[guest post by Dana]

You know what’s worse than having the visiting president of a neighboring country whose people stream across our border as if they owned the place lecture us on the ethics of immigration? How about the imbecilic governor of a U.S. border state reassure said president: “If we can put a man on the moon, we can put a man from Mexico to California in 20 minutes.”

Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto was in town at Governor Brown’s invitation and spoke about the assumed need for immigration reform:

“We want to be a factor of cohesion, not division, with full respect for the sovereignty of the United States,” President Enrique Pena Nieto said Monday. “This, at the end, is about — and only about — a matter of justice for those who contribute so much to the development of the American society.”

And, while not naming names, Pena Nieto criticized what ABC News refers to as those unethical governors cracked down on immigrants:

“There are still states that have not evolved so much as California, that still skimp on recognition and, even worse, the rights of immigrants,” he said. “Those who still believe and bet for the exclusion and discrimination or the rejection of diversity … I only have one thing to say: the future, and a very near future, will demonstrate your ethical mistake. Time will show we’re right.”

It becomes so tiresome to point out the utter hypocrisy of Mexico.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

A horrible accident:

A 9-year-old girl learning to fire a submachine gun accidentally killed her instructor at a shooting range when the weapon recoiled over her shoulder, according to Arizona authorities.

The instructor, 39-year-old Charles Vacca, died at a hospital Monday night after he was shot in the head.

The gun range where the accident took place, permits children as young as age 8 to shoot as long as they are accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Sam Scarmardo, operator of shooting range Bullets and Burgers explained:

Our guys are trained to basically hover over people when they’re shooting,” Scarmardo said. “If they’re shooting right-handed, we have our right-hand behind them ready to push the weapon out of the way. And if they’re left-handed, the same thing.”

Gun experts question why a little girl was handling an Uzi in the first place due to its powerful recoil:

It’s always the supervision,” said Greg Danas, president of Massachusetts-based G&G Firearms. “But you also have gun enthusiasts running businesses where they place firearms in the hands of the uninformed, whether they’re 9-year-old kids who are not capable or adults. It all stems from gun enthusiasts running businesses that require a level of professionalism and education. The unexpected with firearms is something that’s only learned through years of being a trainer, not a gun enthusiast.”

Danas questioned why the instructor in Arizona was standing immediately to the left of the Uzi, which would have recoiled in that direction.

“It’s an awful shame,” he said. “He shouldn’t have been to the left side of the gun… But that child should not have been shooting anything other than a single-shot firearm.”

Further:

Greg Block, who runs California-based Self-Defense Firearms Training, said not only was the Uzi the wrong gun to use — “That’s not a kid’s gun” — but that instructors should stand to the rear and to the right of the shooter.

“He was literally in the line of fire,” Block said of the instructor. “He did pretty much everything wrong, and I don’t like saying that because it cost the man his life.”

Regarding any parental culpability, Chief Deputy Mohave County Attorney Jace Zack stated:

“They trusted the instructor to know what he was doing, and the girl could not possibly have comprehended the potential dangers involved.”

–Dana

Some lefty at The New Republic whines as follows:

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday evening that Burger King is seeking to buy Tim Horton’s, the Canadian coffee and donut chain, to lower its U.S. tax bill.

You may be wondering, how does Burger King reduce its tax liability by purchasing a Canadian fast food company? The answer is that the deal is structured as a “tax inversion” which allows Burger King to switch its official tax jurisdiction from the United States, where the federal corporate tax rate is 35 percent, to Canada, where it is 15 percent. Presto! Burger King’s tax bill is suddenly much lower.

If it sounds ridiculous that an American company can purchase a foreign firm and suddenly avoid the U.S. corporate tax system, that’s because it is. Under current U.S. tax law, if the American company transfers 20 percent or more of its shares to the foreign firm, it can switch its official tax jurisdiction. It doesn’t matter that the vast majority of the shareholders are still American. Or that the management and control of the company remains in the U.S. Or that in making the deal, nothing about the company actually changes. You would still be able to grab a Whopper for lunch. Its thousands of American workers will all still have their jobs. But Burger King will have opted out of the U.S. corporate tax system.

Meanwhile, Forbes reported three days ago on the prospective merger and said:

Burger King’s majority owner, the Brazilian private-equity firm 3G Capital, would hold the majority of shares in the combined company, their statement said.

These Brazilians need to get patriotic and pay their absurdly high American tax rates.

P.S. The tax inversion is being funded by noted high-tax proponent and hypocrite Warren Buffett.

Sounds like they don’t have much in the way of evidence:

The attorney for a Texas father accused of fatally shooting a drunken driver who caused an accident that killed his two sons argued with investigators Monday that none of the evidence they have presented at trial directly links his client to the murder.

. . . .

Dominick Sanders, the lead investigator with the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office, told jurors that the search of Barajas’ home failed to find any evidence “that made a direct link from (Barajas) to the crime scene.”

Later, Cammack asked Sanders if he could tell jurors who shot Banda. Sanders said he didn’t have any direct knowledge on who did it.

“What in the heck are we doing here?” Cammack said.

They’re in trial?

I’m always suspicious of stories about criminal cases, since they sometimes don’t tell the whole story. If there’s evidence that makes the father an aider and abettor, police don’t need to show he’s the shooter, of course. But this doesn’t sound like an aiding and abetting case. The investigator can’t say who’s guilty, yet somehow the guy is on trial anyway? That’s not how it’s supposed to work. It sounds like they’re trying the guy on suspicion alone: he had motive, there is evidence he once had a gun, and the hard drive is missing from his home security system.*

If motive, means, and a missing hard drive are enough to charge someone with a crime, slap the cuffs on Lois Lerner, baby.

UPDATE: So here was my comment at 7:50 a.m. today:

“Texas justice” will be the jury’s verdict. Unless this story is misleading, it will be an acquittal.

And later on today?

The jury has acquitted David Barajas of murder in the fatal shooting of a drunken driver who had just caused an accident that killed the man’s two sons.

Always trust content from Patterico.

First-world problems:

An argument over legroom on a weekend flight led United Airlines to divert a plane to Chicago and call authorities, the airline said Tuesday.

United Airlines Flight 1462 was en route from Newark, N.J., to Denver Sunday afternoon when there was a disturbance between two passengers, a spokesman for the airline said.

According to Chicago police, a 47-year-old man and a 48-year-old woman sitting in front of him got into an altercation after the female passenger realized she could not recline her seat.

The Associated Press reported that the man was using the Knee Defender, a plastic device that clips onto the tray table and prevents the seat ahead from reclining back.

The argument became so heated that the woman threw a cup of water at the man, Chicago Police Officer Janel Sedevic said.

I’m not a fan of reclining seats generally, but airlines have them, and allow passengers to use them. If it’s really important for you to do some work, you could ask the person in front of you if they wouldn’t mind sitting up enough for you to see your screen. Probably they will accommodate you, but if they don’t, that’s life. Put the laptop on your lap, get a first-class seat, do your work on an iPad, or come up with some other solution.