GUNS ( Part 6: Defund the Police and Defend Yourself )

Mixed Messages in the Era of Gun Control

But let’s take this one step further.  We have established that the cops have a 6.5% hit rate in armed encounters.  If we are seeking to defund the police and effectively reduce their presence, one can logically assume that crime will increase. Nature abhors a vacuum.  Without law enforcement, the citizenry will have to rely on themselves for security.  And nobody drives that point home better than a democrat administration in the White House, whose anti-police and anti-gun rhetoric has driven gun sales through the roof.  Ironically fueled by government stimulus checks, the FBI broke its record for background checks for gun sales, and concealed carry permits in March. According to Forbes, “background checks for gun purchases and other firearms related actions totaled 15.96 million in the first four months of 2021”. And since the start of the pandemic “more than 8.4 million Americans have purchased guns for the first time”.  Gun manufacturer Sturm Ruger reported a “50% spike in quarterly sales and more than doubled its profit.” So Mr. Biden, America is listening and responding appropriately to secure their safety.   So here’s the dilemma: if more Americans are forced to rely on firearms for there own security while the government reduces our police presence, how does that mesh with the government simultaneously seeking to restrict the citizen’s access to a firearm? And here’s where the statistics become very inconvenient.  If law enforcement, trained professionals are scoring only a 6.5% hit rate on assailants, how exactly will the relatively untrained citizen score in a similar situation? The Biden Administration seeks to impose a ban on “assault weapons”, an ill-defined construct that lumps the AR-15 sporting rifle into that category, a rifle that accounted for 61% of all civilian rifle sales in 2016 according to CNN. There are more than 15 million AR-15 rifles in the hands of American citizens today. So how is such a popular firearm that even CNN states was “designed for close, confusing combat”, an apt description for say, a home invasion, deemed unfit for civilian use? Without launching into that argument, we all know why. It has been the weapon of choice in certain high profile mass shootings and serves as the most effective poster child for the narrative of not allowing a “military style weapon designed to kill people “ in the hands of the public.  It’s modular, it’s ugly, it looks evil, it’s black and that’s probably racist. It also serves as the “camel’s nose under the tent”, the observation that in other countries that have instituted all-encompassing gun bans, they started by demonizing one type of firearm, banning it in the name of public safety, only to incrementally expand their definition of what is “allowed” until they were all eliminated.  And the party of science is choosing to ignore the data.  The Clinton era assault weapon ban, misleadingly titled The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, was a 10-year prohibition on the manufacture of certain semi-automatic firearms, ill-defined as “assault weapons”, as well as large capacity magazines greater than 10 rounds.  Despite notorious ant-gun Senator Diane Feinstein crowing that the 1994 ban was “effective at reducing crime”, the data is clear that the legislation resulted in no statistical change in criminal activity, or firearm homicides. In actuality, the homicide rate with firearms was less in the three years preceding the ban. Christopher Koper, a professor at George Mason University concluded “the ban did not appear to effect gun violence during the time it was in effect”.  Of course, good liberal that he is, he suggested, “it may have modestly reduced shootings had it been in effect for a longer period”.  May have.  Possibly. Just give it time.  Uh-huh.  But back to the premise at hand:  The government, who we have established is forcing us to fend for ourselves, is intent on eliminating the most popular rifle in America, popular due to it’s ease of use, customizable features, effective caliber, handling, manageable recoil and magazine capacity?  Which gun do the pros use, you know when the SWAT team shows up to clear the building?  I want that one. Why do I want a Kitchen-Aid mixer in my kitchen?  Because that’s the one the Cake Boss uses.  And yet, the government expects the citizen to be restricted in his choice of equipment, restricted in the number of rounds in his magazine and yet still have the skill to stop the threat, even when our professionals, armed with the best equipment, training and unlimited magazine capacity have shown that they only score a hit on their intended target 6.5% of the time.  So we are expected to perform better than the professionals, with less training and less rounds in the magazine.  You have to be kidding.  And the ten round magazine restriction, law already in most blue states, is creeping its way through Congress as we speak.  Going back to Sheriff Ken Campbell: “If armed with a firearm containing 16 rounds (15 round magazine plus one in the chamber)” statistically  “12-13 rounds will may miss the target entirely.  Of the 3-4 rounds that [score hits on] the attacker, none may be effective in immediately stopping the attack. If restricted to a 10-round magazine it’s likely that all 10 rounds may miss the target and the citizen will be “unable to stop the attack”.  Comments by liberal author Stephen King who said in 2013 “If you can’t kill a home invader with ten shots, then you need to go back to your local shooting range”, are totally out of touch with the reality of armed engagement.  But Sheriff Campbell astutely points out, “it’s not about hunting”.  Andy Cuomo infamously bellowed in his grating downstate accent: “No one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer”, while promoting banning magazines greater than 10 rounds for New York State’s preposterous SAFE Act.  Similarly Joe Biden latched on to the ridiculously unrelated hunting theme with this patronizing nonsense: “talk to responsible gun owners-they’ll tell you there’s no possible justification for having hundreds of rounds in a weapon.  What do you think the deer are wearing, Kevlar vests?”  No, Joe I don’t. But it’s unlikely that deer are going to break into my house. Besides, dummy, most high-powered rifle rounds will penetrate Kevlar…… providing you are able to hit it. Of course, the preposterous notion behind this whole magazine restriction nonsense is the assumption that the attacker, specifically those engaged in a mass shooting incident, can be stopped when they pause to reload. More hooey. Not only is it unlikely that the criminal will choose to adhere to your magazine restrictions, but Sheriff Boone showed in a live fire exercise that, even with a relatively unpracticed shooter, the difference between emptying two 15-round pistol magazines into a target and five 6-round magazines was somewhere on the order of four seconds.  With a seasoned shooter, this was reduced to less than two seconds. He placed a runner 25 feet from the shooter and had them speed towards the shooter when they perceived the shooter was engaged in a reload.  In none of the exercises was the runner able to reach the shooter before the reload was complete. You could argue that a potential hero could be closer or could surprise the shooter from cover, but that would require a lot of luck and a huge set of….intestinal fortitude.  Statistically, experts recommend running for the nearest exit, specifically advising, in order of preference, evacuation, barricade yourself, prepare for attack if cornered, distract the attacker, and lastly swarming the suspect with improvised weapons.  Doesn’t that sound appetizing? Unfortunately, there have been few instances where such a disarming has occurred, most notably the Tucson shooting incident where a 61 year-old woman managed to wrestle a magazine away from the shooter.  But in another high profile supermarket shooting, it appeared that two potential heroes lost their lives in an attempt to disarm the attacker.  It may actually be more dependent on assessing the skill of the attacker. And frankly, the government and the media shouldn’t be promoting this nonsense. Wait until he attempts to reload, then rush the attacker.  Seriously? But none of this would apply to a home invasion where we are right back to the statistics game.  If confronted with an attacker or, worse yet, multiple attackers in your home, with no means of egress, with the likelihood of you scoring less than 6.5% hits on your attacker, how many rounds do you want to have in your magazine?  And you have to assume that if the attacker is armed as well, it is unlikely that he is concerned about adhering to your state’s magazine capacity restriction laws.  Sheriff Campbell summed up his study best; “Proposed magazine bans are absurd.”   

GUNS ( Part 5: Interacting with the Police )

Interacting with the Police

So let’s review:  We’ve established that stressful, violent encounters with a firearm result in a significant degradation in motor skills to the point that the police record a hit rate on the assailants of something on the order of 6.5%.  Abysmal.  And the media, essentially the propaganda arm of the democrat party, supports defunding the police as a solution to the narrative that the police are disproportionately shooting people of color, despite the fact that people of color are disproportionately engaged in a greater percentage of crime, specifically violent crime. So let me get this straight: we have concluded that the police need more training, so the solution is to defund them, so they are stretched thinner and unable to fund more training?  Or perhaps we should take a more pragmatic approach and seek to lessen the number of violent encounters people of color have with police officers.  But that would require a fundamental change in the behavior of the citizen.  Here’s something novel:  how about when stopped by a police officer, you do what you’re told?  Radical thinking, I know. Regardless of the perception that people of color are being disproportionately accosted by law enforcement, it seems to me, and this is based on a review of body cam footage from the recent shootings, that complying with the officer, even if that compliance means getting cuffed and hauled down to the local precinct, results in a much higher rate of survival.  Duh.  And come on, all of us have had negative encounters with law enforcement, most often in the dreaded “speed trap” when the 75 MPH speed limit is suddenly reduced to 45MPH, seemingly for no other apparent reason than to entrap you and line the local coffers. And for some reason, the vast majority of State Police officers all treat you like you’re public enemy number one, their wife left them, their dog died, their shorts are too tight and it’s all your fault.  And besides, they have to wear those funny hats. And despite being a model citizen and being treated like dirt by officer cranky-pants, why haven’t I been shot? Because I complied and followed the officers instructions.  Shocking, I know.  I had a friend who was a senior surgeon, faculty at a large southern teaching hospital.  He was stereotypically, in what would be considered a racist description these days, Mexican in appearance, as if he was the villain in a Clint Eastwood western.  Thick, black, slicked-back hair, an enormous moustache that obscured his upper lip, dark complected and with a heavy accent to go with it.  Amusing, self-effacing, smart and affable. He was pulled over for a speeding violation on his way to work.  When asked for his license and registration, it suddenly occurred to him that the documents were in his glove box, inconveniently nestled next to his .357 revolver.  Uh-oh.  So he informed the officer with a chuckle, of the location of his papers and the legally owned firearm, and asked how he wished to proceed.  After backup arrived on the scene, most of the hospital staff and a few of his residents witnessed him cuffed and sprawled on the hood of his car while officers searched his vehicle. He was late to work, arriving unscathed, with a speeding ticket as a souvenir of his encounter.  Why wasn’t he shot or beaten?  Because he complied with the officer’s instructions.  He suffered some embarrassment, was probably profiled to a degree, but he lived to tell the tale. Life is full of choices.  You have the option of being a good citizen, of following the law.  The other option will result in an increased possibility of encounters with law enforcement.  So which should we, as a society chose? Law and order? Or the dismantling of our security to favor those that choose to ignore the rule of law? Not to go all Vulcan on you but “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

GUNS ( Part 1: The Chauvin Trial )

 

The Chauvin Trial: Justice in the Era of Racial Equity and Political Partisanship 

The Chauvin verdict is in and the mob has been appeased.  Wait no, they have just moved on to the next outrage.  Remember, the goal is to convince you that America is systemically racist.  The police are racist.  Voting laws are racist.  The filibuster is racist. Not admitting DC and Puerto Rico into the union is racist.  Healthcare is racist.  The border is racist.  Hell, according to AOC and her band of merry progressives, even climate change is racist.  You’ll have to explain that last one to me. Apparently the left has weaponized racism and is using it to bludgeon conservatives into retreating on every progressive talking point, making a sensible discussion of the issues impossible.  Especially when one side has essentially resorted to name-calling.  And don’t get me wrong, Derek Chauvin is a persona non grata on the right as well.  This cretin opened the door to the narrative that we have to “fundamentally change racist America” and “defund the police” by his callous disregard for the well-being of his fellow man in obvious distress, regardless of Mr. Floyd’s criminal record, drug abuse, and the infamous gun held to the pregnant woman’s belly during a home invasion. No angel was he.  But he didn’t deserve to die in the street and be deprived of due process.  Yet he also doesn’t deserve to be canonized by the left. And while on the subject of due process: Since when in America do we disregard the effect of outside influences placed on a non-sequestered jury?  CNN essentially doxed them all, providing detailed descriptions of their ages, races and professions.  As Glenn Beck pointed out, in a parody of the Dating Game (Google it, kids): he’s a 30 year-old white, chemist, married with two children.  Gee, I wonder if his co-workers in the lab can put that together when Frank is mysteriously out of work for two weeks? And how about the pig blood smeared on the front door of a witness’ home? And the reprehensible and utterly self-serving Maxine Waters inciting the mob to violence should the verdict not be to their liking?  Incredulously, even Biden weighed in and issued a statement.  And how about that mob that assembled outside the courthouse every day? Does anybody have a job anymore?  But here’s what I really gleaned from the trial and all those expert witnesses:  unless a knife was plunged into the victim’s heart, or perhaps there’s a large bullet hole in the forehead, pathologists frequently have absolutely no idea what actually killed the victim.  The most important determining factor on autopsy would appear to be which side is picking up the tab.  And in all that testimony, not one word in the media about the most common side effect of fentanyl: respiratory depression.  Another complication, although rare, is “stiff chest syndrome”, a poorly understood phenomenon that results in muscle contraction and rigidity of the chest wall with the patient being unable to exchange sufficient air resulting in the inability to breathe.  Might that account for Mr. Floyd claiming he couldn’t breathe when he was standing upright, unmolested, restrained only by handcuffs?  Nothing.  Crickets.  Even the judge provided a qualifier as the jury headed to deliberation, chastising the mob, and that includes you Maxine, for seeking to influence the jury.  Such is the state of justice in America. She may claim to be blind, but she sure has become politically correct.  And now we find that a juror seeking his 15 minutes of fame, a sad commentary on our times, lied on his questionnaire and had appeared at a BLM rally that featured Floyd’s family.  But we’ve seen this before.  Recall the jury foreperson in the Roger Stone case who lied about her background, actually being a failed Democrat candidate, and a vehement anti-Trump activist.  But Obama appointed judge Amy Berman Jackson let that one slide, and Stone was convicted.  With that precedent, this appeal should be of interest.

Here It Comes

Here it comes.  And you’ve been waiting for it.  Delirious over their success with ramming home a budget busting, ill-advised Covid-Relief package filled with all sorts of pork by-products in the form of blue state cash infusions, a subway for California, cash for Amtrak, a boost to extend the reach of Obamacare, union gifts in the form of right-to-work restrictions, not to mention a big fat smooch on the lips for the teacher’s union, what could be next on the progressive wish list?  Oh yeah, gun control.  The socialist brass ring.  With our attention diverted by the Covid behemoth working its way through congress, the progressives managed to float a test balloon in the form of two gun control measures that will, of course, do nothing to prevent gun violence.  The first bill aims to close the “Charleston Loophole” where apparently Dylan Roof, the knuckle-dragging perpetrator of the Charleston Church shooting, legally obtained a firearm when the government wasn’t able to complete his background check in three days.  The bill will now extend that waiting period for our incompetent government officials to do their jobs to ten days.  No, let’s not hold the inept bureaucracy accountable.  Let’s not make the process more efficient.  And God forbid, definitely do not hire people that have intelligence above the third grade level because we know how that hiring system works under this administration: competence replaced by race and sexual identity based quotas.  Let’s just give these mental midgets more time to do a job that, in the computer age, should take a chimpanzee less than twenty minutes.  And in the most socialist of fashions, rather than fix the system, which is inefficient and most likely redundant, let’s place the burden on the citizen and subject them to more inconvenience while the government drags it’s flat feet.  Furthermore, Mr. Roof may be a deranged cretin, but I suspect that if he had been denied access to a legal firearm he would have resorted to one of the illegal variety, or chosen any one of a number of vehicular, pyrotechnic or explosive alternatives.  Never underestimate the creativity of the sociopath for producing mayhem. But Representative Jim Clyburn (D-SC) who introduced the bill rationalized the measure by stating “there’s nothing more sacred in the lives of most people than their church”.  Hilarious.  Suddenly, when it’s convenient, the left uses religion as a bludgeon to further their cause when in most circumstances religion is an inconvenient barrier to their agenda, particularly when the religious right “clings” to it.  Witness the abortion and same sex marriage debates. 

Although the first measure passed along strict party line votes, the second measure lured eight Republicans across the aisle.  Good luck in your next primary. This one brought to you by Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) who is chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force and it had three GOP cosponsors.  This legislative folly would require universal background checks on all commercial gun sales.  Seems logical doesn’t it? Not so fast.  This bill seeks to make all transactions on all firearms subject to background checks.  In some blue states, New York being the most glaring example, all pistol transfers are already subject to registration.  But this goes one step further by making all firearm transactions subject to registration. Grandfather’s heirloom shotgun passed down to his grandson: background check.  Loaning your hunting rifle to your brother: that’s a gun transfer: background check.  Inheriting dad’s museum quality gun collection: background check.  We all know where this is going.  This is the path to national gun registration.  And historically, every time a government imposes registration, it is always followed by confiscation.  Always. It is the socialist playbook under the guise of “common sense gun control measures”, an endorsement that flew out of Biden’s mouth shortly after the bills sailed through the House. Great Britain did it, Australia did it.   And why not give it a try?  After all, it worked before; both Hitler and Stalin used it to perfection.  Now there’s a real endorsement.  And it was insidious and incremental. “These two pieces of legislation will go a long way in improving gun violence”, proclaimed Thompson.  No Mike, they won’t.  And you know it.  This is just another incremental step in disarming the public, a step that will turn law-abiding Americans into criminals by chipping away at their Second Amendment rights and fostering non-compliance.  But that works out well for you too, doesn’t it?  Non-compliance will be a crime and if you get caught, you will lose all of your firearms.  The end justifies the means.  This, boys and girls, is tyranny.

But the Democrats have been moving towards this goal for decades, never letting a single crisis go to waste.  They have recently implemented an all out assault on the National Rifle Association with the tip of the spear residing in New York, where Attorney General Leticia James (yes, Andy Cuomo’s current nemesis), who called the NRA a “terrorist organization” and a “criminal enterprise” in her election campaign, saw an opportunity to go after them for financial malfeasance.  Granted, the NRA has recently suffered some internal strife where a power struggle occurred between the executive director and the board for questionable corporate perks.  Seeing opportunity, and with the government’s power and taxpayer capital supporting her legal shenanigans, the goal would appear to be bankrupting the NRA or, at the very least, diverting their funds from lobbying efforts for gun rights to having to defend the organization in court against a frivolous lawsuit.  In response, the NRA is seeking to dissolve its charter in New York and reincorporate in Texas. But in a move not unlike California’s attempt to continue to tax residents after they leave the state for more tax friendly climates, the government is similarly attempting to prevent the NRA from leaving New York, requiring them to remain in the ring against the ropes while the state pummels them financially in court. Your tax dollars at work. 

On another front, Mensa will certainly not be petitioning Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) for membership after she recently held an embarrassing presser in which she regaled reporters with her vast knowledge of firearms, pontificating at length: “I held an AR-15 in my hand.  I wish I hadn’t.  It is as heavy as 10 boxes that you might be moving.  And the bullet that is utilized, a .50 caliber, these kinds of bullets need to be licensed and do not need to be on the street”.  What an idiot.  Blaze Media’s Jason Howerton asked the question that all of us were thinking: “How are these people qualified to write legislation on this when they demonstrate such cluelessness?”  Indeed. More to the point, how do these legislators even balance their checkbooks? For those of you who are firearms impaired, the AR platform is the most popular sporting rifle in America.  It is modular, making it convenient to tailor its features to your requirements, it has manageable recoil, and it is reliable.  Its weight varies depending on features, but to suggest it is as heavy as 10 boxes? Boxes of what?  Probably manure, because that’s what Ms. Lee is slinging.  And although the AR-15 is adaptable to many different calibers, the huge .50 caliber round is not one of them. If it did, not only would it likely knock you on your ass and leave an impressive bruise on your shoulder, but it would cost you a small fortune just to purchase the ammunition.  And as any firearms enthusiast knows, after WalMart stopped selling ammo, followed by the BLM riots, then the Democrats sweeping into power, then the Capitol riots, ammunition has all but disappeared off the shelves nationwide as gun owners hoard stockpiles in anticipation of increasing threats to our liberty and a wave of restrictive gun legislation. Even the more affordable firearms have been flying of the shelves, making Democrats once again, the most prolific gun salesmen in history. 

And right on cue, amidst this attack on our gun rights comes the conveniently timed Atlanta Massage Parlor shooting.  Despite local law enforcement and the FBI repeatedly asserting that the shooting does not appear to be racially motivated, the liberal media and government officials immediately labeled it a hate crime because 6 out of the 10 victims were of Asian descent. Even Biden leapt on the opportunity, although “leapt” may be an unfortunate description after he fell repeatedly while attempting to mount the steps to Air Force One.  Ignoring the real crisis occurring at our southern border, Biden instead chose to create a more politically expedient crisis in Atlanta by meeting with the Asian community to promote the narrative that Asians have been targeted for violence after Trump referred to Covid-19 as the “China Virus”.  Following that logic, Brazilians, South Africans and Brits should brace for violence after the media announced virus variants from those locales. Ridiculous. In these troubling times, nothing helps promote your radical agenda better than waving the race card.  NPR spent the two days after the shootings interviewing members of the Asian community regarding their impression that they are being targeted as a result of Trump’s anti-Asian rhetoric. I wonder if they interviewed Harvard?  Even the Wall Street Journal led with “As Atlanta Mourns, Asian-American Feel Under Attack”.  Remarkably there was no mention anywhere in the media of the probability that these massage parlors were fronts for the sex trade, likely employing immigrant women in the usual work off the debt of your passage scheme. Where is the outrage?  After the exertion of the Kavanaugh hearings, the #MeToo movement and women’s’ rights groups must be taking an extended vacation.  Bob Kraft would have begged for such a glaring omission of business practices when he was caught frequenting a similar establishment. And so goes the proven modus operandi:  keep repeating the falsehood until it is accepted as fact.  Be it the “deadly Capitol insurrection”, the “I can’t breathe” narrative, or the “hands up don’t shoot” lie, it has been shown that the media can control the storyline, perpetuate a myth and spawn a movement. So they will ride the wave of public outrage over yet another shooting, this time convincing the uninformed masses that it is racially motivated.  

Meanwhile our elected officials surround themselves with fences and razor wire, armed Capitol Police, private security details and the National Guard, as they hypocritically work to disarm the American public by incrementally chiseling away at our Second Amendment rights.  In addition to the usual cast of anti-gun characters, we have new recruits in the Biden Administration.  Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court by Obama in 2016 was opposed vehemently by the NRA for what they pointed out was a history of belligerence towards the Second Amendment. Yet here he is again, this time emerging as the chief law enforcement officer of the land, our newly minted Attorney General. In 2000, Garland as part of a three-judge panel, sought to uphold the Department of Justice’s illegal practice of retaining records from the National Instant Criminal Background Checks System after firearms purchases.  See paragraph one for the proposed 10-day definition of “instant”.  According to Federal Law, these records are to be destroyed to preserve the privacy of the gun owner.  Garland again found himself on the wrong side of the Second Amendment when he worked unsuccessfully to overturn a ruling that struck down the District of Columbia’s total ban on private citizen gun ownership, his interpretation being that the Second Amendment is not an individual right.  Biden also nominated California’s repugnant AG, Xavier Becerra to head the Department of Health and Human Services.  Becerra is best known for his abhorrent treatment of the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of nuns who care for the elderly poor, when he sued to prevent their religious exclusion from Obamacare mandates that they subsidize contraceptives and life-ending drugs.  He is also an aggressive supporter of abortion rights up to the moment of delivery. But on the gun-control front, he made his career on aggressively defending California’s draconian gun control laws in court, arguing that gun control is “a public health risk”.  He has lobbied for the elimination of laws that would protect the firearms industry from being sued for “product misuse”, a ploy to bankrupt the industry as they are forced to defend against frivolous lawsuits.  Imagine suing Ford for being struck by an F-150.  Absurd. Vivek Murthy, Biden’s choice for surgeon general, is a retread from the Obama years, where she also served in the same capacity.  She too supports treating gun ownership as a public health crisis, akin to a virus that needs to be eradicated. The goal of course is the elimination of gun ownership.  Amazing that after all her years in medical training, she has come to the conclusion that an inanimate object is the cause of an organism’s behavior, instead of the organism itself.  No wonder she didn’t specialize in psychiatry. Kristen Clarke is Biden’s choice to head the DOJ Civil Rights Division.  According to the NRA, her Twitter feed is rife with references to eliminating the Second Amendment, ironic given her job title.  Perhaps she needs a refresher on the definition of civil rights. 

But hypocrisy is the Democrat’s calling card as they seek to defund the police, overwhelm our Border Patrol with unaccompanied minors and allow our porous southern border to Mexico to be overrun with illegal immigrants, among them gang members, terrorists, and drug cartels.  Between 2008 and 2014 according to the Department of Public Safety, illegal aliens committed 611,234 unique crimes in Texas alone, including thousands of homicides and sexual assaults.  And that was prior to Biden rolling out the welcome mat.  While the EPA seeks to designate CO2 a greenhouse gas and a pollutant, we are ironically allowing 100,000 carbon dioxide emitters into our country every month.  Housing them in hotels and giving them plane rides all over the country at taxpayer expense.  All without that pesky swab inserted into their nasopharynx.  You know, the one you have to endure when you fly. Crime is skyrocketing nationwide and our elected officials are sitting in their high castle while the peasants fend for themselves.  Gird your loins gun owners, it’s going to be a long four years. 

Militias and Gun Control

Finally, after seeking to dissolve the NRA for “misappropriation of funds”, NY Attorney General Letitia James has successfully driven the NRA to file for bankruptcy protection.  The gun rights group, originally registered in NY, will flee to Texas where they will incorporate and restructure to exit from what it described as “a corrupt political and regulatory environment”.  President-elect Joe Biden has also signaled that he intends to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, that effectively shields gun manufacturers and dealers from being held responsible when their products are misused in a crime, or results in injury, much as any manufacturer of consumer products is protected.  This of course would open the door to frivolous class action lawsuits that will attempt to drive the firearms industry out of business. Simultaneously, and not without coincidence, we are seeing a coordinated attack develop on the Second Amendment where the FBI, having distinguished themselves as partisan manipulators of evidence under James Comey, is seeking to link the Capitol riot to white supremacists and neo-Nazis,who in turn are members of organized militias.  Thus by the transitive property of partisanship: if you were at the protest, then you are an insurrectionist, which makes you a white supremacist, which links you to militias…….who have guns. That makes you a threat to democracy, which means you have to be disarmed.  Kiss the Second Amendment good-bye.  Game over.  Isn’t this the first step in the tyrannical playbook: Disarm the people?  It was the first thing that both Hitler and Stalin did when they came to power, and look how well it worked for them.  Even Bill Maher, hardly a moderate, warned not to equate 5000 protesters with the 75 million people who voted for Donald Trump.  And in another astonishing example of being mathematically impaired, NPR ran a scathing piece declaring far right extremist groups such as The Three Percenters, The Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and the Texas Freedom Force had members in the crowd who were urging protesters to organize and were seen in videos “giving directions by voice” and flashing hand signals associated with white supremacy”.  One such organizer was seen “wearing a black short-sleeved t-shirt with yellow, consistent with the Proud Boys logo, the FBI said”.  Better purge your wardrobe of those black and yellow t-shirts.  And the truly frightening fact is the shear number of participants from these highly organized extremist groups: “at least eight”.  That’s right, eight. And this coming after untold hours of detective work, facial recognition scanning and Internet research by our highly trained government employees.   Of course, this nugget comes after the Washington Post declared last week that, after their exhaustive research efforts, they discovered a whole half-dozen white supremacists and Neo-Nazis in the crowd.  That would be six.  I’m not sure whether I should be more embarrassed by the laughable participation of these fearsome white supremacist militias, or the media’s apparent ignorance of the significance of single digits.

 

So absurd as it may be, I get the distinct impression that we are witnessing a coordinated effort, not by these white supremacist organizations spewing vitriol on the internet and posing for selfies in their camouflage coordinates, but by our own government, which is incrementally seeking to gut the Constitution and strip us of our rights.  Chuck Schumer has proposed putting the protesters on the “no fly” list”.  Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, has had his line of pillows and bedding yanked from the shelves of Bed, Bath & Beyond, Amazon and Wayfair for expressing support for Trump and questioning the election results.  Senator Hawley had his book deal canceled by Simon & Shusterafter he raised objections to Electoral College Results (something the Democrats have done every time, incidentally).  Tucker Carlson pointed out that Representative Steven Cohen from Tennessee questioned the integrity of the National Guard, tasked with protecting the Capitol, based on their racial makeup being overwhelmingly white and male, making them “more conservative”.  Nancy Pelosi has referred to the rioters as “domestic terrorists” a tag parroted by Joe Biden.  Elizabeth Neumann, a former member of the Department of Homeland Security in an interview with NPR stated: “We have to go after the people doing the incitement….with the same intensity that we did with Al Qaeda”.  The same article goes on to criticize the fact that “the threat of Islamic radicalism commands a far greater share of government resources” with Heidi Beirich of the leftist Southern Policy Law Center calling the disparity “a sign of the great hypocrisy”.  Hypocrisy.  Really.  After months of “peaceful protests” in the name of racial equality, largely ignored by our elected officials and praised by the media, protests that burned and looted our cities, resulted in police officers injured and property destroyed, we are choosing to label this protest an “insurrection” with comparisons in the media ranging from Pearl Harbor to the Holocaust and now Al Qaeda?  This is insanity.  Have we finally reached the tipping point?  With immigrant asylum seekers queued up at our border and more caravans on the way, with DC poised to become a state, with an attack on fossil fuel, amidst a raging pandemic, with Big Tech yielding greater power over public discourse, with our election integrity in disarray, and with 75 million Americans labeled domestic terrorists and under assault by our cancel culture, can we possibly save our Republic from crumbling, or has Obama’s wish finally come true: to fundamentally change America?

Déjà Vu All Over Again

Judging by your response to my Sandy Hook Blogs, you out there in the Bloggosphere are both incensed and confused! Let me give those of you, less firearm's oriented, a crash course in munitions. Not that I'm an expert mind you, but had grown up with hunters and practiced marksmen, and am one myself. And of course entwined in my familiar anti-current administration, anti-liberal, anti politically correct, anti-socialism rhetoric

With Obama following Rahm Emanuel’s rule of never letting a “serious crisis go to waste” he has announced that he will use “all the power of his office” to institute laws to prevent the Newtown horror from ever happening again.  Cue the anti-gun opportunists.  Less than four days after the tragedy we have had Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Shumer, Carolyn McCarthy, Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg and a cast of thousands of mindless politicians, talking head newscasters, and assorted second amendment bashers lining up for their turn at proposing completely preposterous, ineffectual, ridiculous “solutions” to keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally deficient.  Bravo.  If I hear one more of these sheep refer to an “assault weapon” as a “machine gun”, use “clip” instead of  “magazine”, “automatic” in place of “semi-automatic” or start ranting on about such nonsense as “cop killer bullets”, “microstamping”, or the necessity of “allowing” the public to possess “military style” firearms, my head is going to explode.  So many sheep and so little time.  Where do I start?  

Let’s start with the most preposterous:  a rifle is a rifle, boys and girls.  Whether it is painted black, has a flash hider, a bayonet lug, a collapsable stock, a picatinny rail, a laser site, a magazine forward of the pistol style grip, it’s all lipstick on a pig.  All these politicians have their knickers in a twist over esthetics without a consideration to statistics. I am yet to hear that a 7-Eleven was effectively knocked over because the assailant’s rifle had a bayonet lug and a flash hider.  Fact of the matter is: rifles are used in only 2.78% of all murders.  And that’s all rifles, with so- called assault weapons an even smaller percentage of that (the FBI does not make a distinction, but makes note of their rarity).  More people are murdered by knives (13.21%) and just hands and feet (6.6%), yet I haven’t seen a call by our astute leaders to ban cutlery or human extremities. Rifles are just too cumbersome, the barrels are too long, they are difficult to conceal, and there are far more effective options if your intent is murderous mayhem.  

So what’s the big deal with “assault weapons”?  They make for good press, that’s what.  They are lethally attractive, threatening in appearance, conjuring up images of SWAT teams, drug cartels and military action.  They are prominently featured in video games where their picatinny rails support all sorts of flashlights, laser sites, holographic sites, scopes and assorted bling to add to their lethal appearance.  But under all that hardware is a good old-fashioned semi-automatic rifle.  Pull the trigger, it fires one shot.  No bursts, no continuous fire.  One shot.  It is not a machine gun, stupid. Granted, the magazine can make the difference here.  With many states having existing magazine restrictions, especially in the red states, the big 30 round banana shaped mags are more of a rarity, and even 20 rounders are scarce for purchase in the northeast.  But there is still a boatload of them out there, readily available to the criminal element.  10 rounds is more the norm on new purchases, consistent with many handguns, but anyone reasonably proficient can change out a magazine in less than 2 seconds.  Kinda like Bloomberg’s ban on Big Gulps…..just buy two 16 ounce cups and voila!, you have high capacity.  Duh. Unfortunately, assault rifles also appear to be the weapon of choice for deranged rampage style killers.  Probably because these nitwits all have the same thing in common:  they are gamers, learning their trade at the controls of a Playstation or an X-Box.  They seek drama, and what’s cooler than an assault weapon? Hollywood showed them that.  They want to kill as many people as possible and a big old magazine or better yet a bunch of magazines will do the trick.  They always pick soft targets, you know the ones where you’re least likely to encounter resistance and find the largest number of unsuspecting victims.  Like those “gun free” zones.  And you want to get maximum press, your 15 minutes of fame.  Rack up a large body count and the media will glorify your killing spree all month, maybe even get you a cover on People magazine.  And lastly, as soon as you encounter resistance, off yourself.  It’s almost like there’s some kind of rampage killer handbook.  Oh yeah, there is:  NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, and yes…the entire internet.  Keep it up, right now there’s another disenfranchised nut-case out there taking notes.

And why can’t I have such a rifle? Muzzle loaders were replaced by bolt action rifles firing cartridges.  Bolt actions were replaced by semi-automatics. Even in National Match competition for high power rifles, the venerable action of the M1 Garand (and subsequently the M14: same action with a detachable magazine) has been replaced by the AR style platform.  And why wouldn’t it?  The AR (designation for the designer, Armalite, not the political term “assault rifle”) platform has been around for over 40 years, has become the standard for American military style rifles and has become refined in both function and accuracy.  As the M1 Garand took the place of the bolt action Springfield in match competition, why wouldn’t the AR replace the Garand as the technology creeps into the shooting sports as well?  But why do I need an assault weapon?  Why do I need a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, an Aston Martin, a Corvette, or a Porsche?  If the speed limit is 65 miles per hour, a speed limit established by our government for the purpose of safety, why do I need a vehicle that goes nearly 200 miles per hour?  Certainly that serves no purpose, and is inherently unsafe to both the driver and the public at large.  After all, 40000 people are killed each year in car accidents , making the automobile the most dangerous consumer product in the world.  People should just be restricted to driving a 1932 Ford Victoria.  After all, it is slower, serves the same purpose and is inherently safer.  A Ferrari belongs only in the hands of a professional race car driver, doesn’t it? Well, think of an assault weapon as a Ferrari, a race car.  It is efficient, it is accurate, it is available in a multitude of cartridges, it is safe in the hands of a skilled user, it is lightweight, it has a tolerable recoil and it is versatile for both hunting, especially varmint hunting, and target practice.  Why wouldn’t a sportsman select a weapon that reflects the best that technology has to offer?  And also bear in mind that not all of us are sitting in a Starbucks this morning sipping a latte, reading the New York Times and contemplating whether we should take the Beamer or the Prius to the symphony tonight.  Some of us hunt, some of us target shoot, some of us are shooting skeet, and some of us need to keep the coyote population in check.  A gun is a  tool for sporting purposes as well as a tool tailored to the needs of where we live. 

But what about those high capacity magazines?  Why do you need one of those?  Sportsmen don’t purchase high capacity magazines for the purpose of obliterating game with multiple shots, although some varmints are the exception.  The purpose of most hunting is actually to preserve the condition of the game for consumption.  And if you intend to take a trophy, you lose style points if it is filled with holes. A high capacity magazine is a convenience for the range.  When you go skiing, you don’t necessarily enjoy riding the lift.  When you play golf, you don’t enjoy riding the golf cart to the next tee.  When you play tennis, you don’t enjoy picking up the balls between points.  You actually want to play the sport.  Similarly, when at the range, you want to maximize your time shooting, not reloading your magazine.  To get proficient at your sport, you want to practice the actual sport, not the grunt task of reloading a magazine with a nice tight spring.  Like it or not liberals, PETA members, and democrats:  hunting is a sport and target shooting is a skill, whether you choose to practice it or not.  I personally think golf is ridiculous, but I do not denigrate it because I don’t play, nor to I profess to know anything about the skill required to play it.  So back off about something that you don’t know anything about, and stop pretending to be an expert when it is apparent that you haven’t a clue on the subject. It’s like a vegetarian lecturing me on the evils of eating steak.  Shut up.

And you have to love the cast of simpletons out there picketing in front of the NRA headquarters with such signs, obviously fostered by genius, like : the “NRA is killing our children”.  You can’t be serious.  With Occupy Wall Street closing up shop, you mental midgets have nothing else to do?  Please.  Protesting against the NRA for gun violence is like picketing Triple A for car accidents.  You liberals just love to spout off with your pre-conceived notions about the NRA, the Tea Party, or Fox News without actually knowing anything about them, or worse, basing your opinions on what other liberals have said about them.  The one thing that mass murderers and liberals all have in common is that neither of them is a member of the NRA. It’s like blaming high cholesterol on the dairy lobby or The American Medical Association for malpractice.  They have a subject relationship, but no responsibility for the individual.  One is disconnected from the other, and largely ignorant of the other’s perspective. Now, the NRA tone is admittedly strident in defending the second amendment and promoting the shooting sports. It is well organized and is an effective political force.  But the NRA is also more effective in promoting gun safety than any liberal politician could ever dream of being, taking into account the hundreds of ill-enforced, and phenomenally ineffective gun laws currently on the books.   The NRA is pure and simple the mouthpiece for the law-abiding gun owner.  Do any of you liberals actually think that the NRA promotes gun violence?  When was the last time you heard:  In related news, it was found that the robbers of the First National Bank were all NRA members? Punishing the law-abiding for the actions of the criminal element is completely nonsensical. Like the Tea Party, the NRA  appears to be a cross section of America, mostly males (although the female membership appears to be growing steadily) , majority white, veterans, hunters, and marksmen who enjoy the shooting sports and have a propensity for conservative ideals.  One doesn’t join the NRA for the latest tips on how to knock over a liquor store.  In fact the latest issue of American Rifleman, the official NRA publication, contained two pages of politically oriented editorials, and an analysis of what gun owners can expect from the next four years under Obama rule, but the remainder of the magazine featured an article reviewing a new handgun offering, an historical article on the US Marines, an article on holsters, an article on a hunting cartridge and an article on how to properly fit your shotgun for hunting, as well as scattered reports on training, state associations, firearm identification, values and gun shows.  Hardly seditious stuff.  And if you are seeking training in how to properly use your firearm don’t you go to the firearm experts?  More shooters have been trained by NRA certified instructors than anyone else outside the military, and most likely many military and police officers received training from the NRA. 

So when the NRA stated the obvious in their press conference: that schools should be protected by armed security and that our culture of violence in movies, video games, television, and rap music is contributing to this epic wave of moral turpitude, why did the liberal press go absolutely apoplectic? Because the NRA is an easy scapegoat for the simpletons. NRA membership makes up 1.14% of the US population, and with 300 million firearms in the hands of US citizens it is a good bet that the NRA doesn’t represent anywhere close to the majority of gun “owners”.  It can’t possibly be our fault that we’ve become a godless, entitlement driven, porn watching, morally skewed, violent, bunch of primitives. Witness the Christmas Eve shooting in Webster, New York.  What have we come to? Have you watched television recently?  Tune into the Kardashians for a couple of episodes and ask yourself that question again.  Americans are embarrassing.  And not in the tacky dressing, camera toting way that used to unnerve Parisians.  At least in those days we had gravitas.  We had brawn.  We worked harder than everyone else, we produced more, and we carried a big stick.  We were cowboys.  Now we are an apologizing, sniveling bunch of whiners, pointing fingers at everyone else for our misfortunes and commanding zero respect on the world stage.  And we are being led by a President with an open hatred for our way of life, seeking higher levels of entitlements on the backs of the productive, willing to cede our place in the world to the United Nations with their pitifully corrupt third world despots. And why wouldn’t we want to protect our most precious cargo, our children?  We protect banks with armed guards, we protect our money with armored cars and phalanxes of security personnel and we protect politicians and celebrities with small armies of armed bodyguards.  We walk through metal detectors and get patted down at sporting events, concerts, the airport and in public buildings without protest.  And yet isn’t it laughable that money, celebrity and politicians are, based on their level of security, more important to us than our children, so much so that the media pillories the NRA for suggesting a change in priorities.  Pitiful.

So go ahead, ban assault weapons, ban firearms, ban them all and sentence America to a wave of violence and crime unseen in history.  Sentence an entire generation to joblessness, perpetuated by a government that favors power over the people, that places entitlement over accomplishment, favoring redistribution and Keynesian economics, the same policies that have doomed Europe to mediocrity, only to have us follow as some sort of sad historical footnote.  Make the political class the new aristocracy with their lavish entitlements on the backs of the taxpayer under the guise of leveling the playing field and making us all equal not just in opportunity, but in wealth, regardless of effort or success.  To hell with the Constitution. Let them eat cake. We are a special country, a special people.  We have unique demographics and unique geography.  We are not Europe, nor do we care to be.  It is time to rethink our future, redefine “progress” and restore America to her place in the world with our Constitution as our guide.  A mindless, short sighted excision of the Second Amendment from our Constitution is not the place to start.

Gun Control

Do you really feel more gun laws or banning guns completely is the answer to crimes involving guns?If so, I advise you to take a close look at relevant statistics 2 involving guns and crime. Places both here and abroad with the most stringent gun laws have a disproportionate ratio of guns used in the commission of a crime, than those that do not! As for murders, those same supposedly most gun controlled places have the highest incidence of death by guns than those that do not! Few will admit it's not the gun that's been around for what, some 200yrs. that's the problem, but our culture that has developed a fatal attraction for weapons and methods of mischief in being conditioned by unspeakable depravity and violence in literature and the media over the past several decades! Those in our society: the deranged; those seeking martyrdom and/or celebrity are going to find their preferred instrument of mayhem no matter what-, no matter when, no matter where! They are the ones we and every other civilized society on the face of the earth must detect and deal with.