Articles by Herschel Smith

Via Ken, this disturbing report from Virginia.

In one of the most disturbing tales to come from Richmond, Virginia’s moves to erase history, they are now planning to dig up the grave of Confederate General Ambrose Powell Hill, according to a new report.

To make the matter even more ghoulish, the city has not actually come up with a plan yet on what to do with his remains that have been in the location since 1892.

General Hill had requested he be buried under the memorial in his will …

Good Lord.

This is what John Calvin remarks of Amos 2:1.

… for the Prophet, I doubt not, charges the Moabites with barbarous cruelty. To dig up the bodies of enemies, and to burn their bones, — this is an inhuman deed, and wholly barbarous. But it was more detestable in the Moabites, who had some connection with the people of Edom; for they descended from the same family; and the memory of that relationship ought to have continued, since Abraham brought up Lot, the father of the Moabites; and thus the Moabites were under an obligation to the Idumeans. If then any humanity existed in them, they ought to have restrained their passions, so as not to treat so cruelly their brethren. Now, when they exceeded all moderation in war, and raged against dead bodies, and burnt the bones of the dead, it was, as I have said, an extremely barbarous conduct. The meaning then is, that the Moabites could no longer be borne with; for in this one instance, they gave an example of savage cruelty.

This is what critical race theory has come to – grave desecration.

I’ll tell you what.  I wouldn’t want to be in any way involved with, a part of, or even near this idea or event.  I wouldn’t watch it, I wouldn’t run the heavy equipment, I wouldn’t touch the remains, and I wouldn’t try to help by picking alternative sites.

I’d stay as far away from this as is humanly possible.

David Codrea.

Per Fox News, Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo called on members of Congress “to come out of their own corners the left and the right and come to the middle where most Americans are.”

“We need to have universal background checks, we need to make burglarizing these licensed gun stores a federal crime with mandatory sentencing, and we need the federal government and both sides to address this issue because without legislation,” Acevedo said. “Without certainty as it relates to holding these criminals accountable, we’re never going to get through this summer with much more death and destruction.”

Art Acevedo was police chief in Austin, Texas, and then in Houston, Texas.  He doesn’t appear to stay in one place for very long.

In Austin he and the Austin PD approved of a period of forcible blood draws at random traffic stops by federal employees.  Ask me how I know.

In Houston, he ran riot for gun control, as he always does everywhere he goes, when crimes were committed by none other than the Houston Police by lying on warrants, ending in the killing of innocent victims.

Professional citizen disarmament lobbyists, while mentioning Miami and blaming guns, are being surprisingly non-hysterical about this so far on social media. I’ll go out on a limb here, even though suspects in both Miami “mass shooting” incidents have not been identified: They will not fit the prevailing narrative. If nothing else, those who demand to disarm their countrymen know when to exploit a meme and when their talking points to conflate and smear Constitutionalists as racists can be easily refuted.

It was a shooting at a hip hop club.  Nothing more.  No, it wasn’t an act of domestic terrorism.  It was the Miami criminal element being criminals.

But Art is seen walking arm in arm with other disarmament activists who desire nothing more than to inflict guilt for this and other events on peaceable men who had nothing to do with it.

Art Acevedo is the worst police chief in America.

I stumbled across this smart and well-informed video of the history of the 1913 rail.  I think you’ll enjoy it and learn from it.

Many firearms manufacturers, from Mossberg (who is now in Texas) to Ruger (who is now in North Carolina) have joined an already large contingent of firearms manufacturers who were born in the South or have made their home here, including Daniel Defense (Georgia), Wilson Combat, (Arkansas), FN (South Carolina), Palmetto State Armory (South Carolina), etc.

Troy Industries may be the most recent to relocate, as they have begun building in Tennessee.

But there is still a large portion of firearms still manufactured in the North.

Based on data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which analyzed five categories of firearm production (pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns and others), the report identified the states where most firearms are manufactured. In 2019, New Hampshire accounted for the most firearm production of any state, with 1.2 million guns, followed by Missouri, Florida, North Carolina and Mississippi. Those five states made up more than half of all licensed firearms produced in the country.

New Hampshire produced the most rifles, at nearly 328,000, and pistols, with more than 700,000, in 2019, while Florida manufactured the most revolvers: nearly 190,000. Texas produced the most shotguns, at about 191,000, while Mississippi followed closely behind with 188,000. The two states made up 79% of all shotgun production in 2019.

I’m not certain who is in Mississippi, Florida or Missouri, but the obvious big actor in New Hampshire is SIG Sauer who has at least six plants in that state, with no manufacturing left in Germany.

Massachusetts also accounts for a large firearms manufacturing portfolio.

The American firearms industry was born in Massachusetts. As recently as 2018 the Commonwealth ranked as the largest producer of guns in America, according to Bloomberg News, accounting for about 1 out of every 4 of guns made each year — including military-assault-style rifles …

The gun industry in Massachusetts is a source of jobs, with companies that make guns that are used for recreational purposes and by officers of the law. But it also manufactures assault-style weapons that are sold to civilians out of state, such as the AR-15.

New Hampshire may be a tough nut to crack, as New Hampshire gun laws are quite favorable, and as best as I can determine, their plants are not unionized.

But this may all be about to come to an end for Smith & Wesson in Massachusetts.

BOSTON — State Rep. Frank Moran and three other Democratic legislators are proposing a bill which would outlaw the manufacturing of assault weapons in Massachusetts that are banned from being sold in the state.

The state has banned civilians from buying or owning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines for decades, but companies like Smith & Wesson, with headquarters in Springfield, can still make the guns in Massachusetts and sell them elsewhere.

Backed by parents who lost children to mass shootings and the Stop Handgun Violence organization, Moran, who represents Lawrence, launched the effort Tuesday with the support of fellow lawmakers. They filed legislation that would extend the existing assault weapon ban to cover the manufacturing of guns sold to civilians.

There are of course a host of ways to address this, including [but not limited to] refusing to sell weapons to police in states that have such bans.

One of the most obvious for S&W will be relocation.  If they can’t fabricate their S&M M&P ARs to sell to anyone but law enforcement, they’ll go bust (at least, this is my prediction).

One has to wonder anyway why they would still wish to be ensconced in a state who doesn’t want them.

Prior: Gun Valley Moves South

Many politicians will answer in eternity for putting the sons of America in harm’s way for unnecessary foreign misadventures, sometimes for personal or corporate gain.

But the sons of America never fought for the personal gain of the politicians or corporations.  It’s appropriate to remember the fallen, and no, this isn’t just a “long weekend,” contrary to what airheads might think.

It’s memorial day, 2021.  It’s not a long weekend, it’s not veteran’s days, it isn’t fireworks day.

I watched this video today.  Deal with the language, or just don’t watch it at all.

BLUF: The Trijicon MRO is awful.  Trijicon has apparently tried to fix it, to no avail.

I’ve read comments before at various websites where readers were giving other readers a hard time about buying Holosun (even Primary Arms has Chinese products).

The problem is that the Chinese are whipping America at producing good quality products for cheaper.  That’s America’s fault, not China’s.

What are we supposed to do – throw good, hard earned money after bad?

And do any other Trijicon optics suffer from the problem of lack of glass clarity, magnification in 1X optics, etc.?

Does the Trijicon RMR produce a screwed up sight picture due to fish bowling?

I’m just asking for a friend before the friend throws away good money.

Don’t underestimate the damage he can do to firearms manufacturers through rule making.  I’ve often lamented rule making through the federal register, effectively a bypass around law making through the senate and house (not that that’s routinely any better than rule making, just a bit more difficult).

And never forget his involvement in the killing of women and children in Waco, Texas.  Proud of it, he was, stopping in the aftermath to pose for a picture in front of the wreckage he helped to create.

Background checks.  More.  Give us background checks.

A record number of gun sales along with the disruption to normal life by the coronavirus pandemic have contributed to a 25% surge in homicides and non-suicide-related shootings in 2020, according to a gun control advocacy group.

“What we know is the year will be remembered for two conflicting, compounding public health crises — COVID-19 and gWith more guns being purchased and trafficked than ever, Suplina is calling for a nationwide mandate on background checks, “so that gun traffickers and criminals don’t go shopping across state lines.”un violence,” said Nick Suplina, the managing director for law and policy of Everytown for Gun Safety.

[ … ]

With more guns being purchased and trafficked than ever, Suplina is calling for a nationwide mandate on background checks, “so that gun traffickers and criminals don’t go shopping across state lines.”

Oops.  Maybe they didn’t get the memo.

After a shooting in America gets national attention, the debate usually centers around a few gun control measures, particularly universal background checks and an assault weapons ban. That’s what happened after the April mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis — with President Joe Biden calling on Congress to pass both measures.

But if America wants to make a real dent in gun violence, it might want to consider another approach: requiring a license to buy and own a firearm.

For one, the evidence on the effects of universal background checks and assault weapons bans is pretty weak. Several studies in recent years have found that universal background checks, at least on their own, don’t seem to have a big effect on gun deaths. Similarly, the research on assault weapons bans, including the national ban that Biden helped pass in 1994, found they have little effect on gun violence, largely because the vast majority of such violence is committed with handguns.

But there’s some solid evidence that a license system reduces gun deaths. A 2018 study from researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that universal background checks alone correlated with more gun homicides in urban counties, while license systems were associated with fewer gun homicides. Other studies have similarly found that license requirements lead to fewer gun deaths.

[ … ]

In Massachusetts, one of the few states with a license system, obtaining a permit requires going through a multi-step process involving interviews with police, background checks, a gun safety training course, and more. Even if a person passes all of that, the local police chief can deny an application anyway. That creates more points at which an applicant can be identified as too dangerous to own a gun; it makes getting and owning a gun harder.

Whatever one makes of all of this, the evidence strongly suggests the license requirement works. Massachusetts, for one, has the lowest rate of gun deaths in the country.

Don’t give us background checks – they don’t work.  Give us license requirements.  Oops.  Maybe they didn’t get the memo.

Mass shootings in Massachusetts increased to eight in 2020 from five the year before, while nationally mass shootings jumped nearly 50% during a pandemic with crippling unemployment, violent protests and idle youth.

In 2020, Massachusetts reported eight mass shootings that killed five and injured 33. A year earlier, the state had five mass shootings that killed seven and injured 17.

Among Massachusetts’s deadliest shootings last year was one Dec. 26 in Lynn that killed one and injured five.

Or the other memo.  Gun owning Wyoming is much safer than Massachusetts.

They just want to control you.  They want to disarm you and make you subjects of the globalist power system.  All of the arguments aren’t really intended to be logical or consistent.

At Ammoland.

I don’t have experience with four of the five, but I can tell you that the Radian Weapons Raptor is a great product.

It’s also amazing when you outfit your rifle with (a) a good BCG, and (b) a good charging handle, how easily and smoothly it operates – like butter.

Some of the easiest improvements to the gun are not just just convenient because they’re modular, but they’re also fairly inexpensive.