Herald Tribune:

Lee Williams’ Note: Here’s a great guest column from Arden Tams. Arden served 24 years in the U.S. Army, the last 17 in Special Forces. As a Green Beret, he attended a host of high-speed SF schools, as well as some of the country’s most-prestigious private shooting academies. Arden, who retired as a CW2, deployed overseas 10 times, including multiple tours in Afghanistan. He’s trained Africans, Arabs and Afghans. I know no one with more downrange time. This is his first column.

by Arden Tams 

Now more than ever the gun community is under a microscope from both the anti-gun community and liberal politicians alike.

For too long the gun community has barked loudly about the infringement of our Second Amendment and done nothing about addressing concerns with proper instruction, training and safety.

There is an old analogy that house built on a foundation of sand will eventually collapse. Well, that holds true for initial firearms training too.

Since I retired from the military last year, I have not only witnessed improper training, I have been told by several instructors who are very proficient that many of their colleagues are not competent whatsoever.

Examples we all hear are instructors using starter pistols, or firing one shot down range for concealed carry classes.

This falls on both the instructor and student.

So how do we combat this as a gun community if there is a minimal standard in place set forth by states and the NRA?

We exceed the standards to ensure accidents like this last weekend do not happen.

Gun ownership is not only a right, it is also a privilege and a stewardship …

You can read the rest here.  I too have pressed for greater and more mechanically based training, mastering the mechanics of the weapon and mechanics of the person.  I’ve pressed for learning to field strip your weapon, getting more range time, practicing good trigger and muzzle discipline, having that hard-to-have conversation with your elder parents or grandparents on whether they really need to have a gun since they are being provided for and protected 24-7 (and you’re worried about Alzheimer’s disease, and no, I don’t mean protected by some irresponsible bureaucrat sitting at a desk in the middle of the night answering the phone), knowing where every firearm in your house is and being able to locate it blindfolded, lay your hands on it and say whether there is a round chambered from memory, and continually raising the bar of your own standards.

And he’s right in that folks who act irresponsibly do us no favors.  They only provide more fodder for the anti-gun crowd to trumpet.  But turning to the state to require increased standards in order to prevent the progressives from being able to trumpet our failures isn’t the solution, if that’s what he’s suggesting.

I agree with his sentiment, but saying that gun ownership is both a right and a privilege is simply wrongheaded.  Something that is a right cannot be a privilege.  And while sad, failures of personal gun owner responsibility don’t justify intrusions by the state.  If there are standards to be raised, it’s best left to the individual, the family and the gun owner community to do it.  Intent to exceed legal standards for the purpose of proving ourselves worthy to the collectivists only justifies the very legal standards that shouldn’t be codified in the first place.

David Smalley at Patheos:

I live in Texas. I’m a gun owner. I have a concealed handgun license. I’ve taught my kids how to fire weapons.

I also understand and appreciate our Constitution. I’m fully aware of the 2nd Amendment, and how its authors wanted to prevent government tyranny. Considering what they had gone through, they had every right to demand such a thing.

When an author begins by giving you his bona fides, watch out.  There’s no better way to start an anti-gun rant than to claim that you own guns and truly do, honestly do, sincerely do, understand gun owners.  True to form, he treats us to this.

I know enough about weapons to have a near perfect score on my firing test, to know that the “c” in SR9c stands for “compact” to make the weapon easier to hide; and to know that the AR in AR-15 doesn’t stand for ‘Assault Rifle,’ but ‘Armalite’ after the original company who made the gun.

Am I a gun nut? Maybe. But I like to keep myself skeptical and informed. And that includes realizing when I’m being illogically influenced by my culture, and taking necessary steps to correct it.

You see, one thing that’s more important than situational knowledge, patriotism, tradition, or protection, is common sense.

At this nation’s beginning, it made sense for the citizens to be armed similarly to the government to prevent tyranny.

Today, that’s ridiculous. The very concept is outdated. Some have said to me; the point is for the citizens to be “as armed as well as the government.”

For starters, today, the military has fully automatic M-16s. Citizens can’t buy that. You have to get a tamer version: AR-15.

You can’t have flame throwers, bombs, bazookas, Z10 attack helicopters, bradleys, tanks, fighter jets, nuclear reactors, or a plethora of other secret military weapons you don’t even know exist.

So even today, with the 2nd Amendment in full effect, we don’t have the rights to be “armed as well as our government.”

Secondly, what if you were? I could hand you 50 AR-15s, give you 1000 illegal bombs, steal you a couple of tanks, and smuggle in some bazookas, and even let you fully train 500 of your closest friends.

If the government wants your shit, they’re going to take it.

You still wouldn’t be a match for even a single battalion of the United States Marine Corps. Not to mention the Air Force, Army, Navy, National Guard, Secret Service, FBI, CIA, and Seals.

So stop acting like your little AR-15 is going to stop tyranny.

First of all, he’s assuming that the armed forces wouldn’t frag officers who issued such a command.  But assuming that the entirety of the armed forces participated in whatever operation Smalley is conjuring, if only several hundred thousand armed Americans fought back, it would be a bloodbath.

This argument – and I’ve seen it numerous times – is locked in the mindset of early twentieth century warfare, oblivious to MOUT, CQB, insurgencies, and fourth generation warfare.  A nuclear weapon is of no use when the enemy lives among friend, and friend and foe all look the same.  Ask any veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom how easy it is to ferret out insurgents from among the population or fight insurgents in the shadows.

As for “If the government wants your shit, they’re going to take it,” perhaps so.  But then again, perhaps not.  You see, the mere existence of the argument itself is evidence against the affirmative and in favor of negation.  The government wouldn’t want to ban weapons if they were of no use in destabilizing tyrannical governments.  Hitler wouldn’t have wanted the Jews disarmed if he hadn’t intended to do them harm.  Also consider the role of gun confiscations in the Armenian genocide.  See Dave Kopel, et. al, at National Review, and also Brett Stortroen, Gun Confiscation as a Prelude to the Armenian Genocide.

Finally, those Marines to whom Smalley refers are somebody’s sons.  I recall very distinctly a missionary from the European theater years ago during communist rule (I refuse to give his name or specific location) who gave my church the back story behind the falling of the wall in Germany.  Night after night the crowds began to grow to tear down the wall.  The German army was eventually deployed to shoot the protestors, but remember that the East German army, while working for a communist country, were sons of mothers and fathers in East Germany.

As soon as the army was deployed, grandmothers went to the wall.  “Shoot us,” they yelled.  The sons of German mothers and grandmothers refused to shoot their own family, and the rest is history.  Now recall reader and commenter Fred’s comment on one post.

As for the military; are they still trained on illegal orders? My nephew is in tech school (navy) and I told him before he went in to seek a deep understanding of illegal orders and to make sure they trained him on it. I also told him that if he took his training and turned it on his fellow citizens I would hunt and kill him, this child that I love and helped to raise up. He understood that this is no small matter.

Smalley makes this sound much easier than it will be, that is, if the government ever decides to harm civilians based on their religious viewpoints, gun ownership or some other reason.  But war always sounds easier than it will be, yes?

Jeff Knox writing at Liberty News Now has a good article on armed worship. well worth your time.  Anything Jeff Knox writes is well worth your time.  Jeff advocates going armed for self defense and defense of others, but then there is this.

There is also the issue of interfering with the worship of others. Right or wrong, justified or not, many people are simply uncomfortable around guns. If they become aware that someone in the worship service is armed, it could distract them from their worship. Not being sensitive to these folks’ feelings would be inconsiderate and could be a violation of scriptural guidance. The apostle Paul exhorts Christians to avoid things which might cause a brother to stumble, but of course, that can be a difficult proposition when dealing with people with irrational fears

Jeff’s closing paragraph is nice, but the one above bothers me.  Jeff is referring to 1 Corinthians 8:9, and this verse has been take to mean virtually anything.  Take for instance the consumption of alcohol.  If it causes you brother to stumble, the saying goes, you must give it up.

But what about that big house some folks have?  Is that a stumbling block for some?  Very well, sell it.  How about the lack of having a large home, since we are to work in order to have something to those who are in need (Ephesians 4:28), and those we entertain might even be angels (Hebrews 13:2)?  You see, what may be a stumbling block for someone may in fact be the opposite for someone else.

The point is that this isn’t logically sustainable.  Men aren’t required to give up what the Scriptures allow.  Putting a stumbling block in another man’s path might be something like inviting an alcoholic into your home and offering up corn liquor to him.

We needn’t interpret the passage the way Jeff seems to be doing here, and I won’t ever give up carrying a weapon to worship just because it makes somebody uncomfortable to know that I’m doing it.  As I’ve said far too many times to count, carry a gun to worship.  You might just save someone’s life.  In either case, you are obeying the Biblical command to be prepared to defend a life which is made in God’s image.

David Codrea:

Whereas Hillary can skate on perceived reckless conduct when Comey himself acknowledges it is “a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way,” gun owners also deemed guilty of recklessness now face a “terrifying new precedent,” per a Conservative Review analysis of the Supreme Court’s 6 -2 decision in the Voisine case.

“[T]he court ruled that crimes of recklessness rise to the same level as ‘misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence’ which preclude individuals convicted of such a crime from firearm ownership by federal law,” the article explains.

“Congress was not worried about a husband dropping a plate on his wife’s foot or a parent injuring her child by texting while driving,” Justice Clarence Thomas protested in his dissent.

Yea, we’ve discussed that case before.  And I agree with David that the defendants were not the outstanding citizens you want for such cases, but of course that’s irrelevant.  It often takes defendants that who are otherwise less than outstanding citizens to prove the larger point being made, i.e., rights applies to all men, not just the pretty people.

But it gets even worse than that.  As we’ve seen, in the words of Justice Elena Kagan, “… the word “use” does not demand that the person applying force have the purpose or practical certainty that it will cause harm, as compared with the understanding that it is substantially likely to do so. Or, otherwise said, that word is indifferent as to whether the actor has the mental state of intention, knowledge, or recklessness with respect to the harmful consequences of his volitional conduct.”

Notice the words intention, substantial likelihood, and recklessness.  The point is that this list of potential infractions that would prohibit firearms ownership can be construed to be virtually anything concocted by the mind of the executive.  Stay away from law enforcement.  Don’t ever involve them in anything.  Give them wide berth.

As for Hillary, did you really think the administration would hold her accountable?  I didn’t and said so to those around me.  Laws apply to little people.  If you’re reading this, you are a little person.  Act and plan accordingly.

Boise Weekly:

Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter signed SB 1389 into law in March, and on July 1, it officially became legal to carry concealed firearms without a permit in Idaho—but during at a July 1 rally on the Capitol Mall, Idaho Second Amendment Alliance President Greg Pruett said there’s more work to be done.

Pruett told the crowd of 75-100 people the next step is lobbying lawmakers to remove the residency requirement from the permitless—or constitutional—carry law and strengthen Idaho’s “castle doctrine,” the law which defines homicide as justifiable if it is, among other things, “committed in defense of habitation or property.”

“When someone breaks into your house, that should be the end of it for them,” Pruett said. He went on to express disappointment at the years of work it took to enact the law and at the lack of credit given to ISAA for the rise of strong Second Amendment advocate candidates in the Republican Primary.

In his remarks to the crowd, U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) praised the group for securing legislation in four years and suggested not to turn against lawmakers for a single vote.

“I don’t want you to leave disappointed because it took four years,” Labrador said. “You need to judge politicians based on their body of work.”

Pruett wasn’t having it.

“For us, you’re either all in or you’re not,” he said.

This is a strange article and I don’t understand it.  Perhaps an Idahoan can help interpret what we’re reading here.  First of all, it takes a very long time to work the collectivist system down to something more tolerable.  If the man named Labrador was saying that the entire system should be exonerated because they finally did something good, then I have to disagree.

But on the other hand, if Pruett is disparaging the very one who helped to secure that bit of legislation that makes the system more tolerable, then I have to wonder if the collectivists are our betters when it comes to strategy.  I’ve pointed out before that they are very good incrementalists and we’re not.  They will accept something that isn’t to their liking in order to work towards the end result that is to their liking.

Are we as strategically savvy as that?  I doubt it.

SSI posted a very interesting guest article from a former AFT agent on why the “Us versus them‘ mentality?  I have to confess that I’m in the camp that doesn’t see the constitutionality of federal gun laws or the ATF to begin with, but the former agent has an answer for that.  The comments are also very interesting.  I commend this article to your reading.

On a somewhat unrelated topic, SSI has a piece up remembering Mike Vanderboegh’s participation in a “we will not comply” rally.  It’s touching and also worth your time.