All posts by Claire Wolfe

defense of others, guns, self defense, shooting

Controlled violence, or pistols and other things that go boom.

9 Comments

Guest commentary
Exclusive to The Zelman Partisans
by William Lehman

Various friends and family have come to me over the years to ask questions such as “What type of pistol should I buy? Should I have a shotgun in the house?” and variations on this theme.

Seems some folks think I know a bit about the subject. Well, after carrying a firearm for more than 35 years, much of it for pay, I suppose they’re right. I was a cop for eight years, and in the military for 20. I’ve owned my fair share of weapons, and though my ankles and knees are not up to copping any more, I stay in the loop. I have drawn a weapon in the line of duty – both police and military – and to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never shot anyone.

Many of the following words of advice are not original to me; some of them are paraphrases of such greats as Col. Jeff Cooper; many of these words are distilled wisdom I’ve picked up from guys that REALY know something.

So, you want to join the members of that most unique society — those who are willing to take personal responsibility for their safety? OK, here are the rules:

First rule: You need to answer the following question: will you actually be willing and able to shoot someone in the head or heart, and watch them die before your eyes, maybe while wiping the blood off your face? (Most gunfights happen at a distance of less than 10 feet.) If the answer is “no,” you shouldn’t carry.

A firearm is not a magical talisman you whip out of your pants or purse, speak the magic words, “I have a gun,” and make evil disappear. You’re going to have to be willing to USE it.

Now, in most instances, merely brandishing a firearm is sufficient to make the bad guy suddenly realize he had an appointment across town that he’s now half an hour late for. But bad-guys are animals, and like animals, they can smell a bluff. If you go waving that Tacticool SIG with the laser sights, extended mag loaded with .45 ACP rounds, sporting the trigger job, flashlight, and bayonet in his face expecting to scare him, but without actually being willing to use it, and you may have just given them a high-dollar present with a lot of stupid baubles on it…

Oh, and probably your life, because after taking your firearm away, he will likely kill you. Of course, he would have probably killed you even if you weren’t armed, but at least you wouldn’t have added to his arsenal.

I understand that some folks are just mentally incapable of taking a life. OK, if you can’t, you can’t. Stay with someone who can, or understand that you take a very small, but existing risk of being robbed, raped, and then killed.

If you would rather be a martyr to the cause of non-violence than a survivor who has to report what happened to the police, and maybe live through a trial for daring to defend yourself, cool. Stop reading now, the rest of this is not for you.

Did the peaceniks leave yet?

Good.

I don’t understand that sort of mind set, but I know people, even people about whom I care about very much, who have that outlook. I view these folks the same way I look at those who suffer from a self-inflicted, incurable illness and are doomed to die of it. It’s unfortunate, but ultimately the decision was theirs.

The rest of this essay is for those of who have decided it’s better to be tried by 12 than carried by six.

Second rule: All guns are loaded. Always. Unless you personally checked it, know its condition, and have not let it out of your hand since that time, it’s loaded and there’s one under the hammer.

A while ago, I had an accidental discharge with a gun I always kept loaded. I knew it was loaded, but what I did not know is that my roommate had taken it to the range, and reloaded it afterward with all six rounds, meaning that the round under the hammer was live. When I handled it, my thumb slipped off the hammer and I had an accidental discharge, because I did not properly check my firearm. Best advice is to never assume. Never.

Third rule: Never put your finger in the trigger guard until you have your sights on the target.

Fourth rule: never cover anything with your muzzle that you are not willing to destroy.

These are common sense rules we have all likely heard before, but they bear repeating. Again and again.

Fifth rule: Carry the biggest caliber that you can comfortably control. If the best you can control is a 9mm, I’ll tell you what ammunition will be effective, because only a very few, brands and types of 9mm ammo are effective man stoppers. And if you can’t handle the recoil of a 9mm, start working out, because anything less than a 9mm, while effective under the proper circumstances, will be difficult to use effectively to stop an oncoming threat.

Imagine hitting a moving target the size of an eyeball, while scared out of your gourd, and trying to stay alive. If you can hit a man in the eye, or the bridge of the nose, or the throat, while he’s trying to stick, shoot, or bludgeon you to death, you don’t need to read this, because you’re an assassin.

That said, the prudent pistolero does not get in a gunfight with a caliber that doesn’t begin with a “.4” (.40 S&W, .45 ACP, and .45 LC, .45 GAP, .44, .41. or the two exceptions to the rule: the .357 and the 10mm).

Sixth rule: Try different pistols before you buy one. Shoot a lot, and shoot many different types. Shoot with friends. Try out their firearms. Most gunnies don’t need an excuse to go out and shoot. After you shoot a lot, you’ll find something that fits your hand and that you can shoot comfortably. Buy one just like it. Spend the money to buy a GOOD weapon; you’ll have it for life.

Guns can be heirlooms. Buy a decent handgun, give it a modicum of care, and you will hand it down to your kids, and they will hand it down to their kids, and so on, and so forth. This tool will maintain value better than almost anything other than maybe gold, so buy a good one and take care of it.

Finally: Never plan to get into a gun fight. Pistols are like fire extinguishers. They are there for emergencies. Why would you go anywhere with the expectation of trouble? If you’re expecting trouble, you might want to bring more firepower than just a pistol. Long guns, shotguns, and armed friends should accompany you if you are really expecting problems.

Remember the only fair fight is the one you win. Chivalry is for competitions. In war — whether nationally declared or street — when your life is on the line, giving the bad guy an even chance is a good way to end up dead. And unlike reenactments, movies, or video games, when you’re dead, you’re dead. Your kids get to squabble over your inheritance, and I have to go to your funeral.

I hate funerals, except for those of my enemies.

 

William Lehman is a retired Navy, medically retired police officer, who currently works for the Navy as a civilian and writes the John Fisher Chronicles — an urban fantasy series based in the pacific Northwest.

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Ed. note: This commentary appeared first on TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!

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Administrivia, New merchandise, The Zelman Partisans

Free(dom)Cycle: Check out our new service

We’ve just added what we hope will be a useful new service for our readers. We call it Free(dom)Cycle (and hope the Freecycle folks don’t get too mad at us).

The idea is simple: You can post free ads offering free items and free services.

Just go here or find the link on the sidebar (scroll down if you’re on a mobile device).

If you already have a TZP member login, it should work for posting classifieds, as well. If not, you’ll need to create a login when you place your first ad. You don’t need a login to answer an ad; just email the person making the offer.

All items and services must be free. However, you can charge a reasonable amount for postage, particularly if your item is heavy or you’re posting multiple offers and don’t want to empty your pockets with all the mailings.

We’ve already posted a few items to kick things off. So please check it out, let us know how it works for you, and start posting your own items.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, gun grabbers, So Much Stupid!, You can't fix stupid

NYT uses front page to spout inanities

14 Comments

Okay, it’s not exactly news that the New York Times spouts nonsense, especially when it comes to guns and gun rights. But when the senile old hag venerable Gray Lady prints an editorial on its front page for the first time in 95 years — and that editorial (obviously sparked by this week’s jihadi-team murders in California) is 100% dedicated to spewing obvious silliness on guns — it’s worthy of note.

TZPNYTFrontPageEditorial_121415

Here are a few selected gems from the editorial:

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection.

Yes, confusing plain old semi-auto with full-auto again just based on the scary appearance of the rifles shown in media photos.

No mention of the emerging information that the murdering jihadis in San Bernardino may have broken the law both attempting to modify their weapons and, of course, in going out and slaughtering people. As if they’d ever care what “civilians” are legally allowed or not allowed to do.

So what do you want, NYT? Another ugly-gun ban like the one we already had for 10 years, which didn’t accomplish one thing except to create new criminals out of the formerly law abiding?

Well, yes, that appears to be precisely what the NYT wants, because they then go on to say (emphasis mine):

Opponents of gun control are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal. That is true. They are talking, many with sincerity, about the constitutional challenges to effective gun regulation. Those challenges exist. They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.

But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not.

“At least those countries are trying.” So let me get this straight. As long as you make a really sincere try at things that deprive people of freedom while doing absolutely zero, nothing, nada, zip, bupkis to protect lives … it’s okeydokey. It’s good.

Take even more freedom. Leave people vulnerable to even more death. It’s all to the good as long as you do something.

The shrieking old bat Gray Lady continues:

It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.

As usual no plan is outlined for drastically reducing numbers and eliminating large categories.

That this is a) impossible and b) would require stormtroopers bearing large numbers of those very categories of scary weapons (even for a vain attempt) is a fact too untidy for the front page of the New York Times. So no, let us delicately sidestep any actual thinking about any actual plan for “reducing” and “eliminating.” We don’t want to consider what would actually end up being reduced and eliminated, now do we?

But not to worry! Because you see, no untidiness would be required:

It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

Yes, despite the fact that the censorious, dried-up old biddy Gray Lady opens and closes her editorial by implying that Americans who support gun rights and own ugly guns are “indecent,” we nasty folk would simply turn over our weapons for the good of humanity.

I can envision us now, patiently lined up outside our local police stations or firearm melting centers by the thousands, little American flags waving from the barrels of our Evil Black Rifles, patriotic gleams in our eyes as we wait to surrender these indecent, macho, insurrectionist arms for destruction.

TZP_Poster-The-German-Student-Fights-for-the-Fuhrer-and-the-People

Yes, there we are, converted into Times believers simply by passage of yet another law. Because of course this law, unlike all other laws the world has ever known, has shown us in a “clear and effective” way the evil that we have been harboring in our gun cabinets and in our hearts. So we have repented and with the fervor of new converts are delighting in “giving up” all that the Times dictates we should give.

And a new day dawns in which nobody — nobody! — ever again commits mass violence because the tools to do so have been made clearly and effectively illegal!

Hooray and hallelujah for our glowing future! The sun will shine upon us forever, its pure radiance never again dimmed by the blood of innocents. Our Glorious Leaders will protect us with their Great Wisdom. And we are proud — proud! — to surrender our evil, knowing we will forever be protected and kindly led by those Above Us.

TZP_Stalinist-youth

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It must be so, right? Because the NYT thought their words were brilliant enough, original enough, revelatory enough, and necessary enough to write a front-page editorial for the first time since 1920. Surely they wouldn’t have resorted to such drama merely to spout cliched and bloody nonsense.

(H/T Jim Bovard for the inspiration)

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mindset, self defense

How I learned to stop worrying and love the Second Amendment

8 Comments

Guest commentary
Exclusive to The Zelman Partisans
By “New Class Traitor”

I am a Jew and substantially grew up in Europe. I have never owned a firearm, and my skills handling one are rudimentary at best. This probably makes me the least probable 2nd Amendment supporter.

Like most Europeans across the political spectrum, I used to take gun control for granted, and shared snooty Euro prejudices about the crazy obsession of Americans with firearm ownership.

I continued to do so even for some time after getting mugged by the reality of 9/11 and the Second Intifada, and gradually morphing from Euro-style social democrat to constitutional conservative. In part this was due to cultural conditioning — just as I always took mandatory national ID cards for granted (another debate entirely). But one must not discount European fear of “the mob” (both organized and unorganized), something deeply rooted in the collective memory, especially of Jews.

In the Bay Area for graduate school, I still did not question my assumptions. I was still a leftist after all, although my contact with some of the more pathological exponents of the postmodern, cultural-Marxist, and neo-racist left in academia sowed the seeds of doubt that later would blossom.

Then work got me to Israel for the first time. The first time one of my subordinates showed up with nothing less than a Galil assault rifle — she was an IDF soldier on reserve duty — I could not help staring. She looked at me like “Oy vey, this shrinking violet from abroad is afraid of the gun.” To put her at ease, I asked a few basic gun safety questions, she got the message I sought to convey, and we reached an understanding. I knew she had been trained in its use, and that rough men and women like her stood between us and the war’s desolation. “There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous people.”

Then I moved to Chicagoland. There I saw first-hand the absurd dichotomy: official gun control on the one hand, yet areas of town where gang violence resulted in an environment statistically as dangerous as a war zone. Clearly the laws were quite ineffective in curbing possession of all sorts of firearms by the gangs.

But I need not have been surprised. A classmate back in Europe whose parents ran a gun store (they took early retirement) told me that a law-abiding citizen, in order to legally carry a handgun, needed no less than four separate permits (purchase, ownership, transport, and carry). Yet at the same time, anybody who had connections with the underworld could go to certain spots in Brussels and buy pretty much any firearm, cash on the barrel. This was the situation at least as far back as the 1960s: this was well enough known to erstwhile Reuters reporter Frederick Forsyth that he made it a plot device in his genre-defining thriller The Day of the Jackal, and it is the situation now when French ISIS operatives come to Brussels to buy hardware.

After another stint abroad, we moved to the Dallas area. In our solidly middle-class subdivision, we were probably the only people not to have several “boomsticks” in the house. Several of our neighbors had signs suggestive of a revolver with the words “We don’t call 911.” Yet we never felt unsafe for a moment there. Those “ominous” signs did not stop me from walking my dog in the neighborhood or walking up to people’s doors. In fact, when alone in the house, I often did not bother to lock my door. Despite guns? Or because of them?

This was also the time when I saw the descent of many British working- and middle-class neighborhoods into living hell — despite draconian gun restrictions, and thanks to knives, not guns. This has been chronicled to a fare-thee-well by “Theodore Dalrymple,” the pseudonym of a British GP who worked in these areas until he moved to rural France in his retirement.

Most recently, after our move back to Israel, we were confronted with knife attacks by Arab terrorists that the population has only limited means of stopping because — guess what? — Israel has pretty restrictive gun ownership outside the “disputed territories.” This has led to some theater of the absurd which I have blogged about elsewhere. The idea of noncombat soldiers in the Israel Defense (!) Forces being made to travel without service weapons makes any red-blooded Zionist see red. Fortunately, Israel’s government is now making at least baby steps toward relaxing restrictions on gun ownership.

Over the years I learned many important lessons.

For one, already mentioned: there are no dangerous firearms, only dangerous people.

For another: organized crime and/or terrorists will always find ways to acquire weapons. Gun control laws effectively disarm the law-abiding, while laws have little to no influence on scofflaws. And while gun control may keep firearms out of the hands of petty thug gangs, they will simply switch weapons to knives.

For a third: The often-cited problem of people with severe mental health issues obtaining firearms and going on shooting rampages with them is most efficiently treated by tackling “the nut, not the gun.”

For a fourth: the 2nd Amendment was originally instituted as a safeguard against a tyrannical central government. I used to consider this a chimeric scenario. It took 2008 and the beginning of an unprecedented era of central overreach, to make me realize this is not a chimera. (This aspect of the 2nd Amendment is probably the least known and understood by Europeans — those who immigrate from 3rd-world countries will readily understand once this is pointed out to them.)

In this day and age, no city on Earth is a true “safe space” anymore, while if one chooses to live in the countryside, it is nonhuman predators one needs to be prepared for, thanks in no small measure to the unintended consequences of endangered species preservation measures.

I no longer fear gun ownership. I fear the lack thereof.

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Ed. note: This commentary appeared first on TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!

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Uncategorized

Ammo drawing: last-minute reminder

Just a quick reminder that today is the last day to become eligible for TZP’s 9mm ammo drawing (courtesy of Ammunition to Go).

All Premium members are eligible for the drawing to be held tomorrow. Sure, we know Premium membership costs $75 and nobody would join at that level only to have a chance in an ammo drawing. But if you’re already thinking about joining TZP, today would be a good time to go for it.

For $75 you get:

  • A three-year membership in TZP
  • 15% discount on everything in the TZP store
  • An embroidered morale patch
  • A photo portrait of our inspiration, the late Aaron Zelman
  • A gorgeous (really) membership certificate
  • A membership card
  • A personally autographed copy of RebelFire: Out of the Gray Zone (If you already have a copy, I can autograph it to a gift recipient or just “generically”)

And a decent chance at winning one of the two codes for two boxes of free 9mm ammo. (Decent chance because there aren’t that many Premium members.)

Besides, you’ll be supporting The World’s Only Hardcore, No-Compromise, No-Surrender Jewish Gun Rights Group. That’s a feather in your cap, isn’t it?

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Poll

Poll: Have you ever had to use a firearm in self-defense or defense of others?

5 Comments

This week’s poll asks if you’ve ever had to defend yourself or others with a firearm. It will be open until Monday, December 7 at 6:00 p.m. CST.

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Last week’s poll (another “political one”) remains open until tomorrow at 6:00. Turns out these political polls have proven unpopular with the hardcore and politically cynical (or realistic) TZP crowd. It’ll be a while before we do another of those.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, hatred of Jews, hoplophobia, Jewish history, mindset, self defense, So Much Stupid!, You can't fix stupid

No sense of history? Or just no sense?

6 Comments

It’s funny. If he lived in the U.S., Rabbi Menachem Margolin would be considered more or less a wimp on gun rights. In Europe, he’s a most radical voice.

Since the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher massacres at least, he’s been calling for Jews to take up arms. That is, to be “allowed” to take up arms. And only “selected” Jews. Jews chosen, trained, and constantly overseen by the state (the very state that’s content to leave the Jews and everyone else disarmed in the face of both terrorism an regular, independent crime).

You see what I mean about wimpy. Still, in disarmed Europe, he’s the loudest voice calling for Jewish self defense.

Margolin is based in Belgium. So naturally, the country’s chief rabbi Abraham Guigui (I didn’t know countries had chief rabbis, but so this article says) and other prominent Jewish leaders simply must denounce him and his mad, wild, crazy, wild-west plan. According to the Jerusalem Post:

Over the weekend, Guigui issued a statement blasting what he called marginal elements and stating that calls for the arming of Jews were “a real danger and unacceptable.”

Calling for Jewish gun ownership would be tantamount to an admission that the Jews are outside of mainstream European society and that their governments are unable to provide for their security, he explained. [Pardon me for interrupting the article, but no sh*t Sherlock, it’s time to admit that “governments are unable to provide for their security.”]

Such a view is considered unacceptable to the vast majority of Belgian Jews, he said, calling on the government to defend every Belgian no matter his religious creed.

“If every one who is in danger requests a gun, today that’s the Jews, tomorrow it’s the imams… it will be a land of anarchy.”

The Coordination Committee of Belgian Jewish Organizations also decried Margolin’s call to arms, issuing a statement calling it ridiculous and asserting that the EJA was “in no way representative of the Belgian Jewish Community.”

“He [Margolin] is not connected at all with the Belgian- Jewish [umbrella] organizations,” said Baron Julien Klener, the president of the Jewish Central Consistory of Belgium, joining his voice to other organizations alarmed at the idea of arming Jews.

Margolin, of course, being a true European, rushed to have an underling explain that he really, really, really didn’t mean what those other guys thought he meant.

All I can say, guys, is it’s your funeral. I hope not literally.

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Uncategorized

Poll: Best R-Party Candidate for Guns

3 Comments

The newest TZP poll is now live. Continuing our political theme, it asks which R-party presidential candidate is BEST for gun rights.

All you people who refused to v*te in the last two polls because we didn’t give you a “none of the above” option will be happy to know you can vote for President Nobody this time.

There was method to our madness in leaving NOTA out of the two previous polls, however. Simply this: The last two polls asked about the badness of candidates. It’s possible, even common, for one one candidate to be more damaging to gun rights (or to put it more properly, more damaging to the free exercise of gun rights) than others in the field. OTOH, less frequently is one candidate genuinely willing to do more than others for the restoration of such free exercise. Thus the NOTA option now that our question has a positive spin.

Last week’s poll remains open until Monday at 6:00 p.m. CST. Lots of non-v*ters so far on this one, but there’s still time if you want to voice your opinion. Where things stand so far:

Screenshot from 2015-11-22 10:21:37

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shooting, The Zelman Partisans

You could be a winner in the great 9mm ammo giveaway

Remember last week’s announcement of the Great 9mm Ammo Giveaway by Ammunition to Go and Magtech? Take a newbie to the range, follow a few simple rules, and get two free boxes of ammo.

Well, it gets better. Ammunition to Go offered TZP two free codes for that ammo. We’ve been talking about what to do with them and have decided to use them to reward our most steadfast supporters.

So. Here’s what we’ll do. Every person who is a TZP Founding 100 Premium member as of November 30 will be eligible. On December 1, the names of all Premium members will be put into a hat and a person not connected with The Zelman Partisans will draw two.

Each of the winning Premium members will be sent a code for two free boxes of 9mm ammo and instructions for redeeming them. Simple.

If you’re already a Premium member, you don’t have to do anything. You’ll be entered automatically. If you haven’t yet joined, we’d love to have you. Premium is a three-year membership that gives you (among other things), a 15% discount in the TZP store, an embroidered morale patch, and a personally autographed copy of RebelFire: Out of the Gray Zone. And on December 1, it’ll also give you a shot at two free boxes of ammo.

Is that cool, or what?

One more of the many good reasons to support your favorite no-compromise Jewish pro-gun group!

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