Articles by Herschel Smith

Would The Alaskan say this is enough 12 gauge for a grizzly?

Dean Weingarten at Ammoland.

On May 6th, 2017, an armed man was sitting on his front porch in the 400 block of Glenburnie Drive in Houston, Texas. He had a concealed carry permit. His brother says that he goes to the range often. He was on his porch and had another firearm with him. An AR-15 type rifle.

Three men attacked him in a drive-by shooting at about 2:15 a.m. He fired back, hitting all three. They car they were in crashed, and all three left the vehicle to continue the attack.

The homeowner kept up his defense, shooting back and hitting all three men again. Two died, one at the scene, one at the hospital. One of them was in critical condition.

Over 40 shots were fired, but the home defender was not hit. Not once.

Those who wish a disarmed population tell us that AR-15 rifles and other modern sporting rifles are not useful for self-defense.

Here is the report.  No one actually believes that use of an AR-15 is unnecessary or ineffective for self defense.  They’re lying if they say that (unless the conversation is buried in details of long range threats where you need something like an AR-10).  When a person says that, he means that he doesn’t believe that you should have access to AR-15s and that only the state has a righteous monopoly on the use of force, even if you’re defending your life or the lives of loved ones.

Just as we saw in the case of Mr. Stephen Bayazes, who killed one home invader and sent two others to the hospital, he found a reliable semiautomatic rifle with a standard capacity magazine an indispensable tool of self defense.

In another episode of semiautomatic rifle use, an attacker in Hawaii found that no one was capable of effecting self defense.

Hawaii police officers are continuing their search for a suspect who fired an assault rifle at a group of people standing outside a club in Waikiki, killing one and seriously injuring others.

Hawaii News Now reports (http://bit.ly/2xrcAAB ) the shooting happened Saturday morning near Club Alley Cat. Police say a man fired about 10 rounds at the group. A 22-year-old man was taken to the hospital in critical condition and later died. Two other victims, a 27-year-old man and a 31-year-old man, were taken to a hospital in serious condition.

The report says “assault rifle,” and of course it wasn’t a legitimate assault rifle with select fire, and perhaps it was an AK design rather than an AR design.  Who knows, certainly not the reporter?  Either way, the people he attacked didn’t even have a pistol for self defense, or if they did, it was being carried legally.  Not in Hawaii.

Hey, how’s that gun control stuff working out for you, Hawaiians?

Jacob Sullum at Reason:

The fatal shooting of Philando Castile last year by a Minnesota police officer reinvigorated an old debate about how people who are licensed to carry a concealed weapon (CCW) should handle interactions with the cops. The officer, who was acquitted of manslaughter in June, panicked during a traffic stop after Castile, a CCW licensee, told him he was armed.

Some gun owners argue that disclosure is considerate and prudent, while others worry it will escalate a routine traffic stop into a tense, unpleasant, and possibly life-threatening encounter. But virtually everyone agrees it’s important to know the relevant legal requirements, which vary from state to state.

Jacob has included a nice graphic with his article outlining what states require immediate notification of LEOs that you’re lawfully carrying.

That phrase may be important, and if you ever have to inform a LEO that you are carrying a weapon, you should use the phrase “lawfully carrying.”

I’m interested in reader reaction to this question.  I don’t believe that a LEO has a right to know that.  Whether something is legal has no bearing on whether it is moral, and informing LEOs that you are carrying can keep you out of a world of problems.

On the other hand, informing a LEO that you’re carrying can also cause a world of problems due to the paranoid schizophrenic culture that is ubiquitous through police departments today.  Even if a LEO doesn’t think you are out to kill him, he may want to do something completely ignorant and “take possession of your weapon to ensure safety.”  No one should touch their weapons, not you, not him.  It isn’t safe for him to touch your weapon.  He also shouldn’t unholster and point his weapon at you, as both actions violate rules of gun safety (having to do with muzzle and trigger discipline).

The police have created this problem.  We live with it.

The Daily Caller.  1) .300 Win Mag (M91A2), 2) M4A1 with SOPMOD Kit and M203, 3) M14, 4) MP5, and 5) Sig Sauer P226.

Eh, you can have the Sig.  I don’t want it, and I don’t shoot 9mm.  My 1911s do just fine, and John Moses Browning is still comfortable in his superiority to the Sig designer.  I would buy 9mm if I had an MP5 though (I would rather have an M3 .45 “grease gun”).  As for the M14, I suspect that’s going to go the way of the Dodo bird.  This experience seems a little dated, but what do I know.  I am not a Navy SEAL.

In the world of precision shooting the 6.5mm Creedmoor (and 6mm Creedmoor) have completely taken over.  The .308 isn’t being shot any more because of the superior ballistics of the Creedmoor.  I suspect that the military will catch up (there are also some nice semi-automatic guns now in 6.5mm Creedmoor in the AR platform, and for affordable prices.

I’ll also take the grenade launcher.  That would be a nice addition to my gun safe.

They are, after all, the king’s forests and king’s parks, never forget.

Valihura also pressed Durstein about an individual’s right to carry a gun for self-defense, which he argued is less acute in a park tent or cabin than in a person’s home. Durstein said the trade-off for banning guns is a commitment by the state to provide law enforcement in state parks.

“Your own regs state that camping is at your own risk, state forests are a public use area and there are no after-hours, nighttime or weekend security,” Valihura noted.

With no evidentiary record to draw on, Justice James Vaughn also wondered about the protection being afforded park visitors.

“We have no idea how much police security is actually provided in these state parks, do we?” Vaughn asked. “I’ve been in them. Occasionally you’ll see a ranger go by, something like that, but I don’t seen any police presence in there.”

Why the hell does the legal system keep promulgating this idiotic myth that the police are there to protect anyone?  They aren’t, and they know it.  And the police know it.  The only people who don’t know it are the peasants who think the police will come to their rescue.

Remember.

In the 1981 decision in Warren v. District of Columbia the D.C. Court of Appeals concluded that it is a “fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”  In Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005), the Supreme Court declined to expand any requirements for protection and ruled that the police cannot be sued for failure to protect individuals, even when restraining orders were in place.

Your life depends on it.  When in a non-permissive environment you may have to improvise, but improvise you should.

As you know, gun confiscations were threatened by governor Mapp prior to hurricane Irma (he called it “seizures”).  Then he vacillated and equivocated and said that seizure doesn’t really mean seizure.  I’m sure he equivocated because of the negative attention he got from mainland U.S.

There are continuing reports of trouble on St. John and other locations throughout the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Fox News calls it a looter’s paradise, and the Miami Herald also has a good report.  There are many, many more.  I have written the author of the Miami Herald article (Jim Wyss) to see if he knows anything about whether guns were actually confiscated prior to, during or after the hurricane.  I have not heard anything back.  I don’t expect to.

I also wrote the nice woman who authors the blog News of St. John and asked her if she had any personal knowledge of such confiscations.  Of course, she got back with me immediately.  Imagine that.  A blogger responded immediately, the MSM writer ignored me.

At any rate, Jenn of News of St. John told me that she had heard that something like that was going to happen but didn’t have any direct knowledge of it, and had no experience with it herself.  I asked her to inform me if she learned anything else.

But it occurred to me that whether guns were confiscated or the islanders simply didn’t have them because of an oppressive gun control scheme, the end result is the same.  They had no means of effecting self defense, and hence, the fear and terror through which the peaceable and law abiding men and women live.

This is something I intend to keep tracking as I have the time.  If any of my readers find reports on what actually occurred prior to, during or after the hurricane, please send them to me or link them in the comments.  I cannot imagine a better object lesson for why you need guns than this.

UPDATE:  Jim Wyss of the Miami-Herald replied to my note.

Dear Mr. Smith,

Thanks for your note. The short answer is I have no idea if firearms were collected before the storm, and it has been incredibly difficult to get a hold of anyone since I left the islands on Monday. However, Gov. Mapp is holding a press conference today in St. Thomas and I’m hoping he’ll address some of these concerns. As you are probably aware, there are a lots of rumors (hopefully erroneous) about armories being raided, etc.

Best of luck,

Jim Wyss

Latin America Correspondent Miami Herald Bogota, Colombia

Thanks to Jim for the reply.  I really appreciate it.  Unfortunately, I don’t put much stock in the press conference or anything communicated by the governor.  What interests me are reports from the ground by people who were there, or people who are still there.  I’m also interested in what happened with gun stores (are there any on St. John?) and the N.G. armory.  It may take a FOIA request to find out this last part, since any theft of the armory will have to be cataloged.

As always, I’m still supremely interested in whether guns were confiscated, and whether they actually expended effort going door to door demanding that peaceable people hand over their only means of self defense during a time when they (the government) should have been preparing for the storm.  I’m also interested in gun control laws on St. John.  Again, this is as good an object lesson as any imaginable.  If the reports are accurate, St. John was dystopia after the storm.  Now, let’s examine the role of weapons in the aftermath.

Prior:

Apocalyptic News From The U.S. Virgin Islands

Hurricane Irma Survivors Face Looting And Violence

U.S. Virgin Islands Governor Orders Confiscation Of Weapons In Advance Of Hurricane

Salon:

Silencers are seen by the gun industry as a great way to recruit new customers, because the devices make guns less scary to children.

“For new or younger shooters, using a silencer means being able to focus on marksmanship fundamentals and enjoy the overall shooting experience with considerably more comfort,” the 2017 catalog for Advanced Armament Corporation explained.

Donald Trump Jr., who is a big fan of silencers, concurs. Last year, in a video interview with Joshua Waldron, the CEO of a silencer manufacturer, Don Jr. said that silencers were great at getting “little kids into the game.”

Yep.  That’s what it’s all about – revenue.  It isn’t really about a less dangerous shooting experience, one that protects your hearing.  It isn’t about getting a better cheek weld on the butt of your rifle because you don’t have to knock your head into those idiotic ear muffs.  It’s all about money.

There are several things that we should point out about this simpleton’s article.  First of all, she doesn’t believe in the market.  If something doesn’t live up to the hype, it will die off in the marketplace.  If it isn’t wanted by the public, it won’t continue to be manufactured.  But not according to her.

Second, she believes that you are idiots.  She believes that whether you need something or not, you will buy it with a little coaxing by somebody – who knows – the NRA, the gun manufacturers (who do not fabricate suppressors anyway, other companies do that), or whomever.  It’s all just a revenue stream to them.  You will throw away your hard earned money on trash because somebody else has a scheme to rob you with worthless products.

So she is there to protect you.  The market works because you will buy it, but the market doesn’t work because you can’t discern the difference between needful products and those that aren’t.  It is not a needful product because you have ear plugs and ear muffs.  But it is needful because it might make the shooting experience more enjoyable and entice kids to learn to shoot.

And the main objection she has is that it’s just a revenue scheme.  Or if you continue reading, that it will make the jobs of police harder because it will fall into criminal hands and cause mass shootings.  Or that it will prevent you from hearing the sound of gunfire and running away.  Or something.

Good Lord.  Do they have editors over at Salon or has this just become a total trash bin of word salads for the gun haters?  At any rate, such is the confused thinking of the collectivists.

News of St. John.

I’m scared. Those are words I never thought I would write when referring to St. John. But I’m scared. We’re only four days into this mess, and we’re hearing some awful things. For starters, Joe’s Rum Hut was broken into the day after Irma hit. The ATM was stolen. They attempted to get cash out of the register, but it was empty as Joe’s closed for season earlier this month. The ATM next to Cruz Bay Landing was stolen. The ATM at the ferry dock was stolen. Scoops has been broken into. St. John Insurance has been broken into. They hold almost all of the insurance policies on this island. Makes you wonder the intentions of that burglary, doesn’t it? Dolphin Market in Coral Bay was looted the very first night. The very first night. We heard this morning that the Customs building in Cruz Bay was broken into and that guns were stolen. We heard that there was at least three robberies at gunpoint on Gifft Hill. This is not St. John anymore. I’m not sure what it is. What I do know is that I am scared. My friends are scared. And we don’t know what to do.

Last night I was able to go home. What I failed to mention was that we had to install a bar on the inside of our door so no one could break in. This is our new reality. Last night, for the first time since moving here, I was afraid to walk down the streets of Cruz Bay. And it was only 6:30 p.m. People are getting desperate, and desperate times call for desperate measures from some unfortunately. We are only on day four. What’s going to happen next?

I have seen absolutely no aid today except a few boxes of MREs walking down the street. I haven’t seen one helicopter land today. We hear help is on the way. Let’s hope so. We need the military. We need men and women guarding our streets with guns. Our police force does nothing. They sit in their cars and yell at people over the loudspeaker. I kid you not. They’re not even helping with traffic in areas where it’s needed. You know who is? Our homeless people. Our homeless people are directing traffic, and our police are not. Let that sink in for a minute. Several police officers can be seen constantly at Ronnie’s Pizza – our new cell phone spot – and they’re scrolling through Facebook rather than patrolling our streets. Im (sic)shocked they actually got out of their cars for that. I took pictures and I cannot wait until I have internet so I can share them with the world.

We need help. We need the United States government to step up. We need military. We need security. We all survived this monster storm. But will we survive the aftermath? No one knows. And that’s not me being dramatic at all. That, unfortunately, is the new reality of St. John. This is no longer paradise. This is no longer my happy place.

Ah, the wonderful police.  People still believe the myth that the police are there to protect and provide security.  It’s all a lie, so says the U.S. court system.  Understand that.  Your life depends on it.

Neither is it the job of the U.S. military to protect you or your family.  That’s your duty, your responsibility, your God-given right.  These poor people are in a place where they cannot effect that security because guns are not allowed for the peaceable and law abiding citizens, only the criminals.

I’m always of two minds when I hear reports like this.  On the one hand, I have compassion (what normal man wouldn’t have compassion for these people or people in situations like that), and I want the criminals killed.  Not imprisoned, but killed.

Similar thoughts sweep over me when I hear of criminals and gangs dominating cities where gun control is king.  I feel especially sorry for those who want to defend their families but can’t because they live in places where the collectivists rule.

On the other hand, there is nothing more basic and dutiful that the protection of family and life, and if you live in a place where that protection cannot obtain because the collectivists rule you, then you need to get out of there.  That goes for the U.S. Virgin Islands, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, California or Hawaii.

Relocating, pulling up roots and leaving is hard, and nearly impossible in some circumstances.  But you either have to fight the good fight and win, or you have to leave.  Fighting the good fight and losing, while no reflection on you or your character, is the same as not fighting at all.  Either way, you lose and cannot effect the protection of your family.

At some point, you have to be willing to cut your loses and move on.  I feel sorry for the woman writing the blog.  I’m sure her report is accurate.  I feel compassion for her plight.  But if change doesn’t come, and very soon, she has to cut her ties to the place and people and move on.

Shooting Illustrated has a very informative article on revolver disassembly and cleaning.  It’s worth reading in full, and it’s also worth sending this link to yourself and referring to it later with an email search (which is what I do).

It has very good pictures (I learn visually) and also recommendations for revolver tools.  I’ll be using this advice in the future.  If anyone has additional counsel for revolver disassembly, maintenance or cleaning, please fill in the details in comments.

David Codrea:

“Why haven’t we seen movement over either 38 or 2909 since the horrific events in Virginia?” Walters asked, noting the Republicans control the House and the Senate and both Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appear to be blocking bills advancing the right to keep and bear arms.

“You know what?” Massie replied, “The Speaker told me he didn’t think the timing was right. And I think this is the exact timing to bring this bill.”

Paul Ryan is a traitor.  This isn’t a change or shift for him.  He has always been a gun controller in the superlative degree.

It’s nice to see that David got a mention at Instapundit.