Articles by Herschel Smith

NY Daily News:

The latest city resident to cash in on police misconduct would raise a glass to toast his victory, except he doesn’t drink.

The NYPD found that out the hard way when cops tried to charge Oliver Wiggins with driving while intoxicated to cover up for a police officer who ran a marked SUV through a Brooklyn stop sign and plowed into Wiggins’ car.

Wiggins, 33, received close to $1 million from the city for his troubles, but not before he was arrested and charged with impaired driving, had his driver’s license suspended and was hit with a repair bill for his 2004 Nissan Maxima that his insurance company would not cover because of the DWI bust.

Never mind that a Breathalyzer test he took at the East Flatbush scene on April 19, 2015, showed no alcohol in his blood.

While at the hospital, after the crash at Glenwood Road and E. 43rd St., Wiggins volunteered to have his blood tested for alcohol or drugs at the hospital. That test came back negative. Reports from the EMT and DWI technician each said Wiggins had no signs of intoxication.

That didn’t stop the arresting officer, Justin Joseph, from officially reporting Wiggins had slurred speech, watery eyes, an odor of alcohol on his breath and was observed swaying. Three months later, prosecutors dismissed the charges.

But remember boys and girls, cops are the good guys and they’re there to protect and serve.  Just don’t be in their way or make “furtive” movements around them.

Yahoo:

FBI is refusing to expedite the release of documents about secret meetings that took place between former FBI Director James Comey and former President Obama. Judicial Watch Director of Investigations Chris Farrell says the matter is of public interest.

But remember folks, the FBI wants to be known as the protector of America, the go-to law enforcement of the country, the exemplar of righteousness and all that is good.

Your tax dollars at work.  Hang them all.  The bad people are being protected by the “good” people who won’t hold anyone accountable.  Hemp rope and lamp posts, or oak trees.

NRA:

Even as the nation was grieving the terrible loss of life in Parkland, Fla., gun control activists were doing what they do best: exploiting tragedy to advance their political agenda.  Gun control activists are pushing a message that you are to blame for the criminal violence that took place last month. They’re attempting to capitalize on this tragedy to convince members of Congress to vote for their gun control wish list. 

Proposals to ban the most popular rifles in America, arbitrarily limit magazine capacity, require a waiting period on all firearm sales, and restrict the right of law-abiding young adults to acquire rifles and shotguns have been suggested as “solutions” by those who wish to curtail the rights of law-abiding gun owners. Legislation encompassing these proposals could be voted on in the U.S. Congress in the coming weeks. That’s why it’s imperative that you contact your members of Congress and state lawmakers today and ask them to oppose all gun control schemes that would only impact law-abiding gun owners.

Hey, wasn’t it the NRA who went on record saying that bump stocks should be banned, or at least an NFA item?  Yea, it sure was.

It’s almost like the NRA is stirring up trouble in Congress trying to get them to do things against the wishes of the gun community in order to get the gun community to donate dollars to try to fight what they’ve stirred up.  If you can get it, that’s a sweet gig.

David Codrea:

The latest citizen disarmament plot currently being hatched will raise the minimum age for rifle purchases to 21. While some are specifically calling out semi-automatic rifles, others want it all. Such plans are  gaining traction at the state and federal level by no shortage of Democrat opportunists and “bipartisan” Republican panderers, including Sen. Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump.

An interesting article over at Firearms News notes Audie Murphy would have been deemed “too young” to be trusted with a rifle at the time his legendary heroics earned him recognition as the most decorated combat soldier of WWII.

But wait, the emperor-god Trump wants it, so it must be good, or he must be lying, or he must be playing 4-D chess while everyone else is playing checkers, or something else, it can’t really be that Trump didn’t keep his promises to be pro-gun, can it?

Yea, sign me up for opposition to said stupidity, but you knew that already.

On a different subject entirely, David has a great idea for a new gun law.  I support this one.  Don’t look for it in the bills on the House or Senate web site though.

The Blaze:

“Let me tell you why I’m a defender of the Second Amendment,” she began.

“I was a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the late fifties, early sixties,” she explained. “There was no way that Bull Connor and the Birmingham Police were going to protect you.”

“And so when White Knight Riders would come through our neighborhood,” she said, “my father and his friends would take their guns and they’d go to the head of the neighborhood, it’s a little cul-de-sac and they would fire in the air, if anybody came through.”

“I don’t think they actually ever hit anybody,” she continued. “But they protected the neighborhood. And I’m sure if Bull Connor had known where those guns were he would have rounded them up.”

“And so, I don’t favor some things like gun registration,” she said to a suddenly silent crowd.

“That said, it’s time to have a national conversation about how we can deal with the problems we have. It’s not going to be any single fix to the terrible events at Parkland,” she concluded.

It’s this last part that’s important, but more on that in a minute.  David Codrea links at Washington Times piece saying this.

Bam. That’s it in a nutshell — this is why founders saw fit to put in place a Second Amendment. It wasn’t a right to hunt they were defending; it was a God-given right to protect one’s self and one’s family from harm. And specifically: from harm from the government

And David points out the same thing I’m about to.

“I think it is time to have a conversation about what the right to bear arms means in the modern world,” Rice told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Friday. “I don’t understand why civilians need to have access to military weapons. We wouldn’t say you can go out and buy a tank.”

More specifically, Rice said weapons like the AR-15 rifle that authorities say shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz, 19, used to kill 17 students and teachers Feb. 14, shouldn’t be available to civilians, the Washington Times reported.

I would absolutely say that I should be able to go out and buy a tank with all of the ammunition I could afford to use with it.  So here’s  the bottom line, Ms. Rice.  We have the second amendment to protect us from fake second amendment supporters like you.  My conversation on the RTKBA with you can be neatly summarized as follows: Molon Labe.  That’s about all the conversation I’ll have with you.

You’re what’s called a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Hey, I recall a time when you supported race sensitive admissions.  I’m just saying that you’re not who you’re purported to be.  But you fit in well with Mr. Bush, who was exactly who he was purported to be, having first sought permission from Bob Bullock to run for governor of Texas.

Time:

Dick’s Sporting Goods announced on Wednesday that it would stop selling assault-style rifles in all of its stores, a direct reaction to the February 14 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead.

“When we saw what happened in Parkland, we were so disturbed and upset,” CEO Edward Stack said.

The move leaves just one major retailer standing alone in continuing to sell the semi-automatic assault-style rifles commonly used in mass shootings: Bass Pro Shops, which now includes Cabela’s, a competitor it purchased last year. Bass Pro Shops was named by Forbes as one of America’s largest privately-owned companies. There are a total of over 160 Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shops retail stores in the U.S. and Canada. Both stores also sell high-capacity magazines, which allow shooters to fire a higher number of rounds without needing to reload.

Many large companies have changed their policies around guns lately, as protesters push for tougher regulations. Some have cut ties with the National Rifle Assocation, ending discount programs for NRA members. Dick’s announced that all of its stores would immediately stop selling assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines, and that it would no longer sell any guns whatsoever to customers who are under the age of 21.

While stating that “we support and respect the Second Amendment,” Dick’s also urged Congress to take action and called for a national ban on assault-style firearms, a ban on high-capacity magazines and bump stocks, and a minimum age of 21 for all firearms sales. “Thoughts and prayers aren’t enough,” a Dick’s press release said.

[ … ]

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, has also been scaling back gun sales at its stores. In 2006, Walmart stopped selling guns at roughly one-third of its stores, citing “diminished customer relevancy.” In 2015, all Walmart stores stopped selling semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15, the weapon of choice in mass shootings such as those in Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, and most recently in Parkland, Florida.

Ridiculous.  So someone tell me the last time you were in a Dick’s or Walmart and saw anyone buy a gun?  Anyone?  I didn’t think so.

Gun buyers don’t go to Walmart or Dick’s.  You have to call someone over to the counter just to ask about that ammunition behind the counter that you can’t pick up.  Otherwise, the gun counter is the most unmanned part of the store.  No one is buying anything, save a little ammunition or cleaning supplies from time to time.

Walmart will still continue to struggle competing with Amazon, and Dick’s will continue to sell pansy-ass golf gear and clothes and wonder why they’re struggling compared to Bass Pro Shop and Cabela’s – where you can get literally anything you want.

And nothing else will change.  And time will continue to write breathless, hyperventilating fake news about big wins for the gun control lobby.

Foxnews:

The ever increasing costs of compliance has driven many gunsmiths out of New York and other states southward to more gun friendly states. Remington, in business here since the 19th century, recently relocated to Alabama. Beretta pulled out of Maryland for Tennessee. KAHR Arms moved to Pennsylvania. So far, Fargnoli is resisting.

“I have 11 grandchildren and one on the way. And I can tell you my wife’s not leaving them. So moving the business isn’t going to happen for me,” he said.

Then if you can’t move your entire clan, your business will suffer, possibly in the extreme.  Sorry, but that’s the way the market works.  Buyers reward loyalty, and they punish those who undermine their wellbeing, or even those who work with those who undermine their wellbeing.  Again I say, if you’re a firearms manufacturer, you need to think seriously about moving South like so many others.

The Hill:

“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump said at a meeting with lawmakers on school safety and gun violence.

“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.

No, you didn’t go to sleep and imagine Trump being elected, only to wake and find out that you’re still in the Obama era.  Obama didn’t say that.  Trump did.

Wasn’t this the guy that was going to save the second amendment and root out the deep state, drain the swamp and make America great again?  Or was he just a temporary stop on the way to dystopia, a delay for getting ready for what we all know is coming?

See, the whole idea behind “due process” is that it happens first, not second.  It’s not due process if it happens out of sequence.  But he didn’t think very deeply about this before he said it.  It may be what he believes and feels, but it sounds so stupid that if he thought about it, he wouldn’t have actually said it.

And if he was more of a thinking man, he might have pondered the fact that no progressive is going to vote for him in the next election for being a gun controller, but he might just have alienated the very base that put him in office to begin with.  But remember his words during the debates: “Everything is negotiable.”  That apparently includes your  God-given rights.

You don’t have enough ammunition yet.  Neither do I.

WGNTV:

OSWEGO, Ill. — A man armed with an AR-15 rifle helped stop a knife attack during an argument in Oswego.

It happened on Monday at an apartment building on Harbor Drive.

Police say it all began when someone with a knife attacked another person during an argument.

Neighbor Dave Thomas, who witnessed the attack, went into his home, got his rifle and ordered the suspect to stop.

“I ran back into the home, into my house and grabbed my AR-15. Grabbed the AR-15 over my handgun. It’s just a bigger gun. I think a little bit more than an intimidation factor definitely played a part in him actually stopping.”

No shots were fired.

The suspect was able to get away briefly, before police captured him.

The stabbing victim was taken to a hospital, and is expected to recover.

Wait!  I thought AR-15s were evil and only did bad things of their own volition, or turned good guys into bad guys who perpetrate mass shootings by their bad vibes and mind-control?

Guess this story breaks that narrative (as if it hasn’t been broken a thousand times before), sort of like the one about Stephen Bayazes.

Matt Vespa reports:

UPDATE: Folks, I’ll just leave this here. It’s from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) linking to a Rolling Stone article, so you already know where this is going.

“A handgun wound is simply a stabbing with a bullet.”

What is this?

“A handgun [wound] is simply a stabbing with a bullet. It goes in like a nail.” With the high-velocity rounds of the AR-15, “it’s as if you shot somebody with a Coke can.” https://t.co/xkyw3pEtjn #BanAssaultWeapons

— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) February 26, 2018

MSNBC anchors are claiming that teachers armed with handguns would be unable to stop a school shooter because rifles shoot “three times faster.”

Anchor Lawrence O’Donnell said on his show Thursday night that “a bullet fired from an AR-15 travels 3x faster than one from a handgun…and yet the president and the NRA think giving teachers guns will stop a school shooter.”

Welcome to the stupidest argument ever crafted, dear friends.  A teacher doesn’t have a rifle, so let’s not allow them to carry handguns because they cannot produce the muzzle velocity of a rifle.  Quick.  Somebody go delete all of those ballistics gelatin tests at Lucky Gunner.

Forget all of the hundreds of thousands of instances of defensive use of handguns.  They’re not effective, so there.  It’s okay if cops have them, but you shouldn’t.  I’m reminded of a comment by reader millard fillmore:

At the end of WWII, a German prisoner who knew English quite well asked my father if he could just see a .45 acp cartridge. He asked why they exploded when they hit. My father explained that they didn’t. The guy then showed him a large exit wound on his leg from a .45 slug the German took during the retreat from Paris. Even pistol bullets can cause significant damage if they hit the ‘right’ way. Banning Ar-15’s won’t stop that,doc.

I also had an imaginary phone call with John Basilone, who says to tell these idiots the following: “Come back in time with me to the greatest and most storied gun fight in history, go through it with me, and then tell me I shouldn’t have my 1911.  Until then, just shut up.”