Be Young & Shut Up

"At Rio Americano High School in Sacramento CA, a student named Dejza, was violently assaulted by a vice principal, Matt Collier, for attempting to take back a piece of art with a political message that the administration didn’t like. She was put in a chokehold and slammed against the desk. When she tried to resist this unlawful abuse of authority, she was slammed and held onto the ground. Matt Collier laid on top of her, crushing her with his weight. Dejza could not breathe, and begged Collier to get off of her. Luckily, another faculty member came in and ended the situation. Dejza went to see a doctor for severe whiplash, and yesterday was her first day of physical therapy. Despite this being blatantly wrong and illegal, the administration has put her on suspension for resisting, and Collier was not disciplined. On the fifth day of her suspension, she will attend a meeting held by bias members of the administration to determine if she will be expelled.

They have tried to silence anyone who speaks out on social media, but today we have gathered in person for a silent sit-in protest.

Dejza has been wronged, and brutalized, and now she is receiving punishment. They’ve tried to silence her. They’ve tried to silence us.” -Grant Wright 

Americans want guns without serial numbers. And apparently, they want to make them at home.

On Wednesday, Cody Wilson’s libertarian non-profit Defense Distributed revealed the Ghost Gunner, a $1,200 computer-controlled (CNC) milling machine designed to let anyone make the aluminum body of an AR-15 rifle at home, with no expertise, no regulation, and no serial numbers. Since then, he’s sold more than 200 of the foot-cubed CNC mills—175 in the first 24 hours. That’s well beyond his expectations; Wilson had planned to sell only 110 of the machines total before cutting off orders.

To keep up, Wilson says he’s now raising the price for the next round of Ghost Gunners by $100. He has even hired another employee to add to Defense Distributed’s tiny operation. That makes four staffers on the group’s CNC milling project, an offshoot of its larger mission to foil gun control with digital DIY tools.

“People want this machine,” Wilson tells WIRED. “People want the battle rifle and the comfort of replicability, and the privacy component. They want it, and they’re buying it.”

While the Ghost Gunner is a general-purpose CNC mill, capable of automatically carving polymer, wood, and metal in three dimensions, Defense Distributed has marketed its machine specifically as a tool for milling the so-called lower receiver of an AR-15, which is the regulated body of that semi-automatic rifle. The gun community has already made that task far easier by selling so-called “80-percent lowers,” blocks of aluminum that need only a few holes and cavities milled out to become working lower receivers. Wilson says he’s now in talks with San Diego-based Ares Armor, one of the top sellers of those 80-percent lowers, to enter into some sort of sales partnership.

For now, milling your own AR-15 lower receiver at home is legal. A California bill to outlaw the homemade firearms without serial numbers—what the bill’s creator, state senator Kevin De Leon, calls “ghost guns”—was vetoed by governor Jerry Brown Tuesday.

The last time one of Defense Distributed’s inventions led to such a popular frenzy was the release of blueprints for its “Liberator” 3-D printed pistol, the world’s first fully 3-D printable gun. That free file was downloaded 100,000 times in two days.

The sales numbers for the Ghost Gunner may be far smaller. But at $1,200, every sale helps fund the activities of Defense Distributed. “I’ve never felt more optimistic about the ability of Defense Distributed to become an installed part of the future, and to help create an expansion of the second amendment,” he says. “There’s hope that Defense Distributed can become a significant civil liberties organization…That’s the ambition, the wildest dream of this entity, to have a marked material effect like that.”

Chicago university latest to investigate students over Palestine activism

Oct. 2 2014

Palestinian students at Loyola University Chicago are under investigation by the university administration after they peacefully challenged other students promoting Taglit-Birthright Israel, the students said in a statement Wednesday. 

The Loyola University Chicago’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter was put under temporary suspension on 19 September following the discussions at the Birthright Israel table inside the student center earlier in the month. The suspension was lifted a week later. The university has not made it clear on what particular grounds the suspension was imposed.

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) members say that they are “deeply concerned” by the ongoing investigation, which alleges “misconduct” after complaints were made by students at the Birthright Israel table.

The students tabling for Birthright, which sends Jewish young adults on all-expense paid trips to Israel to encourage affinity with Zionism, claim they felt “threatened” and “harassed” by the Palestine solidarity activists.

It is a claim that has been used on campuses throughout the United States to conflate criticism of Israel or solidarity with Palestinians with anti-Semitism and hate speech that would necessitate university intervention and punishment.

Nadine Darwish, president of the Loyola University Chicago SJP chapter, told The Electronic Intifada on Wednesday that the Palestinian students were “simply asking if they could register [for the Jewish-only Birthright trips] — it was civil, and there was no harassment, no slurs being thrown around.” 

“The accusations are both exaggerated and inflammatory, attempting to label SJP as an aggressive group motivated by animus against Jewish students, and intent on causing them harm,” SJP at Loyola adds in their press release.

Darwish said that SJP members recorded the interactions and sent the videos to the administration to demonstrate that their discussions at the table contradict the claims made by the Birthright promoters.

While there is a lot of appropriate rage about Ferguson right now, the killing of John Crawford, III is getting less attention than it deserves. I put Shaun King’s tweets and history lesson on the matter in chronological order for easier consumption.

Links:

Autopsy and video show John Crawford shot from behind in Wal-Mart

Witness in murder of John Crawford changes story