Articles by Herschel Smith

WSJ:

Dustin Coleman has bought a booth at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention for his shooting accessories company for the past three years.

But last month, he canceled his reservation and donated the $1,400 rental fee to a rival group, the Firearms Policy Coalition. His reason: The NRA, the nation’s leading Second Amendment group with 5.5 million members, is no longer pro-gun enough.

It’s their own fault.    It doesn’t matter if there was “overwhelming legislative support for proposals that went far beyond these specific devices,” and there is still no evidence to this day that bump stocks were used in the Las Vegas shooting.  I defy the authors to produce it.  A picture proves nothing at all, and given that the ATF was never allowed to examine the firearms by the FBI, I doubt anything the FBI has to say about the incident.  This is one of the reasons I recommended that independent analysts be contracted to examine the firearms and crime scene.

The NRA could have thrown their weight around, threatened to score every vote, pour money into reelection campaigns coming up, and expose every politician for their work behind the scenes.  Or in other words, the NRA could have done their jobs.

Instead, Trump did it for them in an end run around the constitution.  That tells me that the politicians were scared.  Good.  They should have been, and we should have queued this up for them to deal with in order to expose them.  The NRA gave Trump cover to keep the politicians covert.

I don’t want to hear any excuses.  I consider all of them completely unacceptable.

Is the NRA in trouble with its base?  That depends.  The Fudds will always defend the NRA – right up until their bolt action hunting rifles and shotguns are confiscated and taken down to the local armory for “safe keeping.”  Or in other words, right up until their own Ox gets gored.

David Codrea:

Is it realistic to expect companies to turn down lucrative law enforcement deals? Probably not, because the activist portion of gun owners is but a fraction of the total population, those selling to enforcement agencies inarguably make some of the finest guns in the market, and the citizen militia system needed to take up the slack has been suppressed by a political design that in turn has been allowed by apathy. But what we can do is be aware of who’s involved in such deals, use what sway as customers that we have to influence corporate decision-making, individually boycott those companies we take umbrage with, and importantly, to patronize the enterprises that have taken a public stand on the side of “We the people” even when it affects their bottom lines.

Most of the sway we have is in pressing back against it when gun manufacturers toy with support for gun control efforts, such as when Marty Daniels courted “Fix-NICS.”  I doubt that we would be successful in persuading large manufacturers like Savage or Ruger to examine the politics of their contracts before they fulfill them.

But the answer to David’s question is ‘yes’, and I’m not sure that can be changed.

Fox News:

Liberal billionaire Michael Bloomberg bemoaned the lack of a private armed security force at Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater, due to the murder rate in Baltimore.

The former mayor of New York City, who’s likely to run for president in 2020, has long been an advocate for gun control, but his comments on Tuesday raised eyebrows and accusations that his support of an armed private force on campus were at odds with his views on gun control.

“When you have a city that has the murder rate that Baltimore has, I think it’s ridiculous to think that they shouldn’t be armed,” Bloomberg told reporters after a meeting at Maryland’s Statehouse in Annapolis with Democratic lawmakers and state Attorney General Brian Frosh, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Bloomberg: “I believe in guns, but only for my peeps who protect and defend me.  You don’t get them.  Suck it, peasants.”

Via Kenny and WiscoDave, this:

There aren’t many places in the U.S. where coyotes aren’t breeding pups, including Central Park in New York City, Scotten said. The canines’ native habitat was once the dry, open expanses of the western United States. But like humans, coyotes have slowly expanded their territory across the nation by quickly adapting to disturbances in their natural habitats.

Coyotes have learned to thrive in the same urban development that has caused other predator populations to decline. They can cross bridges, swim canals, and navigate sidewalks while hunting for food, Scotten said.

A coyote’s dream home, though, would be in a suburb like Bloomingdale, where densely packed developments are surrounded by farms and pastureland — a small taste of the open range prairies they used to roam.

“Now, especially in areas like Bloomingdale, the coyotes appear to be living in rural environments but coming in to urban areas to get food since its easier,” Scotten said.

Humans likely brought the first coyotes to Florida to train hunting dogs in the 1920s, but many scientists believe they now fill the role in Florida’s ecosystem that red wolves left behind. The animals help keep Florida’s rodent, raccoon and fox populations in check, but are known to prey on cattle, turkeys, chickens or unsuspecting house pets.

And humans too.  Like The Alaskan says:

Lethal control works. Alaska uses aerial wolf control to manage wolf populations as well as long term hunting and trapping seasons with generous bag limits. Wolves will have dramatic impacts on moose and caribou populations if allowed to increase in numbers unchecked. Natives in western Alaska will tell you that there was never any moose in western Alaska until wolf suppression was initiated. Moose in Alaska have been expanding their range because of wolf (lethal) control. State Fish and Wildlife personnel use aircraft to control wolf populations. Abundant moose and caribou populations are the result.

Your pig problems could be managed the same way. Aerial lethal suppression coupled with an open hunting season on pigs until you achieve the numbers, in terms of managed populations, that you want.

If eradication is your goal, then lethal removal is the only option. If the State is serious, your pig problem can be solved.

Remember, countless millions of bison, packs of wolves, plains grizzles and the prairie chickens (extinct,) were removed from the great plains with single shot front-stuffers (in large part.)

The scoped AR seems IMO, to be the best platform for ground based pig control. What fun!

We’re just not killing them.  If we don’t kill them because of gun laws, then they’ll kill your pets and sometimes hunt you down too.  Make your choice.

Yahoo:

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to jump back into the national debate over gun rights after nearly a decade on the sidelines.

The justices agreed to consider a petition backed by gun owners’ groups asking them to strike down New York City’s strict rules for carrying legally owned guns outside the home.

[ … ]

City officials argued that more liberal transporting policies in effect until 2001 were abused. While the policies were intended to allow gun owners to take unloaded guns only to target ranges outside the city, some guns were found loaded, or far from ranges, or on airplanes.

“Unlike golf clubs and musical instruments, firearms present public safety risks that the city has a legitimate interest in protecting against,” their brief to the court said. “Limiting their possession and use in public minimizes the risk of gun violence.”

Slate:

There are good answers to these questions. Right-to-carry laws, like those in Texas, appear to contribute to violent crime and increase homicide rates. Individuals carrying a weapon are more likely to escalate incidents of road rage and domestic conflicts into fatal shootings. Cities and states have a strong interest in curbing individuals’ ability to bring deadly weapons into the streets.

The bolded sections indicate the naïve belief in myths and fairy tales.  The myth is that prohibition effects law-abiding citizens in people who would otherwise be criminals.  The entirety of history runs counter to this myth, but myths and fairy tales die hard.

But the perpetrators (cops) don’t believe the myths.  They just don’t want to give up their “only one” rights.  The real believers are folks like the author at Slate, who must be mistaking the law abiding – who rarely will use firearms due to the knowledge that most prosecutors put another notch in the belt for every law abiding gun owner they can prosecute – for the real danger, i.e, cops.

Cops, who shoot Chihuahuas, invade the wrong home, pull guns on people for no good reason, kill each other in the line of duty, shoot the wrong person, routinely lose their guns, discharge firearms at moving vehicles in a busy intersection, engage in more wrong home raids, aim poorly, shoot unwisely and kill the wrong person, shoot people who are not the intended targets, fight with lawful gun carriers, cause negligent discharges, engage in more wrong home raids, engage in rolling gun battles where they discharge 600 rounds in crowded streets, shoot innocent people, burn toddlers in SWAT raids, lose their guns in dance floor moves, shoot innocent children, engage in more wrong home SWAT raids, have more negligent discharges, shoot heroes who stop shootings, shoot more heroes who stop shootings, shoot kidnapping victims, engage in more wrong home SWAT raids, use their guns like hammers, shoot more innocent people, shoot an innocent man during a SWAT raid, lose machine guns, shoot themselves, pull guns on the wrong people, engage in more negligent discharges, shoot photographers, shoot each other, violate the rules of gun safety, shoot innocent victims, unholster guns in road rage incidents, shoot dogs, kill more innocent people, shoot each other, point guns at each other, shoot more innocent people, engage in more rolling gun battles, have more negligent discharges, throw grenades at babies, shoot people with dementia, shoot their own children, shoot into day care facilities, shoot each other, engage in more wrong home raids, pull guns on seven year olds, shoot more dogs, engage in more wrong home SWAT raids, point guns at each other, violate the rules of gun safety and shoot each other, shoot more dogs, engage in more negligent discharges, shoot more dogs, point guns at each other, engage on more negligent discharges, shoot each other, engage in more negligent discharges, engage in more negligent discharges, kill more dogs, engage in more negligent discharges, engage in more negligent discharges, shoot each other, engage in more negligent discharges, kill more dogs, kill more dogs, engage in more wrong home SWAT raids, kill more dogs, point guns at politicians, fire guns in court, kill more dogs, engage in moe wrong home SWAT raids, engage in more negligent discharges, lose more machine guns, engage in more wrong home raids, engage in more wrong home raids, lose more machine guns, kill disabled war veterans in their own home, shoot each other, shoot more dogs, and I could go on for hours more.

So I don’t want to hear another damn word about gun safety.  Can you grok that?

And by the way just to reiterate what I’ve said so many times before, my rights come from the Almighty maker of heaven and earth, not the constitution.  The constitution is a covenant between men, nothing more.

David Codrea:

So what are we supposed to do? Pretend deep disagreements don’t exist?

No.  We don’t.  My readers would be shocked at me if I pretended anything.  Make sure you read the comments.  They’re all over the map, some pointing to compromise with the NRA, under the rubric of “This is exactly what the progressives want to do – divide us.”  “We must be united.”

My view if fairly simple.  The NRA is the most well-funded, largest, most powerful gun lobby on earth.  They gave Trump the idea of red flag laws, the bump stock ban, supported the Hughes amendment, and on and on we could go.

Why would I give any more money to an organization like that?

Journal Sentinel:

My God.  Look at that thing!  Hey, I still haven’t heard any takers to my hard hats and ketchup challenge.

Via Pat Hines, Think Progress:

The group and its origins sound innocuous enough. But the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) — a right-wing group founded 36 years ago — has deepened connections between America’s religious right and Russians even as the latter have been sanctioned by the United States, according to a ThinkProgress investigation.

By networking with Russians, the HSLDA — now America’s largest right-wing homeschooling association — has provided the Kremlin with a new avenue of influence over some of the most conservative organizations in the United States.

[ … ]

But at the same time that details — and criticism — of these links between Russia and American right-wing groups were emerging, the HSLDA co-sponsored a formal homeschooling conference in Moscow and St. Petersburg, ThinkProgress found. One of the conference’s other sponsors was a foundation run by sanctioned Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev. The event featured some of the most outspoken anti-LGBTQ officials in Russia, and included a Russian official who’s currently sanctioned by the U.S. for her role in stoking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It’s almost impossible to know where to begin, but I’ll attempt to offer up a few points.

Home schooling has been around for as long as America has been around, and even when the head master of a local school taught children, or supervised those who did, the teacher was always functioning in loco parentis.  This is so basic, so fundamental, so axiomatic, that is makes no sense to debate with someone who doesn’t know or understand that.

In the wake of Horace Mann and John Dewey, even if parents didn’t understand what they were doing, the state assumed ownership of children and what they are taught.  Communism is founded in and based on the assumption of state ownership of mankind.  The writer has it exactly backwards.  Horace Mann brought communism to American education, not Russia, or home schooling, or anything else.

The father of the modern American home schooling movement is Rousas J. Rushdoony.  Period.  End of discussion.  There is no debate about that.  It is axiomatic, and if someone doesn’t understand that, he is too stolid and ignorant to debate.  Debating someone over American history who knows nothing about American history is a waste of time.  For a discussion of the Christian basis for Rushdoony’s advocacy for home schooling, read his many works, all of them scholarly.

I know absolutely nothing about connections between anyone who was born in Russia, or calls themselves by a Russian surname, and any American home schooling association.  I find such a connection dubious to say the least.  At any rate, suffice it to say that the fundamentals behind what is being taught in American home schools and communism is diametrically opposed at every step.  Every one.

The only divide I currently find in the American home schooling movement is between the classic home schoolers – who still appear to hold sway, albeit waning – and the much more libertarian.  The former want to see state acceptance of the curricula, attendance, activities, etc., and are willing to allow state representatives to visit unannounced to verify records.  The later aren’t so willing and see neither need nor right to do that.

The American home schooling movement isn’t the monolith that this writer seems to imagine.  It is basically bifurcated between states, with each state having multiple home schooling associations, and with some home schoolers not a member of any particular association at all.

As for Russia, inasmuch as they are still communists, I opposed them at every turn.  Regardless of who catalyzed the war in the Ukraine, the Ukrainians don’t appear to want to be part of Russia, and I believe they have as much right not to be a part of that country as the American South does not to be a part of the U.S.  To the extent that they oppose gun rights, and they still appear to strongly oppose them, I consider them to be of the same ilk as the horrible controllers in America.

Not coincidentally, the author of this idiotic article is likely a controller and opposes God-given rights, which makes him more a supporter of communism and Russia that I could ever be.  Communists are the same the world over.  There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them.

But something strange happens later in the article that I quoted above.  The author says, “The event featured some of the most outspoken anti-LGBTQ officials in Russia.”  So is that what this is all about?  The author is finding a connection between something bad in Russia and something he considers to be bad in America, namely “anti-LGBTQ?”

Because one of the core fundamentals of the home schooling movement is that the state doesn’t have the right to deliver moral absolutes to children.  Only parents have that sole domain.  And I’m willing to bet that we’ve put our finger on the root of the issue with the author.

This isn’t about Russia, or American home schooling, or any ridiculous connection between them.  This is about who has the domain of moral instruction for children.

Read it again and tell me I’m wrong.

Prior: Home Schooling Fight In Massachusetts

CNSNEWS.com:

(CNSNews.com) – “In 1994, you said that gun control is a dead end,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told Attorney General-nominee William Barr at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

“Do you still believe that prudent controls on weapons won’t reduce violent crime?” Feinstein, a staunch gun control advocate, asked him.

“I think that the problem of our time is to get an effective system in place that can keep dangerous firearms out of the hands of mentally ill people,” Barr replied.

That is — should be priority number one. And it’s going to take some hard work. And we need to get on top of the problem. We need to come up with agreed-to standards that are prohibitors of people who are mentally ill. We have to put the resources in to get the system built up the way we did many years ago on the felon records and so forth.

We have to get the system working. And as I say, it’s sort of piecemeal a little bit right now. We need to really get some energy behind it and get it done.

And I also think we need to push along the ERPOs (Extreme Risk Protection Orders), so we have these red flag laws to supplement the use of the background check to find out if someone has some mental disturbance. This is the single most important thing I think we can do in the gun control area to stop these massacres from happening in the first place.

Later, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked Barr to update Congress on his view of the Second Amendment.

Barr said that even before the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision, which upheld the individual right to bear arms, he believed that was so.

“I personally concluded that the Second Amendment creates a personal right under the Constitution,” Barr said.

It’s based on the Lockean notion of the right of self-preservation. It’s tied to that. And I was glad that — to see Heller come out and vindicate that initial view that I had. And so there’s no question under Heller that the right to have weapons is — firearms, is protected under the Second Amendment and is a personal right. At the same time, there’s room for reasonable regulation.

And you know, from my standpoint, what I would look for is — in assessing a regulation is, what’s the burden on law-abiding people? And is it proportionate to whatever benefit in terms of safety and effectiveness will be conferred?

As I said just a moment ago, let’s get down to the real problem we’re confronting, which is keeping these weapons out of the hands of people who are mentally ill. And I think all the rest of this stuff is really essentially rhetoric until we really get that problem dealt with, in terms of regulatory approaches.

Readers are advised to study every word of his testimony.  And then do it again.  This is very important.

Sessions was probably owned by the deep state in some manner or other, but in any event he was just stolid and dense.  He focused his energies on making sure we had huge resources devoted to combatting marijuana.  Barr seems much more smarter, and therefore much more dangerous.

As to whether the founders believed they were following the enlightenment and John Locke as opposed to the Apostle Paul and John Calvin, I cannot say.  Men much smarter than me – R. J. Rushdoony, C. Gregg Singer and Douglas Kelly – have engaged in detailed debates about that, and I encourage you to read their analyses rather than listen to me.  It’s likely based on what I know that there was a sufficient mix of enlightenment thinkers and Calvinists that each side could claim credit for what’s in the constitution, and it was the best compromise they could come up with given the makeup of the group.

As to the actual right to self preservation, I claim, without apology, that neither you nor I have such a right outside of the decrees of God stipulated in the Holy Writ.  And it’s there in clear detail, so yes, we have that right.  The right of self defense and defense of home and hearth lies in the decrees and therefore in the nature of God.  It is ensconced firmly there, not in the second amendment.  The constitution is a covenant between men, not a source of anything, much less human rights.

But according to Barr, there’s “room reasonable regulation.”  Regulation decided by men, running counter to God’s holy decrees if necessary.  And according to Barr, it’s necessary if the benefit to public safety outweighs whatever right a judge or politician says you have.

Red flag laws.  Trump likely knew all about Barr’s views before nominating him.  Barr will also likely give high priority to finding passage of such laws as constitutional.  He’ll put his best lawyers on it.  He’ll also work hard to come up with lists of “prohibited persons,” and who knows at this time what a prohibited person will look like?

He defers to community witch doctors deciding the fate of God-given rights based on “mental illness,” when it’s been demonstrated over and over again that mental illness, whatever that is, has nothing whatsoever to do with propensity to violence.  So he believes in myths and is willing to use the force of the DoJ to back up his beliefs.

These are dangerous times, and I predict Trump’s nominee will end up being one of the biggest threats to 2A rights in American history if he stays in his position.  Obama managed to do virtually nothing to restrict gun rights compared to Trump and his cabinet.  All with the approval of the NRA folks in Fairfax, VA.

The Washington Post:

Maryland courts have seized guns from 148 people in the three months since the state enacted a law designed to take weapons from people who are danger to themselves or others.

Four of the gun owners posed “significant threats” to schools, an official told state lawmakers Tuesday.

Montgomery County Sheriff Darren M. Popkin (D), who has helped train police officers across the state about the “red-flag” law, said he could not provide details about the gun seizures — including those that could have led to school shootings — because of a confidentiality rule.

But, Popkin told the House Judiciary Committee, “these orders . . . are saving lives.”

As I’ve said before, the communist project is nearly complete.

Say, I was wondering, if the department of pre-crime is any good, why haven’t we seen a precipitous reduction in the number of spree crimes?  Surely, half of their predictions for the future should be accurate, right?  We require that of weather forecasters, don’t we?

Prophets, all of them.  Surely.  It also comes to mind that God required false prophets be killed in the O.T. (Deuteronomy 13:13).  I wonder how many of these forecasters would be willing to put their life on the line for their fortune telling and witch-doctoring?