Articles by Herschel Smith

I stumbled across this today and, while a little dated, I thought it might be worthwhile watching.  The bubble-headed beach blond is Evy Poumpouras, and she tells us that with semi-automatic weapons “you can switch it to a point where it fires “pop pop pop pop …”

But that’s not the only valuable thing we learn from Evy.  We learn that in an active shooter situation, we need to find a fire hydrant and make ourselves “teeny tiny.”

See, I guess we need to add to that DHS advice to run, hide and fight by throwing potted plants.  Find a fire hydrant.

NBC News:

Three parents whose children were killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting have filed defamation lawsuits against Alex Jones, the controversial conspiracy theorist and Infowars host who has falsely claimed the 2012 massacre was faked.

The two lawsuits were filed on Monday afternoon by Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, the parents of 6-year-old Noah Pozner, and by Neil Heslin, the father of 6-year-old Jesse Heslin.

“The statements were a continuation and elaboration of a years-long campaign to falsely attack the honesty of the Sandy Hook parents, casting them as participants in a ghastly conspiracy and cover-up,” the plaintiffs said in their suits.

Jones has repeatedly questioned whether 20 children and six adults were gunned down in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012, deriding the shooting as a “hoax” concocted to chip away at Second Amendment rights. The gunman, Adam Lanza, killed himself as police arrived at the school, but a clear motive for the rampage has never been identified.

In a broadcast last year called “Sandy Hook Vampires Exposed,” Jones suggested a CNN interview with De La Rosa was faked — a claim that her lawsuit blasts as a “sick lie.”

Hey, why does Alex Jones get all the credit and attention?  So let me say this one more time, as if a dozen isn’t enough.

Sandy Hook was a hoax, fraud and fake perpetrated on the American people concocted to chip away at gun rights and liberties in America.

If you dispute what I’m saying, show me the autopsy reports by a licensed medical examiner.  Show them to me now, please.  Not later, now.

I would link the YouTube video on the Sandy Hook hoax again, but as you might have expected, Google has taken it down for “violating the terms of service.”  In other words, they didn’t like what the authors had to say.

Because Google.

Military.com:

A senior Marine Corps official confirmed today that the service is lockstep with the Army’s effort to search for a rifle round more potent than the current 5.56mm round.

For months, senior Army officials have been telling Congress that the current 5.56mm Enhanced Performance Round is not potent enough to penetrate enemy body armor plates similar to U.S. military-issue rifle plates such as the Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert, or ESAPI.

As a solution, the Army is experimenting with a plan to replace its M249 squad automatic weapon and M4 carbine with futuristic weapons that fire a 6.5mm case-telescoped round or something that falls between a 5.56mm and a 7.62mm round.

The Marine Corps, which recently decided to buy more M27 5.56mm Infantry Automatic Rifles, has not publically echoed the Army’s concern with 5.56mm until now.

“We are working the Army; we have looked at the 6.5mm Creedmoor with the Army and [Special Operations Command],” Brig. Gen. Joseph Shrader, commander of Marine Corps Systems Command, told Military.com at the annual Sea-Air-Space exposition Wednesday.

“We are lockstep with them looking at a new round.”

Shrader, however, said he did not know if the effort would mean a new infantry weapon for the Marine Corps.

I doubt it will happen given that the U.S. is bankrupt and is having to spend your children’s children’s children’s future inheritance just to pay for entitlements today.

I also wonder if they’ve sufficiently taught them all to aim for heads and hips.  Heads and hips, boys.  Furthermore, this isn’t a new issue and what we have seems to suffice well enough today (although I understand that most of the combat hasn’t been against a so-called near peer actor).

Still, it makes sense to listen to what’s going on.  You do have plans to procure an AR-10 or at least have a bolt action rifle sitting in the gun safe capable of shooting something bigger than a 5.56mm, right?  That’s what I thought.

But remember the first rule of gun club.  Never talk about gun club, and when in doubt, refer back to the first rule.

Breitbart:

The huge number of crimes committed with the deadly, sword-like weapons means there is an average of 15 a day in the UK, or one every 90 minutes.

Figures uncovered using freedom of information requests by the Daily Mail show that police dealt with 928 crimes involving machetes in the last two months of 2017.

London saw the bulk, with 425 of the attacks. There were 99 in Greater Manchester, 77 in the West Midlands, and 29 each in Merseyside and West Yorkshire.

Just three years earlier, the deadly blades were used in 100 crimes a month over the same period.

As violent crime surges across the country, and even faster in London, the long blades, designed for chopping undergrowth, appear to be a weapon of choice for criminals in the UK, which is governed by strict gun-control laws.

It’s happened with Hispanic gangs in Chicago too.  It isn’t a fair fight no matter how you slice this up (pardon the very bad pun).  That’s why we carry guns.  I want the edge.  If I don’t carry, I give him the edge.

David Codrea:

The way things are going in favor of the antis while “Republicans” are nominally in control does not look good. If Democrats sweep the midterms and then manage to impeach Donald Trump, expect them to go full bore, from “universal background checks” to “assault weapon” bans and more. Don’t think for a moment because fault has been found here with Republican disappointments that the other side of the aisle represents anything other than utter disaster for legal recognition of the right to keep and bear arms.

Oh, I don’t even think it’ll be necessary for them to impeach Trump.  I think he is in fact a lame duck president as I write this.  He doesn’t have the backing of Congress to do anything of significance, and even if he did, given his predilection to gun control, I’m afraid of what might happen.  A democratic Congress would seal the deal, and given the inactivity from the White House in the event of a democratic Congress and the unreliability of North Carolina and Florida, I suspect as I’ve said before, we have a little less than two years to get where we want to be.

Where we want to be doesn’t include the legality of bump stocks, repealing the Hughes amendment, removing suppressors and SBRs from the NFA items list, or national reciprocity.  I’m talking individually.  You understand that.

So I went to a local gun show today, mostly looking for magazines and the availability and price of certain ammunition, but I was also surveying prices for all manner of guns.  I offer up a number of observations in no particular order.

For pistols, sellers still focus their stock in the cheap, plastic, striker-fired guns with crunchy, crappy triggers.  Good, high quality 1911s are just not carried by the folks looking to push large quantities of inventory (and rely on quantity rather than quality and larger markups for their profits).  And yes, I consider most if not all polymer handguns cheap plastic guns (with the exception of FN because their .45 tactical is a hammer gun and the FN 5.7 is an internal hammer gun).

The prices of rack (budget) ARs have not changed in months, or even years.  The prices aren’t going to get lower.  The prices of higher end ARs have not changed in months, or even years.  I suspect the prices aren’t going to get lower.  If anything, I expect the prices of the higher end ARs (Daniel Defense, Rock River Arms, FN, etc.) to creep slightly higher over the next few months, and then take off within a year or a little longer.

Good chassis bolt action guns are expensive, many as expensive as ARs.

There was plenty of ammunition for sale if you were looking for 55 gr. 5.56 mm / .223, .308, .45, 9 mm or the standard soft point hunting rounds.  Everything else is an esoteric round to them and few dealers had much else.  For more out-of-the-ordinary rounds like 77-gr. 5.56 mm, 5.7X28, .45 SMC (which I was looking for, finding none at all), and even some run-of-the-mill PD pistol rounds for 9 mm and .45 that you can get at Gander Outdoors, Cabela’s, or Bass Pro Shop, you may have to rely on mail order if you don’t want to pay a visit to aforementioned large stores.  Shipping ammunition is expensive because of the weight.  When you drive near the aforementioned large stores, always consider buying ammunition because you don’t know when you’ll be back if you don’t live near one.

Overall, there were about a third less tables than usual, and the crowd was thinner than usual.  It all felt rather bleak and depressing.  My assessment: the gun owning public is asleep at the wheel.  Give this until after the mid-term elections and it will all turn around, and it will peak at a frenzy as we near the presidential election.  The GOP shouldn’t expect to carry Florida and North Carolina again.

Get what you need while you can.

News from Vancouver:

A Chilliwack couple is taking the law into their own hands by shooting paintballs at the thieves who repeatedly rob them.

It’s a desperate tactic that police say could be illegal in most circumstances — but Rob and Nicole Iezzi say they’ve already tried everything else.

“This is a constant problem. It’s an escalating problem in our town,” said Nicole.

The couple say they are not taking this step lightly, saying they have been robbed of iPods, hand tools, Leathermans, and attachments for their truck, at a cost of thousands. One friend’s purse was also stolen from their truck in their driveway, resulting in identity theft.

The thieves have hurt them too, pepper-spraying Nicole in her doorway in a bid to steal her cellphone, and clubbing their Rottweiler to death in the yard when it challenged them.

They tried calling the police, putting up security cameras, improving their fences, and put in better locks but the thieves keep coming back.

So that’s when they decided to fight back — with a paintball gun.

Videos the couple has posted online show them rushing out to challenge thieves, firing paint at them as the thieves scurry away on their bicycles. Even Nicole has fired at one, shooting as he left on the street.

“He came this way and I just pop, pop, pop,” she said.

The couple said they take no pleasure in firing at thieves — just hoping to send the message that their property is not to be trifled with. It was only after some deliberation that Rob, who has a firearms license, decided on paintballs.

“I didn’t want to shoot him with a pellet gun, because you’re going to make him bleed. With a paintball, it’s like getting punched. I didn’t want to punch him, so a paintball seemed like the logical thing,” he said.

It also doesn’t go through walls and won’t hurt a neighbour, he said.

But Chilliwack RCMP are warning that vigilante justice could be dangerous and illegal.

“We understand that people are frustrated,” said Const. Tracey Wolbeck.

Shooting paintballs could escalate a nonviolent property offense into a violent crime, Wplbeck said, and the thief could react, putting the property owner in danger.

On top of that, attacking someone with a paintball could be considered an assault, potentially resulting in charges.

“In extreme cases we could see assault with a weapon,” Wolbeck said.

The cops are doing what cops always do.  I just think it’s too bad they didn’t use real guns and kill the perpetrators.

If weapons control is inherently wicked, and I believe it is, it is wicked in the superlative to require peaceable men and women to sit defenseless and allow themselves to be abused by savages while the state prefers criminals over productive, law-abiding citizens.

The government who would do this is a worker of evil and should be overthrown and the government workers hanged for cosmic treason against God’s Holy law.

Via David Codrea, this from Stamboulieh Law.

A few days ago (yes, days), I submitted a FOIA to ATF and FBI regarding bumpstocks and the Las Vegas shooting.  Today I received a CD with 777 pages of information, which you can review at the following links:

Volume 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

Volume 4

What shouldn’t even need to be said is that I haven’t had time to slog and crawl through all of this information.  A little reader assistance would be nice.

No, I’m not talking about the kind who wants to see everyone follow the rules of gun safety, as well as specific range rules.  I’m talking about this kind.

The guy wasn’t overly aggressive but before I even got all gear out he spotted my AR pistol with a KAK brace. he came right over and said “i don’t want to see that touch your shoulder, if you don’t like it you can leave” . The range was packed so I thought it rather funny how fast he zeroed in on my evil pistol that should not be owned by plebs like myself.

He then proceeds with an ignorant quip about it being a federal offense to not have the proper paperwork blah blah. I didnt argue I just smiled and said “ok”. I fired off a few from a cheekweld so he could get his powertrip ego stroked which worked and he left me alone. Seems like these types of people are all the same and predictable.

As soon as my yearly pass is over I will be taking my money elsewhere maybe a less fuddworthy range nearby. Just kind of astounds me that someone who spends as much time around firearms is ignorant of the law.

What a dick.  I hope they go out of business.

The Washington Times:

Reversing the usual script, Democrats praised one of President Trump’s federal appeals court nominees Wednesday while Republicans brought the tough questions for Mark Jeremy Bennett over his defense of gun control laws and free speech rights.

Mr. Bennett, a former Hawaii attorney general now nominated to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, had backed a limited interpretation of Second Amendment rights that was overturned by the Supreme Court.

Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, also questioned Mr. Bennett over opposition to Citizens United, the Supreme Court case that overturned campaign finance restrictions and helped pave the way for the current system.

“You took positions, taking a very narrow view of what the First Amendment protects,” Mr. Cruz told him during a confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Usually it’s Democrats who fire the tough questions at Mr. Trump’s judicial picks, but Mr. Bennett won praise from them.

[ … ]

The Alliance for Justice, which has led the fight against Trump judicial nominees, said Mr. Bennett is an exception, and they won’t oppose him.

David Codrea makes the following remarks.

Just being a highly-placed Hawaiian political nominee ought to raise red flags. The state is a “leader” in citizen disarmament. If they ever do have another real catastrophe there, most citizens are going to find out how badly those who have been defrauding them of their birthrights have screwed them.

Add to that the fact that the Ninth Circuit, widely recognized as one of the most “progressive” (read “anti-gun”) courts, recently lost the one sane voice it had on the Second Amendment with the #MeToo-pressured resignation of Judge Alex Kozinski.

Obama gave us Fast & Furious, a number of very bad judges, and a lot of anti-gun rhetoric.  In a short tenure thus far Trump has given us a good justice on the Supreme Court, a bump stock ban, and new funding for the CDC to pump out anti-gun propaganda.

Ignoring words and focusing on actions, if the two presidents were in a contest to see who had done the most damage to observation of our gun rights, I’d be hard pressed to pick a winner.

There are some who might claim that being the 3D chess player Trump is, he is baiting the Senate, who didn’t oppose the bump stock ban, and some of whom will face reelection soon, to turn this nominee away and thus burnish their second amendment credentials before the election.

This view suffers from two fatal errors.  First, Trump himself will face reelection in the coming several years, and will need the support as badly or worse than the Senators he allegedly is trying to help.  Some of the gun owning public will remember this nomination.

Second, there is always the chance (and it may in fact be the highest probability) that the Senate won’t turn this nominee away and we end up with yet another totalitarian at the appeals level.

The contrary view is more likely.  This is who Trump is.  He is supposedly a supporter of the second amendment because he had enough money to pay lawyers to get him a concealed handgun permit, and because he sat for an interview with Field & Stream where he showed a predilection towards Fudds.

I wish I could say that seldom has the bar been so low for gun owners to lend their support to a candidate.  But that would be a lie.  The only historic limitation on gun owners whoring themselves out has been the availability of opportunities to do so.