Category Archives: Sellouts and traitors

At What Price? Liberty?

The Wuhan Flu madness continues. But I’m seeing additional deterioration of our society I think. You might want to grab a cup of coffee for this one.

We are in the middle days of Pesach, the festival we celebrate and re-live being taken out of slavery and bondage by the strong arm of G-d. We didn’t know the land we were going to live in, we didn’t know how we were going to get there and we had been living as slaves for a few hundred years so living as a free and just society was all new. Self-governance? What’s that? But we had G-d and his appointed leaders, so we had the courage and faith to leave Egypt מצרים . The word narrow is צרים see how similar they look? And if you put a Mem מ in front of it that means “from”. So I guess you could say we left “from narrows”, slavery.

Plagues, and seclusion, sounding familiar?

But what I am seeing that is totally new, to me at least, is the astonishing amount of fear and blatant attempts of people to seize power. The power-crazed Governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer has banned the sale of baby car seats, vegetable seeds, certain things in Home Depot are ok, others aren’t. Travel between residences is no longer allowed, so forget taking food to elderly neighbors or family that can’t get out. She has a whole host of other demands while the sale of pot and alcohol are still essential and fine. All at Queen Gretchen’s whim. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear ordered license plate numbers to be collected on christians who attended church in their cars, parked a distance apart and the service was over a loud speaker. Each would be getting a $500 fine, as would the pastor. Unbelievable. Oh wait, they are both Demoncrats, so I guess not.

Boston Suburb Threatens $100 Fines to Anyone Walking in Wrong Direction Amid Coronavirus Panic

Former police officer arrested in park for throwing ball with daughter due to coronavirus social distancing rules My hunch is they got miffed when they demanded his papers. They told him the park was “closed”. There were obviously other people there, he told them he was at least 15 feet away, and they said if he didn’t give them his papers, they would handcuff him in front of his 6 year old daughter. Which they did.

Police Drag Passenger Off Bus for Not Wearing Coronavirus Mask in Philadelphia

Wow, they could have just arrested him! New York Woman Arrested for Not Socially Distancing — Then Thrown into Jail Holding Cell with Two Dozen Women Oh.

Woman Fined $200 For ‘Going For A Drive’ Amid Pandemic

I’m also increasingly disturbed by some of the messages I see on facebook. One friend posted a article that the Gov of Texas is considering reopening the state, and she asked for thoughts. Two people responded how foolish, and another it was a big mistake. Everyone just needed to stay home. Anyone that didn’t was selfish and wanted people to die. Another friend re-posted and excellent opinion piece about what this Wuhan Flu is doing to our liberty. Someone commented under it as a doctor he should know better about viruses. Huh, I think he does, but I wonder about her medical training /snark. Yet another friend shared a photo that a friend of hers had put on a page. It was a handwritten note someone had left on her Mother’s door. Apparently family had dropped off some food for the woman for Easter. The nasty-gram read something about no family, no visitors, no people were allowed due to the coronavirus quarantine orders, and that next time they would call the police. Wow. Well, some places make it very easy. I used to hear people say “Oh we would never had called the police and informed on the Jews during the holocaust”. Got news, there are those that would that are alive and well and still dialing. Yep, you too can easily be a socialist.

Hartford is Promoting SeeClickFix App on Local Stations for Citizens to Snitch on Their Neighbors for Violating Social Distancing

Medicine since obamacare is politics

New Jersey Democrat Lawmaker Fantasizes About Withholding Disinfectants From Kentuckians Amid COVID-19 Crisis to Stick it to McConnell

Buffalo Hospital Fires Executive for Suggesting Trump Supporters Should ‘Give Up Their Ventilators’

Governors Ban Drugs For COVID-19 Treatment After President Trump Mentions Them

So, I guess if you’re a conservative living in one of those states, you know your governor (all Demoncrats of course) would rather see you dead.

Licensed Physician in Utah Unable to Prescribe Hydroxychloroquine Because ‘State Has Taken Over Distribution of Drug’

So a bit more about that Hydroxychloroquine, Azythromyacin, Zinc combination.

Dr. Zelenko’s success rate is now up to 699 patients successfully treated, almost 100%, one patient refused to follow protocol and died. None have needed ventilators.

And from the left coast Doctor Prescribing Hydroxychloroquine Says All of His “Very, Very Ill” Patients with Coronavirus Became Symptom Free within 8-12 Hours

New research study reveals that COVID-19 attacks hemoglobin in red blood cells, rendering it incapable of transporting oxygen. Are we using a false medical paradigm to treat a new disease?

Oh, so a million ventilators aren’t the right answer? They make it worse.

Dr Fauci is still slow to accept the drug cocktail being hailed as a successful treatment, for this coronavirus. However in 2013 he hailed it’s successful use in SARS coronavirus with no successful human outcomes.

That is interesting.

So Dr. Fauci thought a 2013 test in a “lab dish” was particularly encouraging.

But in 2020 after several successful studies of hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness in treating coronavirus patients he was suspect.

But Dr. Fauci has kind of a bad habit of creating panic and spreading misinformation.

We can get into the why in a bit. Because “why” and “motives” matter.

Let’s look at the number of Wuhan Flu deaths, and how they are calculated and how they are presented. You like charts? I like charts especially when they are easy to understand and make a good points.

Playing percentages

Only 150 Americans to Date With No Pre-Existing Conditions Have Died From the Coronavirus or 0.9%

CDC Tells Hospitals To List COVID as Cause of Death Even if You’re Just Assuming or It Only Contributed

And in Dr. Birx’s own words

Another tragic Wuhan flu death

Then there is Minnesota state senator and Doctor Scott Jensen

MN Senator and Dr. Reveals HHS Document Coached Him on How to Overcount COVID-19 Cases — WITH COPY OF DOCUMENT

But according to comments I read, if we don’t stay shut down as a country and everyone stay sequestered in their homes we are selfish fools exposing the rest of the world to our death wish. I did see a interesting graphic on facebook, it read “Quarantine is when you lock sick people away. When you lock healthy people away it’s tyranny”.

Coronavirus Model Used to Crash US Economy MASSIVELY OVERSTATED Hospitalizations in 40 States

The entire government is taking it very seriously. 400,000 People Traveled To US From China Since COVID-19 Outbreak — Including 40,000 After Trump Imposed Travel Ban

But we must all stay locked in our homes, away from our families and sources of income. People coming from China? Meh, whatever.

I heard Wuhan flu described as a flu that is more contagious than some of the other strains of coronavirus, but less lethal.

So the whole world is on lockdown? Not quite.

Sweden and Brazil Kept Their Economies Open and Their COVID-19 Numbers Are No Worse than US

Data indicates there no material differences in fatalities between the three countries leading the casual observer to question why is the US killing its economy?

The US continues to prevent nearly all commerce from occurring to combat the China coronavirus. Many other countries are following suit. But some countries like Sweden and Brazil are keeping their countries open for business.

Data shows that the fatalities related to the coronavirus in these countries are very similar to those in the US.

In fact there is a twitter thread #FilmYourHospital going. It’s people driving by their local hospitals showing empty parking lots, some with those tent cities outside for the overflow of sick people, they too are empty. Some of the people filming the empty tents were told they had to leave and weren’t allowed to film. There are stories of healthcare workers being sent home, laid off and told not to report to work, they are just “on-call”. Yep, in the midst of this healthcare crisis healthcare workers are going without hours, which means without pay.

I heard a guest on the Ben Shapiro show saying how if/when we ever had another pandemic again we needed to have one policy across the US, none of this patchwork stuff of each state doing what they want. That there needs to be one policy and the CDC needs to be in charge. I’m thinking “OH HELL NO”. But then I’d already been gathering sources for this column.

Then there is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who was involved in the creation of Obamacare, who says this needs to go on another 18 months.

UNLESS there is a vaccine. Did you catch that? The MUST be a vaccine. Remember when I talked about the “why” of things matter? The motive matters. And here we go.

This is from a Canadian publication

In concert with the ramp-up in death statistics, the government-steered vaccination industry has run an elaborate bureaucracy designed to hype vaccine use, as seen in a slide show presentation last April by Glen Nowak, the CDC’s spokesman for the National Immunization Program, to the American Medical Association. Here is the “Recipe that fosters influenza vaccine interest and demand,” in the truncated language that appears on his slides: “Medical experts and public health authorities [should] publicly (e.g. via media) state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes) – and urge influenza vaccination.” This “recipe,” the slide show indicated, would result in “A. Significant media interest and attention [and] B. Framing of the flu season in terms that motivate behaviour (e.g. as ‘very severe,’ ‘more severe than last or past years,’ ‘deadly’).” Other aspects of the CDC’s “Seven-Step Recipe for Generating Interest in, and Demand for, Flu (or any other) Vaccination” includes “Continued reports (e.g., from health officials and media) that influenza is causing severe illness and/or affecting lots of people – helping foster the perception that many people are susceptible to a bad case of influenza.” and “Visible/tangible examples of the seriousness of the illness (e.g., pictures of children, families of those affected coming forward) and people getting vaccinated (the first to motivate, the latter to reinforce).”

That is from 2004, the CDC has been at this for awhile. The whole thing is worth reading.

And 10 years later, in 2014. Don’t Believe Everything You Read About Flu Deaths

Flu results in “about 250,000 to 500,000 yearly deaths” worldwide, Wikipedia tells us. “The typical estimate is 36,000 [deaths] a year in the United States,” reports NBC, citing the Centers for Disease Control. “Somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 Canadians a year die of influenza and its related complications, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada,” the Globe and Mail says, adding that “Those numbers are controversial because they are estimates.”

snippety snip snip

According to the National Vital Statistics System in the U.S., for example, annual flu deaths in 2010 amounted to just 500 per year — fewer than deaths from ulcers (2,977), hernias (1,832) and pregnancy and childbirth (825), and a far cry from the big killers such as heart disease (597,689) and cancers (574,743). The story is similar in Canada, where unlikely killers likewise dwarf Statistics Canada’s count of flu deaths.

Even that 500 figure for the U.S. could be too high, according to analyses in authoritative journals such as the American Journal of Public Health and the British Medical Journal. Only about 15-20 per cent of people who come down with flu-like symptoms have the influenza virus — the other 80-85 per cent actually caught rhinovirus or other germs that are indistinguishable from the true flu without laboratory tests, which are rarely done. In 2001, a year in which death certificates listed 257 Americans as having died of flu, only 18 were positively identified as true flus. The other 239 were simply assumed to be flus and most likely had few true flus among them.

So why?

The CDC’s decision to play up flu deaths dates back a decade, when it realized the public wasn’t following its advice on the flu vaccine. During the 2003 flu season “the manufacturers were telling us that they weren’t receiving a lot of orders for vaccine,”Dr. Glen Nowak, associate director for communications at CDC’s National Immunization Program, told National Public Radio. “It really did look like we needed to do something to encourage people to get a flu shot.”

Ahh.

Well lucky for us all, Bill Gates has been working on that very thing. Bill Gates thinks vaccines are very important. Extremely important. Worldwide.

The implication is this: when a new vaccine is invented then mass produced, it will not necessarily be mandatory, but everything else in your life, such as work, school, community, and sociality, will all become privileges granted by the state under the condition that you take the new vaccine.

However, his vaccines don’t have a very good, good, acceptable track record. Believe it or not Robert F Kennedy Jr. has been keeping track of all this.

Promising to eradicate Polio with $1.2 billion, Gates took control of India’s National Advisory Board (NAB) and mandated 50 polio vaccines (up from 5) to every child before age 5. Indian doctors blame the Gates campaign for a devastating vaccine-strain polio epidemic that paralyzed 496,000 children between 2000 and 2017. In 2017, the Indian Government dialed back Gates’ vaccine regimen and evicted Gates and his cronies from the NAB. Polio paralysis rates dropped precipitously. In 2017, the World Health Organization reluctantly admitted that the global polio explosion is predominantly vaccine strain, meaning it is coming from Gates’ Vaccine Program. The most frightening epidemics in Congo, the Philippines, and Afghanistan are all linked to Gates’ vaccines. By 2018, ¾ of global polio cases were from Gates’ vaccines.

In 2014, the #GatesFoundation funded tests of experimental HPV vaccines, developed by GSK and Merck, on 23,000 young girls in remote Indian provinces. Approximately 1,200 suffered severe side effects, including autoimmune and fertility disorders. Seven died. Indian government investigations charged that Gates funded researchers committed pervasive ethical violations: pressuring vulnerable village girls into the trial, bullying parents, forging consent forms, and refusing medical care to the injured girls. The case is now in the country’s Supreme Court.

In 2010, the Gates Foundation funded a trial of a GSK’s experimental malaria vaccine, killing 151 African infants and causing serious adverse effects including paralysis, seizure, and febrile convulsions to 1,048 of the 5,049 children.

During Gates 2002 MenAfriVac Campaign in Sub-Saharan Africa, Gates operatives forcibly vaccinated thousands of African children against meningitis. Between 50-500 children developed paralysis. South African newspapers complained, “We are guinea pigs for drug makers”

Nelson Mandela’s former Senior Economist, Professor Patrick Bond, describes Gates’ philantropic practices as “ruthless” and “immoral”.

In 2010, Gates committed $10 billion to the WHO promising to reduce population, in part, through new vaccines. A month later Gates told a Ted Talk that new vaccines “could reduce population”. In 2014, Kenya’s Catholic Doctors Association accused the WHO of chemically sterilizing millions of unwilling Kenyan women with a phony “tetanus” vaccine campaign.

Independent labs found the sterility formula in every vaccine tested.

After denying the charges, WHO finally admitted it had been developing the sterility vaccines for over a decade.

Similar accusations came from Tanzania, Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines.

A 2017 study (Morgensen et.Al.2017) showed that WHO’s popular DTP is killing more African than the disease it pretends to prevent. Vaccinated girls suffered 10x the death rate of unvaccinated children.

Gates and the WHO refused to recall the lethal vaccine which WHO forces upon millions of African children annually.

Some might even say his track record is criminal. Go back to the first link on Gates thinking vaccines are extremely important and look at the financial conflicts of interest. The stock he owns in pharmaceutical companies. Also interesting is

Ah, the Gates/Fauci vaccine

And there are those in government that relish the potential for power St. Louis Federal Reserve Head Says Americans Should Be Tested for COVID-19 Daily And Forced To Display a Badge on Their Clothing with the Result

Perhaps a gold star? We can’t travel, work, see a doctor or shop without it?

But hey, Bill Gates has that covered too, no need for a gold star. That’s so 1940s. Nope, digital implants.

“Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it,” the Microsoft founder had speculated.

Snippty snip snip

However, as outlined in a December 2019 Scientific American article, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded Massachusetts Institute of Technology research that suggested embedding vaccine records “directly into the skin” of children: “Along with the vaccine, a child would be injected with a bit of dye that is invisible to the naked eye but easily seen with a special cell-phone filter, combined with an app that shines near-infrared light onto the skin. The dye would be expected to last up to five years, according to tests on pig and rat skin and human skin in a dish.”

Through his foundation, Gates has invested billions of dollars in vaccines.

While the Trump administration is against the tracking system,

Attorney General Bill Barr is skeptical of Gates’ idea to tag people with these mark-of-the-beast implants. He said he is concerned about “the tracking of people and so forth, generally, especially going forward over a long period of time.” Barr also said that he is “very concerned about the slippery slope in terms of continuing encroachments on personal liberty.”

However, Barr said he did feel like “appropriate, reasonable steps are fine.” This leaves the door open for some sort of government action in order to enforce vaccine compliance.

If you want to know even more about this, there is a doctor, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai who is running for the Senate in Massachusetts and he has been weighing in on the Wuhan flu debacle. He’s a very bright man, 4 degrees from MIT. Here’s a youtube, he talks about Wuhan Flu, your immune system and the massive fraud being foisted upon us.

So, who or W.H.O. gets to decide what is reasonable and appropriate? The government? The panicked people on facebook, the crazed neighbors, the media, vaccine despot Gates? There are those that would clamor for a vaccine to be stuck in everything that moves right now. They have no idea of Gates record of “successful” vaccines. Remember, he wants to reduce the population. They would say the same things about being vaccinated as they do the lock down. If you don’t you’re selfish and want people to die. They will “demand” the government take action.

Look, I am not saying I’m against vaccines. That’s not what this is about. If you want to get a vaccination I’m all for it, you can take every vaccination out there. I won’t say a word. This is about forced vaccinations. And since some employers already do this I’m pretty sure this could go that route as well. With the added bit about governmental control and the vaccine despot’s lousy record added in. This is about being able to make free choices of what goes in your body, not what is forced in your body by the government or fear crazed people deceived by a willing media. I guess with all those people out of work due to the lock down, or those that will be looking for work because their business went under it will be easy. Potential employers will just say something along the lines of “I’m sorry, but governmental regulations state a certain percentage of our staff have to be vaccinated, so you must have the new Gates/Fauci vaccine for us to hire you”.

But we got scared

10 Pharaoh drew near, and the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold! the Egyptians were advancing after them. They were very frightened, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.

11 They said to Moses, Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us to die in the desert? What is this that you have done to us to take us out of Egypt?

12 Isn’t this the thing [about] which we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, Leave us alone, and we will serve the Egyptians, because we would rather serve the Egyptians than die in the desert

13 Moses said to the people, Don’t be afraid! Stand firm and see the Lord’s salvation that He will wreak for you today, for the way you have seen the Egyptians is [only] today, [but] you shall no longer continue to see them for eternity.

~~Exodus/Shemot 14:10-13

The opening of The Ten Commandments,

Leaving Egypt and slavery

I do not want to be one of those clamoring to go back into the slavery of governmental control over my life. Choose freedom, there is Moshe on the right, see him? He’s holding the reins of a camel for you, choose freedom.

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Freedom and the Role of the Militia Part II

What I find most galling are not Republican allegations former Democrat Vice President Joe “Boss Tweed” Biden leveraged his position to benefit his son Hunter in Ukraine.1 Nor do I find Democrat accusations President Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine pressuring President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate potential Biden influence peddling most galling. Democrats want Americans to believe Trump withheld aid while Ukraine was at war with Russia. However, Putin invaded Ukrainian Crimea on 20 February 2014 and later sent military units across Russia’s western border into Ukraine to assist “separatists” in May of the same year. Trump did not place his party line call to Zelensky until July of 2019, five years later.2 Can we be frank? Notions Ukraine would survive let alone prevail in a war with Russia are preposterous. Therefore, American military and economic aid would be pointless. Why then do Democrat and Republican administrations send it? Are Americans willing to offer their sons to die for Ukrainians fighting Russia? Is the U.S. willing to risk nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine? We must address yet another reality.

Since Tsar Nicholas I, Russia has pursued a policy of “Russification” in conquered nations and territories. Imperial Russia took control of the education system, mass media, and popular culture in subjugated countries. They replaced native tongues, customs, history, literature, art, music, and holidays with those of Mother Russia. Whether the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania for those who attended public schools) the Caucasus, Poland, or Ukraine, conquered people were forced to grow up as Russians.3

Soviets added a new dynamic to Russification by transplanting hundreds of thousands of Russians to the Baltics and especially Ukraine. The Communist’s goal was to displace natives and breed them into a minority population or, at least have a forward base of Russian immigrants embedded in targeted nations. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviets uprooted entire Russian villages and moved them to Ukraine. In 1926, only 8.2% of Ukrainians were ethnic Russian. That figure rose to 16.9% in 1959 and 22.1% in 1989. In addition, by 1985, the Soviets had relocated by force, over 185,000 Ukrainians to faraway places in Russia and to the Baltics. So successful was Russification (America’s open-borders crowd pay attention), that native Ukrainians living along their eastern border with Russia dropped from 33.4% in 1926 to 2.3% by 1970. In a conflict with Russia, where will their loyalties lie? With whom will ethnic-Russian “Ukrainians” side?4 The idea that America can simply show up with her military and straighten this all out is ludicrous but still, this is not what is most galling. Instead, it is the profound degree of self-inflicted constitutional ignorance afflicting so many Americans. Who asks; what part of the Constitution authorizes Congress to seize the wages and property of American citizens and hand it over to foreigners in other countries? Go ahead and look. I’ll wait. You will be the subject of an archeological dig before you find it because no such authority exists. What the Constitution does not authorize it forbids.

The Constitution’s Framers and State Ratifying Conventions were clear in 1787-1788; powers they delegated to the new federal government were finite and few. The Framers enumerated (listed) them in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. These powers are explicit. They rejected notions that, through novel interpretations later on, anyone could create implied from explicit powers. Scottish immigrant James Wilson became a prominent Philadelphia attorney and patriot. He signed the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and was a “Federalist” delegate to the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention. Wilson described the new form of government that would replace the Articles of Confederation as a “confederate republic”. It was not a “single centralized state” because that would lead to “despotism” and tyranny. The federal government had only those powers delegated to it by the States. It could not exercise powers it did not have nor could the government imply powers into existence.5 No one is asking why the U.S. government, under Democrats and Republicans, is stealing the money and property of its citizens in order to buy and reward “friends” around the world.

I suspect to some degree America’s ruling class elite have always hamstrung the cause of liberty. They do not quite trust Americans, even their political followers, with liberty. A condemnation of liberals and Democrats? On the contrary. Republican Presidents, including Richard Nixon, George H W and George W Bush, and candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney ran as conservatives who would defend the Constitution. Once in office, as Presidents, Governors, or Senators, they shed conservative principles like snakes squirming from old skin. It is as if they believe the job of supporters is to get them elected and then shut up and go away until the next election. They talk a good game and then make one compromise after another always moving in the direction of opponents. One can find unease and mistrust of social “inferiors” even in the writing of some conservatives.

Writing for conservative The American Spectator, Daniel McCarthy notes liberals believe the mere existence of firearms, in conjunction with the election of Donald Trump, whose words have radicalized the young, is the cause of public mass shootings (PMS). For liberals the only remedy is to remove Trump from office, ban and seize all firearms in private hands, and double down on suppression of “hate speech”. This in spite of the fact police investigations reveal those guilty of PMS are typically creatures of the Left, not Trump supporters. McCarthy notes the Second Amendment’s intent was to protect the firearms liberals want to seize. He adds that a “well-regulated militia” means a citizenry well practiced with arms as opposed to a standing army. To be effective, the militia must have the same firearms as a federal standing army. So far so good. Then McCarthy runs off the rails. He asserts notions the Second Amendment supports citizen rebellion, like Shays’ Rebellion, is “right-wing folklore”. McCarthy offers as proof the Virginia Declaration of Rights, authored by George Mason that “inspired” the Second Amendment. Its stated reason for arms is to maintain a well-regulated militia “under strict subordination to, and governed by the civil power”.6 Where to start? Part one covered the meaning of “militia”. Here we turn to a story of mistrust by the people’s “betters”.

Typical high school government textbooks allege the Articles of Confederation had failed. This led to unpaid State and private debt, violence, and economic chaos verging on tearing the union apart. “Shays’ Rebellion in Western Massachusetts (31 August 1786-June 1787) was only the most spectacular of several incidents”.7 They assert “By 1786, people in many states were on the verge of rebellion…Led by Daniel Shays, a veteran of the Revolution, hundreds of angry farmers and laborers banded together, marched on court houses, and freed imprisoned debtors from jail”. Richard Hardy, like other government textbook authors, uses Shays’ Rebellion (a name invented by enemies of the farmer’s protest) as an argument for abolishing the Articles and replacing it with a strong national government of centralized powers.8 This interpretation was strongly echoed by liberal teachers (is there a distinction?) with whom I taught and the jock-coaches principals assign to teach government. Ill-versed in the subject, the latter deviated not from the script. Little, if any, of what they teach, including the book’s representation, of Shays’ Rebellion is accurate. The same holds true at the University. For example, a typical college text explains “hard times, tight money, and heavy taxes” sent Massachusetts farmers to debtors’ prison while others “lost their land”. The farmers’ rebellion was “put down” by “state troops”.9 Liberal John Garraty’s text asserts Shays’ Rebellion was the result of Massachusetts attempting to pay off its war debt with the tax bite “falling most heavily on those of moderate income”. He describes mobs shutting down courts to prevent foreclosures and Daniel Shays leading an army to seize the federal arsenal in Springfield, a battle they lost.10 Liberal historian Samuel Eliot Morison, despised by Communist Howard Zinn, author of the most popular fictionalized history passing as truth in public schools and universities,11 writes that Shay’s Rebellion consisted of poor farmers facing harsh economic conditions who demanded relief from their State government. They seized control of courts in Western Massachusetts preventing them from opening until the legislature amended the Constitution. Their demands included ending requirements debts be paid in specie and ending legal favoritism of coastal commercial interests at the expense of farmers. Morison labels Massachusetts’ Governor James Bowdoin a “staunch conservative” who called out the militia to put down these illegal protests.12 Postwar economic conditions were indeed harsh in several colonies but were not the cause of the so-called Shays’ Rebellion. Liberal teachers wield the story in classrooms as a “cautionary tale” to convince students the United States must have a strong national government of consolidated powers. Moreover, at the expense of State and individual rights.

Scare stories are part and parcel of the weapons used by those pushing an agenda to effect a desired outcome. Their creators spin and spoon-feed them to gullible Americans all too willing to embrace lies over truth. It works because Americans are too intellectually lazy to think beyond the accepted wisdom of the herd. Manipulators fuel preexistent worry and fear already planted by mass media and government schools (global warming, Putin under every bed) to create panic and alarm. Their goal is to cause rash imprudent reaction. The nation’s “Father” was the target of such an effort.

With no desire to leave Mount Vernon again, George Washington was enjoying retirement from public life. In 1786, he received visitors and letters from friends and veterans reporting on a “rebellion” in Massachusetts. Their shared goal was abolition of the Articles of Confederation and replacing it with a strong national government of consolidated powers. They wanted to reduce or eliminate State sovereignty. They weaved scare stories ranging from exaggeration to outright lies. Washington was already discomfited by hysterical scare stories he read in newspapers written by editors who also shared a strong desire to scrap the Articles. Political leaders, former army officers, bankers, merchants, and large landowners added their voices to claims the nation was falling apart and about to disintegrate into revolution or civil war.13

General Henry Knox, Washington’s former artillery commander, along with others, knew Washington was a large landowner constantly dealing with squatters. Therefore, they painted Massachusetts’ rebels in the most lurid and false terms. They told him rebels wanted to close courts to stop foreclosure on land for unpaid debt, seize land belonging to the rich, and that Massachusetts’ militias were too weak to oppose them. Knox claimed a “licentious spirit” was widespread among the rebels and they were “malcontents” and “levellers” who, through violence, would abolish all social, economic, and class distinctions. In addition, they would erase all private debt and redistribute amongst themselves the land they seized.14 Knox used the term “levellers” to spark alarm in Washington and others. It sprang from the English Civil War of 1642 between Charles I and Parliament. Near the end of that war, common soldiers discussed what improvements they desired for postwar England. Levellers wanted to abolish the tax-supported state church, establish basic natural rights belonging to all men, declared sovereignty was in the people not kings, and that government was a social-compact with the people.15

Through malice or ignorance, Knox was conflating Levellers with English “Diggers”. The latter were essentially proto-communists. Basing their doctrine on the New Testament, Diggers wanted all unenclosed land seized and made communal, farmed, and its produce distributed by the commune to the poor. England would abolish private property along with “unequal wealth”.16 Knox’s misrepresentation of Shay’s Rebellion, and use of the term “Levellers”, had the desired effect. He conjured images of rogue uneducated, poor, and debt- ridden rabble rising up to burn the homes and farms of the rich, looting businesses and banks, and overthrowing the government in Boston. None of this was true.

The men in Western Massachusetts who marched on and closed courts in several towns were comprised of farmers, large landowners, merchants, Revolutionary War heroes and veterans, and political leaders. They were typically middle class, from leading long established families, and were neither poor nor debtors. They rebelled because land and note speculators, led by Governor James Bowdoin, had taken over the government in Boston. Like other states during the war, Massachusetts issued paper notes to pay its soldiers, farmers, and merchants from whom it requisitioned supplies. Not backed by specie, inflation ensued and soon, like the famous Continentals, they were worthless. People had to eat and pay bills so, when speculators offered to buy these notes for a fraction of their face value, their holders sold them. After the war, Bowdoin and his cronies bought up as many notes as they could. Once in power, they passed a law requiring the State redeem them at full face value, with interest, and much of it paid in specie. To finance redemption, Bowdoin’s government passed a head tax on families for every male 16 and older and farm families tended to be large. In addition, the state would tax their land. Those unable to pay faced losing family farms and going to prison. The State had forced soldiers, farmers, and small merchants to accept worthless notes during the war. From them speculators bought these notes for next to nothing. Now the state was taxing those who lost an enormous sum selling the notes to speculators to pay an even greater amount to redeem them on their behalf.17 Public school texts seem to leave out this part of the story.

Is it any wonder farmers in Western Massachusetts reacted in anger and protest? They demanded a change in the law. Specie was scarce and farmers knew the government in Boston was robbing them to benefit Bowdoin and his wealthy cronies. Boston was deaf to farmers’ complaints. Their protests became larger and eventually they closed local courts to force change. They were not attempting to overthrow the government. Bowdoin reacted with force. The State Legislature granted him authority to arrest, torture, and even hang rebels. He could also seize their land and sell it. To his benefactors, naturally. He suspended habeas corpus meaning he could arrest and keep rebels, even political enemies, in jail until they rotted. This he did. Massachusetts’ militia was more than large enough to suppress the rebellion but, when Bowdoin called it out, they refused. They would not march against men they knew to be honorable, patriots, and war veterans. Bowdoin and his rich speculator friends passed the hat amongst themselves and raised enough money to hire a mercenary army of 4,400 led by war veteran General Benjamin Lincoln to suppress the “rebellion”. Following several skirmishes, the rebellion ended when Lincoln’s State army seized the federal arsenal at Springfield before the farmers did.18 Proponents of a new “national” government did not tell George Washington this side of the story.

Although a war hero, Daniel Shays was a newcomer to Western Massachusetts. He was leader of one of many groups who protested what Boston was doing. Those comprising “rebel” groups never called themselves “rebels, insurgents”, or “Shayites”. The press and allies of Bowdoin invented these labels. The same way the left uses “right-wing” for conservatives implying the latter are Nazis. Shame on you Daniel McCarthy. Instead, they referred to themselves as “Regulators” a term originating in England during the 1680s. Britons who took this name opposed corruption, cronyism, and tyranny in government. Americans knew this history. The term Regulator gained usage In Britain’s North American colonies in the 1760s, first in North and then in South Carolina. Lawyers and land speculators gained control of Carolina County Courts and used their position to levy heavy taxes, fees, and fines on farmers. They jailed delinquent taxpayers, seized, and sold their land. When the governments in each colony refused to reply to the farmer’s pleas for relief, they took matters into their own hands forming organizations of Regulators who drove corrupt lawyers, judges, and officials from office. Like Massachusetts, the aristocracy consolidated political power into its hands rewarding themselves and cronies at the expense of farmers, exactly what Britain’s appointed Royal Governors had done in the colonies. Each state in turn suppressed rebellion. Following in the footsteps of those who came before, Massachusetts’ Regulators vowed to end tyrannical government in Boston based on cronyism and corruption. Their goal was to rewrite the hated State Constitution of 1780.19

Men who favored creating a European style strong national government with centralized powers used Shay’s Rebellion to argue the government under the Articles was too weak to survive. They stoked fear and panic. “Nationalizers” created and disseminated false narratives through the media they controlled. They pressured Madison and Washington to support abandoning the Articles in favor of a yet, unwritten new form of government.20 It is remarkable that American patriots did not realize that, in beholding the rebels of 1786, they were seeing themselves in the mirror of 1776. There can be but one explanation. These men evinced a trait shared from time immemorial among those who would rule. They do not trust “lesser” citizens to rule themselves sharing the same amount of freedom as their “betters”. It is why they target the Second Amendment, freedom of speech, and challenge the outcomes of elections. Even some Republicans, conservative pundits, opinion makers, and movers and shakers believe in government for, not of the people. They want their base to vote and then shut up. Do not accommodate them. Read and learn the truth.

11 Peter Schweizer, Secret Empires (New York, N.Y., HarperCollins Publishers, 2018), 55-73. Spoiler alert, Republicans have their hands in the till as well.

22 Natalyia Vasilyeva, The Associated Press, “Russia’s Conflict With Ukraine: An Explainer,” 26 November 2018, The Military Times at https://www.military-times.com/news/yar-military/2018/11/26/russias-conflict-with-ukraine-an-explainer/

33 Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, Sixth Edition (Oxford, England, Oxford University Press, 2000), 332, 333, 380, 394, 397, 575-576.

55 Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 (New York, N.Y. Simon & Schuster, 2010), 104, 108.

66 Daniel McCarthy, “Liberalism Cannot Stop The Shootings”, American Spectator at https://spectatorus/liberalism-cannot-stop-shootings/

77 William A. McClenaghan, Magruders’ American Government, 2000 Edition (Needham, Massachusetts, Prentice Hall, 2000), 37.

88 Richard J. Hardy, Government In America (Boston, Massachusetts, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992), 45.

99 Rebecca Brooks Gruever, An American History, Second Edition, Volume 1 to 1877 (Reading, Massachusetts, Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1976), 175.

1010 John A. Garraty and Robert A. McCaughey, The American Nation: A History Of The United States, Sixth Edition (New York, N.Y., Harper & Row, Publishers, 1987), 151.

1111 Mary Grabar, Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America (Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, 2019), 6, 12, 14, 23-28, 251, 257.

1212 Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History Of The American People, Prehistory to 1789 (New York, N.Y., A Mentor Book from New American Library, 1972), 390-394, 395.

1313 Leonard L. Richards, Shays’s Rebellion: The American Revolution’s Final Battle (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 1-3.

1414 IBID. 3-4.

1515 Goldwin Smith, A History of England (New York, N.Y., Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974), 305-334.

1616 IBID. 334.

1717 Richards, 1-10, 15-16.

1818 IBID. 23-61.

1919 IBID. 64-74, 61-63.

2020 IBID. 89-116, 129-138.

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Is the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Dependent On Militia Membership? Part 1

The entertaining Greta

My opposition to Red-Flag laws has been steadfast countenancing no exceptions. Until now. Liberal Time Magazine’s Girl, er um “Person”1 of the Year’s trembling quivering rage-filled Greta Thunberg, who should be starring in H. P. Lovecraft inspired movies, could be that one exception. Ghostwriters and Handlers, please, do not allow Greta near sharp objects or anything that goes bang. Perhaps parents should be scheduling counseling sessions rather than enabling Greta’s delusions of imminent human extinction. Scandinavia once gave the world Vikings. What happened?2

From the Great Depression, mass starvation, to man-created global warming, the Left needs crises with which to menace people. Only through scare tactics terrifying the masses can they evoke reaction based on emotion rather than reason. People who have lost their minds seldom make good decisions. Since the Second World War, the Left, either through ideological compatibility or supreme naïveté, has promoted notions the way to deal with adversarial nations (Communist dictatorships) and people is through non-violent appeasement. Leftists are moral relativists rejecting concepts of good and evil. Therefore global and personal conflicts result from misunderstandings not malevolent intentions. Because people have “issues”, not problems, conflicts can be resolved without anyone having to accept blame or facing consequences. All Stalin needed was a couch, a good listener, and a hug. Today, if the puny underweight wretched victim of bullying stands up to his tormentors, school administrators suspend him along with the thugs. Through its evangelists teaching in public schools, the Left has indoctrinated Americans to reject notions of self-reliance and taking responsibility for their own safety. Lockdowns, shelter-in-place, hide under your desk or in your home…Hence, they grow up to despise the Second Amendment. They are aghast at the idea citizens can own guns and decide when and where to use them in self-defense. Appearing on Fox’s Martha MacCallum Show in response to the Fort Worth Texas church shooting, Democrat strategist Doug Schoen argued people are not competent to carry guns for personal defense. This he added, should be left to the police who, coincidentally, were not there.3 The Left hates the Second Amendment for two reasons; first, it exposes their unwillingness to stand up to bullies and criminals whether on American streets or as heads of State. Think, Justin Trudeau. Second, it is an obstacle to the Great Project.

Whether taking the name Liberal, Socialist, Progressive, Central Planner, Democratic-Socialist, and so forth, Statists are determined to dismantle the Second Amendment either through abolition or redefining it out of existence. Until accomplished, it remains the single greatest impediment to The Project begun by 19th century American Progressives and European Socialists. Its central imperative is to bend the will of the individual completely to the volition of the State to plan, control, and regulate every aspect of human existence. And, the Left is the State. Because altering the Constitution has proven un-doable, the Left has chosen to redefine the Second Amendment as they did the Commerce, General Welfare, Necessary and Proper, and Supremacy clauses until they mean the opposite of their intent. For example they claim owning firearms is dependent upon membership in a federal (Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines) or State (“National” sic Guard) standing army. This claim could not be more wrong.4

Proponents and enemies of the Bill of Rights have debated the Founders’ meaning of “militia” ad nauseam. Rehashing it here would seem superfluous. That is, if its enemies were not using mass media, popular culture, and public dis-education to peddle lies conjoined with an American public too intellectually lazy to read and think for itself. As a recovering public school teacher, I can attest to the pervasiveness of this mental lassitude.

Mises Institute’s Ryan McMaken writes that the Founders’ idea of a militia was not one comprised of “unorganized amateurs”, called up by local authorities, to address insurrection or invasion. Instead, it was to consist of men between a certain age range, proficient in arms, possessing some degree of training in military discipline and tactics, a system of choosing officers, subject to call up by State or local authorities, and under civilian control.5 McMaken’s conclusion is problematic. In the 1740s, the French, perennially at war with England, established a large fort at Louisbourg near Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. From there the French threatened New England with invasion and provided safe haven for pirates and “cruisers” who raided its fishing villages and naval commerce. Finding the British unwilling to act, in 1744 New England raised an army of unorganized amateurs including commoners, farmers, merchants, fishermen, and so forth. With little or no experience, these New England boys executed a successful amphibious landing under difficult conditions, besieged the fort for three months, and forced the French to surrender.6 During the French and Indian War, the British could not have defeated the French without the assistance of colonial militia troops, amateur soldiers who fought as local units under American command.7

On 1 October 1768, in a lead up to what became the War of Independence, Britain dispatched 700 troops led by General Thomas Gage from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Boston. His orders were to suppress resistance to British commerce, trading, and tax laws.8 A month later (8 November 1768), King George III declared Bostonians to be in rebellion against English law and government. British political and military leaders drew up plans to subdue the insurrection.9 They employed their standard method of subjugation; round up, jail, and execute the rebellion’s leaders and door-to-door searches for arms and munitions in private hands. Colonials often stored gunpowder in storehouses outside of town due to its volatility. In order to prevent the Red Coats from seizing it, locals formed militias to guard them. In Virginia, Patrick Henry led the Hanover Independent Militia Company comprised of armed locals independent of the Governor’s control. They comprised the nucleus of resistance against British forces. Other colonies replicated this strategy.10

In 1774, British soldiers marched from Boston into the countryside to seize colonial supplies of gunpowder and weapons in Charlestown, Cambridge, Medford, and Salem. Forty thousand militiamen met the British, called “Bloody Lobsterbacks”, by locals, at Charlestown. These amateurs drove them back to Boston without firing a shot.11 British confiscation of private arms led to the “shot heard round the world”, the British march on Concord and Lexington, Massachusetts, to seize arms.12 Among the militiamen awaiting the British attack were farmers, craftsmen, mechanics, gentlemen, laborers, slaves, dairy farmers, and veterans of the French Indian War. Americans gave as good as they got forcing the British back to Boston.13

McMaken contends, “Gun Rights advocates fixate” on the latter part of the Second Amendment, “The people having a right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” as the rationale for private ownership of arms separate from militia membership. He asserts the Second Amendment’s purpose was to guarantee that States “would be free to raise and train their own militias as a defense against federal power and as a means of keeping defensive military force available to Americans while remaining outside the direct control of the federal government”.14 He is correct state militias are supposed to be outside federal control but his assertion the militia is the primary focus of the Second Amendment is incorrect. The Second Amendment clearly contains two independent parts that framers could have fashioned into separate amendments. In fairness to McMaken, his purpose was to demonstrate State Militias are to be independent of federal control and that the so-called “National” (sic) Guard is a standing army and a gross violation of the Constitution.

Drafters wrote definitions of a militia into State Declarations of Rights and later into the federal and State Constitutions from 1791 on. They typically refer to “the mass of ordinary citizens, trained to arms” who would be available for call-up by State or local authorities, and to which was often appended an age range for those subject to service. Founding Fathers from Patrick Henry, George Mason, John Adams to Thomas Jefferson made clear the purpose of the Second Amendment was “that every man” be armed.15 Was this not so that the people would be equipped for militia service if needed? True but only in part. The Founders clearly saw that as an auxiliary advantage. However, the stress was that all men possess the right to keep and bear arms and government in no way have the power to infringe on this right or disarm the people. During debates over ratification of the proposed Constitution (1788) at the Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry declared, “The great object is that every man be armed…Everyone who is able may have a gun”. Zachariah Johnson added, “The new Constitution could never result in religious or other oppression because ‘the people are not to be disarmed of their weapons”. Not militias, people. At the Massachusetts’ ratifying convention, Samuel Adams stated, “That the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience, or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms”.16 Again, these rights, freedom of speech, religion, and arms belong to individuals, not states or any other form of organized political entity including militias.

Many States, including Arkansas, Colorado, Missouri, and others specifically state people have an individual right to keep and bear arms and it is not tied to membership in a militia, military, or any form of security force.17 The Founders knew Americans opposed standing peacetime armies (as we have today) and that States were reluctant to cede any of their sovereignty to this new untried federal system of government. They also knew government, like an irresistible force of nature, attracts to it men of ambition, those craving power, and men with no moral scruples. Therefore, they added the militia phrase. States would retain the means to resist federal usurpations of their power and infringement against the liberties of people. Under the proposed Constitution, the federal government, facing a national emergency such as invasion or insurrection, could request the states call up their militias. Governors would send them to federal authorities who in turn would arm, equip, and organize them into a standing army. The States would retain the right to choose officers commanding their militia units. Once the crisis was resolved, militiamen would return to their respective states and mustered out of service. Constitution or not, efforts to “federalize” (actually, “nationalize”) State militias placing them under presidential control began almost at once just as so-called Anti-Federalists had warned.18 The individual right to possess arms was always a separate issue.

English philosopher John Locke’s Treatises On Government were widely read (1689) in the colonies. He argued man had a “natural” (G-D given) right to life, liberty, and property. Inherent in each is the right to the means of defending it.19 Under the supervision of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.20 Drawing on many widely held philosophical and theological roots; Jefferson wrote that all rights are individual and a gift from G-D. Among them are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (property, wages, and the fruits of one’s labor). Rights imputed by Divinity are inherent in the nature of each individual’s humanity. People are born already possessing these rights. A right to life presupposes a right to the means of defending it.21

The Second Amendment employs the words “right” and “shall not be infringed demonstrating it refers to “a right that is already assumed to exist” (which comports with the Declaration). It does not say, “The people shall have a right to keep and bear arms.” The amendment recognizes but does not grant the right” [emphasis in the original].22 Requirements to join the military, a militia, or engage in a government specified activity in order exercise a right would negate that right. Any regulation, red tape, or hoops one must jump through before accessing a right is a gross infringement and, again, negates it as a right. Governments can in no way qualify a right. No vote by a majority of one’s neighbors to limit a right in any way is legitimate. In addition, people cannot through constitutions or laws, “agree to an infringement on their rights”.23 This is because of the inherency of rights. Only Divinity can alter or abolish rights divinely created. So why does the Second Amendment continue to confound people?

George Mason’s proposed draft of the amendment read, “That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state”.24 Madison’s version read, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well-regulated militia being the best security to a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person”.25 Madison, like Mason and other Founders, wanted it understood that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right separate from membership in any form of militia. For example, those objecting to military service on religious grounds, still possessed the right to keep and bear arms. This would not be true had the right been dependent on being in a militia. Madison’s intent “is clear not only from his wording, but also from his notes for his speech proposing the amendment”. He states it pertains to an individual right which his “colleagues clearly understood the proposal to be protective of individual rights”. Massachusetts delegate Fisher Ames wrote that among other rights, that of bearing arms “to be inherent in the people”. Writing under the name “A Pennsylvanian” in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, Madison’s friend Tench Coxe argued that the delegates wrote the Second Amendment to “guarantee the right of the people to have ‘their private arms’ to prevent tyranny and to overpower an abusive standing army or select militia”. Madison read Coxe’s articles and agreed, the amendment pertained to an individual right.26

So much, did the Founders write about the Second Amendment; its meaning is beyond question. These documents and writings are available to anyone. On what basis can opponents of an individual right interpretation justify their position? Simple. The truth is unimportant. Only the Great Project matters. All narratives, including history, must be made to fit and support it. Like a starfish turning a clamshell over searching for a vulnerability by which to penetrate its defenses, so too do enemies of the Bill of Rights search for weaknesses. They find it in contemporary American’s unfamiliarity with grammatical construction.

It is important to keep in mind, of the Bill of Rights none refers to “States having rights”. Each refers to a right of the people. These are individual rights. To argue the Second Amendment applies only to members of a military organization turns it into a State not individual right. We have clearly seen that was not the Founder’s intention. If the Founders had intended military or militia membership dependency in order to own or possess arms, “Why would they say, ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”? Madison and those who shaped the amendment’s wording “chose to put the militia reference into a dependent phrase” choosing “the weakest possible construction by using the participle (word formed from a verb) ‘being’ instead of writing say, ‘Since a well regulated militia is necessary…” The militia wording’s weak form demonstrates its framers listed it as a right of states. “The main independent clause” of the amendment reads, “The people’s right to have guns ‘shall not be infringed”.27

An independent clause is a stand-alone sentence dependent on nothing. The militia part of the Second Amendment forms a dependent phrase. It cannot stand alone by itself containing a subject, verb, and complete thought. Therefore, it is secondary in importance to the main independent clause. The words; “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” would mean what by itself? The words; “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” would mean what without the first part of the amendment? People have a right to keep and bear arms. By reversing this order, the amendment’s drafters made emphatic that the independent clause was its most important part. “The Founders correctly intuited that in a bill of rights (list), the last thing the reader should have ringing in his mind’s ear is the absolute prohibition on infringement of the natural right to own guns”.28

If the Bill of Right’s enemies read America’s founding documents and writings, they know the truth. None of that matters. What does matter to them is total disarmament of American citizens. The Great Project cannot culminate until that happens. Toward that goal, the end always justifies the means.

11 Unlike men and women since the dawn of time, those on the Left are stymied when it comes to determining their sex, of which, there are but the two aforementioned options.

22 As with the Marjory Stoned Man Douglass high school “useful idiots,” Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, et al, the Left cowardly uses kids as stooge props, their youth supposedly giving them and their terribly immature and uninformed rantings an unassailable immunity against critique. Isn’t this what Muslim terrorists do, hide behind children?

33 Martha MacCallum Show, FOX News, 31 December 2019.

44 Sheldon Richman, “Reading the Second Amendment”, The Freeman 2 (February 1998), 112.

55 Ryan McMaken, Mises Institute, 22 August 2018, “Why We Can’t Ignore The ‘Militia’ Clause Of The Second Amendment”, Mises Institute, at https://mises.org/wire/why-we-cant-ignore-militia-clause-second-amendment/

66 Marvin Olasky, Fighting For Liberty And Virtue: Political and Cultural Wars in Eighteenth Century America (Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Books, A Division of Good News Publishers, 1995), 93.

77 IBID. 97-98, 102-105, 107, 109.

88 Stephen Halbrook, The Founder’s Second Amendment (Chicago, Illinois, Ivan R. Dee Publisher, 2008), 13.

99 IBID. 17-19.

1010 Halbrook, 104-105.

1111 Willard Sterne Randall, Ethan Allen: His Life And Times (New York, N.Y., W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), 8.

1212 Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, The American Revolution 1763-1789 (New York, N.Y. Oxford University Press, 2005), 272-274.

1313 Randall, 8, Halbrook, 76-79.

1414 McMaken.

1515 IBID.

1616 Stephen Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right (Albuquerque, New Mexico, University of New Mexico Press, 1984), 73-75.

1717 McMaken.

1818 Edwin Meese III, Matthew Spalding, and David Forte, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, (Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005), 139-143.

1919 Gary A. Shade, “The Right to keep and Bear Arms: The Legacy of Republicanism vs Absolutism,” at http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/papers-shade/TheRightToKeepandBearArms.PDF.

2020 Clarence B. Carson, A Basic History of the United States, Volume I: The Colonial Experience 1607-1774 (Wadley, Alabama, American Textbook Committee, 1987), 182-183.

2121 Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (Lawrence, Kansas, University Press of Kansas, 1985), ix, 60-63. See also, Gary T. Amos, Defending the Declaration (Brentwood, Tennessee, Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1989), 35-74, 117-118.

2222 Sheldon Richman, “Properly Interpreting the 2nd Amendment” Human Events (June 16, 1995), 16.

2323 IBID.

2424 Halbrook, Founder’s Second Amendment, 22.

2525 Shade.

2626 Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed, 76-77.

2727 Richman, Reading the Second Amendment, 112-113.

2828 IBID.

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Retreat Compromise, Fall Back Accommodate, Rout Surrender

Liberal media’s bouffant coxcomb chattering class bemoans the fact most women elected to Congress are Democrats thereby suggesting Republicans are the party of sexist misogynists as claimed by bitter harridan Hillary Clinton. It is true most women in Congress are Democrats1 but what the princes of pompous pontification ignore is Republican women often lose to Democrat males in general elections. It’s not Republicans voting against them. Genitalia plays no part in my voting. I’d climb over a pile of limp celery stick Republican males like Kit Bond, John McCain, Jeff Flake, John Kasich, Mitt Romney, and Pot-Peddler John Boehner any day to vote for a Phyllis Schlafly.2 Female Republican candidates are likely to be conservative, a serious enough offense, but worse, some commit the unpardonable sin according to Leftist Holy Writ; they are Christians. Against this horrific threat, the Democrat Party Machine swings into action deploying its myrmidons; Hollywood’s Big Donors, spokesboob actors and actresses, radical environmentalists (Crypto-Marxists), feminists (Crypto-Marxists), radicalized college youth (Crypto-Marxists), liberal media, and union and race voters. Blacks and Hispanics in large urban areas typically vote against one of their own if she is a Republican. And who are the misogynists?

Liberals have accused conservative males debating liberal females of “picking on the girl” if they “come on too strong”. Just ask Rick Lazio who lost to Hillary Clinton in their New York Senate race (2000).3 Conservative males now face an additional quandary. Do they “go easy” on liberal males in political debates? After all, with liberals, you never know when ‘he’ might come out a ‘she’. Lest anyone consider this an attack against Democrats on behalf of Republicans, read on.

Conservative radio talk show host Joe Pags recently interviewed Texas Republican Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick (23 September, 2019) about the latter’s support for universal background checks. Patrick proclaimed fidelity to the Second Amendment with a ‘but’…an affirmation followed by an equivocation is a negation…as was the case. Sure enough, Patrick argued in favor of total, 100%, universal background checks (UBC’s). His rationale was, since 90% of guns purchased already involve a background check, what’s the harm in extending it to the remaining 10%? In support of his proposal, Patrick claimed the people now avoiding background checks, presumably his 10%, do so because they cannot legally buy firearms. He said UBC’s would end this practice.4

Next Patrick asserted “gun-merchants” are getting rich selling firearms to persons who cannot legally buy them charging $4000 dollars for a $2000 dollar gun. Because of their ineligible status, “customers” have no choice but to pay huge markups. Patrick said UBC’s would shut these gun merchants down. In addition, he declared UBC’s would also stop and end public mass shootings because they would prevent the mentally ill from buying guns. Patrick believes suspects in recent mass shootings were legally able to buy guns even though health officials had adjudicated them to be mentally unfit. When Joe Pags (Pagliarulo) observed Second Amendment “hard-liners” might object to Patrick’s proposal, the Lieutenant Governor said the Second Amendment guarantees people the right to “bear” not “sell” their guns.5 Wow. Where to start? Trying to follow Patrick’s “logic” is like untangling twine after an explosion in a string factory.

If an unknown number of people are not subject to background checks, how does Patrick know what percentage are, let alone 90%? What is 90% of an unknown number? Is this the “new math?” He didn’t say. Private transfers between family members, friends, and acquaintances are not subject to background checks and hence not recorded. Again, how can Patrick quantify an unknown quantity? This is an important question because he grounds support for UBC’s on the claim since so many people are already subject to background checks, no one would notice if extended to the rest. Sort of like being covered with poison ivy and getting one more bump. Even if Patrick’s numbers are correct, when has the “everyone else is doing it” ever been a compelling argument? Would it be valid to argue, because government has suppressed 90% of American’s First Amendment rights, what is the harm in surrendering the rest? At the risk of being crass, would a rescuer tell the victim of a shark attack; “Well, he got most of your leg so, you might as well let him have the rest”? Imagine its pre-W.W. II Berlin. Jacob hears a harsh banging on his door. He opens it to find goons standing there dressed in black uniforms trimmed in ominous silver runes.

“Your guns, give them to us now!” barks one of the goons.

“But why, gun ownership is legal” responds Jacob.

“Ninety percent of the other Jews have handed theirs over. What could be the harm if you do too?” says the goon.

If the people surrender any portion of a right to the government, will government ever cede it back? Would not any rationale for the government to seize a portion of a right also be equally compelling with respect to it taking the rest? Ten percent of a bad idea is still a bad idea let alone ninety percent.

I wish Pags had asked Patrick how UBC’s would force ineligible persons to submit to background checks. If a person is ineligible, they are ineligible. Most criminals obtain firearms through the black and secondary markets. This includes theft and straw purchases wherein eligible individuals buy firearms on behalf of those who are not. Who are Patrick’s “gun-merchants”? If he knows, why doesn’t he alert the Texas Department of Public Safety? Those willing to break the law selling contraband, be it untaxed cigarettes, bootleg music CDs, drugs, guns, and so forth, have and always will regardless of prohibitions and legal sanctions. Experience, history, and the facts contradict Patrick’s arguments. How could the number two man in the Texas Republican Party make such an ill-conceived and dangerous argument?

Contrary to what Patrick believes, the law already prohibits individuals from buying or possessing firearms if the Courts and or mental health officials have determined them to be mentally “defective”. In addition, the law requires officials to report such adjudications to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Anyone purchasing a firearm through an FFL is required to fill out form 4473. This an affidavit swearing they do not fit in any prohibited class listed on the form (felons, domestic abusers, illegal aliens, drug users, mentally unfit, etc.). Lying on this form is a felony. The FFL then calls the FBI’s NICS who determine if the customer is eligible to purchase the firearm. How does Texas’ Lieutenant Governor not know this? If individuals, barred by law from buying firearms, resort to the black market already operating outside the law, how would they be stopped by universal background checks?

I like Joe Pags but have to ask; what is a Second Amendment “hardliner?” Are they people who believe in an individual right to keep and bear arms, that the Second Amendment means what it says, and that one cannot compromise rights endowed by G-d? ? I’m a homicide hardliner. I reject exceptions to laws prohibiting anyone from illegally taking my life. Am I extreme? Liberals use “hardliner” to cast opponents as unreasonable in order to soften up the rest of gun owners to accept compromises. With all gun laws, each compromise leads to a diminution of rights.

According to Patrick, although the Second Amendment guarantees a right to keep and bear arms, those arms are not your private property. If one does not have the right to sell his or her property, then someone else does. Who is that? Government? If the latter, your arms must belong to them. The Declaration states people have a right to life and it is a gift from G-D, not one created by man or his laws. Inherent in this right is also a right to the means to protect it. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments recognizes the individual’s absolute right to own private property and dispose of it as they see fit. Firearms are private property. Crypto-Confiscationists argue, however, because firearms possess an intrinsic potential for lethality, exceptions to Second Amendment and property rights are valid. Baseball bats, knives, ice picks, meat cleavers, hammers, hatchets, axes, arrows, staves, and so forth also possess intrinsic lethal potential. This is no facetious comparison. The FBI reports that murderers kill more people with knives, hammers, clubs, and feet each year than rifles. In 2018, 297 people were killed with rifles, 1,515 were killed by murderers using a knife, 443 were murdered by killers using hammers, clubs, and blunt objects, and 672 were killed with “fists, feet and other ‘personal weapons”.6 The law can impose harsh consequences for irresponsible behavior but government cannot abridge an individual’s 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendment rights based on potential lethality of property owned. More importantly, American government, constituted as “federal”, cannot pass “national” laws.7

James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” writing in Federalist #39 noted a national government has authority over the “individual citizens” along with “an indefinite supremacy over all persons and things.” Under this system, “supremacy is completely vested in the national legislature” that has total control over city, county, and state governments as well as all commercial and other activities within the states. However, the United States has a “federal” not a “national” government. Its jurisdiction extends only to powers delegated to it, and enumerated, by the states.8 In Federalist #45, Madison wrote; “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects such as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which the last, the power of taxation, will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concerns the lives, liberties, and properties of the people9 [emphasis mine]. Oops, the “federal” government has no Constitutional authority to establish any form of “national” background check law in the first place! It is sad those calling themselves Republicans and conservatives know so little about the Constitution.10

Lieutenant Governor Patrick predicates his failure-doomed proposal on two false notions near and dear to liberals; 1) the mere existence of firearms “causes” violent crime and 2) Individuals engaging in “hate” or “hate-speech” are dangerous to others, mentally ill, and the ones who commit public mass shootings. In the first case, the solution is simple; eliminate firearms thus ending violent crime, so they say. In the second, “red-flag” and stop mentally unstable persons from possessing arms or have police seize those they possess.

First, there is no correlation between the degree of access to firearms and the degree of evil in a person’s heart. Intent to inflict pain, great bodily injury, and murder germinate from within the individual not from proximity to implements of harm. In addition, access to firearms, including by teenagers under 18, was relatively unregulated before the 1960s. People could purchase firearms through the mail. “Federal” (sic) background checks did not exist, yet public mass shootings, were rare. Each decade of the twentieth century, until the 1970s, “had fewer than 10 mass public shootings with one in the 1950s. The rise began in the 1960s with six, followed by 13 in the 1970s. This upsurge spiked in the 1980s with 32 public mass shootings jumping to an unimaginable 42 in the 1990s even though access to firearms was increasingly regulated and controlled by the government following the Gun Control Act of 1968.10 What changed?

It began in 1947 with Everson versus Board of Education (330, 1, 18, 1947) in which the Supreme Court illegally amended the Constitution inventing the doctrine of “separation of church and state”. Through the Court’s tortured interpretation, it granted Liberal Humanism the means to drive G-d, its greatest foe, from the public square.

In the 1960s, moral relativism, the notion that all values are “relative”, that there is no good and evil or right and wrong, or moral absolutes became the dominant philosophy in America. Books like, I’m Okay, You’re Okay and The Pathology of Normalcy became wildly popular along with the philosophy of “do your own thing”. Simon and Garfunkel’s prophets wrote, “G-d is Dead” on subway walls. The humanist left, the equivalent of cultural acid, declared concepts of right and wrong to be judgements and those holding to them to be judgmental. If notions of morality are relative, “who are you to impose your values on me” became the battle cry of those destroying Judeo-Christian based Western Society. In order to force cultural and moral relativism on everyone, liberal humanists worked through “modern” left teachers and the Courts to drive G-d and Judeo-Christian based values from schools. For decades, Public Dis-Education has taught notions of morality and even truth are merely social constructs. How then could the consequences surprise anyone? Religion’s decline in the role of people’s lives, disintegration of the family, loss of respect for law and order and spike in violent crime, massive drug use, wild promiscuity, murdering unborn babies, normalizing sexual perversion, school and public mass shootings, and a rise in suicides. And all this would be solved by more background checks?

Patrick’s claim that all public mass killers were/are known to have been mentally unstable and dangerous is problematic. Most recent mass killers, with exceptions, did not exhibit a “specific profile” that would have identified them as potential murderers. An FBI Study (2013) revealed only 25% of mass murderers had previously been diagnosed with a serious mental illness. However, many of the others had displayed behavior considered hostile and anti-social.11 Laws designed to prevent violent crime before it happens by nature must be anticipatory. They rely on “red-flags” triggering a response from the courts and police. Who and on what basis determines what constitutes a red flag resulting in the police seizing a person’s arms? Therein lies the rub. Short of actions requiring incarceration in the Puzzle Factory, what constitutes behavior triggering these responses? According to the “Left”, hate speech should be a “Red-Flag” because it is de facto “proof” of mental instability and potential for violence. But what is hate speech? The Left defines it as anyone holding to Biblical morality, opposition to the invasion of the US by illegal aliens, belief in limited government, and a demand government follow the original intent of the Constitution. In short, opposition to any part of the left’s agenda.

Criminals and the mentally unstable are already prohibited from buying and possessing firearms. Universal background checks will do nothing to stop the ineligible from obtaining them. Nor will they stop criminals from buying guns on the black market. UBCs serve two purposes. First, a misguided attempt to buy off Confiscationists through compromise. Second, when UBC’s fail in their intended goal, Liberals will argue it’s because gun laws didn’t go far enough and what is needed is total gun registration. This too will fail and again the Left will say it’s because “We didn’t go far enough”. Guess what they’ll call for next. Support no sell-outs regardless of political party.

Beauty of the 2nd Amendment

11 Political Parity, “Where Women Win: Closing The Gap In Congress,” at https://www.politicalparity.org/research/where-women-win/

22 Phyllis Schlafly was a giant in the conservative movement. She led the battle against “me-too” males in the Republican Party, fought the radical feminist and homosexual movement, and worked to expose leftwing bias in schools. The Left, in conjunction were their useful idiots in the liberal media, pop-culture, and public diss-education, have done all in their power to flush her down Orwell’s Memory Hole.

33 Cheryl K. Chumley, “Hillary Clinton Gets Pity Party, For Rick Lazio, But Elaine Chao? Left to Fend…” The Washington Times at https://washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/27/hillary-clinton-gets-bully-card-rick-lazio-elaine/

44 Joe Pags Show, 980 Am KMBC, 23 September, 2019.

55 IBID.

66 Law Enforcement Staff, “FBI: More People Killed With Knives, Hammers, Clubs, And Even Feet Than Rifles, In 2018,” October 2, 2019 at https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/fbi-more-people-killed-with-knives-hammers-clubs-and-even-feet-than-rifles-in-2018/.

77 Teaching Government for years, I never encountered a student who knew the difference between a federal and national government or why it even mattered. Using primary sources, I addressed this ignorance for which I was summarily punished by Administration and colleagues in the SocialIST Studies Department.

88 Clinton Rossiter, Editor, The Federalist Papers (New York, N.Y., A Mentor Book from the New American Library, 1961), 244-245.

99 IBID. 292-293

1010 I explained the difference and significance between a “national” and “federal” government to self-avowed conservatives for years. All listened, few cared. To one in particular stocking up on supplies because Constitutional abandonment will lead to collapse, I supplied primary source and scholarly articles. He refused to read them and called me, and those like me, “deranged a**holes.”

1010 Dennis Prager, “Why So Many Mass Shootings? Ask The Right Questions And You Might Find Out,” June 4, 2019, Rear Clear Politics, at https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/04/why-so_many_mass_shootings_ask_the_right_questions_and_you_might_find_out_140486.html.

1111 Lisa Dunn, “Fact Checking 6 Myths About The Perpetrators Of Mass Shootings,” Guns And America, August 6, 2019, KERA NEWS at https://www.keranews.org/post/fact-checking-6-myths-about-perpetrators-mass-shootings/.

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Magazines are guns… now

Here we ago again, compliments of the “pro-2A Trump” administration.

I noted this issue 8 months ago: A Texas state judge let a suit go forward against Academy Sports & Outdoors, for selling a long gun to an out-of-state resident (specifically: the Sutherland Springs chumbucket). The legal theory was that the sale should not have proceeded because “high capacity” (i.e.- standard) magazines are banned in the asshole’s home state of Colorado, and 18 U.S. Code § 922(a)(3) bans the interstate sale of a firearm if it isn’t lawful in both states. (Never mind that the shooter was a prohibited person whom no one bothered reporting to NICS.)

The problem with that is that magazines are not firearms. The ATF has said so repeatedly. Therefore, 18 U.S. Code § 922 doesn’t apply.

Until now. Welcome to the wonderful world of feds redefining words… again.

Trump administration: Academy Sports liable for selling gun to Sutherland Springs shooter
Now, Trump administration lawyers are trying to shift some of the attention onto Academy Sports + Outdoors, writing in a motion filed Tuesday that the retailer is liable for the massacre because the shooter purchased his gun and high-capacity magazine at one of its stores.

[chumbucket] showed a Colorado license but carried out the purchase in Texas. High-capacity magazines are illegal in Colorado.

Same argument, but now it’s the federal government, rather than plaintiffs, doing the redefinition.

How Orwellian. We have always been at war with East Asia. Magazines were always firearms.

Trump is the most anti-2A President in decades, since 1994 at least. And he has successfully imposed more restrictions than any other President, Republican or Democrat, in his two and a half years in office.

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Surrender Monkey Hutchison

I wish Ammoland land would stop giving presumed-Bloomberg-mole Harold Hutchison virtual ink, but I suppose his garbage does drive traffic as outraged pro-rights people try to counter his appeasement cries.

The Zelman Partisans will not join him: No compromise. No surrender.

How Second Amendment Commissars Make it Easy for Bloomberg to Take Our Rights
Second Amendment supporters face one big difficulty when trying to defend their rights. It comes from someone who shares the same objectives, but who seems to think “no compromise” means not giving an inch – even rhetorically, when a different technique might be better. They act as self-appointed commissars, and much of their time and energy is spent on denouncing Second Amendment supporters for being insufficiently pro-Second Amendment.

You’re calling us Soviet commissars, you little [expurgated]? Do you have the slightest idea how [expurgated] offensive that is? Or how [expurgated] insane it is to consider someone supporting human/civil rights to be the same as a rights-violating Thought Police boss for the authoritarian state?

TZP has offered Hutchison the opportunity to comment here before. We’ll do it again, with this challenge:

Name one “compromise” that gave something to the pro-human/civil rights side.

Should he answer, I expect he’ll cite FOPA, in which we gave up machineguns (and bump-fire stocks, and soon semi-autos due to yet another “compromise” by his beloved Vichy NRA), and received a few promises that the evil SOBs would stop a short list of infringements…  which they immediately ignored.

Safe passage? Ask the folks NY and NJ are still busting. Ask me why I had to disassemble my firearms, zip tie the individual parts, lock them in separate cases, and chain the cases down, just to feel reasonably safe from the police when I drove through Massachusetts.

No firearms databasing? Ask FFLs who watch the ATF copy 4473s for mass scanning? The ATF brags on that one.

Victim-disarmers compromising with each other (bans with grandfathering, for example) aren’t a compromise with us either.

Come on, Harold. Name the compromise. Email us, and we’ll update this post. Or leave a comment below.

 

 

 

 

 

We’re waiting.

 

 

-crickets-

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Amy Swearer is riding her “red flag” hobby horse again

I’ve previously observed that, for a “Senior Legal Policy Analyst,” Ms. Swearer seems to have a limited grasp of legal issues; particularly “red flag” laws. Or pretends so.

Once again, she is pushing “properly crafted” “red flag” laws.

In a nation with a constitution with a Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendment, and where Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U.S. 312 (1921) yielded a SCOTUS decision that due process must take place before a taking, before an abrogation of constitutionally protected rights, there is no such thing as a properly crafted “red flag” law.

The sort of laws Swearer describes as good “red flag” laws, are not. She describes the existing, standard protective order: accuser presents real evidence, hearing is held in which the accused — who must be informed — can have legal representation and present his defense, and the judge rules. If the ruling is in favor of the accuser, now firearms may be taken.

By deliberate intent, “red flag” laws:

  • Allow no-due process ex parte proceedings in which the accused’s first warning is when the police arrive to SWAT him.
  • Far from facing his accuser, it is unlawful for anyone to tell the accused who did it to him until his eventual hearing.
  • Lower the standard of evidence to the level of I feel that something might happen sometime, but I can’t prove it or I’d file a police report so they could get an arrest warrant.
  • When a ex post facto hearing is eventually held (laws vary from two weeks to a month after the seizure of property), the burden of proof is shifted to the accused. He must prove his innocence of something that hasn’t happened and for which there may have been no credible evidence was going to… because if there was, he could have been arrested already.

That is what makes a “red flag” law: No due process, gossip as evidence, and forcing the accused to prove his innocence. Anything else is a standard, existing protection order process.

Those elements are bad enough. The practical implementation of the laws is worse. In no “red flag” law I have reviewed* is there any requirement to take the allegedly “dangerous” person into custody; neither for “public safety” nor for a mental health evaluation. Florida’s perfunctory nod to that is a requirement that law enforcement merely inform the accuser if they are planning to — eventually — Baker Act the accused.

The accused is so dangerous that he must be SWATted on no notice and forcibly disarmed, but so safe he can be left on the loose to obtain other weapons?

Florida and Colorado allow the initial “hearing,” in which the accuser’s application is considered, to be conducted telephonically. Even an accused murderer deemed too dangerous to transport from jail to courthouse gets a video hearing so the judge can consider little things like the defendant’s demeanor and credibility as demonstrated by gestures, body language, and facial expressions.

The federal “encourage the states to SWAT innocent people” bill includes a pretend protection in the form of a felony perjury charge for a false report. But how does a prosecutor prove that the accuser didn’t really “feel” that “something” “might” happen “sometime”?

“I turned out to be wrong, Your Honor, but I honestly ‘felt’ that at the time.”

So why are people pushing for “red flag” laws? Why does Swearer think they’re so great? Do they honestly believe that they will reduce gun violence, and that makes the constitutional shredding worth it?

Florida passed its “red flag” law in March 2018. They are reportedly flagging an average of five people per day. 2019 data isn’t in yet, but an analysis of 2018 homicide, firearms-related homicide, and suicide numbers strongly suggests otherwise: post-red flag, homicides went up; firearms-related homicides went up; and suicides increased dramatically.

The suicide statistics — suicide rate held steady at 14.1/100K for two years, then suddenly jumped to 15.3/100K post-passage — suggest the law is making that worse. Imagine a borderline suicidal person suddenly betrayed by an anonymous accusation from a supposed loved one, his property stolen without a chance to defend himself; perhaps he’ll cross that borderline now, from potential to successful suicide. Would a depressed person choose not to seek professional help lest a well-meaning busybody “help” him by violating his human/civil rights?

“Red flag” laws are clearly unconstitutional. Far from helping, they may be aggravating the situation.

Protection order procedures with due process already exist in every state. Every state already has a Baker Act equivalent law to take at-risk people into custody for evaluation. “Red flag” laws are not needed… for the advertised purpose.

Which begs the rhetorical question of, “Why push for them?” In some cases, it appears to be ignorance of existing laws. That should not be the case for a “senior legal analyst.”

But consider the backlash to Presidential candidates suggesting the use of overwhelming military force against civilians to confiscate firearms in bulk (and how far we fallen when credible candidates could even think of such a thing). They cannot do it. It is impossible. That is why every “assault weapon” ban proposed prior to the current psychotic Congress grandfathered existing arms; even Feinstein understood the problems of kicking millions of doors because the occupants are well-armed.

If you go at it piecemeal, one firearm owner at a time, you can “boil the frog.” Pass a “red flag” law, use pretend “evidence” against someone who has done nothing, give him the semblance of a day in court, and you can sneak up on everyone. And if you happen to round up an occasional person who really was at risk, the people-controlling politicians and media will be happy to put him on display as the posterboy for wonderful ERPOs. “See? It works! Never mind that he was one in a few thousand.”

And you don’t even need expansive “assault weapon” definitions, because you’re taking everything anyway.


* I freely admit that I have not analyzed every law that has been passed, nor have I analyzed the results of those laws as I did with Florida. I lack the resources to do that. Unlike a “senior legal analyst” funded by a ritzy foundation with tens of millions of dollars to throw around, I do what little I can on my own time and dime. As is, I have to add airtime to my 4.5 year-old dumb flip-fone a bit at a time as I can scrape up the money, and I sold my 23 year-old truck a few months ago. If you would like to see more, and more in-depth, analyses feel free to hit my tip jar below.

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Voter Blocs

Let me tell you a story. Back in the 1990s, I was a sworn peace officer. I worked in a close security prison in Georgia.

One night while I was on duty, several inmates were in a dayroom in H Unit watching the news on television. The topic was gun control; I think the specific subject was the Brady Bill, but I don’t recall exactly when this happened, so it might have been the federal “assault weapon” ban under discussion. But the inmates approved.

They began talking amonsgt themselves. I don’t think any of them realized I’d entered the room until the discussion was well involved.

After two and a half decades, I can’t remember exact quotes. But the consensus was

  • Gun control is great because people we rob are more likely to be unarmed.
  • Armed victims are scary; more so than than dogs, for burglars.
  • We pick different victims if we think one might be armed.
  • It won’t affect us because we can always get guns anyway.

In support of the last one, I recall one inmate (whom I believe was in for armed robbery, assault, and felon in possession of a firearm) declared he’d have a gun within hours of being released from prison. About then, they appeared to notice me; the discussion ended, and the inmates dispersed back to the barracks area.

Please note that the party pushing hardest for victim disarmament is the same demanding voting rights restoration for incarcerated felons.

There’s a reason that scumbags like Bobby Francis “Beta” O’Rourke (himself arrested for burglary, though the university declined to press charges) push for laws that would only apply to honest people.

They know who they really see as their constituency. Gun control is OSHA for violent criminals.

[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited, and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]

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Walmart, Merchant of Death

For those that haven’t heard yet, retail giant Walmart has decided that to keep the forces of evil at bay (the anti-gun harpies and their ilk) the best thing they could do would be cave into the pressure. Because their customers who shop at Walmart looking for value on things they use in their daily lives are not nearly as important as getting the harpies to quit and being labeled as “socially responsible”. Mind you, the harpies are not nearly as large a segment of the population as the people that quietly go about their business shopping at Walmart, I don’t believe.

Walmart to stop selling handgun ammunition. Retailer will also ask customers to stop openly carrying firearms

Walmart’s stance has encouraged others to follow in their ground breaking foot steps.

Walgreens and CVS ask customers not to openly carry guns in their stores

Kroger requests customers stop openly carrying guns in stores

Open carrying at Kroger

Thank you Oleg Volk

This has lead a buddy of mine of Facebook to point out a few things. Said buddy is staunch Second Amendment supporter, so his views may be subtle. Thanks Bill for the lines.

My breakup with Walmart will not be easy. I have two outstanding items at the pharmacy that have to be handled there, but then I’ll transfer the prescriptions elsewhere. I’m serious about this.

I do owe him and his buddies one, they helped me figure out how to get a screw out of the laser sights on my .380 and only chided me a tiny bit for carrying that small a gun at times. Good lads all! But being a helpful friend, I told him about Israel Pharmacy. I’ve set 3 people up with accounts there and they’ve all been pleased and saved money, and no they aren’t paying me.

IsraelPharm

So regarding my buddy’s salient points, let’s examine the death and destruction Walmart unleashes on a daily basis on the unsuspecting communities they invade. And if you are a small Mom and Pop shop, I suspect you would agree with the characterization of Walmart as being an invasive species that puts small businesses out of business and then quits carrying the necessary items.

This one is startling. A study by Johns Hopkins found that 250,000 Americans are killed by medical errors each year. That’s 17 times the number killed by guns. Yet Walmart has a pharmacy in each store.

But my friend wasn’t done with his observations.

In 2018, 40,000 people died in automobile crashes in the U.S., yet Walmart still sells the vital parts and ammunition to keep these machines of carnage operating.

And

In 2014, nearly 5000 people died in bathtub drownings in the U.S., yet with few exceptions, every home still contains at least one of these known instruments of death. In fact, the government requires them!

My gracious! The inhumanity! Think of the bathtub bumpstocks Walmart sells! High capacity bottles of bubble bath, huge bags of scented Epson salts, bath scrubbies in multiple colors and that doesn’t count the dangerous chemicals Walmart sells to clean aforementioned bathtub of death! And they sell Tide Pods!

In 2017 there were nearly a thousand fatal bicycle accidents, yet Walmart still sells these machines of death. Walmart has blood on their hands.

I can hear it now, “Walmart peddler of death”. Yes, it’s a pun. Yes, it’s a bad one.

Hey Walmart. Stop selling beer, liquor, and wine.

An estimated 88,0008 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. The first is tobacco, and the second is poor diet and physical inactivity.

No mention of guns?

But let’s go back to the “groundbreaking” stance bit. It’s not really you know. And if Walmart quits selling ammunition you can just go to K-Mart and buy it. Oh, wait. Kmart Kills Ammunition Sales

Maybe not.

Company officials made the announcement Thursday following meetings that included company executives, a prominent gun-control advocate and victims of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting.

Kmart stores have not carried handguns since the 1970s, but still sell hunting rifles and other long guns. For some time, the Troy, Mich.-based company has been under pressure from gun-control advocates to stop selling firearms.

In November 1999, talk show host Rosie O’Donnell resigned as the company’s celebrity spokeswoman because of her strong support of gun control.

And in December 1999 the company withdrew an application for a license to sell rifles and shotguns at a new store in New York after protests by an anti-gun group.

Company spokeswoman Julie Fracker said the sale of firearms and ammunition had been under review as part of a merchandising strategy by the company’s new executive team for some time.

“Obviously we consider ourselves a socially conscious business, but this was a business decision made in the best interests of the company,” she said.

Kmart, Sears store closings: More locations to shutter by end of 2019

And about Rosie resigning as spokeswoman? Well, she’s important you see, you aren’t. If you aren’t rich enough to afford professional body guards, well then your life isn’t worth preserving. She of course can afford armed bodyguards, and has them. #Elitist #Hypocrisy

So, maybe go to Dick’s Sporting Goods? Dick’s Sporting Goods worries that sales could drop in wake of change in gun policy Oh, don’t be silly! Everyone knows taking a strong “social justice” stance will pay off. Who cares about those mouth breathing gun owners, right?

The latest balance sheet data shows that DICK’S Sporting Goods had liabilities of US$1.93b due within a year, and liabilities of US$3.22b falling due after that. On the other hand, it had cash of US$116.7m and US$68.5m worth of receivables due within a year. So its liabilities total US$4.96b more than the combination of its cash and short-term receivables.

This deficit casts a shadow over the US$3.08b company, like a colossus towering over mere mortals. So we definitely think shareholders need to watch this one closely. At the end of the day, DICK’S Sporting Goods would probably need a major re-capitalization if its creditors were to demand repayment.

DICK’S Sporting Goods’s net debt is only 0.48 times its EBITDA. And its EBIT easily covers its interest expense, being 32.4 times the size. So you could argue it is no more threatened by its debt than an elephant is by a mouse. But the bad news is that DICK’S Sporting Goods has seen its EBIT plunge 13% in the last twelve months. We think hat kind of performance, if repeated frequently, could well lead to difficulties for the stock. There’s no doubt that we learn most about debt from the balance sheet. But it is future earnings, more than anything, that will determine DICK’S Sporting Goods’s ability to maintain a healthy balance sheet going forward.

Corporate Gun Control Fail: Dick’s May Have to Close 35 Stores Across 18 States #DontBeDicks

Who cares about those mouth breathing gun owners? Oh, I dunno, the shareholders? If I were a shareholder and the CEO started making monetary decisions based on “social justice” knee jerks rather than responding to customers I think I would lead the charge to oust them. That’s my money you’re playing with. I invested in a company, not a high school experiment with a popularity contest.

This has lead to the popular Babylon Bee news site (satire) breaking the news on two more new Walmart policies

In addition to asking them to refrain from open carry, Walmart Asks Customers To Stop Shopping In Sleepwear, Even In States Where It’s Legal

And

Walmart Discontinues Auto Part Sales To Prevent Car Accidents

BENTONVILLE, AR—In a bold move intended to curb the thousands of deaths from vehicles each and every day, Walmart has decided to stop selling auto parts, sources confirmed Tuesday.

According to shocking reports, people have purchased car parts at Walmart and then those cars have been involved in accidents, proving a direct correlation between selling auto parts and causing deaths.

“We can no longer be complicit in an industry that kills over 3,000 people a day,” said a spokesperson for Walmart. “Every time we sell a muffler, steering wheel cover, or flame decal, we are potentially causing the death of a person, and we cannot support that any longer.”

But hey, while perusing the Bee’s homepage, I did get a bit of good news!

‘When I Am President, I Will Take Away Your Guns,’ Says Man Who Will Never Be President

U.S.—Beto O’Rourke promised to take away everybody’s guns when he is president, though sources have confirmed that O’Rourke will never even get close to being the president.

“Man, I can’t wait to see how that presidential pen feels signing an unconstitutional executive order,” he added wistfully, though he will never know how that feels.

At publishing times, O’Rourke’s pro-gun control comments had caused his number of supporters to get cut in half, leaving him with just one.

That’s the thing about all this modern incarnation of “social justice”. In placating the harpies, and playing to the #FakeNews cameras you cause harm to the people you are suppose to be working for, shareholders or constituents. Not to mention the people that work for you. They used to be called “employees with families” till their jobs went away because that store had to be closed. If you’ve enhanced your ego or reputation at the expense of someone you’ve betrayed, it seems there could be fallout. I hope it falls hard on you.

I bet there might be a local gun shop with knowledgeable people around. They may not mix paint for you, but I bet the can make some sensible gun related recommendations should you ask.

You could also take up a new hobby, reloading anyone?

Shop your local gun shops
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The Rebbe Had a Gun!

Even the Rebbe Rashab carried a gun.

He could have been Red Flagged, subjected to a Mental Health Database, or blocked by a Universal Background Check.

All of these things, and more, would have been nice and legal under his Government.

Duly Processed, too.

The Rebbe Rashab

Here is a letter recently submitted to some Pro-Second-Amendment folks in the Jewish community:

B”H

Dear Sirs, and Rabbi,

Reportedly, Mrs. Kushner (and, by implication, her husband) are the point-persons which President Trump has tasked with coordination with the Anti-2A forces in Congress.

I believe a strong reach-out, from competent rabbinic authority,representing Torah Jewry on this issue is in order. Furthermore, it appears to be very time critical

Were things to proceed as they are trending, Individual Liberty will suffer, and it will by all accounts be seen as being done at the behest of prominent, reputedly observant, Jews.

A very dangerous combination, indeed.

I would suggest skipping the normal Government protocol (spelled B-A-R-R-I-E-R) approach, and instead start by leaving a message for them through Rabbi Levi Shemtov, of American Friends of Lubavitch, in Washington D.C. (around the corner from the Kushner Home).

Their number is (202) 332-5600.

Thank You

 

“America iz nisht anderish…”

 

 

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