Today's Joke

Its this anti-immigration legislation that they’re trying to push, where they would allow police officers to racially profile undocumented immigrants, especially people in the Mexican community. I think that Is horrendous. But what amazes me is that people support this law. I was watching the news, this woman in Arizona, looking at a camera, straight faced, she says, Hey, were just trying to bring the country back to the way it used to be. The way it used to be? Lady, your in Arizona. It used to be Mexico!!!!

 A tough looking group of hairy bikers are riding when they see a girl about to jump off a bridge, so they stop. The leader, a big burly man, gets off his bike and says, "What are you doing?" "I'm going to commit suicide," she says. While he doesn’t want to appear insensitive, he also doesn’t want to miss an opportunity, so he asks, "Well, before you jump, why don't you give me a kiss?" She does, and it is a long, deep, lingering kiss. After she's finished, the tough, hairy biker says, "Wow! That was the best kiss I’ve ever had! That's a real talent you’re wasting. You could be famous. Why are you committing suicide?" "My parents don't like me dressing up like a girl…" 

People are dying to get into Walmart

people have died in Walmart parking lots

Nearly half a dozen people have died in Walmart parking lots in Brevard County since 2015

Peter Unger traveled the world, first in the Navy at the tail end of the Korean War and then as a free spirit searching the ancient paths of India for life's sacred meaning.

Toward the end of his life Unger, sporting a flowing white beard and well-off financially thanks to his handcrafted jewelry business, sought sanctuary in the idea of living simply.

But in a twist of fate, the 85-year-old who shunned worldly cares was found dead May 7, alone in a nondescript white Ford van that sat parked undisturbed for days at a Walmart, a retail giant seen by many as America's temple of commerce and materialism.

Unger was among the growing number of people around the country who drew their last breaths in Walmart parking lots.

It is not that the parking lots are unsafe. In fact, it is the relative safety of the well-lit and busy lots — combined with a welcoming corporate policy — that has drawn more people like Unger to call the Walmart parking lots home, if only temporarily.

And where people live, they also die.

They include those who are homeless, truckers, immigrants, drug-addled, suicidal or ill — all whose bodies are found nationwide in cars, vans and other vehicles in the parking lots of the retail giant. It is the last stop, one that can go unnoticed amid the daily crush of shoppers searching for deals, sometimes focused on the rattle of carts instead of their crowded surroundings.

In Brevard, police have investigated nearly half a dozen such parking lot deaths since 2015, from the badly decomposed remains of a man found inside a fly-swarmed sedan at a beachside Walmart in the simmering July heat to that of a man who suffered from cancer, found the same year in a sport utility vehicle that sat in a far corner of the Walmart lot in Viera. In both cases, it was the pungent smell that first caught the attention of passers-by or workers.

“It's unfortunate but these do happen ... it's not uncommon,” said Lt. Cheryl Trainer, spokeswoman for the Melbourne Police Department, an agency that has investigated the bulk of the Walmart parking lot deaths on the Space Coast.

In each case, officers turn up in environmental suits and masks, sorting through the grisly discoveries, from pill bottles to notepads and photos left behind, hoping to piece together the lives of people like Unger who ended up in the parking lots.

The bodies — the shell of their physical humanity faded and decomposed by the elements — are carefully removed and turned over to medical examiners. Family members, if any can be found, are contacted.

Across the nation, the stories bear similar refrains:

— In California, a woman missing for months turned up dead. Investigators in the February 2016 case said the woman's body remained in the car, parked at the retailer, for up to three months.

— In Illinois, the body of a 49-year-old man who was reported missing for more than a month, was found dead May 18, 2018, in a van at a Bradley, Illinois, Walmart. He was seen going into the store on May 1 and then leaving a short time later. He died of natural causes, according to media reports.

— In Ohio, police said a 59-year-old man found April 17, 2018, in a pickup truck at an Airport Thruway Walmart, died of natural causes. The body was in the truck, parked on the side of the retail store since April 8, authorities report.

— Here in Florida, a Walmart employee walking the parking aisles Feb. 22, 2018, at a Tarpon Springs store reported a strong odor. Officers arrived and found an unidentified body. Police suspected suicide.

Walmart has a longstanding corporate policy that anyone is welcome to stay in their parking lots overnight, depending on local laws. The open-lot policies vary from area to area, depending on the store managers.

“Most of the people we see are actually travelers, people in RVs. There's like a whole society or culture out there. We do go out and check the lots, get the cars and keep an eye out for trash, but our workers aren't peeping into people's cars,” said Casey Staheli, a spokesman for Walmart, whose corporate offices are based in Arkansas.

“Unfortunately, they might smell something and that's when it's brought to our attention.”

Other retailers besides Walmart see similar deaths in their parking areas. A West Melbourne McDonald's was the site of another gruesome discovery in April 2017 when a man's body was found inside a van. He had overdosed. But none are as pervasive or as consistent as the ones that happen at Walmart, which has about 4,000 stores nationwide.

Truckers, recreational vehicle enthusiasts, and others view parking spaces as prime locations to find rest. Weary travelers see the stores as friendly and convenient, modern meccas for the nation's transient, mobile culture. Inside are restrooms, lower-priced groceries, medical supplies and even portable grills for cooking. There's also hot coffee, newspapers, and smiles from greeters.

Others also find the lots — despite the hustle and bustle or the sound of the occasional bass-heavy car blasting music — as places of safety and belonging.

Tommy Studstill, a Cocoa minister who advocates for the homeless, readies hygiene products, food, and clothes for clients who colonize diverse locations from wooded areas to store lots.

Some who may be living in their automobiles are transient, struggling to hold on to jobs, Studstill says. Some park at Walmart in the cool of night and then move on to other sites in the heat of the day.

“But not everyone who sleeps at Walmart is homeless. They just might not be able to afford a motel room. Walmart is one of the very few retailers that would say, `Look, don't cause us any problems and you can go ahead and sleep in the parking lot,' “ he said.

“These are people who stay low-key. For some, it's extremely embarrassing to be homeless, sleeping in a car. I know one man whose family lives in a car. During the daytime, the wife drops him off at work. That's why I will have to give Walmart credit for what they're doing,” Studstill said. “People just don't realize just how many people are out here,” he added.

According to estimates from the Brevard Homeless Coalition, about 845 people — sheltered and unsheltered — in Brevard County are homeless, according to statistics from 2017. And many use Walmart as a way station, or a place to find supplies or even live from time to time, says the group's executive director Mark Broms.

For others like Unger, though, the lure of the open road has led them to abandon houses and apartments and live in their vehicles.

Unger, who chose to be homeless for the last decade of his life, had been writing letters to his son, talking about his exploits and a life untethered to marterialistic values.

The two last talked face to face about two years ago.

“He was a philosopher, a wisdom-seeker,” said Charles Unger of his father, whose remains were found at the Melbourne Walmart on Wickham Road.

“He liked to teach people to be positive. He could have bought a house but didn't believe in material things and barely had a cellphone,” said Unger, who lives just outside of Las Vegas, Nevada.

But his father did like Walmart, where he found commonality with others who would be passing through and needing a place to rest.

“He could cook in the parking lot,” Unger said. “He would tell me that wherever you go in the U.S., you would find professional campers you could associate with. It's like a little subculture.”

Toward the end, the man who loved the Eastern teachings of Indian gurus like Paramahansa Yogananda while shunning the western aesthetic of having a home and the latest sports car, saw Walmart and its parking lot as another place of solace.

“When I last saw him he wore a hat for the sun, dark sunglasses. He loved philosophy. The big lesson from him was that you could do anything if you put your mind to it. He taught me how to survive, gave me a lot of life lessons,” Charles Unger said. “He loved shopping at Walmart.”

At some point in early May, Peter Unger — the world traveler, the philosopher, the father and the jewelry maker — climbed into his 2003 Ford van in the parking spot near the Greyhound Park entrance. He was last seen at the store a week earlier, according to police reports.

On May 7, there were complaints about an overwhelming odor coming from the van with taped-up doors. Someone tried to peek inside but saw no movement.

Unger was dead.

That his father died alone in a Walmart parking lot and chose an isolated lifestyle doesn't escape Charles Unger's thoughts.

Yogananda once reasoned, “Take life as it comes and death as it comes.”

Charles Unger, instead, points out that his father saw lessons in such moments, even when they happened at Walmart.

“He was like a man born out of time.”

Gun industry sees banks as new threat to 2nd Amendment

LISA MARIE PANE

Associated PressJune 24, 2018

View photos

In this April 25, 2018, photo, Gary Ramey, owner and founder of Honor Defense, a gunmaker in Gainesville, Ga., holds a part from one of the company's firearms. Ramey and others in the gun industry are finding corporate America distancing itself from gunmakers and gun dealers, discontinuing discounts or refusing business. (AP Photo/Lisa Marie Pane)

GAINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) — With Gary Ramey's fledgling gun-making business taking off in retail stores, he decided to start offering one of his handguns for sale on his website.

That didn't sit well with the company he used to process payments, and they informed him they were dropping his account. Another credit card processing firm told him the same thing: They wouldn't do business with him.

The reason? His business of making firearms violates their policies.

In the wake of high-profile mass shootings, corporate America has been taking a stand against the firearms industry amid a lack of action by lawmakers on gun control. Payment processing firms are limiting transactions, Bank of America stopped providing financing to companies that make AR-style guns, and retailers like Walmart and Dick's Sporting Goods imposed age restrictions on gun purchases.

The moves are lauded by gun-safety advocates but criticized by the gun industry that views them as a backhanded way of undermining the Second Amendment. Gun industry leaders see the backlash as a real threat to their industry and are coming to the conclusion that they need additional protections in Congress to prevent financial retaliation from banks.

"If a few banks say 'No, we're not going to give loans to gun dealers or gun manufacturers', all of a sudden the industry is threatened and the Second Amendment doesn't mean much if there are no guns around," said Michael Hammond, legal counsel for Gun Owners of America. "If you can't make guns, if you can't sell guns, the Second Amendment doesn't mean much."

The issue has already gotten the attention of the Republican who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho sent letters criticizing Bank of America and Citigroup, which decided to restrict sales of firearms by its business customers, over their new gun rules in the wake of the Florida high school shooting in February.

"We should all be concerned if banks like yours seek to replace legislators and policy makers and attempt to manage social policy by limiting access to credit," Crapo wrote to Citigroup's chief executive.

Honor Defense is a small operation with a handful of employees that include Ramey's son and his wife who work out of a non-descript building in a Georgia office park north of Atlanta. In 2016, its first year, it sold 7,500 firearms. Its products — handcrafted 9mm handguns that come in a variety of colors — can now be found in more than 1,000 stores.

When Ramey noticed that neither Stripe nor Intuit would process payments through his site, he submitted a complaint with Georgia's attorney general's office, counting on help from a state law that prohibits discrimination by financial service firms against the gun industry. But the state rejected it, saying that credit card processing is not considered a financial service under state law.

He views the credit card issue as companies "infusing politics into business."

"We're just a small company trying to survive here," Ramey said. "It's hard enough competing with Smith & Wesson, Ruger and Sig Sauer."

The financial industry actions came amid a broader pushback by corporate America in the aftermath of the Florida shooting. Delta and United Airlines stopped offering discounted fares to NRA members, as did the Hertz, Alamo and National rental car companies. First National Bank of Omaha, one of the nation's largest privately held banks, decided not to renew a co-branded Visa credit card with the NRA.

Walmart and Dick's Sporting Goods both decided they would no longer sell "assault weapons" or firearms to people under age 21. REI, an outdoor-gear shop that doesn't sell firearms, joined in and decided it would stop selling such items as ski goggles, water bottles and bike helmets made by companies whose parent firm, Vista Outdoor, manufactures ammunition and AR-style long guns.

There's been election-year response from some lawmakers, notably in Georgia where Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who is running for governor, led a move in the Legislature to kill a tax break on jet fuel to punish Atlanta-based Delta over its NRA actions. The move cost the airline an estimated $40 million.

Gun-control advocates have applauded the efforts, saying it demonstrates responsible leadership at a time of paralysis in government. Experts say it's a sign that the business world views wading into the gun debate as not at all risky — and, in fact, potentially beneficial to their brand.

"Companies by and large avoid these issues like the plague and they only get involved — whether they're credit card companies or airlines — when they feel like doing nothing is as bad as doing something and they feel completely stuck," said Timothy D. Lytton, professor at Georgia State University's College of Law and author of "Suing the Gun Industry: A Battle at the Crossroads of Gun Control and Mass Torts."

The gun industry acknowledges that there's nothing requiring companies from doing business with gun manufacturers or dealers. Monthly reports from the federal government show background checks to purchase a firearm are up over last year so far, so the early actions apparently have not put a dent in sales.

Still, the industry believes it needs stronger laws against financial retaliation in the future.

"We may have to seek legislation to make sure it can't be done and that you can't discriminate against individuals from lawful exercise of a constitutional right," said Larry Keane, senior vice president and legal counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents gunmakers. "Imagine if banks were to say you can't purchase books or certain books aren't acceptable. That would be problematic and I don't think anyone would stand for that kind of activity by the banking industry."

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Pentagon quietly bans Marines from using drones, citing cybersecurity concern

U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Ryan Skinner, assistant patrol leader, with Company Bravo, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment prepares to fly the Mark-2 Instant Eye during the Infantry Platoon Battle Course as part of a Deployment for Training (DFT) on Fort Pickett, VA., August 15, 2017. The Instant Eye is a small unmanned aerial system used to be deployed at the squad level for quick and local surveillance and reconnaissance. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Michaela R. Gregory)  (Public Domain)

In a policy memo issued quietly in late May, the Department of Defense prohibited the U.S Marine Corps from continuing to purchase and use commercial off-the-shelf drones, known at COTS, after cybersecurity vulnerabilities were exposed.

“The DoD Inspector General found that the DoD has not implemented an adequate process to assess cybersecurity risks associated with using COTS Unmanned Aerial Systems,” the memo, signed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, states.

The Corps had already issued around 600 of the small “Instant Eye” quadcopters, with 200 more on the way, as part of its “Quads for Squads” program aimed at bringing greater situational awareness for troops on the ground. Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert Neller announced last year that the intention was to equip every infantry unit with quadcopters or similar technological devices to assist in the execution of missions.

The hand-held aircraft is adorned with rotary wings, allowing it to navigate compact spaces such as walls or buildings, and is able to take off and land at 90-degree angles – unlike many other unnamed aerial vehicles (UAVs) which require physical exertion or a runway.

The Instant Eye is a small unmanned aerial system used to be deployed at the squad level for quick and local surveillance and reconnaissance.  (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Michaela R. Gregory)

“We can send this thing ahead and it can look for us,” Cpl. Isaac Brown, an intelligence specialist with Task Force Southwest, said last year after undergoing the Instant Eye training with some 300 other Marines scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan.

The Marine Corps stressed that the aircraft would “greatly diminish the need to send Marines into possibly hostile areas without knowing key factors beforehand, such as the number of enemy troops or equipment.”

However, the memo demanded an immediate grounding of the drones “until the DoD identities and fields a solution to mitigate known cybersecurity risks.”

The Corps has since announced an intention to submit a waiver seeking an exemption.

The widespread and controversial use of COTS by both state and non-state actors on the global battlefield has grown significantly in recent years, with UAVs deemed cost effective and critical in not only taking out adversaries with bombs and missiles or deploying tear gas, but in tactical suveillance and reconnaissance.

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False bullshit

What Does the Effect of a Bullet Fired From an AR-15 Look Like?

Photographs shared widely on social media offer an incomplete explanation of the kinds of damage done by gunshots.

1.7k

CLAIM

A large circle marked on a protester's poster is an accurate reflection of the size of the hole created by an AR-15 round.

RATING

 MIXTURE

WHAT'S TRUE

The hole shown in the poster could plausibly represent the diameter of the highly destructive temporary cavity left in a person's body by a high-velocity AR-15 round. 

WHAT'S FALSE

The hole shown in the poster is too big to represent an AR-15 entrance wound; even an exit wound is unlikely to be as large as the shape shown on the poster. 

ORIGIN

Gun violence and gun control have been the subject of renewed debate since the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

In particular, those in favor of enhanced regulation of gun ownership have focused on the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, which has been used in a number of high-profile mass shootings in recent years, including the massacre in Parkland. In June 2018, a dispute arose online over the physical impact and damage that can be caused by a bullet fired from an AR-15.

]Facebook user M.A. Rothman posted two photographs side by side: One featured a poster which claimed to show “the size of a hole used by an AR-15,” and the other showed what Rothman said was the true (smaller) dimensions of marks left by an AR-15 rifle after target practice:

The one on the right is my son after target practice with an AR-15. The one on the left is a lying moron who doesn’t know the first thing about guns or our rights as citizens.

It’s not clear what are the precise origins of the photograph on the left, or where it was taken. The poster has become the subject of ridicule and anger among some gun rights advocates online, prompting parodies and responses such as this one, which was shared more than 50,000 times on Facebook. 

In brief, both sides in this dispute are right in some ways and wrong in others, and each photograph offers an incomplete examination of the kind of damage and impact that can be caused by gun shots.

At the heart of the issue is the question of what is meant by the “hole made by an AR-15.” There are basically three possibilities: the entrance wound, the exit wound, and the cavity caused by a bullet as travels through a person’s body. There are no graphic images in this article, but we do at times get into descriptions of the damage caused by gun shots that some readers might find upsetting.

The entrance wound

The “black hole” shown in the poster is vastly too large to represent an AR-15 entrance wound. Jay Wachtel, a retired police sergeant and special agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and a former criminal justice lecturer at California State University, summed it up in an e-mail: “The entrance wound for any firearm projectile is essentially the bullet diameter.”

Typically, AR-15 rifles are loaded with .223 Remington cartridges, which are housed in bullets with a diameter of 5.7 millimetres. So a round fired correctly from a functioning AR-15 should create an entrance wound (or target practice marking) just under a quarter-inch in diameter. 

This can be seen in many AR-15 target practice videos and photographs available online, and is accurately reflected in the photograph posted by Rothman on Facebook. 

The internal cavity

A bullet causes its most significant damage inside a person’s body, destroying the blood vessels, tissue and bone in its immediate path (“permanent cavitation“), but also creating a kind of shockwave outwards into the tissue that surrounds this path. This is known as “temporary cavitation,” and when a bullet travels at higher velocity, the damage caused by this type of cavitation becomes exponentially greater, because the surrounding tissue struggles to absorb the kinetic energy given off by a bullet traveling at a higher velocity. 

The design of bullets also has a bearing on temporary cavitation (for example, hollow pointrounds), but high velocity is a major reason why rifles such as the AR-15 can wreak such catastrophic damage to internal organs, and cause fatal bleeding. This mechanism is explained by the ammunition manufacturer Hornady:

In essence, a bullet going through soft tissue has the same effect as dropping a stone into a pail of water – if the stone (bullet) enters the water slowly, the water (tissue) displacement is so gradual that is has little effect on the surrounding molecules. If the stone (bullet) enters the water (tissue) with a lot of momentum, however, the surrounding molecules have to act a lot more quickly and violently, resulting in a splash (temporary cavity). Temporary cavitation is important because it can be a tremendous wounding mechanism.

Heather Sher, a Fort Lauderdale-based radiologist who examined CT scans from some of the victims of the February 2018 Parkland school shooting, wrote about the effects of AR-15 rounds for the Atlantic: 

Routine handgun injuries leave entry and exit wounds and linear tracks through the victim’s body that are roughly the size of the bullet. If the bullet does not directly hit something crucial like the heart or the aorta, and the victim does not bleed to death before being transported to our care at the trauma center, chances are that we can save him.

The bullets fired by an AR-15 are different: They travel at a higher velocity and are far more lethal than routine bullets fired from a handgun. The damage they cause is a function of the energy they impart as they pass through the body. A typical AR-15 bullet leaves the barrel traveling almost three times faster than—and imparting more than three times the energy of—a typical 9mm bullet from a handgun.

…The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends several inches from its path. It does not have to actually hit an artery to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. 

This video illustrates temporary cavitation in a ballistic gelatin test, using the 5.56x45mm cartridge frequently loaded in AR-15 rifles.

 

The “hole” illustrated in the poster could plausibly represent the diameter of the temporary cavitation left behind by an AR-15 rifle round traveling through the human body. That is to say, the tract of potentially catastrophic damage done to blood vessels and tissue could be as tall and wide as the “hole” shown in the poster. 

The exit wound

The black hole illustrated on the poster is unlikely to be representative of the size of an AR-15 exit wound — but it is possible. While entrance wounds typically have the same dimensions as the bullet that causes them, the size and shape of exit wounds can vary more.

Dr. Sydney Vail is a trauma surgeon with the Maricopa Integrated Health System in Phoenix, Arizona, and is an expert in treating gunshot trauma. He explained to us some of the factors that determine the dimensions of exit wounds:

If the .223 round from an AR-15 strikes the human body and only hits skin and muscle over a short distance, there is a chance the exit will look the same as the entrance or slightly larger. If the bullet yaws [turns left or right] there is a larger surface area to exit the skin and a slightly larger hole.

…The reason large holes or large exit wounds occur is usually the bullet hits bone, which then causes more damage and a greater surface area trying to exit the body. If the bullet is in the body a longer period of time — meaning [it travels] through more mass — then the body is absorbing a more maximal amount of kinetic energy, and the damage will definitely be more severe internally… To make big ugly holes as exit wounds means more mass has to exit the body than just the bullet.

Dr. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist from San Francisco, California, explained to us the circumstances in which an AR-15 might leave behind an unusually large exit wound. By email, she told us:

An AR-15 round fired from contact range against the tightly stretched skin over the skull is more likely to cause a larger entrance wound because of gas entering in along with the bullet. The wound would be star shaped from splitting of the skin by the gas, not round as in the poster. An exceptionally large exit wound could also occur if fragmented bone and tissue exited along with the bullet. An AR-15 round fired through a person’s head, for example, could take fragmented skull and damaged brain matter with it, and this might be expected to be expelled through a larger exit wound.

In her assessment, an exit wound the size of the “black hole” shown in the poster could potentially be caused by an AR-15 round, but it is not likely, and certainly not typical. Melinek told us that in her experience, AR-15 rounds can completely fragment in the body and may not exit at all.

Michael Knox is a Florida-based forensic consultant who conducts ballistics testing and crime scene reconstructions, and is regularly called upon to give expert testimony in criminal trials. His assessment of the “black hole” on the poster was blunt. By e-mail, he told us: “The exit hole from an AR-15 round would not be that big.”

Conclusion

The photographs shown in the viral Facebook post are a useful conversation-starter, but comparing them doesn’t serve readers well as an explanation of the physical impact of gun shots in general, or high-velocity AR-15 rounds in particular. 

Based on the assessments shared with us by the experts we consulted — a forensic pathologist, a trauma surgeon, a former federal agent and criminal justice lecturer, and a forensic consultant and ballistics expert — we can say that the entrance wound from an AR-15 round could not be anywhere near that large; however, the tract of catastrophic damage torn through a person’s internal blood vessels, tissue, and bone by a high-velocity AR-15 round could plausibly have around the same diameter as the “black hole” in the poster. 

Finally, it is unlikely that an AR-15 exit wound would have the same dimensions as the “black hole” shown in the poster, but it is possible. The bullet would have to travel through the body in such a way that it fragmented bone and tissue to the extent that all that matter was forced out of the body along with the bullet itself, creating an exceptionally large exit wound. 

1.7k

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Sources

Filed Under:Ar-15 Gun Control Gun Rights +4 More

Fact Checker:Dan MacGuill

Published:15 June 2018

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