other people from such homes don’t flip out and try to kill everyone.

 Isn’t it time that we press our research institutes to start looking into the minds of mass killers to try and figure out just what broke them so horribly? Once we know that, it’ll be easier to start creating strategies for combatting mass shootings long before they ever happen so that we don’t need to worry about guns or any other weapon they might obtain.

[Bullheaded Texan]

Ohio School District Joins Ranks Of Those Allowing Armed Teachers.

 12/19/18 by Tom Knighton

While the anti-gun ranks are furious that the Trump Administration’s panel failed to make massive gun control proposals, but instead argued that teachers should be allowed to work armed, the rest of the world has just been going on. After all, panels like these are rarely all that important. The most they can do is make some suggestions that lawmakers must then decide on.

Everywhere else, people are busy going on with their lives.

In Ohio, one school district decided that meant doing something that coincidentally lined up with that panel’s suggestions. They’re going to allow teachers to be armed.

A Clinton County school district is the latest in the Tri-State to allow teachers and other staff members to carry guns.

The Blanchester School Board voted Monday night to allow trained staff members to carry the weapons on campus.

The unanimous vote was based on a public resolution, sources tell FOX19 NOW.

FOX19 is working to gather more details about the timeline for the arming of trained staff members, which would be entirely voluntary.

Staff members who carry would be required to go through an approval process.

Unfortunately, this might not be a slam dunk.

 You see, Ohio state law permits armed teachers, but they have to be “well-trained.” They have to go through a basic police officer’s course or have 20 years experience as a law enforcement officer. That’s a lot of training.

 Frankly, it’s ridiculous that individuals who can carry firearms outside of the school require less training than those who can carry just a few feet closer to the building. It’s stupid.

 Especially since very little police officer training is centered on using force inside of a school.

While I oppose training requirements in general, even for teachers carrying in schools, I’m realistic enough to know that in some locations, that’s the only way teachers are going to be armed. As such, I tolerate them, but only barely.

 Yet it’s impossible to tolerate them when they’re filled with things armed teachers may not need to know or are designed to deter educators from even considering it. That’s what I believe the Ohio law is trying to do.

 Luckily, I suspect some teachers will take up the opportunity to be armed regardless of the roadblocks put in place by the state. They’ll learn, be armed, and be ready to defend their own life and the life of their students should the need arrive.

 At the end of the day, though, I doubt it will. After all, knowing that your body count may be low because a teacher may be armed might be enough to dissuade some would-be mass killer. That, in and of itself, is the biggest win you can have, and that’s what is likely to happen in a lot of cases.

 Additionally, the inclusion of yet another school district willing to have armed teachers in its classrooms will go even further to debunking the anti-gun zealots’ claims that such a thing will lead to more classroom shootings. 

 Time and time again, they’ve screamed about blood in the streets after a gun control law was repealed and guess what never happened? That’s right, no blood in the streets.

There won’t be this time, either.

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Trump Panel Calls For Armed Teachers.

 12/19/18 by Tom Knighton

Anti-gunners are shaking their heads right about now. It seems that when they think of panels to examine a school shooting, the only thing they want to hear is some form of gun control.

Yet a panel empowered by President Trump in the wake of the Parkland massacre has managed to find all kinds of things they believe will help that have nothing at all to do with gun control, including armed staff at schools.

“Our conclusions in this report do not impose one-size-fits-all solutions for everyone, everywhere,” said Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who led the commission. “The primary responsibility for the physical security of schools and the safety of their students naturally rests with states and local communities.”

Trump praised the report at a White House event Tuesday, saying “nothing is more important than protecting our nation’s children.”

On the question of whether schools should arm staff members, the panel said it should be left to states and schools to decide, but DeVos said schools should “seriously consider” the option. The report highlights districts that have armed staff members, and it steers schools to federal funding that can be used for firearm training.

Among the biggest proposals is a rollback of 2014 guidance that urges schools not to suspend, expel or report students to police except in the most extreme cases. Instead, the guidance calls for a variety of “restorative justice” remedies that don’t remove students from the classroom.

President Barack Obama’s administration issued the guidance after finding that black students were more than three times as likely as their white peers to be suspended or expelled. The directive warns that schools suspected of discrimination — even if it is unintentional — can face investigations and risk losing federal funding.

The rollback of the Obama measure is huge.

After all, the Obama administration basically warned schools not to discipline students at all. That may not have been the intention, but that was the effect. Especially since discrimination is generally an intentional act in the first place. Students being disciplined generally aren’t singled out because of their race, but because of their behavior. If one ethnicity seems to be punished more than another, then maybe it would be prudent to examine just why that’s the case.

But by making that argument, the Obama administration set the stage for Parkland. After all, the killer had been a problem for some time, yet nothing was done due to that guidance.

Another big call was for the arming of staff members, which we knew was coming. This was a drum that had already been beaten, and we know it can work, too. While critics like to blast the idea, saying that teachers shouldn’t have to carry guns, they fail to understand that we’re not talking about them having to carry, but that they should be permitted to do so. That’s a significant difference, as it leaves it up to the individual teachers to decide.

We’re talking about giving teachers a choice.

Of course, some are upset that more wasn’t said about gun control. While the panel did endorse red flag protective orders–despite the problems such orders could create–they said pretty much nothing else that gun control activists could embrace.

And they don’t like that.

They’ll need to get over it, though. Gun control wouldn’t have stopped what happened at Parkland. In fact, what would have stopped it was if people were doing their damn jobs from the start. If they’d have done that, the killer couldn’t have gotten his hands on a weapon legally.

There’s no reason to punish the rest of the country because they couldn’t do their jobs.