Convenience store shooting has robber's family asking questions

Unbelieveable. Two masked men armed with rifles enter a convenience store in North Tulsa, start shooting, and the clerk shoots back with a handgun, killing one of the robbers, and the robber's family has questions?

The deceased robber, identified as 14-year-old(!) Qualynn Dabney, was an eighth grader in an alternative school program operated through a partnership between the Tulsa County Juvenile Bureau and the Tulsa Public Schools, indicating that he was not a stranger to the justice system. By accounts in the article, he was a wonderful student, well-liked, and energetic, yet he ended up dead on the floor of a convenience store with a .22 rifle next to his body.

His grandmother, who was not identified as a witness, said the "other boy" had the rifle and fled, leaving her grandson alone and unarmed. She doesn't think he should have been shot and wants a thorough investigation. I think that's a wonderful idea.

Questions need to be asked all right. How about we find out from the family:
1) Why was a 14-year-old boy out on the streets at 10:45 PM on a school night?
2) What was a 14-year-old boy doing robbing a convenience store?
3) What was a 14-year-old boy doing with a gun, despite his family's claim that he didn't have a gun?
4) What should the clerk have done when two men burst into his store shooting?
5) Would they rather have had the clerk, just a man working for a living, been shot by the 14-year-old boy?
6) Will they identify the "other boy" since they seem to know so much about the crime?
7) Are there any other questions they want to ask in an attempt to deflect interest away from their failure to control their child and prevent him from meeting his untimely end?

I seriously doubt that the clerk had time to determine how old his assailants were nor that it would have mattered since they apparently came in the door shooting. It is enough that he was in fear for his life and returned fire. The fact that a 14-year-old child who should have been home in bed died is a tragedy, but he made bad choice, a choice from which his family should have protected him.

I just hope the "culture of silence" doesn't protect his partner in crime who also is responsible for this young man's death.

ECS

September 11, then and now

On September 11, 2001, I was at work in Tulsa preparing one of our corporate classrooms for a new group of employees. When I went back into our L&D office one of my coworkers asked me to turn on the radio in my cubicle because a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

With my first thought that it was a replay of the B-25 hitting the Empire State Building during WW2, I turned on my portable radio. We listened in growing horror as events unfolded.

Moving to the theater/auditorium where someone had put the television on the main screen, we watched, some in horror, some in anger, as the second plane hit the second tower. I stayed to watch people jumping to escape the flames, to hear about the Pentagon attack, and to see both towers collapse. I was one of the angry ones.

We had an office in one of the towers.

We were all released for the rest of the day. By the time I left the building, the sky was empty of aircraft and what contrails crossed the sky were fading.

I went to get my corporate-length hair cropped, shaved my beard, and trimmed my mustache back to military regs. I called the Army and had a nice young sergeant advise me the that they weren’t currently accepting applications from members of the Retired Reserve to return to active duty.

On Saturday, September 11, 2010, I flew my flag and attended our neighborhood block party. Now too old to be recalled to active duty, having been too high mileage and beat up to be recalled before reaching the magic age 55, I listened to my neighbors chatter and the children play. In the nine years since the attack on our country, people seem to have forgotten.

I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgiven. Every time I see people shaking their fists in rage screaming, “Death to America!” for some presumed or pretended slight to their religion or culture, I get angry all over again.

I’m tired of waiting for “moderate Muslims” in the United States to decry the violence and demonic behavior by their co-religionists. I’m tired of being “deemed” a racist and hater by people who hate me because I don’t believe as they do. I’m tired of being treated like some barbarian because I advocate defending our country, our borders, and our families from anyone who would do us harm.

I’m not sure when the change took place, the lessening of the anger, the numbness that replaced the shock, the complacency that replaced the calls to action, but I don’t like it one bit. What has happened in this country is like losing interest in WW2 sometime after Operation Torch and before Operation Overlord.

It’s time to replay the images of that day, complete and uncensored. People need to be reminded of exactly what happened and why. Those foreigners who demand that we honor the freedom of religion of their co-religionists need to be told to do the same in their own countries, allow freedom of religion. Those who don’t want their holy books burned should stop burning holy books. Oh, and the next time someone claims that I am a member of the “Taliban wing of the Republican Party,” I may just punch his lights out.

ECS
Captain, Armor
Army of the United States (Retired)

Invasion in an undeclared war and treason at the highest levels

The United States of America is being invaded, American citizens are being killed, property is being despoiled, and our government refuses to do anything about it, thus committing treason.

Yeah, I said treason. The accused? President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, members of Congress, former Presidents George Bush, Bill Clinton, and members of their administrations.

A rancher in Arizona is murdered and his dog shot while trying to help illegal aliens he found on his land over the weekend. Robert Krentz called a family member to say he'd found one or more illegals at one of his water holes and was helping them. He and his dog ended up dead, and the presumptive killers fled on foot to Mexico. Were they members of the Mexican military or police? Probably not, although it's common knowledge that the drug cartels have suborned entire units of Mexican military, paramilitary, and police. The Border Patrol and the county sheriff have no suspects. I can't tell them who killed Mr. Krentz, but I can tell them who enabled the crime: every one of those people I listed above.

People living on the border with Mexico tell of gates smashed, fences cut or run down, cattle run wild or killed, butchered, and cooked on the spot, property stolen. They tell of people knocking on doors at all hours, demanding food, water, and beer, and making threats. Ranchers have given up on their livelihoods on land their families have owned for more than a century. People go armed to check their livestock and water holes. They don't go out at night. They're afraid to leave their homes unattended. They're afraid to confront trespassers. They're afraid their trucks will be stolen from the Walmart parking lots.

The Border Patrol has apprehended over 20,000 illegals in the area in the last twelve months just on this one section of the border. If they catch one-in-four, that's almost one hundred thousand illegals a year coming into the United States. If the ratio is one-in-ten, that's getting close to a quarter of a million illegals. That, folks, is an invasion.

What is the response of our government? Well, the local Congresswoman says she's going to ask for Federal troops to be deployed along the border. Senator McCain hasn't spoken of it, nor has his La Raza-approved advisor. We've heard the Attorney General and Secretary of State claim that the drug cartels are armed with guns purchased illegally at US gun shops and gun shows and say nothing when the Mexican government functionaries claim that our Second Amendment is to blame for the violence on the Mexican side of the border. Those same Mexican government functionaries assist the illegal border crossers because the money earned by illegals in the United States and sent home provide the second highest amount of Mexican income behind oil.

So what we have is an invasion of the United States facilitated by the Mexican government, aided and abetted by members of our own government at the very highest levels, and nothing is done. Nothing is done to those who hire illegals. Nothing is done to truly secure the border. No one in our government tells the Mexican government to solve their own problems. No one in our government wants to eject the illegal aliens living in our midst, who are, by definition, criminals.

The actions of the Mexican government amount to a war on the United States, an economic infiltration of our borders by people hostile to us and our way of life. The actions of the United States government amount to nothing less than treason.

Strong words, you say? Tell it to the Krentz family. I'm sure they'll be receptive.

ECS

The Christmas Rifle and the Christmas Blizzard of 2009 - Update

My lovely wife bought me a Christmas Rifle, a Ruger Mini 14 in .223 Rem/5.56x45mm NATO, at Walmart when she was picking up Christmas presents for the grandchildren and groceries. Then, today around 1:00 pm the rain turned to sleet, making good on the Winter Storm Warning. However, it didn't stop there; the weatherguessers then changed the Winter Storm Warning to a Blizzard Warning. The wind kicked up to a steady 35 kts, the sleet accumulated and turned into snow. I had to pick my wife up from work, leaving her car there, and stop numerous times to clear the windshield wipers of an accumulation of ice. My younger daughter swore she could get home, but I ended up serving as her GPS over her cell phone to get her to my mom's house.

So, here we are, home alone and exhausted. My older daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren are home since they couldn't get here. My younger daughter is at grandma's. We're all supposed to go to grandma's for Christmas tomorrow, and we will if the roads get plowed in time. So here I am with a nifty Christmas Rifle, and, unless the weather moderates, nobody will get to see it.

It seems to me that someone should have warned us that Algore was going to be in the state this week. Next person tells me "Global Warming" is real is gonna get punched. (Exaggeration for effect.)

Update: We all got to my Mom's house after a few shuttle runs, and we had a wonderful Christmas dinner. There were 19 of us including my younger niece's brand new baby boy. The weather is still cold, cold enough that we still have the snow and ice. I have to go back to work this afternoon, so it will be at least two weeks before I can get to the range. For some reason, my wife doesn't want to spend part of our 36th Wedding Anniversary weekend shooting. Go figure.

ECS

O Canada, kiss my...

...posterior.

Draft dodgers ran away to Canada during Vietnam. They must have mixed with the Canadian gene pool and made them stupid.

Canada introduces bill supporting war deserters

TORONTO (AP) — A Canadian member of Parliament has introduced a bill that would allow U.S. and other war resisters to stay in Canada.
The bill, introduced Thursday by the Liberal Party's Gerard Kennedy, would allow other countries' military deserters to stay in Canada if their refusal to serve is based on sincere moral, political or religious objections.

Parliament has already voted twice to support war resisters, but those were non-binding motions.

Kennedy's bill would be binding because it would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

At least two war resisters seeking asylum in Canada have already been deported to the U.S.

"...other countries' military deserters..." I guess they're getting a ton of Pakistani, Russian, Uruguayan, and Australian deserters up there, eh? Apparently the author was too cowardly to say, "We're going to let American deserters stay in Canada as long as they say they have '...sincere moral, political(!!), or religious obections.'" Well, isn't that just peachy?

As far as I'm concerned, the little cowardly bastards missed the boat on "...sincere moral,...or religious objections..." when they raised their right hands and took the oath of enlistment. The fact that the idiot Kennedy thinks ...political...objections... are sufficient to desert sworn duty dishonors any American soldier who understands that their duty is to their country, not a bunch of stinking politicians!

If this passes the Canadian Parliament, the United States should end all military co-operation with Canada, refuse entry into the United States of any and all Canadians unless they can claim that they are "political refugees," and require all American companies to divest themselves of any properties, including assembly plants. Further, any products originating in or passing through Canada should have a 100% tariff placed on them. Of course, since our current administration has no cojones, nothing will happen if our closest neighbor decides to shield a bunch of sniveling cowards.

ECS

Governor Perry sends Texas Rangers and National Guard to "hot spots"

Accusing the Federal government of dragging it's feet on border security, Governor Rick Perry of Texas has ordered special "Ranger Recon" teams supported by National Guard troops to "high traffic, high crime" areas along the Texas-Mexico border to support local law enforcement, especially in rural areas where local law enforcement and sheriffs' departments can be overwhelmed.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's spokesman attacked the Governor's actions as "yet another empty election-year promise." Of course, she's running against him in the next Republican primary.

Governor Perry's response was about the hypocrisy of pointing at his efforts when Senator Hutchison's efforts in Washington to help Texas protect it's border have been on the order of ineffective. The Governor asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for 1,000 National Guard troops to help police the border earlier this year and renewed his request in a letter to President Obama last week. The response? Crickets.

I salute Governor Rick Perry for his actions.

ECS

Global "Warmification" must be at fault here!

Cry for the "Milwaukee Rain Forest."

It turns out that this summer has been the coolest in the last decade, and, in some areas, the coolest on record. Here in Oklahoma, it didn't look good since we had some real heat (over 100 degrees) in June, but since then the weather has been at or below norms.

ECS