Articles by Herschel Smith

TTAG:

And now firearms trainer and veteran Pat MacNamara has publicly stated on a Comedy Central video (click here to watch) and social media that he supports Universal Background Checks and mandatory waiting periods.

Without subtitles naming names, CC reporter Jordan Kipper (who “Solves Guns”) uses MacNamara’s support for UBCs and waiting periods to parade a Fudd of gun guys who support the Second Amendment …

I’ve never met this guy in my life, I’ve never seen one of his videos (except for the one with the reporter who broke this story), I don’t know him, and I’m glad I don’t.  I don’t need him.

I also couldn’t care less what his service to SpecOps includes or where he did deployments.  I’m not among the SpecOps worshippers anyway, and no offense is intended to SpecOps folks who are reading this.  This issue has been discussed at great length here on these pages and it isn’t worth it right now to rehearse what I’ve said.

It’s enough to observe that just like Stanley McChrystal, who is a gun controller and murderer of the highest order, SpecOps folks can be bad.  And there are plenty of former SpecOps working for DynCorps toppling governments in North Africa and trafficking in children, money, oil and weapons.

I’m not placing Pat MacNamara in that category, but if he’s a gun controller, and apparently he is, he and I see the world totally differently, and I cannot trust him.  He is anathema to me.  He can look as menacing and tough as he wants in those pictures and videos.  I couldn’t care less about him.

By gun controllers, I mean the fedgov.  Dean Weingarten has some counsel for us.

In the following story, the information that lead to the searches and arrests came from the United States.  It wasn’t about people purchasing anything illegal. It was about solvent traps. From smh.com.au:

More than 80 illegally imported guns have been seized during raids across the country after a tip-off from US authorities.

The Australian Border Force seized the black market guns, as well as 43 firearm silencers and 37 kilograms of gunpowder, after raiding more than a dozen properties.

After receiving information from US authorities, Border Force investigators identified a large number of Australian customers buying “solvent trap” cleaning kits from a US-based website.

Items in the cleaning kits can be easily converted in sound suppressors, or silencers.

Some government agency in the United States is monitoring people who purchase solvent traps.  Very likely, they are monitoring people who visit solvent trap web sites.

The U.S. agency stored this information, and sent a list of people from Australia who a purchased solvent traps, to Australian authorities. The Australian Border Force then used the information to identify at least a dozen Australian homes to be raided.

Most Australians did not turn in all their guns during the infamous and mandatory Australian gun “buy backs” of 1996 and 2003.  The estimates are that 80% of guns that were made illegal were not registered or turned in. The article says that more than 80 illegally imported guns were seized. But the imprecision of such terms in the media is notorious.

[ … ]

It is possible that the Australian Border Force raided 12 homes and found 80 illegally imported guns. It seems more likely the interchangeable use of “black market” and “illegally imported” means that many or most of the guns seized were simply “not registered”, which is a serious offense in Australia, after the extreme restrictions on gun ownership were passed in 1996.

Consider that U.S. authorities are monitoring and recording the proceedings at solvent trap websites.  Solvent traps are not illegal. Solvent traps do not require a license to purchase or own.

People have told me they do not join the NRA or a local Second Amendment activist group because “They do not want to be on a list.”

Do you go to gun related sites on the Internet? Read gun related stories on Establishment media? Purchase ammo or gun accessories with a credit card? Buy a hunting license?  You are already effectively on a list.  All of that data is already collected and stored. If laws are passed to “deal” with gun owners, government officials can cross index and create such lists in a matter of minutes.

Listen to him again.  Do you read gun related web sites on the internet?  Purchase guns or ammunition with a credit card?  You are already on the list.

This is why I’ve always been somewhat nonplussed at tactical trainers acting “gray man” and trying to hide their real identity by never using their real name.  I’m sorry, but I’m unimpressed.  I’m more impressed with what Matt Bracken said to me more than a year ago.

The hour is drawing near. I’m glad to be in this fight with you. I just saw 13 Hours, and I have a new question I ask myself. Would I go up on the roof? Who would I want up there with me? What if that last convoy of Libyan security forces had been 10 or so enemy technical with 12.7s, along with the mortar teams? We are all going to die someday. Back in the day, we were trained not to skyline ourselves. I was lucky in my years of service and I was never asked to go up on the roof. Now, I feel like it’s my job to skyline myself. I had all the luck for all those years, and all those frogs and snake eaters who were better men than me died or lost body parts or lost wives and so on. And here I am, alive and free, and now it’s our turn to go up on the roof, even if it’s right here, as an example for the others. I’m glad we are on the same side, and I’d go up on the roof with you any time, brother.

If everybody goes “gray man,” the tyrants win by default. We need to stand on the roof and be seen by everybody, on all sides. Others can go gray man, that’s fine, their choice. But we all can’t hide forever.

I’m on “the list.”  I’ve been on it for a very long time.  And this is my real name.

David Codrea:

Sherriff Ivey’s “common sense” approach is a welcome and refreshing change from the “Only Ones” attitudes and efforts to undermine the right to keep and bear arms that we’ve noted recently from the Fraternal Order of Police “leadership.” That “us vs. them” approach is promulgated by all too many politically-motivated police chiefs who put their personal professional exclusivity before their oaths to support the Constitution.

I applaud the Sheriff’s candor and commitment to the constitution.  Now he needs to work in Florida to repeal the concealed carry permitting process and legalize open carry.

As for the matter of “run, hide and tell,” the U.K. simply copied our very own DHS stupidity with a little modification of their own, ours being run, hide and fight.  And as for the matter of all of those dumbass corporations who forbid their employees from carrying weapons on the premises, they may be answering to a jury latter on those hundreds of employees killed on the job by an active shooter from which no one could defend because they were unarmed.  If that does happen, and it eventually will in America, may the corporation become an example by going bankrupt from the class action settlement.  I have absolutely no sympathy for such a corporation.

Via Outdoor Hub.

Pacific Standard:

Why do so many Americans own handguns, and resist the regulation of firearms? “Protection” is the most common response, but who (or what) exactly are they protecting themselves from? And why do fact-based arguments, such as the reduction in crime rates and the dangers of having a gun in the house, fail to change minds?

Newly published research provides a partial answer. It finds handgun ownership is motivated by two distinct impulses: “The specific perceived threat of assault, and a diffuse threat of a dangerous world.”

A research team led by University of Groningen psychologist Wolfgang Stroebe reports that second, vague notion of potential peril is the stronger of the two—and the one most resistant to rethinking.

“Handgun ownership and advocacy is, at least in part, a psychological phenomenon,” the researchers write. “Gun ownership is predicted by various levels of perceived risk”—including the difficult-to-dislodge belief that the world is a menacing place.

[ … ]

“This could make it difficult to conduct persuasion campaigns aimed at dissuading handgun owners of the need to own a gun (or support limitations on gun ownership),” they write. That’s because “a broader system of beliefs about the nature of the social world, and what people are like, is extremely difficult to influence.”

Such mindsets are learned in childhood, and tend to shape one’s thinking for the rest of one’s life.

If you believe that sin is the moral malady and affliction of mankind, the psychologists don’t know what to do with you.  The world must surely be a safe place, because just shut up.  They are looking for ways to retrain your thinking, but sadly you’ve learned this behavior and world view in childhood.  They find it difficult to dislodge.

Have you ever seen a profession so disconnected from reality as this one?  You may as well consider them Voodoo practitioners and witchdoctors.

WSOC.com:

The North Carolina House of Representatives approved a bill Thursday that would allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

The North Carolina Association of Police Chiefs is against House Bill 746, which a person can carry a concealed gun, but would allow people to carry without a permit and no formal training, which is required now.

The bill would allow citizens age 18 and older, who legally own a gun, to carry it concealed without a permit, anywhere they can carry it openly.

It now will head to the Senate.

“Most people dying are being killed with guns,” said Judy Williams, the leader of the organization Mothers Of Murdered Offspring. She is working to combat rising violent crime in Charlotte.

Williams is worried the bill, if passed, will lead to more violence.

Most people being shot are young inner city blacks who are dying due to cultural and moral problems, unrelated to whether concealed carry requires a permit to be legal.

So Ms. Williams, what makes you think that if a young gang member decides to kill someone else, he is going to hesitate and reconsider his decision because concealed carry isn’t legal for him?

As for Roy Cooper, I seriously doubt that he will sign the bill into law.  Since the county Sheriffs and city and county police are separated in function and organization, and since it is the CLEOs and their employees who get the money, and since gun purchase permitting requires CLEO signoff, there is no incentive for the police to go along with any recognition of liberties and rights.

Dean Weingarten on a recent Eighth Circuit decision:

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August reversed that decision and ruled Officers Nathan Kaiser, Tobias Hite and Shane Jensen violated his Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure.

The judges took issue with the reason for the stop, saying a report of a person with a handgun isn’t enough to create a reasonable suspicion of a crime, and in Nebraska and Lincoln people can openly carry handguns.

[ … ]

Officer Kaiser relied on an incident report that did not contain information sufficient to create reasonable suspicion that Duffie had already, was, or was about to commit a crime. See United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 227 (1985) (extending Terry to the investigation of completed crimes). Nebraska law permits individuals who are at least 18 years old to open carry handguns in public. See Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 28-1202, 28-1204 (2009). The City of Lincoln does not restrict an individual’s right to open carry except in certain locations. See Lincoln, Neb., Mun. Ordinances § 9.36.130. Moreover, the mere report of a person with a handgun is insufficient to create reasonable suspicion. See Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 272 (2000)

I thought I found all of the articles on and instances of open carry, but I missed this one.  I’m glad that Dean wrote on this.  It adds to our collected wisdom and information concerning what the courts think of this kind of behavior by the police – at least, some courts, even if they refuse to do anything about it.

For God’s sake.  The 58-year-old black pastor is a double amputee.  He fell all over the place trying to comply with the idiot’s command.  He injured himself and under other circumstances I can see death resulting from his fall (if he had landed differently).

The only disappointing thing about this judgment is that the cops weren’t fired and put in prison.  The circumstances are not necessarily similar to but dovetail with the decision by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, where they found that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police violated the rights of Nathaniel Black, even though Black was apparently a criminal and did indeed break the law.

Nathaniel Black was part of a group of men in Charlotte, North Carolina who local police officers suspected might be engaged in criminal activity. In particular, Officers suspected that after seeing one of the men openly carrying a firearm – which was legal in North Carolina – that there was most likely another firearm present. When police began frisking the men one by one, Mr. Black wished to leave, but was told he was not free to leave. Officers chased Mr. Black and discovered that he possessed a firearm; it was later discovered that he was a previously convicted felon. Mr. Black was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Before the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Mr. Black moved to suppress the evidence against him. His suppression motion was denied, he entered a guilty plea preserving a right to appeal the denial of the suppression motion, and he was sentenced to fifteen (15) years imprisonment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, however, determined that the officers had improperly seized Mr. Black, suppressed the evidence against him, and vacated his sentence.

This was the right decision.  Open carry is legal in North Carolina, and without this being a “Terry Stop” – and it most certainly wasn’t – Mr. Black should not even have been detained.

If you are a CLEO or a Chief of Police reading this, listen to me well.  If open carry is legal in your state, you cannot stop someone for open carry.  I know it sounds so obvious and common-sense that this shouldn’t have to be said.  But apparently with the police it does indeed have to be pointed out – again, and again, and again.

Only an idiot doesn’t understand this, or if you understand and refuse to implement and comply, you’re just a criminal with a badge.

Via Codrea, this from The Kansas City Star Editorial Board:

Guns and the mentally ill and physically fragile just don’t mix.

Okay, so prove it?  You’ve made a strong statement concerning who has and doesn’t have rights, so prove it?

Given that I’ve quoted more mental health professionals than I can count concerning the fact that the mentally ill suffer no increased propensity to violence when compared to others, that the mental health profession doesn’t have the tools to engage in behavior prediction, and that the mental health profession cannot bear the burden people like this want to place on their profession, I think I an entitled to an explanation.  You, editorial board, waxed educated and know-it-all, so it’s time to put up or shut up.  I’m listening and waiting.

Finally, I’m wondering about this notion of the physically fragile not being allowed to have guns in the view of the Kansas City Star Editorial Board.  Does that mean that the editorial board would prevent the very people who needed guns the most, women and the elderly, from being able to defend themselves?  Are they that crass and morbid that they want to see innocent people injured or killed because they are physically more fragile than others?  Is this the logical outcome of Margaret Sanger’s philosophy of eugenics?

And do they go as far as Hamilton Nolan with Gawker?  Are they trying to lampoon and humiliate the weakest among us?  Are they really that dark and twisted?

The News & Observer:

John “Curly” Brazelton of Havelock, a former Marine who belongs to a hunting club, said in an interview with The N&O last week that everyone in his hunting club opposes the idea of eliminating concealed-carry permits.

“We all have them,” Brazelton said. “We have the best law in the country right now.”

Hmm … “the best law in the country right now.”  What we have is a ‘statist, “mother-may-I,” here is some money, may I please exercise my God-given rights, pretty please, here is all of my records of my entire life, please, please like me, please, pretty please’ system of intrusion of our rights.

I told you so.  Fudds are not your friends.

Breitbart:

Handler told THR:

Obviously, [the state of] gun control in this country is totally unacceptable, and the gun lobby is so strong and so powerful that anytime a celebrity can bring attention to this cause — among many other [causes] — you know it’s an easy thing for anyone to do. We’re way behind the times in terms of gun control in this country, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere anytime soon. Our voices just need to keep getting louder, and the people that make an impact need to really just step up and stick their necks out a little bit more.

THR then pointed to the NRA’s support of Trump during last year’s campaign campaign and Trump’s pro-Second Amendment stance then and now. Handler responded, “People need to be louder than ever with this president and his relationship to the gun lobby. He doesn’t give a s—about people. He doesn’t care about anybody.”

“Nobody is trying to take away your guns. If you want to go shoot, you know, whatever, in the woods, that’s fine, but it’s a hobby,” she told THR. “If your hobby is [affecting] innocent people being killed all the time, children included, don’t you think you should reconsider the lack of restrictions placed on your hobby?”

Okay, Chelsea, so I assume that you and your parents have sworn off any armed security for yourselves, forever, for the rest of your lives, right?  Let me know if my assumption is wrong.  Because if I’m wrong, then you and your handler and parents are just lying, hypocritical crap weasels who want protection you deny to others – because you don’t give a shit about people.