Articles by Herschel Smith

News from lost land:

In one of the most appalling images yet as a wave of violent crime sweeps the country, the shooter can be seen taking aim at the victim who cowers on the ground. Police released the image from a neighbour’s security camera in a bid to track down the gunman. It’s believed he fired what appears to be a long-barrelled weapon into his victim’s leg, in Birkby, West Yorkshire.

A masked gunman shoots his victim at point-blank range in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. See Ross Parry copy RPYGUN: A masked gunman shoots his victim at point-blank range at dawn on a quiet residential street in the most shocking image yet from ‘Wild West Britain’. Seconds later the gunman had fled the scene in suburban Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in a van. Police believe the shooting was a ‘targeted attack’ and yesterday released shocking images from a resident’s CCTV camera as they hunted the gunman.

Impossible.  England has gun control.  It must be a mistake.  On the other hand, there is the undeniable picture, yes?

Prediction: they won’t find him.  He is wearing a Balaclava.  He is unidentifiable.  So his lawyer will argue in court if they ever do catch him.

Meanwhile, guns and knives are illegal for the peasants to have because the government fears the peasants, not the criminals.  Just like in America.

David Codrea:

“[T]he Defendants and FBI in particular, is improperly shifting their burden to the individual to follow up with various courts or jurisdictions,” the release explains. In other words, a government with comparatively unlimited resources is discouraging citizens from contesting its mistakes and from claiming their right to keep and bear arms.

Here is the gouge: [1] Have to apply for permission to exercise your God-given rights recognized in the constitution, [2] get denied, [3] appeal, [4] have FedGov ignore your appeal because they have the power and authority.

And to top it all off, the courts are the last appeal if in fact Stamboulieh Law is successful, meaning that your fate is in the hands of black-robed tyrants.

Per MBV’s phrase, the “mandate of heaven” was lost a very long time ago.  Here we are in the weeds, which is exactly where FedGov wants us to be.  You see that, right?  They want us lost in the weeds.  No offense to Stamboulieh Law and their clients.  This is good work.  But even if they are successful, FedGov has already won.

TFB:

In a move that is both shocking and unsurprising at the same time, the video hosting powerhouse YouTube has terminated Brownells’ channel citing violations of their “community guidelines”. In the professional business of gunsmithing, tools, parts supply, accessories and more recently firearms sales, Brownells has been a pillar of the shooting community for nearly 100 years. While countless old-fashion catalog sales companies died off with the ecommerce revolution, Brownells adapted, embracing online sales and customers with an easy to navigate website and strong social media presence.

It is unclear at this point what part of the community guidelines YouTube alleges that Brownells violated to get terminated or if there is a possibility of being reinstated. However, as channels with a heavy following continue to receive strikes, warnings and terminations, the fate of user and corporate generated firearmscontent on YouTube are becoming bleaker by the week.

TFB closes with a wish that the channel would get reinstated.

I understand that YouTube is the 900 pound gorilla in the room, but I don’t wish that at all.  I wish that YouTube would get some good competition and gun owners wouldn’t have to go there for anything, begging for crumbs that fall from the master’s table.

Google is in bed with the CIA, and Google owns YouTube.  Thus, YouTube is essentially a FedGov entity.  As if you needed anything else, this is what FedGov thinks of your firearms.  Beg, peasant.  Beg.

Long but worth it.

Delaware Online:

Sen. Greg Lavelle, a northern Delaware Republican and key swing vote on a bill that would prohibit the sale of an array of semi-automatic rifles, said on Wednesday that he will not allow the legislation out of committee.

[ … ]

At Wednesday’s hearing, Francis Pileggi, a Wilmington attorney speaking on behalf of the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association, said the appeals court ruling shouldn’t be considered for this debate because the Fourth Circuit does not oversee Delaware.

[ … ]

In a visible show of political might, participants spoke of a primacy of the U.S. Constitution and a need to campaign against lawmakers who vote for gun-control bills.

Their motto, according to organizer, Mitchell Denham, is “Not one inch.”

So far, so good.  I would argue that the Fourth Circuit’s opinion doesn’t apply to Delaware or any other state or city because it is unconstitutional, not because of the limits of the fourth circuit’s jurisdiction.  And I certainly concur with not one more inch of retreat.

Denham said Delaware Gun Rights has 24,000 members in the state.

Asked where a line should be drawn for allowable weapons, Denham said, “There’s a reason why there’s a National Firearms Act. There’s a law prohibiting certain explosives, fully automatic firearms, silencers, short-barrel shotguns, short-barrel rifles.”

Well, here we have a problem.  I always want to be cautious when addressing the fights that others are in, especially when they are allies.

But to accept prior infringements because we want to keep what we currently have is a losing proposition.  It’s been a short time since the giddy days post-election when we were actually discussing repeal of the NFA, SBRs and suppressors being removed, and national reciprocity.

Imagine.  A gun rights advocate is willing to give up on suppressors and acquiesce to the need for a permission slip from the tyrants in order to own a muffler which is nothing more than a tube with baffles threaded at the end.

Sad.  Where we are as a country is just sad.  That’s all I can think to say at the moment.

From a reader, NY Post:

Teachers and school administrators would have the power to petition a judge to remove guns from the homes of troubled students under a measure pushed Tuesday by Gov. Cuomo.

Flanked at his Midtown office by teachers-union leaders Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew and other anti-gun advocates, Cuomo said his “red flag” measure would make New York the first state in the nation to offer such empowerment to teachers.

Christian school parents have heard and used the phrase en loco parentis.

This isn’t it.  Under this framework, teachers are vessels of the state and have all the police powers thereto.  John Dewey and Horace Mann would be happy about this if they weren’t in hell.

MEF:

An ominous indication of what lay in store for the religious minorities was afforded as early as December 1998 when Erdoğan, then mayor of Istanbul and an opposition politician, announced that the “mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers,” quoting a line from a poem by the nineteenth-century nationalist poet Ziya Gökalp underscoring the Islamist foundation of Turkish identity.

[ … ]

On December 28, 2016, for example, in the western province of Aydin, the ultra-nationalist Islamist group Alperen Hearths staged a forced conversion of Santa Claus to Islam, putting a gun to the head of an actor dressed as Santa Claus. A representative of the group explained the staging of the conversion this way:

Our purpose is for people to go back to their roots. We are the Muslim Turkish people who have been leading Islam for thousands of years. We will not celebrate Christian traditions and disregard our own traditions like Hidrellez, Nevruz, and other religious national holidays.

Well, be warned boys, I don’t believe in Santa Claus.  But what I do believe in is shooting people who threaten me, my family or my way of life.

Consider yourselves warned.  No, seriously.  Remember this, boys.  I hope you’re reading this.

Oh, and by the way, you’re holding the gun like a girl.  No, wait, that’s misogynistic.  My daughter holds her gun way better than you.  She would kick your ass.

Fox News:

A Texas man is recovering after he claims the head of a rattlesnake bit him — moments after he had just cut it off.

Jennifer Sutcliffe’s husband was reportedly bitten by the beheaded snake on May 27 at his home near Lake Corpus Christi.

Sutcliffe told KIII-TV the two were doing yard work when she came across the four-foot rattlesnake. She said her husband used a shovel to behead the snake, but when he went to dispose of it, it bit him.

Corpus Christi man bitten by severed rattlesnake head https://t.co/Pstjhg4Yvy pic.twitter.com/XYMa2TFM1P

— KIII 3 News (@kiii3news) June 6, 2018

The snake, Sutcliffe said, “released all its venom into him at that point” because it no longer had a body, and her husband reportedly began immediately experiencing seizures and internal bleeding, and lost his vision.

The man was transported via helicopter to a hospital, where doctors said there was a chance he wouldn’t make it.

“A normal person who is going to get bit is going to get two to four doses of antivenom,” Sutcliffe told the news station. “He had to have 26 doses.”

Her husband is now in stable condition but is suffering from weak kidney functions, Sutcliffe said.

I’ll tell you what, snakes can lay a wallop on you.  I don’t expect this is something that many folk from the far north can understand, but down South and in the Southwest, you’ve got to be very careful where you step and where you reach.  I’ve been bitten by a Copperhead, and so has my dog.

They usually aren’t deadly if treated, but you can lose fingers, hands, toes, feet or whatever if not treated.  A Cottonmouth (Water Moccasin) is worse, but the king of the pit vipers in America is the rattlesnake.  The worst of them (most venomous pit viper in America) is the Eastern Diamondback, and not far behind is the Eastern Timber.

Be careful out there this summer.

Providence Journal:

A civilian observer was accidentally shot during police firearms training Wednesday, according to the Northwestern district attorney’s office.

The district attorney’s office said the observer was accidentally wounded during a scheduled Athol Police Department firearms training session. The victim suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to his upper rear leg area and was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, according to the district attorney’s office.

State police detectives assigned to the district attorney’s office are investigating, with what the district attorney’s office described as full cooperation of the local Police Department. The town will conduct its own internal review, the office said.

In a press release issued Wednesday, the district attorney’s office did not identify the victim or the person who fired the shot.

I don’t like the term “civilian” when distinguishing from cops (I just parroted the article title).  It assumes too much, but aside from that, I hate it when this happens to me.

I remember the last time I shot a LEO who was a range officer that day at the range.  They did an internal review at the range.  No harm, no foul.

Commenting on the bill introduced by Bill Nelson and Patrick Leahy, Emma Gonzalez says this.

This bill is Super (sic) important, with it we will Actually (sic) be able to find the original owner of weapons like we see in Criminal Minds.

“Criminal Minds.”  A TV show, so I’m told.  I don’t watch TV.  This is the level of thought for this generation.  Life is a TV show.

Related: Twitter is so appropriately tailored for this one sentence generation.  I am left wondering how she would do sitting in a hard back chair with a cup of coffee trying to read Francis Turretin’s “Institutes of Elenctic Theology“?