Archive for August 21st, 2019

What did I say? What did I just say?

Wednesday, August 21st, 2019

Harvey took pictures from her car of Ra holding the gun, and eventually drove to a police station where she reported the incident. Ra reported the incident three hours later. Because Harvey filed her report first, Detroit police treated her as the victim, per department policy. Harvey was never charged for driving her vehicle into Ra’s.

First one to call the cops wins.

Siwatu-Salama Ra was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and committing a felony while in possession of a firearm. Her conviction was just overturned by the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Posted in Guns, Law | Comments Closed

Many small bloodsucking insects.

Wednesday, August 21st, 2019

I think I’ve managed to keep on top of the Austin City Council and Travis County Commissioners lists.

But I let the list of Texas Congressional reps fall into disrepair and obsolesce. And I didn’t think the list of Texas Senators needed to be updated, either.

It seems that the House and Senate IT people (or whoever is in charge of the websites for reps and senators) have been doing a lot of reconfiguration and standardization. Even if the senator or rep hadn’t changed since 2016 or so, there were still broken links to district maps and contact forms. Plus it seems like these folks move office locations about as often as…well, as something that moves a lot.

Anyway, I’ve spent a good chunk of my spare time for the past couple of days updating the Senators and Representatives lists. Just in case you want to make use of those for a specific purpose, such as contacting your rep to explain that a magazine ban is going to cost him his seat in Congress. You know, the usual.

The next bunch of free mental CPU cycles are going to spent going back over the commissioners and city council lists, just to make sure they haven’t slipped in any changes. (It looks like Jeff Travillion has hired some staff members since he took office, and I’ve updated his entry.)

If you good folks notice anything that’s wrong or broken or out of date, please contact me and I’ll get it fixed ASAP.

In the meantime, UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS.

Posted in Admin, Politics, Texas | Comments Closed

While we’re talking about defensive gun use…

Wednesday, August 21st, 2019

Andrew Branca did a good post on Monday (that I missed) over at Legal Insurrection about the Michael Drejka case: the trial has started.

You might know the Drejka case better as the “handicapped parking space shooting”. Trying to summarize as objectively as I can: Mr. Drejka confronted Markeis McGlockton’s girlfriend about being parked illegally in a handicapped parking space. Mr. McGlockton intervened and shoved Mr. Drejka to the ground: Mr. Drejka, apparently believing he was in a vulnerable position and subject to further attack by Mr. McGlockton, shot and killed him.

Mr. Drejka was not initially charged: the local sheriff stated that he believed this was a legitimate case of self-defense. A month after the shooting, Mr. Drejka was charged with manslaughter.

As I’ve noted here and elsewhere, this is not a clear cut case of either lawful self-defense or an unlawful killing. Reasonable people can look at the same evidence and come to differing conclusions on guilt or innocence. It’s thus perfectly reasonable for some people to believe Drejka was justified in firing that shot. It is also perfectly reasonable for the State Attorney to believe there exists enough evidence inconsistent with self-defense to bring the matter to trial and have a jury decide the matter. This is the system working, folks.

Bonus: CNN debunking.

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