Townhall:

TOMS shoe company plans to donate $5 million to various gun control groups. The company also launched a campaign to mobilize their customers to support the gun control agenda.

One of TOMS’ campaigns includes a postcard campaign. Customers can input their name and address on their website and the company will send a postcard to their representative.

Here’s what the postcards say:

Dear (representative),

More than 90% of Americans support universal background checks.

And I’m one of them.

As your constituent, I urge you to stand with me and pass this life-saving legislation.

Let’s end gun violence together.

Sincerely, (your name)

The company’s founder, Blake Mycoskie, came to the decision shortly after the tragic shooting in Thousand Oaks, California, not far from his family’s home. His wife, Heather Lang, called Mycoskie in fear.

Isn’t that sweet.  A “common” cause.

Never heard of them.  I wear Oboz, even into the office.  But I’m glad I’ve heard of them now, and I note that they have declared themselves my eternal enemy.

Dean Weingarten:

With no round in the chamber and no magazine in the pistol, the Glock was rendered useless, if Mark Uptain ever got to it.

Uptain had bear spray holstered on his hip. Chubon did not recall Uptain using the bear spray to the point where Chubon fled to get help. Uptain emptied the bear spray at some point during the fight. The 250-pound grizzly sow had evidence of bear spray on her. Mark Uptain was killed in spite of the bear spray.

Carrying a semi-automatic pistol with an empty chamber is known as carrying in condition three, terminology used by the renowned gun writer, instructor, and competitor Col. Jeff Cooper.   It is also known as “Israeli Carry”, because it is how Israeli soldiers are trained to carry semi-automatic pistols.

It can work well if the user trains to always load a round from the magazine when the pistol is drawn from the holster.  As a safety feature, if an untrained person accesses the pistol and tries to fire it, they may not know how to load a round into the chamber and can be stymied in their effort to fire the pistol.

First, use guns, don’t rely on bear spray.  Second, a gun is of no use to you if it isn’t on your person and ready to use.  Finally, whatever you may think about having a round chambered, this is one reason I carry 1911s and use the safety.  In one motion I can sweep the safety down as I’m gaining purchase on the gun.

CNN:

From WiscoDave and others, this is nice.

And it would be a short war my friend. The government has nukes. Too many of them. But they’re legit. I’m sure if we talked we could find common ground to protect our families and communities.

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) November 16, 2018

By finding common ground, he means that you agree with whatever he thinks.

I’d like to make a personal request here.  After the missiles are sent, the tactical nuclear weapons are exploded, and the bombs are dropped, the grunts are going to need some training in the difference between an Alpha, Beta and Gamma, the basics in time, distance and shielding, how to put on anti-Cs and how to decon, how to operate a GM detector, etc.  Also, since all of the food in America will be contaminated, folks will need to know how to scan their food (I once was in a training class with an engineer who lived in Kiev, and at the time of the training he and other residents of Kiev still had to scan their food before consumption because of the core melt event at Chernobyl).

I’ll leave the booming mortuary business to someone else.  I’ll leave the import of food from Africa to America to someone else.  I just want the training contract for the Army grunts you’re going to send into the bombed out cities and countryside.

Please?  A little love this way, how about it?

News from Syria:

He said he is still haunted by several scenes in his film, notably the one with the children playing with the makeshift bomb.

In another scene, one of the children proudly boasts to Abu Osama — which means father of Osama in Arabic — about killing a little bird.

“We put his head down and cut it off, like how you did it, father, to that man,” the boy proclaims.

The bombed-out desert landscape that the family calls home and the fact that the family’s women are never shown or even heard adds to the sense of despair throughout the film.

This isn’t an aberration.

… nearly a quarter of the Muslims polled believed that, “It is legitimate to use violence to punish those who give offense to Islam by, for example, portraying the prophet Mohammed.”

This poll was taken of Muslims in America.  Not Syria.  Ponder those things within the context of the facts that [a] you are made in God’s image, [b] God will not suffer His image to be marred, and thus [c] He has decreed that you must defend yourselves and your loved ones and neighbors because of [a] and [b].

Oh and by the way, wherever you are, you don’t live too far from a U.S.-sanctioned, U.S.-supported, and U.S.-funded settlement for Muslims.

KXLY.com:

REPUBLIC, Wash. – The police chief in Republic, Washington said on social media that he won’t allow his department to enforce the regulations passed by voters under Initiative 1639, saying the new gun laws violate the 2nd amendment.

Initiative 1639 passed with a statewide approval of nearly 60 percent of the vote. In Ferry County, where Republic is located, 73 percent of voters said no to the measure, which was 2,542 votes against.

Initiative 1639 makes Washington’s gun laws some of the most strict in the nation. It raises the age limit for some gun purchases; it has a safe storage provision that can lead to criminal charges if gun owners allow someone not authorized to access a gun displays it or uses it to commit a crime; and puts an enhanced background check and waiting period in place for people who want to buy a semi-automatic rifle.

On a Facebook page called “Republic Police WA”, Chief Loren Culp wrote “The second amendment says the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. As long as I am Chief of Police, no Republic Police Officer will infringe on citizens right to keep and Bear Arms [sic], PERIOD!”

The post has more than 2,000 shares on Facebook.

The Facebook page also posted the text of a proposed ordinance for “prohibition on state and federal infringement of the right to keep and bear arms.” The ordinance also called on neighboring communities and jurisdictions in the state to pass similar ordinances, and for the copies of the ordinance to be transmitted to the lawmakers that represent that district for them to introduce legislation on the matter next session.

Okay and very well.  I believe you, and I applaud your decision.  So far, so good.  This raises the question for controllers: if local police chiefs like this won’t do the dirty (and potentially deadly) work of gun confiscations, then who will and how will you collect all of those firearms you seem to want?

The only viable answer for you is FedGov, and that raises the second issue here.  The chief didn’t go far enough.  So what happens, Mr. Culp, when FedGov comes to town with their teams of gun confiscators and goes door to door looking for firearms?  Will you use your officers to stop the confiscations?  Because if you don’t, your words are empty.

And the proposal flirts with nullification.  We’ve discussed this many times.  Nullification laws are merely emblematic and for the purpose of garnering votes during the next election unless the one doing the nullifying is will to trot out the armor to stop the laws from being enforced.  So, is the county or state willing to put FedGov agents in the state penitentiary for coming to town with aims at gun confiscations?

Because if not, the nullification is meaningless and you may as well sip tea and nibble crumpets with the rest of the courtiers.

Breitbart:

Democrats in the House quietly put forward a ban on 80 percent frames and gun parts kits while Americans were focused on voting and watching the outcome of the midterm elections.

The legislation, HR 7115, is sponsored by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and has 16 Democrats as co-sponsors.

The states purpose of “the legislation is to prevent the sale, possession, or advertising, of 80 percent receivers, gun parts kits, etc.

The text of HR 7115 says:

To prohibit the sale, acquisition, distribution in commerce, or import into the United States of certain firearm receiver castings or blanks, assault weapon parts kits, and machine gun parts kits and the marketing or advertising of such castings or blanks and kits on any medium of electronic communications, to require homemade firearms to have serial numbers, and for other purposes.

The Firearms Policy Coalition warns that bill is ambiguous and would be far-reaching. For example, they explain that HR 7115 does not “make a distinction between upper and lower receivers” for AR-15s and would make “home gunsmithing” illegal.

That sounds pretty broad and I can certainly see it being used by the ATF to prohibit [a] personal gunsmithing, [b] fabricating your own firearms or part (which is currently legal), and/or [c] fabricating firearms without registration pedigree.

That isn’t the only thing they’re floating.  See this fawning coverage of the gun laws in Massachusetts.  The holy grail is certainly “may issue” rather than “shall issue” (so that only the moneyed and connected people get protection), state approval of everything, and universal background checks.  Note especially this quote.

“The end impact is you decrease gun ownership overall,” Cassandra Crifasi, a researcher (and gun owner) at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, told me. “Lots of folks think, ‘Well, it’s probably not worth going through all these hoops to buy firearms, so I’m not going to buy one.’ And then you have fewer firearms around, and less exposure.”

As it’s always been, the goal of the controllers is to make gun ownership so laborious, so difficult, so expensive, so time-consuming and so arduous that no one will go through the process.

They want this to be the national model.  If bills like the ban on 80% lower receivers pass (as it surely will in the House), expect the Senate to go along with it.  After that, you can expect the Fudds to raise no objections, the NRA to go along, and Trump to sign it – because gun owners are good and law-abiding folks, and what law-abiding person wouldn’t want their gun registered?

You’ve been warned, but you expected it, didn’t you?

WGN9:

ROBBINS, Ill. — Witnesses said a Midlothian police officer responding to a shooting inside a south suburban bar shot at the wrong person early Sunday morning.

After security asked a group of drunken men to leave Manny’s Blue Room Bar around 4 a.m. Sunday, witnesses said someone came back with a gun and opened fire. Security returned fire, and according to witnesses, 26-year-old armed security guard Jemel Roberson apprehended one of the men involved outside.

“He had somebody on the ground with his knee in back, with his gun in his back like, ‘Don’t move,'” witness Adam Harris said.

Soon after, witnesses said, an officer responding to the scene fired at Roberson — killing him.

“Everybody was screaming out, ‘Security!’ He was a security guard,” Harris said. “And they still did their job, and saw a black man with a gun, and basically killed him.”

Authorities were releasing few details Sunday night. Four other people, including the suspected shooter, sustained non-life threatening injuries.

A spokeswoman for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office said Roberson had a valid FOID card, but did not have a concealed-carry license.

To the black dude, I would say no, you’re just imagining that.  This happens to white dudes too.  It’s the way the police work, it isn’t about race.

Well, anyway, it’s nice to see that the police are doing what they always do, i.e., shooting everything in sight when they show up to a scene.  That’s the only reliable thing we’ve seen about interactions with the police.

CNN:

Deutch said implementing universal background checks, a “gun violence restraining order,” which allows law enforcement to ask a judge to temporarily take guns away from people who are deemed a threat, and banning so-called “bump stocks,” are at the top of his list, along with other school safety and mental health initiatives.

With Democrats in control of the House, they can also hold hearings on gun violence, which they tried to pressure Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte, the Republican Congressman of Virginia, to do last year. In March, Rep. Jerry Nadler, the New York Democrat who will take the gavel next year, said “it is long past due” that the committee address the nation’s gun laws.

Get ready for a flurry of gun control bills, but don’t blame the democrats when they get signed into law.  A good number of the republicans will also go with the democrats, and my bet is that Trump will sign anything that isn’t directly opposed by the Fudds.

As long as any new controller initiative doesn’t affect bird shot and bolt action deer rifles, the NRA and company won’t oppose it.

Ted Cruz had so much trouble wining Texas and Broward County is creating votes because of immigration.  Immigration from south of the border to America, immigration from Puerto Rico to Florida, immigration of Californians to Colorado, Nevada, Washington and Oregon.

When I sat in Johnston hall at Clemson in a room with 20 other guys and watched the debates between Reagan and Carter (and we all cheered for Reagan, to a man), I knew Reagan would win big, and he carried California.  California used to be a solid red state.  Texas would have been out of the question for democrats thirty years ago.  Florida and Virginia used to be solid red states.

It has all happened because of immigration, and we are watching the beginning of the end.  You all understand that, right?