Articles by Herschel Smith

Via WRSA, here are two videos well worth your time.  While watching, I’m reminded of how much I miss hearing my old friend Mike Vanderboegh.  I do miss him.

I’m also reminded of how glad I am to have David Codrea as a friend who is still alive and working on the same side as me, and I’m thankful for newfound friends like Matt Bracken, all of whom appear in these videos.

Matt says something interesting.  He remarks, “Why should this generation care about freedom – they’ve never been taught it in school.”  Right.  By education and training, I’m an engineer.  Those courses necessary to teach me the basic tools to be an engineer I learned in college.  But I learned to be an engineer by working as an engineer.

As for the liberal arts, logic, theology, reading comprehension and the other things necessary for life, I learned nothing of value in college.  Nothing.  College was worthless, as was all of the schooling which preceded it.  I first learned to think critically when I matriculated in seminary, taking the awfully difficult tests, and reading thousands upon thousands of pages of literature.  Hard, difficult literature, not the crap in college.  Assuming they aren’t taught it by us, this generation will never understand until it’s too late.  By taught it, I mean about those doctrines of liberty.

Hartford Courant:

If a police officer stops and asks a person to show their pistol permit, most gun owners comply.

But that is not the law in Connecticut, where police must have suspicion of a crime in order to force the gun owner to display the permit. If the gun owner refuses, police say there is nothing they can do.

That’s why more than 35 police chiefs joined key legislators Tuesday in Hartford to call for changing the law.

The issue has prompted controversy in West Haven and Bridgeport, where gun owners refused to show their permits when requested. The issue arose in June 2013 when two men were walking on the boardwalk in West Haven with their guns obvious to public view in hip holsters.

When stopped by police, one of them agreed to show his permit. The other did not and was charged with interfering with police. A judge dismissed the case, and a prosecutor said the arrested man, Scott Lazurek of Derby, had a permit but simply did not want to show it to police. Lazurek told police that he did not need to display the permit under the law – and the prosecutor and the judge agreed.

Rep. William Tong, a Stamford Democrat and co-chairman of the judiciary committee, said the bill is “a very simple, but important, initiative” that is necessary at a time of increased concern about gun violence and mass killings in Connecticut and beyond.

“It’s because of Newtown,” Tong said. “It’s because of Aurora and Columbine and other places across the country. We know that reality far better than other states and other communities. We feel that acutely.”

Tong rejected arguments that the issue was a violation of the Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful searches and seizures.

“It’s not an infringement on your liberty,” said Tong, an attorney who has studied constitutional law. “It is not even considered a Fourth Amendment stop.”

Tong said he is concerned about Second Amendment activists “staging confrontations with police officers … to make a point.”

Uh huh.  To make a point.  Except in the case cited, the carriers were doing nothing whatsoever to justify being detained, much less arrested.  It’s the LEOs who staged the confrontation.

Let’s finish this thing about Newtown and Sandy Hook once and for all.  From the comments in this article, one commenter linked this video.  Watch it in its entirety.

It looks like a very nice gun for a very good price.

WFMY:

GREENSBORO, NC – A Cabarrus County lawmaker introduced a bill Wednesday that would allow North Carolinians to carry a concealed handgun without a permit.

North Carolina is an open carry state. The current concealed carry law in North Carolina requires an applicant to take and pass a safety and training course that involves the actual firing of handguns and understanding of North Carolina gun laws. Prior to 1995, it was illegal for someone to conceal carry at all.

After news of the proposed bill broke, hundreds on social media voiced their opinions on House Bill 69.

We took some of those recurring comments on Facebook to Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes and Gary Lewallen, a certified firearms instructor and former Archdale Police Chief.

Barnes is a pro-second amendment advocate but doesn’t agree with the proposed bill. Lewallen is also a pro-gun and pro-second amendment, and was more neutral on the bill, with limitations.

Comment: If it is legal to open carry without training or a permit, why can’t a person conceal carry without training or a permit?

BARNES: “The CCW class, the concealed carry class, teaches you what and when you can use your gun.”

Barnes added the law requires someone to tell law enforcement they have a concealed weapon should an officer approach them. He’s worried if the proposed bill passes, people would no longer have to tell police they had a gun hidden on their body or in their car.

LEWALLEN: “They need to be able to understand their rights to carry and conceal as well understand when to use deadly force. There should be no reason why we can’t have an eight-hour class on your basic firearms and your rights to carry and conceal in North Carolina.”

Both Barnes and Lewallen agreed, they would like to see training classes take place prior to someone purchasing a gun in any situation, whether to open or conceal carry.

Comment: You already go through a background check to buy a gun, so why be redundant? A permit to conceal carry makes zero sense and it makes it zero percent safer.

BARNES: “When you open carry everyone knows you are carrying and you can avoid that person. Someone can also see if that person is violating the law while open carrying, say,  if they were to try and go into a location, such as a gun or store where they don’t want people armed.”

LEWALLEN: “It (open carrying) doesn’t prevent someone from calling the police or the sheriff and saying hey, I’ve got a person here and they’re making me feel uneasy, I’m in fear because of this gun on their side and they (police) have to come and investigate it.”

Well, there you go.  If this is the best among the “experts” this journalist could come up with, that station ought to be shut down.  As for the statement that “There should be no reason why we can’t have an eight-hour class on your basic firearms and your rights to carry and conceal in North Carolina,” hey, you don’t suppose that he stands to lose some business if constitutional carry passes in N.C., do you?  All of those concealed handgun permit classes he teaches?  I wonder how much he makes on all of that?

As for the awful Sheriff, this is just stunning.  He ought to be teaching his deputies that everyone is assumed to be carrying, all of the time.  Asking the question or waiting for someone to self identify is ridiculous and dangerous.  You understand that, right?  Only peaceable, law-aiding men and women will self-identify, whereas criminals will not, and this may lead the police into a false sense of security.  The law cannot be trusted.  If he isn’t teaching his cops that, he needs to be replaced with someone who has some common sense.

As for their idiotic comments on openly carrying, they are making this out to be something it isn’t.  North Carolina is a “Gold-Star” traditional open carry state.  I openly carry all of the time and have never had any problem from citizens or LEOs.  Women and children do not go running and screaming, and I’ve had many people stop me and chat about it.  Sending deputies out to “investigate” open carriers is a silly waste of time.  He ought to be telling the dispatchers to ask the caller what law is being broken.  “Ma’am, was he brandishing a weapon or threatening someone?”  “No?  Okay, then what he is doing is legal, and we don’t investigate legal use of firearms any more than we investigate mowing the lawn.”

In every state that has it, constitutional carry isn’t a problem, and the world doesn’t come to an end regardless of what these old timers have to say.  They’re stuck in the dark ages advocating Jim Crow laws that are bigoted and prejudiced.  Don’t be like them.

John Guandolo:

“An Introduction to Hadith and Fiqh” published in Uganda for children and adults new to Islam states: “Sharia basically means Islamic Law…Therefore the law is basically a users’ manual (for Muslims)…The Sharia is composite in that Islam is a complete way of life.  In an Islamic state ideology, law and religious faith are interrelated…Sharia is the ideal code of conduct.”

What Islam is All About is a widely used text book for junior high school students in Islamic schools in America.  It says “The law of the land is the sharia of Allah” and also says “The duty of the Muslim citizen is to be loyal to the Islamic state.”

Reliance of the Traveller, a 14th century book of Islamic Law certified as good law by Al Azhar and the Muslim Brotherhood (IIIT & Fiqh Council of North America) states:  “The good is not what reason considers good, nor the bad what reason considers bad.  The measure of good and bad according to this school of thought is the Sacred Law, not reason.”

Reliance of the Traveller is the book of sharia the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) says should be in the home of every Muslim in America, and was widely available at the Muslim Brotherhood’s last few national MAS-ICNA conferences.  It defines jihad as:  “Jihad means to war against non-Muslims” and is “obligatory” until the world is under sharia.  Reliance also includes “There is no indemnity for killing an apostate since it is killing someone who deserves to die.”

The last fatwa issued by a sitting Caliph was clear about the duties of Muslims with regard to jihad and fighting non-Muslims:  “Those who, at a time when all Moslems are summoned to fight, avoid the struggle and refuse to join in the Holy War, are they exposed to the wrath of God, to great misfortunes, and to the deserved punishment?  Yes.”  (Caliph Mehmed V, November 15, 1914)

The Muslim community voted the Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar the number 1 most influential Muslim on the planet demonstrating how Muslims view the authority of Al Azhar.  The Chairman of Al Azhar, Dr. Abdul Fatah Idris states:  “This is jihad, when a Muslim fights an infidel without treaty to make the word of Allah Most High supreme, forcing him to fight or invading his land, this is a permissible matter according to the consensus of the jurists.  Indeed, it is an obligation for all Muslims.  Now, if the deeds of jihad — including fighting the infidels and breaking their spine through all possible means — are permissible according to the Sharia, then it is impossible to define those acts as terrorism.”

Islamic scholars identify Sura (chapter) 9, verse 5 of the Koran as “the verse of the sword” and it reads: “Fight the unbelievers wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush.”  The Tafsir, which legally defines every verse in the Koran (because this is a LEGAL system), defines the phrase “and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush” to mean:  “Do not wait until you find them.  Rather, seek and besiege them in their areas and forts, gather intelligence about them in the various roads and fairways so that what is made wide looks even smaller to them.  This way, they will have no choice but to die or embrace Islam.”

The most authoritative hadith scholar in Islam is Bukhari who quotes the Islamic prophet Mohammad as saying (2926, Book 56, Hadith 139):  “The hour of judgment will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.”

This would naturally lead to Islamic schools in America teaching:  “Jihad in the path of God – which consists of battling against unbelief, oppression, injustice, and those who perpetrate it – is the summit of Islam. This religion arose through jihad and through jihad was its banner raised high. It is one of the noblest acts, which brings one closer to God, and one of the most magnificent acts of obedience to God.” (Hadith and Islamic Culture: Management, Social Studies, Natural History, and Technical Studies)

I hate to steal John’s thunder but I wanted to give you an uninterrupted taste of what he knows.  His article is worth visiting because I haven’t give it all here.

You must understand that freedom to practice your faith doesn’t mean the same thing to you, if you are a Christian, or even if not given that you have a basically Western understanding of things, and the Muslim.  To you it might mean that men and women are free to attend worship services, pray, fast, and participate in other things that define who they are.

To the more informed Christian, it means that we must “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” taking dominion of God’s creation for His glory, including science, mathematics, engineering and the arts.  The most insurrectionist idea taught by the reformers wasn’t just that God is sovereign.  The Roman Catholics might have been able to live with that.  It was that man is a prophet, priest and king, and doesn’t need an intermediary between himself and God.  And it means that doing science is as holy an endeavor as administering the sacraments.  This … the Roman Catholic Church could not live with.

But these are almost pedestrian differences compared to what the Mohammedans believe.  To them, practicing their faith means subjugating you to their faith, or otherwise owning your daughters, sons, wealth and very lives.  The America system of government is not set up to welcome men into its midst who believe that it’s their solemn duty to subjugate other men to their desires.  It is a national death wish to pretend otherwise.

A time of reckoning is coming for Americans as they figure out this basic fact.

AP:

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Senate lawmakers approved bills Monday that would allow guns in the state Capitol and let people carry concealed handguns without a permit despite Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s threat to veto both proposals.

Daugaard’s opposition is a steep obstacle for lawmakers pushing the bills, neither of which received the two-thirds support required for a potential veto override.

The Senate voted 19-15 to send the Capitol carry bill to the governor’s desk. It would allow people who have an enhanced permit to bring concealed handguns into the Capitol if they register beforehand with security.

I like the proliferation of constitutional carry bills across the nation.  These are good things regardless of whether they end up as laws.

The upshot is that it causes all parties, from senators and members of the house to the governor and law enforcement, to go public with their views.

Then gun rights activists know who to target in the next election.  Here’s a note to politicians.  We’re watching you.  No, I’m not talking about the NRA, although they should be scoring each and every vote in cases like this.  The “we” is us, the gun-owning voters.  And we never forget.

David Codrea:

“LGBTQ people must fight for their safety against the epidemic of gun violence, just as hard as they have fought for equality,” they insist, citing a Southern Poverty Law Center anecdotal “report” on alleged harassment that says nothing about guns, but instead quotes from a handful of unsubstantiated and subjective accounts to smear Donald Trump supporters as intimidating haters.

These folks (SPLC, Everytown) and their ilk throw in virtually every progressive cause they can think of, and throw in gun control in order to connect it to the communities they are courting.  It’s their bread and butter.  They use people and then throw them away.

This particular community had better understand that their best bet is to buy guns, learn to use them, and oppose any and all connection with people and groups who would use them for gain.

And in that same vein, they should ask some Donald Trump supporters to teach them the proper use of guns.  My bet is that there would be many willing teachers.  Don’t disparage instruction.  Everyone needs it, regardless of how it feels to have to go to someone else for help.

In the gun community if you just avoid the know-it-alls who think they are God’s gift to tacticool, most folks are more than glad to help out new gunners.

Give it a try.

Eugene Volokh responds to the recent Florida Supreme Court decision on open carry.  He first cites part of the ruling.

Before the Fourth District, the State argued that by restricting how firearms are carried in public so that they may only be carried in a concealed manner under a shall-issue licensing scheme, deranged persons and criminals would be less likely to gain control of firearms in public because concealed firearms — as opposed to openly carried firearms — could not be viewed by ordinary sight.

Norman contends that the State has not produced evidence that Florida’s Open Carry Law reasonably fits the State’s important government interest. However, under intermediate scrutiny review, the State is not required to produce evidence in a manner akin to strict scrutiny review….

[W]hen reviewing under intermediate scrutiny Second Amendment challenges to laws regulating the manner of how firearms are borne, “courts have traditionally been more deferential to the legislature in this area.” This is especially so when considering that “[r]eliable scientific proof regarding the efficacy of prohibiting open carry is difficult to obtain.”

Therefore, we agree with the Fourth District and are satisfied that the State’s prohibition on openly carrying firearms in public with specified exceptions — such as authorizing the open carrying of guns to and from and during lawful recreational activities — while still permitting those guns to be carried, albeit in a concealed manner, reasonably fits the State’s important government interests of public safety and reducing gun-related violence.

He then responds with this.

Really? Open carry is being banned because, by being visibly lethally armed, open carriers are putting themselves at more risk of crime? Would a reasonable person, deciding whether to openly carry a gun, think, “I probably shouldn’t do that, since people will be more likely to target me because they see I have a gun”?

This strikes me as quite implausible. To be sure, we can imagine some situations in which open carry could make a person more vulnerable. Indeed, as the court points out, in some situations, an attacker “might be more likely to target an open carrier” because the “visibly armed citizen poses a more obvious danger to the attacker.” In others, open-carrying by a gang member onto another gang’s turf might be seen as especially provocative and might therefore lead to a shoot-out.

But those would be relatively rare instances, no? On balance, wouldn’t there be many more situations where a would-be attacker would try to steer clear of a visibly armed person than where the attacker would deliberately target that person first? And given that the government interest is in preventing crime generally, the question is whether the law would on balance reduce crime, not whether it could in some rare circumstances reduce crime but in more common circumstances increase crime.

True, I know of no empirical studies one way or another. But even under “intermediate scrutiny” (as opposed to the highly deferential “rational basis” scrutiny), one should have either empirical studies or at least an inherently plausible theory, rather than mere hypothetical and unlikely speculation. And here the theory that, on balance, being visibly lethal will draw attackers rather than deterring them doesn’t strike me as plausible.

Now perhaps open carry bans might be justifiable on other grounds, such as that open carry (even holstered, rather than brandished) causes law-abiding passersby to feel uneasy. The two dissenting justices discussed that theory, and here’s what they had to say:

[The majority’s] reasons may not be totally irrational, but they do not provide any substantial justification for the ban on open carrying. Such “speculative claims of harm to public health and safety” are “not nearly enough to survive the heightened scrutiny that applies to burdens on Second Amendment rights.” There is no substantial link between the ban and public safety, and the State’s speculation is no substitute for such a link.

The suggestion that someone committing a crime “might be more likely to target an open carrier than a concealed carrier” is subject to the rejoinder that a criminal confronted with the presence of an open carrier may be more likely to leave the scene rather than face the uncertain outcome of exchanging gunfire with an armed citizen. In hostile encounters between armed individuals, the outcome is seldom certain, and even criminals can understand that fact.

Many — admittedly not all — armed criminals will give a wide berth to someone they know to be armed. Likewise, speculating about the disarming of individuals who are openly carrying firearms by “deranged persons and criminals,” is a grasping-at-straws justification.

The reality is that it is highly unlikely that these feeble proffered justifications had anything to do with the adoption of the statute banning open carrying…. The ban on open carrying is best understood as the Legislature’s response to the public concerns swirling around adoption of the concealed-carry law…. [T]he Legislature decided that the sacrifice of open carrying was a necessary and appropriate response to the public opposition generated by the passage of the concealed-carry law. But the legal landscape has now dramatically shifted. Heller has settled that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. And Heller‘s historical analysis points strongly to the conclusion that the individual right includes the right to carry arms openly in public.

This truth should be acknowledged: opposition to open carrying stems not from concrete public safety concerns but from the fact that many people “are (sensibly or not) made uncomfortable by the visible presence of a deadly weapon.”

Of course, many people are made uncomfortable by the fact that others are permitted to keep and bear arms at all. But contemporary sensibilities cannot be the test. Such sensibilities are no more a basis for defeating the historic right to open carrying than for defeating the understanding that the Second Amendment recognizes the right of individuals to keep and bear arms.

This is a tangled web, yes?  So let’s break it down.  The Supreme Court deferred to the legislature on what keeps folks safe, having relegated this question to intermediate scrutiny.  They found plausible (or said they did) the notion that someone could snatch a gun from an open carrier and thus make the public less safe.

But here they leave unaddressed the question why the legislature doesn’t prohibit LEOs from openly carrying weapons as it merely provides opportunity for gun theft.  And if the answer to that is the function they expect LEOs to perform, the obvious answer must be that according to Tennessee v. Garner, LEOs cannot do any more with weapons than you or I, to wit, self defense.  If the open carry of guns is unsafe, then prohibit LEOs from doing it.

Furthermore, why must we conclude that the public is less safe with open carriers just because the possibility exists that open carriers might be targeted first in any confrontation or mass shooting?  Wouldn’t that make the public safer?  That’s been my argument all along.  That an open carrier is the first target is an awful, terrible, cowardly reason not to open carry.

There might be good reasons, but that you don’t want to be the first target is not among those reasons.  I would rather I face an attacker than any women and children who might be around me.  Otherwise, what use am I?  Why am I here on earth if I cannot honor God in this way (John 15:13)?  If openly carrying a gun makes you the first target, and if there are people willing to be that target, then it stands to reason that this is advantageous to public safety and health.

Finally, the dissent make clear the real issue, and it was legal concealed carry is a compromise for squeamish and childlike people who think that the lack of visible presence of a gun on your hip means that you’re not armed.  Truth telling by the justices is a good thing. In other words, it’s an appeal to myth and fairy tale.  Few criminals are going to advertise their intentions in this manner, which is the reason that concealed carry at one time in history was considered ungentlemanly and boorish.

Free Beacon:

A California man is in custody after unsuccessfully trying to light a gun owner and his home on fire Wednesday.

Maurilio Miranda, 48, is being charged with trespassing, attempted arson, and assault with a deadly weapon, Lt. Joe Gomez of the Fresno Police Department told the Fresno Bee. The charges stem from Miranda trying to burn down a house in the city. When the homeowner discovered Miranda pouring gasoline around the perimeter of the home, he confronted him with his semi-automatic handgun.

That’s when Miranda threw gasoline at the homeowner and flicked a lighter. In response, the homeowner fired a shot into the ground. That didn’t deter Miranda, the Fresno Bee reports. He then grabbed a board and threatened to hit the homeowner with it. The homeowner fired a second shot into the ground and threatened to shoot him which prompted Miranda to give up. Police then arrived on the scene and arrested Miranda.

Do not unholster your weapon unless your life is in danger.  Do not point in the direction of anything you aren’t willing to kill, and if your life is legitimately in danger, shoot the person or animal who is causing that danger.

Do not fire warning shots.  To the attacker, warning shots means you aren’t willing to use your weapon to defend your life.  Tactically, it delays the very response that could save your life.

News from the rectum of America.

Some congressional Republicans were quick to agree Thursday with Democrats calling for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election, following leaks and media reports that Sessions met with Moscow’s ambassador twice last year.

The allegations, leaked from intelligence sources, were first reported by The Washington Post.

“I have not met with any Russians at any time to discuss any political campaign,” Sessions said Wednesday evening when confronted with the allegations. “And those remarks are unbelievable to me and are false. I don’t have anything else to say about that.”

A Sessions spokesperson elaborated on why Sessions had been truthful.

“He was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign — not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee,” Sessions spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores explained.

In January, Sessions was asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) for answers to written questions, including if he had “been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after Election Day?” The attorney general was not asked if he had been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government for any reason during the entire course of the year.

Nevertheless, a number of Republicans were quick to give in to the media narrative.

During a town hall with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on CNN Wednesday evening, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said that if Sessions had spoken with the Russian ambassador, “then for sure you need a special prosecutor.”

Graham did later call demands for Sessions’ resignation “crazy” in a series of Thursday tweets, but added “Sessions needs to explain his contacts with the Russian ambassador during his service as a Senator – that’s appropriate.”

“AG Sessions should clarify his testimony and recuse himself,” House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) tweeted early on Thursday.

“I think, the trust of the American people, you recuse yourself in these situations,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday morning.

McCarthy, in a later appearance on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” backtracked and said he wasn’t calling on Sessions to recuse himself.

“I’m not calling on [Sessions] to recuse himself,” McCarthy said. “It’s amazing how people spin things so quickly.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) joined in during an appearance on NPR on Thursday morning. “It is potentially the case that there is going to be Justice Department recommendations or referrals based on anything regarding the campaign, he said. “Depending on what more we learn about these meetings, it could very well be that the attorney general, in the interest of fairness and in his best interest, should potentially ask someone else to step in and play that role.”

[ … ]

Not every Republican declined to defend Sessions, however.

“What we are seeing is a lot of political theater,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on “Morning Joe.”

“This morning, everyone is in high dudgeon about the meeting,” Cruz continued. “The underlying meeting is a nothing burger. It’s what senators do every day. Meeting with foreign ambassadors, that’s part of the job,” he said.

“I think everyone is getting all worked up because it’s a chance to beat up the attorney general and to beat up the president,” said Cruz.

Mark my words.  Hear me carefully.  Every politician, from democrats to republicans (most democrats, Graham, Rubio, McCain, McCarthy, etc.) who calls for a full investigation into the awful Russian things, they know not what they are, is hiding something.

Every … one … of … them … is compromised by or implicated in pedogate, nation toppling in North Africa, oil plays, money laundering, human trafficking, human organ harvesting, weapons and precious metals, along with DynCorp, the CIA, the State Department, the Clinton Global Initiative, and part of the FBI (Andrew McCabe, call your office).  Every one of them.

Cruz is not implicated.  Read it all again.  Their words prove them out.  It’s easiest when the guilty self identify.  It makes our job quicker.

This all has nothing whatsoever to do with Russia.  It’s all a smokescreen to hide the real evil, a subterfuge, a magician’s distraction from the real trick.  But not a good one for educated men and women.  We all know better.

Death to the deep state.