Articles by Herschel Smith

I would rather never be in a position like this.  That bear closed fast and had ill intentions.

“Shall not be infringed” should have limits. Politicians getting paid by the @NRA need to realize this too. What does the NRA do again? Nothing.

— Robert J. O'Neill (@mchooyah) June 2, 2022

I knew I didn’t like the guy.  A little too attention-seeking for my tastes.  There was also some controversy when the deed was done about who did it and how it went down.

Anyway, this is all the reason I need to dislike him.

Source.

A segment on CNN this Thursday featured experts demonstrating the power of semi-automatic weapons, specifically focusing on the AR-15, which has been the weapon of choice for many mass shooters in the United States over the past several years.

The Los Angeles Police Police (sic) Department pointed out to CNN that bullets fired from an AR-15 are powerful enough to pierce soft body armor.

Then, footage was shown from a ballistic lab where bullets were fired into a gelatin substance meant to mimic human flesh. When a handgun was fired at the substance, it created a single cavity through the substance and the bullet exited from the other side. A bullet fired from an assault rifle broke apart inside the substance and the damage was much more explosive.

“It basically goes inside the body and creates an explosion inside the body,” Wayne University ballistics expert Cynthia Bir said.

In another revelation, the following special reports are scheduled for CNN in the coming days.  (1) How CNN just now learned about the science of ballistics, (2) How any rifle round can penetration soft body armor, with a battery of tests and suite of analyses to prove it, (3) How CNN just now found out about ballistics gel, (4) How any rifle round exceeding about 2200 FPS at impact will cause hydrostatic shock and cavitation inside ballistics gel, (5) A side-by-side ballistics gel comparison between .270 Win PSP ammo and .300 Win Mag PSP ammo, (6) What a feral hog looks like after being shot by .30-06 PSP at 30 yards.

No … not really.

How do these people accept their paychecks with a straight face and without a guilty conscience?

Opposed to communism, he is.

And they’ll all ignore his main points – what happened to America?  Because they’re godless communists.

Source.

In response, David Codrea links Thomas Massie.

What’s the easiest way to disprove the lie that the 1994-2004 “assault weapons ban” worked? Point out that after a couple of cosmetic changes, sales actually went up during the ban. Clearly those who have been duped were never in a gun store in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s. pic.twitter.com/AQxy7P9ErE

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) June 2, 2022

A friend over an email thread says this.  “The practical effect of the “AW ban” was that AK manufacturers had to remove the bayonet lug, and Ar manufacturers had to do that and remove the flash suppressor. In either event, they kept on making the same gun. How could that affect mass killings?”

Rational question to be sure.  From my perspective, I do calculations all day every day.  I see nothing even approaching a good statistical analysis of the data, and in my judgment the data is statistically insignificant.  Nothing whatsoever can be proven with it.

Anyway, I don’t care.  No one gets to tell me that because someone else misuses a product or tool, that means my perfectly legitimate use of it will be banned.

No one actually needs an AR-15.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 3, 2022

Says the woman who strung out good men to die in Benghazi because it was inconvenient to admit to America why there were there in the first place.

By the way, I guess these men didn’t get Hillary’s message about AR-15s.

Speaking of AR-15s, I also guess this woman was glad to have hers around when she needed it.

The Washington Stand.

On Pentecost Sunday in Abuja, Nigeria, four gunmen stormed a Catholic Church during mass, massacring at least 50 worshippers in one of the most brutal rampages of the year. As word of the attack spread, so too did outrage that the violence in this African nation continues on.

While Christians have been routinely targeted by Nigeria’s Islamic extremists, this latest slaughter — in the country’s relatively peaceful southwest — is sounding new alarms. “It is a black Sunday in Owo,” Ondo’s governor, Arakunrin Akeredolu, said, condemning a “vile and satanic attack” against people “who have enjoyed relative peace over the years.”

Just a handful of days earlier, black-clad extremists wielding AK-47s reportedly opened fire as believers left an evening service in Nigeria’s Adu Village, leaving three — including a young girl — “seriously injured,” locals confirmed. Islamic extremists are “hunting and killing us on a daily basis,” often “intimidating us by displacing us through burning of our houses and properties, and destroying our farms,” one individual told International Christian Concern.

News of both shootings coincided with the publication of the 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom.

“I’m still upset about last year’s removal of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern,” said Sam Brownback, former ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom under President Donald Trump, before Sunday’s tragedy. “That was not called for. The situation continues to be terrible, and that’s shown forth, as well, in the report.”

The State Department records 1,112 conflict-related deaths in Nigeria in 2021, many of them clashes between religious groups. “In May, criminals shot and killed eight Christians and burned down a church and several homes in Kaduna State,” the report states. On September 26-27, “Muslim herders killed at least 49 persons and abducted 27, most of whom were Christian, in several attacks on communities in religiously mixed southern Kaduna State.” The report also cites “several cases” of “Muslim men kidnapping young Christian girls and forcing them into marriage and conversion to Islam.”

Many familiar with the situation expressed disbelief that the Biden administration had removed the 211-million-strong nation from its circle of concern. Family Research Council’s Lela Gilbert, senior fellow for International Religious Freedom, has been appalled at the lack of urgency from Nigeria’s president and other world leaders.

Oh stop it.  Just stop it once and for all.

Stop this notion that there is such a thing as the world police.  This entire awful situation is due to Christians misunderstanding the Scriptures and ascribing to Christ things He didn’t say and positions He doesn’t hold.

The answer is to pick up a gun and go to war against the Muslims.  Don’t ask for outside help.  There will be none forthcoming.

Christian men are responsible for themselves, their families, and their communities.  Provide for your own protection.  Kill the intruders and terrorists.  Protect your own.

Source.

Source.

So I would like to see experiments with age-based impediments rather than full restrictions — allowing would-be gun purchasers 25 and under the same rights of ownership as 40- or 60-year-olds, but with more substantial screenings before a purchase. Not just a criminal-background check, in other words, but some kind of basic social or psychological screening, combining a mental-health check, a social-media audit and testimonials from two competent adults — all subject to the same appeals process as a well-designed red-flag law.

Yes.  I see.

So the doctors would throw chicken bones, or read tarot cards, or look at the stars, or something.  To see into the future, of course, and ascertain what mother earth would want us to do – or something.  What the Scriptures call divination, and forbid against.

He further says,

I am not interested in the liberal desire to fold the problem of Uvalde-style mass shootings, of nihilistic terrorism with a misogynist or racist edge, into a larger problem called “gun violence.”

At the same time, I also have no interest in the apparent conservative desire — or least Ted Cruz’s desire — to turn America’s schools into a zone of overpolicing, duck-and-cover fearfulness and military-level vigilance.

And I’m not interested in futility, any more than I’m interested in the forms of right-wing overreaction or left-wing fantasy politics criticized above.

Who told him this is all about what interests him?  Why does he think he is important?

Well, to all of this I say, “I’m not interested in your ideas.”  Go pound sand.