D-Day Plus 79 Years

It is hard for me to believe it has been almost 80 years since Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy to begin their march towards Germany. As I was born a little less than 13 years after the landing, it was still fresh in the minds of many. Today, not so much. Most of the veterans of that day have now passed away.

Some of the most enduring scenes from that day were pictures taken by famous photographer Robert Capa on Omaha Beach. Most of his photos were lost due to errors in processing.

From PetaPixel

Actually, it turns out that much of that story was a myth. It laid the blame on a novice film processor who overheated the negatives in a drying box to the point that the emulsion melted. All that was left were the 11 frames above.

From PetaPixel debunking the myth:

In retrospect, I cannot understand how so many people in the field, working photographers among them, accepted uncritically the unlikely, unprecedented story, concocted by Morris, of Capa’s 35mm Kodak Super-XX film emulsion melting in a film-drying cabinet on the night of June 7, 1944.

Anyone familiar with analog photographic materials and normal darkroom practice worldwide must consider this fabulation incredible on its face. Coil heaters in wooden film-drying cabinets circa 1944 did not ever produce high levels of heat; black & white film emulsions of that time did not melt even after brief exposure to high heat; and the doors of film-drying cabinets are normally kept closed, not open, since the primary function of such cabinets is to prevent dust from adhering to the sticky emulsion of wet film.

No one with darkroom experience could have come up with this notion; only someone entirely ignorant of photographic materials and processes — like Morris — could have imagined it. Embarrassingly, none of that set my own alarm bells ringing until I started to fact-check the article by Baughman that initiated this project, close to fifty years after I first read that fable in Capa’s memoir.

The PetaPixel article by A. D. Coleman is rather long but well worth the read. It is meticulously researched and documented. Myth has its place but documenting the reality of what really happened is more important.

Red Flag Laws: Myth Vs. Reality

There is no better way to distill the argument against gun confiscation orders aka red flag law than with good infographics.

First, we have the mythical argument for them as posted by Gov. Tom Wolf (D-PA).

In the mythical view, you have the words “cryptic”, “temporarily”, and “evidence”. It would have you believe that Randy made serious threats, that the police had evidence of it, that Randy was given due process, and that the judge determined beyond a reasonable doubt that removing Randy’s weapons would resolve the danger posed by Randy. Unfortunately, this is only a myth.

Now let’s look at two different versions of the reality of gun confiscation orders. The first version shows the political approach that many gun prohibitionists would take. If you have ever read some of the anti-gun posts in that cesspool known as Twitter, you know this could happen. It has been threatened many times in many tweets.

If Randy decides to fight this infringement of his civil rights, it will cost him in the neighborhood of $10,000 in attorney’s fees and court costs. Those are not made up numbers. They come from many posts by attorneys stating what they have charged to actually defend someone in such a hearing. This presupposes that Randy is even made aware of the court hearing and given a chance to fight it.

Longtime blogger and podcaster Sean Sorrentino has long made the argument that if the person is such a danger to himself/herself or others that they have their firearms removed then why are they still freely walking around on the street. Should not such a dangerous person be involuntarily committed for a period of observation and evaluation?

Sean created the infographic below illustrating this reality.

Courtesy of Sean Sorrentino

Crazy Randy has his firearms removed by the court. Unfortunately, there are a number of items still available to Randy to take his revenge on Jane and her family. Looking around the average person’s suburban home, you will find sports equipment, kitchen knives, lawn equipment, pool and cleaning chemicals, and gasoline for the lawnmower. Any of these can be misused to cause harm to others.

They perceive that red flag laws will be the be all and end all solution to mass murder. We identify the disturbed people and take away their firearms and all will be right with the world. Sorry it just doesn’t work that way.

Politicians are looking for a panacea and there just is not one. The sooner that Republicans in the Senate acknowledge this reality, the better.