Let me ruin your June for a second.
Every year when National Gun Violence Awareness Month rolls around, the same people who have not read a single page of John Lott's 13,312-regression peer-reviewed study start posting pictures of children and demanding you feel responsible for deaths you did not cause and had nothing to do with.
So. Let us talk about children. Since they brought it up.
In 2006, the CDC recorded 642 accidental firearm deaths in the entire United States. For children under the age of ten — the number was 31. Thirteen under age five. Eighteen between five and nine.
Tragic? Absolutely. Every single one.
But here is the number that will not appear on a single "Orange Friday" awareness post: 80.
Eighty children under the age of five drown in bathtubs every year. Every. Single. Year.
ALMOST THREE TIMES as many children drown in bathtubs annually as die from ALL firearm accidents combined — including adults. And forty more drown in five-gallon water buckets. The kind you buy at Home Depot for $4.99.
I have given this information at talks and watched jaws drop, because people genuinely believe the number is in the thousands. They have been so thoroughly marinated in "gun violence awareness" content that their perception of actual risk is completely detached from reality. That is not an accident. That is the point of the campaign.
Where is Bathtub Awareness Month? Where is the congressional hearing on five-gallon bucket control? Where is the hashtag? Where are the orange ribbons for the children who drowned while their parents were in the next room?
There are none. Because the campaign was never about children. It was never about safety. If it were about safety, they would be equally outraged about cars — which killed 1,305 children that same year. Or fire. Or drowning. But they are not. The selective fury lands exclusively on firearms. And if you are a scientist, which I happen to be, you do not get to cherry-pick your data based on which conclusion you prefer. Quinn's Law Number Six: facts are the enemy of liberalism.
Now let us talk about what the actual data says about guns and safety, because John Lott ran 13,000-plus statistical regressions across every county in America and the results are not ambiguous.
Fifty-six percent of convicted felons surveyed in a ten-state study said they would NOT attack a target they believed was armed. Fifty-six percent. The deterrence is real, it is documented, and it functions whether or not a shot is ever fired. The firearm you carry protects your neighbor whether your neighbor knows it or not.
When states passed right-to-carry laws, multiple-victim public shootings — what the media insists on calling "mass shootings" to maximize terror — dropped by 67 percent. Deaths in those events dropped by 75 percent. Injuries by 81 percent. States that adopted these laws virtually ELIMINATED mass public shootings within four to five years. The remaining events? They happened almost exclusively in the specific locations where guns remained banned. The gun-free zones. The places we hang the sign that only the law-abiding ever read.
There were between 760,000 and 3.6 million defensive gun uses in the United States last year alone, depending on which of fifteen national polls you consult. A JAMA Network Open study from March 2025 estimated 489,000 DGUs in which a firearm was actually discharged. The Department of Justice's own National Crime Victimization Survey puts the conservative floor at 65,000 defensive uses per year against assaults, robberies, and home invasions.
No dead body. No coverage. No awareness month.
Here is one more number for you: 74. Seventy-four percent of convicted felons in a National Institute of Justice survey said they actively avoided homes they believed were occupied by armed residents. Criminals respond to incentives. That is not ideology — that is basic deterrence theory, and it is confirmed by the people who actually commit the crimes.
I also want you to think carefully about something the Supreme Court already settled. DeShaney v. Winnebago County (1989). Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005). Two separate rulings establishing that the government has NO legal obligation to protect you as an individual. None. You are your own first responder. That is not my opinion — that is settled constitutional law from the highest court in this country.
So the political class that just told you the government is not required to protect you... is also the one demanding you surrender the tool you use to protect yourself.
I want fewer people dead. That is why I know the data. That is why I read the book. That is why I am furious every June when emotion and fundraising replace science and evidence in a "debate" that has actual life-or-death consequences for real people.
You want to honor the children? Honor ALL of them. The ones who drowned. The ones who died in car crashes. And the ones who will never be born because a woman alone in her house at 2 a.m. had no way to stop what was coming through her door.
But what do I know — I am only a published textbook author, a science teacher, a father of four, and a combat medic who spent his career reducing human suffering and who actually read the peer-reviewed data before forming an opinion.
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COMMENT below — did you know the bathtub number? Or did the narrative keep that from you? Tell me.
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#MAGA #Veterans #Trump
@JoJoFromJerz@GuntherEagleman@catturd2
I am not confident our police can be 'fixed' anymore personally, but if we were to try without disbanding the police entirely (rebuilding from the ground up), this is how I'd suggest doing it:
1) Bin all DEI posts and training. Full stop; everything. Zero spending on this; not even a Rainbow stripe on a lanyard.
2) All support staff and officers that led DEI initiatives removed from the force and barred for life from reapplying to any emergency service.
3) Fire most officers above a certain rank (Chief Inspector?). They may reapply on merit ONLY.
4) Majority of 'younger rank and file' officers retrained without DEI this time. Anyone with less than 15 years service?
5) Relentlessly high standards of ethics and physical fitness for new and existing officers; no DEI hiring / promotions. Bump police pay accordingly (especially for rank & file).
6) Ban all 'special interest' groups from policing, advisory boards or membership e.g. no more BPA.
7) MacPherson, Scarman, Casey etc. all completely condemned by every single force & institution.
8) Hard focus on intelligence-led crime prevention over modern 'ambulance chasing' as @ClarkeMicah has long advocated for.
9) Return to 'local' beat policing, locally assigned constables who know a small patch intimately (enables #8).
10) Disbandment of most PSD / the IOPC and rebuilding along similar lines to the above. Too corrupted by ideology; not salvagable.
I deal with culture a lot professionally; the way you change it quickly is by extremely clear incentives. Any tinkering around the edges likely wouldn't work, or at best would take decades and more Nowak's.
Until there are real consequences for anyone continuing to do this stuff, I do not see things changing. The police forces in the UK have a culture of embracing DEI now.
Therefore, contravening any of the above should carry harsh penalties (e.g. renaming DEI into BRIDGE as @KirscheVerstahl has talked about) carries automatic loss of job, pension and ideally a long prison term.
There are still good police officers out there; but the percentage shrinks every year this nonsense continues. The cancer is spreading fast, if it is not terminal they do not have long left to seek treatment.
I would be interested to know how much of the above an experienced senior officer @InspGadgetBlogs agrees with, since I am am not an officer, just a random that has looked into this over the years.
@frankwrighter@MorgothsReview@RusGarbageHuman@firasmodad@Kingbingo_
For those thinking this is 'unusual'...
I did a quiet bit of digging into this when I talked about MacPherson to some of the Unpopular Opinions and LE crowd 5+ years ago about it.
I managed to get info from 4 forces on this, similar to the above; all spending upwards of half a million on this pre-2020 in salary costs alone, plus at least half that on external training.
I never published it, as I made the decision not to start trying to produce content around the same time. Sadly the document was lost when I lost access to that particular Hotmail account.
This started happening in all police forces in the post-Macpherson era and was increased in intensity post-Casey. I've been subjected to this nonsense. We all have. Luckily, I was a cynical army veteran, so I ignored it. It also happens in the fire service and prison service.
Black officer was always late........
Numerous Sargents tried to address this but he kept involving the BPA.
While we marched around PSU training he was at his car getting his kit on slowly, found it all amusing, no one said anything.
Last skipper who tried to deal with it was not substantive in his role as a Sgt. Black officer approached him and said "Do you really want a complaint from a black officer while you're trying to become a Sgt?"
This was all known about by everyone.
Don't know what happened to the Sgt, if he made it or not, but the black officer did become a SGT and is now progressing up to inspector.
This is #DEI, this is how it works. #TwoTierPolicing comes from within #NigelFarage is right.
Tomorrow we have the pleasure of being joined by first time guest, @frankwrighter!
He will be both on the Podcast at 1pm and sitting down for an interview.
What questions would you like ask him?
Rest in peace to John Blanche. The artist who defined Warhammer 40k. He was legitimately a visionary and creative genius.
Take today to look at his works, there's nothing else like them. A very sad day indeed.
Imagine you are a dental hygienist and live in Sweden..
You are employed to help “migrant children” with their dental issues.
As part of your job you examine the wisdom teeth development of the kids and you notice that 80% of those “kids” have fully formed wisdom teeth, implying they are not kids at all but adults older than the age of 18.
You tell the Swedish Migration Agency and they advise you to put it in writing.
When you send exact details, with examples of specific patients you are suspended, investigated and fired for disclosing private information relating to patients.
This happened to Bernt Herlitz in 2017.
When he appealed the unfair dismissal he ultimately lost and was fined about $50,000.
He and his family faced financial hardship and almost lost their home, until some generous benefactors raised money for him. Bernt remains unemployed today, despite staff shortages for dentists in his area in Gotland.
At the time, Sweden scoffed at the tests and claimed they were “discriminatory” but since then they have quietly brought in mass dental testing, for those whose age is in doubt, by the National Board of Forensic Medicine.
Bernt deserves a medal. Not vilification and unemployment.
'If you want to be properly policed, you’ll have to start again and build a proper police force, like the one we used to have. Then we can sack all these useless paramilitary social workers. Yes, I am wholly serious.' https://t.co/lOIm77pXbJ via @DailyMail
Vital these ILR reforms are implemented ASAP.
The black bars are the current settlement figures from 2020 to 2026.
The red bars are the projected settlement figures for 2026 to 2030 if no ILR reforms are implemented and the Boriswave settle.
Hundreds are qualifying daily.