Articles by Herschel Smith

Pick one…

annnnd then, complain in the comments about not having it‍♀️

PC: @HKshooting pic.twitter.com/8rbs0tUre9

— Heckler & Koch (@HecklerAndKoch) June 27, 2022

H&K can go pound sand.  I don’t want any of their products.

The title of the idiotic video at CNN is “Supreme Court further erodes the separation between church and state.”

The legacy media, and as for that matter, the cast majority of Americans, really lack any historical understanding of the nation or how and why it was founded.  Quoting R. J. Rushdoony:

“The establishments and settlements in the constituent states were definitely and specifically Christian.  In most states, single or plural establishments prevailed.  Where no church was established, Christianity as such was nonetheless firmly established.  There were religious requirements for citizenship and suffrage, religious oaths, laws prohibiting blasphemy, laws requiring a trinitarian faith, or a firm belief in the infallibility of Scripture, and laws barring unbelievers as witnesses in court.  Court decisions sometimes cited biblical law where civil law did not entirely fit the case.  In many areas, laws against unbelief were on the statute books.  A man could be imprisoned for atheism.”  Rushdoony, “The Nature of the American System.”

It’s absurd to claim that the constitution prohibits a prayer during a public event.  The very ones who signed the constitution were the ones who grew up in, and were part and parcel of, the political system Rushdoony just described.

But then, Americans don’t study history any more.  I made it through American History 101 at Clemson University without learning a single thing about American history.

Source.

The coyote attacked the toddler on Tuesday in Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley, according to a news release from the Fountain Valley Police Department. The girl is recovering from her injuries, police said in another news release.

Wildlife officers on Thursday trapped and euthanized the coyote in the park, Patrick Foy, a captain at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told CNN. DNA from the child’s clothing was matched to the coyote’s DNA, Foy said.

Gosh.  It’s almost as if people should buy guns and carry them for purposes of defense of their family.  I know I heard that somewhere.

Watch the video, but here is my analysis (the comments on YouTube are idiotic).

The caption says, “wild horses.”  Eh, maybe so.  I don’t know.  There’s a salt/mineral block in the video, so it isn’t completely a wild herd.  No commenter points this out.  In any case, this is their neighborhood.  They know their way around.

Second, the horses are barely at a lope.  I know.  I have trained horses.  They can keep this speed up – and much faster than this – for far longer than the bear.  The bear is heavy.  A large portion of the musculature of the horse is dedicated to doing just what they’re doing.  The adult horses are in absolutely no danger.  They just chose to run rather than fight because that’s the easiest thing to do.  It’s all instinctive.  There was no calculus.

Third, the reason they’re loping is twofold.  They won’t waste energy if they don’t need to, and they’re probably protecting the foal.  That foal is likely in danger, but that’s the only horse in danger.

The bear is in danger too.  If the horses decide to make a fight of it with the bear (assuming the bear catches up with the foal), one strike from a rear hoof will crush the bear’s skull.  Even a glancing blow would break his jaw (killing him) or cause internal injuries (causing organ failure).  A horse kicks much faster than a rattlesnake strike, and delivers 2000 psi pressure.  Don’t ever underestimate a horse’s ability to kill.  I know cowboys who were centimeters from death from a potential head blow.

I repeat.  The herd is in no danger.  The foal is in danger.  So is the bear, so that bear must be very hungry.

Anyway, that’s my analysis.

Chris takes a wise approach to most things.  I’ll make a few comments regarding the things he said as it relates to me.

First, concerning listening to “experts” criticize you for what you carry, that’s silly beyond belief, and I concur with Chris.  I literally couldn’t care any less than I do at this moment what a trainer or “expert” says about me or anything I do or don’t do.

Second, like Chris, I have a very low tolerance level for anything on my body.  I don’t wear necklaces, rings, watches, or anything else like that.  If I’m sitting, my phone comes out of my pocket.

I do find that one unobtrusive way to carry is in an ankle holster (a revolver, of course).  Beyond that, I find that if I have to carry IWB, a commander size 1911 frame is narrow enough that it doesn’t cause too much hassle, at least, for a while.

Finally, this is one reason I would rather openly carry, regardless of what other people think about it.

AP.

“If you’re born and raised here, you get into a fistfight, you don’t expect there to be a weapon,” Kau said.

Chris Marvin, a Hawaii resident with the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, said road rage dustups, clashes over surf spots and other confrontations are a part of life in Hawaii and are rarely fatal. He’s worried that will change.

“When you introduce guns, it’s so often immediately death,” he said. “Guns and aloha don’t mix.”

Under current law, county police chiefs in Hawaii have the discretion to determine whether to issue a carry permit. Without such a permit, people in Hawaii are only allowed to keep firearms in the home and can transport them — unloaded and locked up — to shooting ranges, hunting areas and other limited locations such as for repairs.

The Supreme Court ruling says local governments can’t require those seeking a license to carry a gun in public to demonstrate a particular need, such as a direct threat to their safety. Hawaii and California are among states with such a requirement.

Hawaii police chiefs have issued only four carry permits in the last 22 years, said attorney Alan Beck, who represents George Young, a Big Island man suing to be able to carry a gun for self-defense.

“It’s a huge deal,” Beck said of the ruling. “Not only does it mean Mr. Young’s case will prevail, it also means the door has been opened to challenging numerous aspects of Hawaii firearms law.”

What a terrible take on life.  Road rage dustups, clashes over surf spots and other confrontations are part of life in Hawaii.  But not to worry.  No guns are involved, so everything is cool.

Except it’s not.  Assault is a sin.  Assault is a felony.  Assault can maim.  Assault can kill.  Assault can cause pain and suffering and massive medical bills.

Maybe the Aloha state needs to see some people guilty of assault get shot in the altercation.  It would go a long ways towards a marked change in how men see other men in Hawaii.

So when some sociologist claims five years from now that Bruen caused more shootings in Hawaii, I’ll respond, so what?  How do you know that’s a bad thing?

Seen at The Gun Feed.

In a slide presentation Sen. John Cornyn delivered to Senate Republicans at lunch on Wednesday, the Texas Republican went through areas where the NRA got want it wanted, per source — even though the pro-gun lobby is opposed to the bipartisan deal he cut

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 23, 2022

NRA asked for mental health funding, school hardening money and 10-year sunset on juvenile records in background check system, per this document.

— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) June 22, 2022

🚨BREAKING: NRA Announces Opposition to Senate Gun Control Legislation

"This legislation can be abused to restrict lawful gun purchases, infringe upon the rights of law-abiding Americans, & use fed dollars to fund gun control measures being adopted by state & local politicians." pic.twitter.com/tXriTiWLzw

— NRA (@NRA) June 21, 2022

🚨This is a gun control bill. That’s why NRA opposes it. End of story.

More by @FoxNews➡️https://t.co/kPSwV1sCNd pic.twitter.com/vFTFLMfkab

— NRA (@NRA) June 22, 2022

Despicable.  Loathsome and reprehensible.  If you work for the NRA, or are on the BoD, you are in bed with liars.

Found here.

Held: New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.

Of course I haven’t had time to sus out all of the prose in this decision.  It’s a long one and will take some time.

But Justice Thomas undoes the damage I have always claimed that Heller did to the God-given RKBA.  Heller never explicitly spoke to carry outside the home.

I don’t expect this to end here.  New York will doubtless impede, stall, interfere, hamper, and do everything possible to keep from recognizing these rights.  So will Hawaii, Maryland, and Illinois.

We’ll return to this decision many times in the future, I’m sure.

UPDATE #1: Townhall covers.

Thomas – “The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self defense is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.” We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need. That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for selfdefense. New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

UPDATE #2: PJM covers.

UPDATE #3: Alito – “In light of what we have actually held, it is hard to see what legitimate purpose can possibly be served by most of the dissent’s lengthy introductory section. See post, at 1–8 (opinion of BREYER, J.). Why, for example, does the dissent think it is relevant to recount the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years? Post, at 4–5. Does the dissent think that laws like New York’s prevent or deter such atrocities? Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo? The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator.”

Editorial comment: Breyer has the thinking of an adolescent.  Alito is trying to use reason to a man who cannot understand it.

The Daily Signal.

“All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The Communist Party must command all the guns; that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party.”

The quote was from Mao Zedong, founder of Communist China. Mao’s first act after gaining complete control of China in 1949 was to take away all guns from the population. It was a policy he began in 1935 as he took over each rural province. Anyone found with a gun post-confiscation was executed.

An estimated 65 million Chinese died as a result of Mao’s repeated, merciless attempts to create a new “socialist” China. Anyone who got in his way was done away with—by execution, imprisonment, or forced famine.

Mao killed more people than either Stalin or Hitler during World War II. And it all began after he took away the guns.

Dictators throughout much of history have disarmed their populations before they began their mass killings. Examples abound beyond Mao: Hitler took guns from the Jews in November of 1938, and Kristallnacht and the Holocaust followed; and then there was Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, to name but a few.

[ … ]

Everybody ought to have a gun, Castro maintained—until he took over Cuba in 1959. At a rally in Havana before he assumed power, he explained: “This is how democracy works: It gives rifles to farmers, to students, to women, to Negroes, to the poor, and to every citizen who is ready to defend a just cause.”

Weapons ranging from Czech submachine guns to Belgian FN automatic rifles were handed out to 50,000 soldiers, 400,000 militiamen, 100,000 members of the factory-guarding popular defense force, and to many men, women, and children in Cuba’s 1 million-strong “neighborhood vigilance committees.”

Immediately after assuming power in 1959, Castro changed his position, following Mao’s rule that guns should not be in the hands of the people.

For three weeks after the Castro government was formed, Radio Havana warned, “All citizens must turn in their combat weapons. Civilians must take arms to police stations, soldiers to military headquarters.”

He did a fairly good job, but of course left out the Armenian genocide, Pol Pot’s reign of terror, Idi Amin’s reign of terror over the Christians in Uganda, Stalin’s starvation of Ukraine, and on and on we could go.

The lessons are universal and repeated throughout history.  Never turn in your firearms.  In 21st century America, you need more care and concern than that.

Home school your children, get off of social media, and be leaders of your family.  Keep your families in tip top working order, and always have plans to set in motion.

Via Ken.

California would be the first state to require gun owners to buy liability insurance to cover the negligent or accidental use of their firearms, if lawmakers approve a measure announced Thursday.

Even idiots know that insurance doesn’t cover intentional tort.  This is simply a way of punishing firearms owners.  They know that.  We know that.  Everyone knows that.