Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced a series of proposals aimed at curbing gun violence in the state during a press conference in Waterbury on Monday.
The proposals, which will be introduced during the 2023 legislative session include:
Banning open carry of firearms in public
Allowing concealed carry with a permit except in certain locations
Limiting handgun purchases to one per month
Updating the state’s ban on unregistered “ghost guns.”
These proposals will be part of the governor’s package of priorities for the 2023 legislative session, which he plans to present to the Connecticut General Assembly in February.
Even though Lamont acknowledged that Connecticut is one of the safest states in the country, he claims the reforms are “commonsense” and even necessary due to rising rates of gun violence around the country.
“It’s our responsibility to implement policies that keep our homes and our neighborhoods safe, and we have to take every opportunity to keep our residents protected,” Lamont said. “These commonsense reforms will protect our neighborhoods and the people who live in them.”
State Sen. Gary Winfield and State Rep. Steven Stafstrom, co-chairs of the Judiciary Committee, praised the governor’s proposals.
“I have seen the success of our state-supported community violence intervention programs up close and personal,” Winfield said. “They are critical to addressing and preventing gun violence in our communities, where strict gun laws fail to stop gun-related crime. We have the ability to address the root causes of gun violence and get to the individuals at risk of committing these offenses.”
Stafstrom agreed with Winfield.
“These critical reforms attack gun violence in our neighborhoods from every angle,” Stafstrom said. “I’ve supported some of these proposals in the past, and I look forward to working with the committee and the governor to get a commonsense gun violence package accomplished this session.”
According to Fox News, Republicans in the Democratic-controlled legislature took issue with the governor’s proposals, criticizing him for putting law-abiding citizens at risk while not placing enough emphasis on criminals.
“Today the Governor and Democrats pitched a familiar path to an ‘everybody problem’ by offering proposals that will again have law-abiding gun owners carrying most of the freight,” said House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora. “Missing from their news conference was any talk about focusing on the people who are squarely responsible for causing mayhem in our communities.”
The Governor’s proposal also includes allocating an additional $2.5 million for the community gun violence intervention and prevention program, which will continue funding for the staff at the Department of Public Health who oversee this program and also provide grants for community-based violence intervention organizations.
During Lamont’s time in office, he’s made gun control one of his primary goals. Starting in 2019, he made so-called “ghost guns” illegal unless the purchaser receives an official serial number from the state. In that same month, he banned gun owners from leaving their firearms unsecured in vehicles and homes. Part of that legislation was called “Ethan’s Law” in honor of 15-year-old Ethan Song, who was accidentally shot and killed while handling a .357 Magnum at his neighbor’s house.
This press conference took place less than a year after Lamont announced a $64 million dollar proposal for gun control which he claimed was supposed to address rising crime rates in the state.
“You’re not tough on crime if you’re weak on guns,” Lamont told reporters at the state Capitol in Hartford. ”We’re going to continue to stay tough on guns.”
CHICAGO — A man shot during an attempted robbery on the CTA Green Line Friday has been charged, according to the Chicago Police Department.
Darius Moss, 33, was charged with one felony count of armed robbery with a firearm and one felony count of armed habitual criminal after trying to rob a 25-year-old man with a gun near the Cicero Green Line stop in Austin.
Police said the 25-year-old victim — who is a FOID and CCL holder — produced his own weapon and fired at Moss, hitting him before Moss was taken into custody shortly thereafter.
There is no other information available at this time.
The long answer: Regardless of any law restricting or prohibiting firearms, criminals will continue to find and use them.
On Friday, January 20, shortly before 5:00 pm, a 25-year-old bank security guard was riding the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) home when Darius Moss, 33, who has been arrested 32 times by Chicago police and convicted of four felonies since 2014, boarded his train car and started staring at him while smoking, reports Fox News.
An argument ensued until Moss revealed a firearm and proceeded to announce a robbery. Holding the victim at gunpoint, Moss allegedly took the man’s keys, phone, credit card, and, notably, his concealed carry license.
Moss threatened to shoot the victim if he did not exit the train at Cicero station, according to prosecutor Christopher Cromydas, as he recounted the story before Judge Maryam Ahmad during the bail hearing for Moss.
After stepping off the train at Cicero station, the guard pulled out his own firearm on the platform. He then re-entered the train and launched into a “firefight” with Moss where he expended 18 rounds, four of which jammed, Cromydas continued.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Judge Ahmad interjected. “A firefight on the train?”
“Yes, your honor,” Cromydas confirmed, explaining that the gunfight took place on the train and the platform.
Of the 18 rounds, Moss was only shot once in the leg, according to the Chicago police. Additionally, the victim was not injured, and there were no other injuries reported.
After the firefight, Moss exited at the Cicero station while the victim continued riding the train for approximately 3.5 miles to the Laramie station, where he identified himself to the police and explained what happened.
Chicago cops found Moss walking in the Cicero station area and recovered the victim’s property from his possession, along with a revolver that contained four bullets and one spent casing.
“It is a pure miracle by the grace of God that no one was killed, that no innocent bystander was killed,” Judge Ahmad remarked.
According to the public defender assigned to Moss, he has two children and is pursuing a career as a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning technician.
He is charged with armed habitual criminal and armed robbery with a firearm. Judge Ahmad was barred from holding Moss without bail because prosecutors did not ask her to.
“This is just ridiculous. Ridiculous,” Ahmad continued before ordering Moss to pay a $25,000 deposit toward bail to be released before trial.
Statue of the Priest Kaaper, known as Sheikh el-Belad (sycamore wood, eyes made from rock crystal rimmed with copper), from North Saqqara, Egypt. Dated to the Old Kingdom, 5th Dynasty, ca. 2494-2345 BC.
This big teddy bear of a guy was actually Iran’s chief nuclear bomb maker.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was an Iranian scientist born in 1958 in Qom, Iran. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, he joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In 1987 he earned his BS in nuclear physics from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. Literally translated Shahid Beheshti supposedly means “Martyr Paradise.” I would find it a bit unsettling to attend “Martyr Paradise University” myself. If nothing else I doubt it was much of a party school. He later earned a Ph.D. in nuclear radiation and cosmic rays.
The Iranians seem absolutely rabid to join the nuclear club. Given their unfettered institutional antipathy toward Israel, the Israelis find this prospect justifiably unsettling.
Fakhrizadeh technically taught physics at the Imam Hossein University. However, in 2007 the CIA announced that this was simply a cover story. Apparently, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was actually scrambling madly to build a nuclear bomb.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was the public face of the Iranian nuclear program.
The AMAD Project ran from 1989 until 2003 and was suspected of being the cover for an Iranian nuclear weapon program. The Iranian government denied its existence, but keep in mind that these are some sneaky rascals. Fakhrizadeh subsequently founded the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND). I have no idea how they got that acronym out of that name. I don’t read Farsi. Fakhrizadeh was SPND’s director from 2008 until 2011.
One can only speculate as to how fascinating this technical conference might have been.
Fakhrizadeh also chaired FEDAT, the Field for the Expansion of Development of Advanced Technology. That acronym I can understand. I’m pleased to see that the creation of bizarre acronyms is not solely an American disease. While the Iranian government has claimed throughout that their nuclear program is entirely peaceful, apparently somebody else felt otherwise. This all came to a head one fateful day in November of 2020.
The Attack
This is Qasem Soleimani. Perhaps it’s just me, but I think this guy looks like the Devil.
Fakhrizadeh was a strategic national asset for Iran, and everybody involved knew that there were forces at play in both the US and Israel who felt that the world might be better off without him. Donald Trump came to a similar conclusion about Qasem Soleimani and blew him straight to hell. Soleimani was known locally as “The Shadow Commander” due to his propensity to skulk about killing people, equipping terrorists, and generally fomenting chaos. Good riddance.
This part of the Middle East is literally forever at war. Truly, it never ever stops.
In the year leading up to November 20, 2020, tensions escalated between Iran and the US as well as Iran and Israel. There were rumors of a pending assassination attempt, but these reports got lost in the mind-boggling clutter that is intelligence gathering in the Information Age. There has been some fairly impressive retrospective self-flagellation in Iran as a result.
The Fakhrizadeh hit was undeniably elegant in its execution. Somebody really outdid themselves on this one.
Fakhrizadeh’s security team begged him not to travel. However, he had an important meeting and claimed he also needed to lecture his students. He was traveling on a rural road in his Nissan Teana near Absard between Tehran and his weekend villa. His Nissan was part of a three-vehicle convoy. He had eleven trained security operatives in tow and sat alongside his wife. Along a deserted stretch of road, the little convoy approached a Nissan truck parked on the shoulder. During a subsequent debriefing, the security forces claimed it looked like the pickup truck was carrying a load of wood.
Ewww…gross.
The attack lasted less than three minutes. Fakhrizadeh was shot a total of thirteen times from a range of 150 yards. His chief security officer purportedly threw himself on top of the Iranian scientist and caught four rounds for his trouble. Fakhrizadeh’s wife was sitting some ten inches away and was unharmed. Apparently, Fakhrizadeh was hit, climbed out of the car, and was then cut to pieces. The gun clearly tracked him as he moved. Once the attack was complete the Nissan pickup truck simply exploded.
The intrinsic precision of the Fakhrizadeh attack was just incredible.
In the immediate aftermath, the Iranian government spun an elaborate yarn about multiple attackers and a suicide bomb. They claimed that three bodyguards died while either three or four of the attackers were killed. They even dredged up a few witnesses who corroborated part of the story, claiming that the suicide bomber lingered on for a bit after the blast before succumbing to his injuries. Apparently, all of that was made up.
The Fakhrizadeh killing proved that it’s a brave new world out there.
The Fars News Agency later reported that Fakhrizadeh had actually been killed by some kind of killer robot. They stated that a remotely-controlled machinegun linked to Israel by satellite and utilizing both Artificial Intelligence and facial recognition had identified Fakhrizadeh and gunned him down. A subsequent article in The Jewish Chronicle quoted unnamed intelligence sources claiming that the attack was indeed the work of the Israeli Mossad using a remote-controlled automatic weapon. Holy crap.
The Fakhrizadeh assassination reflected a remarkable degree of sophistication.
The article went on to state that the entire system weighed about a ton and was smuggled into Iran in small components before being assembled and deployed. They asserted that it was Fakhrizadeh’s predictability in going to his villa every Friday that ultimately killed him. The operation purportedly involved some twenty individuals between Mossad operators and disaffected Iranian resistance fighters. The Chronicle article claimed that there were actually operatives onsite but that the explosive destruction of the gun was adequate to cover their escape. We’ll likely never really know the details.
The Iranians claimed that their favorite nuclear bomb scientist also developed their own home-grown COVID vaccine. While that is some sweet sentiment, I remain skeptical. Conjuring life-saving vaccines and building atomic weapons require some very different skillsets.
After his untimely death, the Iranians even announced that this Ph.D. physicist with a specialty in nuclear radiation and cosmic rays was actually the primary force behind the Iranian COVID-19 test and vaccine. Iran’s Defense Minister Amir Hatami went so far as to say that Fakhrizadeh had made “great strides in the field of developing COVID-19 vaccine.” He added that the center led by Fakhrizadeh went through the first phase of clinical human trials in the field of developing corona vaccine and “did great things for our dear people.” I struggle to believe that, however. The Iranian government lies a lot.
Modern life is complicated. Getting really good at something requires some degree of specialization.
I’m no scientist myself, but in my experience, nuclear physicists do not develop vaccines. Those are two very different disciplines. It would be like having an auto mechanic regulate your cardiac medications or your plumber cook your meals. Once again, consider the source.
The Weapon
I thought The Jackal was a simply epic movie. If you haven’t seen it give it a watch. You’ll thank me later.
The 1997 thriller The Jackal starred Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, and Jack Black and orbited around a shadowy international assassin who used a remote-controlled machinegun to try to take out a high-value target. This was one of Jack Black’s first major roles. Though the critics were not kind to the film, I thought it was awesome. At the time it seemed fairly far-fetched. Nowadays it appears technology has caught up with the filmmaker’s vision.
The CROWS is a tactical game-changer. This nifty trinket allows the US warfighter to run his primary weapon system from under cover. However, it is no great technological leap to let Snuffy run that same gun from the comfort of his living room.
The CROWS (Common Remotely Operated Weapon System) is a fixture on US military vehicles operating downrange today. The CROWS will host a variety of automatic weapons and allows the operator to deliver effective fires while under armor. Whether it is an Mk19 automatic grenade launcher, an M240 GPMG, or a Ma Deuce .50-caliber machinegun, the CROWS allows more accurate fire while keeping the friendly operator safe.
The Talon from Paradigm SRP is a drop-in remotely-operated precision weapon mount.
The Talon gyrostabilized weapon mount from Paradigm SRP takes things one step farther. The Talon compensates for movement to provide a stable and accurate firing platform even from a maneuvering vehicle. The mount accepts a variety of conventional rifles and machineguns and has an effective range in excess of 700 meters. The Talon was originally designed to operate off of helicopters, though it is comparably at home on ground or maritime mounts as well.
The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh may seem a small thing in a geopolitical sense. It isn’t. This remote killing signals a sea change in covert direct action operations. The mind boggles as to where this technology could take us.
As soon as mounts like the Talon could be operated wirelessly they could be managed from anywhere in the world. A system like the Talon could be placed in an ambush position and left for a protracted period of time before a target or vehicle came within range. Solar cells could even free you from battery constraints. Powerful long-distance cameras allow the host weapon to be accurately and precisely targeted.
I’m fairly certain this improvised killer robot began life as some little kid’s Power Wheels ride-on toy.
Remotely operated weapons are actually becoming more and more common in the internecine conflicts that seem to define the Middle East and elsewhere. I couldn’t find any specific references to the weapon system used in the Fakhrizadeh hit beyond that it might have been built around a modified FN MAG gun. However, I did find images of a wide variety of improvised remote-controlled gun stations.
Behold, the tasteless DIY skateboard of death.You need not have particularly mad tech skills to improvise one of these things out of stuff you can order off of Amazon.A disposable gun, a little scrap steel, a cellular camera, and some servos are really all you need to build your own killer robot at home.Teleoperated weapon systems are the wave of the future in the exploding field of remote control assassination. It’s clearly a growth industry.
The current term is “teleoperated weapon systems,” and they are rapidly becoming commonplace. Several companies make commercial versions like the Paradigm SRP Talon and Smart-Shooter Smash Hopper. However, the most impressive to me are the homebuilt improvised DIY versions. The ready availability of inexpensive servos, immensely capable high-resolution cameras, and widespread cell coverage make improvising these things ever easier. Anyone with an Internet connection and a credit card can track down the components.
Wow. Just wow. What a waste.
I found references to improvised mounts using SVD Dragunov sniper rifles, FN FALs, PKM light machineguns, MG74 LMGs, and AKM rifles. All that is required is to construct a gimbaling mount, equip it with a remotely accessible video camera, and rig a solenoid to the trigger assembly. Surplus rifles can be used to build these things up on the cheap. The most compelling example I found came out of Syria and was built around a WW2-era MP44 assault rifle.
The WW2-vintage German MP44 is the gift that keeps on giving. Apparently, folks are still killing each other with these things even today in Syria.
Syrian rebels purportedly captured around 5,000 of these vintage weapons from Syrian government stocks. A friend who has been over there recently tells me that these classic guns sell for between $25 and $50 apiece. However, he said magazines are rare and 7.92x33mm ammunition is all but nonexistent. Suffice to say that transferable examples on this side of the pond are quite a bit spendier.
Ruminations
The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was indeed a setback for the Iranian nuclear program.
Whoever carried this out covered their tracks beautifully. Without a literal and figurative smoking gun, Iran cannot retaliate without risking a massive international outcry. Meanwhile, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh remains quite very dead.
Iranian honor guards are such snappy dressers. I’m particularly digging the spiffy white disco boots.
It is only a matter of time before the Iranians do indeed complete an operational nuclear weapon. It may yet take a while, but the fateful day is coming when Iran joins the rarefied ranks of nuclear-capable nations. Let us hope that when that time comes cooler heads prevail and the Iranians do not opt to exercise their sparkly new plaything. If recent events are any indicator, however, the Israelis, or whoever it was that actually ganked Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, will be thoroughly prepared come what may. Lord help us all.
Personally, I suspect the Iranians are using their nuclear weapons program primarily to wrest concessions out of the West. Nobody in their right mind would want to touch off one of these puppies in Israel given the inevitable and overwhelming retaliatory carnage that would invariably ensue. However, the Iranians have a long and illustrious history of being institutionally out of their minds. We live in such fascinating times.
