The Paradox and Absurdities of Carbon-Fretting and Rewilding

Herschel Smith · 28 Jan 2024 · 4 Comments

The Bureau of Land Management is planning a truly boneheaded move, angering some conservationists over the affects to herd populations and migration routes.  From Field & Stream. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently released a draft plan outlining potential solar energy development in the West. The proposal is an update of the BLM’s 2012 Western Solar Plan. It adds five new states—Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming—to a list of 11 western states already earmarked…… [read more]

Tim Lynch On The Art Of Tactical Listening

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 10 months ago

Occasionally one makes dear friends for life, even among men whom he has never met.  That’s the case with Mike Vanderboegh, and it’s also the case with a man named Tim Lynch.  I have more respect and fondness for those two men than they can possibly know.  For my readers who were not with me when I covered the debacle that was/is OEF, and conveyed my utter contempt for the likes of Stanley McChrystal and David Rodriguez, my friendship with and support of Michael Yon when jerk-bloggers attacked him, my problems with the rules of engagement, and so on, Tim Lynch was a contractor who was in theater for nearly a decade.  He has spent more time in Afghanistan than any white man alive.  He knows everything – and I mean everything, about Afghanistan.

Tim had a difficult time decompressing stateside, and he paid a huge price financially and personally for being in theater, but I’ll let him tell you his story.  It’s at the same time enlightening, exciting, troublesome, breathtaking, joyful and sad.  He previously blogged, and is blogging again, at Free Range International.  He recently pointed to a post I made on Operation Red Wings concerning tactics, planning, logistics and execution, here and as a guest blogger on another blog.

In my son Daniel’s assessment he takes a classic Marine view of the operation, but if you can wade through the Marine Corps way of doing things versus other branches of the military, his views are still salient and on-point.  Many of the comments are agreeable, many of them violently disagreeable.  The disagreements come mainly from the notion that we (Daniel and I) just don’t understand the nature of recon missions or the kit carried for said insertions, etc., etc., blah blah blah.  And the whole point of the post was that it should never have been a recon mission of that sort or like that to begin with.  Read it if you wish, but you don’t have to to get the point Tim Lynch makes now.  Tim observes the following in his post on this operation.

On June 28, 2005 a Marine battalion working out of Jalalabad launched Operation Red Wing. They lacked their own helicopters so they went to JSOC to ask for helicopter support.  JSOC was game but only if they could play too so they sent a 4 man SEAL detachment to do the recon piece instead of the 6 man STA platoon unit the Marines had planned to use. With that change came a change in the recon insertion plan; instead of sneaking in on foot like the STA platoon had planned the SEALs opted for a helicopter insert using several dummy landings to fool the AOG as to their true location. The SEALs also ignored the Marine snipers warnings that sat phones and light weight PRC148’s would not work and that they needed to lug a PRC 119 in with them.

In one sentence Tim explains what we all needed to know about the attitudes of the SEALs.  This tidbit could have been in a book, or not, or it could have been said before by someone official, or not, or it could have been tribal knowledge, or not.  It doesn’t really matter to me.  The fact that Tim has said it gives it authority.  Tim will know, and that’s the end of it.

This article isn’t really about communications gear.  It’s about who you are and whether you can “sit at the feet” of someone else and learn.  As for my line of work, I was an average engineer until I learned to listen to others, from technicians to PhDs.  Then I became a really great engineer with the help of others.  The SEALS had the attitude that they were SEALS, and so no one could tell them anything.

If you have the attitude that you have nothing to learn from those around you, then regardless of how much money has been spent on you, regardless of how highly regarded you are, regardless of how good you are, regardless of how much you know and what you can do, you have no business leading other men and you will never excel at your station in life.

Cracker Barrel Firearms Policy

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 10 months ago

News from Georgia:

DALTON, GA (WRCB) – A Dalton man says he was asked to leave a Cracker Barrel restaurant when managers spotted him carrying a handgun. He says there was no sign posted stating guns are not allowed on the property. Now he wants answers about why he was asked to leave.Shane Franks says he went to the Cracker Barrel in Dalton to purchase Mother’s Day cards. He says two managers escorted him out because he was carrying a gun, a gun he believes he had every right to take with him into the building.

This revolver is what triggered managers at the Dalton Cracker Barrel to escort Shane Franks out of the building Monday. Franks says he was legally carrying the gun on his hip when management asked him to leave. “If the business does not want you to carry a firearm, they are asked to make that known,” said Franks.

Franks said there was no sign posted telling him he couldn’t take the gun in until after he returned without the weapon. “When I came back there was a paper sign and place it on there and it said unless you are law enforcement you are not supposed to have a fire arm.”

Georgia’s Safe Carry Protection Act says it’s legal for licensed gun owners to carry in schools, churches, bars, and even some government buildings. Private businesses have the right to decide if they want guns on their property. “That’s confusing for a law abiding citizen. Thinks he’s obeying the law and walks in, gets cornered in front of everyone for doing what he thinks he is allowed to do.”

When Channel 3 visited Cracker Barrel Friday the makeshift sign was no longer in the window. A manager referred us to a corporate spokesperson, who denied our request for a statement, but a customer service representative tells Channel 3 if a gun is seen on any Cracker Barrel property the owner will be asked to return to their vehicle.  Franks says he got a similar response. “It’s our policy no one carries on the premise. I said, you don’t have any signs. He says, well that’s our decision also, we don’t put up signs.”

Sign or no sign,  Shane Franks said there is no hard feelings towards the restaurant he’s just looking for answers so he doesn’t have to run into this problem again. “By law, you got to have a sign so that way I know that.”

Georgia law allows a licensed holder to carry a gun. It also allows private property owners, like Cracker Barrel to ban guns from their property. The law is not clear on how and where a sign must be posted to notify customers when a gun is not welcome.

So this report is confusing, and I doubt that anything about the store manager’s reaction was well thought out or deliberate.  It needed to be.  First of all, open carry isn’t the same thing as concealed carry, and the patron was openly carrying.  When he returned without his weapon, the sign in the door referred to firearms not being welcome, as opposed to open carry.

Second, if you do a search of the Cracker Barrel web site, you’ll find nothing there that even hints of a formal corporate policy concerning firearms.  They also don’t seem to me to make it easy to contact them.  Third, if you do a Google search of Cracker Barrel firearms policy, you’ll get everything from all firearms being banned to only open carry being banned.  And of course as I said, there is no formal published policy, and there are never any postings from what I can recall from being in that store.

So here is the deal, Cracker Barrel.  Man up.  Make your decision regarding carry of weapons, concealed and/or open, publish the policy decision on your web site, and post your stores in a manner consistent with your policy.  Don’t play games with patrons – that’s rude and ill mannered.  Tell us what you want, and we can then make our decisions according to our own beliefs in light of your corporate policy.

Is that such a difficult thing to do?

Guns On Campus

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 10 months ago

The Trace:

Governor Nathan Deal rejected a bill on Tuesday that would have allowed eligible students in Georgia to carry concealed weapons at public universities. In a lengthy veto statement, Deal said he found “enlightening evidence” for his position in the views of pair of Founding Fathers who, nearly two centuries ago, opened a college where guns would not be allowed.

In October of 1824, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison attended a board meeting of the University of Virginia, which would open the following spring. Jefferson and Madison had spent not a little time thinking about individual liberties. But minutes from the meeting show that their new school would not extend the right to bear arms to its red-brick grounds.

“No student shall, within the precincts of the University, introduce, keep or use any spirituous or vinous liquors, keep or use weapons or arms of any kind …” the board declared. In his veto statement, Deal zeroed in on that passage …

Yea, well those same rules stipulated studies in Latin, Greek, Mathematics, Philosophy, forbade visits to taverns, the consumption of “spirits” or wine of any sort, insubordination and contumacy, and a host of other things commonly practiced on the campuses of America.

So let’s see an end to physical education majors for those football players in favor of training in Latin, Greek and Math, and a prohibition of alcohol, shall we?  I’m waiting?  No, in fact, none of these rules will ever obtain, and I don’t think that anyone who cares about property rights wants to force carry of weapons onto private property (of course, for State-owned property that’s a different matter).

I think the Governor is too clever by half, and by saying just a little bit he has said too much.

What’s Going On With South Carolina Gun Laws?

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 10 months ago

Report from Columbia:

A bill making its way through the Statehouse could put more guns on the streets of South Carolina.

Rep. Wendell Gilliard said Friday he believes it’s a mistake to pass a bill that would open South Carolina borders to concealed carry permits from other states. He added, it would give almost anyone the ability to walk into South Carolina with a gun.

“Everybody wants the right to carry a gun and that’s dangerous in a free society,” Gilliard said. “We should not allow that.”

Part of this bill also amends current legislation; It no longer requires South Carolinians to get a concealed carry permit to carry in public.

What?  I think I’ve got the issue of reciprocity.  South Carolina has always had an issue with that, but this bill seems to go farther.  Is this bill headed towards constitutional carry?

Can someone who is familiar with the awful machinations of South Carolina politics tell us what is going on?  And why doesn’t this bill include open carry?  My God!  How long is South Carolina going to be the national outlier on this issue?

A Few American Rifleman Articles

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 10 months ago

Is Walnut The New Black?  American Rifleman does the M1 Carbine.  I would never trade or sell my Auto-Ordnance M1 Carbine.  I love mine, and if you don’t have one, you should seriously consider buying one.

The .270 Winchester Cartridge.  What a great article!  This is a comprehensive look at the .270, where it came from, who made it, why it was made, and how it performs.  I’m biased since I own a Tikka .270 bolt action rifle.

Bidding Farewell To Politics

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 11 months ago

We all knew it would happen one day, this final divorce from the political scene.  It’s been building for a long time, but before I get ahead of myself, let me explain how I got into politics.

I’ve never really been in politics, per se.  I’ve never run for office, I’ve never been an active part of a party, but I have donated, worked hard to persuade others of my views, and diligently voted, as well as followed the political scene very closely.  It all began my final year at Clemson University.  I recall being in Johnston Hall in a small dormitory room (are there any other sizes?), along with about twenty other guys.  We were packed in, and all watching Jimmy Carter debate Ronald Reagan.  Reagan handed him a resounding defeat, and at that time we were all Reagan supporters.  The entire campus, it felt like, thought like we did.  There couldn’t be found a single student on campus who supported Jimmy Carter, or if there could, he didn’t say so out loud.

In addition to studying engineering into the late hours every night, we were carefully and diligently following every particular, every detail, of the political scene, and understood fairly well the theoretical and philosophical basis of the choices the candidates made.  Those were heady days – from Calculus and engineering mechanics to political theory and theology and the Bible and back again to physics and chemistry (Even then, the humanities department was infected with progressives, and if we wanted to learn we had to teach ourselves.  I’m reminded of a friend studying philosophy at another college who had to ignore his classes and read Frederick Copleston to learn philosophy, but that’s another story).  The Reagan revolution was strong at Clemson in those days, and we survived on caffeine and late night snacks.  More than a few pots of coffee were made in that horrible kitchen in Johnston Hall at midnight.

We won, and it wasn’t that we won, so much as our ideas held sway.  I do wish that Reagan had been a little more into the details of things, because I hold these four things against him: (1) the first amnesty, (2) Sandra Day O’Conner and Anthony Kennedy, (3) The Hughes Amendment, and (4) deploying the Marines to the barracks in Beirut, only to withdraw them after attack by Hezbollah.  Every one of these things have been shown to have deleterious effects on America (including the Hughes amendment which has caused a lack of investment and design engineering in weapons for our military).  Those are four big failures, but still, we knew that the unborn had a champion, small government had an advocate, and that the danger of “near peers” wouldn’t be underestimated.

Over the course of time, compromise began to occur.  Deals were made, and the mantra of electing the “conservative” who was most electable replaced principled conservatism.  As the democratic party moved more to the left, republicans moved with them in order to stay “relevant.”  The same disease afflicts the American church, leading to the defenestration of doctrine in favor of relevancy.  Whereas the church used to talk about the vicarious atonement, the sovereignty of God and the Council of Nicea, it now focuses on racial reconciliation, nuclear weapons, and gender identity.

We all knew this would happen one day.  By not stopping the diminution of the party, we fed the monster of big government, largesse, entitlements, debt, money printing, high stakes gambling on Wall Street, corporatism, open borders to feed low wage labor, hospital emergency rooms functioning as primary care clinics all paid for by the middle class (so that those low wage workers can work for the corporate masters), crony capitalism and its attendant involvement in the drafting of millions of pages of law, regulation and federal register notices to ensure that the corporations “get theirs.”

I wasn’t surprised at the revolution of the voters this election cycle.  I suspected that it would occur.  What did surprise me was the popularity of Donald Trump.  South Carolina broke my heart, and I knew it was over for Ted Cruz at that point.  Here was the perfect chance to elect someone who would come as close as possible to taking us back to the Reagan revolution, and perhaps even do better than that, in Ted Cruz.  He is a champion of the unborn, has an even stronger position on work visas than Donald Trump, is against the imperialistic military meddling in the affairs of other states and has said so quite clearly (the effect of this position in alienating him from the likes of George W. Bush, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and the rest of the neocons, has been underestimated and is ripe territory for study), has always been a strong supporter of the right to bear arms, has successfully argued before the Supreme Court and understands its machinations well enough to appoint reliably constitutionalist jurists, favors a flat tax, has tried his best to shut down funding for Obamacare (with no help from his senate colleagues), and has sworn to overthrow the single payer health care system.

I have relayed what I heard Louie Gohmert say regarding the meetings between Cruz, Lee, Brat, Gohmert and Duncan, among others, in Cruz’s office, to overturn support for the “gang of eight” bill.  Cruz was hated inside the beltway for very good reason.  While Jeff Sessions was telling us that only Trump would “bust up the Oligarchy” in Washington, Cruz was doing just that.  Busting up the Oligarchy is sure to make the Oligarchs mad.  It doesn’t bother me at all that Cruz was hated by others in Washington.  I would have been even more his supporter if Cruz had advocated an old fashioned lynching of most of the Senators and Representatives, or perhaps tar and feathering.  No one is angrier than I am over the devolution of things in Washington.

And yet the people have chosen Donald Trump.  A man who mocks the handicapped, who considers free speech a disgrace, who triangulated a position so nonsensical on North Carolina’s bathroom law that no one knows what he means, who is a proven hypocrite on foreign workers and immigration, who wants to increase the lands owned by federal government rather than decreasing federal power and turning over the lands to the states, who has never asked anyone for forgiveness, most especially God, who only recently triangulated his position on gun rights when previously supporting an “assault weapons” ban, who supports abortion, who believes that Maryanne Trump Barry (who supports infanticide) would make a fine supreme court justice, who criticizes women for their appearance, who calls people disgusting because of pictures taken of them while they eat, and who believes in a single payer health care system.

It’s like watching an awful reality show or perhaps an interstate wreck at high speed.  Donald Trump is an obscene, narcissistic, self serving, hateful, vengeful, grotesque, moral monster who hates anything that isn’t rewarding him for being him.  He is the post-modern man, evolved past Sartre and Camus and (I suppose, finding emptiness) circling back to the pinnacle of self indulgence, Marquis de Sade.  He is an awful man.  I’ve repeatedly heard that Ted Cruz was born in Canada or wherever, or that he took a loan from such-and-such bank.  The former issue never got any traction with me, and as for the later issue, so taking loans is now illegal or immoral?  I have a loan on my house.  So what?  And as for Trump’s bankruptcies?  That’s okay, because sadism is all about self indulgence at the expense of someone else.

I get the revolutionary flavor of the current political scene.  But instead of supporting the only real revolutionary, the GOP voters have collectively dropped their drawers and mooned God and everyone else in a protest of the preceding years.  It’s a sad thing to watch.  They chose the wrong symbol of protest, and will end up getting what they most loathe, as they become what disgusts and repels them.  The people have raised their fist to God and shouted, “give us a king like all the others.”  And the Lord has said, “very well.”  Suck it up folks, because you’re getting ready to reap the rewards of your choice.

Voting for the least bad candidate is partly what got us here.  Oh, I blame the GOPe, the establishment, 100% for this debacle.  This is a protest vote.  The voters are burning it all down because of your corruption, and the sad, sorry truth is that you still don’t get it.  But it doesn’t stop there for me.  I also blame the voters, 100%.  It isn’t either-or with me, it’s both-and.  No one held a gun to your head and forced you to vote this way in the booth.  You could have chosen to be thinking men and women, but you didn’t.  You became an unthinking mob.  So we are where we are.

And for me, that means that I’ve cast my last vote.  I am bidding farewell to voting.  I am now a disenfranchised conservative Christian, and if a third party opens up for me, I might decide to rejoin in the struggle, but I’ve won’t vote GOP again for the rest of my life.  The GOP has left me – establishment and voters.  It’s no longer my party.  I have no party.  But if I ever vote for an upstart party that is true to my conservative, constitutional ideals, I won’t cast my vote because I think politics will save us.  I don’t.  As John Adams has observed, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

If we are to be saved, no piece of paper or parchment will do it.  Thus, I sympathize with my friend Claire Wolfe on our sad state of affairs.

In part it’s because I see so many angry people putting so much hope in Trump — a man who, should he manage to buy his way into office (or tumble in by default after Hillary gets indicted) will betray them even worse than than the poltroons of 1994 betrayed We the Hopeful Fools.

But also because, horrible as the prospect of either President Trump or President Clinton the Second is, it’s a relief not to feel hope.

Or despair, for that matter. Horrible as the prospects are, it’s glorious to know how very little it really matters. For freedom. For anything that counts. Oh sure, either pretender to the throne has the potential to make a ghastly mess of things — up to and including World War III (unlikely, but someday somebody’s going to do it). Or building a wall to keep us all in. Or decreeing that all guns must Go Away Now, So There, I Have Spoken. More likely not much happens except the routine bad getting routinely worse. And millions ignoring whatever “the most important leader in the world” says, decrees, promises, etc.

And those poor hopeful fools losing hope. Been there. Done that. It hurts. It burns. It makes you want to go postal. (That was the state of mind I was in from about February 1995, when the betrayal became obvious, to late 1996 when I took my life back, laughed, sat down, and wrote 101 Things to do ‘Til the Revolution.)

Yeah, it hurts. But it hurts like growing up and learning that Santa didn’t really put those presents under the tree.

To be sure, while Cruz called out Senator Mitch McConnell for being the liar he is, I fully expect to see Trump rubbing shoulders with McConnell, Paul Ryan, and so on.  He will cut deals with them.  He said so.  Have you ever heard Trump attack McConnel, Ryan, Eric Cantor, or any of the other creeps that helped to get us here?  No, you’ve only heard him attack fellow candidates.

But unlike Claire, I never expected government to work right any more than I believe presents come from Santa Claus.  I’ve always treated my vote as a precious gift from God whether I effect change with it or not, a power over which I had stewardship and for which I will one day answer to the most high.  I have always voted based on principle rather than pragmatism, or at least I have tried to, and because of principle I am now out of the process until a third party develops that is true to my beliefs.

As for the voters, enjoy what you have created.  When you build you house on sand, don’t be surprised when the first heavy rain knocks it down.  I bid you farewell.  Oh, I’ll poke fun on occasion and remind you of your choices, and I’ll get a good chuckle out of all of this.  But I’m out of the political scene.  I won’t be voting for Donald Trump.  As for my mockery of the situation, I’ll see you over the transom.

Open Carry In Philadelphia

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 11 months ago

NBC10.com:

If you see an armed jogger in Mount Airy, Pennsylvania, these days, it’s not a “run-by” in progress.

He’s trying to make a point.

James Moody, 49, who lives in the neighborhood and comes from a self-described “firearms family,” said he began jogging with a handgun at his hip a couple months ago.

He admits a jogger with a gun in plain view on Vernon Road may be a bit “eye-opening,” but Moody, a truck driver and city native who became Pennsylvania’s Golden Gloves superheavyweight boxing champion in 1988, said he’s doing it to raise awareness about gun rights.

One police officer walking the beat in the 14th District thought it jarring enough to stop Moody mid-run Monday — and the first 15 minutes of the encounter were caught on video shot by Moody’s Go-Pro.

In it, which Moody posted to YouTube Tuesday, the officer, who identifies himself as Officer Cave, crosses Vernon Road to ask Moody about the handgun. Cave approaches with a coffee in one hand and asks Moody if he has a license to carry. Moody refuses to answer the officer’s questions about a firearms license.

As other officers arrive, they too ask Moody about a license to carry or another form of identification. Cave, a sergeant and two other officers all in turn ask Moody as the group discusses the legality of carrying a firearm in public.

None of the officers nor Moody become angry, but at least one of the officers points to her phone and tells Moody he is not allowed to carry a firearm openly.

In Pennsylvania, Moody argued in the video and then in a subsequent phone interview Tuesday, gun owners with a license to carry firearms are free to “open carry” anywhere in the state — even Philadelphia.

“Clearly, the officers don’t know the laws that Philadelphia is governed by. They had no clue about what is lawful and unlawful,” said Moody. “You can, under Title 18 Section 6108, open carry a firearm.”

“We also don’t live in a stop-and-identify state. Do they stop everyone in a motor vehicle just because they’re driving? No, you need probable cause,” he added. “You have no reason to detain me and question me. It may be a little eye opening, but it is not unlawful.”

Moody’s video of the encounter ends after about 15 minutes because his Go-Pro battery died, but he said police continued to question him about the gun and why he wouldn’t show any identification. He said they handcuffed him briefly, searched him and found his license to carry inside his wallet. He was then let go.

An attorney who has wrangled with the city of Philadelphia for decades over citizens’ gun rights, Jon Mirowitz, said the law doesn’t prohibit Moody from openly carrying his gun.

But, Mirowitz said, everyone, whether you’re a cop or a civilian, should adhere to a simple rule: Act civil.

“In this sort of a confrontation, there is nobody that’s right or nobody that’s wrong,” Mirowitz said. “Being civil is the key. All the guy has to do is say, ‘Here’s my ID.’ All the cop has to do is say, ‘I’m not giving you a hard time. I just want to see some ID.'”

There’s video at the link.  So here’s a few takeaways from this.  First of all, the cops need to learn the law and obey it.  Because they want to do or see something isn’t a good enough excuse.  Kudos to Mr. Moody who knows the law, including whether they are a “stop and identify” state.

Second, I’m okay with simply trying to prove a point.  When I open carry, it’s usually because I cannot stand to conceal (e.g., it’s a hot day and I don’t want to sweat my weapon).  But in this case proving a point is the right thing to do.  The cops need to be called to account.

Third, the lawyer is a putz.  He’s basically saying, “It doesn’t matter what the law says, do what the cops want anyway and everything will be just fine.”  He is a horrible lawyer, and he is no lover of liberty.

Notes From HPS

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 11 months ago

Mike Vanderboegh:

For those who expected deliverance from national politics that glimmer of light is now extinguished. The GOP will now go the way of the Whigs, clearing the way for the enemies of the Republic both within and without the party. What will be left will merely be different speeds and paths to the next civil war. All meaningful politics are now local, and will depend in the end on the muzzles of our rifles and the wisdom and training of those who point them.

It’s nice to see Mike writing.  And yes, this is the next installment, perhaps a touchstone on the wrong road.

Uh oh.  Matt Vanderboegh is starting a caliber war.  I always got pounded when I did that.

Here’s Matt on kit when crossing the line.  Always been a problem, always will be.  And it’s one reason that women aren’t suited for infantry.

David Codrea:

Such confident Democrat affinity for immigration, both legal and illegal, becomes obvious when you look at the numbers, as Pew research did in a 2012 “Political Party Affiliation among Hispanics” poll. Whether you look at all, at registered voters, at native born, foreign born, unauthorized, legal permanent residents or foreign-born US citizens, that affiliation is overwhelmingly Democrat.

It comes from their culture.

Update on Mike Vanderboegh.  Continue to pray for him.

Christ or a Glock.  Well, it’s not an either-or.  It’s both-and.  Except that I don’t do Glocks.  I would rather have a Springfield Armory, just about any model.

Guns Tags:

Millennials’ “Mysterious” Support For Permissive Gun Laws

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 11 months ago

The Washington Post:

When I was in middle and high school, there were spirited public debates about whether the proliferation of grisly movies, gore-glorifying song lyrics and shoot-’em-up video games might desensitize my peers and me to violence.

While I’m reluctant to pin any of this on pop culture, it’s true that my generation appears somewhat inured to violence — at least violence involving firearms.

A decade or two post-adolescence — as our own preschool-age children now practice “active shooter” drills in which they’re coached to cower in the closet or throw toys at a tactical-gear-outfitted maniac — millennials seem to have neither the desire nor the willpower to pressure our political leaders to do much to prevent such tragedies. If anything, we may be slightly more blasé about them than our elders.

Which does not bode well for liberals hoping that the arc of history will eventually bend toward greater gun control.

Poll data about views of gun control and specific gun-control measures are mixed, and responses vary depending how questions are asked. But statements about protecting gun rights generally elicit at least as much support from younger Americans as from older ones.

Well, that’s a strange visit down memory lane for the author, Ms. Catherine Rampell, and I say strange because it would never occur to me to connect gun control laws with active shooter events, except in that so-called “gun free” zones are never really that, and instead are open invitations for such nefarious miscreants to do their wickedness.

Inured to violence is how the author chose to set this up, with her appeal to blood and gore, but she slips and accidentally paints a word picture of what can happen when her restrictive gun laws are enacted – idiotic things like strategies to run, hide, fight, and throwing potted plants at shooters, or perhaps toys.  You see dear, your restrictive gun laws never stop criminals because they don’t care about your laws.  They only disarm law abiding and peaceable citizens.

Millennials are generally smart enough to figure that out.  We’re winning, the progressives know it, and I suggest that you learn to live with it.  We know how to evangelize and proselytize.  Perhaps you should even purchase a gun and learn to use it, in case of an attempted rape or an active shooter event.  The police will show up to fill out paperwork, but the event will be over by the time they arrive.  You are responsible to defend yourself.  No one else will.

SWAT Raid In Portage, Indiana

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 11 months ago

Chicago Tribune:

When a Portage couple heard a knock on their door a year ago, they were shocked to see 20 armed police officers standing outside, yelling an expletive at them to open their door.

Portage SWAT then searched their home as they were forced to watch before someone realized they were at the wrong address, according to a lawsuit filed by Jon Groski and Stacey McFadden against the city, the Portage Police Department and a number of officers.

Mayor Jim Snyder could not be reached for comment.

According to the lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Hammond, the couple and their 4-year-old daughter were at home in the 3300 block of Oakwood Street on the morning of April 13, 2015, when they heard loud banging on their door.

Groski looked through a window and saw 20 officers all wearing black with assault rifles on his doorstep, the lawsuit says, and one of them yelled at him “Open the (expletive) door, right (expletive) now.”

When he asked what was going on, another officer told him “It doesn’t (expletive) matter,” the lawsuit says.

It adds that when Groski did open the door, they rushed in with their weapons drawn at everyone in the house.

The lawsuit says that police never actually identified themselves as officers and never produced a warrant. After searching the house for some time, one officer made a comment about being at the wrong house, according to the suit.

The suit says that Groski and McFadden later learned police were trying to serve a warrant on someone who did not live at the house and that that person was not wanted for a violent crime.

It argues police used excessive force against the family and would not let them leave during the search. They are suing for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

This is the troupe of goobers responsible for this.

Portage_SWAT

They think it’s acceptable to force their way into another man’s home, property not their own, point guns at his family, and tell him it’s none of his business why they’re doing it.  To boot, this is yet another wrong-home raid, and making this even richer, the man they “wanted” wasn’t even wanted for a violent crime.

Hey folks, put the carbines down, get out of the monkey costumes, take the shades off (no, they don’t make you look cool), take some classes in scientific forensics (perhaps even including – gasp! – Calculus and physics), and be useful to your community.  As it is, you’re doing no one any good.  You’re collective drains on society, loads on the turbine.  You’re not earning your keep.

Do your investigative work, go door to door, knock on the doors, be friends of the community, ask questions, and so on, and for heaven’s sake, dress up in a formal uniform, shirt and tie and try to at least look like you’re a professional.  Defenestrate the tactical gear and jump suits and lose the bellies.  You look stupid.  But before you do any of that, read the constitution for what you can and can’t do, and don’t even think about deferring to a rubber stamp judge to prove that it’s okay for you to be abusive to citizens.  God won’t care what that judge said.


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