Articles by Herschel Smith

Motherless Jones:

I’m not generally on the gun control beat, but I’ll repeat my view for the record: semi-automatic weapons should be banned for civilian use. Basically, shotguns, revolvers, and bolt-action rifles would remain legal, and that’s it.

The last time I mentioned this, a bunch of gun folks chimed in to claim I was an idiot. Revolvers are semi-automatic weapons! Ha ha ha. Being the reasonable guy that I am, I was willing to consider them manual load weapons, since it takes human power to advance the cylinder. A true semi-automatic uses the power of expanding gas¹ to chamber a new load. However, if the gun folks consider a double-action revolver to be a semi-automatic, who am I to argue? That just means my list has been revised to include shotguns, single-action revolvers, and bolt action rifles.² In other words, the only legal firearms would be those that require a separate human action to load a new round. There are other details I’d support too, but this is the main thing.

If I were your benevolent dictator, this is what would would happen. But I’m not, and nothing like this will happen in my lifetime. This is why I don’t spend much time writing about guns.

Oh, I don’t know about that, Kevin.  We’ve got evidence of you being on the gun control beat before.  I think you’re a liar.  I also think you’re a coward.  I told you then, “So Kevin, I expect you to kick my door in tonight to grab my guns.  Oh, I see, you’re a coward and won’t show up here.  Just as I guessed, you want to send other armed men to do it.  This only proves that you don’t really believe in gun control for everybody, just some people.”

I won’t argue the mechanics of guns with you Kevin, you wouldn’t be able to hang with me anyway.  In fact, I won’t argue at all or compromise in any way.  I’ll say the same thing as before.  If you want my guns, come and get them.  I’ll be waiting for you.  I Promise.  And if you want gun control only for some people, to wit, me but not the police, then I’ll be waiting for the police when they come to confiscate my guns too.  It makes no difference to me who tries to confiscate them.  You’re all the same to me.

Kevin wants civil war.  If he gets his way, that’s exactly what will happen.  That’s a promise.

Miami Herald:

Broward Deputy Scot Peterson says he is no coward.

The longtime campus cop at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High has been nationally ridiculed over the last week for his response to a mass shooter on campus — including by no less than President Donald Trump, who on Monday proclaimed that he likely would have charged in himself, even unarmed.

On Monday, Peterson pushed back against the critics in his first public statement, essentially arguing he did the right things in an uncertain, chaotic situation. “Allegations that Mr. Peterson was a coward and that his performance, under the circumstances, failed to meet the standards of police officers are patently untrue,” according to the statement sent from Fort Lauderdale attorney Joseph DiRuzzo.

Last week, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel took the extraordinary step of singling out Peterson for failing to engage with confessed killer Nikolas Cruz as he gunned down 17 people — an accusation that has turned the one-time school resource officer of the year into a political scapegoat for a string of local and federal law enforcement errors revolving around Cruz.

Peterson said he did not storm the halls looking for the shooter because he initially “heard gunshots but believed those gunshots were originating from outside of the buildings on the school campus,” according to the statement. “BSO trains its officers that in the event of outdoor gunfire one is to seek cover and assess the situation in order to communicate what one observes with other law enforcement.”

He “took up a tactical position” between two other buildings next to Building 12, where Cruz spent six minutes unleashing gunfire with an AR-15 assault-style rifle.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  A “tactical position.”  Except I don’t believe him.  I can hear gun fire outside, and I can hear it coming from a building, and I have never mistaken the two.

I told you guys, the deputies were following department procedure.  It isn’t procedure to put their own lives at risk.  It’s procedure to wait until help arrives, hopefully a SWAT team and dogs, and then take a building room by room according to clearing procedures.

I’ve done that too, i.e., take a building room by room before I was going to enter it, the building being a home in a bad part of town (my mother-in-law’s home), and having been vacant for weeks at a time, with me preparing to go inside and work all night long to repair and sell it.  And the home had evidence of having been entered while I wasn’t there.

But this isn’t that.  This is a school full of children, and if you had been there you would have done the same thing I would have.  We would have entered the building and hunted the shooter.  The police will always protect themselves first and foremost – by procedure.  By intent.  Got it?

Miami Herald:

A discussion among students at Oberlin High School in Oberlin, La., about a mathematical symbol led to a police investigation and a search of one of the student’s homes, according to the Allen Parish Sheriff’s Office.

On the afternoon of Feb. 20, detectives investigated a report of terroristic threats at the school, where they learned that a student had been completing a math problem that required drawing the square-root sign.

Students in the group began commenting that the symbol, which represents a number that when multiplied by itself equals another number, looked like a gun.

After several students made comments along those lines, another student said something the sheriff’s office said could have sounded like a threat out of context.

Police searched the student’s home, where they found no guns or any evidence that he had any access to guns. Authorities also wrote there was no evidence the student had any intent to commit harm.

“The student used extremely poor judgment in making the comment, but in light of the actual circumstances, there was clearly no evidence to support criminal charges,” the department wrote, adding that the school board had been contacted to determine any disciplinary action for the student.

The square root sign.  The thing I showed above without the radicand.  That’s what looks like a gun to someone.  And that’s what evoked the call to the cops.  And that’s why the cops wasted their time investigating something and someone that didn’t need to be investigated.

The best part is this: “Students in the group began commenting that the symbol, which represents a number that when multiplied by itself equals another number, looked like a gun.”

This is awesome, and is exemplary when it comes to an explanation as to why American schools suck so badly and why we’re lagging the rest of the civilized world when it comes to STEM.  We’re apparently grooming students to think a radical looks like a gun instead of, you know, a radical.  Maybe they’re not doing enough mathematics, huh?

If I was the math teacher at the school I’d make them do radicals until they turned blue and rotted.  And if I was the principal of the school I’d support that teacher and ensure that whomever said that a radical looked like a gun was held back a year and taught remedial mathematics.

But they won’t.  The students will be sent on to the next grade to be idiots there too.  This is one reason I homeschooled (at least some of my children).  I’ve told you about my horrible experience with the nuclear engineering project with my High Schooler, yes?

That’s the title of the article.  Don’t blame me.

“I grew up in a town where two-thirds of the people who came to school drove trucks and had hunting rifles and hunting shotguns in their gunracks in their trucks,” said Jones, who was born in Deland, Fla., about an hour north of the Braves’ spring training complex, and attended high school in nearby Pierson and then Jacksonville. “But never at any point did anyone ever pull one out and say, ‘I’m going to kill somebody.’ Whenever there was a disagreement, we threw knuckles. We’d meet after school and fight. That’s just the way it was.”

[ … ]

“I believe in our Constitutional right to bear arms and protect ourselves,” Jones said. “But I do not believe there is any need for civilians to own assault rifles. I just don’t.

“I would like to see something (new legislation) happen. I liken it to drugs – you’re not going to get rid of all the guns. But AR-15s and AK-47s and all this kind of stuff – they belong in the hands of soldiers. Those belong in the hands of people who know how to operate them, and whose lives depend on them operating them. Not with civilians. I have no problem with hunting rifles and shotguns and pistols and what-not. But I’m totally against civilians having those kinds of automatic and semi-automatic weapons.”

So the write apparently thinks it helps his case that Chipper Jones is a baseball hero or an “avid hunter.”  Chipper decries “assault weapons,” AR-15s, AK-47s, semi-automatic weapons, and anything that’s not “what-not.”

It apparently didn’t occur to the author that Chipper Jones is an idiot.  He began explaining that guns were ubiquitous when he was growing up and that no one would have even thought about a school shooting.  Good.  He is on to something there.  He could have explained what has changed and why this kind of thing occurs today when it didn’t not so long ago.

But he didn’t.  His setup was badly off script and pointed to something other than the ubiquitous availability of guns and into morals, culture, and [heaven forbid] perhaps even whether the nation worships at the foot of Baal or God.  So he would have been better off just to shut up about what happened when he was a kid.  Too many people remember that the same way, and are able to see that it has nothing to do with guns.

Or what-not.  Idiot.  Go back to school and learn English composition.  Oh, and by the way, Charles Whitman says hello, Chipper.

David Codrea:

I guess it’s no surprise to see NRO offering a sop, as if that will satisfy those who’ve made it clear they want it all. National Review founder William F. Buckley didn’t really get the “shall not be infringed” thing either, on either prior restraints or on militia-suitable arms. And sorry, but David French’s is not a “conservative” voice I want representing gun owner interests if the extent of his judgment is to throw the circling pack of Democrat jackals a scrap of flesh. Nor is Ben Shapiro’s.

I don’t want any of those people representing me either on any subject.  I’ve learned immediately to dismiss anything David French says or writes.  I don’t even open the article.  Hey, speaking of compromise, I was at Sebastian’s place the other day and saw this.

So what do you do? Call on ATF to undertake rule making, where you can control the process under a friendly administration, and make sure whatever comes out is narrowly worded. Also, since it’s regulation, rather than law, it’s much easier to change.

So that was the choice: a bump stock ban that swept in a lot other ordinary and legal activity, and a bump stock ban that was just a bump stock ban, and was regulation rather than law. There are no other options. Don’t like that? Then you’re left replacing many of the squishy Republicans. But you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone running for office in this country willing to stand up and shout, “Yay for machine guns,” let alone win on it. And if you challenge all the squishy Republicans and lose? You’re done. Finished. Bump stocks ain’t a hill I’m dying on, and trust me, it is a hill you’ll die on.

It was initially difficult to tell whether Sebastian was being cynical and sarcastic with the first paragraph or serious.  Upon second (and third) reading, I think he’s actually being serious.  He believes we can “control the process” as long as we tell the ATF we want them to infringe our rights.  Also, we can get it changed later.

Right.  Myth-making and fairy tales.

News from Des Moines:

A 16-year-old boy says his dog made all the difference when armed intruders busted into his house on Wednesday. It happened just after noon, in the 1400 block of South 234th Street in Des Moines.

Javier Mercado was home alone with his German Shepherd, Rex. He gives his loyal companion all the credit for saving his life.

“I feel like if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today telling you this story,” said Mercado.

He says around noon, he heard a noise and looked out a window. He saw a car he did not recognize.

“I heard the sliding door break, and it is made out of just glass so it shattered really loud,” said Mercado. “My dog ran downstairs, and it just started barking and barking. I heard one guy scream, ‘the dog bit me, get the dog.'”

Javier grabbed his cell phone, hid in a closet, and called 911.

“I could hear my dog, like, really close to me in the bathroom with me, just barking. And the man comes upstairs,” said Mercado. “I heard one gunshot and several after that, and my dog just cried after every shot that hit him.”

He wanted to rush to Rex’s side, but the dispatcher told him not to.

“I thought he was dead for sure. I broke down,” said Mercado.

By the time police officers arrived, the intruders were gone. Mercado spent nearly an hour hiding in a closet before it was safe to come out.

Then he received a call telling him Rex was still alive. His dog had been taken to BluePearl, an emergency pet hospital, in Renton. Rex had gunshot wounds in his neck and hind legs that required surgery.

For Mercado, the relief that his dog even survived was followed by the reality that his family does not have the money to pay for Rex’s medical bills.

“I was worried, my parents were worried. My dad said he was going to start working every Saturday, saving up,” said Mercado.

But in a short amount of time family, friends and the community have come through with a fundraiser for Rex. A GoFundMe page was started, and already thousands of dollars have been raised.

Mercado is so grateful. All of his focus right now is on his German Shepherd.

“That he just pulls through everything and comes home,” said Mercado.

That’s his hope for Rex, now hailed the “Hero Dog.”

I have a very big, very soft spot in my heart for dogs.  The first time I read this article my initial thought was, “Let me tell you something boy, don’t you ever hide in a closet while a faithful dog takes the fall for you.  I’ll step in front of my dog to keep her from being shot.  You’d better go get yourself a gun right now.”

But then I re-read the article, and he is a teen.  He can’t have a gun.  The dog is a hero.  Dogs are faithful.  Got dogs?

Heather Sher runs it down for us.

I have seen a handful of AR-15 injuries in my career. I saw one from a man shot in the back by a SWAT team years ago. The injury along the path of the bullet from an AR-15 is vastly different from a low-velocity handgun injury. The bullet from an AR-15 passes through the body like a cigarette boat travelling at maximum speed through a tiny canal. The tissue next to the bullet is elastic—moving away from the bullet like waves of water displaced by the boat—and then returns and settles back. This process is called cavitation; it leaves the displaced tissue damaged or killed. The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends several inches from its path. It does not have to actually hit an artery to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. Exit wounds can be the size of an orange.

Hmm … cigarette boat.  I appreciate the medical terminology, Heather.  So let’s see.  Rifle shots do more damage than pistol shots because of muzzle velocity, whether fired from an AR-15 or a .243 or .270 bolt action deer rifle, because of hydrostatic shock and cavitation.

Who knew?  And to think, all she had to do was get a medical degree to figure this out.  Not even deer and hog hunters knew all of this stuff.  If they had know that kind of information I’m sure they would have left all their pistols in the gun safe and switched to rifles by now.

Wow.  Thanks Heather.  We’re all richer for your teaching us about that.

ABC:

Broward County sheriff’s deputies will now carry AR-15 rifles while on school campuses following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last week, Sheriff Scott Israel announced today.

The new policy was implemented Wednesday morning. In lieu of gun lockers, the only time deputies will not be “slinging a rifle” is when the firearm is locked in police vehicles, Israel said.

The rifles will not be fully automatic and will only be handled by deputies who are “trained and qualified” to operate them.

Trained and qualified.  So that they can cuddle with their rifles as they run outside and hide behind cars until the shooting is over.

Darrell:

As a former police officer I find you statement about police officers to be filled with ignorance and the same hatred and malice intent that the democrats have been spewing forth for years. 98 percent of officers would not react like this yet you paint them all with a broad brush and just like the racist black lives matter you presume they are all the same. Then again you may just be a russian troll.

A hit dog always hollers.

NYT has the story.  WRSA is also on it.  PJM is also on it (via reader TK).  Instapundit is also on it here and here.

So what’s the big deal?  I see no problem here.  This might be what it takes to disavow Americans of the ridiculous notion that the cops are there to protect them.

Castle Rock versus Gonzales and Warren versus the District of Columbia make it very clear that this simply isn’t true.

Got guns?  Willing to use them?  Know how?  Got enough ammunition?

I am and I do – except for the last part.