Articles by Herschel Smith

I’ve been rehearsing the history and battles of the war of independence, from the battle of Trenton (without which moral would have sunk to a deadly and possibly irrecoverable level for the continental army without so much as a single victory during the entire enlistment of the first round of soldiers), to the battles with Cornwallis in the South, to Yorktown.

One professor gives Lafayette a little too much credit by claiming that without Lafayette, victory in the war of independence would not have occurred.  I disagree.

Cornwallis suffered from an insurgency in South and North Carolina at the hands of men who knew the terrain, were accustomed to living there, and knew how to fight a superior force.  Fire and retreat, fire and maneuver, shoot from behind trees and disappear, shoot the British leading the patrols and bleed them of troops and morale, and so on.  If Cornwallis had stayed in the swamps and near the river valleys of South Carolina (e.g., the Pee Dee), Francis Marion’s insurgents would have eventually bled the army dry.  Then of course there was the American victory at Cowpens.  You can add to that the victory by American fighters aged 14-17 at King’s Mountain (the “Overmountain Men”), in which Cornwallis’ strategy of using loyalist troops to win was smashed to pieces.

Beyond that, Cornwallis suffered from mosquitos and the diseases they carry.  It has been estimated that at any time, one third of his troops were in the infirmary due to diseases or wounds suffered in battle with Marion’s forces in the bush of South Carolina.  His forces could never have won.  It would have taken a force size ten times what the British brought to have stabilized the states, and even that would have been only temporary.

Howe, in New York, was faced with having to retire to fortifications in the intemperate weather in the North, and while Washington’s army suffered in the weather, they managed to pull of a victory at Trenton.  They also managed to build an intelligence network second to none at the time, and after the battle of Trenton the continental congress sent fresh troops and logistics.

There was no hope of victory for the British.  A determined insurgency cannot be beaten.  They could only hope to prolong the war.

But then, that’s the issue isn’t it?  Lafayette was smart enough to listen to his men and he managed to learn the tactics of insurgency very quickly, employing those tactics with great success against the British.  While it may not be correct to say that the war of independence would not have been won without him, it is fair to say that it would have been prolonged and bloodier without him.

His commitment to America was laudable, and he’s even today more of an American than most Americans, and certainly more so than the vipers inside the beltway.

I keep hearing folks complain about 1911 reliability, and frankly I’m nonplussed every time I hear it.  Out of thousands and thousands of round through two 1911s, I’ve never had a single FTF/FTE.  No malfunctions of any kind, and that’s without extensive cleaning (although I do lubricate them before range trips).  Then again, these are high quality 1911s.

But I do enjoy listening to Ken Hackathorn and Bill Wilson discuss the history and engineering behind Browning’s design.  It was a gun built around the cartridge.  This is fine with me – I like the cartridge.  I always have, and I shoot it better than any other.

I haven’t tried it, but I don’t think I very much like it.  It seems to me that if you intend actually to use it, you’d better practice it a lot.

At WoG, David posts an anecdote of “nobody home” when a reader tried to renew his NRA membership.

Why, I wondered, would anyone do that?  I was reminded of the answer when I read the comments.

NRA certification as a trainer still means something and is required by a lot of ranges if you apply for work.  It also still matters on your resume / CV for folks who weren’t military.

We need to change this.  With the NRA sponsorship of gun control, their waste of membership dues, and the total corruption of the board of directors, we need another body that respects and will fight for the second amendment, as well as publish good content and develop certifications for trainers.

So, they did, but not without some weasel words to be able to deny they ever made the mandate in the first place.  This isn’t a very good look for Hornady, but at least they backed down.

For what it’s worth, as of this writing, I still haven’t gotten a response to my note to Steve Hornady.

Scared little puppies.

What should happen for things to be made right.

From Wes Rhinier.

Look folks, this is easy enough to me even without the extensive writing I have done on both the theological and medical aspects of the shot.

Anthony Fauci and his ilk knew what they were doing in spite of the fact that they’re now trying to hide the evidence.  They were sponsoring gain of function studies with awful viruses.  Let’s say it again because those words have been scrubbed by the CDC/NIH.  Gain of function.  Gain of function.  Gain of function.

I knew this a long time ago, and since I wrote about it, so did my readers.  It all began at Fort Detrick where they do biological warfare studies.  From there, the lady who managed the Wuhan Institute of Virology Laboratory coupled with a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  I still have the paper they published on my laptop.  Don’t tell me it didn’t happen.  I read the paper they co-authored.  I did this more than a year ago.

From there the work went to Harvard University, and from there the work went to Canada where the lady spirited off with the biological material to make the virus, causing the RCMP to open an investigation of her (too late, of course).  When the virus got to Wuhan, they weaponized it.

These things are not in dispute.  We all blame China for the virus, and they have their share of culpability, but this is essentially a virus created by Anthony Fauci and our tax dollars.

Don’t tell me none of this is true – I have the technical papers.  I studied the issue.  I know it’s true.  Period.  End of discussion.

Now.  Riddle me this.  Is Anthony Fauci, a known dog torturer, a reliable, trustworthy and morally upright person?

If you cannot answer that question in the affirmative, why on earth would you shoot an unknown substance into your child just because he told you to?

Found at Legal Insurrection.

This is a long read.  But if you’re interested in following the goings-on in his case, this is the longest, most detailed and best analysis I’ve found.

The case hasn’t started yet, but in effect, it has because these decisions will make or break the prosecution’s assault on Kyle.

UPDATE: Dean Weingarten has another analysis.

It’s a very long article with pros and cons on each of the many guns they tested.  The Beretta A400 Xtreme Plus was the winner.

Report from Florida.

TAMPA (WFLA) – A young Bradenton mother says she was in fear when she looked at her Ring App and saw armed men at her door.

Kada Staples says the men had their weapons pointed at her door and when she said hello, they ordered her to come out and said “we know he’s in there”.

The armed men were U.S. Marshals. Staples believes they were looking for a murder suspect, but they had the wrong apartment. At the time she opened her door and still didn’t understand what was going on.

“I cracked the door open and they pushed the door open and pushed me and my baby out of the way. They are holding us at gunpoint, screaming, there is a gun about a foot away from her face, ” said Staples as she held her three-month-old baby.

She said the U.S. Marshals kept saying,” We know Jamar is in there.”

“With that, they run in my apartment. There’s probably 6 or 7 of them out there with guns. 3 or 4 of them run into my apartment and are running around. They are still yelling at me that I’m lying,” said Staples.

She says she had been napping with her infant and was the only one inside when the Marshals soon realized their mistake.

“Then one of the guys in the hallway is like, wait, this is apartment and then said my apartment number and then kind of repeated it again and then they ran out and said, that’s the wrong apartment,” said Staples.

She says the Marshals left, but never even apologized for their actions or their mistake.

“No sorry, no nothing, they tell me, you’re good and another one said you’re fine,” said Staples.

She says when she called the U.S. Marshals Service to ask why officers had entered her apartment, she asked if they could provide a mental health counselor to help her deal with the anxiety brought on by the event.

She says a man on the phone told her to take melatonin and “get over it.”

In the end it would have been better if a U.S. Marshal had been shot and the homeowner exonerated of any wrongdoing.  It’s the only thing that will convince law enforcement that they simply can’t do this sort of thing.  That way, lives will be saved and everyone will be safer.