Articles by Herschel Smith

There’s nothing quite like having to fund your enemies, is there?  Listen to U.S. District Court Judge Walter H. Rice.

I think open carry (and concealed-carry) laws, with all due deference to the Second Amendment, which I support…are dangerous to any community because of the epidemic of mental health issues throughout this country,” he said. “Putting guns in the hands of mentally incompetent people is a recipe for disaster.”

Lies.  And the only mentally incompetent person around here is you, judge Rice.  You moron.

Next up is a local politician – the top cop in Pelham – and I do refer to him as a politician, speaking out against constitutional carry in Alabama.

Palmer said the passage of the bill would require him to sit down and reevaluate the way Pelham Police Department conducts traffic stops.

“It puts the public and police officers at risk,” Palmer said.  “I believe in the second amendment for law abiding citizens.  I’m not trying to take away anybody’s rights.  I’m just trying to keep handguns out of the possession of criminals.”

Oh horse shit.  You know better than that.  The current system does absolutely nothing to ensure what you said, and I just think you’re whining about the loss of revenue.

So go ahead and sit down (or stand up) and have that conversation with your cops.  You shouldn’t be worrying over whether someone has a concealed handgun permit during stops or not.  That’s a false indication of your safety.

I’m tired of spending my hard-earned dollars so that government employees can concoct lies.

An epicenter of the last great Mohammedan conquest of Europe, Spain, is the site of a recent seizure of weapons bound for terrorists in Europe.  Take a look at the picture.

Now, look again.  That’s a veritable shit-load of guns and ordnance, yes?  Hey Christians, if there are any left in Europe.  You’ve been called wimps in a recent commentary.  I prefer to think of you as pussies.  I’m a Christian too, but I’m no pussy.  Listen to my counsel.

You’d better gun up.  Prepare to defend yourselves.  And by the way, this is coming to America too.  You understand that, right?

David Codrea:

Besides which, since when is “effectiveness” a measure of Constitutionality? Where is the authority to do this? That’s a question a group of us have been asking for years, and for which we have never received acknowledgement from Exile proponents, let alone a responsive answer. Perhaps it’s time to resurrect and heed the objections and warnings of the Project Exile Condemnation Coalition.

Even without resorting to the demonstrable truism that anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian, there is a variety of ways people who pose no danger to themselves or others are denied the right to keep and bear arms – and often without even the simulated motions of “due process.” That includes gun owners in hopelessly “blue states,” in which all doors for peaceable redress of grievances have been slammed shut by overwhelmingly “anti-gun” legislatures and judges.

I agree with David concerning the issue of custodianship and gun ownership, and I must say that all of this federal involvement in local affairs is off-putting to say the least.

Jeff Sessions is better than some AGs we could get, but frankly, I couldn’t care less about enforcement of federal gun laws, any more than I care about the so-called “war on drugs,” both of which seem like failures to me as well as unconstitutional.

One reason I was happy to see Sessions appointed AG had to do with what I thought would be his prosecution of high level politicians and power brokers associated with, bound up in, implicated in, and leading the wicked and obscene pedogate empire that has taken Washington and other international centers of power.

When is Sessions going to start this prosecution?  It’s been long enough.  I’ve run out of patience.  Drop your focus off of inner city black-on-black crime (which you can do nothing about short of removing the incentive, i.e., welfare and SNAP as payment for out-of-wedlock babies) and focus on the extortionist racket that is CP.  Otherwise, you’ll be just another worthless AG I wish I had never known.

FBO.gov:

The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is seeking to identify potential sources within the national technology and industrial base with the ability to provide a conversion kit for the M4A1 to create a Personal Defense Weapon (PDW) system:
-Complete Kit to include upper receiver and butt stock kit
-Any tools required to complete an operational conversion
-A light and sound reducing suppressor that can be attached to the system when needed.

PDW Kit specifics: The kit must be adaptable to the standard M4A1 lower receiver, any modification to the lower receiver must be reversible and nonpermanent. The kit must be in .300 Blackout (BLK) cartridge, total system weight, including the M4A1 lower in not to exceed 5.5lbs. Length with stock extended not to extend 26″ length with stock collapsed or folded shall be 17″ (T), 15″ (O) and a height not to exceed 7.5″. Weapon shall be fully functional when collapsed or folded. Kit should include a 5.56mm barrel that can be changed from .300 BLK to 5.56mm in less than 3 minutes. Accuracy shall be 3.0 MOA (T), 2.0 MOA (O) @100 yds. and 5.0 MOA (T), 3.0 MOA (O) @ 300 yds. both in .300 BLK supersonic.

The Firearm Blog remarks show how difficult this might be to meet.

To meet these requirements, it is necessary to either dramatically shorten or do away with the AR-15’s receiver extension and buffer, even when using very short barrels. Colt’s 10.3″ barreled Sub Compact Weapon (SCW) for example, is 28.5″/30.25″ (collapsed/extended) with the stock unfolded, and 23.5″ with the stock folded, meaning that this weapon could not meet SOCOM’s requirements except with a 3.8″ barrel! Even SIG’s MCX, which uses no buffer tube and has a fully folding stock, would need a barrel just 6.5″ long to meet this requirement, and it would still struggle to meet the 5.5lbs weight limit.

In other words, these are extremely tough requirements to meet for an M4 conversion kit, especially since submissions must be made before April 10th! Best of luck to any companies who decide to make a submission!

How strange.  Why would SOCOM be asking for a PDW when their barrels are short enough already (my understanding is that teams are deployed using 10″ and shorter barrels).  If you want a .300 Blackout gun, why not order the upper receiver for your already functional lower receivers, without including all of the barrel changeout kit?

Besides, just leave well enough alone.  Deploy with your .300 Blackout gun, with a nominal barrel length, or deploy with your 5.56mm gun, with a nominal barrel length.  Don’t complicate matters.  And as for barrel length, the shorter you make them, the harder it is to pick up that all-important muzzle velocity.  Why not use 16″ or 18″ barrels?  Someone give me a good reason, please?  Someone from SOCOM?

KFOR.com:

SPENCER, Ind. — People living near an Indiana gun range say they’re scared of being struck by a bullet inside of their own homes.

“The neighbor’s daughter and I were outside and we heard the bullet whizz by,” said Spencer resident Kathy Wise. “It went whirr, thump.”

Homeowners who live directly across from the Precision Gun Range say their houses on Hardscrabble Road have been struck by several bullets.

During an interview with WXIN, Wise walked around the house and pointed out bullet holes she and her husband found on the back of the garage. Then, she showed where she says state police and local investigators found even more bullet holes, along with some of the bullets themselves.

[ … ]

Precision staff would not talk on camera, but did say they take safety seriously. They claimed their investigation shows the bullet holes didn’t come from them and they’re likely not responsible.

This is a simple matter of engineering calculations.  The question of whether range bullets could be hitting the homes is able to be answered with certainty.

Look folks, we gun owners need to assert our rights when it’s time and within the right context, but being stupid isn’t a right, and neither is shooting innocent people.  This looks especially bad for the gun community.  Don’t make us look bad.  Stop that.

It’s possible to install earthen berms, ground baffles, aerial baffles and concrete block sidewalls, just like has been done for the Foothills Shooting Complex, which faced that same issue.  Yes, this costs money.  If the bullets can be demonstrated to be coming from your range, shut it down or install the modifications.

Reuters:

Anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders may have fallen short in this week’s election in the Netherlands, but his views were shared by all the Dutch parties and are pushing Europe towards “wars of religion”, Turkey’s foreign minister said on Thursday.

Centre-right Prime Minister Mark Rutte fended off the Wilders challenge in a victory hailed across Europe by governments facing a rising wave of nationalism.

The reaction in Ankara was less sanguine. Turkey has been locked in a deepening row with the Netherlands after the Dutch barred Turkish ministers from holding rallies among overseas Turks.

“Many parties have received a similar share of votes. Seventeen percent, 20 percent, there are lots of parties like this, but they are all the same,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a rally in the southern city of Antalya.

“There is no difference between the mindsets of Geert Wilders and social democrats in the Netherlands. They all have the same mindset … That mindset is taking Europe to the cliff. Soon wars of religion may and will start in Europe.”

[ … ]

He also slammed the European Union for a ruling allowing companies to ban staff from wearing Islamic headscarves under certain conditions.

“Shame on the EU,” Erdogan said. “Down with your European principles, values and justice … They started a clash between the cross and the crescent, there is no other explanation.”

“Down with your European principles, values and justice.”  It means war.  We will not assimilate, you will change.  That’s the message, else it means war.

Can you imagine a clearer statement of intent by the Mohammedans?  My own view is that if it’s war you want, then let’s have war.  You don’t scare me.

Ramesh might have thought he was doing someone a favor in posing this list, a list he apparently thinks is easy.

Here is his setup.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence sent out a press release today with four proposed questions for Judge Gorsuch’s confirmation hearing. The questions don’t seem to me to be either illuminating or challenging. Here they are, stripped of prefatory language:

1.) Do you agree that the 2nd Amendment right is not unlimited or absolute, that it does not trump other constitutional rights, and that it is subject to reasonable limitations for public safety?

2.) Do you believe current federal law requiring Brady background checks for gun sales from licensed dealers, and prohibiting certain people from completing gun purchases, is constitutional?

3.) Do you believe that the 2nd Amendment protects gun owners and/or gun industry participants with immunities or protections from liability for negligence?

4.) Do you believe states have the ability to develop gun laws to keep their citizens safe?

He pans the list as not being very good or smart on the part of the Brady bunch, because he has easy answers, and Gorsuch should listen to them, or something.

1) Yes, I agree. 2) It would be improper to commit to rule in particular ways on issues that may come before the Court. 3) Statutory protections already in law are certainly constitutional, and will likely make the question of whether the Constitution itself confers any protections from liability moot. 4) Yes, within constitutional limits.

Well, these answers would be a massive problem for Gorsuch in terms of the opinions of gun owners, most of us anyway, and would be just fine with the Brady bunch except for the third one, and the fact that Ponnuru thinks these answers are easy or obvious just shows the gaping divide between Northeastern progressives (and beltway dwellers) and the rest of red state America.

So here are my answers: (1) No, (2) No, (3) Yes, unless it pertains to gun owners negligently shooting others, not including stand your ground laws (here the Brady campaign is disingenuous because they intend to include the right to hold gun manufacturers liable for damages caused by their products when it’s the users who should be responsible, and they’ve rolled in “gun owners” into immunities and protections, a stipulation that can never obtain any more than immunity in death by negligent use of a car can obtain – this sleight of hand should have been pointed out by Ramesh), and (4) No.

William Layer:

To anyone who can diagram a sentence the Second Amendment is crystal-clear, not a Delphic pronouncement. The Founding Fathers, well versed in Latin grammar, knew exactly what they meant when they passed the Second Amendment. The meaning is in the main clause — “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” — a complete sentence. “A well-regulated militia” is, in Latin, an ablative absolute, it introduces the main idea. Would Second Amendment opponents be happier if it read, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state”? The idea remains the same, but given the progressivist idea of a “living Constitution,” they would nullify the Second Amendment by asserting knowledge of the Bill of Rights superior to that of its author, James Madison.

Historian Leonard Levy’s “Origins of the Bill of Rights” reaffirmed an individual right. Wrote Levy: “The right to bear arms is an individual right. … if all it meant was the right to … serve in the military … [it] would never have reached constitutional status in the Bill of Rights. The very language of the amendment is evidence that the right is a personal one, for it is not subordinated to the militia clause.” The state constitutions of the revolution and early national period also acknowledged an individual right.

The Founders’ classical education made them realistically fearful of government power. They knew well what had befallen the Roman Republic and that tyrannies were only possible when the people lacked the means to resist. The chaos and oppression of the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution’s short-circuiting of the Stuart’s divine right ambitions were fixed in their minds as was the English Bill of Rights (1689) which, although limited to Protestants, secured an Englishman’s right to arms. However, the roots go even further back, to the “Trained Bandes,” locals called up to defend the realm as Elizabeth I did when the Armada threatened England. Englishmen provided their own accouterments according to their station. Likewise, the chronic war with France in which for over a century frontier settlements were attacked, settlers massacred or carried off into Indian slavery meant colonists had to protect themselves.

New England towns either supplied weapons or, as had Plymouth in 1632, ordered freemen to arm themselves for defense against ever-present Indian dangers. When Queen Anne’s War (War of the Spanish Succession) broke out in 1702, New England militias were called to support the British assault on French Canada. Militiamen brought their own weapons; those who did not own a musket were issued one that they could keep when mustered out. The battles of Lexington and Concord at the start of the American Revolution could not have taken place without an armed citizenry. Who, then, was the militia? To George Mason, it consisted of “the whole people.” Under the Militia Act of 1792, every man between 18 and 54 “who when “so enrolled and notified … shall within six months thereafter, provide himself … with a musket, bayonet and belt, two spare flints, a cartridge box with 24 bullets, and a knapsack.”

The left’s assertion that America’s creators couldn’t foresee a firearm beyond a flintlock is the logical fallacy of presentism — we know better today. Were the Dark Ages better than the Pax Romana because 900 A.D. came later than 300 A.D? Contrary to modernist fallacies, innovation, not stasis, was the characteristic of 18th century society. They might not have foreseen the M-16 but they knew the devastation of the massed firepower of .69 caliber Brown Bess and that weapons evolved. The matchlock was superseded by the wheelock, the wheelock by the flintlock, as the rifle was to supersede the musket. In 1770, British Army Major Patrick Ferguson had invented a breechloading flintlock rifle and effectively deployed his riflemen at Saratoga in 1777 (Ferguson’s rifle could have revolutionized warfare). By 1819, 19 years after the Constitution’s ratification, the U.S. Army adopted the Hall breechloader.

What of the Second Amendment, then? It is most certainly individual, but more importantly, it does not grant a right; it affirms an existing one as surely as natural law recognizes every man’s right to self-defense.

Mr. Layer makes a very good case, one we’ve all read before, but he emphasizes an important point.  If the statement was meant to be taken as the right to serve in the military, it makes no sense for it ever to have risen to the level of the Bill of Rights to begin with.

And readers will know without being told that I generally don’t like stopping at “natural law,” a tip of the hat to enlightenment thinking.  Carl Becker destroyed the enlightenment mind in The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers.  This is a “must read” for all men who would be educated.

Let’s go ahead and drive this back to its real point of origin.  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.  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.

Remember when I said this?

Here is something else.  Since some of the malware is stolen from Russia, no one can ever, ever again trust the CIA when they say something like “this malware or hacking attack has a known Russian [or any other country for that matter] signature.”  Never.  Not that I ever trusted the CIA anyway.

NYT:

The Justice Department charged two Russian intelligence officers on Wednesday with directing a sweeping criminal conspiracy that stole data on 500 million Yahoo accounts in 2014, deepening the rift between American and Russian authorities on cybersecurity.

The Russian government used the information obtained by the intelligence officers and two other men to spy on a range of targets, from White House and military officials to executives at banks, two American cloud computing companies, an airline and even a gambling regulator in Nevada, according to an indictment. The stolen data was also used to spy on Russian government officials and business executives, federal prosecutors said.

Russians have been accused of other cyberattacks on the United States — most notably the theft of emails last year from the Democratic National Committee. But the Yahoo case is the first time that federal prosecutors have brought cybercrime charges against Russian intelligence officials, according to the Justice Department.

Particularly galling to American investigators was that the two Russian intelligence agents they say directed the scheme, Dmitry Aleksandrovich Dokuchaev and Igor Anatolyevich Sushchin, worked for an arm of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., that is supposed to help foreign intelligence agencies catch cybercriminals. Instead, the officials helped the hackers avoid detection.

I don’t believe you.  See how that works?

USA Today:

A coalition of retired admirals and generals, including former CIA director and retired Army Gen. David Petraeus, are protesting “irresponsible and dangerous” legislation they say would put mentally ill veterans in harm’s way by giving them easy access to firearms.

The Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act would prevent the Department of Veterans Affairs from reporting veterans’ records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System after they’ve been deemed incapable of managing their financial affairs because of a disabling mental disorder. The bill would prohibit the VA from considering such veterans “mentally defective” without a magistrate or judicial authority ruling that the beneficiary is a danger to himself or herself or others.

In a Tuesday letter, members of the Veterans Coalition for Common Sense urged House and Senate leaders to oppose the bill. The House is expected to take it up on Thursday.

“The bill you are debating comes at a time when an average of 20 veterans commit suicide each day, two-thirds of whom do so by using a firearm. We know that non-deployed veterans are at a 61 percent higher risk of suicide compared to the American civilian population, and deployed veterans are at a 41 percent higher risk,” they wrote. “When vulnerable veterans have access to firearms, they can do harm not only to themselves but also to family members and loved ones. The impact of these tragedies is felt in communities across our nation.”

Petraeus, who is an adulterer, and McChrystal who is a murderer of the men at Ganjgal, along with losers Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli and others, want to report veterans to the NICS.  To link this up to causation, they use having someone else do finances as a trigger.  Just like the elderly who want someone to assist with finances, veterans cannot have their mother or wife assist with finances while they attend college classes for fear of loss of gun ownership rights.

Forget repairing the dysfunctional Veterans Administration, giving better health care, or any one of a myriad of things that would seriously help veterans.  No, take their guns away from them.  This is a disgusting and un-American display of total abandonment for the purpose of driving a political agenda.  This gun control agenda has been pressed by both Petraeus and McChrystal in form, fit and function completely different than the context here with veterans.  Veterans are being used by McChrystal and this group.  So much for their love of country or men with whom they served.

It’s sad, and if you’re a veteran, you need to (a) dissociate yourself from such terrible men, and (b) be very careful what you say to the VA or anyone else for that matter.  The very men who the country should be honoring are on the chopping block for loss of rights.

Prior:

David Petraeus And Stanley McChrystal Lead The Charge On Gun Control

Stanley McChrystal On Gun Control