Officer Sicknick's
death --- a clarification
Significantly, when Brian Sicknick’s body lay in honor in the Capitol Rotunda (a rare distinction for private citizens), it was actually in the form of cremated remains. An urn.
It was as ashes that Sicknick’s body was transported to Arlington Cemetery
before being laid to rest there.
The same report on this from the WASHINGTON EXAMINER goes on to say that
“The specifics of Sicknick’s death are still unclear and are being investigated
by law enforcement.”
It’s interesting to go back to early February and read CNN’s account of
how law enforcement was “struggling to build a federal murder case” but were
frustrated in their search for evidence. The CNN story does not make it clear
that Sicknick was cremated; they write about when “he” (as opposed to his
ashes) will arrive at the Capitol for a ceremony. Perhaps they didn’t know at
that time that “he” was in an urn.
This story links to another CNN report about
the “body” of Officer Sicknick set to lie in honor. He was to be “buried” at
Arlington Memorial Cemetery. It was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced this. Again, no word about the fact
that his body had been cremated. Again, either the reporters at CNN were not
aware that he had been cremated, or else they were deliberately downplaying
that fact by not mentioning it at all.
Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture?
For three months, there has been an open investigation into the cause of
death for Brian Sicknick. No determination has been made, at least not one that
has been announced publicly, and even his family has apparently not been told
how he died. Investigators have been trying to make a case for murder. And the
“murder victim” was cremated before a cause of death could be determined and
placed on the death certificate.
Our understanding is that Sicknick’s parents’ consent would likely have had
to be obtained before a cremation of his remains could be done. This would have
had to be done in very early February at the latest. Perhaps they consented,
but considering they’re still struggling to find out how he died, how likely is
this? We're not espousing any conspiracy theory; we just want to know. So if
anyone knows about the laws in Washington DC –- or Sicknick’s home state of New
Jersey --- concerning this, please tell us.
In the meantime, we thought we’d add this bit of information just to help
complete the picture.
READ: Three months later: what really
killed Brian Sicknick?
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Joe Biden's Gun Control
As expected, on Thursday, President Biden announced his executive orders on gun control, and as usual, the people pushing these laws proved that they have no idea what they’re talking about. Biden himself made a number of false statements about guns, including denouncing the “gun show loophole” (which doesn’t really exist; you already have to undergo a background check to buy a gun at a gun show)…claiming that the ban on “assault weapons” (there’s really no such thing) reduced crime (it didn’t, which is why it was allowed to expire)…claiming that only gun manufacturers are exempt from being sued (they can be sued under certain conditions such as negligence; they just can’t be sued for the criminal misuse of their product by a third party, which makes sense: it would be like suing GM because someone ran over a person with his Chevy)…
And his Attorney General Merrick Garland proved that he can’t tell an AR-15 from C3PO.
It’s as if the AR-15 were the only gun whose name these Democrats have memorized, so they blame it for everything, even though 0.1% or less of murders involve AR variants. By comparison, 5.7% of murders are committed with hands, fists, or feet and 3.9% with blunt objects such as hammers or baseball bats.
By the way, I don’t have the numbers, but I’d be willing to guess that more crimes are committed by criminals who are in the US illegally because of Joe Biden than are committed with AR-15s. So if he’s going to blame gun manufacturers for providing guns that criminals use, why doesn’t he deserve blame for providing America with the criminals?
Biden also announced his pick as head of the BATF (which he twice called the “AFT”) was David Chipman. He’s a radical anti-gun rights activist with a history of crazy, divisive comments about gun owners that will make for entertaining fodder at a confirmation hearing.
His record includes pushing a fake story that the Branch Davidians in Waco shot down multiple police helicopters as an excuse to push gun control. He seems to think that Americans owning guns are fueling violence in Mexico (tell it to Obama and Biden, whose botched “Fast and Furious” operation supplied Mexican gangs with guns.) And he recently mocked first-time gun buyers as dangerous “Tiger King”-like loons who are stockpiling food for a zombie apocalypse.
By the way, many recent first-time gun-buyers have been black Americans, concerned with protecting themselves from violence by gangs and rioters that Democrats refused to do anything about.
The truth of the matter is that Democrats could do something to reduce gun violence, but it would require admitting reality and ending their obsession with disarming law-abiding citizens. The solution is to stop defunding police and start enforcing laws in Democrat-run cities like Chicago, where the vast majority of gun killings take place, usually involving gangs. News flash: for all the hand-wringing over law-abiding Americans buying guns for self-defense, there is no epidemic of gun violence in Ottumwa, Iowa.
********
Gun control
executive orders today
As expected, President Biden will issue half a dozen executive orders related to gun control today. Here’s the AP write-up of that story.
And here’s a
list of the six measures from a preview released by the
White House.
Since these arrived just before our press time, I haven’t had time to
research them in detail yet. Suffice to say that they probably will enrage both
Second Amendment supporters and gun control zealots. The latter will probably
complain that they don’t go far enough. For instance, two of them are to issue
“proposed rules” involving “ghost guns” and stabilizer stocks, which will
likely be challenged in court if they’re put into effect. One orders the DOJ to
publish “model ‘red flag’ legislation” for states, but Biden can’t order states
to adopt it. One orders the DOJ to issue an annual report on firearms
trafficking (big whoop.) One says the Administration will “invest in evidence-based
community violence interventions” (if they wanted to do that, they’d reverse
all the defunding of police.)
Finally, Biden will nominate David Chipman as Director of the BATF. That’s
not even an executive order, it was just a to-be-expected nomination of an anti-gun activist who was previously involved in the Branch Davidian trial,
following the botched government raid of a religious compound in Waco that left
76 people dead.
Biden, like Obama before him, has proven that he will issue executive orders
that illegally make or change laws, but these seem fairly timid considering
some of his previous EOs. Maybe he knows that the opposition is fierce and
well-funded, and will immediately get a judge to halt any orders that violate
the Second Amendment. Any real gun control law changes will not only have to
pass muster with the courts, but they’ll also have to pass Congress.
These orders strike me as a little red meat tossed out to the gun-grabber lobby of the party, full of sound and fury but not signifying all that much, because they really can’t. But don’t expect their target audience (if I’m still allowed to use the word “target”) to be satisfied with them.
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