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Three background checks per minute

Yes, fire arms dealers love the Friday after Thanksgiving, leaving some of us not feeling all that thankful.  On that day, two days ago, the sales of fire arms were so great that the official background checkers were working at a rate of three checks a minute, according to a report on NPR this morning.

International Business has some details:

"We are averaging three checks per second," FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer told CNN. "The challenge is to have staff keep up with this volume.” He said employees are asked to work extra shifts and that the agency limits personal leave. The FBI department in charge of firearms background checks, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, has a staff of about 600. Many of them will put in 17-hour workdays this weekend to keep up with the increased demand for guns on Black Friday.

The sudden surge in checks puts a strain on the agency, which has only until the end of the third business day after someone has attempted to purchase a firearm to determine the buyer’s eligibility. If the agency has not completed the background check by the time the clock runs out, the gun buyer has the right to get his or her gun anyway, at the discretion of the vendor, the Associated Press reported.

Last year, more than 186,000 background checks were not completed on time, according to the AP, although it is unclear how many of those resulted in customers leaving with new firearms. ...IBT

Sheesh! Why bother!

Hillary's odor puts off some voters

Hillary Clinton has lost the "new car smell" she might need to win the presidency in 2016, said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen on Sunday. 

“The president said [last week] that the next president needs … a new car smell, and it’s pretty hard for me to say … that she [Hillary] has a new car smell," Schoen told radio host John Catsimatidis in an interview to air Sunday on New York's 970 AM. ...TheHill

Of course!  Of course!  That explains why this blogger has turned against her?  Why didn't I think of it.

But wait!  Is it Hillary I'm smelling?  Or is it that beastly Puanteur de Renard?

Schoen, who worked on Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign and is now a Fox News contributor, said he expects Clinton to run, but that she will face challenges having served in Obama's administration as secretary of State. ...TheHill

For now, suffice it to say that Romney (Romney!) is ahead of Clinton in the polls with Jeb Bush behind both of them.  On the other hand, Elizabeth Warren seems to be getting more respect than any.  I wouldn't count on Warren surviving, though.

You don't need a reason to kill a black

If a white life cycle features innocence, growth, civility, responsibility and becoming an adult, blackness is characterized as the inversion of that. Not only are black children cast as adults but, just as perversely, black adults are stuck in a limbo of childhood, viewed as irresponsible, uncivil, criminal, innately inferior. ...StaceyPatton,WaPo

From earliest childhood right on up through the teens, black are bigger, more dangerous than whites.  And volatile, unpredictable.  We all know that in our heart of hearts.  The descriptions of the hulking Michael Brown ring bells with white people, right?

In announcing the grand jury’s decision not to indict Wilson, prosecuting attorney Robert P. McCulloch assaulted Brown’s character and recalled, in morbid detail, conflicting accounts of how Brown’s body reacted to being shot. One unnamed witness testified that Brown was in “a full charge,” with his fists clenched or at his sides.

Such descriptions, so similar to 19th-century defenses of lynching, are often invoked when a black child is gunned down in America.

In 1955, after 14-year-old Emmett Till was beaten and killed by a group of white men, one of his killers said Till “looked like a man.” I’ve found this pattern in news accounts of lynchings of black boys and girls from 1880 to the early 1950s, in which witnesses and journalists fixated on the size of victims who ranged from 8 to 19 years old. These victims were accused of sexually assaulting white girls and women, stealing, slapping white babies, poisoning their employers, fighting with their white playmates, or protecting black girls from sexual assault at the hands of white men. Or they were lynched for no reason at all. ...StaceyPatton,WaPo

Patton sets out to explain how it is that the black child in America isn't really allowed to have a childhood.  And it has been important to keep black and white children separate from each other in neighborhoods and schools.  You wouldn't want the white children believing that blacks are "just like us."  Dangerous assumption, right?

Elsewhere in the Post, analysts look at what witnesses told the grand jury.  More eye witnesses appear to have seen Brown surrendering. 

“I saw him turn to his right, turned around, but as he was turning, I'm sorry, he was like this. What I was saying was that I didn't see like a big all the way up there kind of thing, I just saw a turned around kind of right here.”
Q: “Kind of shoulder high, hands up?”
A: “Yes.”
Q: “But his palms were like facing the officer?”
A: “Yes.”

At the other end of the argument about "charging" is this:

“Mike Brown continuously came forward in the charging motion and at some point, at one point he started to slow down and he came to a stop. And when he stopped, that's when the officer ceased fire and when he ceased fired, Mike Brown started to charge once more at him. When he charged once more, the officer returned fire with, I would say, give an estimate of three to four shots. And that's when Mike Brown finally collapsed right about even with this driveway.”

The word "charging" is what makes me believe the witnesses who saw Michael Brown "surrendering."  "Charging" seems to be the word of choice.  It's the media's word.  I'd always tend to give the edge to witnesses who use their own words.  As witnesses, they  sound a good deal more objective ... and truthful.

Militia moves into Ferguson

With National Guard in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, along with random protesters and demonstrators, you'd think the streets would be crowded enough. 

Now they're joined by the "Oath Keepers," who are, um, "patriots." At least one organizer is a former Defense Department contractor.

The Oath Keepers, equipped with militia-style gear and often clad in camouflage, have joined the volatile mix. ... NYT

The image is at the top of the Oath Keepers website.

Oath Keepers' Ferguson strategy (excerpt):

The plainclothes Scouts should be directing the rapid reaction teams to protect the businesses from the ongoing crime, and refocus the police assets away from unconstitutional activities like shooting CS gas at peaceful protesters and enforcing curfews, and get to the business of putting the real criminals behind bars.   If you think you need more minority officers for this role, you could easily find them in the St. Louis County Police Department, St. Charles County Sheriff Department, and other local municipal police departments.  The plainclothes officers can identify and locate the trouble-makers and their caches and resources, such as gas cans and bottles for Molotov cocktails, bricks, etc., and they can also film the trouble-makers in support of later arrests and prosecutions.

Those plainclothes Scouts can also be directly backed up by small teams of five to seven additional plainclothes officers to take down identified looters in a manner that uses minimum force along with effective surprise applied only to the actual suspected looter.  And those plainclothes small reaction teams can be further backed up by the uniformed rapid response teams, if needed, as they apprehend the looters and shooters.   If possible, each officer should have a small, discrete camera – such as a badge camera – pinned to their clothing and running at all times, so that there is a recording of all that occurs.

According to St. Louis Today, Oath Keepers is a somewhat mysterious  group founded by a Yale Law-educated libertarian, Stewart Rhodes.

Rhodes, who said he is Mexican-American, stressed that Oath Keepers is not anti-government. He said the volunteers handling rooftop security in Ferguson were current or former government employees and first responders, many who have intense military, police and EMS training.

“We thought they were going to do it right this time,” Rhodes said of government response to the grand jury decision released Monday in the Michael Brown case. “But when Monday rolled around and they didn’t park the National Guard at these businesses, that’s when we said we have got to do something.

“Historically, the government almost always fails to protect people,” he added.

Justine Sharrock, reporting for Mother Jones magazine in 2010, wrote in an in-depth story about how the group is hard to pin down: “In the months I’ve spent getting to know the Oath Keepers, I’ve toggled between viewing them either as potentially dangerous conspiracy theorists or as crafty intellectuals with the savvy to rally politicians to their side. The answer, I came to realize, is that they cover the whole spectrum.”

In the wake of Monday’s grand jury announcement, Oath Keepers put out a national request to members to help in Ferguson. Volunteers showed up from Nebraska, Texas and Indiana. On Thursday, one volunteer had an “infidel” patch on his Kevlar vest and would say only that he came from “the north.” ...St.LouisToday

Well, perhaps they'll seem less "mysterious" when we factor in their relationship with the tea party.  As Justine Sharrock wrote back in 2010, "Oath Keepers collaborates regularly with like-minded citizens groups..."

...Last Fourth of July, Rhodes dispatched speakers to administer the oath at more than 30 Tea Party rallies across America. At last fall's 9/12 march on Washington, he led a contingent of Oath Keepers from the Capitol steps down to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Afterward, Oath Keepers cohosted a banquet with the hawkish Gathering of Eagles. This February, a member of the group organized a Florida Freedom Rally featuring Joe the Plumber and conservative singer Lloyd Marcus. (Sample lyrics: Mr. President! Your stimulus is sure to bust / it's just a socialistic scheme / The only thing it will do / is kill the American Dream.) ...Sharrock,MoJo

American police may be the worst

But they don't have to be...

... In many other countries, particularly in Europe, future police officers go through much more extensive training than American police do, a large part of which is learning how to calm down agitated people and defuse potentially dangerous situations. American cops, she said, average only 15 weeks of training before getting their badges. Even after they’re on the job, they continue to be inculcated with the idea that in a situation with a potentially dangerous individual, they need to be ready to kill to protect themselves. ...Waldman,WaPo

As many of us suspect, deadly force is used as a way to compensate for poor training.

Paul Waldman points out that deadly force by American police is far too frequent.  Police all over the world control violence in much more effectively and humanely.

He's right.

Being a cop is hard and dangerous work, particularly in places where crime is common. Most officers are never going to fire their guns in the line of duty. Even in Ferguson itself, there are officers trying to approach people as people and not as potential threats. But the fact that police all over the world manage to do the same job while killing barely anyone, while American cops kill hundreds of people every year, means that something is wrong with American policing. ...Waldman,WaPo

It's also important that we find out just how often the police are responsible for crimes that contribute to distrust of the police throughout America.

Police responsibility -- Cleveland

So there's this 12-year-old in the park playing with a pellet gun.  Two officers in a patrol car stop, exit the car with their weapons drawn, observe, and (they say) tell the kid to put his hands up.  They are standing a short distance from the boy, short enough (right?) for a trained gun user to aim at a leg, arm, shoulder at worst if the perp doesn't hoist hands.  These guys apparently shot two bullets into his stomach.  Took the child a while, but -- gutshot -- he died.

What kind of lousy training do police receive these days?  Can't they shoot better than that?  Shoot to disable?

And that's only if they have to shoot, of course.  What I really want to know is why police should avoid all risk to themselves by shooting first and making the civilian pay for their incompetence?  Aren't the police there to provide security, knowing that their job entails giving up some of their personal security? 

Not to forgive the police their cowardly choices, I'd also like to know why anyone should bother with the orange thingy on the barrel of a child's toy gun if it can fall off or be removed -- as happened in this case?

This wasn't a white on black shooting.  It was the shooting by irresponsible adults in a culture that insists guns are okay in anyone's hands -- trained or untrained, responsible or irresponsible.  In all of these shootings -- Aurora, Sandy Hook, Ferguson, Cleveland and thousands more -- it's America's finger on the trigger.

In Washington, elected and non-elected officials spend time developing language to cover the civilian deaths caused by drone strikes.  Lying to ourselves and others is a class- and race-free game played by presidents, members of Congress,"Christians," and whole corporations, including those that market and sell toy guns.  It's as American as shooting our kids in the streets and in parks.