Articles by Herschel Smith

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.

It happened in Independence, Missouri when a man saved his wife, daughter and thirty other people from a potential shooting, where the hero dropped his weapon, raised his hands, and the police promptly shot him after saving those people.  Now it’s happened with another potential mass shooting in Texas.

As news of the tragic shooting in Parkland, Florida dominated the airwaves this week, a massive hostage situation—which was quickly turning into a mass shooting situation—was foiled by a hero in a church. That hero, however, is now in the hospital after police showed up to the scene and shot him.

The situation was well on its way to becoming one of the deadliest shootings in history as the gunman took over 100 people hostage inside the Faith City Mission church on Wednesday.

“They said there was a gun in the building everyone started running all different ways,” said Clay Murdock, a student at Faith City Mission.

According to WLOX, Murdock said he tried to get as many people inside their sound room as possible.

“We’re standing in there and everyone starts praying,” said Murdock. “I went outside to see what was going on if I could get more people in there and right when as I went outside the guy was standing right in front of me with the pistol.”

Murdock then ran outside.

According to the Amarillo police, the initial call came in around 8:45 a.m. and indicated that there was an armed suspect inside who was holding 100 people hostage.

Sergeant Brent Barbee told reporters that when officers breached the building, they encountered an individual who had a handgun.

“The officers fired shots that struck the man,” said Barbee. “After some additional investigation, they’ve learned that the man that [had] the gun may have taken the firearm away from the original suspect in the call. The man who originally had the gun has been taken into custody.”

Later that day, police clarified that they indeed shot the wrong man.

As I’ve said, stay away from the police.  It’s best not to involve them in anything, ever.  They are the most dangerous people on the roads, in the neighborhoods or anywhere else.  At least with criminals you know what you’ve got, what to expect and how to respond.

With the police, you know they’re going to overreact, ignore their backstop, and put their own safety above that of everyone else.  But if you react to the police in a manner you need in order to protect yourself and your loved ones and neighbors, the courts will hang you.  You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.  Only the police are safe when they invoke their procedures.  That’s by design.

David Codrea:

“If all the sudden you couldn’t buy an AR-15, what would you lose?” Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich asked on CNN, talking about new citizen disarmament edicts he’d favor in the wake of the Stoneman atrocities. “Would you feel your Second Amendment rights would be eroded because you couldn’t buy a God-darned AR-15?”

No Johnny, I wouldn’t feel that my rights to gun ownership – that is, any kind of gun I damn well pleased to own – eroded at all, since they don’t come from you, your opinions, or a piece of parchment.

Yes Johnny, the second amendment would have been infringed even more than it has been, and it is a covenant between the government and the people.  That infringement will have eroded the peace and stability of the nation.  That is what will have changed.  You can count on it.

NYT:

For the past year, chief executives have often talked about the new sense of moral responsibility that corporations have to help their communities and confront social challenges even when Washington won’t.

In the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 students and staff members — and at a time when Washington shows little interest in limiting the sales of assault weapons — there’s a real opportunity for the business community to fill the void and prove that all that talk about moral responsibility isn’t hollow.

Here’s an idea.

What if the finance industry — credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express; credit card processors like First Data; and banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — were to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America?

Collectively, they have more leverage over the gun industry than any lawmaker. And it wouldn’t be hard for them to take a stand.

PayPal, Square, Stripe and Apple Pay announced years ago that they would not allow their services to be used for the sale of firearms.

“We do not believe permitting the sale of firearms on our platform is consistent with our values or in the best interests of our customers,” a spokesman for Square told me.

The big financial firms don’t even have to go that far.

For example, Visa, which published a 71-page paper in 2016 espousing its “corporate responsibility,” could easily change its terms of service to say that it won’t do business with retailers that sell assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and bump stocks, which make semiautomatic rifles fire faster. (Even the National Rifle Association has said it would support tighter restrictions on bump stocks.)

The purpose, of course, being not only choking the financial flow of firearms sales, but trying to shame gun owners, just like laws against open carry are an attempt to shame gun owners.

From reader Jack, this is by Dean Weingarten, who writes some of the best stuff on the web.

On the Internet, and in print, many people claim that pistols lack efficacy in defending against bear attacks. Here is an example that occurred on freerepublic.com:

“Actually, there are legions of people who have been badly mauled after using a handgun on a bear. Even some of the vaunted magnums.”

OK, give us a few examples. As you claim “legions”, it should not be too hard.

I never received a response.

[ … ]

I engaged in a search for instances where  pistols were used to defend against bears.  I and my associates have found 37 instances that are fairly easily confirmed. The earliest happened in 1987, the latest mere months ago. The incidents are heavily weighted toward the present, as the ability to publish and search for these incidents has increased, along with increases in bear and human populations, and the carry of pistols.

The 37 cases include one that can fairly be described as a “failure”.

The pistol calibers, when known,  range from 9 mm to .454 Casull. The most common are .44 magnums.  Here are the cases, sorted by caliber …

To summarize, we have found 37 verified cases where pistols were used to defend against bear attacks. Included, for complete data reporting, are two cases where bears were shot at with both rifles and pistols, making it difficult to determine the efficacy of pistols alone.

Of the 35 strictly pistol defense cases, one was a clear failure. That is the use of the .357 against an Alaskan grizzly by a geologist on 20 June, 2010. It is likely the bear was not hit in that incident.

There are four successful defenses with 9 mm pistols. The three grizzly bears were killed, the black bear was wounded and ran off.

Two of the three uses of the .357 were successful. One was against a grizzly that was stopped with one shot, but then escaped. The other grizzly was killed with six shots fired.

There were three uses of .40 caliber pistols, all against black bears, all successful, all of the bears were killed.

There was one use of a 10 mm pistol against a grizzly. 4 or 5 shots were fired.  It was successful and the bear was killed.

There were two uses of .41 magnum revolvers. Both were against grizzly bears, both were successful and the bears were killed.

There were twelve uses of .44 magnum revolvers. All were successful. One was against a black bear, it was mortally wounded but finished off with shotgun slugs. Eleven were against grizzly bears.  Two were driven of with “warning shots”. One was driven off, without evidence of being wounded.  One was wounded and not recovered.  One was wounded and finished off at the scene with a shotgun slug. Six were killed without further assistance.

There were four uses of .45 caliber pistols against bears. All were successful. One was against a black bear, which was killed with additional shots, probably from another handgun. The other three were grizzly bears killed with multiple hits from the .45 caliber pistols.

There was one use of a .45 Super pistol. It was successful. The grizzly bear was killed with one shot.

I covered on of these incidents, the first such incident with a .45 ACP or any handgun at all after carry was legalized in national parks.

You can read the incisive and detailed analysis by Dean for yourself.  I recommend that you do.  Most pistols were effective, especially .44 magnum and .45 ACP (and if you’re shooting 45 SCM in your .45 ACP handgun, you’re approaching .44 magnum muzzle velocity).

So any time you hear that spray is more effective and a handgun doesn’t work, remember that the progs are engaging in myth-making and fairy tales.