We always try to stay physically active. You never know when you’ll need to be in shape. This past weekend we mountain biked at James Lake State Park. As we stepped out of the truck to hit the trails, we heard an almost deafening sound coming from the forest. For those of you who know this sound, it’s a bit like listening to an admixture of a dying calf and a cavitating pump.
It happened to be Cicadas – tens of thousands of them. This was their year, and I suppose their week, to come up in this region.
It was a good day to mountain bike, but it reminds me of an event several years ago where I once lived. I saw Heidi with a live Cicada caught between her paws, licking the innards and juice out of the insect. I said to her, “Things like this are why I have to deworm you, bitch.” She briefly looked up at me and then returned to lapping up her delicacy.
That reminds me of an event a number of years ago when my oldest son, Josh, sold me a bill of goods. We were chopping wood and came up on a bunch of tree grubs. He popped a small one in his mouth and ate it. Then he dared me to, and of course I couldn’t let my oldest son show me up. After all, Les Stroud eats tree grubs.
Then Josh handed me a tree grub that dwarfed the one he ate. I dutifully ate the thing. It tasted like wood, just wet and squishy. But I don’t think I’ll be eating any more tree grubs unless I’m in the wilderness in a survival situation.
Since American citizens have the right to keep and bear arms (not just law enforcement officials, as gun control advocates maintain), it would seem to follow that they’re entitled to use their weapons when they are threatened.
More than a century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that in Beard v. United States, where the first Justice Harlan wrote that the defendant, who had been convicted of manslaughter for killing a man in a violent dispute,
was not obliged to retreat, not to consider whether he could safely retreat, but was entitled to stand his ground, and meet any attack upon him with a deadly weapon, in such a way and with such force as, under all the circumstances, he, at the moment honestly believed, and had reasonable grounds to believe, were necessary to save his own life, or to protect himself from great bodily injury.
To codify that right and prevent people from being put on trial for reasonable, defensive gun use when a prosecutor thinks they might instead have retreated or fled, 24 states have enacted “stand your ground” statutes. Among them is North Carolina, but a recent case there shows that when prosecutors and judges want to convict a man for using his gun, the “stand your ground” law can be trampled upon.
Gyrell Lee had been celebrating New Year’s Eve with his cousin Jamiel Walker in the latter’s home. Throughout the evening, a known troublemaker, Quinton Epps, came by and argued with Walker. When Epps returned with friends and became increasingly belligerent, Lee decided that he should get his gun from his car just in case matters got worse. Lee had completed his concealed carry class and was familiar with the law on gun use.
Epps returned once more and a shouting match between himself and Walker ensued in the street. Walker lost his temper and punched Epps, at which point Epps drew a pistol and shot Walker in the stomach. Walker fell and Epps then turned his gun on Lee, who had his gun out. Lee fired and killed Epps.
Lee was subsequently arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He was a bystander who had acted in self-defense, but nevertheless local officials wanted to make an example of him.
At trial, Lee’s attorney argued that he had acted in self-defense. But in charging the jury, the judge failed to make any mention of the state’s “stand your ground” law or the defendant’s right to use force in the defense of his cousin (who had died of his wounds). The jury returned a verdict of guilty.
On appeal, the North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, holding that the trial judge had not committed “plain error” in charging the jury without bringing up the state’s “stand your ground” statute. In pertinent part, that law reads “A person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat in any place he or she has the lawful right to be if …he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another.” The Court of Appeals wasn’t convinced that the judge had made an error because it wasn’t sure that the statute applied in Lee’s case due to its uncertainty that a public street outside his home counted as “a place he had the lawful right to be.”
Good grief …
Good grief indeed. George Leef has done a good job with this article, and I appreciate his having followed and written on this issue. We are reminded of a number of important things in this report.
First of all, we always encounter the opposition of statists when we advocate justified and righteous laws like stand your ground. This is the first hurdle to overcome, as it is with proposed open carry laws, constitutional carry bill, and so on.
But if we get past the gaggle of gargoyles and demons in the houses of perdition that is the Senates of most states and the U.S. Senate, we face prosecutors. The laws may say that we are recognized as having a right to self defense, but you must understand that these lawyers have been trained in the philosophy and legal theory of Stanley Fish and Jacques Derrida. They don’t care about your God given rights or even what the law says. If they want to, they will prosecute you if they think they can win. Just because. Shut up.
Then if you get past the hurdle of what the law says or how some recent law school graduate feels that day, you have the jury with which to contend. Remember folks. Juries are comprised by people who, on average, voted for Hillary Clinton, or had a hard time making up their minds, or who, if they didn’t vote for Hillary and Obama before her, couldn’t think their way out of a wet paper bag or hold attention long enough to listen to legal arguments in defense of someone like Mr. Lee.
Most jury members are too caught up thinking about their favorite night time sitcom to worry over things like putting someone away for life who simply shot in self defense. Besides, that smartly dressed lawyer said he was guilty. We’re law and order people. He must be guilty.
When you entrust your life to a jury, it’s usually no better than entrusting it to a crooked judge. That’s the sad state of the American system of “justice” today. Stay away from crowds. Think carefully about your actions.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales hates the M16 family of rifles, and he won’t stop until everyone knows it.
Scales has spent the last few years railing against the standard-issue infantry rifle as little more than a lighter but less effective version of the infamous M16 model that left so many American troops dead in the jungles of Vietnam (In response to Scales’ condemnation of the M4 in the pages of The Atlantic in January 2015, Task & Purpose’s Christian Beekman mounted a vocal defense of the rifle).
Wednesday was no different. Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Scales decried the Department of Defense’s post-World War II small-arms programs as “inferior.” Thousands of American troops “have died because the Army’s weapon buying bureaucracy has consistently denied that a soldier’s individual weapon is important enough to gain their serious attention,” said Scales in his prepared testimony.
“A soldier in basic training is told that his rifle is his best friend and his ticket home,” he told assembled lawmakers. “If the lives of so many depend on a rifle why can’t the richest country in the world give it to them?”
[ … ]
To their credit, DoD officials are moving slowly but surely to outfit ground forces with new weaponry. In November, the Marine Corps’ 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines began conducting pre-deployment exercises to evaluate the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle as a replacement for the M4, which replaced the M16A4 in infantry battalions in 2015.
“It is the best infantry rifle in the world, hands down,” Chief Warrant Officer 5 Christian Wade told Military.com of the IAR at the time. “Better than anything Russia has, it’s better than anything we have, it’s better than anything China has. It’s world-class.”
This is a weird article. As soon as the author is done with Scales, he launches into a discussion about how the DoD gets it with the USMC work on the IAC – which I would point out, is a 5.56 mm gun.
This is the same, tired old rhetoric we saw half century ago, and the alleged problems Scales likes to cite have all gone away. McThag summarizes.
The M16A1 and its M193 ammunition stopped being the standard more than thirty years ago and was replaced with the M16A2 and M855.
The M16A2, where almost every part was revised, isn’t even the standard today; that’d be the M4A1.
M855, even, is on its way out with the advent of M855A1.
In a nutshell, everything that was causing problems in 1969 has been revised and replaced. The bore diameter didn’t cause those three guys you constantly cite to die with broken rifles.
It’s far more likely the lackluster quality control from the mighty UAW workforce at Colt had more to do with it than the design.
To former Major Ehrhart; the infantry half kilometer was “lost” to artillery.
Remember combined arms?
Well, the max effective range of the small arms overlaps the normal range of artillery. So, yes, the infantry half kilometer demands a larger bore size, I suggest 60mm for starters. Willard even posits that the reason we’re having problems in Afghanistan is the enemy has figured out where our small arms peter out and won’t close; because to close is to die. If to close is to die, then it means our weapons do work.
Don’t use logic on Scales. He won’t listen, or he’ll cite the battle of Wanat, where we ensconced a platoon of soldiers in a valley after letting enemy fighters prepare for a total of one year to attack them with a battalion size force. Scales blamed that one on the M4 too.
If you want to have a larger bore weapon, then buy one. I have a larger bore rifle than the 5.56 mm too. But remember that you always give up something to get something, and that all decisions concerning weapons selection are a compromise.
As for Scales, who exactly pays this guy to continue to work the Stoner system over with false rhetoric?
City officials in Ozark are discussing a possible ban on concealed weapons in certain places.
People in Missouri can carry a concealed weapon without a permit in most places. Police departments and a few other places are still off limits.
“However, you can carry a concealed weapon in city hall if it’s not posted,” says Ozark city attorney Dave Collignon.
One city official asked someone with a concealed weapon to leave Finley River Park. Guns are allowed at the park though. That’s what started the discussion amongst city council members.
The plan is to further limit where concealed weapons are allowed and to make a list for people of places having a concealed weapon is not allowed.
When men and women get charge of someone else, there is virtually no limit to what they are willing to dictate. I’ve seen church elders and deacons want to dictate what people wear, what they say, how they act, how they address them, and on and on the list goes. Rulers reflexively turn into tyrants. That’s why in my own view of church government I’ve become a Congregationalist. I’ve never seen the “rulership” form(s) of church government function well or become anything other than a laughingstock or tyranny. Not ever. Not even once.
The same is true concerning civil government. It doesn’t matter that these people aren’t national leadership, or weren’t elected at the state level. They want the power to tax, determine matters for the local schools, signage, roads, utilities, and tell you when and where you can effect life-saving self defense or defense of someone else.
Tyrants, one and all. In case you ever wondered, this is why we need preemption laws. Right here. And the next town full of little communists, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one. No town, city, or municipality has ever relaxed laws or regulations compared to state law. They are all more restrictive. If you find an example to the contrary, tell us about it and I’ll retract this statement.
Enter Marty Daniel of Daniel Defense. Marty told Breitbart News that the Second Amendment must be protected because it is sourced in our Creator. He juxtaposed Second Amendment rights with the gospel and said that he views it as his job to protect both because both flow to us from God.
Marty said, “We are in business, we believe, to be a supporter of the gospel. And, therefore, a supporter of the Second Amendment. In other words, not only do we have these Second Amendment rights because God gives them to us but also the gospel.” Marty went on to stress his conviction that Daniel Defense “[supports] the freedom of the gospel by supporting the Second Amendment.”
I like this a lot. This sounds like things I’ve said before, and I said them because I believe them very deeply. I appreciate someone going public with a statement such as this one. Mr. Daniel didn’t have to do this – he chose to do it of his own volition.
But for me there’s a problem. There is another Biblical requirement that bears on his guns. It is the requirement to be wise with your wealth and how it’s used. Money is wealth, and wealth is time off of your life. Quite literally, when you purchase something you are giving part of your life away that could be given to your children.
For Mr. Daniel, this is a requirement on me, the customer, not you. As for me, I would recommend that you get your costs a little better under control before I can purchase a Daniel Defense firearm. There are a lot of carbine makers out there, and the numbers are increasing virtually weekly. I was talking with my oldest son Josh just the other day and we were remarking that the choices seem unlimited at the moment. The bad ones will be weeded out, but the good ones will be your competition. Spending $2000 – $3000 for a carbine is out of the question when I can purchase one for less that works reliably and won’t fail when I really need it to function, and shoots 1 MOA.
I think you’ve got the attitude right, but you still need to work on the nuts and bolts of the price point.
Larson took after the good folks at The Truth About Guns, which she referred to as an ‘activist website’. “This boils down to a small, so-called gun-rights activist website that took the majority of things out of context, to make it sound like Rock River Arms and Springfield Armory were IFMA,” she said. “We did not have control over all actions. IFMA acted autonomously on our behalf.”
[ … ]
Larson then decried Illinois politics, which have almost become a blood sport.“I can’t get into all the details of the politics, as this is still a very real threat,” she told Mark. “Now, we are left with partial truth and fake news driving wedges between the different parts of our firearms community.”
Listen to me. This is the wrong response. The only wedge that has been driven is between RRA and your customer base. The gun community – at least as far as I can tell – is pretty much in full agreement on this issue.
I don’t particularly care for TTAG either. Their writers resolutely refuse to link anyone or exchange traffic, or frankly even debate issues within the gun community by their completely ignoring other gun web sites. I once sent Robert a link and he responded that he would be happy to publish me as a writer if he gets the first 24 hours before I post the article to my own site.
Um … no. That isn’t how this works. But in spite of the disagreements between me and TTAG, they followed this issue fairly well and published the full truth as far as I can tell. If not, then challenge the facts. Don’t call them “fake news,” or “activist website,” or a “so-called gun rights web site.”
“But I suppose we should thank Hill for reminding us, once again, that “Progressives” can — and will — reverse course and trade in all their “gains” at the drop of a hat once the logical conclusions start to apply to a right they don’t like.
If it weren’t for double standards, they wouldn’t have standards at all.”
What you are looking at is an SF A team commander who is wearing his body armor over a cut off tee shit. He is going into a village he doesn’t know searching for an alleged high value target (HVT) who is known to these soldiers as ‘Red Beard’. He is operating in Khost province where every village elder dies his beard with henna; which is red….are you getting the picture?
The only way you could offend Afghans more than showing up bare chested and forcing your way into their compounds is to walk around naked. The level of cultural tone deafness on display (from an SF guy who is supposed to understand the culture) in the linked video is beyond my ability to explain. If I had showed up in any Afghan village (especially a remote mountain village) without wearing a long sleeved shirt and long trousers I would have never returned. Failure to respect the local culture is the first step in mission failure and SOF guys like this one have a 16 year (and counting) run of mission failure.
[ … ]
Want to know something our ‘elite’ SF guys don’t seem to know? Afghans don’t cuss. To call an Afghan a motherfucker (a word used frequently in every conversation by the American military) is a grave insult that would, in the local context, need to be atoned by blood. I cannot stress this point enough and if, during my frequent forays into the tribal bad lands, I used that word even in jest I would have been killed long ago. One of the secrets that I and my fellow outside the wire expats use in the contested areas is respect for local culture coupled with big confident smiles; that’s why we are able to do what every USG expert contends cannot be done.
When I said these things it was just me saying these things. When Tim says these things it means that man who is the longest lasting English speaking man alive in Afghanistan (more than a decade) says these things. It means it comes with authority – authority I simply cannot give this subject.
After sending this link to a military reader who deployed in Afghanistan, he responded this way.
So imagine an unarmored SUV with a 40mm grenade launder mounted on Pedestal and the gunners chair was a red velvet arm chair, crewed by a bearded buffoon who looked like a bad extra from a Spaghetti western. Furthermore, their fearless leader refused to sync ECMs, so our more advanced systems would negate their “SOF” equipment, so no one had coverage.
After these many years, the U.S. still doesn’t have a clue how to wage small wars or counterinsurgency. Still. How sad. And after all of these years, SO and SF are still an entitled group who thinks that only they are capable of DA raids. So all of that bluster by gun controller Stanley McChrystal was just bull shit.
As for Tim, he has tried to raise the money to embed back in Afghanistan. He sent me a note and thought I didn’t know that, but I follow Tim religiously. I knew it but had not said anything because I don’t want him to go.
Considering his time in the Marine Corps along with his decade in Afghanistan, Tim knows enough to be a five star military reporter, security analyst or consultant to the military or security contractors (please don’t ever work for DynCorps, Tim) without ever going back to Afghanistan. I don’t want Tim to get killed because I care about him.
The pro-gun bill, H. 3429 sponsored by Republican Rep. Alan Clemmons, was passed last week by the South Carolina Senate on a 35-3 vote. The House unanimously concurred, sending the measure to Gov. Henry McMaster for consideration.
If signed by the governor, the bill will allow those filing for bankruptcy to retain up to three firearms, so long as the total value of those firearms does not exceed $3,000.
Hannah Hill, a policy analyst for the South Carolina Policy Council, a conservative think tank, argued in The Nerve that guns should not be exempted from bankruptcy.
“There is no reason to exempt guns from bankruptcy except for the fact that they’re, you know, guns,” Hill said. “And here’s where Second Amendment rights activists often go off the rails: government may not stand in the way of the free exercise of a right, but it is under no obligation to ensure that you DO exercise that right or that you have the wherewithal to do so. If chronic laryngitis kept you from exercising your First Amendment rights, the government wouldn’t be obligated to pay for your treatment.”
The National Rifle Association has supported the bill all the way, with its Institute for Legislative Action describing the legislation as a measure meant to “recognize the fundamental right to personal protection by ensuring citizens who have fallen on hard times, financially, will not be required to sell all of their firearms maintained for personal protection in order to satisfy their debts.”
And here’s where Hill goes off the rails. Let’s suppose that a woman goes off the deep end, starts running around with another man and then files for divorce, essentially taking the man for just about all he’s worth and forcing him to start over in life in middle age.
Think it can’t happen? I know two men whom I love very deeply to whom that has happened. Bankruptcy was in store for one of them, and he had to liquidate his entire gun collection for her. This bill prevents that from happening.
But here is my disappointment. The South Carolina senate has proven that it can actually pass a pro-gun bill and send it to the governor’s desk. They can also do that with open carry and constitutional carry, but chose to lock it down in committee until it died for this session.
For this reason the S.C. state senators have a bulls eye painted on their backs. I won’t forget. Gun owners won’t forget. This bill is a weak installment for gun rights, and doesn’t even come close to making up for not passing constitutional carry. Weak tea won’t suffice, gentlemen.
“Like it or not,” Gottlieb observed, “the Courts have the final say whether you have gun rights or not.”
You can also read a related discussion thread at reddit/r/firearms. Here is the problem. The courts don’t have the final say on whether we have gun rights. I appreciate that we need good judges in position, but only because we want to be peaceable men if possible.
Even if my rights aren’t observed by society, they still exist. This is Alan’s moral malfunction. He reflexively turns to the state for disposition of God-given rights, which I’m sure is why he has shown himself so willing to compromise in the past.
It’s pagan and statist thinking that turns to the state for cradle to grave security and for a delineation and protection of our rights. I’ve explained this before – our rights come from God Himself, the Almighty king of heaven and earth, the maker of the universe, the one who determines what He will do with the clay vessels he creates, the only potentate and sovereign.
The constitution is a covenant by which men have agreed to live together. We derive our authority to bear arms from God, in whose image we are made, and who Himself made war when necessary, and thus we are to protect that image. This is His immutable law. If the covenant within which we live does not reflect God’s laws, it is an abomination and dishonors God. It is null and void. Second, to the extent that it does, when we fail to live within the framework of that covenant it is null and void. Therefore, if the government breaks covenant with the people, the government has declared itself null and void before God.
A man-made document can never … never … establish rights. It can only recognize what has already been established by the almighty. God grants men the right to self defense, as well as the right to enter into covenant with a government, that covenant having blessings as well as curses, just like the covenant of marriage comes with blessings and curses (e.g., divorce in the case of infidelity, which recognizes that the covenant has been broken and is null and void, cursing the one who broke it). Self defense properly interpreted means not only personal defense from evildoers who would cause him or his family harm, but self defense from a tyrannical government.
Gottlieb couldn’t have been more wrong. Judges are important for the opposite reason he boasts. They are important in that they have a duty before God almighty and His laws and to honor the covenant we have made. They don’t get to make decisions concerning whether such rights exist. Their purview comes with duties and responsibilities, not the freedom to be cavalier, insolent or capricious. Theirs is a terrible responsibility and they should justly fear God. When it comes to the rights of men to defend themselves, there is only one decision of which God approves.
Psalm 2 says “The kings of the earth shall take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed … He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them” (2-3). Isaiah 6 describes what happens when men meet God face to face.
In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.3 And one called out to another and said,“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. 5 Then I said “Woe is me, for I am ruined!
The position of judge and ruler is a terrible position because they will answer before God for what they do, and if they push it far enough, they may answer before men in time and space before they ever get to God. But always remember, if you are a ruler or judge who happens to be reading this. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords is watching you and will judge with a righteous judgment. There is no escape from His laws or the day of judgment, and no fealty to a document, interpretation, or political bias will be allowed as excuse or justification for your high handed sin against God.
8 years, 8 months ago
