Admittedly, this column is a bit behind the times, I apologize. Parshah Shoftim was a few weeks ago. And part of the Parshah really hit home. Probably because if I spend any time at all listening to the news, all I hear is impeachment, impeachment, impeachment (said is the best Jan Brady whine). The secret Soviet style hearings which include only progressive #Demoncrats, the liar Adam Shiff-less., and lots of leaks, lots and lots of leaks.
Shiff-less
But here’s the relevant portion of the Parshah that got me to thinking
Part of Parshah Shoftim
This is from Deut./Devarim דברים
19:16.
Haven’t all of the women hired to attack Kavenaugh recanted? After they and their complicit media tried to ruin his and his family’s lives. Of course.
Honest law-abiding gun owners, judged guilty for the acts of criminals.
And as Sammy “The Bull” Gravano points out, the mob will always have guns. You only have to listen to the first couple minutes if you want.
Well, the mob and #Bozo’s armed guys he would have sent in to make sure American Citizens complied with his rules, so they could “recover” the AR-15s and AK-47s. Recover? Were they missing before they were stolen by #Bozo?
But the real hypocrisy of liberals is on full display in a fairly recent bill proposed by Sen. John Cornyn -Rep of Texas. He proposed a bill to “combat mass shootings”. He proposed to do this by
It would expand resources for mental health treatment, facilitate the creation of “behavioral intervention teams” to monitor students exhibiting disturbing behavior and offer new tools for law enforcement.
The bill’s school safety proposals are a response to years of school shootings perpetrated by young people described as isolated and troubled.
What is their objection you ask?
Privacy experts and education groups, many of which have resisted similar efforts at the state level, say that level of social media and network surveillance can discourage children from speaking their minds online and could disproportionately result in punishment against children of color, who already face higher rates of punishment in school.
“This is all very frightening,” an education policy consultant, who has been tracking the legislation, told The Hill. “There’s no real research, or even anecdotal information, to back up the idea … that following everything [kids] do online is really a way to determine that they’re going to be violent.”
Now, I’m not a fan of monitoring or big brothering anyone. But this is hypocrisy at it’s finest. And if you don’t believe me, you could ask Alexandria Keyes. She was suspended from school for five days after she posted a picture of herself with her brother.
The two are shown holding guns and the photo is captioned, “Me and my legal guardian are going to the gun range to practice gun safety and responsible gun ownership while getting better so we can protect ourselves while also using the First Amendment to practice our Second Amendment.”
Oh the shock, the horror, the carnage! Oh, wait there wasn’t any. The girl and her brother just went to the range practiced marksmanship and harmed no one. But panties were being twisted into a bunch at a rapid rate, and Alexandria was suspended for disrupting school. Huh? She wasn’t at school, she didn’t use a school computer to post the picture. Sen. Cornyn’s bill only monitors online activity while the students are using school computers.
Abbe Smith, Chief Communications Officer for Cherry Creek School District, told me that the decision to suspend Keyes “involved multiple social media posts that concerned the school community and resulted in multiple parents keeping their kids home from school out of concern for safety.” Smith said that federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act protections prevent her from discussing the details of the case, including disclosing the other photos the district allegedly considered in Keyes’ suspension.
More about this
The school’s policy references Colorado law, which defines the grounds for suspension as “behavior on or off school property that is detrimental to the welfare or safety of other pupils or of school personnel, including behavior that creates a threat of physical harm to the child or to other children.”
… According to Cherry Creek School Board policy, the school district reserves the right to suspend students who “[repeatedly interfere] with a school’s ability to provide educational opportunities to other students.” Over the phone, Smith noted that since multiple parents kept their children home after becoming aware of the post, Keyes’ photo could be viewed as an impediment to the school’s ability to educate, even if the district didn’t ultimately make its decision based on the chances that Keyes posed a physical threat. Does this mean parental fears can be a mechanism for the school district to veto a teen’s extracurricular activities?
Is Cherry Creek not worried that this is going to prevent Alexandria from speaking her mind online? Maybe Cherry Creek never got the memo from the educational policy consultant that monitoring online activity of children is not effective in determining if they are going to be violent later?
And those sanctimonious sniveling parents that bullied the school into suspending her? They have accused her falsely. She has done nothing wrong. They have left a mark on her school record because of their hoplophobic tiny minds. They have allowed their lack of education and knowledge to deprive her of five days worth.
What should then be their sentence?
False statements given to police because someone wants someone’s guns seized in a storm trooper operation because they are A) mad at their uncle B) don’t like how someone voted C) don’t think people should be allowed to own guns D) ___________________ for whatever reason. Police show up, guns are seized and sometimes, sometimes, people die. Red Flag laws, the height of hypocrisy coming from progressives.
What then should be their sentence? And what should their sentence be if it results in the death of an innocent gun own, exactly as they intended it would?
This appears to be a machinegun under current ATF BSTD/AutoGlove/etc rulings. Now, the demo in the video is marked “Military & Police,” so I’m going to assume that it won’t be available to us peons, despite SCOTUS’ Miller ruling. But…
This civilian unit seems to have the same problem. Unlike a normal mechanical binary trigger, which fires one round when the finger pulls the trigger and a second round when the finger allows the trigger to reset, DigiTrigger appears to use the electronics to operate the firing mechanism twice for a single finger operation of the trigger. (see below) That is exactly why the ATF shut down the AutoGlove. The alleged single — “volitional” — operation of the trigger is the basic of the BSTD rule.
Update: I contacted the company. The pull/release (P/R) mode is not burst, but fully simulates P/R: fire on pull, then fire when the finger lets the trigger reset. The DT1.6 digital machinegun I first mentioned is, as I expected, definitely NFA and is under development for the LE/Mil market. No surprise there.
I get it. People want to push the envelope of what they think is legal. But unless they’ve amassed a large pile of legal fund cash, and a herd of good attorneys, with the intent of a serious court challenge to BS ATF determinations and court decisions, all Digital Trigger Technologies is doing is asking for trouble.
If they know what they’re getting into and are willing to go to the mat on this, more power and the best of luck to them
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For those discomfited by my point of view, and for liberals that entails maniacal hatred, don’t get your Garanimals’ training undies in a twist. I’m in the extreme minority. I’m so “old-school” and normal, nothing more than shirt and trousers will ever emerge from my closet and I managed to reach middle-age sans tattoos, never involved in drugs, and without carnal knowledge of Madonna. Is that rare or what? I’ve never won a popularity contest either and am not about to start now. So why sweat me? Like-minded Americans could fit in one room without a shoe horn.
Unbeknownst to me how, I was added to the email blast alert list of Democrat Party Panjandrum Nancy Pelosi known affectionately in some circles as Bela Pelousy. My first impulse was to hit delete and unsubscribe followed by multiple showers and a round of antibiotics. Wait a sec. Imagine the immense loss in entertainment value not reading lunatic emails penned behind the Tofu Curtain by Bela’s neo-Bolshevik scribes out in California. I reconsidered. Pouring a beverage and popping popcorn, I began reading. Hysterical. What a hoot. I stopped laughing. Radical Trotskycrats couldn’t fund-raise through preposterous wild-eyed frothing at the mouth emails, spewing claims unmoored from reality, unless significant numbers of the Great Unwashed are gullible and ignorant enough to believe such rubbish. Or went to public schools. Or both. G-d help us all.
Based on radio and television discussions, online articles, and conversations with Millennials, in general they seem to oppose abolishing the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. But they also tend to support so-called “assault-rifle” bans and believe safer guns and more training are the remedies for “gun-violence.” If true, their knowledge of firearms and understanding of crime issues needs to be addressed. What is the best approach?
All too-often Millennials propose gun control laws whose underlying premise is grossly naïve; people are incompetent with respect to self-defense so shouldn’t fight back against criminal attack. And “because,” they claim, an armed woman is more likely to shoot herself than the bad guy, she should submit to rape. Could these gutless arguments stem from an unwillingness by TSNAGs (Typical Sensitive New Age Guys) to shoulder a responsibility once embraced by men; protecting society’s most vulnerable? Is cowardice behind their claim disarming all but cops will create safer communities? Making matters worse, people proposing more gun laws sometimes know little or nothing about guns. They employ incorrect terms, trade in urban legends, and rely on internet disinformation. Maybe they ask where’s the safety on Ruger’s GP100, call AR15s “assault weapons,” refer to magazines as “clips,” claim anyone can walk in and out of a gun store in five minutes with a machine gun, say the Constitution “gives” us the right to keep and bear arms, or claim gun-registration will never lead to confiscation. Can gun-owners be faulted in believing when a liberal man marries a liberal woman, it’s a same-sex marriage? How does one address their ignorance and misinformation? Understandably those in the self-defense community often respond to the ill-informed with insults but, is this the best approach with Millennials? Is treating them as lunkheads for not knowing what the rest of us were taught the best way to win converts? No. Instead, with gentleness and patience, take them under your wing. Guide them to a saving knowledge of the truth about self-defense. Teach them the 2nd Amendment protects the right to save their lives and those of loved ones from bad guys who’d take them in a second without remorse. They’re smart. As they learn, questions will arise and your answers will lead to more questions and soon you’ve taught them what used to be common knowledge. Let’s start here.
Deceitfully calling them “assault-weapons,” and “assault-rifles,” liberals would ban America’s rifle, the AR15/AR10 and their derivatives. But these are semiautomatic not assault-rifles, (no firearm is classified an assault weapon). They comport with the type of firearm Alexander Hamilton had in mind observing in Federalist #46 that an armed citizenry is the chief bulwark against infringement and oppression by a federal government, and an army it might raise for that purpose.1 Those calling for “safer” guns and more training are apparently unfamiliar with firearms. Considering approximately 124 million people own about 270 million guns,2 (or more), and there were 505 deaths due to “accidental or negligent discharge of a firearm” in 2013,3 (not even half of a half of a half of a percent, you get the drift) safe gun handling is not a problem in America. Would guns complicated by additional safety devices and more training impair the thugs shooting up Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia,4 and Washington, D.C. among others?
In the past several decades, various firearm manufacturers began attaching unnecessary function-retarding devices (magazine disconnect safety) aimed at fending off slip-and-fall lawyers, buying goodwill among anti-gunners, and saving from themselves, people too stupid to unload their gun before cleaning it. Remarkably, even self-defense gurus piled on teaching CCW holders not to carry guns with personal hand-loaded ammunition because it made them appear more blood-thirsty. Editorialists for firearm magazines, gun forums, pro-gun attorneys, and those training citizens at various shooting schools and academies echoed these proscriptions as well. These admonitions took on the life of hoary old clichés everyone accepts but never questions. With all due respect to ThePersuaders, as a policeman, when I heard someone utter the cliché; there’s a fine line between love and hate, it was always after husbands or boyfriends beat, stabbed, or murdered their wives or girlfriends. There is a huge chasm between love and hate. I am no fan of hoary clichés. If you get worked up over what comes next, keep in mind, drugs, tattoos, Madonna, extreme minority…
I’m acquainted with the PARDs (Pistol Rescue Doctors) who perform operations transforming liberal guns into conservative guns. They surgically remove from pistols magazine disconnect “safeties,” an unnecessary handicapping mechanism. I realize liberals enjoy taking sharp objects to everything from fences to babies, but, in this case, patients emerge from operating rooms feeling much better. These surgeons have rescued pistols from both domestic and foreign marques. A minimally invasive procedure, each gun is able to return to a normal life the same day, without prescription Opioids. What is this safety? A magazine disconnect safety prevents a pistol from firing unless a magazine is firmly inserted and locked in place. It doesn’t matter if the magazine is loaded with rounds or not. Unless the magazine is in place, the pistol is inoperable.
In an ongoing campaign to limit the type of firearms which may be sold and possessed, down to, well, none, California created an ever evolving list of “safety” features and attributes firearms must have in order to be legal in the Rainbow state. To the ever shrinking list of legal guns was added in 2007, the requirement of a visual and tactile loaded chamber indicator and a magazine disconnect “safety.”5 It remains unclear how such mechanisms reduce crime by identifying, apprehending, and bringing violent criminals to trial. In order to continue marketing guns in California, and placate lefty anti-2nd Amendment politicians (the beard and ponytail crowd), Sturm Ruger and Smith & Wesson (metal pistols) added magazine disconnect “safeties” not typically found on pistols manufactured by Beretta, CZ, Glock, H&K, FN, SIG Sauer, Springfield, and 1911A1s, or Smith’s modern plastic pistols.
Self-anointed “gun-experts,” among the most insufferably arrogant people I’ve ever encountered, and Neosporin scraped knee spraying worry warts argue that, before cleaning a pistol, someone might forget to check to see if it’s loaded and suffer a negligent discharge [ND] with tragic consequences. Do they assume everyone, other than them, is too ignorant, stupid, and irresponsible to safely handle guns so as many function retarding devices as possible must be added to them? The rarity of gun-accidents puts a lie to this notion. For everyone I’ve trained with, at police and public ranges, the approach is much the same. Training is 100% focused on safety. A standardized step by step protocol is taught and pounded into the heads of new shooters. Range Masters are unforgiving. 1) all guns are considered loaded, 2) guns at all times must be pointed in a safe direction, 3) shooters must know their backstop meaning, what you’re shooting at and the dangers of shooting in that direction, 4) don’t touch or load guns until conditions are safe to do so, 5) When done firing, place the pistol on the bench, table, etc. with the slide locked back and the ejection port up so anyone can see if it’s loaded. Rounds, fired or not, are ejected from the cylinder of revolvers and the gun is placed on the shooting table with the cylinder propped open for inspection, 6) before disassembly for cleaning, the pistol’s magazine must be out, the slide locked back, and the chamber inspected to ensure no rounds remain in the gun, 7) never point even a disassembled gun at anyone, 8) when unloading an unfired gun, whether back from the range or a day of concealed carry, you must account for each round. By always following these or similar steps in the same order, they become part of what’s known as “muscle memory.” Simple. For those finding these steps too complex or mentally challenging, no amount of safeties will make their firearms safe. For them a safe gun is none at all. But don’t punish the 99.99% who handle firearms responsibly with useless feel-good beanbag lava lamp “safety” devices. An on-line Ruger Forum reveals there are Henny Pennys among gun-owners.
Magazine disconnect safety deactivation opponents argue, although removing them makes pistols no less safe, the why of it would not be understood by juries. Others contend that, even in cases where use of deadly force is justified, prosecutors will use removal to paint defendants in the worst possible light. Forum member ‘Sandlapper’ wrote; “It is a safety device you are removing and I’ve always thought safety and gun are too (sic) words that worked well together.” When another forum member asked if this had ever been an issue in a court case, removal opponent ‘Storm40’ delivered what he thought was the coup de grace citing People v. Superior Court (DU) Los Angeles County, (1992). In this case, an LAPD ballistics expert testified the snub-nosed Smith & Wesson revolver used in the shooting case had been crudely altered and it’s “trigger pull dramatically reduced.” Storm40 added that the revolver’s “safety mechanism” didn’t function.6 Having fired snub-nosed revolvers from Colt, Sturm-Ruger, Smith & Wesson, and Taurus over the years, I never encountered a “safety-mechanism,” left-wing novelist Stephen Kind notwithstanding.
Great Scott, has America descended so deeply into Henny Penny emasculation that the blood of America’s rugged, individualistic, and self-reliant forefathers has evaporated from everyone’s veins? Have Neosporin wielding moms patrolling playgrounds ever vigilant for scraped elbows turned Americans into the sky is falling ninnies?
Back in the day, a young man’s first car was typically a tired old jalopy. He soon went to work tossing out performance inhibiting parts replacing cams, intakes, carburetors, exhaust manifolds, and gears with those designed to wring from the car its true performance potential. At least outside of Palo Alto. When liberal environmentalists, who pee their pants at the mere mention of horsepower, employed the tyrannical power of government to foist all manner of unconstitutional performance crippling “pollution” devices on cars, sons and daughters of pioneers and settlers did what free people always do. They chucked them. None of their modifications rendered cars any less safe. Whether driving a 1974 Ford Pinto pumping out 80 horsepower or a 2018 Dodge Demon with 840 screaming horses on tap, what makes cars safe or unsafe is how they’re operated. For those driving sewing machines (electric cars), time among aficionados of real cars is highly recommended…and fun.
Removing magazine disconnect safeties does little to alter trigger pull weight on hammer or striker fired pistols and renders them no less safe. With Ruger’s SR9, removal actually smooths trigger press resulting in a more accurate gun. No one wants to shoot innocent bystanders. Won’t prosecutors use this modification to vilify defendants? Let’s be frank. If a prosecutor has charged you in a self-defense case, they want your scalp. Ethical or not, fair or not, they’ll throw anything they can at you to win conviction. District Attorneys are politicians. Even If you do everything right; approved factory ammo and a totally bone-stock gun, and you’re a pillar of the community completely justified in the use of deadly force, a D.A. who chooses to bring charges will so blacken your character and reputation, your own family won’t recognize you. Trial lawyer Gordon Cooper, an experienced attorney who represents gun-owners, observes the legal system is biased and stacked against gun-owners. And that’s whether you tuned your gun to be more efficient or not. In his experience, “many law-enforcement officers, district attorneys, and even jurors seem to think that if you own or carry a firearm, you are inherently guilty in some way.”7 It won’t matter whether or not you added clearer sights, replaced the grip panels for a better fit, had a trigger-job to improve a horrendous pull weight, Cerakoted the frame for rust prevention, or removed a magazine disconnect “safety.” Ultimately the issue to be decided is, was the use of deadly force justified? Prosecutors attempt to load juries with as many gun-ignorant Oprah watching malleable Neosporin nitwits as possible. It’s the defense attorney’s responsibility, through the voir dire and trial process to block this and provide expert counter-witnesses. As to Ruger Forum member Sandlapper’s cliché about guns and safety going together, Confiscationists use the words “gun” and “safety,” together all the time. Are you going to allow those who know nothing about and or hate guns, dictate what does or doesn’t belong on your gun because the word “safety” is attached to it? For liberals “safety” means national gun-owner registration, restrictions, bans, forced-buy backs, and confiscation. Is that what you want, Sandlapper? If you allow Confiscationist Henny Pennys to build a “safe” gun, chances are it won’t fire. Messages on T-shirts, bumpers stickers, and social media pose a much greater threat to a defendant in a self-defense case than a finely-tuned gun.
Ruger Forum member “Spring” noted disconnect “safety” removal does not lighten trigger pull and the same dire warnings were applied to gun-owners using hollow point rounds; they’re “designed to kill” and make gun owners appear “blood-thirsty.” You’ll get hammered by prosecutors if they discover you used hollow-points in your self-defense gun, people warned. Another Forum member observed that, with respect to the California snub-nosed revolver case, modification of the revolver’s trigger was not an issue and played no role in determination of guilt or innocence. Two women were engaged in a physical altercation (sounds like a high school cafeteria at lunchtime), one turned to leave, and the defendant shot her in the back of the head.8 Anyone with a modicum of common sense knows immediately what the defendant did wrong. If not, don’t touch a gun until you get some serious legal training.
As much as I respect Massad Ayoob, I take issue with his admonition against disconnect safety removal.9 As a policeman, I and other officers were issued Smith & Wesson Model 19 revolvers. By the 1980s, new specimens typically came with heavy gritty triggers and large wooden grips. It was routine for officers to replace wooden stocks with rubber grips, change the sights, and pop for a department legal trigger job. Like performance mods on a car, this didn’t make the gun any less safe, it simply ran better.
Prosecutor: “Isn’t it true officer Goldstein, getting an action job indicates you intended to shoot the deceased?”
Goldstein: “No, pulling the trigger does.”
Gaston Glock’s masterpiece has no magazine disconnect safety and is perhaps the most customizable pistol on the market. From slide hold-open levers, magazine release buttons, springs, barrels, slides, name it, the performance of off the shelf guns can be greatly enhanced. This can make for more confident and accurate users. Ultra-light triggers aside, in self-defense situations, employing a finely tuned and accurate gun means less chance of bullets striking unintended targets. Gun owners who experiment with various loads are more likely to know which bullets might over or under penetrate in given situations allowing them to choose wisely. This makes them and the gun safer.
It’s possible, sitting in a car, at a desk, or reaching for items on grocery store shelves, to bump the magazine release button just enough to unlock the magazine of some pistols. With the magazine still in the well, nothing appears amiss. Attacks by criminals are often sudden and violent, allowing victims but a second to pull their gun and fire in self-defense. Only, the gun won’t fire. The magazine is unlocked. What about the fact a round is already chambered. It won’t matter. The gun is inoperable due to the magazine disconnect safety. For naysayers who might argue this would probably be a rare occurrence, how rare will it be if it’s you? Gun Writers note most attacks and self-defense uses of pistols occur at handshaking distances. Suppose a scumbag makes a grab for and gets his hand on your gun and, in the ensuing struggle, the magazine release button is bumped sending the magazine flying. No sweat, you still have one in the pipe. Weren’t you paying attention? Without the magazine locked in place, the pistol is inoperable. While the Scrote is stabbing you with a knife or bludgeoning your skull with a crowbar, you’re on hands and knees, scrambling around on the sidewalk, trying to find the ejected magazine so it can be re-inserted into the pistol to make it work. Only, you won’t be able to do that. Because you’re dead.
Finding time and money to practice frequently at the range is a challenge for anyone. “Dry-firing” is a method for practicing trigger skills, hand and eye coordination, and building muscle memory. Third generation Smith & Wesson pistols, alloy and steel models, had hammers and a double action trigger pull weight designed to build great forearms. Like a revolver, one can practice “staging” the overly heavy trigger learning to control and fire it at the proper “break” enhancing accuracy and effectiveness. But this requires lots of practice, including long dry-fire sessions. To dry-fire these hammer fired Smiths, one has two options; thumb back the hammer and pull the trigger but, it won’t drop without the magazine in place (Smith 908, for example), or rack the slide. But the slide can’t be racked to the rear and returned to battery if an empty magazine is in place. The slide has to be retracted, allowed to return to battery, and then the magazine re-inserted. Unless you thumb the hammer with a magazine in place, if you dry fire 50 times, you’ll have to repeat this process 50 times. But that’s impossible with magazine disconnect safeties. It’s the same for striker-fired pistols. Dropping the magazine, working the slide, reinserting the magazine, pulling the trigger, and repeating is not conducive to training and, we have a magazine always in the gun. Wouldn’t it be safer during dry fire practice for a magazine not to be part of the equation?
For those clinging to the, what’s the harm with more safeties argument, how many will be enough? At what point does the firearm’s intended purpose become compromised? The way to improve driving skills is through practice, not making it harder for people to drive their cars. In both cases, firearms and automobiles, one learns a set of safety protocols from which not to deviate. I am aware of a man who was killed when the jack holding up the car he was under failed. Anyone who works on cars learns early on this is a hideously dangerous no-no. The same “everyone knows you don’t do this” type of maxim also applies to guns. Those who violate safety protocols, face tragic consequences. The good news is, most of us do follow them.
What would guns designed by Henny Pennys look like? Big and heavy, festooned with a padlock, proof all 29 warning labels were read, owner fingerprint keypad, microphone and voice recognition software, chip reader, DNA blood-sample collection needle, video-screen on which to take a required test, google search for any racist, sexist, bigoted, etc. comment ever made on social media, and an automatic call to the FBI for authorization to use the gun.
In America, when a respected greybeard in the 2nd Amendment and shooting community theorizes from his pedestal this or that handgun modification could be used by prosecutors to hang an innocent person, other sages nod in cross-pollinating agreement. Soon the theory circulates becoming accepted wisdom one dares not question. In the real world, rounds fired at violent attackers in self-defense, from .380s to .44 Magnums, don’t automatically drop knife or gun-wielding Scumbags like a sack of potatoes. You’re in a fight for your life. You must do whatever it takes to prevail. Failure means you die. But, snivels the Henny Penny, they’ll say when you fired your gun, you meant to kill the bad guy with the knife.10 When it comes to saving lives, we can’t let fear mongering and the massive egos of firearms “experts” cripple our ability to defend ourselves. We can’t allow Confiscationists to normalize hamstringing guns with function inhibiting devices in the name of “gun safety” and “sensible laws.” None of this will hamstring violent criminals but may cost you your life.
11 Clinton Rossiter, Editor, The Federalist Papers, #46 (New York, N.Y., A Mentor Book from New American Library, 1961), 294-300.
22John R. Lott, Jr., More Guns Less Crime, Third Edition, (Chicago, Illinois, University of Chicago Press, 2010), 1.
1010 People who rob, rape, and murder, are intentional predators. Unlike animals whose predation is based on feeding, these predators are motivated by evil hence monsters and no longer part of the family of man and should be treated as such.
Back in May, I noticed something odd in a Hillsborough County (FL) Sheriffs Office press release about a man arrested for shooting his girlfriend. I mean odd beyond the guy using a loaded gun for foreplay (pro-tip: don’t do that).
“involving his registered hand gun.” While most people realize that very few states have any sort of firearms registration — and Florida is not one of them — Florida takes it a little farther with FS 790.335.
(2) Prohibitions.–No state governmental agency or local government, special district, or other political subdivision or official, agent, or employee of such state or other governmental entity or any other person, public or private, shall knowingly and willfully keep or cause to be kept any list, record, or registry of privately owned firearms or any list, record, or registry of the owners of those firearms.
(4) Penalties.–
(a) Any person who, or entity that, violates a provision of this section commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.
In Florida, creating a firearm registry is a third degree felony good for five years in prison. So why did HCSO claim the perp’s gun was “registered”?
It took a month and a half, with multiple emails to HCSO and the Florida Attorney General’s office, but I got an answer.
Hello Carl,
That was an error on our part. It was meant to imply that the man involved had a legally purchased gun, since media was inquiring if it was stolen or not.
We realize that there is not a gun registry. Here is a link to the updated article:
Crystal Clark
Chief Communications Officer
Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office
Email: cmclark@hcso.tampa.fl.us
Office: 813-247-8094
Given that only nine (ten, sort of) states have any form of firearm registration, and Florida has a statute making the creation of a registry a felony, why in the world would it even occur to them to use “registered” to imply “lawfully owned” or simply “his”?
It will likely take another six weeks to get that answer.
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You know, it seems more and more often I hear the left justify their criminal behavior as “fighting hate”, “fighting evil” “fighting fascism” or another one I hear from time to time, “Trump is so evil”. No, I don’t believe President Trump is evil, misguided and screws up? Yep. But I notice those that claim he is “evil” usually do so because he is denying them something they want such as illegal immigrants voting, or on welfare, or how about just coming here illegally, un-vetted and we have no idea who they are, what diseases they have or what their character is.
Recently a conservative journalist was attacked in the city of Portland Oregon. A shame and disgrace, Portland used to be a very beautiful city. I very much enjoyed my trips there when I was younger. But Portland has become a liberal haven, like Berkeley. And like Berkeley, antifa flourishes. What is antifa like?
I’m reading a book right now called Women Heroes of WWII.
He instituted the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth), a state-run program for all children ages 10–18. The Hitler Youth program was geared to make Germany’s children proud, militant Nazis. They engaged in warlike games, killed small animals (to become insensitive to suffering and death), sang songs about German streets running with Jewish blood, and were encouraged toward fanatical, personal devotion to Hitler, a devotion that was to take precedence over their relationships with their parents. (Children were encouraged to turn in their own parents to the Gestapo if they heard them say anything against the Führer.)
The members of antifa certainly fit that description! My Mom and I were talking the other night and she was telling me a statistic she thought she had heard about the percentage of people that want socialism vs the people that don’t, and want capitalism. And in their public educatioindoctrination centers skools they learn what is “social justice” and “victimhood” 300 level classes in this are available at most universities, along with BDS and anti-Zionism against the one Jewish state in the world, which is in no way of course, antisemitic. In addition to physically attacking their victims, they strive for fear, intimidation and humiliation. Again, familiar.
But adults can have differences of opinions, they can discuss ideas. Very spirited discussions can result between two adults that argues their points, theories and ideas.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
Brainstorming is a beautiful thing. Antifa doesn’t brainstorm. I’m not sure they really think, they seem more like violently programed robots. They are absolutely indoctrinated to hate. How else can you scream “Love trumps hate” as you try to beat another living being?
Some of this just seems so familiar, it’s like a memory ringing in the back of my mind.
I’m seeing a pattern. Conservatives, especially in this time of Trump have been de-humanized to the point that the liberal tolerant left feels perfectly justified in physically attacking them. Women alone, old men, doesn’t matter. They function as a feral pack, they seem to single out one person and go after them. Because of they have different ideas than that of the left and that is no longer permitted. Stores are boycotted, careers are ruined, jobs are lost. All because someone expressed an opinion that the left doesn’t allow them to express or believe. Which goes with the pattern, it’s why Russia and Germany had to lock up and isolate leaders of the opposition, be they teacher, doctors, sailors, soldiers or the neighborhood grocer.
Antifa sympathisers are ‘whitewashing’ violence: Andy Ngo
You notice this report came from outside the U.S.
Also like the days of old, those in authority are telling the police to “stand down” and not protect the Trump supporters. Whether it was Berkeley, the lady in San Jose when the police blocked the door and wouldn’t let her in as antifa surrounded her or the attack on Andy Ngo which occurred right in front of a police station. The authorities are not doing the “serve and protect” thing. Well, not if you’re a conservative anyway.
Have you noticed another similarity between the cities where antifa seems to be flourishing? Yeah, I thought you probably had. They all have strict gun control. While that will affect conservatives who tend to be law abiding, it does not affect antifa who show up armed with crowbars and bats. And while the liberal talking heads aka #FakeNews tend to belittle the milkshake thing, the “milkshakes” often have quick drying concrete which makes them capable of blunt force trauma as well as chemical acid burns.
The point of the all this intimidation is something gun owners have seen for a long time. The media tells us some massive percentage of the people support further restricting our Second Amendment rights. And while we know it’s crap, many others, the Fudds out there will believe it. Especially if there is a collaborating story from the VNRA. With the stifling of free speech, and the ability to safely assemble at a political rally the tolerant, progressive anti-fascist fascists are ensuring only one opinion, theirs, is safe to express or will be heard.
And while some say “Love Trumps Hate”, I say love may well trump hate, but these days love and a AR-15 are a way better way to go.
Last weekend was Shavuot. In the diaspora it is a two day holiday. I admit it is an emotional holiday for me. I love Shavuot.
The holiday of Shavuot is the day on which we celebrate the great revelation of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, more than 3,300 years ago. You stood at the foot of the mountain, as did your grandparents and great-grandparents before them. The souls of all Jews, from all times, came together to hear the Ten Commandments from G‑d Himself.
What was involved?
Moses ascended Mount Sinai, and G‑d spoke to him the following words (Exodus 19:3-6): “So shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel. You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles’ wings, and I brought you to Me. And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples, for Mine is the entire earth. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of princes and a holy nation.”
Moses returned from Sinai and called for the elders of the people and put all these words of G‑d before them. Unanimously, with one voice and one mind, the people answered: Naaseh Venishma – “Everything G‑d has said, we will do.” Thus they accepted the Torah outright, with all its precepts, not even asking for a detailed enumeration of the obligations and duties it involved
So last Sunday, June 9, I went to my synagogue to hear the Ten Commandments and reaffirm the covenant with G‑d and His Torah. There are actually 613 commandments, like little holy bread crumbs helping you find your way to G-d. But within the 10, they contain kernels from which the others come.
Number 6 is the one that seems to confuse people. It does not say “Thou shalt not kill”. It says “You shall not murder”. Which is a very different kettle of fish.
I also note it does not say that “You shall not murder by a so-called assault weapon” “You shall not murder using a adequate capacity magazine” “You shall not murder using a shoulder thingy that goes up” “You shall not murder using a ghost gun” “You shall not murder if you are in a citizen registry” “You shall not murder if your ammunition is registered” “You shall not murder if you are taxed so high you can’t afford to defend your family” “You shall not murder with a knife” “You shall not murder with an ax” “You shall not murder with a screwdriver” “You shall not murder with a rope” “You shall not murder with a car” “You shall not murder by drowning” “You shall not murder by poison” “You shall not murder with a chain” “You shall not murder with your hands”.
Just a very simple “You shall not murder”.
And yet, our politicians have put who knows how many gun control laws on the books that only law-abiding citizens will obey in the first place. Criminals are not the least affected by laws, the more the merrier for them.
We can live by G-d’s law or die by man’s I heard a Rabbi say.
So, for your information, here’s a handy clip out guide to the current crop of aspiring tyrants running as the Demoncratic candidates for President of the United States. Where I didn’t come up with a snazzy nickname for one of the aspiring tyrants, feel free to suggest one. Anything in italics is just my comments.
You have to apply to Washington for permission,reapply every five years Inform the executive branch of each weapon you own in your home
Use of the error ridden terrorist watch list to prohibit gun ownership.
Allow lawsuits against gun manufacturers.
“Red flag” gun confiscation
Bernie Sanders the millionaire communist
A nationwide ban on assault weapons
Expanded background checks
Ban on “high capacity magazine over ten rounds.”
A “common sense proposal on guns that will have the support, not of everybody, but a significant majority of American people.”
“We need strong sensible gun control, and I will support it,”
“I support what President Obama is doing in terms of trying to close the gun show loopholes.”
Mostly vague
Elizabeth “Fauxcahontas” Warren
Obligatory “Assault Weapons” ban
Obligatory “Universal background check”
Mostly vague
Kamala Harris
Vows to use executive action on “Day 1”
Reminiscent of Valerie Jarrett’s statement obama would be “ready to rule from Day 1”
Direct the ATF “to promulgate a regulation” that makes it so that “if you sell five or more guns for profit a year, you will be considered a ‘dealer’ and required to perform background checks.”
Ban Semi-automatic firearms
Direct the ATF “to promulgate a regulation” that makes it so that “if you sell five or more guns for profit a year, you will be considered a ‘dealer’ and required to perform background checks.”
Require universal background checks
Ban high-capacity ammunition clips
Make gun trafficking a federal crime (no mention if this applies to the ATF as well)
Prohibit those convicted of a federal hate crime from buying firearms.
Repeal the Protection of Commerce in Arms Act
Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke
Obligatory Universal background checks for gun sales
Obligatory weapons ban
“Red-flag” gun confiscation laws
Close the boyfriend loophole, the Charleston loophole, the gun show loophole, the online loophole<<gibberish
Fully invest in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and research into gun violence<<taxpayer fraud
Pete Buttigieg
Obligatory Universal background checks for gun sales
Obligatory weapons ban
National gun-licensing system
Eric “Duke Nukem” Swalwell
Gun Confiscation
Drop nuclear weapons on American Citizens
You know, on Shavuot, we reaffirm our dedication to G-d and living according to his Torah commandments. I would suggest that to be a candidate for the office of President, the candidates of all parties need to reaffirm their dedication to our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. All of them, every single one. Including the Second Amendment.
But then, see my comment above about criminals and laws. The laws don’t apply to them, right?
“Can we discuss the loss of rights of people going to a concert because of the lack of assault rifle regulations?”1
Singer Sheryl Crow
“It sickens me the ease in which a TERRORIST can be sold a GUN. Is the ease really worth all these lives?! This needs to stop”2 [capitalization and punctuation in the original] tweeting about Las Vegas.
Gigi Hadid, top fashion model
“It would be wise to ban assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and silencers. None of which is excessive.”3
Elizabeth Banks, Hollywood actress
“Gun control now. Enough already. Grow the f__k up. The average person doesn’t need a f__cking maching (sic) gun. Enough already.”4 [Misspelling in the original]
Billy Eichner, Comedian, actor, writer, television personality.
“We love the traditions, the history, the technology of firearms, and we grew up with the sense of deep responsibility owning guns brings. We gun owners have a deeply held belief in gun safety, instilled by our parents and our grandparents. Owning a gun means living by a set of sternly ingrained rules. Those rules belong to us. We live by them. And when someone breaks those rules, we feel betrayed, appalled, and angry.”5
Todd Woodward
Leftist singer Cheryl Crow, from Kennett, Missouri is worth approximately $41 million dollars. No doubt she and the celebrities cited above earn enough to preclude rubbing shoulders with the hoi polloi. They probably have bodyguards as well. Armed bodyguards. If Crow knows anything about firearms and gun-laws, she keeps this secret well hidden. If model Hadid knew the Las Vegas mass murderer was a terrorist (no one else did) then why didn’t she speak up or call the FBI before the massacre? Comedian Eichner demonstrates a psychosis peculiar to those on the left to wit; they believe anger, shouting, and profanity lend credence and strength to their argument. The more self-righteous sanctimony they can work up, like a sweaty lather, the more correct they are. Grow up? For real Billy? I heard that. Someone in the room said, “Who cares. I don’t go to the movies and never heard of these people anyway.” Do you know how many followers they have on social media? Remember this is the USSA (United States of Shallow Americans) wherein if people like an actor, singer, model, or entertainer, then whatever they say must be true. Affection determines truth. Mental exertion need not apply. Let’s play a game. Let’s pretend we’re in a large room and seated at our feet are pop-culture icons all eager to learn. They begin with questions like; aren’t people running amuck in streets blasting each other left and right like in the movies and video games we make? Shouldn’t the government ban guns before they hurt more people? Why is anyone allowed to buy military assault weapons? And they’re all ears and no mouth. I know, I know, but play along anyway.
With respect to actress Elizabeth Banks, there are no firearms classified “assault weapons.” Anything that can be used to hurt another; a rolled up magazine, pencil, ashtray, rock, fishing hook, hayfork, Hillary’s laugh (like a cross between a strangled goose and Bob Dylan singing), or a refrigerator hardened biscuit can be an “assault weapon.” Okay, I get it, you meant “assault rifle” like AR15s, AK47s, Ruger Minis, and any rifle with a collapsible stock and fore-end grip. Right? Wrong. For a rifle to be classified as an “assault rifle,” it must possess specific characteristics including: (1) shoulder fired, (2) capable of full automatic fire, and (3) chambered in a cartridge “intermediate between pistol and revolver, and rifle ammunition; i.e., carbine ammunition.”6 Some are capable of selective fire meaning they have a switch to set them on safe, semiautomatic, fully automatic, and back again. By definition this excludes semiautomatic rifles because there is no switch or capability for full automatic fire. Instead their triggers must be pressed, one at a time, for each round fired, a system more than a century old. Other than caliber, similarities between military and civilian rifles are cosmetic. The latter are incapable of selective or full-automatic fire. Liberals invented the term “assault-weapon” to confuse and scare non- gun owners into believing commercial AR15s are the same as military fully automatic assault rifles.7
Okay, maybe you’re right, a songstress replies, but can’t semiautomatics be modified to fire full-auto? In some cases, yes but it takes skill and proper tools to make alterations which typically are irreversible. This false claim, semiautomatics can easily, and apparently legally, be converted to fully automatic, came up at my school in the form of an ambush.
When I was a high school teacher, a colleague in the foreign language department told her students anyone could purchase the part(s) at gun shows to convert semiautomatic rifles to full-auto. Why this came up in a Spanish class, I have no idea. English, Science, Math, SocialIST Studies, and other departments were compartmentalized into their own hallways and, only in my 3rd year, I’d met few teachers outside my own. Therefore, I was caught off guard when a teacher I’d never met (I had to ask a colleague her name) unleashed an attack on me in the teacher’s break room at lunch. Angry and emotional, she yelled at me in accusatory tones claiming anyone could buy the parts to convert semi into fully automatic firearms at gun shows. Collecting myself, I asked what the part was and how many gun shows had she attended? Her response was tempestuous insistence she spoke the truth and if I said otherwise, I was a liar. Why had she targeted me? An introvert in a department of belligerent very vocal leftists, I’d kept my views to myself from day one so her outburst was mystifying. I failed to grasp, until apprised later by the principal, what an intolerable scandal it was for an overwhelmingly liberal faculty to discover a conservative in their midst. And I was unaware to the degree which liberal teachers, who didn’t even know me, talked about me behind my back. MOTOWN’s The O’JAYS sang of my plight. The pattern was typical. Upon discovering a conservative colleague, liberals begin with mild teasing, then goading, next mockery and stepped up insults, and finally angry verbal attacks. When assigned to work with new teachers during faculty in-services, ultra-liberal union goon Mao ZeTodd was invariably lurking nearby. He’d rush over announcing in hysterical tones resembling an Atlanta CDC warning, I was the “school conservative” thus poisoning any chance to build a relationship before rumor, gossip, and lies reached their ears.
I’d attended many gun shows and never seen parts for sale to convert semi to a fully automatic rifles. Being no authority and wanting to get the facts straight, I contacted the local BATF. They said the Spanish teacher was wrong. Possession of any part permitting conversion of a firearm from semi to full-automatic is illegal and a felony. This is true even if one doesn’t possess a firearm. Members of local police departments and the BATF often visit gun shows ensuring everything is on the up and up. It is illegal to make, alter, or offer for sale, any part modifying the semiautomatic function of any firearm, pistol, shotgun, or rifle, to fully automatic. Kiss loved ones goodbye because you’re looking at up to 10 years in federal prison, a $250,000 dollar fine, and permanent revocation of the right to possess firearms and vote as well. Suppose you make the modification and take it to someone’s farm to try it out. A neighbor reports to authorities hearing automatic fire coming from this property. Based on probable cause the BATF secures and executes a search warrant finding the weapon(s). It gets very bad at that point. Altering firearms this way is something you should never have anything to do with. Don’t do it. Run from anyone doing this.8 Did I confront the Spanish teacher with the truth, the fact that she lied? No, it’s the whole introvert thing. Okay ask our glitterati, AR15s are not the same as M16s, but why does anyone need them anyway?
The right to keep and bear arms is recognized through the Declaration of Independence and Constitution as a G-d-given not man-created right from which individuals can’t be alienated [separated] by government. It has nothing to do with hunting or membership in the Military or “National” (sic) Guard and more importantly, is not dependent on notions of a “need.” Were this not so, those who rule, regardless of style of government from authoritarian to democratic, could define and redefine the “need” standard until it becomes an un-scalable wall. In response to mass shootings in the latter half of the 20th century, Britain eliminated self-defense as a reason to “need” firearms essentially banning pistols, revolvers, rifles, and shotguns. Because registration had been implemented years before, the government knew who had what when confiscation began.9 An inalienable right cannot be altered, infringed upon, or abolished by a majority vote of one’s neighbors or by government. Okay, says a pop-star, instead of banning guns, couldn’t we save lives by limiting magazine capacity? Who really needs “high capacity” magazines holding 15 to 30 rounds?
High compared to what? The correct term is “full capacity.” I have a question for you; how many rounds does it take to stop an attacker? A 2008 Rand Corporation study found the NYPD averaged an 18% hit rate in shootouts with armed criminals and a 30% rate when the bad guys didn’t return fire10 translating into an approximate hit ratio of 1 to 3 rounds per 10 round magazine. Roughly the same percentage, sometimes worse, holds true for departments across America. Would you limit magazine capacity for the police? Okay maybe not cops but it’s different with civilians. It’s the cops that face armed bad guys a movie star shouts. Based on my experience, more than a few civilians are better trained and know their way around firearms than the average cop. Considering victims, by virtue of their status as the intended target, are first on the scene, why should they be hamstrung by limited capacity magazines when police, on the way if 911 is called, are not? Now toss into the mix an attacker full of murderous rage, under the influence of alcohol and or drugs, and running full speed at you with knife or gun in hand. Forget all this talk about bringing a knife to a gun fight, one-shot stops, and knock-down power, we’re dealing with the real world, not Hollywood. Lethal hits or not, how many rounds will it take to stop the attacker from taking your life before he expires? No one knows. Further, criminals may attack in pairs or groups, one asking for the time or bus fare, distracting the intended victim. Will felons, already barred from possessing the firearms they acquire, obey magazine capacity limits? They tend to keep shooting until their victims are dead.
I see your hand up in the front. Didn’t you sing at a Super Bowl halftime a few years back? Never saw a skirt so short before. What about gun registration to prevent violent crimes, she says, ignoring my observation. Wouldn’t it keep them out of the hands of criminals? Does it now, I reply. Registration is record keeping on who legally purchased and owns what. Since criminals, who typically obtain firearms through theft and burglary are disinclined to register them, what difference would registration make? Consider automobile registration and driver’s licensing requirements. License plates on stolen cars reveal who owns not who stole it. Same with guns. Like firearms, many laws regulate the purchase and operation of automobiles but here the analogy breaks down. Fines, restrictions on and revocation of driving privileges, and even prison to compel compliance with traffic laws has failed. People still text, speed, run stop signs and red lights, steer wheels with knees because a cigarette is in one hand and a triple-decker two-pound bacon burger is in the other, and drive under the influence. Each year they murder thousands of people and hurt, maim, and cripple millions more yet no one calls for the elimination of automobiles even “if it will save one life.” There is no analogue with firearm ownership. Considering approximately 124 million people own about 270 million guns,11 and there were 505 deaths due to “accidental or negligent discharge of a firearm” in 2013,12 and of “2,596,993 deaths in the U.S. for the same year, 1% were related to firearms (most suicides),”13 gun owners have a remarkable record for non-criminal safe handling of firearms. This is not the result of registration or gun control laws but rather, the nature of firearm owners going back to America’s founding. Gun registration schemes typically lead to confiscation as in the U.K., Australia, and California. Speaking of California, one of its denizens, not sure if male or female, raises, his, er, her hand, and asks; why not “reasonable” gun laws, can’t you compromise?
Lewis Dovland notes regardless of rhetoric, gun-controller’s “ultimate goal” remains “confiscation of all guns in America.” Each law passed moves closer to this goal. Take same-sex marriage for example and imagine a line forming a continuum running from ‘A’ to ‘Z.’
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Normal marriage is ‘A’ with ‘Z’ being same-sex marriage. Proponents of same-sex marriage knew demanding ‘Z’ was too much to ask for, so they demanded ‘N’ instead. This sparked debate and resistance. Attorneys challenged state laws against same-sex marriage in court while supporters fanned out across the land branding opponents bigots, haters, extremists, and “homophobes.” Schools were pressured to adopt same-sex friendly curriculum under the rubrics; “tolerance” and “diversity.” Hollywood films and television shows seeded positive depictions of same-sex marriage. Stories planted in the liberal media echoed these portrayals. Opponents were depicted as rabid backwoods Christian fundamentalists chomping at the bit to launch new waves of Salem witch trials. Although the demand for ‘N’ appeared a failure, (citizens in states that remember the 10th Amendment still voted on the issue) in actuality proponents of same-sex “marriage” (sic) achieved ‘C,’ greater acceptance of and crumbling resistance to their agenda. The effort began anew only now, ‘C,’ is the new ‘A’ and there is no way to go back to the original ‘A.’ ‘N’ is again demanded and ‘C’ is again settled for but ‘C’ is now really ‘F.’ By constantly refining ‘A’ toward ‘Z,’ they ultimately got to ‘Z.’ In like manner, Confiscationists through so-called reasonable gun laws, hope to eliminate private possession of firearms in America.14
Gun control laws are predicated on the notion mere existence of firearms increases if not causes violent crime. The solution? Remove firearms from the equation and the problem is solved. This is why Confiscationists focus entirely on the means, i.e. guns, magazines, ammunition, and never on the criminal. But this notion has proven to be terribly flawed to the point of being false by criminologists and researchers from Gary Keck, David Kopel, Joyce Lee Malcom, to John R. Lott, Jr. If it was valid, in states and cities where obtaining firearms is almost impossible for the law-abiding, it would be even more so for criminals causing them to abandon their lives of crime becoming carpenters, waitresses, farmers, teachers, plumbers, nurses, and doctors. But this is not the case. Evil in the heart of malefactors causes evil deeds. Tools to implement evil will be found one way or another. As a policeman I transported criminals to court, jail, and prison. Recognizing some as return customers, I asked, why not turn away from their life of crime? Answer; it’s what they knew and what they liked. None sweated getting their hands on guns either. Fences (who trade in stolen property) and other criminals sell them or they could be acquired on the job during thefts and burglaries. Gun laws play no role in their calculations. “Reasonable” gun laws do nothing to transform wolves but instead, disarm the lambs. One cannot escape the fact that no greater deterrent to criminal assault and mass shootings exists than a public at large possessed of and trained in arms.
88 Students told me what the Spanish teacher said. Some kids bragged in my class knowing someone’s dad or dad’s friend who was altering semiautomatic rifles to fire full-automatic. I told the class in no uncertain terms this was illegal, a felony, and the consequences when they were caught.
99 David B. Kopel, The Samurai, The Mountie, And The Cowboy (Buffalo, New York, Prometheus Books, 1992), 70-95
1010 Nate Rawlings, “Ready, Fire, Aim: The Science Behind Police Shooting Bystanders, Time, at http://nation.time.com/2013/09/16/ready-fire-aim-the-science-behind-police-shooting-bystanders/ A New York Times study put the NYPD officer’s hit rate as high as 34%. See Al Baker, “11 Years of Police Gunfire, in Painstaking Detail,” New York Times, at http://www.newyorktimes.com. While I was at the Santa Clara PD range for annual qualification, our [not Santa Clara] new Chief walked in. The Range master said although I’d been waiting an hour, to let him go first. Later he told me the Chief showed up with revolver rounds in his shirt pocket, two different calibers, none matching his gun. I asked if the Chief had passed qualification. He made a funny face, rolled his eyes, and refused to answer on the basis that it might…
1111 John R. Lott, Jr., More Guns Less Crime, Third Edition, (Chicago, Illinois, University of Chicago Press, 2010), 1.
If this lawyer lost any gun cases, his clients may have grounds for appeal due to ineffective counsel. I just hope he didn’t convince a client to cop a plea to unlawful possession of paper weights.
It started with this news report.
Indiana teen built ‘ghost gun’ from online parts
In February a 17-year-old boy in Evansville, Indiana, went onto the website of Columbia-based firearms manufacturer MidwayUSA and spent $235.37 on parts making up 80 percent of a Glock 17 pistol.
It’s the usual Ooooh! Scary ghost guns BS. Pretty clearly the reporter doesn’t know the difference between an unfinished 80% receiver and a finished-but-unequipped one.It didn’t help that he went to Columbia, MO attorney Stephen Wyse for info.
Under federal law, long-gun unfinished receivers are classified as firearms, said Columbia attorney Steve Wyse. Handgun unfinished receivers are not classified as firearms under federal law, Wyse said.
That’s bad enough, but when I took to Twitter to point out the error things only got worse. Wyse replied.
I actually said that unfinished receivers to machine guns are considered firearms under federal law. The feds consider an AR-15 to be a machine gun
AR-15s are semiautomatic, not machineguns, unless unlawfully modified. And whether intended for a machinegun or not, an unfinished (80% or less) receiver is not considered a firearm; it’s a receiver-shaped paperweight. Compare the two:
An 80% lower.
A paper weight until it’s further milled. It could be milled to be an AR lower, or — assuming you’re properly licensed and doing it for mil/police, and not for civilian use (thanks, VNRA — it could be milled to take an M-16 trigger group. For now, it’s an inert chunk of metal.
A finished AR lower.
This, being by ruling of the ATF is a firearm. Note the lawfully required markings, including serial number.
But Wyse had to double down on the AR-15 = machinegun line.
The federal govt. defines a AR-15 receiver as a “machine gun”. Not my definition and not within my power to change
He’s l… being less than truthful, or he doesn’t understand the difference between an AR-15 (semiautomatic firearm) and the the M-16/M-4 family of assault rifles (select-fire). According to his bio, he’s a Democrat, so it could go either way. Ditto for his possible… confusion over 80% and finished lowers.
It’s a shame reporter Philip Joens didn’t go to an “expert” who actually knows what he’s talking about and/or is honest.
I hope Wyse hasn’t convinced a client to cop a plea for possession of an AR-15 semiauto “machinegun” or 80% lower. As I started, such a client would certainly seem to have grounds for appeal, and should get an opinion from a knowledgeable attorney.
Update, 5/29/2019, 5PM: Mr. Wyse has anticipated the “semi-auto problem” about which The Zelman Partisans have been warning since October 5, 2017. Wyse argues that bump-fire stocks make semiautomatic rifles “easily convertible” to machineguns under the recent BSTD rule.
While the bump-stock-type device rule was finalized (and is being challenged in federal courts), there has been no ruling actually establishing the “semi-auto = machinegun” equivalency. I don’t see any Advance Notice of Proposed Rule-making or NPRM for such a rule.
Yet.
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Apparently she never heard of the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988. Yes, 1988; undetectable guns have been unlawful for 31 years. That’s puts her down in the same low IQ bracket as Pennsylvania’s Madeleine Dean who entered a bill to specifically make it illegal to violate the UFA.
26. “UNDETECTABLE” MEANS NOT DETECTABLE BY AN X-RAY MACHINE, PORTABLE PULSED X-RAY GENERATOR, METAL DETECTOR OR MAGNETOMETER WHEN SET AT A STANDARD CALIBRATION, OR ANY OTHER MACHINE USED TO SCREEN OR INSPECT A PERSON AND AN OBJECT FOR A FIREARM, RIFLE, OR SHOTGUN.
The required (by the UFA, and generally if you don’t want your gun to explode) metal will show up on an X-ray.
And should someone 3-D print a plastic item sans metal…
Yes, plastic does show up in X-rays.
At least the NY Dims are wasting their time on this instead of more real infringements.
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“It is impossible to address the problem of rampant crime without talking about the moral responsibility of the intended victim. Crime is rampant because the law-abiding, each of us, condone it, excuse it, permit it, submit to it. We permit and encourage it because we do not fight back, immediately, then and there, where it happens. Crime is not rampant because we do not have enough prisons, because judges and prosecutors are too soft, because the police are hamstrung with absurd technicalities. The defect is there, in our character. We are a nation of cowards and shirkers.”2
Jeff Snyder
“So long as assault rifles (sic) like the AR15 are legally sold in this state, so long as they are not banned, their threat to civilians will remain in every school, every mall, every movie theater, every nightclub, and in every place the public gathers.”3
Oscar Braynon, State Senate Democrat Leader, Miami Gardens, Florida.
Dressed all in black, including ski mask, he pointed a gun not hesitating to shoot me in the chest. With sounds of screaming, people scrambling to escape, and the gun shot echoing in my ears, I wondered how it had come to this. I had been a police officer trained in dynamic entry,4 hostage negotiation, and firearms but here I was, shot down in a public school. My thoughts drifted back to early morning, 3 November, 2015, where it all began.
Students had the day off but not teachers. High school administrators herded us into the Lecture Hall. What was up? We were being trained to repel attacks by terrorists and active-school “shooters” (sic). Teachers sitting around me, mostly from the English and Math departments, expressed apprehension because none had ever held let alone fired a gun. What did colleagues in my socialIST studies department think? I had no idea. Convicted of being a conservative, I was subjected to the Amish-Shun Syndrome. They sat as far from me as possible. Trainers included city police officers, teachers, and administrators trained in the latest techniques. Considering current policy was assuming the fetal position in classrooms, waiting to be saved or shot, whatever they had in store must be an improvement. Finally this large suburban school district was getting serious about fighting back. Filled with optimism, I scanned the room looking for racks of hangers festooned with body armor, boxes bulging with smoke bombs, tear gas canisters, and flash bang grenades. Maybe there were sign-up sheets for teachers to check out Glock 17s and AR15s. I called dibs on Spikes’ Tactical AR sporting a Crusader on the receiver, the last icon ammonium-nitrate reeking Islamic Jihadi terrorists would see before cashing in on the 72 virgins deal…or is it raisins?5 But I saw none of these.
Presenters not only led off with scare tactics and propaganda, they also used students to spew wanton misinformation. For example, they claimed school shootings were on a marked upswing, getting worse, and our lives were in peril. They displayed graphs and charts mounted on easels to drive the point home. For once, gabby teachers were silent. As the student sock-puppets read off alarming statistics, teacher’s brows furrowed their heads nodding in grim unison. But what the sock-puppets and teacher string-pullers were saying wasn’t even true. It was all lies.6 It stank like a truck load of fish heads spilled on a Los Angeles freeway.
“Facts” presented about the epidemic rise in school shootings came from Everytown for Gun Safety, a faux grassroots gun control organization. It’s the brainchild of and funded by liberal gun confiscationist former New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg.7Everytown claimed 74 school shootings had occurred since Sandy Hook, Elementary, in 2012 and this was the basis for the present state of crisis. Everyone assumed the statistic referred only to mass shootings inside schools. No one seemed aware this statistic had been exposed as bogus. Its definition of “school shootings” included “isolated arguments between students [a gun was discharged but the suspect had no intent to shoot anyone] accidents, suicides, and gang activity.” It included every incident in which a gun was discharged, accidental or not, even if no one was struck. And it included shootings occurring near, but not actually on school property, having nothing to do with the school and or its students. Worse, it included gang related shootings in Baltimore and Chicago’s inner cities, with schools nearby, dramatically ratcheting up the statistic.8 If thugs shot it out in an alleyway, or fired at a rival’s homes in a drive by, and a school was in the neighborhood, Everytown counted it as a “school shooting.” But as far as teachers were concerned, based on this statistic, there was an epidemic of “school shootings.” Is it appropriate to harness students to promote a fraud? Appalled, I began telling those around me this information was false, lies. A few looked at me but none responded. No one speaks to those upon whom the principal’s disfavor rests. Why didn’t I take the floor and address this charade of indoctrination and idiocy? Being the victim of a witch hunt (May, 2015) taught me, when they’re looking for witches, they find witches. I was on step three of a three step termination process, for being a conservative in public, and on double-secret permanent probation. As far as I knew, no one had ever been placed on permanent probation before.9 One mistake and I was fired. That pressure, and a heart attack, forced me into retirement that year. I could say nothing.
Training began with presenters passing out black cords resembling fat shoestrings. For the next quarter or an hour, maybe more, we practiced tying knots so complex they’d have given sailors fits. Fire department codes prohibit classroom doors that open inward eliminating the ability to barricade them against intruders. The solution is tying one end of the plump shoestring into a complex knot and attaching the other end to chairs and desks. The idea is, once the attacker(s) shot the lock off the flimsy door, and yanked it open, the cord would drag school furniture along with it blocking entry. Stop laughing, I’m not making this up. Even if this wasn’t an appallingly stupid idea, I wondered how panic stricken teachers would remember let alone be able to tie complex Gordian knots while Jihadis were banging away at them with AK-47s.
Hands shot up. Teachers wanted to know what they were supposed to do if bad guys defeated the knots. A tall young blonde female to my right raised her hand and suggested a solution. When the bad guy pokes his gun through the open door, grab it by the barrel and pull it out of his hands. I stopped breathing. An involuntary response. Shocking. Breathtaking. Unbelievable. Like when the news reported President Ronald Reagan had been shot. I looked around waiting for someone to explain to her why, besides becoming an instant bullet-bag, this was a terrible idea, beyond stupid. To my utter amazement no one did. Instead teachers agreed heartily it was indeed, a good idea. This from teachers who had never held and even loathed guns. My jaw dropped so far open, I was certain colleagues could hear its horrified tendons distend. My life and the lives of your kids are in the hands of shepherds such as these?
But wait, certainly those in authority, those with a modicum of common sense, would speak out against this absurdly dangerous notion of grabbing the barrel of an AK-47 trying to wrestle it away from the bad guy as it’s fired in your face. Right? Considering teachers are responsible for so many lives, this couldn’t’ be more important. Certainly the proverbial “adults in the room,” were obligated to speak up disabusing colleagues of such reckless notions. I looked at the trainers in the front of the room waiting. Some were cops. Good. They would know what to say. They remained silent. This was probably because they were composing the kindest way to tell the teacher her idea was ill advised…and nuts. Instead, several presenters actually agreed with her. Having worn the blue, I stared at the cops in the front psychically imploring them; please, step in and save us from this train wreck. They said nothing. Principals can also destroy SRO jobs.
A student high on insanity, mayhem, meds, and rage, or Islamic Jihadis fueled by violent berserker blood rage, shoves their gun through the door, or bursts into the room blasting anything that moves and twice if it doesn’t, and you’re going to run over and pull the gun from his hands!? Are you kidding me? Could it get any worse?
Hands went up again. Okay, the bad guys defeat the knots, get the door open, and we’re too far away to grab the barrel. Now what? Trainers instructed teachers to repel the attack by rushing the bad guy, throwing books and staplers to distract him, and then wrestle the gun away. Let me see if I understand this. It’s World War I and the French are huddled in trenches awaiting the German assault. Instead of letting artillery and bullets fly as they cross no-man’s land, the French wait until the Boche are upon them and then bean the Krauts with boiled beef and biscuit cans, wrestle their guns away, and kill them. Or, unarmed, rush German machine gun nests, flinging ration cans as they go, and then take the guns from the Huns. I’d call this moronic but, as the saying goes, it’d be an insult to morons. I prayed retirement came before such a tragedy.
Presenters then revealed if an attack occurred and SWAT nailed the scumbag scrote (my words) and we were no longer in any danger, we’d remain under lockdown. No one would be allowed to leave until authorities had searched and cleared every classroom, office, and nook and cranny, one by one. This would take hours. Several teachers asked what to do if students had to go potty. Presenters said, have them pee in a trash can. What about the girls, another teacher asked. Use T-shirts, sweatshirts, and jackets and hold them up around her, providing a privacy curtain, while she tinkles in the can, came the response.
When did man-hides get turned in for sheep hides? Schools could avail themselves of a voluntary cadre of armed ex-cops and military, and trained citizens. They could open up an irresistible can of whoop-a#% on bad guys taking them out before anyone had to pee in trash cans. I could barely sit still wanting to speak out against this self-inflicted victimhood and cowardice. But, step three of a three step termination process…
Next, in order to be properly trained, completion of role-playing scenarios was required. In addition to the black cords, we were given handfuls of miniature orange whiffle balls. They only had a couple left when they got to me. Teachers were assigned areas in the school where they pretended to be milling about as they would during class passing times. A signal over the PA would announce we were under attack by active “shooter(s)” (sic) and now under lockdown. We were to run to the nearest room, shut and lock the door, employ our newly mastered Houdini-defying knot tying skills, and hide in the dark, maybe peeing on our shoes, until given the all clear.
I wondered, what if the bad guys seized administrators and forced them at gun point to give the all clear? On probation, I said nothing. Once locked in the rooms, police, teacher, and administrator role players, dressed in black including ski-masks, and armed with CO2 paint ball guns, would assault our rooms. If they defeated the knots, they would shoot us. But not to worry, although each gun was loaded with a CO2 canister, there would be no paint ball. We would feel a strong “puff” from the gun. It wouldn’t hurt.
Several young female teachers near me became very emotional, visibly upset. One began to cry in fear. It took presenters several minutes to calm and talk them off the ledge. They were scared. Mortified at being shot by a puff from a paint ball gun? Are you kidding me? This was role playing. Acting. Hadn’t any of them ever played capture the flag, hide and go seek, or at least tag? If they were falling apart over the prospect of being shot by a puff of air from colleague role players, what would they do if confronted by the real deal!
I was assigned to loiter in the lobby of the junior varsity building. It’s an area forming the gaping black mall of the SocialIST Studies Department also known as Mordor. When the alarm blared, everyone stampeded toward my department supervisor’s room. This did not augur well. He called me, and anyone brave or stupid enough to associate with me, the Career Suicide Gang, with me leader for life. He and other teachers warned colleagues, especially rookies, being seen so much as speaking with me was toxic to their careers. I was radioactive and everyone should stay far away from me. This they did. For years. The isolation was so bad, I declared myself a school. I was the principal, teacher, nurse, guidance counselor, custodian, and lunch lady all rolled into one.10 Back to the story.
Everyone made a mad dash for the room. By the time I got there, last, colleagues were trying to Pontius Pilate me, shutting the door in my face. Forcing my way in, I found most teachers were hiding in the office of this former science room, whose door they had shut and locked. The remainder hid in the classroom as the knot-tiers worked their magic. With no place left to hide, I stood along the wall near the door. Defeating the knots and cords, the black-clad shouting role players burst into the room. One pointed a gun at and shot me. For a brief moment I thought I recognized the maniacal blue eyes behind his goggle lenses. Naw, couldn’t be. Was I bothered? No. Running and locking myself in a classroom isn’t what I would have done in the first place. It’s like chickens, fleeing a butcher, running and locking themselves in their coops or, fleeing a monster, a teen girl runs up to the second floor of a house and hides in a closet or under the bed. Instead, taking as many kids as possible, I’d have run down another hallway toward various doors, or up to the second floor, drop down from a window onto the breezeway, and gone. Terrorists shooting to inflict as much carnage as possible will fire into the center mass of stampeding hysterical people. They might notice a few peeling off but the economy of inflicting mass casualties as quickly as possible dictates letting them go. Hide in a room?
I got into trouble at my police academy in California while practicing nighttime vehicle stops. Coppers, role playing as bad guys, were behind the wheels of the cars trainees pulled over. Each time trainees approached the car, asking for drivers’ license and registration, the bad guys got the drop on and disarmed them. Except for me. I’m no former Force Recon Marine, Navy Seal, or a Billy Bad a*%, but every time they pulled a gun on me, I did the same, shooting back. Role players became exercised over my response. The expectation was, anyone with a gun in their face would surrender theirs and, if shot, be dead. I reacted without thinking, looking to escape and evade, fight if I must. Hey, I lived in Baltimore and Philadelphia. Back to the school active “shooter” (sic) training.
I finally learned the purpose of the miniature orange whiffle balls. They simulated the staplers and books we were to throw at bad guys in order to distract them and take away their guns. Oh brother. We ran the drill two more times and each time colleagues slammed the door in my face as if I was a Jehovah’s Witness. With ceremonial hands washed, I was Pontius Pilated each time, gunned down in the hallway. One lesson became immediately clear beyond the inevitable failure of knotted black cords keeping bad guys out of classrooms. Hysterical code red lockdown stampedes for classrooms meant not everyone would make it. Kids, your kids, would be trampled and or abandoned in halls.
Following these melees of madness, teachers reported back to the Lecture Hall for de-briefing. Presenters said, once we in our classrooms, and the doors shut and locked, under no circumstances were we to open them. Teachers asked, suppose a kid, for whatever reason, was slow to get to a classroom and the door already shut and locked. Can we let them in? No. Don’t open it, came the curt reply. A bad guy could be holding a gun to a kid’s head directing him or her,11 to say the coast was clear. An older teacher, whose daughter was in one of my classes, became upset voicing her opposition to this policy. She was certain her daughter, for physical reasons, wouldn’t make it in time. Trainers wouldn’t budge on this policy. I whispered to her that, no matter what, I’d make sure she was safe.
Instead of orange whiffle balls, staplers, and books, wouldn’t it make more sense to arm the appropriately qualified teachers with Glocks? For the idiots who keep lying claiming school districts want to arm “all” teachers, no one ever suggested that. No one. Suggestions have been made to arm those motivated to go through the extensive training in order to qualify. An “informal” poll suggested, out of 200 teachers, maybe 3 or 4 at my school might be willing. But the point is moot. Tremulous districts that teach the best course of action when faced by a grave threat is to curl up in a ball and hide, aren’t about to allow armed teachers, even if in so doing, lives are saved. Political correctness and the liberal’s masculinity drain will not allow it. No one had the moral courage to call out the district’s plan for the hollow feel good sham that it was.
The post Hide and Cower in Place debriefing filled me with equal measures of chagrin and a sense of doom. Teachers, especially those so fearful of the hide-and-go-see game we played, expressed relief saying they felt much better now that we’d been “trained” to fight back. They no longer needed to fear a terrorist/active “shooter” assault on the school. Armed with magical cords, trained to throw books and staplers at bad guys and grab guns away from them, they felt “empowered” to defeat bad guys. Unarmed. I was sick to my stomach. Isn’t it irresponsible, even negligent, to train people for life and death situations with strategies that will get them killed? Isn’t it equally irresponsible filling their heads with an extremely dangerous false sense of security? People who believe they have the answers, don’t search for more. When did Americans, especially men, genetically wired to protect families and the vulnerable against harm, become such Henny Penny’s? When did the idea of fighting back become a notion impossible to consider?
Within a week of training, an assistant principal sent an email asking teachers to report any unsecured aspect of their classroom so it could be fixed. Teaching in a bunker-like room with no windows, I was also blessed with two doors, one of which did not lock. I promptly reported this. Several weeks passed in which I received no response to my email nor was the door fixed. Students aware of the unsecured door became upset so I sent a second email in November, 2015. It still had not been fixed when I walked out the door for the last time in May, 2016. Stay tuned. More tales from the files of the CSG to come.
99 I taught Advanced studies American history. At the time, we used two books, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, and Steinbeck’s, The Grapes of Wrath. It was easy to recognize that both books pushed a very socialist to communist perspective. Colleagues taught the novels as fact. I contacted the Ayn Rand Institute. I procured a deal wherein the Institute would provide students editions of Atlas Shrugged and teacher’s guides, free. I presented it to my Advanced Studies colleagues, who rejected it even though it would cost the school nothing.A parade of teachers (his words) had gone to the principal demanding I be disciplined and or fired. He called me in, accused me of being a conservative, said the two novels were necessary to teach kids about socialism, and angrily dismissed me from his office. Subsequently, I was demoted by the principal from Advanced Studies to teaching Regular Education American history. I remained part of the American history test writing team. We designed a standardized common test to be used by both Advanced and Regular Education American history teachers. When the young team leader, hand-picked by the principal, asked my opinion about the test questions, I demurred. I didn’t want to be accused of being controversial or non-collegial, for which I had already been written up, step one of a three step termination process. She insisted I share my concerns. I responded it sounded like the test was almost set and I had no problem taking it up the following school year. Again, she insisted I voice my concerns. Because I compose thoughts better in writing than verbally, I asked if I could forward my concerns in an email. She said that would be fine. This I did, because, like anyone else, I make stupid decisions. I pointed out some questions reflected a liberal bias and were historically inaccurate. They mirrored the point of view promoted by the two novels, asking for factual responses based on fictional material. When I was still an Advanced Studies teachers, I had contacted history professors asking them if my conclusions about bias and historical inaccuracies in the two novels was correct. They said “yes.” I reluctantly submitted my concerns, being as respectful as possible…and then she, at the urging of liberal colleagues, promptly ran to the principal with them. I asked her why she had done that. She said my concerns were over her head so she had no choice. He was furious. After school he came unannounced to my room, slammed and locked the door, and proceeded to shout in my face and pound his hand on my desk. He yelled he had been a good social studies teacher (there was no context for this rage filled comment), and accused me of attacking the team leader. I told him he was wrong. My son attended a school in a different district and the team leader’s sister taught at that school. During Back to School Night, I approached and told her what a great teacher and team leader her sister was at my school. I had gone overboard in being careful in phrasing my concerns. He yelled this was only to mask my passive-aggressive behavior! He told me were “through” and he was “finished” with me. He stormed out of the room and then we went on Thanksgiving Break ruined by worry over what would happen. When I returned, he wrote me up for alleged conservative bias not being “collegial,” and for using too many free market sources in my class (I counted, this was a lie). Step One of the Three Step Termination Process. I was also suspected of being a “Libertarian,” and from that point on would have to turn in every assignment, homework, quiz, test, and all materials to him to scan for conservative bias. And what I said in class? No sweat, socialIST studies colleagues had already been hiding outside my room listening, (students told me so and I caught them), and liberal teachers questioned mutual students over what I said in class. And they pawed through every article, hand out, and assignment I turned into the copy clerk for copies (she told me). Less than two years later, I was demoted again. Don’t tell me about tenure. I was in my 21stth year.
1010 This list is not intended to represent a hierarchy. I spent much more time talking with custodians and lunch ladies than I ever did colleagues and administrators…once the shunning began. I never had to worry about walking away from conversations with them and having to check my back for a knife.
1111 Yes, Virginia, there are only two sexes. Gender refers to the masculinity/femininity of words, not people.
Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
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nbeknownst to me how, I was added to the email blast alert list of Democrat Party Panjandrum Nancy Pelosi known affectionately in some circles as 
