Gun sales surged in Twin Falls the day after a mass shooting at a local In-N-Out restaurant, with at least one gun store reporting one of its busiest sales days in years. Local firearms dealers say the spike in purchases is a reminder that owning a gun and knowing how to use it are two very different things.
One of the things, that even the NY Times has mentioned, is that after Jordan Salinas witnessed a mass shooting years ago, he decided to train up, to be prepared if he ever encountered a similar situation. He did, and he was able to act, and he had a positive impact on the outcome of the recent incident in Twin Falls.
Law enforcement has credited armed citizens who responded to the mass shooting at In-N-Out with saving lives.
"We have hero citizens in our community and these citizens ... did, and undoubtedly saved lives," Twin Falls County Sheriff Jack Johnson said.
Training is key. And while the gun-store owners quoted in the article might be trying to sell training, I am not. I used to do NRA safety training, but that was long, long ago.
I find it odd that the article doesn't mention Mr. Salinas by name, which is why I included a link to my post on his actions. (Hat tip to Libs Of TikTok)
Here is the name of someone else you should remember: Elisjsha Dicken.
In July of 2022, Elisjsha Dicken was eating in the food court of an Indiana mall, when a gunman emerged from a bathroom, and opened fire on the crowd. In 15 seconds, marked from the time the gunman opened fire, Mr. Dicken drew his weapon, and shot ten rounds toward the gunman. The autopsy revealed that he had been hit 8 times. He crawled back into the bathroom, where he died.
Police said the death toll would have undoubtedly been higher without the quick-thinking actions of Salinas and the off-duty cop
“These people are true heroes in our community,” Johnson said of the two men who returned fire. “They diverted the shooter and without a doubt saved many lives.”
Remember Jordan Salinas.
Jordan Salinas, 35, a healthcare worker and the full-time caregiver of his brother, who uses a wheelchair, had been horseback riding with his girlfriend the morning of the shooting when the couple pulled into the Twin Falls In-N-Out location for lunch and immediately noticed something amiss.
The Left, and some on the Right, are going on about how the "Idaho Hero" missed his shots, as if that means anything.
Really? Aren’t you a retarded cupcake full of stupid sprinkles? Let me ask you this. You are outside your home doing something, maybe painting the front porch or washing your car and suddenly you realize that somebody is shooting at you, but you have not been hit yet. The question is what you do next, continue as if nothing is happening (I mean, he is missing, right) or ... ?
It is just a coincidence that the bad guy decided to kill himself, just at the moment he encountered resistance. Pure coincidence. Or is it?
A bystander, possibly named Jordan Salinas, engaged the shooter with a handgun, although details about his involvement remain unverified.
X/Twitter seems convinced.
The mainstream media likes to pretend that good guys with guns never step up.
What stays with me is the direction he moved. A man was shooting people in a burger restaurant parking lot at four in the afternoon on a Saturday, and everyone in that lot was running the other way. Whatever the investigation eventually says about whose rounds landed where, a man with a pistol on his hip closed distance on that threat instead of leaving it to work through the crowd unopposed.
Police have identified the suspect in Saturday’s deadly shooting at an In-N-Out Burger restaurant in Twin Falls, Idaho, as 24-year-old Chad Williams. Williams is deceased after suffering a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
I'm sure more will be posted in the next couple of days.
A hunter and his son were hunting black bear in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest, near Ashton, Idaho, when a Grizzly charged them.
The hunters were sitting on the edge of a meadow when a grizzly began crossing it and seemed to pick up their scent. The grizzly then changed direction and headed directly toward the two hunters. As the hunters attempted to alert the grizzly to their presence, it began to charge directly toward them. The man fired at the charging bear with his sidearm before quickly switching to his hunting rifle, killing it within 5 yards of where he was standing.
Ashton, Idaho, is near West Yellowstone. It is about 220 miles north of Salt Lake City, Utah, or about 110 miles south of Bozeman, Montana.
The Idaho Fish and Game department has determined that the grizzly was shot in self-defense.
After conducting a thorough investigation, it was determined that the hunter acted in defense of life, as he and his son were being charged by a bear from a close distance.
Click thru for details, and info about how to deal with things in bear country.
On the morning of Oct. 18, a big game hunter shot and killed a male grizzly bear in self-defense after it charged him from a short distance away while hunting in the North Antelope flats area of Island Park on the Caribou-Targhee National Forest.
Island Park, Idaho in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest is about a 300 mile drive north of Salt Lake City, Utah, or about a 330 mile drive north northeast of Boise, Idaho.
There is a list of things to do to be safe in bear country. (The image above is of a random grizzly bear.)
A hunter in the Selkirk Recovery Zone was charged by a grizzly.
The hunter, who wasn’t injured, fired four shots in self-defense, according to a Facebook post from the Boundary County Sheriff’s Office.
Neither the bear nor any blood were immediately found. The post said it’s unclear if the bear was hit by any of the rounds, but that there’s “a high likelihood” that an injured grizzly is in the area.
So what would you do if confronted by a large predator? You are only an apex predator if you are armed, and know what you're doing.
The Other McCain brings a report on the University of Idaho stabbings and the sentencing of Bryan Kohberger. Demonic Forces: The Reality of Evil
This was triggered by him watching a documentary on Amazon Prime, One Night in Idaho.
Because of Kohberger’s guilty plea, we didn’t get to hear prosecutors lay out their case in the courtroom, and a lot of mystery still surrounds the motive for the murders. Kohberger was a graduate student at Washington State University in Pullman, just eight miles west of Moscow, Idaho. Given the proximity of the two university towns, there’s a substantial amount of cross-socialization — WSU kids partying in Moscow, UI kids partying in Pullman. It has been suggested that Kohberger became obsessed with Maddie Mogen after encountering her while she worked a part-time job at a popular restaurant in Moscow. Kaylee Goncalves had told friends in the weeks leading up to the murders that she believed she was being stalked. Mogen and Goncalves were very similar-looking, and it may be that Kohlberger couldn’t tell them apart, if he was watching them from a distance (as evidence indicates).
It isn't often that people discuss evil seriously, but this guy was evil. Click thru for more.
Police say the victim was repeatedly punched, kicked and stomped while down before pulling a gun and shooting one suspect.
Bailey Geesey thought she could steal alcohol from a store. The clerk confronted her and told her to leave. So naturally Geesey launched an assault on the clerk.
Two additional suspects, Hernandez and the minor, then entered the store and joined the assault on the employee, who had fallen to the ground in a corner. The victim was repeatedly punched, kicked and stomped while down, police said.
The employee then drew a gun and shot at the suspects, shooting Hernandez. All three suspects then ran from the store and drove away.
The store employee suffered "serious but non-life-threatening injuries."
Police located the vehicle, and conducted a traffic stop.
Police stated that following the investigation, Geesey was booked into Ada County Jail. The juvenile was taken to Ada County Juvenile Detention Center, and police said they provided medical aid to Hernandez for a single gunshot wound before he was transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. He was also later booked into Ada County Jail.
The county seat of Ada County, Idaho is Boise. Despite it being the largest city in the state, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess they do not have soft-on-crime prosecutors, like LA or Boston would have.
Two people, believed to be fire personnel, were fatally shot and others injured while responding to a brush fire in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and at least one active shooter continues to fire at law enforcement with high-powered rifles, according to Kootenai County Sheriff Robert Norris.
So is it ecoterrorism, or a policing-hating nutjob? Either way it is a sign of the downfall of society.
The fire may have been intentionally set to draw first responders to the scene, one responding firefighter noted in audio from Kootenai County Fire and EMS via Broadcastify.
The fire was still burning when this article was published. Will we find out what happened? I doubt it.
This incident took place in September of 2024, so it has taken quite some time for the DA make this determination. Is that because the DA hates self-defense, as most of the do? Who can say.
According to investigators, Villalobos, 53, approached Fleming's home uninvited and intoxicated before physically attacking Fleming, striking him in the head. Fleming then shot Villalobos in self-defense.
Idaho has a "Stand Your Ground" law, so it is fairly hard for a DA to prosecute self-defense.
The ruling came after a months-long investigation that included witness statements, forensic analysis, physical evidence, DNA testing and video footage review.
Even all of that doesn't take 6 months.
Still, I think they got to the right place in the end.
An Idaho beauty salon is seeing customers “dropping like flies” after its owner called supporters of President-elect Donald Trump “racist, homophobic, and misogynistic” in a now-viral TikTok.
It seems she has accepted every lie ever told about Trump. Don't get me wrong; he isn't perfect. But he isn't literally Hitler.
It isn't clear she has a business anymore. People have canceled appointments. People have asked for refunds on gift cards. And the website for her business has been taken down.
So her moral outrage has destroyed a business that she's been building for 15 years. And she had employees, so she has impacted others aside from herself.
Maybe she would be happier in a different state than she is in a conservative part of Idaho.
On the night of June 6, an Island Park resident shot and killed a yearling male grizzly as it charged the man’s girlfriend in front of their home near Last Chance.
The man said he and his girlfriend were exiting their vehicle and heading into the house when she screamed, drawing his attention to a bear running in her direction. The man was removing items from the vehicle, which included a shotgun that he was able to raise and fire toward the bear, causing it to turn and run away.
Idaho Department of Fish and Game responded to the scene upon receiving a call about a dead bear near the roadway. After a thorough investigation, it was determined that the homeowner acted in defense-of-life during a surprise encounter with the bear from a short distance.
You are only an apex predator if you are armed. Good thing he had a shotgun, and not just a pistol.
The 85-year-old Idaho woman named Christine Jenneiahn experienced the unthinkable when her home was broken into by a suspect, identified as 39-year-old Derek Condon who handcuffed and threatened her with a gun.
But Jenneiahn, who lives in the home with her disabled son, took a “now or never” chance and committed a “justifiable homicide,” according to Bingham County Prosecutor Ryan Jolley.
The details are long and convoluted, but you should click thru for those. The tl;dr is that despite being handcuffed to a chair, she was able to retrieve her .357 magnum pistol while the would-be bad guy was searching the house for valuables. She was injured, but he died in her kitchen.
The March incident was “one of the most heroic acts of self-preservation,” the county prosecutor wrote in a review posted to Facebook by the Bingham County Sheriff’s Office.
That is a refreshing attitude coming from a DA. I lot of stories about self-defense come from large cities and their suburbs, and in all to many locales that involves a DA who hates self-defense.
UPDATE: The fact that Kohberger was attending grad school at Washington State University, just eight miles from the University of Idaho campus where the four students were murder in November, is certainly intriguing. Some had also previously suggested that the Idaho murders were the work of a serial killer, tying them to unsolved stabbings in Silverton, Oregon, and Washougal, Washington.
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (Bonneville County Sheriff's Office Media Release) - Just after 4 p.m. this afternoon, Bonneville County Sheriff’s Deputies and Idaho Falls Fire responded to a disturbance on Dennis Circle where a man was shot. The reporting party advised dispatch an adult male family member had attacked him, and he fired a handgun in self-defense striking him in the leg.
The homeowner/shooter and his wife are cooperating with police, and the guy who got shot was taken to a local hospital.
This is another incident that points up the fact that people you know can be a threat. The Left loves to make a deal about how if you own a gun, you are statistically more likely to shoot someone you know. That is because you probably know - on some level - people who are going to be a problem. It doesn't have to be family, it could be the ex-coworker who turned into a stalker. It could be a creepy neighbor, or someone like that. Or it could be family. (See the definition of Domestic Violence.)
Dams look like they are simple, but their design and construction can be complex. When they fail after 1 year, something has gone very wrong. Teton Dam (Idaho, 1976)
Construction on the Teton Dam, reservoir, and powerhouse began in 1972 and by November 1975 the zoned earthfill embankment was essentially complete with a structural height of 305 feet and a crest length of 3,100 feet. Less than one year later, the dam experienced catastrophic failure on June 5, 1976 during its first filling. Failure of the Teton Dam and subsequent draining of the reservoir caused the deaths of 11 people and approximately $400 million in damages.
Seepage started on 3 June 1976 in the range of 1/4 cubic feet per second, and by the 5th a sinkhole had appeared and scouring had begun. Water-flow was 20 to 30 cubic feet per second of muddy water by that time. The dam failed at 11:55 am releasing 75 to 80 billion gallons of water, or 230,000 acre-feet, at a rate of more than 1 million cubic feet per second. This second link is from the Bureau of Reclamation.
There were several contributing factors. The foundation of the dam wasn't well understood by the designers. The treatment of the foundation was inconsistent. The project was behind schedule, after all.
Investigations of the Teton Dam failure attributed the catastrophe to a series of design and construction related deficiencies. These inadequacies related primarily to the foundation treatment at the dam and adherence to the overall construction schedule. It was determined the most probable physical failure mode was cracking of the dam’s impervious core due to internal erosion initiated by hydraulic fracturing of the key trench fill material.
Teton Dam was located in an area with highly permeable foundation materials. During investigation of the failure, it was discovered that proper treatment of such foundation material was not implemented. It appeared that the dam’s designers did not take the site specific geological conditions into account when developing the structure. This oversight was exacerbated by the lack of communication between the design and construction engineers about the proper preparation of the dam foundation.
As I have read about a couple of times when a new dam fails, people don't believe it. "You must be joking." And they refuse to believe it. You can hear one example of that if you watch the video below. In the end, most people did heed the warnings, and evacuate.
The first link at the top has several tabs, one is photos and another is a collection of video. The photo above is from that site, and originally (I believe) from the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation from the day of the dam failure.
[Update: Commenter Steve recommends the following video (and I wholeheartedly agree): A brief History of: The Teton Disaster (Documentary). The video is 20 minutes, so plan accordingly. It is a wonderful examination of "Completion Bias." That bias in large projects (especially .gov projects?) that once you've sunk money into a project, it must complete.]
So why is this coming to my attention now? The Teton Dam wasn't the first dam on the upper Snake River. The Teton Dam replaced the Linderman Dam, which was built on almost the same spot. Linderman Dam restoration project will begin Aug. 18. But in typical bureaucratic mode, even though the remnants of the Lindeman Dam were a hazard, nothing was done between 1976 and today. That is 45 years of ignoring a problem.
Linderman Dam was largely dismantled in 1972 for the construction of Teton Dam. After the 1976 failure of Teton Dam, the river resumed its previous course, and the footings of Linderman Dam were exposed. The structural remains are located on the Teton River approximately seven miles upstream from the Teton Dam site, just downstream from the Milk Creek confluence. Successful project completion will eliminate the safety hazards; improve passage for aquatic species, including native Yellowstone cutthroat trout; rehabilitate the river to a more natural and passable elevation profile; and maintain upstream pool elevation for irrigation demands.
At least it is being addressed.
There are more videos at the first link at the top. Some of them are interesting. One is from the Bureau of Reclamation, and while it does contain a small section of good information, it is mostly a .gov propaganda piece. "We are a world-class organization who people ask for help with dams." Sure you are. If you didn't learn "valuable lessons" from a $400 million failure of an engineering project, that failed almost as soon as it was completed, and cost 11 lives, your organization should have been disbanded, and the executives shot.
Though they are right about 1 thing. This was one of the dam disasters that lead to a whole bunch of safety changes to the way dams are designed and built. It didn't fix everything, of course, but it did do some things to break up the bureaucracies.
One of the interesting things from that propaganda video is a description of the insane management rules regarding engineers from design actually talking to engineers from construction management. They had to get management approval communicate in any way. They had to get management approval to make a long-distance call to or from the construction site.
