Articles by Herschel Smith

Continuing his series on pistol skills and operation.

We’ll grant the point that voting in Beverly Hills was a red spot in the middle of blue, but 44% of the folks would still forcibly take guns away from ordinary people.

So what does it look like when rich people come under threat?

In Beverly Hills, even the purchase of a firearm comes with certain…expectations. The city’s only gun store, Beverly Hills Guns, is a “concierge service” by appointment only, for a largely affluent clientele. And business is booming.

Since opening in July 2020, the store has seen upscale residents from Santa Monica to the Hollywood Hills increasingly in a panic following several high-profile smash-and-grab and violent home invasion robberies. The apparent siege has brought in a daily stream of anxious business owners and prominent actors, real estate moguls and film execs, says owner Russell Stuart. Most are arming themselves for the first time.

“This morning I sold six shotguns in about an hour to people that say, ‘I want a home defense shotgun,’” says Stuart, whose store is discreetly located in a Beverly Hills office building, with no sign on the doors, down the hall from a diamond dealer. “Everyone has a general sense of constant fear,  which is very sad. We’re used to this being like Mayberry.”

That fear has the wealthiest of local gentry contemplating every more elaborate security measures: armored luxury cars, safe rooms and bullet-proof glass in their homes. One client asked about creating the “Tony Stark-level” security of a half-dozen automated drones to hover over his house, says Stuart, whose gun store is part of his larger security company, Force Protective Agency. “If you want the Gucci package, it’s going to cost money.”

The security business is experiencing a rebound after a couple of diminished years because of the pandemic. Some firms had their on-site security guards sent home for health and social distancing reasons. Not anymore. In Beverly Hills, the craving for additional security dates to the riot that followed an otherwise peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in May 2020, with unprecedented looting along Rodeo Drive that left broken boutique windows  beneath beloved luxury brands: Chanel, Dior, Gucci, Michael Kors, MCM, Ermenegildo Zegna. Last March, a $500,000 Richard Mille watch was stolen at gunpoint from a diner at the Il Pastaio restaurant.  The Dec. 1 home-invasion robbery and shooting death of philanthropist Jacqueline Avant, 81, in her Trousdale Estates home, only accelerated the arms race among the affluent.

I’m shocked.  You mean they want BLM to destroy your city but not their own?  In other news, they are demanding the police do something about it.

Los Angeles Police Chief Michael Moore announced in November he would be setting up a task force to combat home-invasion robberies, which have targeted celebrities and upscale restaurants, according to the Los Angeles Times. Moore indicated the department had not seen violent holdups “like this in decades,” The Times reported.

I wonder where this task force will concentrate their efforts?  Anyway, the rich folks know the police can’t be there all of the time.  They want shotguns.  They want Gucci protection.  They want up-armored cars.  They want drones.

If you demand the same thing, 44% of them will tell you to pound sand.

This?

Since a ban on numerous firearms took effect in May 2020, Canadians have only turned in 160 to the government  — a stunningly tiny number, considering the original government estimation of there to be some 90,000 to 105,000 outlawed firearms in Canada.

“Only 160 firearms that the Liberal government prohibited more than a year and a half ago have been deactivated or surrendered, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP),” iPolitics reported Friday.

“The Canadian Firearms Program (CFP) can confirm that, as of Dec. 9, 2021, 18 firearms (formerly classified as restricted) affected by the May 1, 2020, Order in Council (OIC) have been deactivated,” RCMP headquarters spokeswoman Sgt. Caroline Duval told iPolitics.

“In addition, there have been 142 OIC-affected firearms recorded as surrendered to a public agency for destruction since May 1, 2020,” she added.

The RCMP seemed to suggest Canadians are merely waiting for a long-promised gun buyback to be created by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before complying.

“If an individual or business were to relinquish a newly prohibited firearm or device before the implementation of the buyback program, they won’t be eligible for compensation once the program is announced,” RCMP told iPolitics last week. “Government officials are currently in the process of refining requirements and developing program design and implementation options for a buyback program.”

Oh, I see.  Canadians are merely waiting on a few dollars to relinquish their liberty, or so they say.

Or will it be something else, perhaps just saying ‘no’, and backing that up?

100,000 illegal firearms.  Good grief.  If they tried to do that with AR-15s in the U.S. (tens of millions), there would be a problem.

Any predictions on what will happen with our neighbors to the North?  Will the little boy with the hair-doo win out?

Hopefully everyone knows that by now, but this post will be a dump of recent papers, articles and reports.

From Steve Kirsch, substack.

I got an email recently from Mike Yeadon, former VP of Pfizer, who urged me to check out this video. He wrote me this email on 12/24/21:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/fHIT55iM4Zv9/

Steve,

This is about the worst 15min I’ve ever seen.

Mass covid19 vaccination is leading to mass murder.

Mike

The video references this paper, posted on December 10, 2021, On COVID vaccines: why they cannot work, and irrefutable evidence of their causative role in deaths after vaccination by Sucharit Bhakdi, MD and Arne Burkhardt, MD. It has been getting a lot of attention lately.

BLUF: The vaccine was implicated in 93% of the deaths in the patients they examined. What’s troubling is the coroner didn’t implicate the vaccine in any of those deaths.

They’re not going to implicate themselves or their colleagues.  They’re scared.

At America’s Frontline Doctors.

A Lancet study comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated people in Sweden was conducted among 1.6 million individuals over nine months. It showed that protection against symptomatic COVID-19 declined with time, such that by six months, some of the more vulnerable vaccinated groups were at greater risk than their unvaccinated peers.

Doctors are calling this phenomena in the repeatedly vaccinated “immune erosion” or “acquired immune deficiency”, accounting for elevated incidence of myocarditis and other post-vaccine illnesses that either affect them more rapidly, resulting in death, or more slowly, resulting in chronic illness.

COVID vaccines are not traditional vaccines. Rather, they cause cells to reproduce one portion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the spike protein. The vaccines thus induce the body to create spike proteins. A person only creates antibodies against this one limited portion (the spike protein) of the virus. This has several downstream deleterious effects.

First, these vaccines “mis-train” the immune system to recognize only a small part of the virus (the spike protein). Variants that differ, even slightly, in this protein are able to escape the narrow spectrum of antibodies created by the vaccines.

Second, the vaccines create “vaccine addicts,” meaning persons become dependent upon regular booster shots, because they have been “vaccinated” only against a tiny portion of a mutating virus.

[ … ]

… the vaccinated become more clinically ill than the unvaccinated. Scotland reported that the infection fatality rate in the vaccinated is 3.3 times the unvaccinated, and the risk of death if hospitalized is 2.15 times the unvaccinated.

From Alex Berenson, the vaccines don’t stop Covid hospitalizations or deaths.

And finally, if you think you can’t trust a single person, institution or agency around you under any circumstances under the sun, you can always trust the actuarial.  If they’re wrong, companies go bankrupt.  Via Vox, this report from an insurance company.

The head of Indianapolis-based insurance company OneAmerica said the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people.

“We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica,” the company’s CEO Scott Davison said during an online news conference this week. “The data is consistent across every player in that business.”

OneAmerica is a $100 billion insurance company that has had its headquarters in Indianapolis since 1877. The company has approximately 2,400 employees and sells life insurance, including group life insurance to employers in the state.

Davison said the increase in deaths represents “huge, huge numbers,” and that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying, but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64” who are the employees of companies that have group life insurance plans through OneAmerica.

“And what we saw just in third quarter, we’re seeing it continue into fourth quarter, is that death rates are up 40% over what they were pre-pandemic,” he said.

“Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic,” he said. “So 40% is just unheard of.”

Davison was one of several business leaders who spoke during the virtual news conference on Dec. 30 that was organized by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.

Most of the claims for deaths being filed are not classified as COVID-19 deaths, Davison said.

“What the data is showing to us is that the deaths that are being reported as COVID deaths greatly understate the actual death losses among working-age people from the pandemic. It may not all be COVID on their death certificate, but deaths are up just huge, huge numbers.”

He said at the same time, the company is seeing an “uptick” in disability claims, saying at first it was short-term disability claims, and now the increase is in long-term disability claims.

“For OneAmerica, we expect the costs of this are going to be well over $100 million, and this is our smallest business. So it’s having a huge impact on that,” he said.

He said the costs will be passed on to employers purchasing group life insurance policies, who will have to pay higher premiums.

The CDC weekly death counts, which reflect the information on death certificates and so have a lag of up to eight weeks or longer, show that for the week ending Nov. 6, there were far fewer deaths from COVID-19 in Indiana compared to a year ago – 195 verses 336 – but more deaths from other causes – 1,350 versus 1,319.

These deaths were for people of all ages, however, while the information referenced by Davison was for working-age people who are employees of businesses with group life insurance policies.

At the same news conference where Davison spoke, Brian Tabor, the president of the Indiana Hospital Association, said that hospitals across the state are being flooded with patients “with many different conditions,” saying “unfortunately, the average Hoosiers’ health has declined during the pandemic.”

In a follow-up call, he said he did not have a breakdown showing why so many people in the state are being hospitalized – for what conditions or ailments. But he said the extraordinarily high death rate quoted by Davison matched what hospitals in the state are seeing.

“What it confirmed for me is it bore out what we’re seeing on the front end,…” he said.

The number of hospitalizations in the state is now higher than before the COVID-19 vaccine was introduced a year ago, and in fact is higher than it’s been in the past five years, Dr. Lindsay Weaver, Indiana’s chief medical officer, said at a news conference with Gov. Eric Holcomb on Wednesday.

Just 8.9% of ICU beds are available at hospitals in the state, a low for the year, and lower than at any time during the pandemic. But the majority of ICU beds are not taken up by COVID-19 patients – just 37% are, while 54% of the ICU beds are being occupied by people with other illnesses or conditions.

Make sure to catch the part in bold again.  And read it again.

And demonstrating them too.  That’s a big collection for sure.

Tom Knighton writing at Bearing Arms.

However, there are a couple of other bills that, if they pass, will put them squarely at odds with the federal government.

Senate Bill 2 and House Bill 7 would both create the Alabama Second Amendment Preservation Act. This act would prohibit state law enforcement from enforcing any federal law, or other legislation, regarding the regulation of firearms, firearm accessories or ammo.

The bills would also set up penalties for whatever agency violates the proposed bill. The penalty for a first offense is a class C misdemeanor with a fine no less than $500 or more than $5,000. For all other offenses, it is a class B misdemeanor with a fine no less than $1,000 or more than $7,000.

In other words, it’ll be much like Missouri’s law that went into effect earlier this year.

That law hasn’t really been tested in the courts yet, so we don’t know how that will go, so Alabama following suit may or may not be a great move for them.

However, there’s another bill that may cause far more problems.

A different bill, House Bill 13, would prohibit state law enforcement from enforcing any federal bill or other legislation pertaining to the regulation of firearms, firearm accessories or ammo, just like Senate Bill 2. However, this only pertains to those made and sold in Alabama.

Under existing constitution law, Congress is given the authority to regulate interstate commerce. This bill would provide that firearms, ammo and firearm accessories that are made in the state and are only traded within the state are not subject to federal law or regulation.

Now, on the surface, this looks great for Alabama and I happen to agree with the reasoning behind this bill.

That said, Kansas passed a bill like this a while back. There are now people in prison because they figured the law would protect them, but the courts disagreed.

Alabama is free to pass the bill, of course, but if you live there and think that once it does, you can go out and build yourself a machinegun, well, I have some very bad news for you.

It should be noted that the prosecutions in Kansas have been upheld by the courts, so there’s no reason to believe Alabama residents would have any better luck.

Frankly, this is a bill that probably shouldn’t be passed. Yes, it’s pro-gun and yes, I agree with the reasoning and thinking behind it. However, there are people who will think this gives them license to do things that it really can’t. It’ll hurt good, decent people who simply don’t realize they’re doing anything wrong.

That doesn’t benefit anyone, I’m afraid, so it’s probably for the best if this doesn’t actually get passed.

I think Tom gets this wrong on every account, and this certainly isn’t the first or twentieth time I’ve disagreed with the folks at Bearing Arms, and it won’t be the last.

To begin with, yes Alabama should pass both of these bills and they should be signed by the governor.  First and foremost should be the constitutional carry bill, but if they get this far, they should pass the balance of the pro-2A bills as well.

But then Kansas passed such a law and people are in jail because of it, right?  Well, not so fast.  We covered it.  Kansas passed a 2A sanctuary law and I covered it.  It was more of a nullification law, and had the express purpose of allowing the purchase of NFA items without seeking approval of the controllers inside the beltway.  I said at the time that unless the governor was willing to send state and county police to arrest and imprison FedGov agents who attempted to make arrests in Kansas for said actions, it was weak tea and not really a nullification law.  Even the sponsor of the bill said that it mostly symbolic.

The Alabama bill seems a bit different, focusing on whether agents of the state can participate with FedGov agents in making such arrests.  They are taking incremental steps.  Some state is eventually going to have to broach this issue sooner or later, but until a governor is willing to battle FedGov agents, we’re left with what we’ve got.

I see the last sentence of the paragraph … “This bill would provide that firearms, ammo and firearm accessories that are made in the state and are only traded within the state are not subject to federal law or regulation” … is the tricky part.  I wouldn’t test that part of the bill, if indeed it has that proviso.  As for prohibiting agents of the state from aiding the enforcement of any new federal laws, Alabama can certainly do that, and Missouri has thus far been quite successful thus far in preventing cooperation with the FedGov, which is a good thing.  Finally, if this portends to be a weak nullification law, I see it as possibly targeting FedGov control over things like semi-automatics and AR-15s as anything else.

As for the Missouri law not being tested in court, I seriously doubt that the word of a federal court will stand as the law if the governor of the state makes it clear that the state law will be enforced, and that agents of the state who aid the FedGov will indeed lose their ability to work in law enforcement ever again.

That’s the whole point.  There are certain things a state can do regardless of what a federal court says.  This is one of them.

Alabama should pass both bills, but only after focusing first on a constitutional carry bill.

The New Yorker.

As far as radical interventions go, getting mauled by a bear is about as extreme as it gets. Few events are so undeniable, so borderline cheesy; the metaphors, embarrassed by a lack of subtlety, keep their distance. For the French anthropologist Nastassja Martin, this difficulty in meaning-making heaps insult on (devastating) injury. In August of 2015, Martin was hiking down a glacier in the Siberian mountains when she ran—almost literally—into a beast that would crush her head in his mouth, rip off a piece of her jaw, and flee only after she jabbed him with an ice axe. The encounter left her with a mutilated face and a ruptured sense of reality. “For me,” Martin writes in her new book, “In the Eye of the Wild,” translated by Sophie R. Lewis, “a bear and a woman is too big an event. It’s too big not to be instantly assimilated into one system of thought or another; too big not to be . . . consumed and then digested in order to make sense.” But what the book actually suggests is that such an event can never be assimilated; it can only be accepted. Martin’s narrative, with the bones of a personal essay and the lift of a prose poem, reciprocates the creature’s failed act of incorporation, and hunts for beauty in what remains occluded and apart.

The result is heady and obsessive, as Martin smashes again and again against the limits of what anyone can know: What is a self? What is “the other”? She considers her scars, her jaw now fitted with metal. “The figure,” Martin writes, meaning her body, “is reconstituted following its own unique pattern, but out of elements that are completely exogenous.” As a narrator, Martin can be humorless (understandably), and is often frustrated, angry, lost. While studying animist beliefs in Alaska, she’d theorized an “unlivable frontier,” implied by “the encounter between two beings from different worlds.” She now exists in that frontier, which she believes triggers a “cycle of metamorphoses” that usually ends with death. (She offers the example of a hunter who wears his prey’s scent, dons its pelt, and returns to himself and his people once he’s killed the animal—or been killed, “swallowed up by the other.”) But both bear and Martin have survived. The metamorphic dance continues, and with it the loneliness.

Drawn to the bear, Martin makes a list of what he might represent: “Strength. Courage. Abstinence. Cosmic and terrestrial cycles.”

[ … ]

Yet Martin’s rage speaks to a poignant anxiety: Just how precious or sacred are you, really, if a bear can suddenly rip off part of your head? Her crisis acquires new dimensions in an era of ecological precarity. “All you have known will disintegrate and be reshuffled,” she writes; reality “will metamorphose and become an ungraspable thing.” Martin, who worries about heat waves and melting ice caps, sees the entire planet as a desperately fragile treasure. An alarm inside her “is ringing in response” to climate change. “The misery my body is expressing,” she realizes, “comes from the world.”

I don’t know.  I think the bear screwed up her head, and the writer at The New Yorker sounds like she’s never left the confines of the city.

I’m left wondering whether reader The Alaskan thinks about things like this when he encounters a bear in the bush?  I think I’d just rather have a large bore handgun.

I’ve always admired this gun since I first saw it several years ago being demonstrated by Larry Vickers (by the way, does anyone have an update on how Larry is doing and whether he successfully got his weapons back from the ATF theft?).

For a mere $5300, you can have one too.

Epoch Times.

A dog in South Africa adopted from the SPCA into a loving forever home has repaid her owners a thousandfold after two armed robbers broke into their house and opened fire. The mixed breed, Kei, was shot in the face while ferociously protecting the family’s young lady.

Those armed intruders on Oct. 3 broke into the family’s Lakefield Benoni home; one gunman entered the master bedroom, where a terrifying firefight ensued, and was shot dead; the other man entered the eldest daughter’s room where Kei was poised on her bed ready to defend her owner.

Kei sprang at the gunman with a forcefulness that surprised him. He turned and fled, leaving a trail of blood as he ran down the stairs, and encountered the family’s Biewer Yorkie Holly and shot her dead.

Hot on his tail, Kei faced the man in the kitchen where he shot her in the face, shattering her jaw, and then escaped the house and leapt over the wall.

Kei, in a desperate bid to seek help, yet unable to bark with her terrible mouth injury, ran outside to the gate to alert the neighbors but found no one. She then bounded down to the nearby lake, where she often goes on walks, in search of help, but to no avail.

The family, desperately searching for Kei, drove the streets and after 40 minutes found her laying in the grass by the water.

They called the Boksburg SPCA and Kei was taken for treatment. She was lucky to be alive. The bullet had severely injured her tongue, blasted through two molars, and broken her jaw.

She had to be put on an IV and could not eat for many weeks to come. Eventually, though, once the doctors were sure there was no infection and an X-ray showed that all the bullet fragments had been extracted, she was taken to have surgery and have a titanium plate prosthesis put in to restore her shattered mandible.

Get you one of them.  If you don’t have a dog, you’re missing out on one of the greatest opportunities for love and protection.  You’re life will change.