Articles by Herschel Smith

Your political elites are experts at that.

Do we still need the PATRIOT Act? Did we ever? All laws are certainly a product of their times. But this seems much more acutely true of the USA PATRIOT Act, which was passed in a rush and under duress without due consideration.

Particularly in light of the revelations from Edward Snowden – that the government is spying on everything they possibly can – it’s worth asking if there’s any walking back. He points out that the police state apparatus was originally for drug dealers, then for terrorists, but ultimately ended up being applied to anyone and everyone.

What’s more, Bob Bullard notes another frightful aspect of the USA PATRIOT Act: Terrorism-related cases are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. This means that there is little or no oversight. There is no surer hallmark of a police state than an all-powerful domestic surveillance agency with no transparency or oversight. While the USA PATRIOT Act might not create an American Stasi as such, it certainly paves the way for one.

It depends on the meaning of the word “need.”  You don’t need it.  I don’t need it.  The writer doesn’t need it.  But the political elites need it if they’re going to feed their insatiable hunger for omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence.

It’s not about terror or terrorists, and it never was.  And recall who championed all of this.  George W. Bush, a republican.

Via David Codrea, this awful decision by the supreme court.

The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to review the case of Caleigh Wood, a Christian eleventh-grade public high school student in Maryland who, despite threats of receiving a failing grade, refused to deny her faith by making a written profession of the Muslim conversion prayer known as the Shahada—“Thereis no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”

[ … ]

The legal question at stake was whether La Plata High School violated the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Speech Clauses when it gave Caleigh Wood an assignment she was unable to complete without violating her religious conscience as a Christian.

She believes it is a sin to profess the existence of any other god but the Christian God. She stood firm in her Christian beliefs and was punished for it. School officials refused her father’s request that she be allowed to opt-out or be given an alternative assignment.  She refused to complete her anti-Christian assignment and consequently received a failing grade.

Thompson added: “Many public schools have become hot beds of Islamic propaganda. Teaching Islam in schools has gone far beyond a basic history lesson. Prompted by zealous Islamic activism and emboldened by confusing court decisions, schools are now bending over backwards to promote Islam while at the same time denigrating Christianity.”

“Although the Supreme Court passed up an opportunity to provide clearer constitutional guidance on this important issue, there will be other chances as this issue isn’t going away anytime soon,” he said.

Don’t count on it.  They had the chance this time and declined.  My guess is that it would be Roberts who caused the problem, but one never knows.

If you send your child to a public school, you’re sending them to a communist indoctrination camp.  Or Islamist study center.  Or a place where they will be told that it’s okay not to know whether you’re a boy or a girl.

Is any of that okay with you?

Via Dave Hardy, this interesting paper made good reading.  Here are a few excerpts.

Does the English right matter to Americans? It is key to our right because every colonial charter promised settlers to the New World that they and their descendants would have all the rights of Englishmen as if born and abiding in England. It was these rights the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve. After 1689 these rights included the rights incorporated in the English Bill of Rights. The dangers of life in the American wilderness made the English practice of an armed citizenry essential. In many colonies all householders were ordered to be armed.  A 1625 law of Plymouth colony, for example, stipulated that “in regard of our dispersion so far asunder and the inconvenience that may befall, it is further ordered that every freeman or other inhabitant of this colony provide for himself and each under him able to beare armes a sufficient musket and other serviceable peece for war . . . with what speede may be.  A similar 1640 Virginia statute required “all masters of families” to furnish themselves and “all those of their families which shall be capable of arms (excepting negroes) with arms both offensive and defensive.” Some colonial laws actually required residents to carry their guns. A Newport law of 1639 provided that “noe man shall go two miles from the Towne unarmed, eyther with Gunn or Sword; and that none shall come to any public Meeting without his weapon.  Virginia laws required “that no man go or send abroad without a sufficient partie well armed,” and “that men go not to worke in the ground without their arms (and a centinell upon them).” They further specified that “all men that are fittinge to beare armes, shall bring their pieces to the church upon payne of every offence, if the mayster allow not thereof to pay 2lb of tobacco.

These early laws were needed in a dangerous new land but Connecticut’s revised militia act, a century later, still ordered all citizens, both “listed” soldiers of the militia and every other householder, to “always be provided with and have in continual readiness, a well-fixed firelock . . . or other good fire-arms . . . a good sword, or cutlass. . . one pound of good powder, four pounds of bullets fit for his gun, and twelve flints.  In 1770, five years before the American Revolution Georgia felt it necessary “for the better security of the inhabitants” to require every white male resident “to carry firearms to places of public worship,” to defend themselves “from internal dangers and insurrections.”  Whether the threat came from slaves, foreigners or native Americans the means of defense was an armed citizenry. There was never a ban on taking a gun outside, on the contrary in many instances it was mandatory. Ordinary precautions that limited storage of gunpowder, shooting guns in crowded areas or carrying a weapon to terrify others were put in place, but the emphasis was on the duty to be armed and a freer use of private firearms than existed in England.

As we’ve discussed before.  But in this day and age, the statists know better, because they are out betters.  We need their protection and wisdom.

This has happened to me more times than I care to count (or tell you about).  It’s frustrating too.  You’d think I’d learn after a while.

News from Maine.

Leaders of the Maine Legislature voted against allowing seven different gun-related bills to be introduced in the next legislative session.

The bills, sponsored by number of different lawmakers, would have included improving public school security and creating a new child endangerment crime for those who fail to lock up stored firearms.

Gun-control advocates were critical of leadership’s votes, some of which broke along party lines.

[ … ]

The Legislature’s 10-member Legislative Council reviewed 399 proposed bills on Wednesday and voted to exclude all but 133 of them – including the gun-related measures – from the session that begins in January. The council, which comprises the minority and majority leadership in both House and Senate, as well as the speaker of the House and the Senate president, includes six Democrats and four Republicans.

[ … ]

A bill that would have banned the distribution of assault weapons without proper authority was defeated on a 4-6 vote while another that would have required all gun owners to buy liability insurance for their weapons was defeated unanimously.

Other bills that were rejected sought to redefine machine guns and ban assault-style weapons outright. Also rejected was a Republican proposal that would allow retired law enforcement officers who are cleared by the federal government to carry concealed firearms on school grounds.

It’s good to see the leftists get the comeuppance from time to time.  But don’t get cocky.  It’s only defeated for now.  The statists never sleep in their designs for total control over your life.

Via this smart post, I saw a researcher at Sandia National Laboratory had been working in the past on smart guns.  In the past he has observed the following concerning smart guns.

There are many items that the models could not demonstrate to the officers. A few of these are the technology’s cost, reliability, and adversarial strengths. Items like these will remain a concern for officers until a fieldable prototype is thoroughly tested.

Yea, I’ll bet.  To this, I’ll say the following as I’ve said before.

Perform a fault tree analysis of smart guns.  Use highly respected guidance like the NRC fault tree handbook.

Assess the reliability of one of my semi-automatic handguns as the first state point, and then add smart gun technology to it, and assess it again.  Compare the state points.  Then do that again with a revolver.  Be honest.  Assign a failure probability of greater than zero (0) to the smart technology, because you know that each additional electronic and mechanical component has a failure probability of greater than zero.

Get a PE to seal the work to demonstrate thorough and independent review.  If you can prove that so-called “smart guns” are as reliable as my guns, I’ll pour ketchup on my hard hat, eat it, and post video for everyone to see.  If you lose, you buy me the gun of my choice.  No one will take the challenge because you will lose that challenge.  I’ll win.  Case closed.  End of discussion.

Care to take the challenge, Mr. Weiss?

Via this piece, I was sent to this piece.

When John Bolton took over for McMaster in April 2018 and began appointing his own defense and foreign policy team, Mattis stopped receiving transcripts of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders, the kinds of sensitive conversations that are now at the center of the House’s impeachment inquiry.

Mattis’ patience began to wear especially thin in the spring of 2018 when Trump failed to consult with him on a host of big policy moves, from ordering the creation of a military Space Force to deploying troops to the U.S.-Mexican border, Snodgrass writes.

The surprise presidential decisions had grown for months, after beginning in earnest with a tweet from Trump in the summer of 2017 banning transgender troops from the military.

“Trump’s tweets created chaos in the Pentagon,” writes Snodgrass, who was detailed to work for Mattis early in his tenure. The damage from the transgender pronouncement “was a terrific example of how an ill-informed, and ill-considered, tweet from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue could result in a strategic defeat.”

[ … ]

Mattis also chafed at the president’s push for the Pentagon to deploy active-duty troops to the border to help stem the flow of illegal immigrants, a move the secretary considered an abuse of the military. “Mattis was now caught in his own graveyard spiral, expressing public support for a policy he didn’t agree with, bending his personal and professional beliefs to support the president,” the book says.

What in the name of all that is decent and sensible would make someone think it’s appropriate to consult a general for policy decisions or to care what the military thought of presidential orders?  Does the civilian not still command the military in this country?

Why on earth would Mattis expect to receive transcripts of the president’s phone calls with foreign leaders?  What world do I live in?

So did Mattis support transgender troops being in the military?  This book makes it sound like he did.

Finally, the one, single, solitary duty of the armed forces under the constitution is to prevent and respond to invasion.  And Mattis apparently rejected that mission in favor of foreign entanglements.  Good Lord.

And good riddance.

Maine Examiner.

A bill proposed by Rep. Victoria Doudera (D – Camden) would redefine what a “machine gun” is under state law. The Maine Legislature has attempted, without success, to pass more than a dozen laws that would impact Maine gun owners since the new Democrat majority was ushered in alongside Governor Janet Mills.

Rep. Doudera’s bill is one of a new group of proposals that will be considered by the Legislative Council on October 23. It is currently labeled LR 2829 “An Act To Amend the Definition of the Term “Machine Gun”” on the website of the Maine Revisor of Statutes.

Under current criminal code, unlawful possession of a “machine gun” is considered a substantive offense and subject to seizure and confiscation.

Maine Revised Statutes Title 17-A: Part 2, Chapter 43
§1053. Confiscation and seizure of machine gun

“Any machine gun possessed in violation of section 1051 is declared to be contraband and is subject to forfeiture to the State. Any law enforcement officer shall have the power to seize the same with due process.”

The definition of a “machine gun” subject to confiscation and seizure under state law is as follows:

Maine Revised Statutes Title 17-A: Part 2, Chapter 43
§1051. Possession of machine gun

“A weapon of any description, by whatever name known, loaded or unloaded, which is capable of discharging a number of projectiles in rapid succession by one manual or mechanical action on the trigger or firing mechanism.”

By changing the definition of a “machine gun” to encompass more of the firearms owned by Mainers, Rep. Doudera’s proposal could also make those newly defined “machine guns” subject to confiscation and seizure, turning owners of those firearms into criminals under the new law.

Rep. Doudera’s proposal is subject to approval by a majority of the Legislature’s Legislative Council at their meeting on October 23. The council is comprised of the members of House and Senate leadership from both parties, with six Democrats and four Republicans. Senate President Troy Jackson Chairs the council, with Speaker Sara Gideon serving as Vice Chair.

A contact in Maine sends this in response.

Yup;

Our “dear” Governor and the rest of the almost all, Dem contingency up here
will be spending a good piece of this next year unraveling all of the good
that was signed in by Lepage.

They intend to “do something” about AR’s/AK’s, eliminate the private sale
and “Constitutional Carry”.

All this as Maine was just determined to be the safest state in the Union
with New Hampshire and Vermont in very close contention for the same.

…another solution in search of a problem.

Of course it doesn’t matter that a semi-automatic firearm isn’t a machine gun.  Lying is just another tactic used by the left.  And by the way, after banning machine guns, what did you thing was next?  You didn’t believe the controllers would ever be happy without your total disarmament, did you?

In 6.5 Creedmoor.

Len Savage sends this.  It means that the ATF has so many paid informants that they have to have federal forms for them.  This bit of twisted sickness is also interesting.  The ATF had an informant passing on Savage’s litigation strategy to the FedGov.  It seems that very few can be trusted.  Keep that in mind.

But beware, if you’re a traitor.  Remember the case of Mike Detty.

Although Detty never solicited a dime, he was promised hefty rewards, which, of course, were never paid. This particular case took many a turn. The final twist being when Detty’s good intentions, his actions at his own peril just because it was the right thing to do, were rewarded with betrayal by the very agency on whose behalf he had risked so much.

[ … ]

Loyalty, it turned out, was not a two-way street between the Department of Justice and a public-spirited citizen who had volunteered, and worked for years at personal risk, to do the right thing.

“I learned that the ATF’s public information officer in Phoenix gave my name and contact information to a New York Times reporter who was inspired to write an article after Attorney General Eric Holder’s speech of Feb. 2, 2009, in which he detailed that Mexicans were being killed with American guns and that he and President Obama would like to see the Assault Weapons Ban reinstated,” Detty said. “If it wasn’t bad enough that Department of Justice employees were exposing me as an informant, now an ATF agent was doing the same thing.”

To keep the facts straight, from early on Detty had kept a private journal. Government minions learned of it. They apparently feared it could be a source of embarrassment or worse—in passing it detailed several official misadventures.

From that point on, Detty was cast into a limbo somewhere between persona non grata and outright threat. His personal e-files were hacked and redacted by persons unknown, but of course there were backups. Detty does not make this observation. But it begs: If a former intelligence asset now has the potential to be a liability or embarrassment, how better to solve the problem than to let the cartels he was working against know who he is and let nature take its course?

[ … ]

“With American guns being used in ruthless savagery across the border, a push could be made for a new assault weapons ban here in the United States. There is no other explanation why guns would be continually allowed to cross the border after the purchasers, their cartels and ports of entry had already been identified.”

They aren’t playing by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules.