Why Do I Own An AR-15?

The media adores the term "assault rifle" or "assault weapon". Now, if I assault you, then by default the weapon I used is an assault weapon. Cain killed Abel with a rock, making a large stone the first assault weapon. Last I checked, no one was advocating rock control.

 

Jealousy is a bitch.

 

 

 

 

 Historically the term "assault rifle" is generally traced back to the German Sturmgewehr-44 /Stg44  in the latter part of World War Two. Up until then their standard infantry rifle was a bolt-action rifle with an internal 5-round magazine. This was the Mauser Kar-98, fielded in 1935 and derived from an original design from 1898.  Starting in 1943, some units received a new semi-automatic rifle, the Gewehr-43 (or G-43) with a 10-round detachable box magazine. It was based on an almost identical weapon, the Gewehr 41/G41, field-tested two years earlier. The word Sturmgewehr literally meant "storm rifle"....as in a rifle to storm, or assault, a fortification. According to one account, the name was chosen personally by Adolf Hitler for propaganda reasons. It used a 30-round detachable box magazine and could fire fully automatic, and as a special-purpose weapon it was issued to Waffen-SS and other elite units. It was later the design basis for the Soviet AK-47 family of rifles.

Mauser Kar-98

Walther G-43

Haenel Stg-44

Herein lies the rub. Civilian models of military-style weapons, by law, are semi-automatic. They are incapable of firing the entire magazine off in a continual burst like the original assault rifles. A semi-automatic weapon requires you to squeeze the trigger each time you wish a round to be fired. The only "automatic" part of the operation is that the expended brass cartridge is automatically extracted & ejected as the next round is fed into the chamber from the magazine. It is not a machine gun. The US military's M-4 carbine, the latest permutation of the M-16 family that traces its lineage to the original AR-15, does not fire full auto except for a special variant used by Special Operations forces. Instead, the weapon has the S-1-3 trigger group, which means you have the options of Safe, Semi-Auto, and 3-round burst only. Back when I was a soldier, I carried an M-16A1 that was able to fire full auto, and even they were being phased out in favor of the A2 with a burst feature instead. This was in 1988.

The selector on an M-16A1, with full auto as a choice.

The selector on the M-16A2, which does not allow full auto, but has a 3-round burst selection.

My AR-15, with only two choices, Safe and Fire, with Fire being semi-auto only.

But, the media thinks anything with a detachable box magazine is an assault rifle. Uninformed talking head politicians on the Left who want to outlaw large-capacity magazines fail to realize that it's even easier to conceal three ten-round rifle magazines than to conceal a larger 30-round magazine, and anyone with a bare modicum of experience with a weapon can drop an empty magazine & insert a fresh one in under five seconds. Experienced shooters can do it in about three.

The media also likes to mistakenly refer to something they call an automatic pistol. Again, this is because they are either A) stupid, B) manipulating the masses, or C) both.  A pistol is either a revolver with a cylinder that holds on average 6 cartridges, you know, cowboy style six-shooters....or it is a magazine-fed semi-auto that (say it with me now, kids) fires a round each time the trigger is squeezed and it extracts & ejects the spent casing & a new one is loaded from the magazine. Depending on caliber, they will carry an average of 7 to 18 rounds. My preferred carry piece carries 8 in the magazine and I can have a ninth round in the chamber. I have others that carry a variety of loadouts.

By the by, I have been safely handling, operating, and carrying weapons of various types from pistols to rifles to shotguns to belt-fed machineguns to grenade launchers (though mostly rifles and handguns) for well over 30 years. I also have a 100% success rate at never injuring anyone with any firearm I have had in my possession, either for duty or for pleasure shooting. Not every gun owner is a homicidal maniac, despite what the media would have you believe.

On an almost daily basis I see people on social media bemoaning the fact that here in the good old US of A, one may own an AR-15 rifle. Note that I did not refer to it as an “assault rifle”, the way it is erroneously labeled by both the left-wing media and uneducated douchenozzles who know nothing about firearms yet are dead-set against you owning one, because they’re scary and other people did bad things with them.  This is because the AR-15 IS NOT AN ASSAULT RIFLE. SEE MY DEFINITION ABOVE.  The average everyday American citizen may not possess a fully automatic firearm and thusly, THEY DO NOT OWN ASSAULT RIFLES. Automatic weapons have been illegal since 1934 unless you have a Federal Firearms license for it that is EXCEPTIONALLY hard to obtain, and a Special Occupational Taxpayer certification.  And yet the media gets this shit wrong on the daily. 

 

 

You wanna see some crazy shit? Read on.

Y’know, a Ruger Mini-14 fires the same rounds as an AR-15. You can even use a 30-round magazine in it. But no one ever calls a Mini-14 an Assault Rifle, because it doesn’t look scary.

The Mini-14 Ranch Rifle. Often used to hunt coyotes and varmints on ranches. Fires the same rounds as an AR-15 that Liberals say isn't for hunting.

The media dearly loves their charts, because most American sheeple are so attention-deficient that unless it has pretty graphics no one will pay attention. So they add charts that are almost always PATENTLY WRONG, and the sheeple graze and take it as The Gospel and continue to perpetuate the wrongness by sharing it and quoting it. See this perfect example of ABSOLUTE WRONGNESS below, in a chart that from no less than the BBC that accompanied a recent article full of bullshit in the UK Daily Mail. It has “approximate rates of fire” on selected weapons. HOWEVER, let me make some corrections, or as you Leftists love to say, FACT CHECKING.

Revolver: Ruger LCR—So…which version of Ruger’s Lightweight Compact Revolver was tested? It comes in six calibers and depending on which caliber, it will hold 5, 6, or 8 rounds. If you carry extra rounds in a speedloader and are practiced, yeah, you can probably fire off 20 rounds in one minutes but don’t count on it. By the way, that’s not an LCR in the silhouette; it’s likely a Smith & Wesson Model 36.

Semi-Automatic Pistol: Colt Model 70—50 rounds a minute is a pretty fair rate for a semi-auto pistol with spare mags. But there isn’t a Colt Model 70. They must be thinking Series 70, the new reproduction of Colt’s venerable 1911A1. The silhouette is Sig Sauer P226 however.

Semi-Automatic Assault Rifle: AK-47—Um, there’s no such thing as a semi-automatic assault rifle which, by definition, is a fully automatic weapon. I’ll grant that 120 rounds in a minute is possible, but not likely. That’s 2 rounds a second, and you’ll need to reload.  And just because a weapon CAN, in some situations, fire at extremely fast rates, it is not something a trained and experienced shooter would do to their weapon because it causes a lot of strain and stress on the metal parts. At least the silhouette is right for an AK-series weapon.

NOTE: I’m changing the order of the last two weapons.

 

Fully Automatic Rifle: M-16 –Well, 950 rounds a minute is unsustainable due to reloading constraints. This pig isn’t belt-fed with a 950-round belt. They haven’t made a full-auto M-16 variant since the 80s. 

Modified Semi-Automatic Assault Rifle/ AR-15: 1,200 rounds per minute…

Please, dear people at the BBC, define just what the fuck these modifications are that allow a semi-automatic civilian rifle to fire even faster than a fully automatic military battle rifle? I don’t know of any combination of parts right now that would give an AR a 1200 rounds per minute cyclic rate.

So no, I’m certainly not trusting the veracity of firearms knowledge of a nation that is under severe gun control. How’s that knife crime problem these days, old chap?

The media seldom gets ANYTHING right when it comes to firearms nomenclature.

 

Oh, by the way, Liberal America, let me clear up another idiot misunderstanding of yours. The AR in AR-15 does not mean Assault Rifle. It is Armalite Rifle, Model 15. Originally made by the Armalite Company, designed by Eugene Stoner. 

Another common media misconception is the number of gun violence deaths in America each year. 

The media likes to play loosey goosey with facts and numbers. We don’t exactly have 40,000 deaths each year from gun violence; we have 40,000 deaths by gun. A full 60% of those deaths are suicides, while 36% are homicides. 

Beginning in 2008, the FBI used a narrow definition of mass shootings. They limited mass shootings to incidents where an individual – or in rare circumstances, more than one – “kills four or more people in a single incident (not including the shooter), typically in a single location.”

In 2013, the FBI changed its definition, moving away from “mass shootings” toward identifying an “active shooter” as “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.” This change means the agency now includes incidents in which fewer than four people die, but in which several are injured, like the 2014 Mother’s Day shooting in New Orleans where 20 were wounded.

This change in definition impacted directly the number of cases included in studies and affected the comparability of studies conducted before and after 2013 and aids the media in getting shit wrong when they even bother to research shootings instead of just parroting the DNC’s anti-gun made-up statistics. Even more troubling, some researchers on mass shooting have incorporated in their studies several types of multiple homicides that cannot be defined as mass shooting: for instance, familicide (a form of domestic violence) and gang murders. In the case of familicide, victims are exclusively family members and not random bystanders. Gang murders are usually crime for profit or a punishment for rival gangs or a member of the gang who is an informer. Such homicides don’t belong in the analysis of mass shootings.

Consider the mass shooting that took place in Platte, S.D., on September 17, 2015 that left six people dead. It was, by death toll, one of the eight deadliest shootings of 2015. Why, then, did few people hear about it? Because the victims were the wife and four children of Scott Westerhuis, who murdered them, then committed suicide. This was a tragedy, indeed, but not a mass shooting in the way the media prefers to sensationalize things.

Likewise, the mass shooting that caused the most injuries that year was the gunfight that took place between two biker gangs in Waco, Texas, in May. That was a heinous crime, with 9 deaths and another 18 wounded. 

So, yeah, I don’t trust mass shooting statistics. 

The question that always, without fail, accompanies this tantrum of boo-hoo  from the Anti Gun Crowd is, “Why does anyone need an AR-15?”

Well….why does anyone need anything? In most cases it’s simply WANT much more so than NEED.

A buddy of mine owns a Dodge Charger SRT with a 470 horsepower V-8 that can go 175 miles per hour. Why does he need that? After all, the speed limit here in South Carolina on the open highway is a mere 70 miles per hour. Who needs a car that can go two and half times the limit? Heaven forbid if he traded up to the SRT Hellcat version; that monster has a 707 horsepower powerplant to propel you at 204 miles per hour, nearly three times faster than one is allowed to go by law. Surely, he is a monster for owning such a weapon of murderous potential? After all, cars kill many thousands more per year than guns do. However, no one is protesting in the streets for the police to go garage to garage to confiscate Dodge Chargers. No one is calling for his car to be taken away for arbitrary red flags.

In the wrong hands, this is pretty damned dangerous.

Cirrhosis is the 9^th leading cause of death in the United States, responsible for 1.2% of all US deaths and kills 3 times more people annually than guns, but alcohol is still legal. Throw in drunk driving related deaths while you’re at it. No one is pushing for booze bans; that failed once before.

Over 480,000 people die each year from smoking-related causes but smoking is still legal.

Over 85,000 people a year die from diabetes, almost six times as many as homicide by gun. While the Left has tried to ban sugar, it still hasn’t happened.

So, do I need an AR-15? Probably not. However, it is my right as an American citizen to own firearms, and I choose to own an AR-15 platform sporting rifle. Specifically, I own a DPMS/Panther Arms MOE Warrior. Defense Procurement Manufacturing Services (DPMS) started in 1985 as a precision machine shop for manufacturing M-203, M-14 and M-16 parts for U.S. military contracts. DPMS later began producing AR-15 style rifles of their own. I chose a reputable manufacturer with a background in the AR platform. I wanted a quality weapon, well-made here in the States.

The MOE stands for Magpul Original Equipment. Magpul Industries Corporation is an American designer and manufacturer of high-tech polymer and composite firearms accessories. They make the grip, handguards, magazines, and 6-position stock for my rifle.

Why does Steve need a six-position stock? He must be trying to conceal it beneath his trench coat to shoot up malls!!!!

Um, no. The adjustable stock allows me to get the optimum comfortable cheek-to-stock weld necessary for accurate target shooting. Think of it like power seats and tilt steering in your car. 

You have a laser scope for precision murder and a front grippy thingie to make killing easier, right?

No, stupid. I do not have a scope, or any sort of electronic sighting aids. I aim and fire the old-fashioned way, on iron sights similar to what I learned on.  I rely solely on my own skills with target shooting on iron sights. I do, however, have a pop-up rear sight that folds down to avoid damage. My old M-16 had the rear sight built into the carrying handle on the upper receiver.  And as I never carried a weapon with a foregrip, I didn’t feel the need to have one on my own personal weapon.

I find target shooting very relaxing. It’s kind of a Zen thing, really. You clear your mind of  distractions. You block out everything extraneous around you, while still being aware of your surroundings for safety purposes, and concentrate your focus on the target, be it a paper target, a metal plate target, or a rubber Hot Box target.

What’s a Hot Box?

Google it, chummy. I can’t do all your homework for you.

Why do you need 30-round magazines like a mass murderer, Steve?

Honestly, because I’m lazy. I hate having to stop and reload once I’m sighted in and “in the groove” so to speak. I only load 27 rounds in a 30-round mag, because a trained shooter doesn’t load any magazine to full capacity. Why? Because constant full compression of the magazine spring can cause it to prematurely weaken and that can cause a feed jam. No Bueno, amigo. You also don’t store loaded magazines for extended periods, to keep the spring tension proper. So, I load 27 and that gives me 27 tries to hit my target before I need to break my firing position, drop the empty, reload, and re-engage. I have MAGPUL PMAG polymer magazines as well as standard military-issue steel magazines.

For the record, I’m not a fan of those big 100-round drum magazines. Those springs are under so much tension that they are prone to jam. In fact that fuckstick who shot up the theater in Aurora, Colorado had a drum mag that jammed, a jam that likely saved some lives. I might trust the MAGPUL PMAG D-60, which is a 60-round drum, only because they are an extremely reliable company with a stellar reputation for quality. I’m not ready to drop $129.00 on a magazine however, not just yet.

Extra weight, unwieldy and prone to jam. Nope, I'll skip thanks.

But Steve, why an AR-15?

Look…I carried an M-16A1 for 4 years active duty as a Military Policeman. I trained extensively with that weapon, as well as the M-1911A1 and M-9 pistols, the M-203 grenade launcher, and the M-60 machine gun. I am a graduate of the US Army’s Unit Armorer’s Course, which gave me a higher level of training on the inner workings, maintenance, and repair of not only the aforementioned weapons but also two types of .50 caliber machineguns (the M-2 and M-85), the M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon, and the M-240 series of machineguns. Hell, I’ve even fired AK-47-series weapons a bit too. I have about 34 years’ experience with firearms. I have a background in law enforcement and have passed multiple background checks; EACH TIME I have purchased a firearm in fact, and I have owned several.

As I am intimately familiar with the AR platform, wouldn’t it make sense to own a firearm that I am exceedingly comfortable with, can disassemble and reassemble with my eyes closed, can maintain and repair, and know the capabilities fully thereof? 

A weapon by itself is just a tool, a piece of machinery, a collection of parts…it is the user that kills.

For reals, people. Over 900 people were killed after drinking tainted Kool Aid in Jonestown in 1978. No one's ever tried to ban Kool Aid, because Kool Aid didn't kill those people; a man killed them; a guy who led their socialist cult who had them drink it after lacing it with cyanide. It was actually grape Flavor-Aid to be precise, and it was merely the delivery system. Guns were the delivery system that were central to the killings in places like Newtown, Vegas, Orlando, Dayton, or El Paso but it was a deranged human who killed those people.

Owning an AR-15 doesn’t make one deranged, or an instant candidate for being a mass-killer. No more so than owning a fast car makes one a street racing menace to the roadways, or having a drink makes one an alcoholic prone to drunk driving, or eating a Krispy Kreme glazed donut makes you an instant Type 2 diabetic. Personal responsibility goes a long way.

You’re just a stooge for the NRA!

Nope. I’m not a member. I do just fine without them asking me for money all the time to fund their political lobbying. No offense to those who are members; I’m just not much of a joiner these days.

 

I know my experiences don’t speak for every AR owner. I can really only speak for myself and my own reasons for why I own what I own. Thankfully I live in a nation with a Constitution that I swore an oath at age 18 to defend and uphold against all enemies, foreign AND domestic, a Constitution that states quite clearly that my right to bear arms shall not be infringed upon, and that I live in a state with a love of firearms and shooters’ rights. I know some of you are less fortunate in that regard.

So, I guess that leaves us with the biggest and best reason that I own an AR-15…

BECAUSE I CAN, AND IT WAS WHAT I WANTED.

Now get off my lawn.

Other Times I have written about gun control issues:

https://mojosteve.blogspot.com/2014/07/leftist-rolling-stone-gets-completely.html

https://mojosteve.blogspot.com/2013/03/even-more-gun-control-idiocy-and.html

http://mojosteve.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-hands-are-neither-cold-nor-dead-so.html

http://mojosteve.blogspot.com/2012/08/gun-control-means-using-both-hands.html

Black Lives Matter...just not to other black people.

A protester with Concerned Citizens of North Charleston curses at AP photographer, Mic Smith (left) for shooting photographs after a press conference in front of City Hall Friday morning. Because peaceful protests matter, yo.

So, a few days ago Charleston made the news again. After being held in solitary confinement for the past 9 months, former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager, charged with murder for shooting an unarmed Walter Scott last year, was released on a $500,000 bond. 

Heads immediately exploded.

Of course, the National Action Network and their ilk with the NAACP and #Blacklivesmatter, had to hold a photo op and publicity stunt press conference in front of the Al Cannon Detention Facility (the county lockup has such a fancy name, no?) to bemoan and denounce the release of Slager until his trial date.

Look, I’m not defending Slager. What he did was indefensible and he deserves to be convicted. They seemed to have forgotten a couple details, though. 

He has been in pre-trial confinement for the past 9 months, held in solitary confinement, and his trial date isn’t scheduled until October 31, nearly 11 months away. So much for the right to a speedy trial. Slager's attorneys had requested a speedy trial, but Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson filed a 10-page response to that motion, saying a date in the fall would be both reasonable and necessary because she is also working on the case against Dylann Roof, the little turd responsible for the June shooting deaths of nine black parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston. Hey, two high-profile murder cases full of guaranteed TV time and possible book and TV deals? She ain’t gonna let someone else handle one and lose out….but I digress.

By the time his trial started, he would have been held for 20 months in solitary confinement. Granted, a conviction is a foregone conclusion but any accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and incarcerating the accused for over a year and a half awaiting trial treads the realm of cruel and unusual. According to his lawyer, Slager’s health has suffered while behind bars, as prison food is generally not gluten-free and Slager has celiac disease. You can force entire prison systems to go pork-free to make Muslims happy, but you can't do anything for the gluten crowd.

So, a black judge agreed to bond him out under house arrest, and the Usual Suspects lost their minds. I’m surprised that Judge Clifton Newman hasn’t been called Uncle Tom by the black community and had his home address Tweeted out by Spike Lee.

SC Judge Clifton Newman

 "We want Slager back in jail," said Elder Johnson, State President of the National Action Network, at the news conference, and also called for the resignation of North Charleston Police Chief Eddie Driggers. After all, when Black America is wronged, everyone must resign. I’m shocked they didn’t also demand the resignation of North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey and Governor Nikki Haley. This despite the fact that Driggers and Summey immediately fired Slager and charged him with murder within a couple days of the shooting. They did what they were supposed to do, but just like the situation at University of Missouri, somebody gotta pay…and the university’s president and chancellor both resigned.

A protester with Concerned Citizens of North Charleston curses at North Charleston Police officers after a press conference in front of City Hall that addressed the release from jail of former North Charleston Police officer Michael Slager on bond. Please note that Mister Peaceful Protester is the same guy from above.

And then they turn on their own, as Mister Peaceful curses at Elder James Johnson, State President of the National Action Network, after the press conference, accusing Johnson and other protesters of not being aggressive enough in their protest. Because, well, peaceful protests, yo.

Ed Bryant of the North Charleston chapter of the NAACP said he believes Slager received preferential treatment. Local pastor Thomas Dixon agreed, saying "justice is not for all, but for some with a particular skin." Oh, spare me. Preferential treatment would have been keeping him on paid leave and free (or even on active duty) instead of fired and charged immediately with Capital M MURDER. Solitary confinement isn’t very preferential, unless you look at it as keeping him apart to keep him safe from fellow inmates so he didn’t get shanked in the showers.

"Slager is a threat to the community," continued Dixon later. "I don't care what the judge said." Yeah, sure, and you’ll vilify the judge as a race traitor next. Slager won’t be able to safely leave wherever he’s staying, let alone be allowed a moment without scrutiny, so when is he going to be freely roaming the community at large to kill at will? He has nowhere to go, and nowhere to hide. In essence, his cell merely got larger and more comfortable. He is in hiding, and his Hanahan home, which has been vacant since his arrest last April, was set on fire last night.  Say it ain’t so, peaceful black community? After all, who kept torching black churches in St. Louis to keep racial hatred going? A black dude. Yes. Kinda like the black Muslim who torched his own Houston mosque and the media was quick to blame Whitey but lost interest quickly when the truth came out. Doesn’t fit the Liberal narrative…

The aforementioned Ninth Circuit Court Solicitor Scarlett Wilson says prosecutors can ask to have bond revoked, but said there are no grounds to do so in this case. Bond is generally revoked when the accused does something wrong, and Slager hasn’t been out of jail much more than 96 full hours yet and hasn’t exactly had time yet to screw up.

You tawkin' to ME?

Meanwhile, over on Rivers Avenue in North Charleston, about three miles or so from where Slager shot Walter Scott and about ten miles (maybe less) from the press conference at the jail, 18-year old Larry Grayer and two of his buddies, 18-year-old Deandre Montel Stevens and 17-year-old Aliya Young, went to the Walmart parking lot with the intent to sell some marijuana and then rob the customer afterwards.  The customer, 16 year old Zarmell Polite, and an accomplice got into a gunfight with Grayer and company amidst the attempted robbery. According to investigators, Grayer was shot by Polite and transported to Roper Northwoods Hospital by Stevens and Young, where Grayer later died of his injuries. Digest that a second, will you? Two 18-year olds and a 17-year old selling drugs in the Walmart parking lot and robbing their customers at gunpoint and getting into a gunfight with a 16-year old.

 

Young and Stevens

Not a peep on this black on black crime from the esteemed black community, just a few miles away. Also not a peep about the 16-year old who killed a 19-year old in a prostitution-related robbery at a local hotel on Christmas Eve. Sure, the article says it was a “date” arranged on backpage.com (kinda like Craig’s List), but that’s a site that’s primarily only known for two things: escorts & whores setting up meets at hotels where often times the John is robbed and never calls the cops (“I was robbed while committing the crime of solicitation”), and for anonymous hookups for sex. Anonymous hookups don’t have armed backup in the next room, and legit dates meet at Barnes & Noble or the movies, not at Extended Stay America. 

Black lives matter…just not to black people it seems. If they mattered, then all the hue and cry would be focused towards Chicago.

After all, last year was a banner year in The Windy City. Despite the strictest gun laws in the land, there was a total of 2,995 shootings in Chicago, of which 443 were fatal. How is this even possible? President Pooky just Executive Ordered his way to expanded background checks to close the mythical gun show loophole but I guess the background check is a moot point. After all, how many of these street thugs and gang members and various other murderous hoodrats in Chiganistan purchased their firearms legally, through an FFL dealer who did a background check with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and how many had a valid Illinois concealed carry permit?

Likewise in the incident local to me, since these children under the age of 21 could not have legally purchased, let alone possess, the handguns used whilst conducting their equally illegal drug transaction and subsequent attempted robbery-cum-shootout, a background check, or some new draconian gun-control law, would be useless, since criminals don’t obey the law in the first place.

So, while Mayor Rahm Emanuel, formerly Lord Obeezy’s right hand at the Reichs Chancellery, was vacationing in the Socialist Worker’s Paradise of Cuba and getting his Che on with those crazy Castro boys, the first shooting of 2016 left one person injured early New Year's Day in the South Chicago neighborhood. Seriously, it took Chicago FIVE MINUTES to endure its first shooting of the New Year. 

The victim, a 34-year-old woman, was inside a residence at 12:05 a.m. last Friday when a bullet came through the second-floor window and grazed her hand and going through her finger, police said. She was taken to a local hospital in good condition.

The bullet was apparently fired by a reveler who was celebrating the New Year by shooting into the air, much like in peaceful cities like Baghdad, Beirut, Benghazi, or any gathered group of celebrating savages. The way they waste rounds in the Middle East celebrating, I should order my ammo there instead of trying to track down what little I can find here. But again I digress…

A little over two hours later, Chicago had its first homicide of the year. Police say the victim was a 24-year-old gang member who had been arguing with another man inside a bar when it spilled out into the street. The other man pulled a gun and shot him in the chest, then fled, police said. Business as usual.

Hours before the city's first reported murder, the Chicago Police Department released new crime numbers for 2015. The statistics show there were more than 50 more homicides last year than in 2014. So, things just get Progressively worse (progressive, get it? I made a Liberal joke!) and the black community only gets involved if a white guy, especially if it’s a white cop, is the shooter. Case in point: the meltdown after the release of dash-cam video that shows the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald, 17, by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke. Again, an inexcusable shooting, at least to the extent of how many rounds were expended. Seemingly, Van Dyke pulled up to the crowded scene and was practically firing as soon as he exited the vehicle. To catch you all upon what happened, allegedly:

Shortly before 10:00 p.m., police were called to investigate a report that McDonald was carrying a knife and breaking into vehicles in a trucking yard. When officers confronted McDonald, he used a knife with a 3-inch blade to slice the tire on a patrol vehicle and damage its windshield. McDonald walked away from police after numerous verbal instructions from officers to drop the knife, at which point responding officers requested Taser backup, according to radio recordings. 

Van Dyke was on the scene for less than 30 seconds before opening fire and began shooting approximately six seconds after exiting his car, from a distance of less than 10 feet away. The first responding officer stated that he did not see the need to use force and none of the at least eight other officers on the scene fired their weapons. McDonald was shot 16 times in 14–15 seconds, expending the maximum capacity of Van Dyke's weapon. Video of the shooting shows that McDonald fell to the ground after the first shot was fired, after which Van Dyke stopped firing for a moment, then opened fire again when McDonald moved, knife still in hand. 

Hmmm, he moved. Shit, bodies on a morgue slab can sometimes twitch. That doesn’t mean the coroner has to stab the corpse again to make sure it’s dead. You had at least eight other officers around, none of whom had fired a shot (leaving at least 128 more rounds to fire at the suspect, plus the other 15 in Van Dyke’s gun), so go up and kick the knife away and subdue the suspect on the ground. Anyone who’s watched an episode of COPS has seen five burly officers dogpile a subject on the ground. 

According to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office's autopsy report, McDonald was shot in his neck, chest, back, both arms, right leg and had a graze wound to his left scalp. Nine of the 16 shots hit McDonald's back and he was shot even as he lay on the pavement. Toxicology reports later revealed that McDonald had PCP in his blood and urine, which can definitely give bursts of frighteningly superhuman strength when a subject is being subdued, but the dude dropped on the first shot.

Bad shoot by the cop? I’ll go with that. But did you know this happened well over a year ago? And the family had already been paid by the city and the city swept it all under the rug because it was an election year and Comrade Rahm wanted to stay on his Iron Throne. Reports say that the video of the shoot was buried and that camera footage from local businesses were confiscated and even destroyed. Not the first time this cop has been investigated and people were paid off over it, either. Not the first hinky shooting by a Chicago cop, no way. 

Does Chicago have a leadership problem? Yup. Does Chicago have a crime problem? Double yup. Will those dumb bastards keep voting Democrat and blame Whitey for everything? Triple yup.

After all, black lives matter, just not to other black people.

 Of course, I'm pretty sure I must be some sort of heinous racist for pointing out shit like this. And if you're BLACK and point out shit like this, you're a traitor or an Uncle Tom. I'm sure that insurance agent Fred L. Davis has gotten a ration of heat over his billboards in greater Memphis.

Oh, and if you want to ever keep up with the Chicago crime reports the same way I do, keep track of the action at Hey Jackass. This site is AMAZING.