Take the 3D AR Challenge!

The aptly named “Crooks and Liars” believes… well, let Ms. Madrak tell you:

Do-It-Yourself Plastic Guns: What Could Go Wrong?
“Tomorrow morning, the sun will be shining, the birds will be singing and anyone will be able to legally download instructions to 3d print their own fully-functional plastic gun, including the AR-15, a weapon of war. What could possibly go wrong?” Avlon said.

And that’s what happens when you get your facts from CNN.

I’ve decided to issue a challenge:

3D-print a fully-functional, plastic AR-15, and successfully demonstrate it. The first person to do so will win 10 rounds of equally functional, 100% plastic 3D-printed .223 Remington ammunition.

For contest purposes, “fully-functional” means the AR system must operate per standard design. It must be “fully semiautomatic,” firing a complete, 30-round magazine. ARs are designed with quick reloads in mind, so the test must include a magazine change, with the full second 30-round magazine fired.

It’s a system, so the magazines must also be 3D-printed in plastic in their entirety.

The presence of any metallic component will disqualify any entry.

The test must use conventional, off-the-shelf, commercial ammunition.

Contest entrants are solely responsible for compliance with the Undetectable Firearms Act and other federal laws, state/local laws, and their own personal safety.

Entries may be submitted via video which adequately shows that all components of the AR system are compliant with contest rules (i.e.- 3D-printed plastic), or in person at my location.

There are no restrictions on the type of plastic used, so long as it is extruded by the printer.

All firearms entered remain the property of their creators.

Contest entry closes at 11:59 PM on August 31, 2018.

In the event of a tie (two qualifying entries received simultaneously), the winner will be the person who shows what nation generally issues the “AR-15, a weapon of war,” to its regular troops.

Send video links, or arrange in-person demonstrations, to me at bussjaeger@zelmanpartisans.com.


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Pew-ie

The Pew Research Center has once more demonstrated why I consider it one of the least reliable surveying outfits on the planet. Which is saying a lot.

Three-in-ten U.S. adults say they currently own a gun, and of that group, 19% say they belong to the National Rifle Association.

  • Adults living in the US: 247,813,910
  • 30% of those: 74,344,173
  • 19% of that group: 14,125,392 claim to be NRA members, per Pew
  • Per the NRA: Approximately 6,000,000 members. Less than half that number (which many people believe to be unrealistically inflated to begin with).

And I stopped reading there. I suspect they’re polling mostly MSNBC hosts.

That’s a bit like like polling automobile owners, “discovering” that 19% drive M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks to work, and not noticing a problem with your methodology.

Lessee… that’s an inflation rate of 2.354232x. If we apply that to the usual “90% want this 2A infringement” BS, we see something more like 38%. Which, allowing for urban idiocy strongholds, I find rather more believable.


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Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in 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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The stupid, it burns.

I’m getting a little burned out lately from dealing with stupidity, so pardon me if this gets a little rough around the edges.

Or the middle.

Gun controller dimwits are going nuts over the possibilty of DefDist putting its 3D printer files back online. A group of technologically-ignorant idiots tried to get an injunction to block the release; it was denied for lack of standing since no one has ever demonstrated being injured by a 3D-printed gun used in crime. I’m tempted to point them at the gun plans on Amazon just to watch all of their little pointy heads explode. And maybe at Lowes. And then the merchants of death of the plumbing industry can lobby for a Protection of Lawful Commerce in Pipe Act.

New Jersey sent DefDist a cease & desist letter, because no NJ gangbanger ever built a zip gun from pipe.

Pennsylvania convinced DefDist to block download from the SSRPA. Now they have to convince every VPN and proxy company in the world to block PA, to make that effective. Hey, they’ve had 16 years years to figure it out. Now all they need is a law against illegal drugs, murder, robbery crime and they’ll achieve frickin’ Utopia.

Except people have been generating printer files and experimenting with no designs the whole time the State Department had DefDist offline… to prevent export of gun designs. Domestic use is peachy, and not regulated by ITAR.

The aptly named name Hello Giggles fears undetectable plastic printed AR-15s. 1) I challenge Ms. Sheffer to produce a wholey plastic, printed, working AR. 2) And do it without falling afoul of the thirty year-old law against “undetectable” plastic guns… or ceramic Glocks, or whatever makes the panty-pissers dampen their drawers next.

Noted international ballistics experts Anthony A. Braga, PhD and Philip J. Cook, PhD have discovered that diameter is the single most deadly characteristic of bullets; .356″ diameter rounds being much deadlier than .356″. I referred them to Marshall & Sanow’s Handgun Stopping Power: The Definitive Study, and attempted to explain the difference between “caliber” and “cartridge.” No response, so the dumbasses are probably still parsing the big words.

Last month, WDIV’s Amber Ainsworth reported that someone carjacked a van using a machinegun, specifically a “MAC-10.” Since neither the gunman (who apparently never fired a shot) nor the weapon have been found, I wondered how they made that determination. Neither Amber, clearly a mainstreaming hire from McDonalds’ program, nor her director bothered to reply. Neither did the DPD or the ATF (who ought to have heard something about an illicit NFA firearm used in a crime).

Amusingly, while trying find more detail on that incident, I ran across an earlier report of yet another “machinegun” used in a Detroit crime; this one was identified as an Uzi submachinegun.

The evidence photo was of a semiauto “MAC-10” variant. And they say fake news is a hoax.

As mentioned earlier, the federal government’s assorted button counters can’t agree on the number of buttons people murdered with firearms, disagreeing by nearly four thousand bodies.

Ah, well. It isn’t as though the government can figure out how many of those dead folks are still voting in Chicago and elsewhere either. Probably for more gun control.

Apparently the NRA is still growing by leaps and bounds. Pew-ie Research says its now at 14,125,392 members. LaPierre and Cox are now wracking their tiny brains trying figure out how to collect the dues from all of them, and buy new limos.

Joseph Wyatt, Professor of Psychology at Marshall University, thinks it’s high time schools were made gun-free zones. He also wants all clips limited to 10 rounds. Garand owners say, “Sure. What the heck.”

Over at Childish Vogue, “Prince Shakur” is under the impression that “Gun shows are conventions where both licensed and unlicensed firearms dealers are allowed to sell firearms.” And that’s the high point of his comprehension of Federal Firearms Licensing.

Sadly, Georgia state rep Jason Spencer is the face of pro-RKBA for the media. With “friends like these…” He should have subscribed to the TZP newsletter, too. But he’s always been such a dipstick that even that wouldn’t have saved him from making — a further — um, ass of himself.

The Actuary Magazine makes the case for firearms liability insurance because total firearms deaths and injuries from murder, suicide, accidents, and justifiable homicide exceeds deaths in motor vehicle accident deaths. No word on why they want existing firearms liability insurance programs shut down, if it’s such a great idea.

Randy Bryce, running for Congress in Wisconsin, thinks felons, domestic abusers, and the mentally incompetent should be barred from firearms possession, which not only puts him right up there with Chuck Schumer, who forgot he voted for the Undetectable Firearms Act, but probably ought to make him a prohibited person due to mental incompetence. But fully qualified to be a congresscreep.

Of course there’s the perpetual denial of little facts like most crime (and especially murders) being committed by repeat offenders, mostly convicted felon prohibited persons; or that despite an uptick in crime in Democratic strongholds crime is still near its lowest in decades (school shootings, too, Parkland Pussies)… therefore we need more laws for crooks to ignore and to violate the rights of the millions not committing the crimes.

“Common sense” my white-privileged, cis-gendered, patriarchic ass.

— sigh —

I mentioned earlier that folks could contribute to the cause to enable me to conduct further research into RKBA issues. Forget it. Kick in to buy me scotch.

Here. Have some heavily armed cats.

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Dueling Stats: CDC vs. FBI

When you have two government agencies generating conflicting data, which do you believe disbelieve less?

I ran across this story today:

CDC: Firearm-Related Homicides Surged During Obama’s Last 2 Years in Office
According to the CDC, “the number of firearm-related homicides was relatively stable during 2010–2014,” then firearm-related homicides sharply increased. For example, there were 11,008 firearm-related homicides in 2014 and that number rose to 14,415 in 2016. That is a 31 percent increase.

Sure enough, the CDC’s WISQARS is now reporting 14,415 homicides by firearm. Which struck me as odd, because I’ve been using the figure 11,004 for 2016.

11,004 is exactly what the FBI’s UCR is reporting for 2016; that’s 3,411 fewer firearms-related murders than the CDC retroactively claims.

In fact, the UCR figure for total murders — any weapon — is 15,070, only 655 more than the CDC’s firearm-only murders claim. The CDC claims 19,362 total murders (+4,292 difference).

Oh, and the 2014 numbers for firearms-related homicides?

CDC 2014: 11,008

UCR 2014: 8,124 (A difference of 2,884 murders.)

Odd.

The agencies use different sources for their data. The UCR is based on police incident reports. WISQARS comes from incident coding in medical reports. One or the other — or both — could be wrong. But clearly both need some quality assurance checking to see if either come close to reality.

I’d love to do a little research into the discrepancy myself, but as an unpaid volunteer, it’s beyond my means. If you’d like to see me dig into this, consider contributing a little to the cause.

ETA, 8//2018: Gee, how ’bout that?

CDC Finally Corrects Bad Data On Number of Firearm Deaths
However, in 2017, John Lott found a discrepancy. He noted that due to an error in Tennessee’s data, the total count was about 100 higher than it should have been. He notified the CDC and they acknowledged the mistake.

It just took them a year to finally fix it.


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I didn’t want to get involved

One of the daily devotional books I read had the topic of “When Good Men Do Nothing”, it’s short.

Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing.”

MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 9.5

History abounds with evidence that humanity is capable of doing evil, not only actively but passively. In some of our most shameful moments—from slavery to the Holocaust to segregation to the murder of Kitty Genovese—guilt wasn’t limited to perpetrators but to ordinary citizens who, for a multitude of reasons, declined to get involved. It’s that old line: all evil needs to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

It’s not enough to just not do evil. You must also be a force for good in the world, as best you can.

The Kitty Genovese murder was horrific. The 28 year old had finished her shift at work as a bar manager and drove home in her red Fiat. She parked her car at the train station across from her Kew Gardens apartment building and started walking home. A 29 year old bucket of chum had followed her home. He was married with kids, had a job and had decided that day that he wanted to kill a woman because he preferred killing women because they were easier and didn’t fight back. He had been driving around about an hour looking for a victim. He began to chase her as she was walking across the street. He initially stabbed her twice but when a couple of people opened their windows in response to her screams and yelled at him he took off. Kitty staggered down the street trying to make it to her apartment. Some of the witnesses said they called the police and said a woman got beat up, but she was up and walking. It doesn’t matter, the police didn’t come. When said bucket of chum had sat in his car about ten minutes and didn’t hear police sirens he got out and went looking for her. He finally found her in the vestibule of her apartment building. He continued to stab her, stole her money and raped her.

Kitty was unable to continue to scream much as his first stab of the second attack was to her throat so she couldn’t scream. But she did make noise. About the only hero in the story is 4’11” Sophie Farrar who heard the commotion, yelled at someone to call the police and flew down the stairs to confront whatever. She held and comforted the dying Kitty. Total time of attacks was about half an hour.

Not much initially happened after the murder until a NY Slimes story came out and claimed 38 people had witnessed the murder and done nothing. And, it being the NY Slimes #FakeNews, the story was later de-bunked. But in typical NY Slimes #FakeNews fashion, they wanted to make news with a point about urban indifference. So, facts? Who needs ‘em. There were actually two men, who most likely saw it happening.

Joseph Fink was an assistant superintendent at the building across the street from Genovese’s. Stationed in the building’s lobby, he had a clear view of the first stabbing, and later told prosecutors that he “thought about going downstairs to get my baseball bat,” but took a nap instead. When asked by the prosecutor why he didn’t help, he shrugged. Another prosecutor later said, “It made me sick to my stomach dealing with this man.”

And the other? Karl Ross, a dog groomer and friend of Kitty’s.

As was his habit, Ross had been drinking the night of the murder. At 3:30 a.m., he heard a noise outside his window that sounded like a woman screaming.

“Skittish by nature, the groggy Ross wasn’t eager to find out what was happening,” Cook writes. “He stayed where he was. He waited, hoping the noises would stop. Soon they died down. He relaxed.”

But a few minutes later, a similar noise arose, this one closer, possibly “a scuffling” or “a muffled cry.”

“Ross stood by his door but didn’t open it,” Cook writes. “He paced behind it, wondering what he should do. At last his curiosity got the best of him. He opened the door a crack.”

What he saw was Genovese, his friend, “lying flat on her back . . . trying to speak” as Moseley continued stabbing her. Suddenly, Moseley stopped — and looked directly at Ross, who retreated into his apartment as quickly as possible.

Instead of calling the police, Ross wasted time calling other neighbors for advice, and they, for reasons unclear, then called others. It was a fatal game of telephone that wasted precious minutes, until Farrar finally yelled at Ross to call the police while she rushed to comfort the victim. Ross called at 3:55, too late to save Genovese’s life.

When the police questioned him about why he didn’t help, Ross inadvertently invented a phrase that would come to symbolize civic apathy, telling them, “I didn’t want to get involved.”

How…special.

But it did prompt some interesting psychology studies. The Bystander, or Kitty Genovese Effect.

Several psychologists were asked by the the Slimes writer how could someone attempt to kill another person in front of a large group of witnesses like that, and why would none of them get involved or attempt to help? None could answer. Albert Seedman, who was chief of detectives at the time got an answer for that from the psychopath.

‘I knew they wouldn’t do anything, people never do’

Seedman is a pretty interesting guy, at the time, he was the only Jewish officer ever to rise to that rank, and solved some pretty amazing crimes.

But it sounds like the more witnesses, the less likely you are to receive help. Then you add in groups that hate you for what you are. That has been made easy for them by the way they were raised, or their own beliefs. It seems another component is what others around them are doing.

What I’m thinking of now is a article I saw earlier about Austrian State May Require Jews to Register to Buy Kosher Meat I know, it’s Haaretz #FakeNews which is about as reliable as the NY Slimes #FakeNews. And it didn’t fly Austria rejects registering Jews for kosher meat the AFP of course said it was a “far right” party that wanted to implement it. AFP seems to be unaware that on the political spectrum “far right” is anarchy. Communists, socialists, nazis, demoncrats, progressives are are just different flavors of the same big government control poison. Anarchy is the opposite. But, it’s the AFP, so. It was claimed there was a need to do this from a animal welfare aspect. Interesting, because in one of Rabbi Tovia’s lectures he talked about having to work in a slaughter house. Yes, it was awful but what he learned was that killing the animal in a Kosher way, was less traumatic and painful for them then the way all the other animals were slaughtered.

But back to witnesses and those raised to hate certain groups of people, Turkish man beats Jews in front of kosher shop in Vienna.

I guess one way or another, there are ways of making people feel unwelcome, the approach they take depends on the direction politically they want to come at it.

It makes me think of all those “helpful” bits of advice we are given like don’t be in a bad neighborhood. Kew Gardens in the 60s was a safe, peaceful neighborhood. Don’t go places alone, Kitty was in a very populated area. She died while her friend watched her being stabbed to death. The police are only moments away. Yeahhh, well. And then there are those that want us to disarm while they hire armed bodyguards. No, just say no. Now there’s a platitude I could get behind.

But “I didn’t want to get involved” or “All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing”. The choice is always ours, but last saying “Prior and proper planning prevents p*** poor performance”. Yep, I’ll take that one, because I don’t want to be Kitty, and I choose to be a force for good in the world. Today bystanders not only don’t want to get involved, they are as likely to stand there and film it or stream it live. Evil may be succeeding, but the choice is still ours.

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Political Polling

Did you ever wonder how pollsters can keep coming up with claims that 90+% of Americans want universal background checks preemptively-prove-your-innocence prior restraint on rights when every time it goes to the voters actual results never come within 30 points of the claim?

Poll: Vermonters strongly support new gun-control measures
More than two of every three Vermonters say they support the new gun-control measures signed into law by Gov. Phil Scott this year, according to the results of a poll conducted by Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS.

Vermont is pretty liberal, so maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise. But it’s a bit of a strange state when it comes to RKBA. When I lived in New England, I often heard how much Vermonters like their guns; libertarian types would note it with approval, liberals with befuddlement, and conservatives made jokes about “heavily armed hippies.” But everyone knew it.

So how did VPR/VPBS come up with results indicating such heavy approval of gun control? The secret is in the polling methodology, something I like to look at nearly as much as alleged results. In this case, the clue is:

“For the landline sample, interviewers requested to speak with the youngest male member of the household who is at least 18 years of age; if there was no male in the household, interviewers requested the youngest female.”

They actively screened for the youngest voting-eligible demographic. The group which most strongly leans liberal, statistically speaking. That accounts for the liberal skew in the results.

I mentioned this to someone, as an example of the worst built-in survey bias methodology I’d ever seen. And that person told me something of which I was unaware: that most phone poll calls she’s gotten do the same thing. It’s been years since I participated in a phone poll,* so I hadn’t realized this. It’s the first time I spotted that selection criteria in methodology notes (usually I see a pro-urban selection bias, and over-representation of Democrats compared to the general population).

Those young adults also tends to have the lowest voter turnout, which accounts for the fact that polls rarely match voting reality.

That age selection game is particularly problematic for Vermont.

“Vermont faces a demographic challenge. Our population is stagnant and getting older. We have fewer school-age kids, which drives up the per-pupil cost. We have fewer young adults to invigorate the workforce and pay forward the costs of retirement and health care for older Vermonters.”
The Mass Exodux Myth

But VPR and VPBS think that comparatively tiny group speaks for the older folks — gun-toting hippies — who greatly outnumber them.

So when you hear that “95% of Americans want to a$$-rape the Constitution,” remember that it really means “95% of millenials who probably aren’t going to vote, and think the Army carries semi-auto AR-15s, believe bump-fire stocks are machineguns, and expect blackmarket arms dealers to conduct universal background checks, want to bend you over the table and have their way with you. Without vaseline.”


* That’s because I don’t answer calls with blocked caller ID, or unrecognized numbers. If Pew, Gallup, or whoever wants to poll me, their caller ID should say Pew, Gallup, or whoever. And the last few poll calls I did take (years ago) turned out to be push polls, and I hung up on them.


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Florida Public Service Announcement

Via Ammoland:

Florida’s Largest Pro Gun Rally Set For Saturday, July 28 at Capitol

Three major gun-related events merge together on Saturday, July 28, 2018, at the Capitol, in Tallahassee.

The Big Pro-Gun Rally” – billed as “the largest pro-gun rally in Florida history” with top speakers from around the nation; the anti-gun “March for Our Lives”; and the no-compromise pro-Second Amendment Utah Gun Exchange “Freedom Tour”. All of these events give both gun owners and anti-gunners a chance to support their respective choices.

“The Big Pro-Gun Rally” [www.thebigprogunrally.com] takes place at the Capitol Courtyard beginning at noon with musical entertainment provided by singer/guitarist Gene Loy. Then the big guns begin to roll out at 2:00 pm, with fourteen of the top pro-gun speakers in the nation including Erich Pratt , executive director of Gun Owners of America; Hickok45 with 3.5 million YouTube followers; Mark Keith “I am the Majority” Robinson of viral YouTube fame; Kaitlin Bennett the AR10 Kent State gal; Jon Gutmacher, rally organizer and author of the Florida Firearms book with over 235,000 copies sold; Erin Palette, founder of Operation Blazing Sword, the LGBTQ pro-gun training organization; and there will also be performances by country recording artist Krystal Walters, and Josh Taylor who’s first Nashville album releases in September.

It’s an event expected to draw over two thousand attendees, and it’s free. If you’re a gun owner, it’s the place to be.

The March for Our Lives will also be meeting in Tallahassee at the same time, primarily to sign up voters for their political agenda, although the location of their event has not yet been disclosed. The Utah Gun Exchange, “Freedom Tour” which has been appearing at all March for Our Lives events to present a contrary Second Amendment viewpoint, will be joining up with “The Big Pro-Gun Rally” at the Capitol Courtyard at the July 28 rally, specifically to celebrate its Second Amendment message. It’ll be one heck of a rally, and an event that shouldn’t be missed.

[This update was provided by “The Big Pro-Gun Rally” – Jon Gutmacher, rally coordinator, and spokesperson: gutlaw–a–gmail–d–com – Phone: 407-279-1029 ]

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Why even watch the video?

I ran across this story: Former CDC Doc: You Can Reduce Gun Deaths Without Restricting Guns. I was going to watch the video, but after reading the intro..

Why bother?

“More people die from gun deaths than from car accidents every year in the United States.”

Not according to the CDC’s WISQARS.

Year MVA Firearms
2016 40,528 38,658
2015 38,022 36,252
2014 35,647 33,594
2013 35,612 33,636
2012 36,654 33,563

“However, while research-based policies have reduced motor vehicle deaths, federal research on firearm deaths is nearly non-existent.”

“Nearly” is such a useful term when you want to lie without… quite lying. The federal government does fund research into firearms-related deaths. It’s difficult to find a summary of such funding, but from checking individual papers (just where the funding is explicitly listed) it appears that the feds fund it to the tune of several hundred thousands of dollar per year. At least.

“That’s due to the Dickey Amendment, which says Centers for Disease Control funding cannot be used to promote gun control.”

The Dickey Amendment only addressed CDC operations, because it was caught diverting research funds to gun control advocacy; i.e.- they weren’t researching. Other organizations like the NIH have been free to study firearms, and do.

“Soledad O’Brien sits down with Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who formerly oversaw gun violence research at the CDC”

In fact, Rosenberg was the victim-disarming gun control promoter at the CDC who caused the passage of the Dickey Amendment, largely with this statement: “We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like we did with cigarettes. Now it [sic] is dirty, deadly and banned.”

That’s right; he’s the one who was diverting money away from real research, and to — very likely illegal — political activism.

I did try to watch the video, though. And stopped when O’Brien flat out stated that the Dickey Amendment was passed to stop research.

Don’t bother; it’s just biased media lying to push its agenda again. Still. Constantly.


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Tisha B’Av. From Within

Tisha B’Av is the saddest day of the Jewish year. The Jewish calender, unlike the Gregorian one doesn’t change. The date an event falls on the Jewish calender will be the same every year, the date it falls on the Gregorian will change. Tisha B’Av this year is Saturday the 21st. But since only Yom Kippur will alter the joy of Shabbat, it will be observed on Sunday the 22nd. How Tisha B’Av is observed and how it is observed when it falls on Shabbat.

Why is it the saddest day of the year? Plenty, and I mean plenty of reasons. Chabad has a list of Tisha B’Av history. In addition to what is listed, Rabbi Chaim Richman and Yitzchak Reuven mentioned this week in Temple Talk radio it is also the date the gas chambers started up at Treblinka.

Jews have paid a fearsome price, horrific, down through the ages for their faith and for their race. I realize that last one is citing a AP source, so not necessarily reliable. There has been a price indeed for the people that brought knowledge of G-d into the world. The world resisted from the beginning. From Parshat Balak when the King of Moab hires Balaam to curse the Jews, and he can’t, he only blesses them. He then advises the King of Moab, find something to separate them from their G-d, how you ask?

As the Torah tells it (see Numbers 25; Rashi ibid.; Talmud, Sanhedrin 81b–82b and 106a), the wicked prophet Balaam, having failed to undermine the people of Israel’s special relationship with G‑d by harping on their past sins, had an idea. “Their G‑d abhors promiscuity,” he said to Balak, the Moabite king who had hired him to place a curse on Israel. Corrupt them with the daughters of your realm, and you will provoke His wrath upon them.

And as the Jews assimilated the Midianite women, sure enough, they began to worship Baal Peor. This and more is in the Parshat after Balak, Parshat Pinchas. Pinchas skewered a couple of them, very publicly. And,,,,,,it brought peace and a cessation of the plague.

Pinchas’s deed evokes many associations—courage, decisiveness and religious passion are several that come to mind—but peace hardly seems one of them. Pinchas, after all, killed two people. True, what he did was condoned by Torah law, and his doing so saved many lives; still, one does not usually think of homicide as a peaceful act.

During the teaching that week Rabbi said that while many think that open borders, anyone can live anywhere, we’re all just one big family of human beings is a very liberal compassionate attitude, it is not. Because innocent people will pay the price for this, it is the innocent that are harmed. The opposite is true, that borders and sound policy are the more compassionate.

We’ll come back for Matot-Massei more. But I’ll just touch on this point. The Moabites feared the Jews, they saw the big victories and the Jews were going to settle near them. The Midianites just flat hated them. They weren’t going to settle near the Midianites, they just had a baseless hatred of the Jews. i

There are histories, cases, incidents and evidence that nations and people have wanted to destroy the Jews and separate them from G-d since G-d had a word with Avraham. There is a clear difference in what the message is coming from Torah and the liberal segment of Judaism. Rabbi Tovia Singer talks in one of his lectures about how they train secret service agents to know real from phony currency. He thought they examined tons of the fake stuff so they could spot it. No, his friend who trained the agents told him. They have them examine the real thing, to know how it feels, what it looks like, all it’s special characteristics. Then when you know the real thing, you can much more easily spot a fake. He talks about how the Jews that are easily pulled away from Judaism don’t have a firm foundation, they don’t know their roots. He urges parents and grandparents to make sure that their children and grandchildren have a good Jewish education so they are harder to pull away from the faith. And this is not a new lecture series I’m listening to. From references made in the lecture on the Slander of Israel and it’s trigger for antisemitism he mentions Senator HilLIARy Clintoon, when she called for a disasterous two state solution. She was in office from 2001-2009, so somewhere in there. He also cites the death of Chezi Goldberg, 2004 Nava Applebaum, September 9th 2003 and the butchering alive of two IDF reservists by Arafat’s Police the Wiki article doesn’t tell you what happened to those two young men, Rabbi Tovia in the linked audio, does. Why would I tell you to listen to something so appallingly gruesome? Because when you read this next part I want you to keep it in mind. Here is a list of terror attacks from 1993-1999, just a few years worth and before the intifadas.

Tisha B’Av, from within. The attempt to destroy Jews and Judaism coming from within. Just like the 300 Spartans and King Leonidas, molṑn labé dude were betrayed by a bucket of chum. Aforementioned bucket of chum wanted favors and acclaim. He sought personal recognition above the good of his people, and those he should have given his loyalty towards.

So why am I off on this tear? Well, as Bear wrote in Tikkun Olam, we received a letter citing this column, Liberal Jews are destroying their own religion. Here is the book referenced in the column.

So let’s take a look at that, shall we? Let’s start with Ze’ev Jabotinsky and his timeless words and wisdom.

“The Ethics of The Iron Wall,” a timeless document which simply and rightfully argues that morality comes before everything else – and along with that the simple concept that Zionism is “moral and just.”

…..

“It is incredible what political simpletons Jews are. They shut their eyes to one of the most elementary rules of life, that you must not “meet halfway” those who do not want to meet you.”

…..

Israel is right to have demands for safety and survival above all else. Jabotinsky’s timeless essay continues, “…there is no morality, no ethics that concedes the right of a glutton to gorge, while more tempered people die of starvation.”

He continues, “And the Talmud quotes a very instructive legal action – which has a direct bearing on this matter. Two people walking along the road find a piece of cloth. One of them says: ‘I found it. It is mine:’ But the other says: ‘No: that is not true: I found the cloth, and it is mine:’ The judge to whom they appeal cuts the cloth in two, and each of these obstinate folk gets half. But there is another version of this action. It is only one of the two claimants who is obstinate: the other, on the contrary, has determined to make the world wonder at this magnanimity. So he says: ‘We both found the cloth, and therefore I ask only a half of it, because the second belongs to B But B. insists that he found it, and that he alone is entitled to it. “

“In this case, the Talmud recommends a wise Judgment, that is, how very disappointing to our magnanimous gentleman. The judge says: ‘There is agreement about one half of the cloth. A. admits that it belongs to B. So it is only the second half that is in dispute. We shall, therefore divide this into two halves: And the obstinate claimant gets three-quarters of the cloth, while the ‘gentleman’ has only one quarter, and serve him right. It is a very fine thing to be a gentleman, but it is no reason for being an idiot. Our ancestors knew that. But we have forgotten it. We should bear it in mind. Particularly, since we are very badly situated in this matter of concessions.”

Clearly, there are people not keeping this in mind. First up the Israel (Jewish state) hating Bernie Sanders. I have to admit, I feel humor when I see a brand new expensive car with “Feel the Bern” bumper stickers on it as I drive past in my 1997 model car. Redistribute the cars. Bernie much beloved by the liberal left, doesn’t seem to have moral roots, meaning something anchoring to convictions or positions. For example

“Open borders? No, that’s a Koch brothers proposal,” Bernie Sanders snapped. “You’re doing away with the concept of a nation state, and I don’t think there’s any country in the world that believes in that.”

“What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy,” he continued. “You know what youth unemployment is in the United States of America today? If you’re a white high school graduate, it’s 33 percent, Hispanic 36 percent, African American 51 percent. You think we should open the borders and bring in a lot of low-wage workers, or do you think maybe we should try to get jobs for those kids?”

That was three years ago.

Bernie’s final surrender came after dodging a question on CNN about abolishing ICE. After the backlash, he went even further, issuing a statement urging that we “abolish the cruel, dysfunctional immigration system we have today”. Open borders had gone from a right-wing position to a Bernie position.

Or how about his position on Guns?

Bernie 2.0, the formerly poor politician who has earned over $1 million for two years running, is a very different political animal than the crusty old socialist that Obama’s old lefty allies dug up in Vermont.

The left’s favorite Senator owes his seat to the NRA. He voted against the Brady Bill and was listed as the only non-Republican among the 25 top recipients of money from gun-rights groups. Hillary Clinton quickly zeroed in on gun control as Bernie’s weakness. And his response to her was praised by the NRA. And then, as usual, the flip-following followed the leftist backlash in the media and on social media.

After telling the New York Daily News that firearms manufacturers shouldn’t face lawsuits from victims of crimes committed with firearms, he flipped his answer completely around at the debate. It only took a few weeks for Bernie to go from, “No, I don’t” to “They have a right to sue, and I support them.”

These days Bernie is hanging out with David Hogg and blaming a “three letter word” for gun violence.

“It’s the NRA,” Sanders recently sneered. “And it’s Trump and the Republicans who don’t have the guts to stand up to these people and that’s pretty pathetic.”

Bernie is the the type of Jew that Rabbi Tovia talks about. They don’t adhere, or follow Judaism and they hate Israel, so the media loves to quote them, or use them as sources for their anti-Israel diatribes. That way they can’t be accused of antisemitism. The open borders thing? Go back up and see what Rabbi said in the teaching of Pinchas. A bit different from Bernie.

And a group of 50 young gullible political pawns, naw, let’s just say what it is, liberal Jews craving attention with no love of Judaism, Torah or Israel, and yes that’s my opinion but not mine alone,

This gathering was less about a genuine empathy for dead Palestinians. It was more an exhibition of Jew hatred for the Jewish state.

decided to daven Kaddish ….for the hamass terrorists trying to kill Jews from Gaza. In Parliament square in Londonistan. That apparently doesn’t run afoul of Londonistan’s mulim mayor Kahn (#FreeTommyRobinsonNow). Hamass has admitted that 50 or so of the 65 killed in the day of question were their people. People who had stated:

Hamas Gaza chief, Yahiya Sinwar, incited his people by telling them, “We will tear down their borders and then tear out their hearts from their bodies.”

Nice, in addition to that, the baby they named was not killed by tear gas (WHO takes a baby to a riot) but by a congenital heart defect. A cousin of the family told the IDF the family was paid two grand by hamass to claim Israel killed the baby. The gullible sops fell for it, naw, they didn’t care for the facts or truth, they cared for the camera and “social justice”. What crap. What is “just” about a people flat out telling you they want to kill you and you side with them?

What sanctimonious hogwash! What they were doing was feeling sad for Palestinian who set out to murder Jews.

As for their “morality,’ Seth Frantzman asked in his Jerusalem Post article, “had these fifty Jews ever held a Kaddish for the dead of the Rwandan genocide or the thousands of Yazidis machine-gunned to death by ISIS, or for the hundreds of Israelis killed during the Second Intifada” or since by Palestinians? Or the Jewish victims of antisemitism? Highly unlikely.

Did they spare any of those prayers for the Israelis murdered by hamass? For the IDF attacked by pieceful Falestinians and hamass? Nope. There was backlash. The chief organizing twit-ette, she being a she, as opposed to the male, twit, was removed from her position as a leader on the Reform youth movement’s Israel Tour this summer. Apparently this was too much for Reform Judaism. So her sister posted an appeal on facebook asking all her Jewish friends to contact leadership and express their disappointment. Reading the comments is priceless, enjoyable and entertaining. All the comments I saw run to the line of thinking you daft bint, do you not understand these people want to kill Jews? Kaddish is a Jewish prayer said for Jews, not hamass. Actions have consequences, this sort:

Perhaps u can point out to us an instance when she has said Kaddish for any of the Jewish men women or children butchered by Hamas terrorists?

Please don’t ignore the truth there was only one reason for her being removed from her post and that was because she was unfit to lead as she proved by her naive and repulsive actions.

These stunts are more than just childish. They provide succour to our enemies. It has been retweeted many times by the likes of Electronic Intifada , Ben White, BDS / PSC etc .These individuals and orgs would not dream to post anything remotely disadvantageous to their cause and so they quote you. I have studied their motivation and strategy. A key component is to seed fund dissent within the Diaspora in order to undermine the global Diaspora support for Israel . It’s one more long term element within the bds armoury to dismantle the Jewish state .

And honestly, Israel doesn’t need another Israel hating twit-ette involved with a tour.

Anti-Israel Birthright Brats Beg For Money After Getting Kicked off Program

Oh, but it’s not what you’re thinking, they walked off the tour. And it’s not the first time that the left wing activists from the Israel hating IfNotNow have accepted free trips to Israel only to use them to push their “liberal” ill-liberal narrative. Even Haaratz #FakeNews was miffed. They wanted to go visit an Arab family facing eviction. And so Birthright kicked them off the tour after they walked off. They did what any good liberal who pitched a hissy fit would do when confronted with consequences, they opened a Go Fund Me and begged money. And, they got it.

An, as in one, arab family facing eviction. Wow. They didn’t ask to visit Amona, or Netiv HaAvot. Nor did the ask to help repair some of the thousands of acres of land burned by their Gazan heroes. Nor did they offer to try to stop them from killing innocent animals in an attempt to destroy even more Israeli land and kill more Israelis and animals. Nope, none of that interested them. Being political pawns for hamass, that’s their jam. I think Birthright should have stuck them in a helmet and sent them to the border so they can get a real idea, a Falcon’s eye view of what it’s like to be an Israeli. Let them go spend some time in one of the villages close to the border, talk to the residents there. Let them go spend a few days in Sderot, and find out how long 15 seconds is. I’m actually kind of shocked Birthright hasn’t offered to hire me.

And then there was the IDF hating leftist Hannah Berg who attempted to deceive the good people of Yitzhar into thinking she was sane and giving her a tour. They gave her Tzvi Sukkot, Otzmah Yehudit, Jewish Power Director as a “tour” guide. It’s a short story, but I like it a lot and you might as well.

But the always brilliant Tsvi Sadan points out, it’s like the Head of the IDF hates them as well. Well, he didn’t put it like that, exactly.

Eizenkot: I don’t think that shooting at children and youth who sometimes fly balloons and kites [that set fires in Israel’s south] is the right thing to do.

Yeahhhh, I think I know how Elor Azariya wound up in jail. Really, go read it.

I think Howard Sachs sums it up very nicely in Leftism and liberalism: Private property

What a tragedy for America. Millions of intelligent but highly unwise Jews are replacing liberal Judaism with illiberal Leftism.

Hundreds of thousands of our young across America, now, almost fully indoctrinated into this terrible ideology, demand all this free stuff like free college, healthcare, maternity leave, daycare, retirement care, eldercare – wretched socialism.

This Leftist value system , this new religion, has taken over our media, universities, the Democratic party, Hollywood, and much of our non-orthodox Jewish and Christian institutions. And with the dogma of this religion, these men and women essentially yearn to return to our oppressive past, to Egypt, to the false comforts, idols, and destructiveness of slavery and tyranny.

The whole article is worth reading, really.

I said we would come back to Parshat Matot-Massei,

But of course, they were wrong. If one is to throw caution to the wind and risk everything, it should be in the opposite direction, to combat evil, as Pinchas graphically demonstrated. Although we should not shun the challenge of engaging the materiality of this world directly, we must be duly aware of its potential to divert us and corrupt our intentions. Hence the pertinence of the laws of vows and oaths: through these laws a person can set up boundaries for himself where he feels they are needed, as we will explain further on.

But like training the secret service agents by teaching them the nuances and subtleties of real currency to be able to tell fraud, these new brave daring Jews, foolishly fooled political pawns and spoiled brats going against the hopelessly outdated old ways of thinking have no idea of real justice, of real kindness or compassion. They want their idea of social justice forced upon you, and they want the government to do it.

But Tisha B’Av, we grieve the loss of the Beit Hamikdash, both of them. The attempt to destroy the heart and soul of Judaism, the place where G-d chose to rest his presence and would meet with the people. The world has been trying to destroy it for millennia, and now there are those who choose to try to destroy it from within. Yet another reason to mourn.

But Tisha B’Av isn’t just about mourning what’s been lost, it is suppose to put us in a frame of mind, in a place to want to rectify, to rebuild. And so I will leave you with a little video playlist, each of the 8 videos is only a couple minutes long.

But this is my favorite. It’s not the most recent one though.

I watch it and the tears run, but they are tears of hope. May your Tisha B’Av be meaningful.

iNotes from the Stone Chumash on Parshat Pinchas and Mattot citing Rashi, Rambam and the Or HaChaim.

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A-CLUe-less: “A Pro-Liberty Case for Gun Restrictions”

They lost me at:

Overall, the ACLU does not generally engage in either side of the gun control issue.

Except when they do.

“Pro-liberty.” Someone is in dire need of a dictionary.

In particular, those who support expansive gun rights as a protection against excessive government power should strongly consider how much government intrusion and expanded power they’re willing to trade for those rights.

And what kinds of intrusions might those be?

  • Increased physical searches, including ever-expanding checkpoints, bag searches, magnetometers, body scanners, pat downs, and more. Call it the “airportization of American life.”
  • More surveillance.
  • A growth in databases, watch lists, investigations, and background checks that set the government rummaging around in our personal lives.
  • More armed police and guards at more and more civilian gatherings, potentially down to every Little League game and church picnic…
  • More police shootings.

Oh. Wait. That’s exactly what would be needed to enforcement the sort of “pro-liberty” infringements the American Criminal Life Union wants. You know: NYC stop&frisk, which they hated. FISA warrants, which they hated. Armed guards… well, the ACLU like “gun-free” zones. And do you suppose armed criminals avoiding arrest under the ACLU’s new “pro-liberty” victim disarmament laws might be involved in the occasional police shooting?

Idiots.


Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could use the money, what with truck repairs and recurring bills.

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