Kavanaugh responded by noting that “semiautomatic handguns and semiautomatic rifles are widely possessed in the United States” and that “there are millions and millions and millions of semiautomatic rifles that are possessed.”
“You’re saying the numbers determine common use?” Feinstein replied. “Common use is an activity. It’s not common storage or possession, it’s use. So what you said is that these weapons are commonly used. They’re not.”
“They’re widely possessed in the United States, senator,” Kavanaugh replied. “And they are, they are used and possessed.”
That’s mildly amusing, since Feinstein has spent decades insisting that “assault weapons” must be banned because they areso commonly used.
“And the numbers continue to grow. Between 1988 and 1997, 125 were killed in 18 mass shootings. The next decade, 1998 to 2007, 171 were killed in 21 mass shootings. And over the last 10 years, 2008 to 2017, 437 were killed in 50 mass shootings.
“That’s 89 mass shootings in the last 30 years that snuffed out the lives of more than 700 people. Additionally, many police officers killed in the line of duty are killed by assault weapons, including 1 in 5 officers killed in 2014.
But now she admits that semiautomatic firearms are not so commonly used in crime. And that’s true, looking at the firearms used in crime as a percentage of all guns, “crime guns” are perhaps just 0.0307%. The rest are used for lawful purposes like defense, hunting, target-shooting, or simply collecting.
Clearly there’s no need for a ban of devices so rarely used criminally. Thanks for noting that, Senator Feinstein.
For those unsure why “common use” is a big deal (none of my regular readers, I’m sure), it’s from the 1939 SCOTUS decision in MILLER.
“The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. “A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline.” And further, that ordinarily, when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.“
Feinstein knows that and is trying to get around it. Too bad she didn’t read the 2008 HELLER decision
“(f) None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes. Pp. 47–54. ”
“3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense.“
And
“The traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing arms “in common use at the time” for lawful purposes like self-defense. “In the colonial and revolutionary war era, [small-arms] weapons used by militiamen and weapons used in defense of person and home were one and the same.” “
Keep reading
Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights, 27 banning from the home “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,” 478 F. 3d, at 400, would fail constitutional muster.”
The Supreme Court made it rather clear that common possession for lawful purpose is common use, Constitutionally speaking, Senator.
So there we have it, by Feinstein’s admission, semiautomatic firearms are rarely used in crime (as a percentage of firearms), but they are protected by the Second Amendment as interpreted bt the Supreme Court. There’s no reason to ban them, and trying would violate the Constitution. Case closed.
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I’ve been watching all the memes and the news about some spoiled overpaid, loser becoming a model for what I feel is an over-rated shoe. If that’s what passes for an athlete and man of valor these days we’ve sunk quite a bit.
Let’s have a little look at history, shall we? First up Zimbabwe. At one time known as the Jewel of Africa for it’s prosperity. It is now known as yet another country that depends on aide to survive. When the country declared independence from Britain in 1965 the country changed from Southern Rhodesia to Rhodesia. Mugabe became Prime Minister in February of 1980, and opposition erupted.
A) The Fifth Brigade, a North Korean-trained elite unit that reported directly to the Zimbabwean Prime Minister,entered Matabeleland and massacred thousands of civilians accused of supporting “dissidents”.
Estimates for the number of deaths during the five-year Gukurahundi campaign ranged from 3,750 to 80,000. Thousands of others were tortured in military internment camps. The campaign officially ended in 1987 after Nkomo and Mugabe reached a unity agreement that merged their respective parties, creating the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF).
….
Well, off to quite a start for a new “democratic” government with a policy of enfranchisement. So they doubled down.
Land redistribution re-emerged as the main issue for the ZANU-PF government around 1997. Despite the existence of a “willing-buyer-willing-seller” land reform programme since the 1980s, the minority white Zimbabwean population of around 0.6% continued to hold 70% of the country’s most fertile agricultural land.
B) In 2000, the government pressed ahead with its Fast Track Land Reform programme, a policy involving compulsory land acquisition aimed at redistributing land from the minority white population to the majority black population. Confiscations of white farmland, continuous droughts, and a serious drop in external finance and other supports led to a sharp decline in agricultural exports, which were traditionally the country’s leading export-producing sector. Some 58,000 independent black farmers have since experienced limited success in reviving the gutted cash crop sectors through efforts on a smaller scale.
President Mugabe and the ZANU-PF party leadership found themselves beset by a wide range of international sanctions.In 2002, the nation was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations due to the reckless farm seizures and blatant election tampering.The following year, Zimbabwean officials voluntarily terminated its Commonwealth membership.
And how did that turn out? Did it bring prosperity and peace to the country at long last? Um, not so much.
Not that Mugabe will shed tears for Matabeleland any more than he did in the 1980s when he unleashed the notorious 5th Brigade in a genocidal campaign against them. It is thought that these North Korean-trained butchers murdered at least 20,000 Matabele in their so-called ‘gukurahundi’ (the rain that washes away the chaff).
These were not the so-called ‘dissidents’ opposing Mugabe’s one-party monstrosity. They were for the most part ordinary villagers scratching a living in the bundu.
The 5th Brigade gained an horrific reputation for committing atrocities — slashing open the wombs of young pregnant girls, forcing villagers to dig their own graves and then shooting them in them; a mother was forced to eat her own child.
A favourite torment especially for village headmen was to wrap them in plastic bags and set fire to them. I met one such who had survived; he was horribly disfigured with the black pigment burned away from his skin.
Moving on to B)
This time it’s Zimbabwe, so before reaching for the cheque-book, it is wise to reflect on why these people are starving. Mugabe says it is because of drought.
It is not. It is entirely self-inflicted. Zimbabwe has had famine conditions in 2001 (the year farm seizures began), 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008. 2014, 2015 and now! Some drought!
Prior to the seizure of white-owned farms from 2001, Zimbabwe produced 3 million tons of maize (at least those farmers did), almost exactly twice its own needs. This year it is expected to be 600,000 tons, only a third of the quantity needed to feed itself. Zimbabwe has gone from being the breadbasket of Southern Africa to its basket case. Only about 100 white farmers remain from the original 5,000.
And it is not as if the seized land is being farmed. The stated intention was to redistribute the land to former terrorists. Instead, much of it was allocated to Mugabe’s cronies and has lain fallow ever since.
As well as maize, these farmers produced beef of the highest quality, especially from pedigree Herefords. Now it is all gone. The breeding animals have all been slaughtered for nyama (meat) despite their otherwise high value as pedigree breeding stock.
The entire livestock industry has been vandalised. The population of Matabeleland has fallen drastically through malnutrition, Aids, and emigration.
The title of the article? Zimbabwe’s socialist famine. And yet, the ignorant keep reaching for socialism.
When Mafu arrived in Makokoba, Bulawayo was still a prosperous city dominated by the white-owned businesses and farms that made Zimbabwe one of Africa’s richest regions. Two years ago, as President Mugabe’s land grab destroyed the economy, Mafu lost his job as a cleaner.
“When the Europeans were here, we could cope,” he said. “I had money to buy food and a clinic handed out free drugs. Now we have no jobs, no income, inflation is 1,000 per cent and when we go to hospital they ask us for money. If we have none, we are turned away.”
So it’s not like this has never happened, and did anything much happen? Nope, just aide money. Did the UN send peacekeepers? Monitors? Anything?
South Africa
So, the current situation in South Africa. Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans noun for “farmer”. And being a Boer, farmer is South Africa is now the most dangerous profession in the world. Yes, move over Deadliest Catch.
There have been dozens of recorded farm murders so far in 2017, an average of one farm attack per day, according to South African media reports.
White South African farmers are between two and three times more likely to be murdered than even South African police officers.
They are also more likely to be killed than U.S. troops serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The international average murder rate is 7 per 100,000, he noted. “In the case of mainly white farmers in South Africa, the figure is a staggering 133 per 100,000,”
OY.
The brutality of these attacks is truly horrifying. People are beaten to death, tortured with blow torches, electric drills, dragged behind vehicles, stabbed, raped and the list goes on. But it doesn’t stop with people, from Twitter.
In Magaliesberg, #SouthAfrica, these so called people killed a farmer’s stock yesterday by cutting pieces of flesh from the cattle while they are alive. I get that it is OK to hurt white farmers, but are liberals OK with the animal abuse too, just because the owner is white???
I wish I hadn’t clicked on “more”. It was a picture. I really wish I hadn’t. That of course, is far from the only incident. Torturing and killing animals and the farm families is seen as a way to “nudge” them off the land.
And why would people think they can get away with such heinous crimes? Well, how about because their government is calling for them. From a 2017 article:
“Bury them alive.” ~~Minister of Higher Education Mduduzi Manana
“Shoot the Farmer, Kill the Boer” is a song, sung by both Julius Malema, then President of the African National Congress Youth League and then South African President, Jacob Zuma.
“People of South Africa, where you see a beautiful land, take it, it belongs to you,”~~ Julius Malema
“We are not calling for the slaughter of white people‚ at least for now,”~~ Julius Malema
The goal is to drive the farmers off the land, and give it to those the African National Congress decides they want to have it. This is very much communism, and they make no bones about it. The result is you have horrific murders taking place probably daily but the South African Police stopped releasing data on the race of the crime victims in 2007. They also quit caring about the murdered farmers. Showing up at a murder scene was five police cars who thought the farmer had shot intruders. When they found out the intruders had murdered the white farmer, they turned around and left. In fact crimes against the farmers including the murders of the farmers are rarely solved.
But with all the misplaced confidence of a communist, Jacob Zuma blathered
Speaking in Parliament in early March, Zuma called for “black parties” to unite to change the Constitution so that white-owned farms could be taken without compensation to be redistributed.
“We need to take bold steps that will transform our economy, including land ownership, very fast,” Zuma said.
“We are busy amending [laws] to enable faster land reform, including land expropriation without compensation as provided for in the constitution,” he added.
He has all the smarts of a community organizer. Yeah, they’re going to fundamentally transform South Africa. And since the communists in charge have no knowledge of farming they don’t know that you don’t just kill people off, shove them off or steal their land and replace them with people that know nothing about farming and still get food. According to Ilanna Mercer 70% of the land seized by the African National Congress is lying fallow. She also has an excellent column on the tactics being used by state sponsored killers.
Why do I say state sponsored? Because
New evidence that has emerged this year also suggests state sponsorship of the attacks, according to South African security sources.
In a series of security camera images captured by farmers in farm attacks and seen by WND, a group of black attackers carry advanced technological equipment such as cell-phone signal jammers, presumably to ensure that the farmers cannot call for help.
Because common criminals and burglars rarely have the means or the knowledge to purchase or operate such systems, some analysts speculated that rogue members of the South African military may have provided them.
Maybe the farmers should form groups for like mutual defense? Yeah,,,,,they did that.
Authorities also deliberately dismantled the “commando” self-defense units that once effectively provided security for rural areas.
Officials have also made it increasingly difficult for citizens to be armed for self-defense.
On June 7th the Constitutional Court in South Africa, overruled a lower court’s decision that parts of South Africa’s gun laws were unconstitutional. The ruling will force hundreds of thousands of gun owners who didn’t renew their permits to turn in their firearms. There’s no provision for appeal or legitimate reasons for delay, such as hospitalization or death.
Compensation is $37 for a pistol, $75 for a rifle, maximum.
Registration, confiscation, communist/socialist government leads to a really bad outcome for some segment of the population. A very old and seen too often story. Genocide Watch currently has the situation in South Africa at 6 out of a scale of 10. Genocide Watch.
Many of those in the corrupt government claim it’s a response to the land being “stolen” from the original inhabitants. Which is pretty much baloney. In the article on the Boers the history states Dutch immigrants first arrived to the practically uninhabited Western Cape of South Africa in 1652. But that’s how communism works, some work hard to build up the land, a business, their families and then someone who knows nothing, and has done nothing is allowed to take it. And in South Africa? It’s done with extreme brutality. Do they think companies are going to be willing to invest money in South Africa knowing that their assets could be seized at anytime by the equality minded communists? They are indeed on the same path as Zimbabwe and Venezuela. I for one, do not want to see American tax dollars going to bail them out. This is what they chose.
When America was accepting all the “refugees” from countries that could give us no information on who was coming in, we never looked at importing the hardworking Boers?
Imports
I don’t really watch TV stations like cnn or msnbc #FakeNews, I have a limit as to how much I will knowingly allow people to lie to me. Thirty seconds on either station goes over the mark. But in the effort to be pretty sure I did a quick search on their websites. The search terms are in the address bars. These atrocities are not being covered at the #MSM #FakeNews stations. Nor should they count on much help from the UN. The UN is very busy with what it considers real human rights problems. This has been going on, and yet, List of United Nations resolutions concerning Israel. Well, that certainly puts things in perspective doesn’t it?
“One famous case that raises — but does not resolve — the difficult issues here is The Progressive case from the late 1970s,” said Robert WT Martin, a Sidney Wertimer professor of government at Hamilton. “At issue was the proposed publication of a possible design for a hydrogen bomb. In this instance, a temporary injunction against publication was successfully maintained by the judge for many months. During that time, however, another publication printed information about another design and the government eventually dropped the case (and the original article was published).
The Morland article made it into the wild, so the government dropped the case as being moot. DefDist’s files are also in the wild. I have them myself, and have for years.
And I’ll note that in the 39 years since the article was published, not single nuclear weapon has been detonated by a nongovernmental entity anywhere on the planet. Likewise, No crime committed with a plastic Liberator has been reported.
Where the cases differ is this: to the best of my knowledge, the first working nuclear weapon of any type was detonated just 73 years ago. Every nuclear weapon detonated has been a major government project.
But people have been making firearms themselves for nearly a thousand years. Commercial mass production is a rather recent development.
Successful firearms have been made from fairly simple castings, drilled out bar stock, common pipe, manually machined castings, CNC machined castings, and metal-powder deposition. That was never much of a problem.
Suddenly someone has come up with a plastic gun (except that it actually requires metal parts to function, and incorporates even more metal to comply with the Undetectable Firearms Act), which doesn’t work well, is under-powered when it does work, and has a disconcerting tendency to explode. It’s too bulky and awkward to conceal worth a darn. It’s a single shot (even when it doesn’t explode). It’s inaccurate.
And suddenly homemade guns will cause the nuclear end of civilization as we know it.
[Lt. Bryan Coromato, public information officer for the Utica Police Department], who would like to see the guns regulated, noted that the 3D guns are on the newer side and he is not well versed on the subject
One, don’t spout off on the subject when you know nothing about it. Two, All guns are regulated, whether they come from an FFL’s factory, are assembled from plumbing supplies, or are 3D-printed. See above about people making guns for the better part of a millennium.
So, Lieutenant, why does this make you pee your pants, and not this?
By the way, Mr. Harris:
According to published reports, Wilson already has stated he would ignore the judge’s order and said he has begun taking orders.
Wrong. Wilson said he would comply with the order, which specifically allows direct distribution within the United States.
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In July, I announced the 3D AR Challenge in response to idiots like CA AG Becerra, and CNN’s Avlon, who pretend to believe that people are printing all-plastic, “undetectable” (and probably “fully semi-automatic”) AR-15.
OK; Becerra’s from California; he might really believe that.
The challenge: 3D-print a fully-functional, plastic AR-15, and successfully demonstrate it. The first person to do so will win 10 rounds of equally functional, 100% plastic 3D-printed .223 Remington ammunition.
The deadline was August 31.
I regret to inform you that not a single entry was received. I don’t understand; all the victim-disarming rights violators swore this was a thing.[/sarc]
On the bright side, I’m hoping this meant no easily propagandized idiot tried making one and injured or killed himself.
Or maybe someone did, and that’s why they were unable to contact me to enter. Think of it as evolution in action.*
At any rate, Becerra e al, were and are full of… s something other than facts.
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Excellent idea. I love it when victim disarmers make that comparison.
Felons and those adjudicated mental deficient could lawfully own guns. No more ex post facto losing your rights because of a decades-old misdemeanor. Fingerprints and criminal background checks would be gone. Minors could buy guns. 16 year-olds could get CCW licenses. You wouldn’t need a license or insurance so long as you didn’t fire your gun in the street. “Tank capacity” magazine limits would be a thing of the past. NFA restrictions eliminated (though, like racing stock cars, they probably would not be allowed on the road).
Other than those non-street-legal machineguns, we could have suppressors on our guns; they’d be mandated, just like car mufflers.
One shooting test, and you’re done with practical testing for life. Probably written testing, too.
My CCW would be good for 8 years, rather than 5, just like my driver license; and a whole lot cheaper. It might be “REAL ID” compliant, which would exclude anyone but citizens and lawful residents.
I’m not thrilled with the registration requirement, but I could move to a state that doesn’t require registration for non-street vehicles. I’m not sure how you’ll get people to register guns, anyway, given the very low compliance rates in states that have tried it (California thinks, after 20 years, that they might be up to 20% for “assault weapon” registration; I think Connecticut is hovering around 13%). But then, I see a lot of unregistered cars in driveways and the road.
And at long last, CCW licenses will be good in every state, just like drivers’ licenses. And they’d be valid ID for commercial flights.
No safe storage laws. Theft victims wouldn’t be blamed.
People would stop trying to sue manufacturers and dealers over things for which they aren’t responsible.
No more bound book perpetual record-keeping for dealers. No more federal licensing of dealers, or ATF harassment.
Go for it, doc. It would be far from perfect, but a vast improvement over the current over-regulation of firearms ownership.
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There’s a bigger picture in The HonorableDespicable, Constitution-Shredding Police-StatistRobert S. Lasnik‘s injunction against public downloads of DefCad’s firearms files.
That right is currently abridged, but it has not been abrogated. Regulation under the AECA means that the files cannot be uploaded to the internet, but they can be emailed, mailed, securely transmitted, other otherwisee published within the United States.
Abridging rights is peachy, so long as they aren’t completely abrogated?
Seems that nutjob in a black dress neglected to read the First Amendment before ruling in favor of government censorship.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
“Abridging,” Lasnik. You can’t do it. Your direct violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution that you allegedly swore to uphold is precisely why people talk about hanging judges (as opposed to a hanging-judge, if you didn’t follow the link).
However, there is that “bigger picture” I mentioned. Keep reading that order.
The Court finds that the irreparable harms the States are likely to suffer if the existing restrictions are withdrawn and that, overall, the public interest strongly supports maintaining the status quo through the pendency of this litigation.
He has found a government right to maintain the status quo.
Oddly enough, I recall a state trying to enforce the status quo: separate but equal schools for blacks at gunpoint. It used to be “status quo” that blacks couldn’t use white water fountains, had to sit at the back of the bus, and couldn’t sit at diner counter.
At a guess, Lasnik would be good with that.
Women barred from voting used to be status quo.
Slavery used to be status quo.
The Thirteen Colonies being subjects of the British Crown used to be status quo.
Catholicism being a crime used to be status quo.
Judge Lasnik has invented a right of the government to enslave America in a state of cultural and technological stasis. Ironically: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts…”
The Internet enabled individuals to be heard/read/seen by a far greater audience than the printed word status quo of centuries. Right now, that despicable bastard is chipping away at free speech on the Internet about one particular topic.
If Twitter/Facebook/Google were run by rightwing ultraconservatives, rather than far left socialists, I suspect someone would be happy to apply Lasnik’s “abridging” precedent to shutting them down.
DefDist’s files were out in the wild before the State Department shut them down. State eventually admitted that was wrong. But all the files were still out in the world (I have them myself, and have for years). That was the status quo. People have been home-making guns for centuries; that was the status quo.
Lasnik has created an imaginary right to reset the clock back to some earlier state which makes him happy.
Shall he reset America back to muskets and racial bans on gun ownership? A status quo where dictatorial governors suppress dissent with troops?
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“More trained gun license holders, more personal security”. From now, it will not only be hostile or criminal elements who have guns in Israel. Instead, loyal, law-abiding citizens will have them as well. All that is left is for us to internalize that the right to self-defense is a basic human right with which man was created, in the image of G-d. The state can negate the right to carry a gun from those people who endanger the public. But the default mode should be that every citizen has the right to carry a gun, as part of all the human rights that the state should protect. The state does not give us the right to carry guns. We have that already. All that it can do is take that right away.
Cracked.com can be outrageous, funny, annoying, and even occasionally informative. This past weekend, they were disgusting genocide-apologists.
Myth: Jews Not Having Guns Led To The Holocaust Truth: Gun Laws Became More Lenient Leading Up To The Holocaust
All German gun ownership was banned after World War I, but in 1928, Germany passed the Law on Firearms and Ammunition. It loosened gun regulations, but permits were needed, and all new gun purchases had to be registered. However, plenty of Germans, including Jewish citizens, just held onto their guns from World War I, so those went unregistered.
[…]
In 1938, Hitler further deregulated guns with the German Weapons Act, which exempted Nazi Party members from most regulations and lowered the legal age to own a gun from 20 to 18. At this point, they were essentially handing out firearms to whoever looked the least “exotic.”
The 1938 law did strip Jewish citizens of their guns, but that’s an indictment of targeting specific demographics, not gun policy. Even for Jewish citizens who held onto their guns, a couple rifles wouldn’t do much good when an entire army came to their doors. Remember, lax gun laws mean that the people who hate you have easy access to guns too.
The argument of Assarian, et al, is that gun control is fine so long as you’re only targeting despised minorities like Jews for extermination.
And, naturally, they misrepresent the gun laws of Germany of the time. Shall we look at the facts?
When the Nazi took power, they used registration lists (from the existing law) to disarm political foes.
On March 18, 1938, the Nazis passed a new law superseding the 1928 law, implementing handgun control. Essentially, only Nazi party members and allies could be lawfully armed. Jews specifically could not own firearms.
On November 10, 1938 — after Kristallnacht — the Nazis went one “better.” Jews were prohibited from possessing any weapon, “even clubs or knives.”
But the people attacking Jews and their property weren’t disarmed, so Cracked is cool with it; it’s not an “indictment” of gun policy in general.
Regardless of your stance on guns, saying that Jews could have stopped the Holocaust if only they’d had more firepower is sleazy victim-blaming…
I don’t claim they could have stopped the Holocaust in its tracks; that, despised Cracked, is a strawman argument. My position is that if more Jews (and gays, Rom, et cetera) hadn’t been forcibly disarmed, they might’ve had a better chance of resisting.
As they did in the Warsaw Ghetto. Armed with a few hoarded firearms and mostly homemade explosives, the Jews tied up two battalions (and hundreds of other troops) for a month. They lost, but a few escaped.
And I don’t think we should discount the possibility that others lived due to the Ghetto occupants’ sacrifice, because those engaged troops weren’t out rounding up other “undesirables.”
A few hundred Jewish combatants. A few horded and smuggled guns.
And they kept more than two battalions engaged for a month.
We should not discount the possibility that, with more and better arms denied by the Nazis and their allies, the resistance might have been even more effective.
I think I should also address this common leftist/socialist claim:
Truth: Hitler Wasn’t a Socialist; The Nazis Purged Socialists
Yes, they did. And yes, the National Socialists were most definitely socialists.
Leftwingers like to point at the Nazis’ fascism, and pretend, “Fascism is rightwing, therefore they were weren’t socialist because us socialists are leftwing.”
Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of radical authoritarian ultranationalism,characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy
“[T]he program championed the right to employment, and called for the institution of profit sharing, confiscation of war profits, prosecution of usurers and profiteers, nationalization of trusts, communalization of department stores, extension of the old-age pension system, creation of a national education program of all classes, prohibition of child labour, and an end to the dominance of investment capital”
Does that sound like something you might hear from self-acknowledged socialist Bernie Sanders, or Democrat Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?
The Nazis were nationalist socialists (hence the name); fascist socialists. The socialists (and communists) they suppressed were merely competitors for the top slot, to be in charge. The only significant ideological differences between the Nazis and the supposed socialist was nationalism versus — Soviet-style — internationalism: “Our socialist country is better than other countries, and we’ll be in charge” versus “We want one big world socialist order, and we expect to be in charge.”
Of course the self-aggrandizing Nazis suppressed them. They expected to run their worldwide Reich anyway, eventually. They didn’t want any more competition than they already had on their plate.
I wonder if Cracked’s Steve Assarian, Mike Bedard, E. M. Caris, and Michael Battaglino would declare Antifa to be…
Fascist Nazis, not communists and socialists, because they suppress — competing –socialists. Like this:
Yes, you disgusting SOBs at Cracked, Nazi gun controlvictim disarmament did contribute to the Holocaust. And gun control is still evil, even if it only targets people you don’t like.
And it’s hardly a surprise that socialists — whether National Socialists, or Democrat Socialists — like gun control. Gun control is victim disarmament, and it’s a lot easier to manage confiscation of war profits, prosecution of usurers and profiteers, nationalization of trusts, communalization of department stores when the victim is helpless. Just ask any freelance redistributionist.
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David Codrea wrote a column warning of a potential new privacy-busting product called the SWORD. The ramifications were pretty obvious to me, too. Warrantless searches, outing lawful CCW, crooks locating loot, crooks spotting the armed guy to off first.
“The company has created a case that goes around either an iPhone 8 Plus or Pixel 2 XL and uses the phone’s audio sound waves as a sort of sonar to detect whether someone is carrying a gun, knife or explosive device.”
Perhaps, perhaps not. But other dangers come to mind. The whole point of carrying concealed is to preserve privacy as part of an overall defensive posture. Anti-gunners could use the device to harass and even SWAT a gun owner. Criminals could use it to identify who they would need to take out by surprise first. Police could use it to bypass Fourth Amendment search and seizure proscriptions. The company claims Homeland Security is intrigued.
Except…
Based on my research, I think I smell “scam.” And that’s the bright side of a tool for tyranny meant to disarm, register, and track free people. I can think of certain governments that would have loved it.
(not the original image; see link)
My background includes — among many other things — electronics, heavy emphasis on RF and even radar (which comes into this in a minute). Right off, I wondered about that “audio sound wave” bit. Human hearing-range sound waves shouldn’t have the resolution to do what the SWORD allegedly does, without some impressive processing. So I dug a little bit more.
Elsewhere, I found a link that claimed it was ultrasonic. This gets into the resolution-range of the possible — we’ve all seen ultrasound baby pictures — but ultrasound works in contact. With a gel to improve transmission/reception. Working at 40 feet?
On to the Royal Holdings website, where I found some specifications and images. There I learned that the SWORD is neither audible acoustic nor ultrasonic, but RF-based, specifically, the US model would work at 3-10 GHz. That makes a lot more sense. It’s a little bitty radar system.
But I was still dubious. That frequency range would give a max resolution of 3 centimeters, just under one and a quarter inches; which makes it hard to resolve the shape of a gun less than an inch wide, seen edge on.
There are ways to do it though, involving scanned antenna arrays and digital signal processing. Fancy stuff, and it would require a lot of cash to develop a single chip to handle it all (and RF transmission and reception combined); it seemed a bit much to expect from a startup to develop and sell for $1,250 ($950 for pre-orders). But technically doable.
But I was still bothered by the claim that it can detect and recognize weapons at 40 feet. Reading their specs bothered me even more.
This is supposed to work up to forty feet. But it says that the device is FCC approved and transmits under -41dBM. That’s 0.00007 mW, 0.00000007 W, and I simply don’t believe that a cellphone-sized antenna array at that power level would yield a readable reflected power at 40 feet.
Royal Holding’s tech specs mentioned the processor chip that is the heart of this gadget. It’s a VYYR2401, which turns out to be a real thing, sold by Israeli company Vayyar. And it’s impressive. (Some folks don’t realize it, but Israel has a pretty decent tech sector, beyond fine arms).
The VYYR2401 really is a transmitter/receiver/array-scanning/digital signal processor all in one chip.
Reading about that, I discovered that Vayyar has a retail divsion called Walabot. This where things get quite interesting.
If you look at the Walabot Maker series of chip-based sensor kits, you’ll find interesting things in their spec sheets. Like images of circuit boards which appear to be the originals of the images in Royal Holding’s SWORD brochure. Even the RF field diagrams.
It very much appears that RH lifted their tech data and images from Walabot. My initial thought was that RH is simply buying Walbot Maker kits, writing their own smartphone app, and reselling it at a huge mark-up. The Creator version runs $149.99 from Walabot, while RH says they’ll sell at $1,250. The Walabot Developer is priced at $599.99. Such a deal. For Royal Holdings.
But then I spoke to someone about the cool stuff the Walabot products can potentially do, and started thinking about raising the money to buy one myself for experimenting (the sensing possibilities are incredible; by the specs, the Walabots are very cool).
And I found the Walabot DIY. This is a $65 dollar… cellphone case that turns your smartphone into an RF-based remote sensor that can detect and image hidden objects. Sound a bit familiar?
If Royal Holdings is actually planning to sell the SWORD, I believe it is a re-packaged Walabot DIY, at a $1,185 markup, or 19 times the real price.
But I have significant reservations about the legitimacy of the operation.
They’re using images from another company’s web site.
Nothing in Vayyar chip specs or Walabot specs indicates that it can operate at 40 feet. Indeed, the Walabot DIY is listed at being able to sense metal objects through walls at four inches. Not forty feet. So we appear to have one outright false claim.
Royal Holdings also claims that the SWORD can detect explosives. What the Vayyar VYYR2401 chip detects is dielectric materials. Vayyar says it can be set up to measure milk fat content; presumably by setting a reflectance value for the dielectric of a known milk fat level, and looking for variation. In theory, one might build a similar reflectance database for known explosives, but you’d have to know how to compensate for any intervening materials: cotton, nylon, dry clothing, damp clothing, metallized clothing (and won’t that wreak havoc on weapons detection). If it works at all, there will be a lot of false positives AND negatives.
Also note that detection/analysis based on reflectance values means knowing received signal strength very precisely: the farther away something is, the lower the return signal. It is impossible for the SWORD to know the distance to a random object, and compute the return signal level. They’d have to add in range detection to compute path loss, to then compute reflectance to guess at a material. That functionality does not appear to be in the VYYR2401, making explosives detection another seemingly false claim.
Then there are issues with the supposed business itself.
Many individuals register web domains anonymously, to protect their privacy. For-profit businesses, that rely upon people knowing who they are, rarely do.
royalholdings.org is registered through an anonymizing proxy. For one year.
What sort of business that plans to be around long enough to deliver a product — still in design — registers its domain for just one year? And .org? For a business?
What kind of business won’t spring for the .com domain?
The SWORD’s Royal Holdings claims to be located in West Hollywood, California. The only active California incorporation listing I can find for “Royal Holdings” is Royal Holdings, LLC located in Los Angeles. It’s been around for twenty years. This “Royal Holdings” is a new startup according to CNET.
The SWORD Royal Holdings’ principals — per their Team page — are Barry Oberholzer, Jeromy Pittaro, and Chuck Bloomquist.
The principal for Royal Holdings, LLC in LA is David Soufer.
Is the SWORD’s makermarketer appropriating another company’s name?
If this SWORDsmith has investors, they should be asking serious questions, and possibly demanding their money back. As should those 8,000 prospective customers who Oberholzer claims have pre-ordered at $950 a pop.
But David Codrea notes, “I doubt if there really are investors– I’m smelling an ad agency stunt by the antis.”
That’s a real possibility; that the anti-rights gun control crowd is pulling a stunt to rile gun owners. And sites like CNET giving them unquestioning adoration (kudos to 9to5Mac’s Lovejoy for expressing his own doubts)?
“What gets me is tech websites regurgitating their stuff,” Codrea said.
Me, too.
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