Wordless Wednesday
Author Archives: Dick
Because They Can
Tales from the northernmost and the southernmost puffins.
Miami-Dade County commissioner Pepe Diaz beat a DUI at trial in Key West the other day after he was pulled over for speeding on his motorcycle there. A police officer clocked him driving his Harley-Davidson at 74 mph along South Roosevelt Boulevard next to Higgs Beach. The speed limit is 30 mph. He was there participating in Key West’s annual Poker Run bike party.
More than 10,000 motorcycles and riders from across the country rumbled down our Overseas Highway from mainland Florida to Key West during the Key West Poker Run last fall. The event began in 1972 with 46 riders and has grown into a major fundraiser for South Florida charities.
Mr. Diaz refused to take a breath test; he said he doesn’t trust the breath-analysis machines.
(As an aside, in both Vermont and Florida, under the implied consent law, refusal triggers a license suspension for the first offence and the refusal is used to underpin the DUI prosecution. One can also be arrested for a DUI in either state even if he or she is not driving.)
His defense countered with witnesses who testified that he didn’t appear drunk when he went out on the Harley and explained that an inner-ear condition and other physical limitations caused him to lose his balance during the field sobriety check. “LeBron James could not do these exercises today in this court,” Mr. Diaz’s attorney said during closing arguments. “It’s a kangaroo court designed for failure to justify an arrest.”
I watched the 27-minute arrest video and, truth, I agree. I absolutely do not want a cop who is determined to prove I’m drunk administering a test that practically guarantees I’ll look drunk on camera.
It took just 20 minutes for the Key West jury to clear Mr. Diaz of the drunk-driving charge.
I sold our old truck and bought a new truck last month (here’s the story in case you missed it) and mailed in the paperwork to transfer the tags from one to the other.
Time passed.
Vermont didn’t cash the check. A plate check showed that number still registered to the old truck. Nothing was happening.
Anne called Vermont’s DMV. The clerk suggested she check with her bank to see if her check had been cashed yet. Lordy™.
Anne finally got the clerk to look up the filing only to discover they had sent it back to her. “It should be in your mailbox now,” the clerk said.
Well, no.
The clerk told her it had been returned because Vermont needs the VIN verification verified. “The officer needs to include his business card,” she said.
South Puffin is a very small city but we do have a police department. Our sergeant had come in off patrol to do the VIN Verification when I first got the truck.
I chased the sergeant down again. He stopped by and gave me his business card.
I was walking out the door to mail it to Anne when she called me. “Their letter states that they need a letter on department letterhead from the officer who did the VIN verification along with him stating the mileage is what was stated on the registration.”
I chased down the sergeant. Again. Told him about the letterhead.
“We don’t do that,” he said. “I’ve done VIN verifications for about 18 states. None of them do that.” He called them muttonheads. Actually, he used a different word. “What kind of muttonheads are they? They have my badge number on their form. They have my agency ID on their form. We don’t do that.”
He wrote the mileage on his business card. I mailed it to Anne.
Muttonheaded bureaucrats. These are the same people who proved that Vermont Don’t Know Dick.
Vermont accepts credentials from the Universal Life Church (better known as “the Church of the lowest price ordination) and probably from Church of Bob for wedding officiants, but they don’t accept a sworn officer’s badge for a car sale.
“No taxes on weddings,” Rufus said.
That’s part of it.
“Bureaucrats spend their days coming up with novel ways to screw with you,” Liz Arden replied. And that’s it.
As of this writing, Mr. Diaz’ license is still suspended but he received a waiver that allows him to continue driving to work, for his commission duties, and other day-to-day errands. And the plate check now comes back to my new truck but we have no actual registration certificate.
Wordless Wednesday
Just the Facts
My friends Jon and Pamela Friar were holding forth over dinner about how much safer we would be if we didn’t have “automatic assault weapons.”
“I don’t know much about guns,” Jon said, “but we need to control automatic weapons better.” Jon is a science guy, pro-choice, and very data driven in the rest of his life, so I wondered why he isn’t fact driven in this discussion.
“Oh, but we are. Everything I’ve ever read shows how dangerous the choices we’ve made are.”
Huh.
And yet, with everything they’ve read, they don’t know any facts.
“I don’t know much about guns,” he said.
The AR-15 was designed by Armalite to meet the US Army requirement for a new rifle, chambered for a new intermediate cartridge. It was adopted by the US Army as the M16 and became a standard issue infantry weapon. It cycles by “direct gas impingement” that it differs from earlier gas systems and initially fired a .223 Remington/5.56×45mm slug. AR-15 offerings for the civilian market are different. The civilian AR-15 started with Colt’s original semi-automatic “Sporter” rifles, manufactured since 1963. All the current clones are still simply semi-automatic rifles that look like the original AR-15. Semi-automatic rifles are not select fire / burst or full automatic capable.
The legendary AK-47 is also a selective-fire, military rifle. It was developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the last year of World War II. It is gas-operated and fires a 7.62×39mm slug. The Kalashnikov and its variants are the most widely used military rifles in the world. Civilian models are available from China, (East) Germany, Egypt, Hungary, Iraq, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, and even Russia in semiauto only. Century International Arms, founded in St. Albans, Vermont, is a major importer and remanufacturer AK-style rifles for the civilian market.
Unless those rifles are illegally altered, they are not full automatics. Full auto weapons have been regulated since the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the Hughes Amendment in 1986.
Jon and Pam don’t know that a 5.56mm NATO round (or the similar .223 Remington) for the AR-15 has a muzzle velocity around 3,200 fps, and energy of 1,282 ft-lbs at the muzzle but only half that at 200 yards. The AK-47’s 7.62mm is a more powerful slug with a lower muzzle velocity around 2,300 fps, and energy of 1,507 ft-lbs at the muzzle with a drop to half that at 200 yards.
They don’t know the .223 is one of the most common cartridges in use here for varmint rifles as well as semi-automatic rifles such as Ruger Mini-14/5P.
They don’t know the popular 30-30 hunting rifle is very similar to the AK-47 with a muzzle velocity around 2,389 fps, and energy of 1,901 ft-lbs at the muzzle.
They don’t know the .308 tops that with a muzzle velocity of 2,820 fps, and energy of 2,648 ft-lbs. Likewise, the .30-06 hunting rifle has a muzzle velocity around 2,800 fps, and energy of 2,872 ft-lbs at the muzzle. It keeps most of that at 200 yards with muzzle velocity still at 2,403 fps, and energy of 2,115 ft-lbs at that distance, more powerful at that distance than the AK-47 up close.
Every one of those rifles has plenty of killing power. The “assault rifles” just look fiercer. So do modern pickup trucks (which kill more people).
The real question here is this: since the “assault weapon” you abhor is similar (and in many ways less capable than many popular hunting-style rifles, don’t you really just want to ban all American citizens from owning all guns?
Jon and Pam spent most of his working in the middle east where ISIS is now a government. I’m not sure how they feel about taking away the weapons from “rebels” in Syria, Iraq, and other countries there who are fighting that “government” for their freedom and very lives.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
–Thomas Jefferson in a 1787 letter to William Stephens Smith
Jon and Pam believe a few citizens cannot defeat a modern army or secret police force. They didn’t know that the history of rebellions against tyranny has always featured a ragtag bunch of citizens going up against a superior government force. The British host, f’rex, was undefeated until they met the fighting farmers of the Colonies and we know how that turned out. The ragtag rebels may not always win but, if they didn’t try, we surely lose.
I wonder how Jon and Pam figure it’s good for the citizens there with sticks and stones to go up against the well-armed, well trained ISIS fighters but bad to take that right away from citizens here.
Oh. I understand. They know our government will protect us from … oh wait.
Wordless Wednesday
