Articles by Herschel Smith

News from the bush country:

Since the 1990s, Alaska’s state constitution has said gun rights can be exercised by individuals. The Legislature has expanded gun rights over the years.

First, there was the “Castle Doctrine,” which allowed people to use deadly force to protect their homes. Then, a few years ago, the Legislature expanded that doctrine with a “Stand Your Ground” law, removing the requirement that an Alaskan had to retreat from a confrontation — if possible. Now an Alaskan can use deadly force for protection on the sidewalk or any place the person has a legal right to be.

But there’s also been a move in the Legislature to restrict gun rights for people undergoing temporary mental problems. That bill was sponsored by Rep. Geran Tarr, an Anchorage Democrat.

“I haven’t been called a Communist, but people certainly get pretty passionate about the Second Amendment,” Tarr said in a recent interview.

Well then, let me be the first.  Making laws that attempt to restrict rights before a crime has ever been committed is what communists do.

You are a communist.

I’m glad I could be the first.

Via WiscoDave, this unfortunate view:

A new magazine capacity restriction goes into effect today in New Jersey. The internet is on fire with cries of people, including many gun owners not in New Jersey, criticizing the law as unjust, unconstitutional, meaningless, unfair and worse. What is missing is much real practical advice for New Jersey Gun Owners. What should they do now? What should they do with magazines that have a capacity of over 10 rounds?

Unfortunately, while the law may eventually be found unjust and overturned, today it is the law. Second Amendment Organization is a staunch advocate of Gun Rights, but those rights are defined by our laws. We believe it is imperative that Responsible Gun Owners follow the law. In this case, that means the New Jersey Gun Owners should comply with the law… and fight it! Part of fighting it involved educating people about why these types of laws have little or no effect in regard to saving lives and why people might want or need large capacity magazines in the first place. 2AO is staunchly against magazine capacity restrictions, as stated in this set of Position Statements. Recommending that New Jersey residents comply with the law is not “compromise,” it is accepting the current reality.

Okay Rob, but what happens when it proves impossible to overturn that restriction?  Then what?  What do you answer to God when you’re incapable of properly defending your family because the criminals bust through your front door carrying standard capacity magazines while you have none?  It’s happened, you know.

This is the only amusing thing from this whole abomination.

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said New Jersey’s newly implemented high capacity magazine ban endangers the lives of officers by also limiting their magazine size when they are off duty.

This week, Breitbart News reported that December 11, 2018, was the effective date for a New Jersey “high capacity” magazine ban that makes it a fourth-degree felony to possess a magazine holding more than ten rounds, even if that magazine was legally acquired.

Kerik is now tweeting a letter from the Bergen County prosecutor that says the ban also applies to off-duty officers …

Of course, he doesn’t answer how the ban can “endanger” the lives of cops while it has no affect on the more ordinary among us.  Nor does anyone say how they are going to enforce this ban.

Then there is also this.

We at 2AO would respect the intention and actions of anyone actually performing true civil disobedience. A group or individual heading to a gun range in New Jersey this afternoon with standard magazines of a capacity greater than 10 rounds and publicly, proudly and overtly using them as a public act of protest, for example. Obviously, those persons would be risking arrest but they would also obviously be following in the footsteps of other great Civil Rights Protesters. Sneakily keeping magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds in your home and hoping you never get caught is not Civil Disobedience, it’s just being a criminal.

I think Rob is tilting at windmills and [Sneakily] forcing a distinction without a difference.

David Codrea has thoughts as well.

Trib:

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto was joined by Gov. Tom Wolf, members of City Council and state Democratic lawmakers Friday in proposing legislation that would ban semiautomatic rifles and certain ammunition and firearms accessories within city limits.

Citing the 11 people killed in the Oct. 27 mass shooting at Squirrel Hill’s Tree of Life synagogue, Peduto said the ban is necessary to protect the safety and welfare of Pittsburgh residents. He vowed to build a coalition among municipalities and residents across the nation to fend off legal challenges from gun rights activists that are certain to come. Peduto said he’s written letters to more than 100 cities seeking support.

Who knows how this would go if appealed to the Supreme Court?  Consider Scalia’s idiotic words, “[the] American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon.”

I’ve said before that Scalia did America no favors by his ruling in Heller.

And everywhere else.

Amei Francesco-Folsom arrived home on a Thursday afternoon to find blood all over the streets in her Palm Springs neighborhood. Her husband, Greg, informed her the blood was from neighborhood ducks and she subsequently called her town’s maintenance department to have it cleaned.

However, she soon discovered it wasn’t there by accident. The Lakewood residential community is removing ducks — violently.

In late November, men dressed in dark blue, carrying guns and orange buckets started walking through the neighborhood. They work for Allstar Animal Removal, a licensed wildlife removal company contracted by the homeowners association. It is not clear what type of guns were used.

Their job is pretty straightforward: shoot and remove the Muscovy ducks — a nonnative species from Central and South America with black and white feathers and red waddles.

“I came home and saw blood everywhere,” Francesco-Folsom, who has lived in Lakewood since 2003, said. “I’m beyond upset about this situation.”

So I assume that you would rather your children walk around in feces and contract awful diseases?

That sounds like a tautology, yes?

“From a licensed firearms dealer” is the crux. Anyone who believes a determined individual can’t obtain a firearm from other sources needs to explain recent headlines from Baltimore or Chicago.

The inescapable truth is anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian. There are plenty of other ways to mass kill. g

What are they going to do, certify folks buying fertilizer at Lowe’s or Home Despot?  Um … wait, I’d better not give them ideas.  It’s just something else for the controllers to control.

It just isn’t the right one.

Shareholder advocacy is nothing new for the Episcopal Church. With an investment portfolio worth about $400 million, the church has long used some of those investments to influence companies based on Christian principles and General Convention resolutions that set church policies and priorities.

What’s new is one of the investment tactics the church plans to implement in the new year to address gun violence.

General Convention passed a resolution in July that calls on Executive Council’s Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility to research investing in gun manufacturers to give the church a new voice in how those companies do business. The goal: “to minimize lethal and criminal uses of their products.”

“We’ve never purposely gone out and bought [shares in] what we’d consider a bad actor in order to press the company to change behavior,” said Brian Grieves, the outgoing chair of the committee, which oversees the church’s shareholder advocacy.

The resolution, B007, was proposed by Western Massachusetts Bishop Douglas Fisher, a member of Bishops United Against Gun Violence, who will take over for Grieves as committee chair in January. Fisher’s diocese is home to the headquarters of Smith & Wesson in Springfield, and in March he participated in a rally outside the gun manufacturer led by high school students in the wake of a deadly high school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Fisher acknowledged a “sense of frustration” among anti-gun violence advocates in response to Congress’ inaction. “The federal government is doing nothing about the public health crisis of gun violence,” he said. “So where can the church engage this big issue?”

Here’s how.  Believe first in Jesus, that He is the only begotten Son of the living God, in His birth, death, burial and resurrection, His vicarious atonement, in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and the infallibility of His Word, and then you’re more likely to get your politics right.

Focus first on leading people to Christ, and then preach good doctrine.  But since you don’t really believe in anything any more, you’re nothing but a vapid, vacuous and boring social club, and no one listens to you or comes to your “services” any more.  So no one will listen to you on this either.

I understand that you’re just following the lead of your masters, but you’re small potatoes, dude.

With a stabilizing brace.  I confess I had no idea.

GAO:

The 20 federal law enforcement agencies in GAO’s review reported spending at least $38.8 million on firearms, $325.9 million on ammunition, and $1.14 billion on tactical equipment—at least $1.5 billion in total—from fiscal years 2010 through 2017, based on data agencies provided to GAO.

And Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution comes to mind.

Josh Wayner writing for Ammoland has the scoop.  A couple of comments.

First, I notice that the Buffalo Bore does the best concerning muzzle velocity.  Second, if you shoot the Sig Sauer 240 grain at 1213 FPS, that doesn’t give you much advantage over the 450 SMC (Short Magnum Cartridge) which I carried to Colorado in a 1911 with backup magazines, and which I’ve discussed before (230 grains at around 1120 FPS published muzzle velocity).

Second, what I’d really like to see is Josh cover the Performance Center Model 629 V-Comp with the compensator (or muzzle brake).  I find that to be a very appealing and aesthetically pleasing gun with a nice finish and very smooth edges.

We Are The Mighty:

In the wake of World War II, the United States of America commanded over 30,000 overseas bases, marshaled over half of the world’s manufacturing capacity, and owned two thirds of the world’s gold stock. In 1949, the Greatest Generation proposed a strategic solution: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

N.A.T.O. was created in response to failing relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, especially in the case of the reconstruction of Germany. The countries of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal banded together with the United States as its chief architect.

[ … ]

Under the persuasive guidance of the United States, N.A.T.O. slowly standardized armaments best suited for American designs than those resembling the Soviet 7.62mm. Who else could argue the case to finance, produce, and export on a scale to rival the Russians? By the 1980s, the 5.56x45mm was adopted as the standard.

From the sands of the Middle East to the deep jungles of South America, the 5.56mm played an integral role in shaping modern warfare. Decades of proxy wars and economic down turn brought the Soviet Union to its knees. Mikhail Gorbachev, President and leader of the Soviet Union, resigned and declared his office extinct on Dec. 25, 1991.

America had triumphed.

The 5.56mm never got the chance to sing in the halls of the Kremlin, but it was the round that destroyed an empire.

His point is that the 5.56mm can be mass-produced for relatively cheap, and thus mass quantities can be made available.

True enough, what’s so for the U.S. military is so for anyone else.  You can buy more, shoot more, carry more, and store more 5.56mm than you can 7.62mm.

I don’t go a day without seeing another article on how the U.S. military is going to a caseless 6.8mm round and thus the 5.56mm round is dead.  I’ll believe it when I see it.

And rarely is the issue of body armor and the penetration capabilities of the bullet determinative for the outcome of conflicts.

Buy what you want, shoot what you want, and don’t limit yourself to any one cartridge for a all purposes.  And remember: heads and hips.