Articles by Herschel Smith

US News & World Report:

A bill that would overturn most local gun ordinances that are more stringent than Nebraska state law cleared a key hurdle Wednesday despite protests from some Omaha and Lincoln area senators who raised public safety concerns.

Lawmakers gave initial approval to a gun-rights pre-emption bill 32-12, after supporters overcame a filibuster by opponents who want to preserve existing local rules.

Supporters said the bill would eliminate a confusing patchwork of local gun ordinances, particularly in Omaha and Lincoln. Critics in the Legislature argued the bill would allow gun-rights groups to sue cities which refuse to repeal their rules even if aren’t directly harmed.

Cities, counties, towns and municipalities who infringe on God-given and constitutionally recognized rights should be exposed to liability and they should be sued.

As we’ve seen in our own discussions on this topic, no one can ever show that a local government attempts to loosen gun laws.  The only thing they ever do is attempt to infringe to an even greater degree than the state on gun rights.  Therefore, it makes good sense for states to do this in order to stop the collectivists and controllers who want to dictate every little detail of life within their borders.

So here is a note to these little dictators.  Your borders aren’t sovereign.  You aren’t allowed to control guns or anything else the state doesn’t allow you to control.  Why don’t you stop worrying about this and figure out how to meet your obligations on all of those unfunded liabilities you have because of those ridiculous city worker pensions you agreed to.

Nebraska should proceed apace to make this the law of the state.

Shooting Illustrated normally does fairly well with their articles.  This time they bombed.  In The Right Way To Shoot An AR-15, there is this picture.

He’s standing with a modified Weaver stance, much like he’s hunting deer with a bolt action rifle.  That’s okay for hunting deer with a bolt action rifle, but it’s not okay when so large a solid angle has been rendered unmonitored and inaccessible by you.

That area is threat-sensitive in an assault, and that’s one reason why Marines are taught to shoot with the “plates-forward aggressive” stance.  We discussed it in John Lovell On Mounting The Carbine.  John also gives some practical advice on how to counter shoulder exhaustion when using the “thumb-over-bore” grip, otherwise called “C-Clamp” grip.

Someone named Bob Cesca wrote as idiotic an article at Salon as you will ever read.  That’s not what interests me.  What does interest me is the comment thread, in which Jason Koskey says this.

Because we empower them to take lives. They are one of the few professions entrusted with such an awesome responsibility.

It’s simply a matter of fact that guns are offensive. Yes, you may successful shoot someone before they shoot you. That’s still offence, not defence. Guns have no defensive properties.

He’s referring to LEOs here with regards to his comment.  We “empower them to take lives!”  Forget for a moment that if guns have no defensive properties (?), LEOs would have no business carrying them to begin with.

Or perhaps that presupposes the consequent, or begs the question.  Perhaps Jason believes that cops need guns not for self defense, but only in order to do society’s bidding to take lives.  Forget due process, forget equal protection.  LEOs take lives.  That’s their purpose according to Jason.

This is a stark reminder concerning what collectivists think, and how far they’ve gone down the road to statism and serfdom.  That in Tennessee versus Garner the Supreme Court said that LEOs can only use firearms in self defense (and not to fire on someone like an escaping prisoner) is irrelevant.  That the SCOTUS said that cops have weapons for the very same reason civilians have them, i.e., personal protection, doesn’t matter to Jason.

Cops are empowered to take lives according to Jason.  Pity the fool who turns to the state for his well being.  The state cares nothing for him or his life.

CATO:

California law generally bans the possession of a gun within a school zone. For many years, however, both retired peace officers and those with a license to carry concealed weapons were exempted from this ban. Then in 2015, a bill was proposed that would have eliminated both of these exceptions. But after extensive lobbying by interest groups aligned with federal workers and police officers, the bill was amended to remove only the exception for concealed-carry licensees.

Dr. Ulises Garcia is one such license holder, who obtained his license after receiving threats against himself from a former patient. After the change in the law, Garcia can no longer carry his weapon for protection when attending school events with his family. Garcia and a group of other plaintiffs have sued, arguing that the differing treatment afforded to retired peace officers and concealed-carry license holders violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of the equal protection of the laws. The federal district court rejected their claims, and they have now appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Cato has filed an amicus brief supporting Garcia and urging that the district court be reversed.

The guffaws normally get roared when one has the temerity to suggest that LEOs and gun owners get treated the same way.  I recall a discussion I had with retired California LEOs over reddit/r/guns where they couldn’t believe I didn’t support the idea of changes to laws to allow former or retired California LEOs to purchase their weapons – including AR-15s – for personal use once they no longer work for law enforcement.

Not only that, I don’t even support the notion of LEOs having those weapons at all even in the line of duty unless civilians can also have them.  What’s good for one is good for the other.  Wearing a blue costume and wearing a badge doesn’t bestow rights not already recognized in the constitution.

As for the fact that LEOs has sworn an oath, so have I.  I swore an oath to protect, defend and provide for my family when I said “I do.”

Popular Mechanics:

On the heels of the Marine Corps’ desire for a new rifle for its infantrymen, the U.S. Army now says it is contemplating a dramatic switch in rifles. The service is considering going back to battle rifles—heavier rifles that can hit targets at longer ranges. The last time the Army fielded such a rifle was in the 1960s.

The story, broke by Soldier Systems Daily, says that U.S. Army troops feel they’re “in a street fight with a guy with longer arms.” That longer arm is the 7.62x54R cartridge, the cartridge used by the PK machine gun and Dragunov SVD sniper rifle. The PK squad machine gun is extremely common; it’s in use by the Taliban, the Islamic State, and most insurgent and terrorist groups worldwide. Longer and heavier than the 7.62×39-millimeter round used in the AK series of assault rifles, a PK with the 7.62x54R round has an effective range of 800 to 1,000 yards, versus only about 350 yards for an AK-47.

On the Army side, the maximum effective range of an M4 carbine against man-sized targets is about 500 yards, depending on the skill of the rifleman, and 700 yards for the M249 squad automatic weapon. Both fire the same cartridge. That leaves a dead zone of roughly 500 to 1,000 yards where the bulk of a nine person infantry squad can’t engage individual enemies. In a platoon of 40 soldiers, on average only about six soldiers armed with M249s, marksman rifles, and M240 machine guns have the range to engage an enemy in the dead zone.

U.S. Army troops may have an edge on paper, but guerrilla groups don’t adhere to a bureaucratic equipment roster that says each unit can have a certain number of weapons. Taliban and IS groups routinely have a large number of heavier machine guns, and what they lack in skill they often try to make up in firepower.

While there are a number of readers who would applaud this move in favor of a 30-06 (the old Garand) or .308 (7.62mm), a “real battle rifle,” I think it will go nowhere and lacks traction.  It certainly lack traction with me for reasons I’ll explain.

The excuse that the Taliban shoot machine guns and longer range weapons is disingenuous.  As I documented in my coverage of the battle of Wanat, the issue with fighting the Taliban had nothing to do with the M4, and everything to do with deployment of Soldiers in bad locations, slowly enough that the Taliban had time to mass troops on a roughly ten to one ratio.  They had a near Battalion size group fighting a platoon size group of Soldiers on low terrain.

There were other problems with Soldiers in the Hindu Kush such as the lack of training in shooting uphill (as well as not owning the high ground).  One problem that could be corrected is that the M4s the Army fields have been shot so many times and the parts so worn that they malfunction easily.  Many Soldiers don’t know enough to modify their own weapons, wouldn’t be allowed to if they could, and lack the funds to do it.  But there are ways to assist your rifle in its accuracy, reliability and longevity.

But take a closer look at what they’re asking for.  They want to field the 7.62mm, with its weight additional weight and the weight of the ammunition, and they expect their men (and women, unfortunately) to be able to shoot accurately beyond 500 yards and up to 1000 yards.  This will require the use of good optics, not an ACOG or the Army equivalent, but scoped shooting.

Consider The Firearm Blog and one writer’s position that the Marine Corp Scout Sniper training is the best combined precision and marksmanship observation packages in the United States.  It has a high failure rate, and takes months to complete.  No unit can go without Marines for long enough to send hundreds or thousands of Marines to this training.  And there aren’t enough classes or instructors to go around even if they could.

My son, Daniel, has been through all of the shooting instruction in these classes, albeit not the observation and tracking.  It does indeed take months of training to understand and use high power scopes for precision shooting.  For the Army to pretend that they’re are going to send thousands of brand new Soldiers at Fort Jackson into classes to learn parallax, windage adjustments, elevation and humidity effects on shooting, and so on, is a pipe dream.

I’m not suggesting, by the way, that you or your family not have your own higher caliber and bolt action precision chassis weapons as well as your CQB and shorter range weapons, or that you forego the time and accoutrements to use them properly.  Every gun has its purpose, and you need all the right tools for the job ahead.  I’m suggesting that America isn’t going to make snipers out of their Soldiers by switching from 5.56mm to 7.62mm.

Politico:

Preparing for life with Donald Trump as president and Republican majorities in Congress, Michael Bloomberg’s gun control group is threatening to spend more than $25 million in 2018 races.

Everytown for Gun Safety, founded and funded by the billionaire former New York City mayor, is hiring several new top staffers and turning much of its attention to state legislatures, while moving to a defensive posture in Washington as it tries to stop what’s known as “concealed carry reciprocity” from becoming law. That will include starting to score congressional votes, like the National Rifle Association does, to guide spending decisions more directly.

We knew that collectivists never give up, and neither can we.  Unfortunately, Bloomberg has been moderately successful at the state level in blue states at infringing more on gun rights.  That’s why as I’ve recommended to nice people that you can’t be nice with Everytown.  You have go to war with them.  They are at war with you and your rights, and war is interested in you whether you’re interested or not.  It remains a bright spot in my blogging history that Jennifer Mascia came into my back yard on behalf of Everytown and tried to run with the big dogs (my commenters) and got chewed up.

As for what Trump has or hasn’t done on our behalf, while I’m disappointed in the degree of control that McMaster seems to have over him and his entry into the war to topple Syria, there are bright spots in Trump’s brief history of appointments.

Jesse Panuccio, the third-highest ranking official at the Department of Justice, has argued to allow firearms sales to people under age 21 and in defense of a Florida law that prohibited doctors from asking patients if they owned guns.

Noel Francisco, Donald Trump’s nominee for solicitor general, has described the Second Amendment as “a structural protection that’s intended to protect all other rights.”

And Tom Wheeler, now a senior lawyer in the DOJ’s civil rights division, once gave a speech with the title: “Arming Teachers to Prevent Tragedies, Responding to Sandy Hook.”

Forget for a moment that Sandy Hook was a false flag.  These are good appointments (go read the entire article).  On the other hand, I hold out very little hope that national carry reciprocity or the hearing protection act will get traction (much less amending or outright undoing the NFA).  The gaggle of gargoyles and demons that inhabits the House and Senate has no interest in your rights, and even if they did, trying to get anything useful done is like trying to herd cats.

So I can only recommend that you don’t wait on national carry, and if you wanted to suppressor or SBR, go ahead and get it and file the paperwork.  If there is success on the horizon, I just don’t see it.  Perhaps I’m just being pessimistic.

What do my readers think?

Via Codrea, this:

An Australian man wearing a crucifix and his girlfriend were attacked by a Muslim gang on a Sidney train on April 4 who yelled, ‘F*** Jesus!” and praised “Allah” as transit police witnessed the attack but did not intervene, according to an April 8 report in the Daily Telegraph.

The thirty-year-old Greek-Orthodox man who was attacked is only identified as “Mike”. Mike told Miranda Devine with the Telegraph he was riding the train from Campsie to Bankstown with his girlfriend when they were attacked by the Muslim gang of men and women.

[ … ]

He claims that five uniformed railway “Transport Officers” watched the attack and did nothing to help him, although police were waiting for the train when it reached Bankstown station.

Two police officers took the names of three alleged assailants and a statement from Mike, photographed his injuries, told him they would review CCTV footage from the train and that he should expect a letter in a month, which may require his attendance at court…

Well that’ll show them.  No good Muslim gangster wants to get a letter from a worthless cop.  Seriously Christians, I can say this because I’m a Christian too.  You’d better stop being such pussies.  You’d better gun up and prepare to fight.

If you don’t, you will be listening to calls to prayer from the Mosques that surround your home, your women will have to wear hijabs and only leave home with you or get raped, your sons will get converted to Islam, and you’ll convert or die.  If you’re truly a Christian you won’t convert, so you’ll die.

So if you’re going to die anyway, and you will at some point, wouldn’t you rather go out as a warrior protecting your clan?  Wouldn’t you rather be considered a crusader fighting for justice rather than a drag on society who allows others to conduct your battles?

Yes, just like Google (who owns YouTube), Twitter, Disqus, the MSM, college professors, corporate leadership and just about everybody else in power.  Next question.

David Codrea:

Then, one idea I haven’t seen explored (beyond me suggesting it) is to use “the enemy’s” own tactics against him. The small “l” libertarian in me says social media giants are private enterprises, and if we don’t like the way they operate, we should go our separate ways. That does not account for the tremendous influence these corporations have on government actions and policies, which introduces coercive potential into the voluntary associations.

I think this is the best approach.  It’s what I have attempted to do with Disqus comments.  If readers will notice, I’ve dumped Disqus and gone back to something simpler.  For a test period we had something like it with responses, but we’ve hopefully got something similar or better in the works.

Transitioning away from things like this isn’t easy.  We’ve also transferred web hosts from Media Temple to another, because Media Temple had started to gouge me on prices.  Why did they do that?  I don’t know.  I also know that my problems with Disqus left the theoretical and entered the practical when they moderated a commenter’s comment and I couldn’t approve it.  It didn’t show up in the comments, but I saw it as site owner, although in Disqus there was nothing to approve.  Disqus left it impossible for me to approve the comment.

I don’t use Facebook and have no account, and don’t do Twitter.  Perhaps that’s one of the reasons for low visits compared to similar blogs (“yea, blame it on social media rather than your own writing you putz” – the couch).  Either way, until we begin to divorce ourselves from the censoring censors, they will keep censoring us.

And before I forget it, I share David’s dislike of The Firearm Blog’s claim that it’s not politics, only guns.  Sure it is.  I’ve seen exceptions to that rule, and they make them when it’s convenient.  They ought to defenestrate the entire rule and blog on whatever they want.  This is only going to get worse with time.  Be prepared for more censorship with the ever increasing war on guns and traditional culture.

Regarding Cops Given Pass For Shooting Innocent Man In His Own Home, a reader wrote in an corrected me concerning a word in the post.  I faithfully reproduced the sections of Bob Unruh’s article, and correctly discussed the Lake County Police and their actions, right up until I confused the issue with Lake City Police, which is something entirely different.  I have corrected the original post.  I regret the error.

The State:

Impassioned pleas by legislators from both sides of the aisle failed to stop a majority of House members Wednesday from advancing a bill that allows for the carrying of firearms without a permit.

On a 64-46 vote, the S.C. House of Representatives passed the bill, which had been clouded in controversy over how it progressed through committee and allegations that Republicans stymied debate. It’ll head for the Senate after a perfunctory vote on Thursday.

“The legislative history of this bill is an embarrassment,” said Rep. James Smith, D-Richland, who repeatedly attempted to thwart a vote on the bill after Republicans invoked a procedural move that limited debate.

The bill calls for what proponents refer to as “constitutional carry,” or allowing those who can legally buy a firearm to carry a concealed weapon without having to obtain a permit.

It also allows for open carry, which grants weapons holders the ability to carry their firearms on their person for everyone to see. The law still would bar carrying a firearm while committing a crime.

Smith was not alone in trying to delay a vote. Several Republicans joined in, because they were against how the bill was advanced or didn’t like parts of the proposed law.

Rep. Gary Clary, R-Pickens, said he was against the bill because during his time as a judge and as a legislator, he has advocated for allowing all sides to have their say. Invoking a procedural vote to limit debate prevented that. He also said he just thinks “it’s a bad bill.”

[ … ]

Like Clary, Rep. Bill Crosby, R-Charleston, called the proposal a “bad bill.” He was against the portion that allows for open carry.

While dangling his concealed-weapons permit from his wallet, Crosby stressed he is “for guns” and the Second Amendment. He said he just didn’t think this change is needed.

“This bill doesn’t help the Second Amendment,” Crosby said. “All it does is it makes these good ol’ boys who like to have guns strapped to their hips not conceal them.”

Crosby said he is thankful for the Senate, which will probably kill the bill by having it languish in committee. Previous permit-less carry bills have suffered that fate in past years.

First of all, invoking a procedural stipulation that limits debate is a tried and true, well recognized procedure allowed by parliamentary rules.  Anyone who has worked under “Robert’s Rules of Order” knows that, and those complaining about closing debate also know that.  They’re making up their objection to closing debate.  It’s just a red herring.  Debate has to be closed at some point, and they just did it sooner rather than later.  It’s entirely possible under parliamentary procedure to have absolutely no debate at all.  The vote is what matters.

As for Crosby’s complaint that “All it does is it makes these good ol’ boys who like to have guns strapped to their hips not conceal them,” we may reply that all the current law does is make those boys have to conceal the guns they have on their hips for no good reason at all except that you want them to.  You like to conceal, others may not.  And your way doesn’t do anything at all for the second amendment.  Your way forces a rule on people who neither want it nor need it.  Our way undoes an unnecessary rule.  You’re the bad guy here, not us.  See how that works, Crosby?

If this does indeed die in the Senate like so many times in the past, then we’ll know who to go after for the next primary and election cycle.  You guys aren’t going to get away with the things you once did.  We’re watching very closely.  Ask former state senator Larry Martin if you don’t believe me.  Go ahead.  Ignore gun owners one more time.  Let’s make sure your name is written down in the memory of patriots everywhere across South Carolina.  We don’t forget.

As for the “journalist” who wrote all of this, Cynthia Roldán, take note that the only ones around her who can make “impassioned pleas” are those who oppose constitutional carry.  It’s as if there is weeping in the halls of power in Columbia over the awful things taking place, not just among Democrats, mind you, but from “both sides of the isle,” with the emotionless gun advocates impervious to the weeping.  And she managed to locate those Republicans who voted against this bill and turn it into quite a dramatic presentation, yes?

Actually, she did us a service.  Otherwise, how would you have know what a putz Crosby was?