Category Archives: Schools and campuses

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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Find The School Shooting: Part 6

Why do I do this? I just checked the ten latest entries in Everytown’s list of “school” shootings. It isn’t as if I don’t know by now what I’ll find.

Spoiler: Right off the top, 40% were not school shootings at all. Let’s look at the details.

  • 12/2/2019 Waukesha South High School
    Police shooting, legal intervention.
  • 11/29/2019 Illinois Institute of Technology
    A man was shot and killed Friday near the Illinois Institute of Technology campus in Bronzeville on the South Side.
  • 11/26/2019 Sarah J. Anderson Elementary School
    Vancouver Public Schools spokesperson Pat Nuzzo said the “targeted” shooting took place in the school parking lot at 3:15 p.m., but did not involve students or staff.
  • 11/23/2019 Searles Elementary School
    The shootings of the boys, ages 11 and 14, took place in the parking lot of Searles Elementary School, CBS San Francisco reported. Callers to 911 reported hearing gunfire at around 1:30 a.m., the station said.
  • 11/23/2019 Florida Memorial University
    Open party on campus, 10:15PM. Unidentified; unknown if students or staff, or just visiting partiers. Given the area, I imagine it was gang-related.
  • 11/23/2019 Southern University at New Orleans
    A spokesperson with SUNO stated that the victim is not a student or employee of the university and that the university rents out the building to non-affiliates of the university.
  • 11/23/2019 University of Louisville
    Three people were injured in a shooting Wednesday night near the University of Louisville, according to police.”
  • 11/15/2019 Pleasantville High School
    A shooting took place on the football field at Pleasantville High School in New Jersey on November 15.
  • 11/14/2019 Saugus High School
    A girl and a boy were killed and three of their classmates wounded when a fellow student opened fire on his birthday at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita Thursday morning, authorities said.
  • 11/11/2019 Achievement Academy
    A 19-year-old male student was shot Monday afternoon outside Achievement Academy in northeast Baltimore.” Targeted attack on public street in front of school.

Four of ten were not on school grounds: 40% not school shootings, even by Everytown’s expansive definition.

One was a police officer stopping a crime. On campus, but not what most folks would think of as a school shooting.

Two more happened in school parking lots after hours, and did not involve students or staff. On campus, but not what most folks would think of as a school shooting.

One was an after-hours open party on a university campus. Victims not yet identified. Maybe, maybe not, but not what folks think of as a school shooting.

That leaves two shootings on high school campuses, involving students, and at school-related events.

You may recall that I object to Everytown inflating their count by including colleges and universities, when most folks think they’re talking about elementary and high schools. 40% of these are such (including three that weren’t actually on school grounds). I didn’t take the time to fact check the next ten entries, but seven of that ten are college/university, too. That’s 55%.

[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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The Mask is off

I hear it quite often, “I’m not antisemitic, I’m anti-Zionist, I’m anti-Israel. Well, let’s just call that what it is, shall we? Horse-schiff. It is antisemitic.

There is one tiny Jewish nation, there are around 50 muslim countries not counting Germanistan, Francistan and Englandistan. No one seems to have a problem with this. Certainly the UN doesn’t. They should. When the UN replaced the League of Nations it agreed to take on all the League of Nations mandates and agreements. See, they were liars even back then. From Barry Shaw’s The View from Israel

The Europeans take no account of the fact that, prior to 1948, the so-called West Bank was Israel in territory that included Judea & Samaria, the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea down to Eilat.

They take no account that this was prescribed by the League of Nations (the forerunners of the United Nations) in 1922 in which they affirmed the 1920 decision of the Supreme Court of the League of Nations that “recognized the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”

We need to question the European drift from the requirement to “secure the cooperation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home” to a policy that is blatantly anti-Semitic.

….

As for “Illegal occupation,” it is not illegal for a nation to defend itself. Nor is it illegal for such a nation to hold onto territory seized in a defensive war against a congenital aggressor as Israel was against Jordan, both in 1948 and in 1967, when it twice invaded Israel in order to annihilate the Jewish state and to banish its Jewish population.

Evidence of this is seen in Jordan’s brutal occupation of Jerusalem in which they destroyed all the ancient synagogues and physically expelled all the remaining Jews, those they hadn’t killed, from the Old City of Jerusalem. That was when Jordan occupied Judea & Samaria and the Jordan Valley, which became known as The West Bank (of Jordan) between 1948 and 1967.

Nobody cried about “illegally occupying Palestinian land” during that period. The Europeans had nothing to say about calling on the Jordanians to withdraw from occupied Israeli land. They were silent when Jordan joined with other Arab armies to “drive the Jews into the sea,” from their vantage positions on the high ground overlooking the narrow coastal plain of what was left of Israel since their initial conquest of Israeli territory.

The Europeans silently expected the annihilation of the Jewish State. They did nothing. They watched and waited. Many were disappointed by the miraculous victory of a determined people’s army against the British trained and equipped Jordanian army who were driven back across the Jordan River as Israeli soldiers liberated Jerusalem and drove the Syrians off the Golan Heights.

They did nothing, they watched and they waited. Yep, just like the Holocaust. Why does this matter? In case you’re unaware, in December the Temple Mount, Beit HaMikdash is set to be renamed by the UN. In a final betray by barak hussein obama (may his name be erased) in UN resolution 2334 barry tried to erase Jews living in Judea and Samaria, they were an obstacle to peace. The peace of the UN and barak hussein obama will only be achieved when the Jews living in Israel, all of Israel are dead and gone. There is a good interview with Barry on the Tamar Yonah Show.

In November of this year

The UN gave its preliminary approval to a resolution that referred to the Temple Mount solely by its Muslim name of Haram al-Sharif.

The resolution passed at the UN’s Fourth Committee in New York 154-8, with 14 abstentions and 17 absences. It was one of eight pro-Palestinian resolutions approved on Friday, out of a slate of more than 15 such texts the committee is expected to approve. The UN General Assembly will take a final vote on the texts in December.

According to Barry Shaw this is not so much muslim countries pushing this, it’s western democracies. Not antisemitic? Horse-schiff, it is. While the Jordanian Wafkos control the Temple Mount, located in Israel, they limit access Jews and Christians have to go to pray there. In fact, Jews and Christians aren’t allowed to pray there. Only muslims, at their mollusk. Once a mollusk is planted, to muslims that area is now under muslim control. Thanks so much Moshe Dayan.

That makes Israel’s decision to allow muslims to re-open the Sidna Omar mollusk in the Jewish quarter baffling and heinous. The Sidna Omar mollusk is located along the main road to the Kotel (The Western wall which is not the holiest site in Judaism). But I’m sure unlike the muslims that control the Temple Mount, these muslims will not interfere with Jews and Christians on their way there. Horse-schiff.

Some Jews just don’t seem to realize that the alligator may eat them last, but it will eat them.

I don’t know if it’s an effort to prove they are “fair” towards the arabs or they are “woke”, but either way lunacy seems to weigh heavily on some of their statements and actions. Some may just be indoctrination. It is moral equivalence. Some I think is influenced by rejection of G-d, Torah and lust for power.

Bernie Sanders who campaigns with known anti-semite Linda Sarsour by this side? He is more communist that Jew I think. Communism is his religion.

Some Holocaust survivors certainly had a message for him.

Bernie Sanders Tweets His Concern About Jew-Hatred. Look At His Record.

Sanders curried favor by suggesting that Israel did not respect human rights, snapping, “I would use the leverage of $3.8 billion. It is a lot of money, and we cannot give it carte blanche to the Israeli government, or for that matter to any government at all. We have a right to demand respect for human rights and democracy.” He threatened, “My solution is, to Israel, if you want military aid you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of Gaza. I would say that some of the $3.8 billion should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza.”

Horse-schiff, he knows how that money will be used.

Now the students at Oberlin may just be indoctrinated, stupid or just being “woke”. But either way this is antisemitic horse-schiff.

Oberlin ignorance

I can tell them a bit of the bio of the people killed in the attack.

Identity of the Palestinian fatalities in the latest round of escalation in the Gaza Strip (findings of a preliminary examination)

Notable Jewish groups such as J street, Jewish Voices for Peace (who aren’t) and If Not Now routinely attack President Trump, arguably the most pro-Jewish, pro-Israel President ever as being an antisemite. This too is horse-schiff. I also didn’t mention what those groups are notable for.

Any attacks against Jews are blamed on the President by the press, and they yammer on and on about it, despite the fact it’s not true. It’s #FakeNews horse-schiff.

Why do I say that? Because in the attack in Jersey City the media has portrayed it as shootout that started and just “happened to wind up at the Kosher Deli”. Horse-schiff.

Witness say that the Buckets O’Chum passed up other targets to go to the Deli associated with a Synagogue. The deli was the target. Not that the particular information was given out.

But the attack remains shrouded in mystery.

Authorities are still investigating and have not indicated a motive for the attack. Before the mayor’s tweets today, investigators had said the store was chosen at random and was not indicative of a hate crime.

“Why did they say that when it is clearly untrue?” a community activity asked, speaking on condition of anonymity. “And why were there rumors of a drug bust gone bad and a homicide investigation when that was clearly not the case?”

Ahh, the truth comes out.

But Mayor Steve Fulop said surveillance video of the attackers made it clear they targeted the kosher market, and he pronounced the bloodshed a hate crime against Jews, as did New York’s mayor and governor.

So, it’s not so much about dead Jews because the media is glossing over the deli was the target. And it can’t be about President Trump and his white supremacists because as it turns out the killers were black and part of a group called Black Hebrew Israelites.

Also, investigators believe the two dead attackers — who were thought to be a couple — identified themselves in the past as Black Hebrew Israelites, a movement whose members have been known to rail against whites and Jews, according to a law enforcement official who was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A pipe bomb seems to have been found in the rented van driven by the Buckets O’Chum.

Grewal said that within seconds of pulling up to the market, Anderson got out with a rifle and immediately began shooting, and Graham followed him into the store. He would not say whether Graham had a weapon.

A pipe bomb was found in the van, FBI agent Gregory Ehrie said.

Jersey City’s mayor said it was clear that the killers deliberately made their way toward the kosher market, passing many other possible targets along the way, and calmly and promptly opened fire.

I’m adding this video posted by Dov Hikind in because it is just so beyond belief. I heard about it from Ben Shapiro, and he said no media outlets are covering it. You need to see it. You really do.

“If they got shot dead, that was great”.

But never mind that. it’s about the guns. Horse-schiff. The mask is off.

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Because they love their ideology more than they love children

Yours, theirs, doesn’t matter. Progressives are all in for the ideology of control. Be it whether or not you can have a 32 ounce soda pop or an AR-15. And yes, Mikey Bloomberg financier of the astro-turf Everytown for gun safety, is gearing up to run for President. It’s about control because without control they don’t have the power they are striving for.

Soda Bans

They are trying so desperately to peddle the bill of goods known as “It’s for the children”. But it really isn’t you see.

All those “Red Flag” or Preemptive prove your innocence or extreme risk orders of protection? No matter what you choose to call it by, it stinks. It is gun confiscation without due process from someone who has done nothing. In most cases they are engaging in mind reading. Or in some cases, just vindictive behavior.

In the case of the Bucket O’Chum school terrorist at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, he had given a wealth of signs, but due to a policy put in place during obama’s term there had been no consequences for his previous criminal behavior. The same with Trayvon Martin. Recently there was a juvenile in Baker County in Fl. who had made threats against his classmates and teachers. He had a plan all written out. He showed it to another student who told authorities. He was taken into custody by authorities before he could carry out any of his heinous plan. But I found this interesting.

“MAKE SURE THE TEACHERS ARE DEAD,” he ranted in a notebook. “Then rinse repeat.”….

The boy’s plan described killing teachers and fellow students in chilling detail. To maximize the carnage, he’d deploy an arsenal of knives and guns at a pep rally or some other high-traffic venue. He calculated he’d have nine minutes before squad cars and medics could reach the scene. He wouldn’t be acting alone, he hoped, having recruited at least three schoolmates who, like him, were “100% down that they might die that day.”

Emphasis mine. So what happened to the juvenile? Oh, the wise judge turned him loose back into the community he threatened. Truly.

They try to hoodwink us, telling us there is no time to spare to ensure someone’s rights are upheld, Baker act won’t do. Must have confiscation without due process, without facing your accuser in court.

So about those nine minutes.

At the recent attack at Saugus High School, the Bucket O’Chum began firing and his pistol jammed. Although according to the Daily Mail he used a .45 caliber semi-automatic rifle, which he removed from his backpack. Heck of a backpack. But they are British, and MSM, so #FakeNews. What do they know about firearms? But it was a regular semi-automatic pistol. And it jammed. He cleared the jam and safely continued on firing secure in the knowledge he had plenty of time. He counted his shots saving the last one for himself. Help was only moments away,

Three off-duty police officers, who had just dropped off relatives at the school, were the first responders on the scene: a detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and police officers from Inglewood and Los Angeles.They were joined within a minute by uniformed deputies on duty from the sheriff’s station in Santa Clarita, as well as a sheriff’s deputy who works at the school as the school resource officer.

But the help was needed within seconds.

This being Kalifornia, I wonder if the off-duty police officers will be reprimanded for carrying their weapons into the school? The school resource officer was one of the last to arrive. I’m not criticizing him. He is one man, he can’t be everywhere. He’s not like Scott Peterson, the “Coward of Broward” who stood by outside the building, or former Sheriff Steve Israel who supported him. He was just the last to arrive. When seconds count the police are only moments away. If it saves just one child, right Mad Mommies? Right harridans of The View? Well, yeah, as long as it doesn’t involve anyone but the bad guy having the gun. How much quicker could the response have been had there been an armed teacher near by?

Laurens County, Georgia doesn’t intend to ever have to look back and wonder. They have began arming and training their teachers. They intend to do everything, politically correct or not, to protect the children from harm. I like the sign outside the school.

Outside every school building in the county is a yellow sign that reads, in part: “Warning. Staff members are armed and trained. Any attempt to harm children will be met with deadly force.”

Seem straightforward to me.

Like the shooting in a Duncan Oklahoma Walmart parking lot recently. The first two victims died, then a good guy with a gun put a stop to further carnage. But, there was a good guy, a regular citizen there, with his gun. Or as the Daily Mail would call it, his semi-automatic rifle.

But to progressives, it’s not really about protecting children, if it saves just one life is a bunch of schiff. What is the message taught at schools? Violence is always wrong, if there is a fight and you defend yourself, you get in trouble (and suspended) same as the person who started it. Don’t fight back, just tell a teacher. Since Jews are being attacked all over the world now, some just for wearing a Kippah and the charges are often ignored, or even dropped. This is not working out well. I recently heard an interview with Schmuel Hacohen “Super Jew”, on the Tamar Yonah show. He relates a story about his father decking a man when he was young. His dad was a scientist, but he still knew how to fight. Afterwards when young Schmuel was bubbling over about it, he father told him he was not proud of what he did. “Violence is not a good thing, it is not always a bad thing, sometimes it is a necessary thing.” We now have generations of children who only use violence to bully and intimidate, those that would stand up for themselves against it are vilified. And just in case someone would be inclined to fight back, or step in, they must have you disarmed and deprived of your most effective defense weapons. Only criminals are allowed to have those.

The episode of the Tamar Yonah show that followed was an interview with Eitan Fischberger, Israel Campus Coordinator for CAMERA on Campus and Aviva Rosenschein, CAMERA’s International Campus Director. They told of what it’s like on college campuses for Jewish students and those that would stand up for Israel against the lies being told, and against the bullying. Sometimes by their professors. They address the false information being put out by Jewish Voices for Peace, Peace Now, the BDS BS movement, J-Street, If Not Now and others. Far too many Jews have become disconnected an apathetic about Israel. There is one Jewish Nation, if you allow it to be destroyed, where are you planning on going as antisemitism increases? France? England? Have at it.

But some young Jews are defying the herd. And doing it brilliantly. The fact that he needs to write under a pseudonym is too bad. But I understand why he feels he must. The lad is a student of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, HY’’D. Rabbi Meir’s father was close friends with Zev Jabotinsky. My Shimshon’s middle name is Zev. Many many of Rabbi Meir’s predictions have sadly come to pass. He believed Jews should be living in Israel, and that Jews should be able and willing to defend themselves. The writer laments that Betar is no longer around. I do as well. I’m an American Jewish teen and believe we need to teach self defense. It’s a good column.

My one and only (so far) multimedia column for The Zelman Partisans is a reading of a letter by Rabbi Meir Kahane, Dear World

Progressives see the same events we do, but they are determined to double down on their policies of leaving the innocent helpless and at the mercy of someone else showing up to help them. It doesn’t matter if it is there children, your children or parents, or you. No one must be allowed to defend them. They continually attempt to force law-abiding gun owners who have committed no crime to pay the consequences of people who have already committed several. It gets in the way of their ideology, and they love that way more than anything or anyone else. Why are they willing to sacrifice innocent souls on the alter of their ideology? Power.

Dictators Prefer
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Wise Judges, judgment and the lack thereof

Admittedly, this column is a bit behind the times, I apologize. Parshah Shoftim was a few weeks ago. And part of the Parshah really hit home. Probably because if I spend any time at all listening to the news, all I hear is impeachment, impeachment, impeachment (said is the best Jan Brady whine). The secret Soviet style hearings which include only progressive #Demoncrats, the liar Adam Shiff-less., and lots of leaks, lots and lots of leaks.

Shiff-less

But here’s the relevant portion of the Parshah that got me to thinking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part of Parshah Shoftim

This is from Deut./Devarim דברים

19:16.

Haven’t all of the women hired to attack Kavenaugh recanted? After they and their complicit media tried to ruin his and his family’s lives. Of course.

And the penalty for that?

No matter the crime, gun control is the answer. Knee-jerk gun control response to deadly shootings

Honest law-abiding gun owners, judged guilty for the acts of criminals.

And as Sammy “The Bull” Gravano points out, the mob will always have guns. You only have to listen to the first couple minutes if you want.

Well, the mob and #Bozo’s armed guys he would have sent in to make sure American Citizens complied with his rules, so they could “recover” the AR-15s and AK-47s. Recover? Were they missing before they were stolen by #Bozo?

The murderer of Kate Steinle went free, he literally got away with murder. And posters put up at a liberal Kalifornia college campus honoring her and reminding people of the cost of illegal un-checked invasion have been deemed racist my the college administrators. Color me shocked.

This is wise judgment?

But the real hypocrisy of liberals is on full display in a fairly recent bill proposed by Sen. John Cornyn -Rep of Texas. He proposed a bill to “combat mass shootings”. He proposed to do this by

It would expand resources for mental health treatment, facilitate the creation of “behavioral intervention teams” to monitor students exhibiting disturbing behavior and offer new tools for law enforcement.

The bill’s school safety proposals are a response to years of school shootings perpetrated by young people described as isolated and troubled.

What is their objection you ask?

Privacy experts and education groups, many of which have resisted similar efforts at the state level, say that level of social media and network surveillance can discourage children from speaking their minds online and could disproportionately result in punishment against children of color, who already face higher rates of punishment in school.

“This is all very frightening,” an education policy consultant, who has been tracking the legislation, told The Hill. “There’s no real research, or even anecdotal information, to back up the idea … that following everything [kids] do online is really a way to determine that they’re going to be violent.”

Now, I’m not a fan of monitoring or big brothering anyone. But this is hypocrisy at it’s finest. And if you don’t believe me, you could ask Alexandria Keyes. She was suspended from school for five days after she posted a picture of herself with her brother.

The two are shown holding guns and the photo is captioned, “Me and my legal guardian are going to the gun range to practice gun safety and responsible gun ownership while getting better so we can protect ourselves while also using the First Amendment to practice our Second Amendment.”

Oh the shock, the horror, the carnage! Oh, wait there wasn’t any. The girl and her brother just went to the range practiced marksmanship and harmed no one. But panties were being twisted into a bunch at a rapid rate, and Alexandria was suspended for disrupting school. Huh? She wasn’t at school, she didn’t use a school computer to post the picture. Sen. Cornyn’s bill only monitors online activity while the students are using school computers.

Abbe Smith, Chief Communications Officer for Cherry Creek School District, told me that the decision to suspend Keyes “involved multiple social media posts that concerned the school community and resulted in multiple parents keeping their kids home from school out of concern for safety.” Smith said that federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act protections prevent her from discussing the details of the case, including disclosing the other photos the district allegedly considered in Keyes’ suspension.

More about this

The school’s policy references Colorado law, which defines the grounds for suspension as “behavior on or off school property that is detrimental to the welfare or safety of other pupils or of school personnel, including behavior that creates a threat of physical harm to the child or to other children.”

… According to Cherry Creek School Board policy, the school district reserves the right to suspend students who “[repeatedly interfere] with a school’s ability to provide educational opportunities to other students.” Over the phone, Smith noted that since multiple parents kept their children home after becoming aware of the post, Keyes’ photo could be viewed as an impediment to the school’s ability to educate, even if the district didn’t ultimately make its decision based on the chances that Keyes posed a physical threat. Does this mean parental fears can be a mechanism for the school district to veto a teen’s extracurricular activities?

Is Cherry Creek not worried that this is going to prevent Alexandria from speaking her mind online? Maybe Cherry Creek never got the memo from the educational policy consultant that monitoring online activity of children is not effective in determining if they are going to be violent later?

And those sanctimonious sniveling parents that bullied the school into suspending her? They have accused her falsely. She has done nothing wrong. They have left a mark on her school record because of their hoplophobic tiny minds. They have allowed their lack of education and knowledge to deprive her of five days worth.

What should then be their sentence?

False statements given to police because someone wants someone’s guns seized in a storm trooper operation because they are A) mad at their uncle B) don’t like how someone voted C) don’t think people should be allowed to own guns D) ___________________ for whatever reason. Police show up, guns are seized and sometimes, sometimes, people die. Red Flag laws, the height of hypocrisy coming from progressives.

What then should be their sentence? And what should their sentence be if it results in the death of an innocent gun own, exactly as they intended it would?

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Find The School Shooting, Part 5

I’m such a glutton for punishment. I looked at Everytown’s list of “school” shootings again. Only seven new entries since last I checked.

The score today:
3 of 7 of these don’t even meet Everytown’s crazed definition, leaving only 4. That gives them a generous 57.1% accuracy rate; much worse than last week.

There’s a non-student drug deal that was only coincidentally on — university — campus; strike that one: down to 42.9% accuracy.

If you limit it actual shootings at elementary or high schools — you know, where kids might be –, which is what most people think of when you say “school,” only 1 of 7 qualifies: 14.3% “accuracy.” And that one didn’t involve kids; they don’t even know when it happened because no one notice until they found a broken window.

And yet idiot journalists pushing an anti-rights agenda still cite these liars. And Bloomberg continues to pay Shannon Watts for this incompetence.

[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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Find The School Shooting, Part 4

An occasional “hobby” of mine is fact checking the Everytown list of “school” shootings. It’s been awhile so I decided to try again.

Since they don’t actually link to supporting documentation for their claims, I have to — tediously — search for reports. So I only checked the ten most recent listings.

20% of the “school” shootings were not; not even by the expansive Everytown definition.

Another 10% was questionable. I think it was a parking structure near campus housing, but I’m not sure.

Of the seven remaining incidents, four were college/university, not what the uninformed would expect to be schools full of children. And two of those were only coincidentally on campus.

That leaves three real school shootings, involving minors in some way. One of those was only that minors were inside the building struck by a stray round from mobile shootout as the cars passed the school.

But technically, Everytown’s error rate is down to a mere 20%, or maybe 30%. Or 40% (intent matters; no one was trying to hit that school window). Or 60% wrong, if you don’t count the college shootings that had nothing to do with the colleges.

I’ll be generous and give them a 50% “correct” rate. That’s actually up since the last time we played.

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

Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could really use the money, what with ISP bills. And the rabbits need feed. Click here to donate via PayPal.
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American Universities, AKA; NFL Farm Teams

Uneducated and ill-informed buffoons

“Labour thou under the notion I believe there be not significant exceptions to the narrative contained herein? Forbear it not for this is certainly untrue.”1

Author

It was Sunday and the church was awash in a sea of color supporting the local NFL team taking afield that day. Noticing I was not similarly attired, a church member asked me why. I no longer watch the NFL because I am a retired police officer was my reply. Looking puzzled, he walked away saying nothing. How can anyone watch the NFL? Players, receiving enormous sums simply to play a game, use it as a platform to trash America’s police, military, and the flag. “Program Directors” have replaced pretty pom pom and baton twirling girls leading college marching bands at halftime with male dancers clad in unitard body suits prancing about trailing long multi-colored scarves. Female singers, more aptly described as “sexual livestock”, belt out paens to bedroom partners and political causes. What does any of this have to do with football? How can people of faith watch the NFL? Like Mafia enforcers, the NFL uses coercion and extortion threatening to take the Super Bowl from states daring to pass laws stipulating males and females use sex-appropriate bathrooms (G-d made them male and female, two sexes, not “genders”) a disgrace for which the NBA is equally guilty. How far must those who hate this country push until Americans fight back? Had the churchman stayed to listen, I would have explained my disgust for athletes who take a knee (group-hug in the case of the Seattle Seahawks) during the National Anthem. A fundamental problem also exists with respect to the role of sports and America’s institutions of higher learning.

The human race established it as the “natural order” from the start. Those winning the genetic lottery, the more attractive and athletically talented kids, grow up treated better by parents, teachers, peers, and society as a whole. Those fortunate to embody both attributes come closest to approaching divinity on earth. In the movies Carrie and Christine, based on Stephen King novels, a star athlete hangs out with friends who are awkward nerdy social outcasts. Not likely. If this was the norm, movies like She’s All That, starring Freddie Prinz, Jr., and Rachael Lee Cook (1999) or The Duff (Designated Ugly Fat Friend), starring Robbie Amell and Mae Whitman (2015), wherein on a dare or bet, school hunks attempt do-overs of girls deemed by peers as unattractive outcasts,2 wouldn’t be wildly successful. These are modern Cinderella stories people wish were true. Should kids, based on looks, receive preference in college admissions? Most people would answer, no. Should universities extend admission preferences to children of the rich, the connected, and athletes there primarily to play sports? They do. Each takes a slot from non-scholarship kids who worked hard earning grades for admission. Should athletes uninterested in scholastics be able to trade on the names of academic universities using college as training camps for professional sports where they will enjoy lucrative salaries? These questions are perhaps more profound than the controversy of athletes taking a knee during the National Anthem.

Full disclosure; I love football. I always have going back to Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts. I grew up watching every game possible dreaming of the day I wore the blue quarterbacking the Colts. Alas, it was not to be. I tried two sports in high school and one in college but I was never meant to be a jock. Standing 6’ and weighing 120 pounds my high school senior year, I might have made a good javelin for someone to throw. I had no negative opinion of athletes whatsoever but then came high school.

Like flour, my first high school sifted kids into one of three sections; Academic: college bound, Commercial: junior college, maybe, and General: kids warehoused until graduation because they were too young to be tried as adults. Classes for each were completely different. Before my defenestration from the Academic Section, I met a kid named Thurman. He was a walking stereotype; brainy, large glasses, unkempt clothing, whose closest brush with exercise was getting on and off the bus. He posed no threat nor physical challenge to anyone. Nevertheless, high school football players singled him out for torment and persecution. Distances between classes at my large sprawling high school afforded jocks, patrolling the halls like packs of ravenous hyenas, ample time to spot prey. Separating Thurman from the herd, the jocks soon ran him down. They tore textbooks from his hands tossing them onto the breezeway, threw his lunches in the trash, broke his glasses, roughed him up, and shoved him inside the full sized lockers…regularly. The Phys-Ed department divided the 10th grade course into short units covering sports from basketball, vaulting, volleyball, flag football, gymnastics, to climbing ropes where, hanging exposed, the jocks yanked Thurman’s shorts down in front of the girls. Coaches teaching the class did nothing. Thurman had no idea who they were. Sometimes they got others and me too but I had no glasses or lunch and General Section courses weren’t big on textbooks.

Kids soon learned wealthy kids from the North end’s Country Club, cheerleaders, and jocks were demigoddesses and demigods, untouchable. Jock cafeteria behavior was often obnoxious, they acted out in class, bullied lesser males, and forced others to allow them to copy homework and off answer sheets during tests. Was it because victims feared a beating if they snitched, other kids worshipped them, and teachers were indulgent that jocks seemed to suffer no consequences for their actions?3 At times students, usually girls, spoke out against their behavior. Jocks argued they were entitled to special treatment because of sacrifices they made in practice and games.

In my freshman gym class was a gangly uncoordinated white kid who towered 6’7’. He had no interest in sports. Our gym teacher, the basketball coach, asked him to try out for basketball but he said no. From that point on, the coach encouraged, pressured, then cajoled, mocked, and harassed the freshman until he broke and went out for the team. He was terrible. He showed up in gym class bruised and battered from practices. He attended basketball camp over the summer and returned a much better player. From then on girls hung on each arm of his Letterman’s jacket like Christmas ornaments. He no longer spoke or associated with his former freshman gym class chums.

Because I was “non-verbal” (a consequence of living in Philadelphia, a story for another time), my grades suffered. Summoned to the guidance counselor’s office, he waved my grades over his head like a Grand Jury indictment asking what I wanted to do after graduation. When I said, college, he laughed saying I had no chance of ever getting in. Anywhere. Upon his recommendation, the school humiliated, summarily dismissed, and sentenced me down to the General sections. School administrators and guidance counselors were notorious for relegating kids with emotional and behavioral problems, and those deemed “slow”, into those classes. Every student understood General Section meant “dummy classes”. For example, there were no labs, beakers, Bunsen burners, formulae, or experiments in Hoodlum Chemistry. I earned an A writing a short story detailing science problems astronauts would encounter going to Mars, including fighting lizard men living beneath the sand.

The high school football team’s field goal kicker sat behind me in Hoodlum English. Because I never said a word, teachers used me as a “buffer” to separate kids that would not shut up. It was Friday and a frustrated and very pregnant teacher admonished the class if any of us so much as said a word, she was giving us an F. She caught the field goal kicker talking and goofing off but gave him a pass because he was playing that evening. Anyone else would have been staring at a big fat red ‘F’. Then my family moved.

What passed for my second high school in Dog Patch, Appalachia, had a soccer and baseball but no football team. It was too small. Had poaching deer and guzzling Hillbilly beer been Olympic sports, they would have realized their dreams of glory. However, they did have homeroom based intramural flag football teams.

In my senior year, homeroom teacher Mr. ‘P’ announced he was posting a flag football sign-up sheet during lunch. We could choose any position on a first come first served basis. Back from lunch before anyone else, I signed up for wide receiver. Although skinny, I was fast and good at throwing and catching a football. Then the jocks got their hands on the list. By the end of the day, each “skill” position; quarterback, running back, tailback, field goal kicker, punter, and wide receivers belonged to jocks who played school sports. I was no longer a wide receiver. Soccer players Rodger (co-captain), Don, and other jocks erased mine and wrote in the name of a teammate. Six-foot nothing and one hundred and nothing and I was now an offensive lineman? My appeal to Mr. ‘P’, citing his first come first served rule, fell on deaf ears. He refused to overrule the jocks. I quit the team. At first, no one cared. Then coach ‘P’ and the jocks realized, with kids playing both sides of the ball, they needed every boy they could get their hands on and asked me to reconsider. I wouldn’t budge. They offered a compromise; I could play tight end and they would throw me the ball. Tight end means offensive lineman. Jim, a defensive lineman and jock twice my size, knocked me into the dirt so many times I looked like a crash test dummy. This was supposed to be flag football. Team hotdogs, the jocks, took complete control of the team, deciding on plays and who did what. No one else had a voice. Ask yourself why their sense of entitlement came so easily to them. Rodger was naturally the quarterback. The only time he threw me the ball was when he’d been flushed from the pocket and was about to be sacked in our end zone. I caught and took the ball all the way back to the line of scrimmage before being pile driven into the ground by defensive linemen. I never found out who punched me in the jaw on the way down. We made it to the championship game but the superstars were off their game that day. With nothing going right and backed up in our own territory, an angry Rodger insisted on being the punter and proceeded to kick the ball backward, over his head, into our end zone. Opposing players fell on the ball and it was game over. We lost.

At both high schools, kids complained teachers who were also coaches exhibited favoritism toward athletes in their classes. Girls made the same complaint about teacher-Cheerleader coaches with cheerleaders sitting in their classes. Sour grapes? Jealously? Possibly. I witnessed and heard the same later as a teacher. Just me? Maybe, but if true, you would have to explain the 1984 smash hit, Revenge of the Nerds. On to the university.

In college, a friend who double-majored in English and French, tutored at the University of Maryland. Most of her tutees were jocks. She described one as dumber than a sack of rocks, an insult to paper and minerals. He went on to enjoy a successful career with the Dallas Cowboys. My girlfriend at the time was a Parks and Recreation major. Jocks packed out her requisite classes. Coaches typically taught them and, naturally, they preferred “group” work. She was the “g to the p” in “group”, doing all the work. Nevertheless, phantom jock members received the same grade as her. Dark rumors circulated on campus about Jocks getting girls plastered at parties and taking turns having their way with them. In addition, it is common for students to become acquainted with professors in their discipline. Several confided in me that administrators pressured them to pass star athletes, especially those with scholarships, whose academic level wasn’t worthy of a high school freshman.

I tried sports my sophomore year. Too skinny for football, I chose a new sport, rugby, thinking it would help me meet girls. Practices were rougher than actual games and it was there I blew out my left knee. Orthoscopic surgery did not yet exist and I was terrified of needles so I chose home-rehab exercises. My limp lasted a year. As a final insult, the University Year Book staff left my name off the team photo. Outside of sports facilities, I rarely if ever saw a jock. So few, if any, college athletes were enrolled in the Art, History, and Science courses I took (I graduated three universities) the following observations are by nature anecdotal. Perhaps others saw it differently.

During Rugby tryouts the next year, my knee buckled like Jell-O. I hung up the cleats. The knee still bothers me. After Christmas break my junior year, I discovered a secret cabal of non-jocks had commandeered and turned the attic storage room of an old building into a weight room. Although I had never touched a bar or dumbbell, I asked to join them still hoping to rehab my knee. It was January, the attic unheated, and the equipment antique heavy-duty Anglo-Saxon stuff. Floorboards were warped, clouds of chalk hung in the air like fog, barbells rusted, and paint on plates was a distant memory. Risk of tetanus be damned, I loved it. Then came big news my senior year. The University closed our medieval attic gym but opened a multi-million dollar sports complex featuring an Olympic pool, tennis, volleyball, and basketball courts, and a fully fitted weight room. And it was heated. Although designed for all students, in no time power-lifter and football players migrated from their facilities soon taking over the Sports Complex weight room as their own. They did all in their power to intimidate and make non-jocks feel as unwelcome as possible. Lines for the bench presses, one of the few exercises performed by power-lifters, were always long. Jocks made their displeasure vocal and known over having to wait so long between sets because of us pencil necks. Their sense of god-like entitlement, probably germinating in elementary school, was on full display. They mocked and ridiculed us spaghetti armed and legged men unable to lift weight they manhandled with ease. My journey up from pencil-neckdom began by working out with five fellow spaghetti-men. One by one, jock intimidation drove them away. Not me.4

Over Easter Break, the weight room was deserted. A miracle. A young football coach came in and, in a rude manner, told me because of a water main leak, the facility was closed and to leave. I asked why that was a problem. Because there is no water for the showers, he said. I explained I lived off campus and never used the showers but he was unable to grasp this concept, became irate, and yelled at me to get out as if the Sports Complex belonged to him and his football players. My last semester arrived and, dilly-dallying too long looking for off-campus housing, I found none available. Football coaches had gone door to door snagging up everything for freshman athletes who had yet to attend a single class. Because a Maryland State Trooper finished rehabbing a house at the last minute, I found a room. Thanks Fred.

I often wondered why Monday Night Football announcers introduced players by giving their name and the university they attended. What difference did their college make? It’s a football game. Whether at work, shopping, or at places of worship, do the rest of us automatically tell people we meet the name of the college we attended? “Hi, my name is Tim, Auburn U”, or “I’m Sally; The Ohio State”. At least our speech would be comprehensible. It finally dawned on me. Professional football players were identifying the NFL Farm Team in which they had trained. Wow. Was I naïve or what? I thought colleges were scholastic institutions of higher learning not training camps for the NFL. Every “student” attending college to play sports, if they do not belong, displaces one who does. Taxpayer-subsidized Colleges deny deserving kids, admission to the university of their dreams, because they place so much emphasis on sports. Jocks, whose goal is raking in millions as professional athletes, take advantage of the “system”5. Some go on later to “tweet” while driving exotic SUVS costing more than most middle-class homes; America is a racist and unjust country.

Embarrassingly ignorant of history and fueled by the lies of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and their allies; liberals and self-loathing white people, NFL players began spitting, metaphorically, on police officers and America’s soldiers past and present by taking a knee during the National Anthem. Spokesmen for BLM have advocated violence and murder of cops claiming it is self-defense against a war of extermination waged by police officers on behalf of the white race. In previous articles, I documented that this narrative is false, myth, and a massive lie orchestrated and coordinated by the Left. Because public (dis)education so poorly serves today’s pop-culture saturated Americans, they believe this claptrap. Because so many of today’s youth lack any degree of inquisitiveness, and are scandalously gullible, they are oblivious to the fact their ignorance renders them accomplices to attacks on men and women who wear the blue.

Colin Kaepernick, multi-million dollar former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, a team notorious for involvement in anti-2nd Amendment causes, became the face of BLM’s lie in 2015 when he took a knee during the National Anthem. Marcus Peters of the Kansas City Chiefs, and others soon copied him. Journalists reported Kaepernick was under the tutelage of girlfriend, Nessa Diab, an MTV-DJ, Islamic “activist”, and strong supporter of BLM. Kaepernick began posting quotes on social media from Malcolm X, communist mass murderer Che Guevara, communist Black Panthers founder Huey Newton, and cop-killer Assata Shakur. He celebrated Muslim holidays and wore T-shirts depicting Malcolm X and Fidel Castro with slogans deriding America’s police.6

Forty-Niners coach Chip Kelly refused to stand up for America’s police and military. He framed Kaepernick’s disgraceful and buffoonish attacks as a free speech issue7 as did most in the ESPN-Jock sports media Howard Cosell derided as the “Jockocracy”.8 Apparently, Kaepernick’s cheerleaders in the fawning liberal media and the Jockocracy are unaware 1st Amendment speech protections are predicated upon one owning the platform from which he speaks. No one has the right to pop off on any topic tickling their fancy at their place of employment any more than in a neighbor’s living room. NFL players do not own the playing field, bleachers, locker room, training facility, stadium, and so forth. The NFL has hard and fast rules with respect to what players may wear or attach to their uniforms during games. Owners, general managers, and coaches maintain and enforce rules for proper behavior on and off the field, just ask Kareem Hunt (Kansas City Chiefs) and Antonio Brown (New England Patriots). NFL policy requires players to stand, helmet in left hand, and face the flag during the playing of the National Anthem. The NFL spells out disciplinary consequences for violators. But the NFL refuses to enforce these rules and is unwilling to stand up for the country whose citizens lavish millions of dollars on it and its players including tax-payer financed and supported stadiums. Instead, the NFL punishes with fervor any state daring to take a stand against what Archie Bunker called “sexual-preeverts”, men dressed as women, who insist on violating women’s bathrooms. NFL spokesmen claim respect for 1st Amendment free speech rights motivates their tolerance for players kneeling during the National Anthem. Really? Ironically, the same vertebral-challenged NFL prohibits players from possessing or storing firearms at any location associated with the NFL including training facilities, in vehicles on parking lots, team planes, buses, and you name it. The same applies to fans. For the NFL, some rights are more rights than others. In a shameless display of hypocrisy, the craven NFL refused to allow the Dallas Cowboys to wear decals on their helmets honoring the five Dallas police officers gunned down in a BLM inspired ambush.9

Perhaps huge profits, salaries, mansions, and exotic automobiles has blinded NFL panjandrums, team owners, and players to the fact that football is just a game. It possesses no inherent social value. Perhaps copying actors trying to deflect attention away from their mahoosive salaries and aristocratic lifestyles, teams exploit people’s emotions by sporting colored ribbons supporting the current cause de jure. Following public outrage over players taking a knee during the National Anthem, some teams, like the Seattle Seahawks, tried to have it both way by standing arm in arm instead of kneeling or placing hand over heart. Gutless. Kansas City Chief’s tight end Travis Kelce, who graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in “Exploratory Studies”, and has a 5-year contract worth $46 million dollars stooped even lower placing hand over heart and kneeling. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t honor those who despise this country while standing up for this country. Journalists rank teams on a “Thug-Scale” based on the number of players arrested for DUI’s, drug charges, assaults, domestic violence, rape, and even murder possibly explaining player’s dislike of law enforcement.10 Attempting to clean up their image, the NFL ran commercials with players telling us not to hit our spouses. Who are they to give moral advice to anyone?

A lifelong fan who grew up watching every college and professional football game possible, it pains me to give it up. I am no longer able to stomach the hypocrisy of the NFL. Sports has perverted the purpose of colleges and universities. Scandals involving players who coasted through high school and now college with grades they never earned, graduating with diplomas they can barely read, and the cover-up for athletes who pawed and mauled girls too humiliated and intimidated to go public, has gone on for far too long. Players, who grew up treated by schools and society as demigods now inject themselves into politics supporting causes determined to destroy values and beliefs Americans hold dear. I watch no more.

11 Please forgive my shabby attempt to channel Sir Walter Scott. Published two hundred years ago in 1819 and purchased in 1983, I am finally reading his novel, Ivanhoe. It is refreshing to rediscover classic literature and sad to realize Americans are too lazy and intellectually flaccid to tackle literature, formative of their culture, as what remains of Western Civilization slides beneath the waves.

22 Spoiler alert: Neither girl in either movie is fat or unattractive, quite the contrary which evoked criticism from girls who, sadly, believe they are both. The notion weight and unattractiveness are mutually inclusive is terribly wrong and has destroyed the lives of many young people.

33 Unbeknownst to me, a jock copied off my test answer sheet in biology. Other kids lied and told him I knew he was copying and purposely put down the wrong answers. Twice my size, He cornered me in a hallway and threatened to beat the *BEEP* out of me if this turned out to be true. He would have if this had not been a lie. I still remember his white T-shirt and size of his arms as he grabbed my shirt and slammed me against the wall.

44 I never touched steroids, (lifters called it “juice” and “the sauce”) or any form of sports enhancing drug ever. Yet, several years after college, I was able to hit 350 on the bench, one rep-lock outs too, 425 deep squat, and 10 lock out reps with 185 pounds on the military press. My weight went from 120 to 225 eating food, not drugs.

55 at https://work.chron.com/much-money-nfl-player-make-year-2377.html. The median salary for NFL players is $860,000 per season with rookies starting at an average of $450,000. However, this does not take into account their haul from endorsements, commercials, team merchandise, and so forth.

66 Fox News, “Kaepernick Social Media Posts Laud Black Lives Matter, Black Panthers, Since Dating Activist DJ”, August 30, 2016 at http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2016/08/30/kaepernick-social-media-posts-laud-black-lives-matter-black-panthers-since-dating-activist-dj.amp.html

77 David Codrea, “O say can you see…” Views News, & Reviews Guns Magazine 2 (February 2018), 65.

99 Codrea, 65.

1010 “Which NFL teams have the most player arrests? Bengals, Broncos, among longest rap sheets since 2000”, at http://blog.masslive.com/patriots/2017/05/nflarrests_which_teams_have_t.html. Updated May 12, 2017. The top 10 were: 1. Minnesota Vikings, 2. Denver Broncos, 3. Cincinnati Bengals, 4. Tennessee Titans tied with Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 5. Indianapolis Colts tied with the Jacksonville Jaguars, 6. Cleveland Browns, 7. Chicago Bears tied with the Kansas City Chiefs, 8. Miami Dolphins, 9. Baltimore Ravens tied with the Seattle Seahawks, and 10. Los Angeles Chargers tied with the San Francisco 49ers out of 32 teams.

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Henny Penny Builds A “Safe” Gun

Henny Penny

For those discomfited by my point of view, and for liberals that entails maniacal hatred, don’t get your Garanimals’ training undies in a twist. I’m in the extreme minority. I’m so “old-school” and normal, nothing more than shirt and trousers will ever emerge from my closet and I managed to reach middle-age sans tattoos, never involved in drugs, and without carnal knowledge of Madonna. Is that rare or what? I’ve never won a popularity contest either and am not about to start now. So why sweat me? Like-minded Americans could fit in one room without a shoe horn.

Unbeknownst to me how, I was added to the email blast alert list of Democrat Party Panjandrum Nancy Pelosi known affectionately in some circles as Bela Pelousy. My first impulse was to hit delete and unsubscribe followed by multiple showers and a round of antibiotics. Wait a sec. Imagine the immense loss in entertainment value not reading lunatic emails penned behind the Tofu Curtain by Bela’s neo-Bolshevik scribes out in California. I reconsidered. Pouring a beverage and popping popcorn, I began reading. Hysterical. What a hoot. I stopped laughing. Radical Trotskycrats couldn’t fund-raise through preposterous wild-eyed frothing at the mouth emails, spewing claims unmoored from reality, unless significant numbers of the Great Unwashed are gullible and ignorant enough to believe such rubbish. Or went to public schools. Or both. G-d help us all.

Based on radio and television discussions, online articles, and conversations with Millennials, in general they seem to oppose abolishing the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. But they also tend to support so-called “assault-rifle” bans and believe safer guns and more training are the remedies for “gun-violence.” If true, their knowledge of firearms and understanding of crime issues needs to be addressed. What is the best approach?

All too-often Millennials propose gun control laws whose underlying premise is grossly naïve; people are incompetent with respect to self-defense so shouldn’t fight back against criminal attack. And “because,” they claim, an armed woman is more likely to shoot herself than the bad guy, she should submit to rape. Could these gutless arguments stem from an unwillingness by TSNAGs (Typical Sensitive New Age Guys) to shoulder a responsibility once embraced by men; protecting society’s most vulnerable? Is cowardice behind their claim disarming all but cops will create safer communities? Making matters worse, people proposing more gun laws sometimes know little or nothing about guns. They employ incorrect terms, trade in urban legends, and rely on internet disinformation. Maybe they ask where’s the safety on Ruger’s GP100, call AR15s “assault weapons,” refer to magazines as “clips,” claim anyone can walk in and out of a gun store in five minutes with a machine gun, say the Constitution “gives” us the right to keep and bear arms, or claim gun-registration will never lead to confiscation. Can gun-owners be faulted in believing when a liberal man marries a liberal woman, it’s a same-sex marriage? How does one address their ignorance and misinformation? Understandably those in the self-defense community often respond to the ill-informed with insults but, is this the best approach with Millennials? Is treating them as lunkheads for not knowing what the rest of us were taught the best way to win converts? No. Instead, with gentleness and patience, take them under your wing. Guide them to a saving knowledge of the truth about self-defense. Teach them the 2nd Amendment protects the right to save their lives and those of loved ones from bad guys who’d take them in a second without remorse. They’re smart. As they learn, questions will arise and your answers will lead to more questions and soon you’ve taught them what used to be common knowledge. Let’s start here.

Deceitfully calling them “assault-weapons,” and “assault-rifles,” liberals would ban America’s rifle, the AR15/AR10 and their derivatives. But these are semiautomatic not assault-rifles, (no firearm is classified an assault weapon). They comport with the type of firearm Alexander Hamilton had in mind observing in Federalist #46 that an armed citizenry is the chief bulwark against infringement and oppression by a federal government, and an army it might raise for that purpose.1 Those calling for “safer” guns and more training are apparently unfamiliar with firearms. Considering approximately 124 million people own about 270 million guns,2 (or more), and there were 505 deaths due to “accidental or negligent discharge of a firearm” in 2013,3 (not even half of a half of a half of a percent, you get the drift) safe gun handling is not a problem in America. Would guns complicated by additional safety devices and more training impair the thugs shooting up Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia,4 and Washington, D.C. among others?

In the past several decades, various firearm manufacturers began attaching unnecessary function-retarding devices (magazine disconnect safety) aimed at fending off slip-and-fall lawyers, buying goodwill among anti-gunners, and saving from themselves, people too stupid to unload their gun before cleaning it. Remarkably, even self-defense gurus piled on teaching CCW holders not to carry guns with personal hand-loaded ammunition because it made them appear more blood-thirsty. Editorialists for firearm magazines, gun forums, pro-gun attorneys, and those training citizens at various shooting schools and academies echoed these proscriptions as well. These admonitions took on the life of hoary old clichés everyone accepts but never questions. With all due respect to The Persuaders, as a policeman, when I heard someone utter the cliché; there’s a fine line between love and hate, it was always after husbands or boyfriends beat, stabbed, or murdered their wives or girlfriends. There is a huge chasm between love and hate. I am no fan of hoary clichés. If you get worked up over what comes next, keep in mind, drugs, tattoos, Madonna, extreme minority…

I’m acquainted with the PARDs (Pistol Rescue Doctors) who perform operations transforming liberal guns into conservative guns. They surgically remove from pistols magazine disconnect “safeties,” an unnecessary handicapping mechanism. I realize liberals enjoy taking sharp objects to everything from fences to babies, but, in this case, patients emerge from operating rooms feeling much better. These surgeons have rescued pistols from both domestic and foreign marques. A minimally invasive procedure, each gun is able to return to a normal life the same day, without prescription Opioids. What is this safety? A magazine disconnect safety prevents a pistol from firing unless a magazine is firmly inserted and locked in place. It doesn’t matter if the magazine is loaded with rounds or not. Unless the magazine is in place, the pistol is inoperable.

In an ongoing campaign to limit the type of firearms which may be sold and possessed, down to, well, none, California created an ever evolving list of “safety” features and attributes firearms must have in order to be legal in the Rainbow state. To the ever shrinking list of legal guns was added in 2007, the requirement of a visual and tactile loaded chamber indicator and a magazine disconnect “safety.”5 It remains unclear how such mechanisms reduce crime by identifying, apprehending, and bringing violent criminals to trial. In order to continue marketing guns in California, and placate lefty anti-2nd Amendment politicians (the beard and ponytail crowd), Sturm Ruger and Smith & Wesson (metal pistols) added magazine disconnect “safeties” not typically found on pistols manufactured by Beretta, CZ, Glock, H&K, FN, SIG Sauer, Springfield, and 1911A1s, or Smith’s modern plastic pistols.

Self-anointed “gun-experts,” among the most insufferably arrogant people I’ve ever encountered, and Neosporin scraped knee spraying worry warts argue that, before cleaning a pistol, someone might forget to check to see if it’s loaded and suffer a negligent discharge [ND] with tragic consequences. Do they assume everyone, other than them, is too ignorant, stupid, and irresponsible to safely handle guns so as many function retarding devices as possible must be added to them? The rarity of gun-accidents puts a lie to this notion. For everyone I’ve trained with, at police and public ranges, the approach is much the same. Training is 100% focused on safety. A standardized step by step protocol is taught and pounded into the heads of new shooters. Range Masters are unforgiving. 1) all guns are considered loaded, 2) guns at all times must be pointed in a safe direction, 3) shooters must know their backstop meaning, what you’re shooting at and the dangers of shooting in that direction, 4) don’t touch or load guns until conditions are safe to do so, 5) When done firing, place the pistol on the bench, table, etc. with the slide locked back and the ejection port up so anyone can see if it’s loaded. Rounds, fired or not, are ejected from the cylinder of revolvers and the gun is placed on the shooting table with the cylinder propped open for inspection, 6) before disassembly for cleaning, the pistol’s magazine must be out, the slide locked back, and the chamber inspected to ensure no rounds remain in the gun, 7) never point even a disassembled gun at anyone, 8) when unloading an unfired gun, whether back from the range or a day of concealed carry, you must account for each round. By always following these or similar steps in the same order, they become part of what’s known as “muscle memory.” Simple. For those finding these steps too complex or mentally challenging, no amount of safeties will make their firearms safe. For them a safe gun is none at all. But don’t punish the 99.99% who handle firearms responsibly with useless feel-good beanbag lava lamp “safety” devices. An on-line Ruger Forum reveals there are Henny Pennys among gun-owners.

Magazine disconnect safety deactivation opponents argue, although removing them makes pistols no less safe, the why of it would not be understood by juries. Others contend that, even in cases where use of deadly force is justified, prosecutors will use removal to paint defendants in the worst possible light. Forum member ‘Sandlapper’ wrote; “It is a safety device you are removing and I’ve always thought safety and gun are too (sic) words that worked well together.” When another forum member asked if this had ever been an issue in a court case, removal opponent ‘Storm40’ delivered what he thought was the coup de grace citing People v. Superior Court (DU) Los Angeles County, (1992). In this case, an LAPD ballistics expert testified the snub-nosed Smith & Wesson revolver used in the shooting case had been crudely altered and it’s “trigger pull dramatically reduced.” Storm40 added that the revolver’s “safety mechanism” didn’t function.6 Having fired snub-nosed revolvers from Colt, Sturm-Ruger, Smith & Wesson, and Taurus over the years, I never encountered a “safety-mechanism,” left-wing novelist Stephen Kind notwithstanding.

Great Scott, has America descended so deeply into Henny Penny emasculation that the blood of America’s rugged, individualistic, and self-reliant forefathers has evaporated from everyone’s veins? Have Neosporin wielding moms patrolling playgrounds ever vigilant for scraped elbows turned Americans into the sky is falling ninnies?

Back in the day, a young man’s first car was typically a tired old jalopy. He soon went to work tossing out performance inhibiting parts replacing cams, intakes, carburetors, exhaust manifolds, and gears with those designed to wring from the car its true performance potential. At least outside of Palo Alto. When liberal environmentalists, who pee their pants at the mere mention of horsepower, employed the tyrannical power of government to foist all manner of unconstitutional performance crippling “pollution” devices on cars, sons and daughters of pioneers and settlers did what free people always do. They chucked them. None of their modifications rendered cars any less safe. Whether driving a 1974 Ford Pinto pumping out 80 horsepower or a 2018 Dodge Demon with 840 screaming horses on tap, what makes cars safe or unsafe is how they’re operated. For those driving sewing machines (electric cars), time among aficionados of real cars is highly recommended…and fun.

Removing magazine disconnect safeties does little to alter trigger pull weight on hammer or striker fired pistols and renders them no less safe. With Ruger’s SR9, removal actually smooths trigger press resulting in a more accurate gun. No one wants to shoot innocent bystanders. Won’t prosecutors use this modification to vilify defendants? Let’s be frank. If a prosecutor has charged you in a self-defense case, they want your scalp. Ethical or not, fair or not, they’ll throw anything they can at you to win conviction. District Attorneys are politicians. Even If you do everything right; approved factory ammo and a totally bone-stock gun, and you’re a pillar of the community completely justified in the use of deadly force, a D.A. who chooses to bring charges will so blacken your character and reputation, your own family won’t recognize you. Trial lawyer Gordon Cooper, an experienced attorney who represents gun-owners, observes the legal system is biased and stacked against gun-owners. And that’s whether you tuned your gun to be more efficient or not. In his experience, “many law-enforcement officers, district attorneys, and even jurors seem to think that if you own or carry a firearm, you are inherently guilty in some way.”7 It won’t matter whether or not you added clearer sights, replaced the grip panels for a better fit, had a trigger-job to improve a horrendous pull weight, Cerakoted the frame for rust prevention, or removed a magazine disconnect “safety.” Ultimately the issue to be decided is, was the use of deadly force justified? Prosecutors attempt to load juries with as many gun-ignorant Oprah watching malleable Neosporin nitwits as possible. It’s the defense attorney’s responsibility, through the voir dire and trial process to block this and provide expert counter-witnesses. As to Ruger Forum member Sandlapper’s cliché about guns and safety going together, Confiscationists use the words “gun” and “safety,” together all the time. Are you going to allow those who know nothing about and or hate guns, dictate what does or doesn’t belong on your gun because the word “safety” is attached to it? For liberals “safety” means national gun-owner registration, restrictions, bans, forced-buy backs, and confiscation. Is that what you want, Sandlapper? If you allow Confiscationist Henny Pennys to build a “safe” gun, chances are it won’t fire. Messages on T-shirts, bumpers stickers, and social media pose a much greater threat to a defendant in a self-defense case than a finely-tuned gun.

Ruger Forum member “Spring” noted disconnect “safety” removal does not lighten trigger pull and the same dire warnings were applied to gun-owners using hollow point rounds; they’re “designed to kill” and make gun owners appear “blood-thirsty.” You’ll get hammered by prosecutors if they discover you used hollow-points in your self-defense gun, people warned. Another Forum member observed that, with respect to the California snub-nosed revolver case, modification of the revolver’s trigger was not an issue and played no role in determination of guilt or innocence. Two women were engaged in a physical altercation (sounds like a high school cafeteria at lunchtime), one turned to leave, and the defendant shot her in the back of the head.8 Anyone with a modicum of common sense knows immediately what the defendant did wrong. If not, don’t touch a gun until you get some serious legal training.

As much as I respect Massad Ayoob, I take issue with his admonition against disconnect safety removal.9 As a policeman, I and other officers were issued Smith & Wesson Model 19 revolvers. By the 1980s, new specimens typically came with heavy gritty triggers and large wooden grips. It was routine for officers to replace wooden stocks with rubber grips, change the sights, and pop for a department legal trigger job. Like performance mods on a car, this didn’t make the gun any less safe, it simply ran better.

Prosecutor: “Isn’t it true officer Goldstein, getting an action job indicates you intended to shoot the deceased?”

Goldstein: “No, pulling the trigger does.”

Gaston Glock’s masterpiece has no magazine disconnect safety and is perhaps the most customizable pistol on the market. From slide hold-open levers, magazine release buttons, springs, barrels, slides, name it, the performance of off the shelf guns can be greatly enhanced. This can make for more confident and accurate users. Ultra-light triggers aside, in self-defense situations, employing a finely tuned and accurate gun means less chance of bullets striking unintended targets. Gun owners who experiment with various loads are more likely to know which bullets might over or under penetrate in given situations allowing them to choose wisely. This makes them and the gun safer.

It’s possible, sitting in a car, at a desk, or reaching for items on grocery store shelves, to bump the magazine release button just enough to unlock the magazine of some pistols. With the magazine still in the well, nothing appears amiss. Attacks by criminals are often sudden and violent, allowing victims but a second to pull their gun and fire in self-defense. Only, the gun won’t fire. The magazine is unlocked. What about the fact a round is already chambered. It won’t matter. The gun is inoperable due to the magazine disconnect safety. For naysayers who might argue this would probably be a rare occurrence, how rare will it be if it’s you? Gun Writers note most attacks and self-defense uses of pistols occur at handshaking distances. Suppose a scumbag makes a grab for and gets his hand on your gun and, in the ensuing struggle, the magazine release button is bumped sending the magazine flying. No sweat, you still have one in the pipe. Weren’t you paying attention? Without the magazine locked in place, the pistol is inoperable. While the Scrote is stabbing you with a knife or bludgeoning your skull with a crowbar, you’re on hands and knees, scrambling around on the sidewalk, trying to find the ejected magazine so it can be re-inserted into the pistol to make it work. Only, you won’t be able to do that. Because you’re dead.

Finding time and money to practice frequently at the range is a challenge for anyone. “Dry-firing” is a method for practicing trigger skills, hand and eye coordination, and building muscle memory. Third generation Smith & Wesson pistols, alloy and steel models, had hammers and a double action trigger pull weight designed to build great forearms. Like a revolver, one can practice “staging” the overly heavy trigger learning to control and fire it at the proper “break” enhancing accuracy and effectiveness. But this requires lots of practice, including long dry-fire sessions. To dry-fire these hammer fired Smiths, one has two options; thumb back the hammer and pull the trigger but, it won’t drop without the magazine in place (Smith 908, for example), or rack the slide. But the slide can’t be racked to the rear and returned to battery if an empty magazine is in place. The slide has to be retracted, allowed to return to battery, and then the magazine re-inserted. Unless you thumb the hammer with a magazine in place, if you dry fire 50 times, you’ll have to repeat this process 50 times. But that’s impossible with magazine disconnect safeties. It’s the same for striker-fired pistols. Dropping the magazine, working the slide, reinserting the magazine, pulling the trigger, and repeating is not conducive to training and, we have a magazine always in the gun. Wouldn’t it be safer during dry fire practice for a magazine not to be part of the equation?

For those clinging to the, what’s the harm with more safeties argument, how many will be enough? At what point does the firearm’s intended purpose become compromised? The way to improve driving skills is through practice, not making it harder for people to drive their cars. In both cases, firearms and automobiles, one learns a set of safety protocols from which not to deviate. I am aware of a man who was killed when the jack holding up the car he was under failed. Anyone who works on cars learns early on this is a hideously dangerous no-no. The same “everyone knows you don’t do this” type of maxim also applies to guns. Those who violate safety protocols, face tragic consequences. The good news is, most of us do follow them.

What would guns designed by Henny Pennys look like? Big and heavy, festooned with a padlock, proof all 29 warning labels were read, owner fingerprint keypad, microphone and voice recognition software, chip reader, DNA blood-sample collection needle, video-screen on which to take a required test, google search for any racist, sexist, bigoted, etc. comment ever made on social media, and an automatic call to the FBI for authorization to use the gun.

In America, when a respected greybeard in the 2nd Amendment and shooting community theorizes from his pedestal this or that handgun modification could be used by prosecutors to hang an innocent person, other sages nod in cross-pollinating agreement. Soon the theory circulates becoming accepted wisdom one dares not question. In the real world, rounds fired at violent attackers in self-defense, from .380s to .44 Magnums, don’t automatically drop knife or gun-wielding Scumbags like a sack of potatoes. You’re in a fight for your life. You must do whatever it takes to prevail. Failure means you die. But, snivels the Henny Penny, they’ll say when you fired your gun, you meant to kill the bad guy with the knife.10 When it comes to saving lives, we can’t let fear mongering and the massive egos of firearms “experts” cripple our ability to defend ourselves. We can’t allow Confiscationists to normalize hamstringing guns with function inhibiting devices in the name of “gun safety” and “sensible laws.” None of this will hamstring violent criminals but may cost you your life.

11 Clinton Rossiter, Editor, The Federalist Papers, #46 (New York, N.Y., A Mentor Book from New American Library, 1961), 294-300.

22 John R. Lott, Jr., More Guns Less Crime, Third Edition, (Chicago, Illinois, University of Chicago Press, 2010), 1.

44 I was born outside D.C. and lived in both Baltimore and Filthadelphia. Inner-city. Yeah, and went to what they call “schools,” too.

66 At http://www.rugerforum.net. 15 November 2011.

77 Gordon Cooper, “Buying Self-Defense Insurance: Important Factors to Consider,” Gun Tests 5 (May 2018), 23-26.

88 Ruger Forum.net, 15 November, 2011.

99 Massad Ayoob, “Cop Talk: A Dissenting View On Magazine Safeties, American Handgunner, (July/August 1979), 14-16 at https://americanhandgunner.com/1987issues/HJA78.pdf. See also; The Truth About Manual Handgun Safeties, The Truth About Guns, at https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thetruthaboutguns.com/the-truth-about-manual-handgun-safeties/amp/.

1010 People who rob, rape, and murder, are intentional predators. Unlike animals whose predation is based on feeding, these predators are motivated by evil hence monsters and no longer part of the family of man and should be treated as such.

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Addressing Myth and Misinformation Part II

Part 1

“Can we discuss the loss of rights of people going to a concert because of the lack of assault rifle regulations?”1

Singer Sheryl Crow

“It sickens me the ease in which a TERRORIST can be sold a GUN. Is the ease really worth all these lives?! This needs to stop”2 [capitalization and punctuation in the original] tweeting about Las Vegas.

Gigi Hadid, top fashion model

“It would be wise to ban assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and silencers. None of which is excessive.”3

Elizabeth Banks, Hollywood actress

“Gun control now. Enough already. Grow the f__k up. The average person doesn’t need a f__cking maching (sic) gun. Enough already.”4 [Misspelling in the original]

Billy Eichner, Comedian, actor, writer, television personality.

“We love the traditions, the history, the technology of firearms, and we grew up with the sense of deep responsibility owning guns brings. We gun owners have a deeply held belief in gun safety, instilled by our parents and our grandparents. Owning a gun means living by a set of sternly ingrained rules. Those rules belong to us. We live by them. And when someone breaks those rules, we feel betrayed, appalled, and angry.”5

Todd Woodward

Leftist singer Cheryl Crow, from Kennett, Missouri is worth approximately $41 million dollars. No doubt she and the celebrities cited above earn enough to preclude rubbing shoulders with the hoi polloi. They probably have bodyguards as well. Armed bodyguards. If Crow knows anything about firearms and gun-laws, she keeps this secret well hidden. If model Hadid knew the Las Vegas mass murderer was a terrorist (no one else did) then why didn’t she speak up or call the FBI before the massacre? Comedian Eichner demonstrates a psychosis peculiar to those on the left to wit; they believe anger, shouting, and profanity lend credence and strength to their argument. The more self-righteous sanctimony they can work up, like a sweaty lather, the more correct they are. Grow up? For real Billy? I heard that. Someone in the room said, “Who cares. I don’t go to the movies and never heard of these people anyway.” Do you know how many followers they have on social media? Remember this is the USSA (United States of Shallow Americans) wherein if people like an actor, singer, model, or entertainer, then whatever they say must be true. Affection determines truth. Mental exertion need not apply. Let’s play a game. Let’s pretend we’re in a large room and seated at our feet are pop-culture icons all eager to learn. They begin with questions like; aren’t people running amuck in streets blasting each other left and right like in the movies and video games we make? Shouldn’t the government ban guns before they hurt more people? Why is anyone allowed to buy military assault weapons? And they’re all ears and no mouth. I know, I know, but play along anyway.

With respect to actress Elizabeth Banks, there are no firearms classified “assault weapons.” Anything that can be used to hurt another; a rolled up magazine, pencil, ashtray, rock, fishing hook, hayfork, Hillary’s laugh (like a cross between a strangled goose and Bob Dylan singing), or a refrigerator hardened biscuit can be an “assault weapon.” Okay, I get it, you meant “assault rifle” like AR15s, AK47s, Ruger Minis, and any rifle with a collapsible stock and fore-end grip. Right? Wrong. For a rifle to be classified as an “assault rifle,” it must possess specific characteristics including: (1) shoulder fired, (2) capable of full automatic fire, and (3) chambered in a cartridge “intermediate between pistol and revolver, and rifle ammunition; i.e., carbine ammunition.”6 Some are capable of selective fire meaning they have a switch to set them on safe, semiautomatic, fully automatic, and back again. By definition this excludes semiautomatic rifles because there is no switch or capability for full automatic fire. Instead their triggers must be pressed, one at a time, for each round fired, a system more than a century old. Other than caliber, similarities between military and civilian rifles are cosmetic. The latter are incapable of selective or full-automatic fire. Liberals invented the term “assault-weapon” to confuse and scare non- gun owners into believing commercial AR15s are the same as military fully automatic assault rifles.7

Okay, maybe you’re right, a songstress replies, but can’t semiautomatics be modified to fire full-auto? In some cases, yes but it takes skill and proper tools to make alterations which typically are irreversible. This false claim, semiautomatics can easily, and apparently legally, be converted to fully automatic, came up at my school in the form of an ambush.

When I was a high school teacher, a colleague in the foreign language department told her students anyone could purchase the part(s) at gun shows to convert semiautomatic rifles to full-auto. Why this came up in a Spanish class, I have no idea. English, Science, Math, SocialIST Studies, and other departments were compartmentalized into their own hallways and, only in my 3rd year, I’d met few teachers outside my own. Therefore, I was caught off guard when a teacher I’d never met (I had to ask a colleague her name) unleashed an attack on me in the teacher’s break room at lunch. Angry and emotional, she yelled at me in accusatory tones claiming anyone could buy the parts to convert semi into fully automatic firearms at gun shows. Collecting myself, I asked what the part was and how many gun shows had she attended? Her response was tempestuous insistence she spoke the truth and if I said otherwise, I was a liar. Why had she targeted me? An introvert in a department of belligerent very vocal leftists, I’d kept my views to myself from day one so her outburst was mystifying. I failed to grasp, until apprised later by the principal, what an intolerable scandal it was for an overwhelmingly liberal faculty to discover a conservative in their midst. And I was unaware to the degree which liberal teachers, who didn’t even know me, talked about me behind my back. MOTOWN’s The O’JAYS sang of my plight. The pattern was typical. Upon discovering a conservative colleague, liberals begin with mild teasing, then goading, next mockery and stepped up insults, and finally angry verbal attacks. When assigned to work with new teachers during faculty in-services, ultra-liberal union goon Mao ZeTodd was invariably lurking nearby. He’d rush over announcing in hysterical tones resembling an Atlanta CDC warning, I was the “school conservative” thus poisoning any chance to build a relationship before rumor, gossip, and lies reached their ears.

I’d attended many gun shows and never seen parts for sale to convert semi to a fully automatic rifles. Being no authority and wanting to get the facts straight, I contacted the local BATF. They said the Spanish teacher was wrong. Possession of any part permitting conversion of a firearm from semi to full-automatic is illegal and a felony. This is true even if one doesn’t possess a firearm. Members of local police departments and the BATF often visit gun shows ensuring everything is on the up and up. It is illegal to make, alter, or offer for sale, any part modifying the semiautomatic function of any firearm, pistol, shotgun, or rifle, to fully automatic. Kiss loved ones goodbye because you’re looking at up to 10 years in federal prison, a $250,000 dollar fine, and permanent revocation of the right to possess firearms and vote as well. Suppose you make the modification and take it to someone’s farm to try it out. A neighbor reports to authorities hearing automatic fire coming from this property. Based on probable cause the BATF secures and executes a search warrant finding the weapon(s). It gets very bad at that point. Altering firearms this way is something you should never have anything to do with. Don’t do it. Run from anyone doing this.8 Did I confront the Spanish teacher with the truth, the fact that she lied? No, it’s the whole introvert thing. Okay ask our glitterati, AR15s are not the same as M16s, but why does anyone need them anyway?

The right to keep and bear arms is recognized through the Declaration of Independence and Constitution as a G-d-given not man-created right from which individuals can’t be alienated [separated] by government. It has nothing to do with hunting or membership in the Military or “National” (sic) Guard and more importantly, is not dependent on notions of a “need.” Were this not so, those who rule, regardless of style of government from authoritarian to democratic, could define and redefine the “need” standard until it becomes an un-scalable wall. In response to mass shootings in the latter half of the 20th century, Britain eliminated self-defense as a reason to “need” firearms essentially banning pistols, revolvers, rifles, and shotguns. Because registration had been implemented years before, the government knew who had what when confiscation began.9 An inalienable right cannot be altered, infringed upon, or abolished by a majority vote of one’s neighbors or by government. Okay, says a pop-star, instead of banning guns, couldn’t we save lives by limiting magazine capacity? Who really needs “high capacity” magazines holding 15 to 30 rounds?

High compared to what? The correct term is “full capacity.” I have a question for you; how many rounds does it take to stop an attacker? A 2008 Rand Corporation study found the NYPD averaged an 18% hit rate in shootouts with armed criminals and a 30% rate when the bad guys didn’t return fire10 translating into an approximate hit ratio of 1 to 3 rounds per 10 round magazine. Roughly the same percentage, sometimes worse, holds true for departments across America. Would you limit magazine capacity for the police? Okay maybe not cops but it’s different with civilians. It’s the cops that face armed bad guys a movie star shouts. Based on my experience, more than a few civilians are better trained and know their way around firearms than the average cop. Considering victims, by virtue of their status as the intended target, are first on the scene, why should they be hamstrung by limited capacity magazines when police, on the way if 911 is called, are not? Now toss into the mix an attacker full of murderous rage, under the influence of alcohol and or drugs, and running full speed at you with knife or gun in hand. Forget all this talk about bringing a knife to a gun fight, one-shot stops, and knock-down power, we’re dealing with the real world, not Hollywood. Lethal hits or not, how many rounds will it take to stop the attacker from taking your life before he expires? No one knows. Further, criminals may attack in pairs or groups, one asking for the time or bus fare, distracting the intended victim. Will felons, already barred from possessing the firearms they acquire, obey magazine capacity limits? They tend to keep shooting until their victims are dead.

I see your hand up in the front. Didn’t you sing at a Super Bowl halftime a few years back? Never saw a skirt so short before. What about gun registration to prevent violent crimes, she says, ignoring my observation. Wouldn’t it keep them out of the hands of criminals? Does it now, I reply. Registration is record keeping on who legally purchased and owns what. Since criminals, who typically obtain firearms through theft and burglary are disinclined to register them, what difference would registration make? Consider automobile registration and driver’s licensing requirements. License plates on stolen cars reveal who owns not who stole it. Same with guns. Like firearms, many laws regulate the purchase and operation of automobiles but here the analogy breaks down. Fines, restrictions on and revocation of driving privileges, and even prison to compel compliance with traffic laws has failed. People still text, speed, run stop signs and red lights, steer wheels with knees because a cigarette is in one hand and a triple-decker two-pound bacon burger is in the other, and drive under the influence. Each year they murder thousands of people and hurt, maim, and cripple millions more yet no one calls for the elimination of automobiles even “if it will save one life.” There is no analogue with firearm ownership. Considering approximately 124 million people own about 270 million guns,11 and there were 505 deaths due to “accidental or negligent discharge of a firearm” in 2013,12 and of “2,596,993 deaths in the U.S. for the same year, 1% were related to firearms (most suicides),”13 gun owners have a remarkable record for non-criminal safe handling of firearms. This is not the result of registration or gun control laws but rather, the nature of firearm owners going back to America’s founding. Gun registration schemes typically lead to confiscation as in the U.K., Australia, and California. Speaking of California, one of its denizens, not sure if male or female, raises, his, er, her hand, and asks; why not “reasonable” gun laws, can’t you compromise?

Lewis Dovland notes regardless of rhetoric, gun-controller’s “ultimate goal” remains “confiscation of all guns in America.” Each law passed moves closer to this goal. Take same-sex marriage for example and imagine a line forming a continuum running from ‘A’ to ‘Z.’

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Normal marriage is ‘A’ with ‘Z’ being same-sex marriage. Proponents of same-sex marriage knew demanding ‘Z’ was too much to ask for, so they demanded ‘N’ instead. This sparked debate and resistance. Attorneys challenged state laws against same-sex marriage in court while supporters fanned out across the land branding opponents bigots, haters, extremists, and “homophobes.” Schools were pressured to adopt same-sex friendly curriculum under the rubrics; “tolerance” and “diversity.” Hollywood films and television shows seeded positive depictions of same-sex marriage. Stories planted in the liberal media echoed these portrayals. Opponents were depicted as rabid backwoods Christian fundamentalists chomping at the bit to launch new waves of Salem witch trials. Although the demand for ‘N’ appeared a failure, (citizens in states that remember the 10th Amendment still voted on the issue) in actuality proponents of same-sex “marriage” (sic) achieved ‘C,’ greater acceptance of and crumbling resistance to their agenda. The effort began anew only now, ‘C,’ is the new ‘A’ and there is no way to go back to the original ‘A.’ ‘N’ is again demanded and ‘C’ is again settled for but ‘C’ is now really ‘F.’ By constantly refining ‘A’ toward ‘Z,’ they ultimately got to ‘Z.’ In like manner, Confiscationists through so-called reasonable gun laws, hope to eliminate private possession of firearms in America.14

Gun control laws are predicated on the notion mere existence of firearms increases if not causes violent crime. The solution? Remove firearms from the equation and the problem is solved. This is why Confiscationists focus entirely on the means, i.e. guns, magazines, ammunition, and never on the criminal. But this notion has proven to be terribly flawed to the point of being false by criminologists and researchers from Gary Keck, David Kopel, Joyce Lee Malcom, to John R. Lott, Jr. If it was valid, in states and cities where obtaining firearms is almost impossible for the law-abiding, it would be even more so for criminals causing them to abandon their lives of crime becoming carpenters, waitresses, farmers, teachers, plumbers, nurses, and doctors. But this is not the case. Evil in the heart of malefactors causes evil deeds. Tools to implement evil will be found one way or another. As a policeman I transported criminals to court, jail, and prison. Recognizing some as return customers, I asked, why not turn away from their life of crime? Answer; it’s what they knew and what they liked. None sweated getting their hands on guns either. Fences (who trade in stolen property) and other criminals sell them or they could be acquired on the job during thefts and burglaries. Gun laws play no role in their calculations. “Reasonable” gun laws do nothing to transform wolves but instead, disarm the lambs. One cannot escape the fact that no greater deterrent to criminal assault and mass shootings exists than a public at large possessed of and trained in arms.

11 Kate Feldman, “Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Emmy Rossum and more call for gun control after Las Vegas shooting,” October 3, 2017 at http://www.nydailynews.com/amp/entertainment/celebrities-call-gun-control-las-vegas-shooting-article-1.3539734.

22 IBID.

33 IBID.

44 IBID.

55 Todd Woodward, editor, “Down Range: After Las Vegas,” Gun Tests 11 (November 2017), 2.

66 Todd Woodward, “Down Range: Assault Weapons Hoo-Hah,” Gun Tests 11 (November 2004), 2.

77 The Truth About Assault Weapons, at http://www.assaultweapons.info/. See also, Frank Camp, “Why Progressives Use the Made-Up Term ‘Assault Weapon,” The Daily Wire at https://www.dailywire.com/news/20668/why-progressives-use-made-up-term-assault-weapon-frank-camp.

88 Students told me what the Spanish teacher said. Some kids bragged in my class knowing someone’s dad or dad’s friend who was altering semiautomatic rifles to fire full-automatic. I told the class in no uncertain terms this was illegal, a felony, and the consequences when they were caught.

99 David B. Kopel, The Samurai, The Mountie, And The Cowboy (Buffalo, New York, Prometheus Books, 1992), 70-95

1010 Nate Rawlings, “Ready, Fire, Aim: The Science Behind Police Shooting Bystanders, Time, at http://nation.time.com/2013/09/16/ready-fire-aim-the-science-behind-police-shooting-bystanders/ A New York Times study put the NYPD officer’s hit rate as high as 34%. See Al Baker, “11 Years of Police Gunfire, in Painstaking Detail,” New York Times, at http://www.newyorktimes.com. While I was at the Santa Clara PD range for annual qualification, our [not Santa Clara] new Chief walked in. The Range master said although I’d been waiting an hour, to let him go first. Later he told me the Chief showed up with revolver rounds in his shirt pocket, two different calibers, none matching his gun. I asked if the Chief had passed qualification. He made a funny face, rolled his eyes, and refused to answer on the basis that it might…

1111 John R. Lott, Jr., More Guns Less Crime, Third Edition, (Chicago, Illinois, University of Chicago Press, 2010), 1.

1313 IBID. 5.

1414 Lewis Dovland, “Guns: The Left’s True Aim and How to Thwart It,” at http://www.american-thinker-com/2013/04-.

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