Security

Santa left some pretty cool presents under the tree in the US:

Along with millions of Kindles, Angry Birds and gift cards, Santa left a record number of guns under Americans’ Christmas trees, especially in Kentucky, according to FBI statistics on background checks.

In the six days before Christmas, gun dealers submitted nearly half-a-million names for checks on criminal records and mental health issues, with 20% coming Dec. 23, according to news reports. That was the second-busiest gun-buying day in history, topped only by firearm purchases on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, The London Telegraph says.

Final tallies for the entire month haven’t been released, but December gun purchases will eclipse November. As of last week, 1,534,414 names had been sent to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, The New York Timesreported in an editorial. About 1% of buyers are typically rejected, the paper said.

The FBI cautions there is not a one-to-one correlation between background checks and the number of guns sold because of “varying state laws and purchase scenarios.” Many customers bought multiple weapons. Exact sales are neither reported nor recorded.

I see the Government is moving to licence bouncers.

I wonder what the Olympian who is afraid of his own name will do when that law comes in?

He surely can’t be a fit and proper person to hold such a licence.

This law will have a bit of an impact on the current muscle bound gorillas in the pay of gangs frequenting some establishments. A good move I think.

A lot of the current bouncers though already work for security companies and so are already licenced.

In my previous post I talked about citizens defending themselves, and while I was away in the bush there was yet another case of our Police are being attacked with weapons.

Two police officers ran for their lives when a routine callout resulted in a man allegedly chasing them with a metre-long samurai sword.

The officers were responding to reports of a man lying naked and drunk on the front lawn of an Otara property.

The incident comes after four separate attacks on New Zealand police officers this month – two involving machetes.

Police Commissioner Howard Broad suggested the machete assaults could be copycat attacks.

Two things are abundantly clear.

Firstly that criminals think that it is now a valid response to interest in them from the constabulary is for them to attack them with sharp, lethal instruments. The liberal panty-waists like Simon Power and his ilk will of course think the solution is for them to pass a law banning sharp weapons and making it illegal to attack Police. They ignore the fact that criminals don’t follow laws and in some respects we already have those laws in place. Banning sharp weapons will further dis-arm the general, law-abiding population, allowing criminals to have even more control over them. The answer is actually to arm our Police and stop pretending wer are living in the crime free fantasy land that inhabits Simon Power‘s and other panty-waists minds.

The second thing that we need to understand here is that if criminals are quite prepared to attack Police officers then they of course are completely willing to similarly attack a largely unarmed population without out fear of retribution or injury. Ordinary citizens are left to call on the Police for protection when it is abundantly clear that the Police are ill-equipped to defend even themselves.

The hard questions need to be asked and politicians need to step up or get out of the way.

Of course what is not mentioned is the underlying cause of all this mayhem. I bet dollars to a knob of goat-sh*t that methamphetamine abuse is the common link in all of these attacks. With long-term use the ability to reason and rationalise is destroyed…that is why you get these nutters going psycho on the Police with weapons…they have lost the ability to reason. They also know that mostly the Police are not equipped to deal with such attacks. Arming the Police would firstly protect the officers, and secondly provide a necessarily scary deterrent to shock even the most P-addled criminal into thinking twice about taking a knife to a gunfight.

The pinko panty-waists will now say that criminals will simply carry guns. Newflash…they already are…and guess what? They don’t have licences and aren’t vetted and sure as hell don’t keep their weapons safely locked away. All that only happens with law abiding citizens.

After the vicious cowardly attack on Senior Constable Bruce Mellor, people are rightly thinking that our cops should carry guns as a matter or course not as an exception. The criminals, as we can see daily, are already armed, it is only the feeble of mind that can’t see that. It is actually now a health and safety issue that our police are properly armed.

There aren’t many good arguments for having an unarmed police force. One argument is that you end up losing officers who have to shoot scumbags who seek other career opportunites, and that is bad, losing the good officers. Or suicidal people who want to go out by “death by police” which is bad also, for the police officers that have to deal with it. Other than those two, there is no good reason for stopping police from carrying whatever weapon they need to ensure they go home safe at the end of their shift.

The problem is a small number of do-gooders whinge like crazy any time the police do anything, blaming society, the Treaty of Waitangi, a bad up bringing or some other reason for some moron needing to be filled with lead or given 50,000 volts.

The sensible approach is to challenge these whinging do-gooders, like Brian Rudman, to run for office in a nice seat like Papakura where they can put their views up against those of the current police minister, and see whether the population agrees with them. That should demonstrate how out of touch they are.

We need to arm our police and scale back the scrutiny of shooting incidents. The mandatory enquiry that occurs after a police shooting should stop wasting time and ask the single most important question “Why did you have rounds left in your magazine?”

I was wondering what to post for Friday Firepower and then someone sent me a link via Skype. Awesomeness. An Internet connected RPG.

Police in central Russia are investigating a bizarre suspected assassination plot with a radio-controlled grenade launcher equipped with a webcam.

The heavy weapon was discovered on Wednesday in a car parked in Rostov-on-Don. The unfamiliar vehicle aroused suspicion among local residents, who called the police, reports RIA Novosti.

Inside, officers found a grenade launcher aimed at a road leading from the house’s inner yard. It could be triggered by radio signal. A webcam streaming video was apparently meant to enable the assassin to know when to pull the trigger.

A police source said the target was probably a suspected gangster living in the house.

The car, which had been hijacked earlier, also had two bottles with fuel inside. It is believed that the liquid would have been ignited by the firing of the grenade launcher and the evidence destroyed.

Bruce Simpson at Aardvark has stumbled on the ultimate solution for stopping Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

The US government has a problem, a big problem.

Some little Aussie upstart by the name of Julian is telling all their secrets to an eager world.

He’s dumped hundreds of thousands of supposedly confidential communiques onto the internet and the US administration seem powerless to stop him.

Sure, they’ve exerted pressure on the likes of PayPal and MasterCard in an attempt to choke off the supply of money. They’ve recruited the patriotic support of Amazon to throw him out of their cloud, and they’ve even managed to coerce the English and Swedish authorities into arresting him on some allegations of sexual offending.

But so far, all this has proven is that the US government is completely incapable of reigning in the actions of Mr Assange and the Wikileaks organisation.

I think it’s time they called in the big guns.

And, when you consider how many people have been hung, drawn and quartered by the US justice system for allegedly downloading the occasional $1 music track, I think we know exactly who to call.

Heh…I can see where this is going.

The RIAA/MPAA consortium has been able to achieve things that nobody else in the world has.

They’ve been able to accuse people of crimes and then, with little more than anecdotal evidence, have those people hit with astoundingly high fines and penalties which far exceed the seriousness of their alleged crimes.

Surely, if they put the RIAA/MPAA in charge of handling the thorny issue of Assange, he’d already be rendered powerless and enjoying a little waterboarding in an off-shore US prison somewhere.

I mean, just look at this case and you’ll see what I mean.

The recording and movie industry has managed to extract such incredible protection from the US government that it is surely now the most powerful “anti-evil” force in the land and thus, the perfect group to scuttle Assange’s attempts to release material that must surely be *copyrighted*, by dint of having already been published to a select few within government.

Ironic isn’t it. For exactly the same reasons as the recording industry can’t stop file sharing Wikileaks is destined to continue. Simon Power should take note in his bizarre attempts to control the internet.

Good.

South Canterbury Finance Limited announced today that it has been unable to complete a recapitalisation and restructure.

As a result, the Company would have been unable to certify to Trustees Executors Limited, in accordance with the terms of its debenture trust deed with Trustees Executors Limited, that it was compliant with various financial covenants under the debenture trust deed for the financial year ended 30 June 2010.

Accordingly, South Canterbury Finance Limited has requested Trustees Executors Limited to appoint a receiver in respect of the whole of its undertaking and assets, and Trustees Executors Limited has done so.

A further announcement will be made by the Company in due course.

Now people will start to realise a few home truths. But let me outline some of them for you.

Solvency is all about liquidity. It all works fine until one part of the system freezes or becomes solid. That just happened. There will be people who will think that everything is fine because SCF was part of the Government’s Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme. Some of those people are repeaters and should know better. Once one part of the system freezes then so too does the rest slowly.

If people who invested in SCF want their money back it will take time and time is never the friend of people who borrowed short and lent long. Other bankers will now be looking at exposure to their customers and it matters not a jot to them that there is allegedly some money sitting in SCF and allegedly guaranteed.

If SCF lied about their position going into the Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme, then rest assured those deposits are not covered at all. It will take time, a considerable amount of time to ascertain that position, and for all that time the money in SCF ain’t going anywhere except into the receivers pockets. It certainly won’t be going into the pockets of “investors” who think they are covered by a guarantee. Now that some portions of the liquidity is frozen others will now similarly freeze and farms will start to tip over. This is neither good nor bad, but it is good in the sense that highly leveraged owners will be cleaned out, farm prices will drop making entry of new, better financed farmers more likely.

As far as primary lenders go, usually when they lend they place a “priority” on their security, usually, if they are any good at their job this is the value of the security plus a cushion of 30%. Now what this means is that the first ranked secured creditor gets “dibs on any monies, up to and including their “priority”. Second and third in line get the rest. Now if is the case as is likely in the SCF situation where exposure exceeds value then the second and third placed “secured” creditors will get jack.

And that is irrespective of any so-called guarantee. Banks couldn’t care about that one bit, what they want is their loan money back and in short order, otherwise they will realise the assets….in realising the assets they actually take ownership of the guaranteed funds, and they can afford to wait. The farmer will get squeezed out.

This is actually good. The people who took the risk get most of their money back, the fools get their money taken off them and the farms and cows keep on producing the same as they always have, just the ownership changes hand. I’m glad the government didn’t panic.

Now all I wait for is some poor schmuck to front TV crying about how he lost everything because he “invested” in Blue Chip, Hanover and then SCF, with a little dabble in Strategic Finance, making the trifecta of stupidity. He will probably add to that by calling on Alan Hawkins to come riding in to save SCF.

Citizen A – 7pm tonight Triangle TV, replayed 8pm Sunday Sky 89 & Freeview 21

Tune in to join Bomber and his revolving panel of bloggers as they offer an up-to-date half hour review of the political media issues of the current week from a very Auckland perspective.

THIS WEEK: Who will win the SuperCity, What would a Laws and Peters NZ First look like and wikileaks – what are we doing in Afghanistan again?

And me of course with Tim Selwyn….so I guess you could call it the beardy weirdy show.

hat tip Not PC

Now you may be wondering why I m posting about a girls gun. Well because the RRP of $806 is perhaps the best insurance policy a woman can invest in to deal with armed offenders intent on raping them. The Smith & Wesson LadySmith Model 642LS in .38 Special costs just that. The spec’s are;

• Caliber: .38 S&W Special +P
  

  Smith & Wesson .38 Special

• Capacity: 5 Rounds
• Barrel Length: 1.875″ / 4.7 cm
• Front Sight: Integral
• Rear Sight: Fixed
• Grip: Wood
• Action: Double Action Only
• Frame Size: Small – Internal Hammer
• Finish: Matte Silver
• Overall Length: 6.31″ / 16.0 cm
• Material: Aluminum Alloy Frame
  Stainless Steel Cylinder
• Weight Empty: 14.5 oz / 411.1 g
• Purpose: Personal Protection
  Law Enforcement

Again you are probably wondering why I am telling you all this. Well, because no-one ever raped a .38.

One gun isn’t enough.
“That was what Linda Smith (a pseudonym) was thinking after two thugs broke into her Oklahoma apartment. One was holding a weapon … at her throat, and the other was pacing back and forth while holding her purse and demanding her money and valuables. She screamed, and was told if she screamed again, she’d be dead.
“She was doing as police recommend in robberies –- comply with a robber’s demands. But her Lady Smith & Wesson .38 special, which she carries by permit, was hidden in her purse –- and the purse was being held by one of the attackers.
“Then the situation, suddenly, got much, much worse: One of the robbers demanded that she take off her clothes.
“‘Come on, what are you waiting for,’ he told her as he started to yank on her sweatpants, trying to take them off.
“Smith pleaded for her safety and distracted the attackers by telling them she would get her money, which was ‘in my purse.’
“The robbers inexplicably allowed her to drop to her knees and crawl across the floor to her purse, which the second attacker had dropped.
“She reached inside, and the first shot was clear of the muzzle and into the torso of one of the attackers before she even pulled the weapon clear of the purse. Four more shots followed shortly and, in the end, one of the attackers was dead and the second was hospitalized facing a murder rap for having participated in a felony in which someone died.
“Smith … explained she comes from a family that believes in self-reliance and courage…”

As PC points out “…unlike the people who, in New Zealand, have been successful in disarming women even from carrying mace. Or a taser.”

Our Police in New Zealand are struggling against violent crime. It isn’t the hardworking guys on the beat that are at fault for the struggle, it is nine plus years of politically expedient Police and Justice ministers (Phil Goff included) denying that we have an organised crime problem. The current Commissioner of Police is no exception, manipulated into his position by foul political actions against his predecessor, he acquiesced to that manipulation and has been perfunctory in his tenure. He has repeated talked the talk and never walked the walk. Instead of cracking down on organised crime he has focused his and his staff’s attention on booze and speeding ignoring the creeping menace of methamphetamine.

Nobody ever raped a .38

Thankfully we now have a Police Minister who understands the menace of organised crime. That however doesn’t diminish the very real risk there are to our generally un-armed population in the face of increasingly violent criminal who themselves have gone and got themselves armed.

Navtej Singh died because he couldn’t protect himself, and died also because the police couldn’t protect him either. Police Officers are being regularly shot at and are unable to adequately equip themselves to combat it. Simply put our citizenry are at constant risk of being raped metaphorically if not physically. The Police on the beat are also left unarmed, sometimes directly but more so with the complete failure of their bosses to adequately provide for comprehensive training in firearms use. Again I don’t blame the guys on the street. I blame the rather large, ever expanding shiny seat brigade at Molesworth Street. they let their troops down with their ill-preparedness and down-right negligence. I just hope that Minister Collins thinks outside of the square in selecting a new commissioner rather than picking of the time-markers currently cluttering up PNHQ.

However, it is high time that our populace were trusted to defend themselves adequately in the face of armed violence. I can see no reason why we cannot extend our B category licensing arrangements to allow open carry, with appropriate and comprehensive training built into such a privilege. I doubt any politician is prepared to see our population protect themselves though, because to allow it is to admit that the last twenty years have been an abject failure in controlling organised crime.

This story is why unions fuck me off.

Maritime Union workers are considering walking off the job over the police spy scandal.

The union is one of several organisations named in emails about union actions sent by a police spy to a specialist investigation unit.

Maritime Union General Secretary Trevor Hanson says the union wants an apology and is considering seeking damages from police. He says workers will not allow their unions to be treated as criminal organisations by the State.

Mr Hanson calling for its branches to prepare for industrial action, unless they get a full apology and explanation.

Okay, let’s examine this action for its sheer stupidity.

Firstly they are going to take industrial action against their employer for something he/she had absolutely nothing to do with. If I was the employer and suffered industrial action over something unrelated to employment I would sue the union for malfeasance and loss of profits.

Secondly it will be the Union members that pay for this action by lost wages and all for want of an apology from someone completely unconnected with their employment.

Thirdly, the union bosses won’t take a hit will they, oh know, not bloody likely.

Fourthly, WTF!\

Fifthly, Just what is this goingt o achieve but the impoverishment of union members.

I think it is high time for a Unions Commission to register and monitor unions to ensure that they are fairly representing the needs and ideals of their members in a financially prudent and democtratic way.