Articles by Herschel Smith

Via WiscoDave and WRSA, there will be no AWB in Virginia this year.

Senators voted to shelve the bill for the year and ask the state crime commission to study the issue, an outcome that drew cheers from a committee room packed with gun advocates.

Four moderate Democrats joined Republicans in Monday’s committee vote, rejecting legislation that would have prohibited the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, including popular AR-15 style rifles, and banned the possession of magazines that hold more than 12 rounds.

I strongly suspect that the 2A sanctuary movement across the state, combined with the firm intent to use it and oppose this infringement, factored into the decision.  Combine that with the question I posed to the Virginia legislators, and that should have made for a more studied decision on their part.

I posed the question in a blast email “There will be massive non-compliance.  What does that say about your laws, and how do you intend to enforce them at that point?”  And yes, I did get some responses and a lot of page visits when I sent that email out.

But no so fast.  According to this update from VCDL, there are still problems looming.

We are far from being out of the woods.   Red Flag laws, Universal Background Checks, and destruction of the firearms preemption law are still very much alive this year.

It could be that they want the legalities in place (i.e., state preemption laws) before attempting such a thing.  Also, red flag laws are possibly the greatest infringement of all, and they are still alive.  And universal background checks are just another way of saying “gun registry.”

News from Virginia.

BEDFORD COUNTY, Va. (WFXR) — A militia muster call in Bedford County on Saturday afternoon drew hundreds of local residents willing to take a stand to protect their community and their Second Amendment rights.

On Saturday, Feb. 15, more than 500 people showed up to the militia muster call in Bedford County to volunteer their energy and their skills to the cause. As advertised in the flyer for the muster call — which was posted on Facebook on Jan. 30 — registration for the militia was open to all able-bodied residents between the ages of 16 and 55.

I  do have an issue with the age limit of 55.  I think I’m in better physical shape than 50% of those guys.

Here’s a picture.

I was with family at a gun show in Greenville, S.C., today, and I’ll leave my comments on show itself out of the discussion.

I did manage to meet up with Mr. Matt Wavle of SCCarry.org, and got his contact information.  I had never met the group before, and Matt was a super nice guy and they are very much on top of the legislative goings-on in South Carolina.  I’m impressed with the organization.

If you’ve a resident of South Carolina and aren’t a member of this group, you should encourage them with a note and join the organization.

Their web site is here, and they have a nice page that links and outlines all of the current pending legislation in South Carolina that pertains to the RKBA.

Important news from Virginia.

The Commonwealth of Virginia is preparing to no longer recognize gun permits from Alaska and 24 other states, including Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

A bill introduced this month in the Virginia’s General Assembly would strike those reciprocity agreements with states that don’t meet the stricter standards that the Democrat-run state is rapidly adopting.

The Bill is HB569.  So for visitors to Virginia, we’ll have to know these new requirements and carry non-permissively when we go there.  This may affect how you carry.

Opinion.

I am asking everyone to consider the folly of passing State Law S-139 (Open Carry).

As a gun owner, concealed carry weapons permit holder and a member at a local shooting range. I applaud our state’s concealed carry permitting program and my fellow South Carolinians who have taken advantage of it. It is comforting to know that so many of our residents are responsible and committed gun owners.

The proposed changes to S 139 (with or without a permit) do nothing to ensure gun rights. In fact, they would do more to erode the rights of the majority of our population who do not choose to arm themselves every time they leave home. Instead, they would become vulnerable to a minority of individuals who, for reasons of their own, feel they must display their power on their hip.

Perhaps the armed stranger has had hours of classroom and range time … perhaps not. How would we know?

I have written before that “I don’t want an amateur with a gun anywhere near me. I certainly don’t want to be one.” By passing constitutional carry/open carry, we are not serving our citizens. In fact, it is just the opposite. We allow a portion of our population to endanger themselves and their neighbors.

If we have learned anything from the opioid epidemic, it is that a large number of people simply cannot be trusted to behave. We fail this population and their victims by promoting open carry and the display of firearms with or without a permit.

We have an opportunity in South Carolina to set the bar for gun rights, gun safety and responsible stewardship of the Second Amendment. With or without a permit, constitutional/open carry accomplishes none of this.

Bill Ware, Spartanburg

Well Bill, I think you have psychological problems.

First, as to your remark “Perhaps the armed stranger has had hours of classroom and range time … perhaps not. How would we know?,” you’ve neglected to address the very issue that defeats your argument.  Concealed carry, which you allege to support.

You also don’t know whether a person is carrying concealed, you see?  You’ve stated that the only problem as you see it is that when someone hides a weapon, you don’t have to think about the fact that someone could intend to bring your harm, but when they openly carry, you must think about that fact.

This is entirely a mental problem with you, you see?  This has nothing whatsoever to do with the question can someone be safe with a firearm, can someone bring you harm, can someone be trusted.  It has only to do with your mental state.  I refuse to be part of your twisted mental world where hiding problems makes them go away.  I hope South Carolina residents see this the way I do.

Second, as to your statement that “a large number of people simply cannot be trusted to behave,” you don’t know that.  You just made it up.  You’re in the same category of the chicken little naysayers in Texas, Oklahoma and elsewhere who said “There will be blood running in the streets” if this law passes.

And none of that happened.  In fact, I live in an open carry state, and there isn’t blood running in the streets.  So you see, you made a problem out of something that isn’t.  You fabricated a falsehood.

Finally, since the RKBA is a God-given right, I’m not beholden to your views of making the world a better place for you and other collectivists.  That’s not the purpose of the second amendment.  The second amendment is a right, not a license for you to try to control other people.

You have things exactly backwards.

I was watching a History Channel documentary on Nazi Germany, and I knew that there was significant drug abuse among the Nazi high command, but didn’t realize until now just how bad the problem had become.

Basically, the entirety of the Nazi war effort was fueled by Crystal Meth, called Pervitin.  Nazi Germany made hundreds of millions of the tablets during the war, and the Hitler’s military decisions were made while high on Crystal Meth, including the decision to open the Western Front.  Pervitin was handed out like candy just before any major war effort, including the invasion of Russia.

The German soldiers were so hooked on Crystal Meth that their letters home frequently included requests for tablets of Pervitin when their own supplies ran low.  World War II was a war fought on amphetamines, with the initial high and energy and feeling of invincibility, followed by hopeless addiction, paranoia, and eventual psychosis, sleep deprivation and health problems, with the corollary brutality, atrocities and savagery.

If the war hadn’t ended when it did, Nazi “doctors” had begun to fabricate a new drug, a cocktail mixture of Meth, Cocaine and Morphine (called D9) and would have deployed it to troops in the field had not the micro-submariners never returned from their four day missions to explain the effects of the drug.  They all died during missions.  Not even one of the submariners returned after being administered D9.

Even after the war, the East and West German armies continued to be supplied Pervitin, and the German civilian population was hopelessly hooked on Crystal Meth.  World War II cannot be properly understood without understanding the role of drugs on the leaders and soldiers.

This is a very important video, and I encourage Virginia gun owners to watch it all. This has only just begun, and you have a LOT of work ahead.

I have a note of clarification out to the author, and I’ll post his reply if and when I receive it.

David Codrea.

That’s what prospective totalitarian Bloomberg would deny to all minority males under 25, regardless of their worth as individuals. Lumping them all in with that part of the population incapable of self-control is bigotry, and that at its core is collectivist. It’s no surprise that citizen disarmament zealots parrot the same narrative as domestic enemy communists, and accuse Second Amendment advocates of being the ones who are racist — all in the name of “common sense.”

Oppose this dictator at every chance, every venue, every time you enter a voting booth (by opposing pols whom he financially supports), and in your daily discussions with everyone you meet.

He is evil.  He has enough money on the backs of real workers that he can make trouble for us, so make as much trouble for him as you can, any way you can.