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]

“Tony Timpa Stopped Breathing”

BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 7 months ago

Newly released body camera video from an emergency call in Dallas, Tx.  Via The Daily Beast.

The moral of the story is simple.  Don’t put toxicants into your body, and never call the police.  You are worse off and in more danger when the police are around.

Never call the police.

What’s Really Going On Inside NRA Operations?

BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 7 months ago

Scott Bach writing at Ammoland.

The purpose of this column is to explain what has recently transpired at NRA, and to refute the false narratives being spread about the Association.  Responsible board members have remained silent until now for legal reasons, but I believe what follows should be said.

Over a year ago, as NRA’s former treasurer was departing, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre called for a renewed emphasis on transparency and compliance with best practices for the Association and all of its vendors.  Among other things, every vendor was required to provide extra detail backing up their invoices, and additional levels of detail on NRA operations were included on the Association’s tax returns.

Can you see where this is going right off the bat?  This is at least initially about some big ole’ bad boy who was the “former treasurer.”  What the NRA really needed after this bad boy’s departure was a major accounting.  Wayne was just the man to bring that accountability.

LaPierre’s efforts proved to be prescient.  Officials in several jurisdictions began targeting the NRA, investigating how legal loopholes might be used to permanently shut down the Association. But it turns out that LaPierre’s good governance program may very well have created legal impediments to that, blocking efforts to harm NRA.

Ironically, some of those same transparency measures that may protect NRA from hostile public officials were spun by the anti-gun media to fuel a false narrative about NRA’s financial health and spending habits.  The media painted a fake portrait of a sputtering organization in decline, led by selfish executives lavishly spending member monies. That the media should present such a false narrative is not surprising. The surprising part is that some gun owners actually believed them.

Right.  Wayne didn’t really spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on suits and clothing, and he didn’t get an apartment for his sweetie, and there wasn’t a sweet deal with Marion Hammer to give her money she never earned and for which she did no work, and there wasn’t a deal to funnel monies to cronies who were loyal to Wayne.  It’s all just a myth that some stupid NRA members believed.  Not one shred of evidence to refute any of the data.  It just is what he says it is because he says it.

In any event, LaPierre’s initiative to ensure that every NRA vendor provide extra invoice detail required cooperation from the vendors themselves.  Apparently, all but one vendor fully complied. That vendor was among the NRA’s largest, a public relations firm deeply embedded in the NRA’s highest-profile, most sensitive operations. The vendor was so deeply entrenched, for so long, that it apparently had developed independent financial relationships with several NRA officials – including former NRA President Oliver North.  Instead of simply providing the required additional invoice detail, the vendor apparently resisted.

So now the narrative has switched to the big ole’ bad Oliver North and the company that had the right relationship with none other than Wayne himself.  It’s everybody’s fault by Wayne.

By the way, I’m no fan of Oliver North either.  His assertion that civilians have no business owning “assault weapons” like AK-47s proves he was never anything but a Fudd, perfect in all ways for leadership of the NRA.  Oliver North can go pound sand.

As an aside, to those that know him, LaPierre is actually noted for his modest everyday wardrobe. As the public face of over 100 million gun owners, appropriate clothing for high-profile appearances is a justifiable corporate expense.  The cost over the 15 years cited in the information dump was less than 0.007 % (7/1000ths of one percent) of the nearly $4 billion in revenue LaPierre helped raise during the same period to preserve our Second Amendment rights.

His modest everyday wardrobe.  And note how Wayne helped raise the money in NRA coffers.  It’s not about the members, but about Wayne.

LaPierre has consistently done the right thing for NRA, not because it was easy or convenient, but because it was right.  He has not been the problem; he has been the solution.

“Consistently done the right thing for the NRA.”  How about for the members?  Let’s see – support the assault weapons ban, support red flag laws, support (and give idea for) the bump stock ban?  Is that enough?

Well, you’ve seen enough of this sycophant.  This is a disgusting and loathsome missive, full of lies, myths, deflections, blame, and misdirects.

The author ought to be ashamed.  So should Wayne.

Prior:

NRA Category

Greenville County Sheriff’s Deputy Shoots Innocent Homeowner Through His Front Door

BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 7 months ago

Here is the video.  Watch it all.

Here is the local news report.

Again, the innocent homeowner was shot through his front door.  Through his front door, while carrying a weapon because he thought he was under threat of home invasion.

The police will of course be the judge of their own kind.  You be a better judge.  In the end, God will be the ultimate judge.

David Dell’Aquila’s Battle To Reform The NRA

BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 7 months ago

TTAG:

David Dell’Aquila says he finally realized that his attempts to reform the National Rifle Association from within were doomed after a conversation he had with NRA President Carolyn Meadows (she hadn’t been given the top job yet at the time). It happened during a party for large donors like himself that was held before the Indianapolis annual meeting in April.

Dell’Aquila tells TTAG that he approached Meadows because he’d received information indicating that a high-ranking NRA employee was receiving payments from vendors to whom he directed business. Meadows asked where he heard that (he told her it didn’t matter). She then told him none of it was true.

Then Dell’Aquila said he asked Meadows — strictly hypothetically — if she had a problem with an NRA official collecting a salary from the Association while using a vendor with which he either had an ownership interest or received payments for business directed its way (i.e. kickbacks).

According to Dell’Aquila, Meadows told him, “That’s how it’s done in D.C. Everyone does it.”

That’s when he says he knew his year-long effort (it started following the 2018 Dallas annual meeting) to bring about change and accountability by working with NRA officers and employees was futile.

Dell’Aquila, a retired Nashville technology consultant, then set about developing a four-phase strategy to force EVP and CEO Wayne LaPierre and his supporters — both in management and on the board — out of their positions.

I like the cut of his jib.  Then there’s this (readers and I have discussed the issue of fiduciary responsibility of NRA board members and just how far that goes).

It is important for each member of the Board of Directors to completely understand his or her responsibilities. For example, current NRA officers who have stated “I don’t know anything about that,” “that is the first time I’m hearing it,” “I trust Wayne completely,” etc., are not deemed within the law as valid acceptable legal defenses. It is your responsibility to know or take the necessary actions to obtain such knowledge.

Again, we’ll see just how far that responsibility goes, but I do hope it goes all the way to actual personal legal liability.

With all of that said, I still doubt that the NRA can be reformed.  I think it’s dead.

MS-13 Indictments Document Barbarization And Ritual Murders In Los Angeles

BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 7 months ago

Robert J. Bunker:

Using machetes, knives and baseball bats, members of the criminal MS-13 gang killed their victims, dismembered their bodies and threw their remains into a canyon in the Angeles National Forest, according to a sweeping indictment unsealed Tuesday by federal authorities in Los Angeles. In one instance, they said, members of the gang ripped out a victim’s heart.

[ … ]

MS-13 street gangsters from the San Fernando Valley butchered and bludgeoned their rivals with machetes, knives, baseball bats, and pipes in a series of gruesome killings in the Angeles National Forest, according to a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday…

Other charges include racketeering and drug trafficking, with the MS-13 members also accused of extorting rival gang members, street vendors and business owners – members of local immigrant communities – using violence to intimidate them.

The gang members used social media, mostly Facebook Messenger, to orchestrate assaults, post gang signs and even to plot murders, prosecutors said…

It looks like the self-righteous folks at Facebook are putting their wares to effective use for the criminals.

I post this particularly to note the following: ” … extorting … street vendors and business owners.”

Soon to come to a neighborhood near you given the porous border and the “They come for love” mentality.  Or, they come for free medical care and in the mean time we can enrich our stock prices with cheap labor.

Federal Court: Semi-Autos Indistinguishable From M-16s

BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 7 months ago

Guns.com.

“Because the Court concludes that semiautomatic assault rifles are essentially indistinguishable from M-16s, which Heller noted could be banned pursuant to longstanding prohibitions on dangerous and usual weapons, the Court need not reach the question of whether semiautomatic rifles are excluded from the Second Amendment because they are not in common use for lawful purposes like self-defense,” said Staton, an appointment by President Obama. Prior to stepping up to the federal bench, Staton was a lawyer in private practice in San Francisco and a California Superior Court judge appointed by Gov. Gray Davis just before he was recalled.

Staton also quoted that the rate of fire of such guns, listed in the order as “300 to 500 round per minute rate” makes semiautomatic rifles “virtually indistinguishable in practical effect from machineguns.”

Wow.  I wish I could pull the trigger 300-500 times per minute for a full minute.  I’d vie for book of world records.  Move over, Jerry Miculek.  The boss is on the block.

But … there’s that sticky issue of legal definitions (like the single pull of the trigger being the difference between semi-autos and machine guns).  I guess judges don’t have to worry about things like legalities.

ATF Issues Guidance To Alabama FFLs

BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 7 months ago

Via David Codrea, the ATF flexes its muscle.

Because county sheriffs have issued CCP permits s without completing a full NICS check, firearms have been transferred to felons and other prohibited individuals in violation of federal law, thereby creating a substantial public safety concern. For this reason, the standards set forth in the Brady law require us to find that Alabama’s CCP permits no longer qualify as a NICS check alternative. In the interest of public safety, and effective immediately, FFLs in Alabama may no longer accept CCP permits as an alternative to a NICS check. Unless another exception applies, a NICS check must be conducted whenever you transfer a firearm to an unlicensed person even if the individual presents an unexpired CCP permit.

First of all, I agree with the second comment at David’s place.  I have no sympathy for the Alabama Sheriffs.  Virtually ever one of them is a gun controller.

Second, I disagree with the notion that the ATF gets to decide how a Sheriff complies, but this is what happens when you have a FedGov that licenses FFL (as opposed to the righteous practice of no FedGov involvement at all).

Shooting A Revolver In Double-Action

BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 7 months ago

This Magpul Extended Minute demonstrates what I find to be good practice.  But you can always shoot in single action with the hammer cocked (even with DA revolvers), which gives you a trigger pull as light as a 1911.

The Gun Confiscation You Didn’t See Coming

BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 7 months ago

While he makes an error at the first of the video concerning the number of gun owners (and near the last of the video as well), and while what he is proposing will happen does indeed violate God-given and constitutional rights, regardless of the notion of self incrimination, I think what he says is VERY important.

He highlights the connectedness of the world today, the ubiquitous nature of the internet-of-things, and the threat that poses.  It’s worth watching all the way through.

As always provide your thoughts in comments.

Mcloud, Oklahoma, AR Pistol Walk

BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 7 months ago

Our friend Timothy Harper with News Now OKC recently did a 2A audit in Mcloud, Oklahoma.

So there are a few things that need to be reinforced with the Mcloud PD.  First of all, there was no legal necessity for Mr. Harper to show his ID.  This wasn’t a “Terry Stop.”  You could not articulate suspicion of a crime.

Second, you had no right to order him off the street, and I’m glad he stood his ground.  Third, you couldn’t articulate any difference between flying a kite and Mr. Harper doing what he was doing, which is entirely legal, and yet you ordered him off the street.  So you looked stupid.

Finally, tell fat boy he needs to lose some weight if he wants to chase down the real bad guys.

I’m glad Mr. Harper is doing this.  It apparently is needful and I hope he keeps going.


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