While the current news cycle churns out reports about multiple bills to ban bump-fire stocks and other accessories, or to ban nearly all semiautomatic rifles, let us cast our minds back to the ancient — in lamestream media time — history to the event that prompted this round of Second Amendment infringements.
Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, where the uninformed world discovered “bump-fire.” You know the narrative: A multimillionnaire dragged a couple dozen semiautomatic weapons to his 32nd floor suite. A dozen of them were equipped with evil bump-fire stocks. He broke out two windows and used those bump-fire “fully automatic” weapons of mass destruction to hose down a crowd of 20,000+ country music fans who probably deserved it because they’re nasty NRA gun owners themselves.
So our heroes in Washington, DC were forced to protect us by offering legislation to deny stuff to the 55 to 120 million gun owners who didn’t do it. “Bump stocks” must go! Bump stock manufacturers must pay for their crimes!
Whoa. Like I said, cast your minds back in time. To… say, October 2, 2017.
Did you see that? At least one fully automatic weapon and weapons equipped with bumpstocks.
The LA Times reported that other weapons were being examined to determine if they had been converted to full auto.
The Weekly Standard reported at least fully automatic weapon as well.
But the automatic weapon(s?) vanished from the narrative. Perhaps I overlooked it, but my searches turn up no “correction” that, “Oh, we didn’t mean full auto,” or, “That person was mistaken; we were talking about two different bump-fire devices and he thought we meant bump-fire and full.”
Well, why not, when you have powerful senators and congresscritters who need a lawful accessory to demonize in the interest of creating a gun control slippery slope?
Was one (or more) of the shooter’s weapon fully automatic? Personally, I thought at least one recorded burst sounded so regular (as opposed to other stuttering bursts) that I took it for full-auto fire.
The shooter had a clean record, so he’d have been eligible to purchase an NFA item. Certainly a multimillionnaire could afford one even at the inflated prices driven by the FOPA of 1986. But if he’d bought one legally, that would be just another example of the law not working as advertised. If he purchased one unlawfully, or converted a semiautomatic to full, well, then he’s just another criminal. Our protectors need something unregulated to… regulate. Gotta get that slippery slope.
So our ancient media mysteries are:
Was there one or more fully automatic weapons as reported in multiple outlets?
Did inspection of the weapons found in the hotel suite show which had been fired?
Has ballistics testing determined which were used to kill and wound the victims?
This is fairly important, really. The Mandalay Bay massacre is being used to justify a whole new set of infringements of human/civil rights, starting with bump-fire. Are they justifying legislation by something that didn’t happen per the script? (Note to nutcases: I’m not saying the incident was staged/faked; I’m questioning which weapon(s) was used.)
But shooters — aside from a few Mom’s Basement Army keyboard commandos and mall ninjas — consider bump-fire stocks to be nothing more than fun ammo-wasters. Granted, I can’t really wrap my head around mass murder, but it seems to me that if I were a wealthy guy intent on the murder of as many people as possible in ten minutes, and I had one or more automatic weapons handy, I don’t think I’d look over the selection and say, “Nah, the toy is the better tool for the job.”
I might transition to a bump-fired weapon if everything else jammed or broke, but who would start with that?
The cable news attention span has expired, so we may never learn the answers to my questions.
You say you want “common sense gun safety” laws. Fine. Propose them. Specifically.
Specifically. Don’t issue vague wishes about “mental health,” and “safety.” Don’t use the term “assault weapon” unless you live in a state that has defined that term in law. Know the differences between “assault weapon” (where such exists), “assault rifle,” and “machine gun;” and do not use the wrong term in discussion; it makes you look ignorant at best.
Do tell us exactly what you intend; preferably by providing the text of law you propose. Be prepared to address the following points:
If your rationale for a law refers to semiautomatic firearms as “military-grade,” “military-style,” or “weapons of war,” identify the nation which uses semiautomatic rifles as standard issue to regular troops.
If your rationale is based on “90% or (whatever number you like today) of Americans want,” please show where that number was proven in an actual referendum.
If your rationale references “militia,” please know what the militia is, and the legal differences between the militia, national guard, and standing army.
If your rational includes “if it saves a single child/person,” explain why the converse — if it results in a single innocent’s harm — does not count.
If you are banning and/or confiscating any firearms, explain how you will locate the items when you don’t even know how many there are.
If you are licensing gun owners, explain how you will identify them when you don’t know to the nearest ten million how many of them are out there.
If your law purports to address “gun violence,” explain why it would be imposed on the 99.9814% of gun owners who aren’t the problem.
Your law must include a stated goal and metrics to determine if it is accomplishing that goal, and an automatic sunset clause to end the law if it does not work by its own metrics.
If your law involves federal employee action such as adding a prohibited person to NICS or conducting a NICS check, include penalties for failing to do the job properly, with particular penalties those who act maliciously. Individual penalties.
That’s a starting point. TL;DR: know the subject and honestly address all aspects you can think of. If you cannot address those points intelligently and honestly, there is no reason why gun owners should take you seriously as anything but a threat to constitutionally-guaranteed human/civil rights.
If you propose something in reaction to a specific event, do not whine when someone questions how your proposal would have prevented that event. In wake of The Sandy Hook, Mandalay Bay, and Sutherland Springs church shootings, I have heard “gun safety” advocates call for “expanded” background checks; in these cases “expanded” means requiring privates sales to go through NICS as FFL dealers already do.
Both of the Mandalay Bay and Sutherland Springs shooters went through — and passed — multiple NICS checks. The Sandy Hook killer bypassed checks by killing his mother and stealing her guns. This causes knowledgeable gun owners to wonder what the advocates’ real agenda and goals are. Or if they are simply ignorant.
Many of those advocates also decry the elimination of the Obama administration rule that placed thousands of Social Security disability recipients on the prohibited persons list used by NICS. Congress blocked that rule because it violated federal laws (yes, plural) regarding adjudication and due process, not because they want crazy people to have guns. Such claims — again — cause informed people to question the advocates’ agenda or intelligence.
Sadly, at this point, having given a gun controller facts, the response devolves into, “You’re a heartless person who doesn’t care about people — CHILDREN! — being killed and hurt!”
I care enough to spend thousands of dollars and thousands of hours on defensive firearms, ammunition, training, practice, maintenance, licensing, and studying rules and laws in order to protect myself, family, and friends. I’ve trained other people in how to protect themselves, and occasionally provided one with a firearm or other tool until they could afford their own.
So what have the gun controllers done, other than trying to pass laws to stop me?
Tell me again about those common sense gun laws you want. Intelligently and honestly.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
How did he get here? Chuck Schumer invited him via the “Diversity Visa” program. He came from Uzbekistan in 2010. He also brought in 23 family members. Um, anyone know where they all are now? They say that the “Diversity Visa” winners undergo the “same rigorous vetting” as other immigrants. Ahhh, think I found part of the problem. Said Bucket of Chum is proud of the killings. If only there could have been some prior warning that Bucket O’ Chum was a danger! Well, gee.
And they listened? To Linda Sarsour? I wouldn’t trust her to tell me if day was day or night. So lock Sarsour up as an accomplice already!
You see, they now fear Bucket of Chum may have been radicalized in the US. There is excellent reason to think this, Bill DeGoofio was sent a letter by Imam Tawhiki warning him of radicalizations. Imam Tawhiki is known as the Imam for peace.
Letter from Imam Tawhidi to DeBlasio
Not to mention the presences of ISIS flags being paraded down Manhattan streets. That could be a clue as well.
isis flag proudly paraded down the street.
And here’s the thing. This is another part of the problem. The leftist celebrated “diversity” and “multiculturalism”. Many of the muslims coming into our country do not want to assimilate, they have no intention of becoming Americans, well, beyond taking tax dollars, welfare, free housing, free healthcare, etc.
And we must celebrate the diversity of beliefs. For example, ripped, hole jeans are very fashionable among the younger set. So, the women need to be raped. Huh?
Al-Wahsh added, “I say that when a girl walks about like that, it is a patriotic duty to sexually harass her and a national duty to rape her.”
Mr. Al-Wahsh is an Egyptian Lawyer, not a cleric. Oh, goodie. Yep, let’s allow everyone to keep their culture they bring from the homeland. I’m not talking about corned beef and cabbage, I’m not talking about beer gardens. There are choice that anyone can choose from, unless your on the left and then you scream cultural appropriation and don’t eat the corned beef or wear hoop earrings. I’m speaking of beliefs that affect others. Such as New Year’s Eve in Cologne Germany. I’m talking about ISIS flags in Manhattan.
The left will not accept that there are violent evil people in this world, unless of course they are talking about people on the Right.
Have we, as Americans lost the ability to name the enemy? It’s not pickup trucks, it’s not box trucks, or guns, or flame throwers. It depends on who’s finger is on the trigger. Have we become so cowed by Political correctness that it is to late to name the enemy? Of late, it is Islam, but for a long time it’s been the leftist influence in our schools, our media and our government.
And what happened within mere days of another islamic attack on Americans?
Ok, so just a few things here that have me scratching my head as I read along and finally you just get to a point where you say “Wait, now WHAT??”
Bear just put up a column about how he has written in and tried to explain or correct some things the media has gotten wrong in their reporting. They want nothing to do with correcting their misinformation.
Within a day I found a story that said A gun-focused news outlet on what it takes to cover firearms credibly It talks about how news outlets are not taken seriously because of their attitudes and the large number of stupid mistakes they make in reporting. Ok, maybe I paraphrased that, a little.
So for how long has the leftists told us guns are evil, if there were no guns, there would be no violence, and no abuse and no hatred and plenty of unicorn ice cream.
Ok, yes, mildly gross, and amusing. What a great segue into the next part. Mildly gross and amusing.
The left and guns. Shannon T.Watts hates women, I don’t know how many stories I see up on The Zelman Partisans twitter feed that talk about women and children who were able to defend themselves or save their children by having a gun available. But for some reason those lives don’t matter to Shannon and Mikey Bloomers, who no doubt have their very own armed guards. Why they hates those women and children, who knows, but it seems they do. So the left, the leftist groups, their public voice known as the mainstream media and their thug enforcement arm known as the Demoncratic party have done everything they can to limit law abiding gun owners ability to own guns, to practice sport shooting, to practice self defense shooting, and yes hunting.
Until now.
Now we have new LGBTQ groups that are springing up to learn to shoot. Now Pink Pistols has been around for ages, their goal has always been legal gun ownership, not with an eye towards violence and attacking others, but towards defense. The same as every other law abiding gun owner.
Now we have antifa, the tool of George Soros, who have decided that they need to learn how to fight. Not content with merely carrying baseball bats, they are training in the gym to learn to fight and they are learning to shoot. Not with an eye towards self-defense, with a goal of destroying people they disagree with. Tolerant children aren’t they?
Wait, what? But they’ve been telling us guns are evil and must be banned.
You are planning to start riots and violence against people that you think are Trump voters to resist fascism. Which if you are successful in rioting all over the country and it becomes severe enough will possibly bring about a spell of martial law? Which is going to feel like fascism to you basement dwellers.
Now, let’s see, one site says that antifa plans to kill all the Trump voters. So, are you going to ask before you bash a skull or just watch for the secret conservative handshake? If only there could be a clue, like, oh, I don’t know. Like a color or something, like the bloods and crips used to do. Hmm, oh wait! I know! All the people that voted for Trump must be white, right? Because the media said he’s a racist. So that must be it, the “white privilege” thing. I’m telling you, Charlie Manson was off by a few years, but he may have been correct.
Let’s look at this “white privilege” deal. Any guesses as to where it originated? Well, of course the left, the media, colleges and social justice warriors. But leftists would be a big clue.
This column makes a lot of excellent points, it was written in 2014, during the reign of barry.
Communism is a system that demands total and complete obedience to the state and anyone who opposes that is standing in the way of progress and needs to be eliminated. Bringing society to the point where they will willingly participate in the slaughter of their own countrymen is not an overnight process. It is a gradual conditioning of the population to get them to believe that some people are not as worthy of life as others.
The author states that there are eight steps before this can take place.
1. The first step is classification. This simply means classifying people into different groups and intentionally dividing people along ideological lines.
2. The next stage is known as “symbolization.” This is the process of attaching a negative symbol to the dominating ideology of the targeted group.
3. The next stage is known as “dehumanization.” I personally can’t think of anything more dehumanizing than being assumed to be a racist simply because I am white.
4. The next stage is “organization.” The political left is the master of organization. Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is the organizing bible for the left and they have mastered the art of teaching minorities that they are oppressed by America’s evil white men.
5. The next stage is “polarization.” Stanton identifies this as the downward spiral of killings until the vortex of all out genocide is reached.
6. 7. 8. This brings us to the final three stages which are “preparation, extermination and denial.” I stopped with polarization because I believe that is the stage we are currently in. However, it could be argued that we are in the preparation stage as it has been reported that all Americans must be micro chipped by 2017 per Obamacare regulations or even acall for a universal I.D. can be used to justify the idea that we are in the preparation stage.
And the government does love pushing that REAL ID law don’t they. And many people would tell you that in America, we have the right to pursue our dreams, we do not have the right to have someone else work only to have the fruit of their labor taken from them and given to another group. Is there really white privilege or just more SJW bull feathers, and yet another tactic used by those trying to bring about communism and division in our Republic.
Wait, what? What happened to Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”? But this is not the “freedom” that antifa says they are fighting to bring about. Nope. Communism? Submit or die? I’m thinking some of those college profs and the media left out a few details about living under communism when they indoctrinated the useful idiots.
Didn’t the obama administration continually tell us how evil and dangerous guns are? In fact I seem to recall some schools wouldn’t even allow Police officer parents to pick up their kids if they were in uniform. And we know many schools do not want armed resource officers. I guess it’s better to let the kids be shot in a gun free zone? I don’t know. I haven’t figured that one out yet. But, back to barry’s regime. It seems some traditionally administrative agencies have armed up. To the tune of 20 million dollars.
Wait, what? This is all from one article, and there isn’t an answer for every square, but for the years 2015-2016…..
Agency
Dollars
Weapons
# of Agents
Misc
IRS
12.2 Million
AR-15, P-90 tactical rifles,”other heavy weaponry”
2,300
Sm. Business Admin
“Tens of thousands”
Glocks
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Glocks with silencers
Veterans Affairs
AR-15’s, Sig Sauer handguns, and other semi-automatic pistols
3,700 armed
Dept of HHS
The same sophisticated weapons platforms used by our Special Forces
“National Training Operations Center” – a facility at an undisclosed location within the DC beltway.
Dept. of Energy
$49,559
M-16 rifles with extra magazines
GSA
$16,568
Shotguns and Glocks
Bureau of Reclaimation
$697,182
Bulk order of pistols, sights and accessories
They build dams, power plants, and canals
Dept of Education
Shotguns, Glocks and body armor
88
Dept of Interior
$4.4 million
Guns and Ammo
U.S. Geological Survey
Winchester Black Shadow shotguns and G27 Glocks, shotgun slugs, and frangible ammo
They “real-time data and information on current conditions and earth observations.”
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
$410,263
.308 rifles, Glock pistols with silencers, and semi-automatic rifles.
They conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing
$100,000
“Firearms”
US Mint
$179,247
“Ammunition”
The Bureau of Fiscal Services
$672,424
.223 Rem 62 Grain Service Ammo, .40 caliber ammo, and buckshot. Additionally, they stocked up on Glock pistols, Remington firearms, and handgun magazine clips.
They promote the “financial integrity” of the government through accounting, financing, etc.
Dept. of Ag
$1.1 million
Guns and Ammo
National Resources Conservation Service
$10,347
“Guns through 30Mm.”
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
$22,336
Rifles and pistols plus nearly half a million dollars on ammunition including buckshot, shotgun shells, and rifle ammunition.
Wait, what? I mean obama kept telling us how fewer guns would make us safer, but all these agencies armed up while he was in office. Well, that’s scary isn’t it? Planning more Bundy and Hammond Ranch raids are they? More Ruby Ridge and Waco?
And so, right before Halloween, I’ll leave you with a little cartoon.
1 :capacity to endure pain or hardship :endurance, fortitude, stamina
2 a :sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own
b :the act of allowing something :toleration
3 :the allowable deviation from a standard; especially :the range of variation permitted in maintaining a specified dimension in machining a piece
4 a (1) :the capacity of the body to endure or become less responsive to a substance (such as a drug) or a physiological insult especially with repeated use or exposure developed a tolerance to painkillers ; also :the immunological state marked by unresponsiveness to a specific antigen
(2) :relative capacity of an organism to grow or thrive when subjected to an unfavorable environmental factor
b :the maximum amount of a pesticide residue that may lawfully remain on or in food
Ok, that last one kind of made my eyebrows go up a bit.
There’s tolerances involved in all sorts of things. Sewing, you can be off by like a ¼ of an inch sometimes, gapping spark plugs, there is a set gap, it can be off a little, reloading bullets, ok, so I don’t actually know how to do this, but I’m guessing there is a tiny bit of play. But a lot of things involve a certain amount of give. There is tolerance in how long my horses will stand to have cockleburrs picked out of their manes and tails, this can be influenced with horse cookies, so things can have an effect on the amount of tolerance given or acceptable. There is tolerance in activity, running, reading, tail brushing, for example. Today I was listening to a radio show in the morning. They were talking about the NFL, the national losers and their behavior. The caller thought that since the left seems to be determined to destroy anything in this country with the least bit of masculinity to it, maybe people should just wait for the kneeing phase to blow over as if they were a bunch of spoiled 3 year olds acting out….which, well. Yeah. But the host made his point, the NFL, as a manly sport is gone. The owners by not keeping things professional have allowed it to basically die as the beloved American sport where kids could look up to the felon players. And that the previous things known as “football fans” tended to be pro-America, pro-Military, pro-Law enforcement and they are tired of antifa, tired of rioting, tired of being told to just ride it out, it will get better because it isn’t and this anti-American unprofessional crap is getting on their very last nerve and they are tired of being “tolerant” and fighting by Marquess of Queensberry rules and losing because the left never does fight by the rules, anyone’s. The right has tried to be the grown-ups and be tolerant of other lifestyle choices, beliefs and everything else and they’ve had it. Yep, I hear that.
Then driving home tonight, I was listening to Joe Pags, I like him. He was talking about the security guard from the Mandalay Bay. Actually he was probably more like a parking valet because he was unarmed. An unarmed “security guard”. Huh. Nope, a parking valet that doubles as a walk around bell boy, or regular valet. After the “incident” a few pictures of Jesus Campos made it onto the internet, the heroic security guard. And then he went missing. He was suppose to be on Sean Hannity, and had some other interviews lined up. And he supposedly went to a walk in clinic and then more or less vanished after having canceled all his interviews. Huh. He has since reappeared on The Ellen DeGeneres show. Huh. Well, I suppose it’s a logical choice. Ellen is known for her hard hitting, in depth investigative journalism. Oops, sorry, no, I was thinking of Sharyl Attkisson. So in addition to the baffling choice of venues for his one and only interview, it appears Jesus has been doing some stress eating. So the things Joe was pointing out were pretty interesting. After Jesus went missing, a reporter, Laura Loomer decided after finding that Jesus’s name had been scrubbed from the Mandalay employee list to pay a visit to his house. Which is being guarded by an armed guard working for a security company with a “virtual” address and a business license that expired in January of this year. Huh. Something else Joe pointed out, from the pictures of the guy that were posted on the net right after it happened it appears that Jesus has gained about 70 pounds, in two weeks. It seems that most of his answers on the Ellen show were very well rehearsed. No word if he was auditioning for Harvey Weinstein.
Now I’m a reasonably tolerant person, I think. In my job, I try hard to be nice and kind and helpful to my co-workers and to people I need to interact with. Really, I do. However, I have what is known as a low, and it’s getting lower all the dang time, B.S. tolerance. I will try very hard to be a team player, but, do.not.mess.with.me. It makes me cranky.
And as I’m listening to Joe, and thinking we’re on like the 3rd or 4th timeline now of how and when things happened, the B.S.-O-Meter pegged out.
B.S.-O-Meter
You have a lot of people that were killed, more wounded, theories abounding, immediate calls for more restrictions on the Second Amendment, cases made for gun confiscation, faux Second Amendment groups joining in the chorus for infringement like a bunch of demented Stockholm syndrome victims and the actual knowledge of what really happened and what this was really about is pretty dang thin. I mean, these fools want to bring our country to a point where only the government has guns, or at least regular American Citizens are only allowed a registered .22 single shot if they can prove need, keep it locked up and can only buy one box of registered ammunition every other month.
B.S.-O-Meter
So I thought a short walk down memory lane might be in order. In Chronological order.
December 28, 1890 a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside intercepted Spotted Elk’s band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them 5 miles westward to Wounded Knee Creek, where they made camp. The remainder of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Colonel James W. Forsyth, arrived and surrounded the encampment. The regiment was supported by a battery of four Hotchkiss mountain guns.
On the morning of December 29, the U.S. Cavalry troops went into the camp to disarm the Lakota. One version of events claims that during the process of disarming the Lakota, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote was reluctant to give up his rifle, claiming he had paid a lot for it. Simultaneously, an old man was performing a ritual called the Ghost Dance. Black Coyote’s rifle went off at that point, and the U.S. army began shooting at the Native Americans. The disarmed Lakota warriors did their best to fight back.
The US Army killed about 250 Shoshone during the Bear River Massacre in southeastern Idaho in 1863. As recently discussed in Smithsonian, “200 soldiers under Colonel Patrick Connor’s command killed 250 or more Shoshone, including at least ninety women, children, and infants. The Shoshone were shot, stabbed, and battered to death. Some were driven into the icy river to drown or freeze.”
In eastern Colorado in 1864, the Sand Creek Massacre occurred. There, US soldiers attacked peaceful, unarmed Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians “with carbines and cannon, killing at least 150 Indians, most of them women, children and the elderly. Before departing, the troops burned the village and mutilated the dead, carrying off body parts as trophies.”
In 1870, the US Army accidentally killed the “wrong” group of Indians, in the Baker or Marias Massacre. In north-central Montana, along the Marias River, Major Eugene Baker ordered his soldiers to attack a village of peaceful Blackfeet. When informed by a subordinate that this group was not the one the troops were looking for, Baker responded, “That makes no difference, one band or another of them; they are all Piegans [Blackfeet] and we will attack them.” About 175 unarmed Blackfeet were murdered, the great majority children and women.
I can’t find any photos of what the press said about the massacre at Wounded Knee, how they explained or presented it. I did however find a line in an editorial of the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer,
“The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilizations, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.”~~L. Frank Baum
L. Frank Baum was the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Wow, so along with yellow brick roads and flying monkeys L. Frank was totally cool with some genocide. But, at least as a member of the press, he covered the massacre fairly and explained why it was totally necessary. /ticked off sarcasm.
Demoncrat President Bill Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno
So the Sheila synopsis of this is the government wanted Randy Weaver to do some informant work for them. He declined, they wanted him to do a bit of gunsmithing. He declined initially and finally gave in. Yeah, I’m leaving out tons, but there’s a link above. But the circumstances lead to a stand-off between the jackboots and the Weavers and a family friend. The brave ATF, US Marshals Service, and the FBI found it necessary to shoot an unarmed dog, a 14 year old boy in the back and an especially brave FBI HOSTAGE RESCUE TEAM sniper named Lon Horiuchi scored a major victory when he shot 43 year old Vicky Weaver in the head as she stood at the back door of the cabin holding her baby. I don’t think that the FBI has a good grasp on what HOSTAGE RESCUE means. Cause that sure as hell isn’t it. The Boundary County, Idaho, prosecutor indicted sniper Lon Horiuchi for manslaughter in 1997. Both the Weaver family and Harris brought civil suits against the government over the events of the firefight and siege, the Weavers winning a combined out-of-court settlement in August 1995 for $3.1 million, and Harris being awarded, after persistent appeals, a $380,000 settlement in September 2000.
And this is how the media reported what was happening at the time.
Demoncrat President Bill Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno
If they wanted to arrest Koresh, why didn’t they just do it when he went into town every morning?
On February 28,1993 overly aggressive and highly militarized agents of BATF set out to put on a “big show” to increase their budgets and prestige by attacking the Branch Davidian religious group outside of Waco, Texas. Six months earlier, agents had spurned David Koresh’s attempts to cooperate with their investigation of his gun business by inviting them to see his guns. On February 28, when he came to the front door and tried to cooperate, reckless agents shot him and mortally wounded his father-in-law. Other agents started shooting from helicopters, killing four Davidians. Agents probably assassinated another Davidian who approached Mount Carmel later that day. And so began a 51 day standoff.
So apparently Clinton, Reno and Congress saw no need for a overhaul of how to handle, or not escalate situations in the year since Ruby Ridge.
Now we’ll just move up to more recent history.
Does anyone remember a couple years ago the country seemed to have a spate of outlaw ranchers that the DOJ, BLM and a host of federal alphabet soup felt the immediate need to bring to heel?
Bundy Ranch April 5, 2015
Demoncratic President Barry Sotero aka Barak Obama (so does anyone know, did he finally ever legally get his name changed? Yet?) Attorney General Eric “Gunwalker” Holder
The pared down version is a 67 year old cattle rancher in Nevada has been running cattle on the same land his family has for over a 100 or so years. He is actually the last rancher in Clarke county these days due to the “management” practices of the BLM. The BLM-g* demanded he cut his 900 head herd to 150 head. Well, I don’t suppose a obama headed BLM-g would have any better idea of business than anything else he had anything he touched. Besides, they had to save the desert tortoise. The same desert tortoise the BLM-g was killing. Of course, the BLM-g was also killing Bundy’s cattle. BUT NOT ON PURPOSE!! They screeched! No, they just separated the calves and cows and the calves starved to death. And they “might have had to put down a few of the cows” for humane purposes, no doubt. This time, as opposed to Ruby Ridge and Waco Texas, patriots have been getting a belly full of seeing the government obliterate their neighbors for some reason. And they showed up. And the BLM-g went after them as well. Although in most of the court cases the charges were thrown out.
So why did it happen? Well, short answer is Cliven Bundy and his family were not big Harry Reid donors. Read the above link, a big donor wants the land, and Harry got him made head of the BLM-g. Another possible use, but someone else wants the land.
People were attacked at this government siege,but no one died. A pregnant woman had attack dogs set on her, Ammon Bundy was tasered twice, many of the Bundy’s cattle were killed and stolen by the BLM-g, but no one died. First Amendment zones were set up, which were the only places citizens were allowed to film and were located far enough away no one could film what the BLM-g was doing. The Governor of Nevada was not happy about that, but well. And those attacks I mentioned? They occurred on public lands. The public was attacked on public lands by the BLM-g and their law-enforcement cronies. That being said, the local sheriff and his deputies refused to take part in attacking citizens or stealing cattle. But, no one died.
The Hammond Ranch January 4, 2016
Demoncratic President Sotero? Obama? Fluffernutter? Attorney General Loretta “Tarmac” Lynch
Well, this one just makes my head hurt. Basically the Hammonds like the Bundys, are the last Ranchers in the area. They own a chunk of land in the middle of an area where the BLM-g have managed to run out all the other ranchers. For those that don’t know this, it’s common to burn off a pasture from time to time. It gets rid of growth you don’t want and your crops or grass will come back better and stronger, with fewer weeds. It also keeps the undergrowth and trees burned off. So when something like a lightening strike hits you won’t have the massive fires like what we are seeing in California right now. And that’s partly why we’re seeing them in California. Because of “environmentalists” people aren’t allowing people to keep things burned off and clean, so when you get a fire, you get a doozey. So in the course of burning off some fields, the fire jumped onto BLM-g land that the Hammonds were leasing. This happened a couple of times, a total of 140 or so acres were affected. The 73 year old Dwight and his son Steven were sentenced under a terrorism act. I’ve read enough to know that the BLM-g have also set fires, including back burn like what the Hammonds set in one instance to try to stop a fire started from a lightening strike burning even more. And the BLM-g fire has gotten out of control and cause large amounts of damage and no charges were ever brought in those cases. A judge reduced their sentence from five years to a few months for both of them, stating he didn’t think the anti-terrorism statute they were sentenced under applied. They served their time. And then the government decided they hadn’t served enough, and so the case went back to the 9th Circuit and the 9th Circus judge said the Hammonds had to serve the whole thing. No BLM-g ever served time for causing far more damage.
People showed up to the party. The Malheuer Wildlife Refuge was taken over.
But in this stand-off, someone did die. LaVoy Fincum. While the press often portrayed the protesters and wild eye lunatics, this article is a bit more sympathetic to Mr. Fincum. His death still raises many questions as some people feel he was basically shot in cold blood as he had his hands up.
This BLM-g seizure of ranch land is going on all around the country now. These grazing fees they talk about are not piddling little fees, and if the BLM-g wants your land, they raise them to unaffordable.
But the press does not side with the citizen if there is a Demoncrat President at the time. No word on how they would side if it were a Republican President in office.
There has also been speculation that there is uranium on the ranches and that the BLM-g wants to gain control of the mineral resources on the ranches. Here’s a hint, think about Mrs. Pantsuits. And since all the other ranchers have been run off from the surrounding ranches, the holdouts must go.
These are unelected government agencies that are ruining lives, and seizing control of valuable farming and ranch land. Where is the recourse?
And so now we have Las Vegas, a myriad of questions and few answers coming from the government. Many are dead, or wounded and the predictable full throated cries for more gun control, gun confiscation and no one even asks “And if there had been other assailants in the crowd you don’t think having some concealed carry holders in the audience would have saved lives?” Nope, just demands to take rights from people that have committed no crimes. And this little walk down memory lane is by no means exhaustive. How the media explained and portrayed it to the public seldom told what was really happening. So excuse me please if I choose to “cling” to my gun and my Tanakh/Bible a little bit closer right now….these sorts of situations tend to bring that out in me. Because right now?
B.S.-O-Meter
*BLM-g is Bureau of Land Management as opposed to Black Lives Matter. Both are rouge organizations where pain and suffering at the set goals. But this column concerned the “government” version so BLM-g as opposed to BLM-a which is Black Lives Matter-“antifa” version.
Two Guns Per Person
Why is this legal? I’m not talking about why we don’t require reporting multiple sales of long guns to federal authorities (which we don’t). I’m not talking about the bump stocks the shooter used to make his semi-automatic weapons fire like machine guns. I’m talking about why people are allowed to own more than, say, two firearms without a really good reason.
TL;DR:The Second Amendment doesn’t say how many guns you can have. Nobody needs more than two guns. If someone wants a third gun, it’s full NFA procedures and taxes.
Doug Pennington notably does not address how to figure who might have more than two firearms. Nor does he explain how the powers that be will go about collecting the extant extras. Certainly he isn’t volunteering to collect them; possibly he’s seen my observation regarding the wisdom of kicking in millions of door because the occupants are well-armed.
Perhaps he believes all the government has to do is pass a law and everyone will meekly “turn them all in”.
That doesn’t seem to be working in Chicago where repeat felons — prohibited persons who lawfully shouldn’t have any guns — are found with… guns. It’s almost as if they don’t obey laws.
“Conclusions The enactment of CBC policies was associated with an overall increase in firearm background checks only in Delaware. Data external to the study suggest that Washington experienced a modest, but consistent, increase in background checks for private party sales, and Colorado experienced a similar increase in checks for sales not at gun shows. Non-compliance may explain the lack of an overall increase in background checks in Washington and Colorado.”
If blue states like California, New York, and Connecticut have such poor participation rates with simple registration, imagine how places like Georgia will respond to door to door confiscation.
So, Mr. Pennington; who is going to bell your cat? You haven’t volunteered. When California toyed with the idea, a police union spokesman declared that if confiscation were ordered they’d see the largest outbreak of blue flu in history. And we bloody well won’t kick in our doors.
Let’s pretend law enforcement will play. Consider:
The FBI estimates a total of 698,460 law enforcement officers in America (federal, state, local).
Estimates of gun owners range from 60 million to 120 million.
Let’s use the conservative gun owners number: 60,000,000. For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that The Pennington Edict magically reverses the usual compliance ratios and only 10% don’t turn in their extra guns.
6,000,000 vs. 698,460
The cops are going after heavily armed Americans, so they’ll use SWAT teams. This suggests a typical team size of 12, for 58,205 teams (sure, we’ll also pretend every cop is put on this, ignoring all real crime).
Each team will have to conduct 103 raids. Figure 8 hours for the standoff (remember, you’re going after cantankerous curmudgeons already proven to be uncooperative), and another shift to do the paperwork: 16 hours per raid. 16 x 6,000,000 = 96,000,000 man hours. Better give the guys time to sleep, another 8 hours. So each team runs a one raid per day
Assuming 58,205 teams (-giggle-), the snatch and grab is going to run well over three months. With 8 hours of overtime per day per 698,460 officers. This not only going to take a while, it going to be expensive.
And that doesn’t even factor in attrition, funeral costs, and death benefits. In reality the Pennington Patrols are kicking in doors of heavily armed, noncompliant SOBs. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an average of one officer lost per raid. Which means Pennington runs out of suckers before the HANSOBS run out of people and guns.
Fewer door-kickers, fewer teams, more raids per team… Suddenly this is taking longer than projected. Oh, well. At least there’ll be fewer officer drawing expensive overtime. Those pensions and death benefits though…
Maybe Pennington can bring in the military, too. Activate the Reserves alongside the active duty folks, add them to the cops…
And they’re still outnumbered by HANSOBs by more than 2 to 1.
I wonder how many of those LEOs and mil-folk are multiple gun owners. And how compliant they are.
That’s a best case scenario for the Pennington Proposal. What if there are 100 million gun gun owners, and they have a compliance rate closer to historical rates of 10%?
Now the 2,791,360 police and military are outnumbered by 90 million pissed off, noncompliant heroes. They’ll be outnumbered 32 to 1.
Sure, a lot of hold-outs will fold when the cops show up. But a lot won’t. The average won’t be pretty, or conducive to long-term police survival. Blue flu, Pennington; try to keep up.
If even one-half of one percent of the noncompliant shoot back, that’s 30,000 to 450,000 shooters (depending on the scenarios above).
Please recall that Pennington’s little trip down Tyranny Lane started with — as of latest claims — a single shooter killing 58 and wounding hundreds — in approximately ten minutes.
So tell us: How will you achieve your two-gun goal?
Who will bell the cat?
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!
During a fair amount of the time the atrocity that occurred in Las Vegas has been discussion of the airwaves I’ve been dealing with a sinus issue. To sum it up, they hate me, I hate ‘em back. But what this has done is slow me down and put me in more of an observer role. Just sort of listening and watching, less than my usual dissecting. I do have a “be on the lookout” for my missing brain cells.
Here are some of my passing observations.
We have late night “comics” using the term generously, sobbing on late night TV because they are more righteous and compassionate than us mouth breathers and knuckle draggers about the deaths at the hands of a madman. Not a gun, a madman, a bucket of chum. However, as Charles Cooke points out of said comedian’s logic is missin flawed. Not to mention he had more than guns he was waiting to deploy on his hapless victims.
Then I had a video I was going to put in here, which as best as I can recall it shows a sheriff saying they didn’t know if bucket of chum had been “radicalized”. I found that interesting. I also find it interesting that the video is now removed for “hate speech”. Huh.
Then on September 29th in The Military Times there is the ISIS warning to Muslims to avoid public places.
The Islamic State group has sent out a message to its followers warning them to avoid public places in the U.S., Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, Australia, and Italy.
The message was first discovered by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a think tank located in Washington D.C.
The message warns Muslims to avoid these public places because “these places are targets of the soldiers of the caliphate,” the message reads.
There is a very interesting to me, video of a gentleman explaining using data to show there was a second assailant and his locations. The video is about a half hour long, and does a nice job to my math phobic mind. His opening comment was along the lines of “well, the FBI said they wanted citizens to help”. I like that. So he did audio extractions and video analysis.
Anyone know how far behind the Police in Vegas Colin Kaopectate and the rest of the kneelers objecting to Law Enforcement were trailing? I’m sure those big NFL stars were pretty anxious to show how pointless law enforcement is and were beating feet toward that room in the Mandalay, right? Should I tweet Kaopectate and ask?
Ok, fine. I’ll agree, all that is speculation. Some of it informed, some of it calculated, as in mathematics, and some of it is flat informed speculation.
No word yet if Ms. Sinatra would have had this apply to her Dad’s old “Rat Pack” pal Sammy Davis Jr. or not. And if she would have, would that have been racist? If she wouldn’t have had him executed as well, would that have been racist? Because he absolutely did know his way around guns.
Here’s what is not speculation.
We have a cnn #FakeNews senior correspondent who felt it necessary to point out during his report that many of the victims were likely supporters of President Trump. I can only cringe when I consider what the up and coming batch of now junior reporters will be like. Probably graduates of MU.
“Something else, I think, to keep in mind – a lot of these country music supporters are likely Trump supporters. This is something, of course, hitting the tapestry of all Americans and there are going to be victims from across the country here,” Zeleny said after being asked to analyze President Donald Trump’s speech regarding the tragedy.
Here’s what is not speculation.
But not to be left behind in their quest to have a staff and employees that view the “news” as something that’s manufactured, not something thats “occurs”, we have SeeBS, sorry, spelling error CBS.
CBS’s offering to the journalistic swamp is one of their organization’s Vice-President and senior counsel, Hayley Geftman-Gold. The now unemployed, at least by CBS, well, at least at the writing of this column, Haley had a plenty to say about the victims of a madman.
The left consider it perfectly acceptable to throw venom and lies and accusations towards innocent people. Melania was a hooker? Donald Trump SAID “bad things” Harvey Weinstein DID bad things. Crickets. If people the media consider beneath them are attacked by _________, it’s fine. Violence has become an acceptable form of “political dissent”. Because to those on the left? Life is cheap. Think not? How many moonbats do you see proudly wearing the “che” shit shirts, typo, sorry.
The the Dancing Duo of Surrender Monkeys came out and in almost perfect unison preformed their routine. The nra and the saf both came out supporting a ban on bump-fire stocks. Such stalwarts defenders of the Second Amendment! Almost predictable isn’t it? Brings a tear to the eye doesn’t it? Oh, wait, I think that my aspirin is wearing off. Never mind that bit.
Anyway, Surrender Monkeys.
Musicians claiming they were strong Second Amendment supporters are now saying they support Gun Control. So, you have people not wanting to be lumped in with those evil mouth breathing red necks, if you are a “trendy” red neck crying for more gun control now, that is of course socially acceptable. Surrender monkeys defending the already tattered Second Amendment by calling for more gun control. Folks, the media and the likes of Hayley Geftman-Gold, cnn’s latest fresh catch twit of the day are never going to like us, respect us or treat us in a respectful manner. No matter what excuses we make for our stances. The answer is “I believe” “I honor” “I serve” not to be followed by a qualifier.
This is not speculation. Well, not all of it.
Rabbi Lazer Brody put up a column shortly after this happened, the first part before more information came out is speculation. The last part, which is why I wanted this link in the first place, is not. It starts at Remember what we wrote here before the solar eclipse in the USA?
This last is also a good one to read, “Calm Before The Storm”, also by Rabbi Lazer. Yes, I like Rabbi Lazer, a lot.
We are seeing so many people flood the street thinking destruction and attacking people because you think they are greedy/ privileged/ not a person of color/ or pick any of the multitude of other currently acceptable tags right now, is acceptable. They are encouraged in this by cnn, mslsd, msm, and on and on. I have said in the past they produce nothing, they create nothing they are a parasite on society as they don’t even do what they are suppose to be doing, which is deliver the news.
So, in honor of cnn, msnbc, producers of indoctrinated leftists, I have produced a new graphic. Leftists proudly and happily destroying people, countries, relationships and statues since it was first conceived.
We all know there are Hazardous Material and Toxicity warning symbols, but as I looked, I was unable to find one for such people, so they could be labeled. So just because I love ya’ll so much, I made one. It’s not very good, but I’m not that great at this stuff, but I do try.
Toxic People — Danger
But there are people who stand proud, strong and fierce in their defense of our country and our rights. While some “country artists” now crow (yeah, I did mean to use that word, chicken) they no longer support the Second Amendment, I want to introduce you to someone interesting. A real country artist, and a real cowboy/horseman. His name is Royal Wade Kimes. He’s a singer, songwriter, author, artist, and did I mention horseman? I did? Ok. One year, I bought so much cool stuff he called me to say “thank you”. If I’d have had a weaker constitution than that of a Southern Cowgirl, I’d have fainted on the spot.
Sometimes, I bring so much sad, worrisome stuff, I’m just kind of thinking I also need to remind myself as well, what is strong, what is brave, what is true. And it exists in our country, a plenty. I’m going to give you two things from Royal Wade Kimes, the first is this marvelous song. And the Second is a tip on a wonderful book. Eminent Domain and Old Man Smith. I gave it once as a gift, it got passed around and I’ve yet to read it. It’s available now in ebook. I’m getting my own copy. The book is so strong, I’ve had strong people tell me parts of it left them with tears running down their cheeks. Well written.
New year, new Torah cycle. It starts at the beginning, Parashat Bereshit. The founding of our country on Judeo Christian beliefs, turning back to HaShem, to the good solid things that has helped our country stand strong for all these years. There are plenty who now tell us what is evil is good, and what is good is evil. We know better, we hold onto it and we remain strong in our faith.
As yet, very few hard facts about the Las Vegas shooting are available to the public.
The alleged shooter, Some Asshole (whose name I refuse to use) had — per nearly all current reports — a clean record. He could — and did, according to the gun store that sold him three firearms, pass background checks. Per that one store, he passed multiple checks.
There is much speculation that he used one or more fully-automatic weapons. Based on the sounds of fire in a video, I subscribe to that theory. Fox News has an anonymous source that claims the shooter had ARs converted to full auto. Plural. Allegedly in .223 and .308.
Automatic weapons are highly regulated. To legally own one, you must pay a $200 tax above and beyond any sales taxes, undergo a background check, get approval from local law enforcement, and the ATF’s permission.
The shooter’s local PD says they had no contact with him, so he didn’t have Local LE approval, and thus did not lawfully buy a machine gun. The asshole’s brother claims his psycho sibling had no automatic weapons when he helped him move to Nevada a couple of years ago, so the killer would have had to contact Mesquite PD to lawfully obtain one. The shooter is not on the ATF’s list of Federal Firearms Licensees, so he did not lawfully convert semi-autos to full auto.
Nonetheless, at least Dimwitocrat senator claims universal background checks would have prevented this shooting. The shooter passed background checks, and proceeded to violate enough laws to spend most of the rest of his life in Club Fed just on NFA ’34 related charges.
Felonia Von Pantsuit claims the shooting proves why the Hearing Protection Act should not pass. The HPA would remove suppressors from NFA regulation, leaving them treated as mere firearms. Clinton says a suppressor would have prevented victims from hearing the shots and running away. Clinton being Clinton, I assume she’s lying rather than suffering a misconception. .223 — and especially .308 — is quite audible even with a suppressor. Enough Arkancide cases involved shootings so I expect her to know.
As noted above, machine guns — full auto weapons — are heavily regulated, and have been since 1934. Despite brain-dead babbling in the lamestream muddia, the 1994 “assault weapons ban” had nothing to do with NFA machine guns. The sunsetted ’94 law was only a ban on sales to civilians of semi-automatic firearms with arbitrary cosmetic features manufactured or imported after that date. NFA weapons continued to be heavily regulated before, during, and after the so-called AWB.
I’m also seeing Twitter twits tweeting about “high capacity magazines.” However, I note two points:
1) Someone did an audio analysis of shooting video and determined that 280 shots were fired in 31 seconds. I am unaware of any 280 round AR magazines; if you have a source for them, let me know.
2) A former US Army SAW gunner claims that is what he heard in video. Belt-fed, NFA-regulated machine guns are largely immune to hi-cap magazine bans.
But let’s say the asshole used an illegally modified AR-pattern rifle with magazines.
The shooter took his room days before the shooting. He reportedly brought in as many as twenty firearms and ammunition for same. With days to prepare (even assuming he did it in the hotel room), he could have pre-loaded an awful lot of… say, California-legal 10 round magazines. With a mag swap time of seconds, he could have run through said awful lot in the 72 reported minutes from the first 911 call to the cops breaking down his door.
Hi-cap mag limits are bullshit.
I haven’t seen this brought up yet, but let’s nip it before it buds. Seattle imposed a punitive firearms and ammunition tax to reduce “gun violence.” It hasn’t worked, and it wouldn’t have here either. According to asshole’s bro, he was a multi-millionnaire. Reports say he owned a $400,000 home, two automobiles, two airplanes, and routinely gambled away $10,000-$20,000 a day in casinos. He could afford a gun tax.
Licensing didn’t work.
Registration didn’t work.
Background checks didn’t work.
Magazine limits wouldn’t have worked.
Suppressor taxes and registration didn’t apply and wouldn’t have worked.
Taxes wouldn’t have worked.
So what’s left? Complete confiscation? As your parent or grandparents how well that worked when FDR banned private possession of gold in 1934. Ask your local drug dealer how well drug bans work.
You know what else didn’t work? Gun free zones. According to internal security documents and web site guidelines, firearms aren’t allowed in Mandalay facilities. I’m sure the asshole felt real bad about breaking that rule, too.
When I was a child, I believed some — in retrospect — silly things. Things like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
One Easter morning I happened to wake up unusually early, and caught my parents loading the Easter baskets. I’m no genius, but neither am I an idiot. I told them I knew.
And then I generalized… and asked if they were also Santa Claus. Nailed it. To be honest, I’d had suspicions about him for a while; how did he manage to work so many stores simultaneously? How did he have time to make toys when spending so much doing photoshoots at said stores? Why did he sometimes have a real beard, and sometimes a fake? Sheesh, the excuses my parents came up with to explain discrepancies…
I don’t recall just how old I was; maybe five years old; I don’t think I’d started school yet. I know I’d broken the conspiracy well before a lot of kids my age (some of whom, at school, professed to still believe in Santa until the third or fourth grade).
Another childish thing I believed back then was “gun control”. “Saturday Night Special” was a big part of that. When I heard that propaganda news about how they were just cheap pieces of junk not good for anything but killing, I just knew they were terrible and should be banned. And, just of course, “criminals” shouldn’t have guns.
I believed that into my teens. But, as with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, it was observation and reasoning that led to disbelief, beginning with “Saturday Night Specials”.
Reasoning: If a SNS works well enough to fire offensively, why won’t it work defensively? “Cheap POS not good for anything” doesn’t make sense.
OK, maybe there are some guns that are just plain Pieces of Sh garbage. The Clerke 1st revolver I once encountered was so poorly made that I wouldn’t fire it with Hillary Clinton’s hand.* Well… All right; maybe hers, but not yours. But how many Clerkes would be out there after the first use/failure? I kept hearing about recovered guns linked to multiple shootings. Those couldn’t be Clerkes.
Observation: I kept seeing news reports of guns labeled “Saturday Night Specials” which even I recognized as Smith & Wessons. It appeared the defining characteristic of an SNS was price: if you got a new Smith at full retail price, it was all good. If you bought a used model at a price that someone on a budget could afford, it’s evil.
How’s that again?.
Remember how I extrapolated from “Easter Bunny isn’t real” to Santa Claus? I kept thinking: If affordable guns are bad, doesn’t that mean only financially well off folks can have “good” guns by definition? Rich = Good, Poor = Evil? Not being wealthy, but knowing my parents — just example — were decent people, I could see right through that once I bothered to consider it.
And that whole “prohibited person” thing to keep crooks from buying guns… C’mon, even as a kid I saw the “crook buys stolen gun in back alley” trope in cop and detective shows, movies, and books. Sometimes a stereotype reflects reality. I saw that same “trope” in a lot of news stories, so I knew it was real.
So if crooks didn’t get their “Saturday Night Specials” through lawful channels anyway, didn’t that suggest the law targeted honest people, and not criminals?
That was my “slippery slope”. Before long I was wondering why kids used to safely carry .22 rifles across their bike handlebars, but suddenly couldn’t be trusted to have a gun. So far as I knew, none of my .22-toting friends had ever robbed anyone.
Being an aspiring writer even then, I figured words had to have meaning. Like “infringe”, as in
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Infringe:
to commit a breach or infraction of; violate or transgress
to encroach or trespass (usually followed by on or upon)
“Breach,” “infraction,” “encroach.” It seemed pretty clear: You can’t encroach on that right. Not even a little bit. Not just major infractions, minor infractions are out, too. Words have meaning because if they don’t, no two people can communicate. The Second Amendment doesn’t say “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be revoke in its entirety, but encroachments are dandy.” It doesn’t say “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, except when it’s convenient for the government.”
I was a kid of maybe thirteen or fourteen and I figured it out. I guess gun controllers never grew up.
The pandemic of guns in the United States is the problem of a nation, not a particular sex.
Says there that Jones is a journalism junior, which suggests a minimum age of twenty years. Jones still has trouble with the “words have meaning” thing at a point years past where I’d figured it out (and at an age where I was already
an E-4 Senior Airman in the USAF).
“Pandemic of guns.” Prevalent, general, universal. Maybe Jones knows something we don’t know. America has the most armed civilian population in the world by a large margin, yet most estimates of American gun owners range from sixty million to a a hundred-twenty million, which makes us a minority. A heavily armed minority, but still not “prevalent” or universal.
If you keep reading (and try not to giggle too much) you’ll see that Jones really alleges to be concerned about gun violence. ‘Cause that’s… not so prevalent either.
Let’s say that there are a mere — chortle — sixty million gun owners out there.
According to this, there are approximately twenty million felons in America, including those incarcerated, paroled, on probation, or whose time is done. Bureau of Justice statistics suggest that around 3% of those are weapons offenses; let’s pretend all the weapons were firearms, just for discussion. 3% of 20,000,000 is 600,000. This isn’t six hundred thousand per year; it’s six hundred thousand cumulative total. That can include someone convicted of underage possession — not a crime of violence — and never committed another crime in his life for decades.
But pretend. 600,000 is just 1% of of sixty million gun owners. Not “prevalent” or “universal”.
Did you see what I did there? I pretended the groups actually overlap. But felons can’t lawfully own guns, so they shouldn’t be included in the group of admitted gun owners. So they’d be less than even the 1%.
You know… 600,000 total felons. That’s less than two-tenths of one percent of the total American population. Hardly “pandemic”. (Heh; given an average life expectancy of 79.3 years, that could potentially mean an average of 7,566 firearms felons — including nonviolent offenses — per year for the past eight decades. Still not “prevalent” or “universal”.
Apparently Jones childishly failed to observe that.
Back to the junior journalist’s panty-twisting.
The Second Amendment, which grants citizens the right to bear arms…
A little study of American history, not to mention Supreme Court rulings, could have shown Jones that the Second Amendment does not “grant[s] citizens the right to bear arms.” It is a pre-existing right, and the Second Amendment was intended to protect it from government meddling. (Since Jones failed to notice it, I’ll provide a recent SCOTUS hint: Heller.)
Words. Meaning. Grants vs. Protects.
Norway, for instance, has a low gun homicide rate and has stricter, more reasonable gun laws. Norwegians need a hunting or sporting license, which can only be acquired by completing a “nine-session, 30-hour course on guns, wildlife and environmental protection.” A sports shooting license is issued only upon completion of a firearms safety course of at least nine hours.
True, Norway has a low murder rate and restrictive gun laws. But Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela have far more restrictive laws — of the sort that would make California socialists swoon with delight — and murder rates that dwarf that of the USA. Jones fails the “observation” test, not to mention confusing a Norwegian hunting license with a firearms license. That ““nine-session, 30-hour course on guns, wildlife and environmental protection” isn’t the requirement for a Våpenkort. That’s the requirement for a hunting license; a hunting license is merely ONE of the possible qualifiers for a Våpenkort. Words. Meaning. Great Ghu, this person expects to be a reporter and is less capable of observation and reasoning than a thirteen year old.
Gun control is not synonymous with annexing the Second Amendment, but it does mean protecting the people who live in this country.
As a humorous Internet meme notes, if Jones likes gun control so much, why not move to the south side of Chicago? It’s worked so well there. Gun-controlled Baltimore might be another good choice for Jones. But… “annexing” the Second Amendment? Words. Meaning.
I’ve piled on Dana Jones here, but only for a convenient example. Consider Gabby Giffords, Shannon Watts, or pretty much any gun controller and ask yourself if that person appears to display adult-level observation and reasoning abilities. Or do their whines for control — ignoring the fact of generally fall violent crime rates (outside of gun control Paradises like Chicago and Baltimore) — sound more like a child crying because she can’t bring her freshly dug hole into the house?
In the past, I’ve accused gun controllers of rejecting reality. Perhaps that was unfair. Maybe they just aren’t grown up enough to recognize it. They still operating at a pre-teen mental level.
Hey! That explains why they always want to “do this for the children”. They meant themselves.
* Several years ago, a friend showed me a Clerke 1st he’d somehow acquired. I looked it over. Then I wiped it down to be sure I didn’t leave any fingerprints behind. I suggested that he clean it very carefully, with forensics in mind, and load it with a single round (likewise forensically sterilized), mount it in a clamp, and fire it with a long string. He should then — still wearing gloves — load one more cleaned cartridge, leaving the fired case in place. He should then put the thing in a sealed envelope labeled “For Emergency Use Only,” and save it in case he ever shot someone in dubious circumstances and needed to plant exculpating evidence. I was joking, but I wanted to reinforce the idea that he should never ever try to use that thing.
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!
Rosh Hashana begins this Wednesday evening, the day G-d created Adam and Eve. The new year of 5778 is just around the corner, a new year filled with new chances, new beginnings, new hope, new dreams, new dangers. WAIT? What? What was that last bit? New DANGERS? Huh? How does that fit in?
On the 24th after Rosh Hashana is Tzom Gedaliah Fast Day. Who was Gedaliah and why are we fasting? From Chabad, the snipped version:
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, had accomplished his purpose. He had completely subdued the Kingdom of Judah and destroyed its capital of Jerusalem and its most sacred shrine, the Holy Temple. He had slain or captured most of the royal family and the nobility of the land. The upper classes of the Jewish people, including the leaders of the priesthood and the chief civil and military officers, were led captives en masse to Babylon. Many of them were mercilessly put to death at Riblah. Judah was crushed and bereaved of its best sons.
However, Nebuchadnezzar did not wish to turn the land of Judah into a complete desert. He permitted the poorer classes to remain in Judah to till the soil and to tend their vineyards. Over them Nebuchadnezzar had appointed Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, as governor.
Gedaliah was a wise man, gentle and modest. He zealously began to encourage the people to cultivate the fields and vineyards, and thus lay the foundation of security. Under the wise administration of Gedaliah, the Jewish community began to prosper. Its fame began to spread abroad. Many Jews who had fled to places of safety in neighboring lands during the war of destruction were attracted by the news of the revival of the Jewish community in Judah.
Among the refugees who had joined Gedaliah in Mizpah was Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, a descendant of the royal house of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah. Ishmael was an ambitious man who would stop at nothing to attain his goal. The honor and success that Gedaliah had won filled him with cruel jealousy. Ishmael began to plot against Gedaliah.
The conspiracy became known to Johanan, the son of Kareah, a devoted officer of Gedaliah. Johanan warned the governor of the danger threatening his person. Gedaliah, however, being of a true and generous nature, shrank from believing such treachery. When Johanan offered to slay Ishmael secretly before the latter could carry out his evil plans, Gedaliah indignantly rejected the proposal.
Ishmael bided his time. He was invited by the governor to a feast at Mizpah on Rosh Hashanah. Ishmael arrived at the banquet in the company of ten followers. During the feast, the ruthless band attacked and slew the governor. Having assassinated their host, they commenced a terrible massacre. Ishmael murdered many prominent followers of Gedaliah, and put to the sword the small Chaldean garrison stationed at Mizpah. His murderous deed accomplished, Ishmael left Mizpah with many captives, heading for Ammon.
Johanan and a few of his brave men had escaped the massacre, for they were not in Mizpah at that time. When Johanan learned of the terrible tragedy, be rallied additional help and pursued the assassin. Overtaking Ishmael near Gibeon in Benjamin, Johanan succeeded in freeing the captives.
And that was the end of the Jewish community in Judah until the return of the Babylonian exiles in the year 3390 (371 BCE).
Every year brings new and different dangers to us all. I am shamelessly cabbaging this video from Y.B. ben Avraham
How to face those dangers, hmmm. Well, some of the elite are turning to bodyguards. In fact there has been an assertion they are the new status symbol of the wealthy.
When Upper East Side dad Michael planned a French getaway for his family this summer, his first move wasn’t to book a hotel. Instead, he contacted armed guards.
Each morning in Paris, Michael (who requested a pseudonym because of privacy concerns), his wife and their 10-year-old son would stroll out of the Hotel George V, where suites can go for $5,000 a night, to meet their personal security detail: two strapping ex-military men who cost $2,000 a day.
That would be each, and they usually don’t work alone. In case you are in the market, I got these prices from Executive Protection Services. For a private citizen? You know, your average Jane or John Doe, 30 days of continuous Protection – $30,000/month. If you need more, for example you’re anti-gun like Rosie, George or most all of Hollyweird, 30 Day Continuous Protection – $50,000/month or there’s Hollywood Bodyguard Services – $500,000/year.
But I suppose I understand it. What with the four American women just attacked in France by a “mentally ill” woman. Which is how the French now seem to be describing muslim attacks. These women had acid thrown in their faces. A popular activity from the religion of pieces. As I mentioned in another column acid attacks have risen world wide. From the Gateway Pundit
There have been 1,500 recorded acid attacks in London since 2011 according to British media.
The Daily Caller reported that acid attacks in London are up 250% in the last year or so.
Or let’s say you’re Jane or John Doe, who happen to live, work or want to go to the hospital in St. Louis. St. Louis is the site of the latest outbreak of “peaceful protests” against white police killing poor black heroin dealers without any reason other than they backed into a police cruiser as the police were approaching him, then sped off narrowly missing the police officer. The angelic heroin dealer then went on a chase which ended when another officer rammed his car. Both officers got out of their car, the suspect was told to show his hands, that didn’t happen and the police officer in question said the dealer was going for a gun. The state tried to claim the officer planted the gun, the state was unsuccessful in proving that claim and the judge observed
Judge Wilson noted, “Finally, the court observes, based on nearly thirty years on the bench, that an urban heroin dealer not in possession of a firearm would be an anomaly.”
If you haven’t met Kevin Jackson, you should. He’s very cool beans and smart. He runs the Blackosphere. He really is a nice guy. He pretty much lays it out.
"The real tragedy is that Anthony Lamar Smith was dealing heroin and we act as if he's Rosa Parks."On "FOX & Friends Weekend," Kevin Jackson gave his take on the acquittal of a police officer in the killing of Anthony Lamar Smith. http://fxn.ws/2vZxJP7
Posted by Fox News on Saturday, September 16, 2017
Whatever the officer did or didn’t do, whatever the heroin dealer did or didn’t do, the result is the same. A verdict was handed down saying the officer was not guilty. And the now more or less predictable happened. The liberals, antifa, blms protested fascism by becoming a mob of fascists. They rioted, destroyed private property and attacked police officers, injuring 11 of them. There’s a list of the injured and property damage here. They shut down roadways blocking access to two hospitals, basically shut down a shopping mall with the inane saying “you kill our kids we kill your sales”, and broke windows in a Macy’s store while screaming “black lives matter”. Yeah, boy howdy. Nothing says social justice and the heroin dealer was an angel like attacking people and property to prove your point. I don’t feel too bad about Mayor Crewson’s house though. Unlike when Jay Nixon-Demoncrat was Governor though, Governor Eric Greitens is having none of it. Thugs will not be allowed to run amuck without consequences, there have been arrests made and he, unlike Nixon, is backing the police.
I still believe that while there are a few bad apples in every profession, the majority of the police officers do want to help people, do want to save lives and serve. If they get there in time, and if they are around when something bad happens to you, they will help. If you want more assurance than that, perhaps the answer is the personal bodyguards. Isn’t it interesting that all these anti-gun politicians and celebrities have armed personal bodyguards? Of course I still maintain that the first anti-gun vote a politician makes, they should be stripped of their citizen funded bodyguards. They think guns are too dangerous? Fine, live like the rest of us, of course with their salaries, they can probably afford the bodyguards.
The dangers in 5776 were a plenty, some man created like the riots and terrorism, some nature. The result is the same, you may find yourself unexpectedly in a bad situation with bad people. Gedaliah had soldiers, they didn’t stop the assassination. In life there are no guarantees. But there are odds, and there are warnings. Gedaliah was warned, he didn’t want to believe evil in his fellow man. I will. The police may or may not always be good, or they maybe dealing with a massive situation. Bodyguards would be great, they will only focus on who they are hired to protect. If you can afford them. I think the reasonable solution is we are our own bodyguards. For ourselves and our families. As we enter the new year, let us resolve to make 5778 a wonderful and safer year for us all. Let us embrace the possibilities and the joy it offers, but we will not ignore the dangers it brings.
כתיבה וחתימה טובה
Ketivah v’chatima tovah
A good inscription and sealing (in the Book of Life).
Shana Tova
Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
Password Reset
Please enter your e-mail address. You will receive a new password via e-mail.
