Articles by Herschel Smith

Tim Lynch:

Islam promotes male aggression while crushing female vanity. Their cultural fear of female sexuality produces a bizarre dissonance reflected in increases in birth defects from intermarriage, a hatred of homosexuals but an acceptance of homosexual acts between young men and with younger boys. Large farm animals are at risk of rape when bands of armed young Muslim fighters are about; the US military has thousands of hours of surveillance video to prove that.  The repression of females by Islamic society has produced shocking levels of hypocrisy which should make it the weaker participant in a clash of cultures yet, for now, the issue is in doubt …

There you have it, from a man who was there more than a decade outside the wire.  Interestingly, earlier in the essay, Tim says this.

Understanding that wars must be ended quickly to prevent unnecessary deaths and destruction does not mean there will not be death destruction. Lobbing 123,984 16-inch shells into the towns and villages of France was not humane, it exposed the civilian population to unimaginable death and destruction but it also shortened a horrible war. Going into Musa Qala or Sangin and giving the tribes a simple ultimatum; join our side or we will burn down your villages, kill your livestock, and put all of you in ‘relocation camps’ is not humane. But it would have shorten the current Afghan war by a decade.

Of the many moral problems I had (and still have) with highly restrictive rules of engagement (ROE), one of the more pragmatic considerations is that the American people simply will not support a campaign where their boys are coming home in body bags for the sake of keeping others alive, no matter what the COIN theorists tell you.

And to think that folks had a problem with my posing the question, “Should Marcus Luttrell and those guys have just shot the goat herders as enemy spies” (which of course they turned out to be)?

We previously discussed Pat MacNamara and his support of universal background checks and waiting periods for firearms purchases.  Uncle weighed in today with this.

I waited until the dust seemed to settle on this one. But a pro gun guy said something that seemed dumb, likely due to editing from Comedy Central. The internet lynch mob kicked in. Tam is correct. Everyone should, right after one of these things happens, cool their shit and find out what happened before grabbing the pitchforks and torches.

Good advice from Sebastian:

So for Christs sake, for the dozenth or so time: dont talk to the fucking media or Comedy Central. They are snakes with cameras and editing rooms. They will make you look bad. No you cant beat them at this game

Nope, don’t like it.  And I don’t like Sebastian’s counsel either, not one damn bit.  This has nothing whatsoever to do with talking to the media.  If I talked to the media there isn’t the slightest chance anything I said could be mistaken for any kind of support for universal background checks or waiting periods.

Besides, I think it’s good to know what people think.  I see no need to wait – he clearly said he supported what he said he supported.  There was no mistake, and there is no mistaking what he said.  He said what he thought, and he thought what he said.  This isn’t a tautology – it’s clearheaded thinking on Pat’s part, albeit very foreign to liberty and very wrong.

Now let’s take a stroll through Tam’s thoughts on this.

Well, that was pretty heavily edited, but it sounded like Pat Mac was in favor of waiting periods. The background check remark was pretty ambiguous. I mean, we already *have* background checks, so…

Yes, Pat was in favor of waiting periods.  And yes, he was in favor of universal background checks.

I reserve the right to form my opinions on these things on a case-by-case basis. I haven’t really formed mine here yet, other than I think Pat Mac is as wrong as tw…well, as a very wrong thing…when it comes to the utility of waiting periods.

As far as Universal Background Checks, here’s the correct and constitutional way to implement those: Since the right to keep and bear arms is a civil right, the default setting is that everyone has it. If someone becomes a felon or is otherwise debarred from arms, then make a NO GUNS ALLOWED black mark on their DL/ID/passport/whatever.

Show me an ID without that disclaimer, and you’d be good to go, no background check necessary. And you’d be good to go in all 50 states, at that.

I’d trade that for moving suppressors to Title I, repealing the Hughes Amendment, and interstate handgun sales. Hell, I might throw in a 3-day wait on sales from FFL dealers for that package deal.But that’s not what the other side means by “compromise”.

Oh dear.  Since this post is pregnant with ideas and there is an awful lot here it might be difficult to fisk all of it.  I’m not going to try in this post.  But I’ll observe first of all that many felons are convicted of non-violent offenses and deserve to have their rights restored.

Second, even if you don’t want violent felons to have firearms, that doesn’t mean that form 4473 stops them, or that they have to keep records of non-offenders like you and me (by keeping form 4473s) in order to conduct a background check.  It doesn’t, and they don’t.  Form 4473s are written and kept for reasons other than doing a background check, and you know it full well, don’t you?  Just admit the truth.

Finally, you know what they are going after with universal background checks, Tam.  They are going after person-to-person transfers, and we all know it.  My position on gun control remains unchanged.  It is evil, perpetrated by wicked rulers for nefarious purposes.

And my position on Pat MacNamara remains unchanged.  What he said was clear and I have no need of waiting or trying to dissect it or find out what he “really” meant.  He said what he really meant.

Hey, doesn’t Tam write for the NRA?

Politico:

Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) included the silencer provision as part of a broader bill, the “Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act,” or SHARE Act. There are several gun-related items in the package, including the silencer language. A “discussion draft” of SHARE Act will be reviewed by a House Natural Resources subcommittee on Wednesday.

An interesting reddit discussion on this can he found here, and the American Suppressor Association has a summary of the bill here.

I don’t like that suppressors will be treated as long guns, taxed, and form 4473 completed.  For God’s sake, people, this is a threaded tube with baffles.  But I’ll admit that it will make this easier to pass, there will be no waiting period, no ATF review, and suppressors will be removed from the NFA items list.  And if we believe in incrementalism, we should support this bill.

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.