Articles by Herschel Smith

NPR:

“We don’t want to bother anyone,” Smith said, “but we’re not gonna let anyone come and break into our house at two in the morning and sit there and wait for the police to come, and get killed in the interim. We’re gonna protect ourselves.”

That belief seems to be gaining traction: According to a 2014 Pew Research study, the number of African Americans who believe gun ownership does more to protect people than endanger them nearly doubled in two years. And even as it urged its members to exercise their rights to keep “the thugs, gang bangers, illegal immigrants, the terrorists” at bay, the NRA broadened its outreach to ethnic communities. One of its spokesmen is lawyer and gun rights activist Colion Noir, who has become well-known for his appearances on NRATV.

Even if it’s legal to carry a gun, if you’re black, does having a gun actually make you safer? Stand Your Ground author Caroline Light isn’t so sure. “When you look at what really happens out in the world,” she said, “and the way that, especially, African-American men are treated when they’re armed, already the deck is stacked against people who are judged or perceived to be a threat. Particularly people of color,” she said. “Particularly men of color in the United States.”

After Trayvon Martin’s death in 2012, the Tampa Bay Times conducted an investigation in which it noted almost 200 stand-your-ground cases, and cited their outcomes. In addition to finding that such cases are on the rise “largely because defense attorneys are using ‘stand your ground’ in ways states never envisioned,” the paper noted that defendants claiming stand your ground “are more likely to prevail if the victim is black.” Blacks who use stand your ground are almost 15 percent more likely to face a penalty for doing so than their white peers.

Ah yes, I hadn’t thought about all of those white boys going into South and West Chicago tearing into defenseless black folks and raiding their homes, and not only there, but inner city Atlanta and Birmingham, where house robberies and home invasions against black folks are primarily perpetrated by white folks.

Oh, wait.

National Review:

USA Today:

President Trump killed a regulation that would have tightened gun background checks Tuesday, signing a bill to undo one of his predecessor’s executive actions following the San Bernardino shootings in 2015.

The Obama administration rule required the Social Security Administration to submit records of mentally disabled people to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the FBI database used to determine whether someone can buy a firearm under the 1993 Brady Bill.

Ooooo … hold me Uncle Bob, I’m askeerd!!!   The oogey boogey man’s gonna’ gettcha!!!   Quick.  Look under the bed, in the closet.  Somebody’s there, I just know it!!!  All those severely, seriously, horribly, terminally, mentally ill to the point they cannot do finances are coming for me!!!

Good.  Trump undid Obama’s treachery concerning the elderly who want someone else to do their finances for them but still want a means of self defense.  This should never have been done in the first place, and it was worth the price of admission.  Go to hell, Obama.

Now, there’s much more treachery to undo.  Get busy.

KGAB.com:

This looks challenging.

News From Florida:

A man, woman and cable repair worker were tied up as two young children witnessed two armed men raid a home in Miami-Dade on Sunday afternoon, police said.

Jennifer Capote, with the Miami-Dade Police Department, said a Comcast cable worker was inside the home at 2203 NW 104th Terrace doing repairs when the robbers, claiming to be Miami police and dressed in body armor, stormed into the home about 3:30 p.m.

Police said the intruders tied up the cable man, mother and father as their children, ages 3 and 12, looked on.

Police said the men got away with jewelry and about $500 in cash.

A neighbor’s surveillance captured the moments leading up to the violent robbery.

“There were two gentlemen that came out of the car and came through over here dressed up as cops,” neighbor Glenda Mendez said. “This neighborhood has never had any problems or any issues going on. It is very scary.”

For those of you who are LEOs, do you understand?  Does this ring any bells with you as home owners and family members?  Does it make any sense to you that this is number 18,399 on the list of reasons not to conduct home raids, even if they are intended to find evidence of wrong-doing?

Well, does it?  I hope a LEO weighs in, because it’s crystal clear to me and most readers.  In addition to your felt need to “go home safely at the end of your shift,” we have an equivalent need to be safe in our own homes, to prevent flash-bang grenades from being thrown into our toddler’s cribs, to prevent your reflexively shooting our family dogs, and to prevent street thugs like this from raiding our homes under the guise of being police officers.

You see, we can’t just lay down and let people screaming “police, police, get the fuck on the floor, police, police” … come into our homes without countering those efforts with close quarters battle.  Because they may not be police.  And even if they are, does it matter whether a criminal from the streets shoots up my home or a criminal with a badge and gun throws a flash-bang at my wife or child?  The end result is the same, yes?

Ted Cruz:

“The Fourth Circuit used to be the most conservative court in the country,” Cruz said. “The Fourth Circuit now, they’ve invented this new test for the Second Amendment.”

The test, Cruz explained, says “the Second Amendment doesn’t protect a weapon if it would be useful in a military context.” The senator noted the absurdity of such a test, given the amendment reads:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” (Emphasis added.)

“This test isn’t just sort of questionable, it isn’t just a little bit out there. It is nuts!” Cruz exclaimed. “The Second Amendment was designed explicitly to protect weapons that would be useful in a military conflict.”

He added, “If we were living back in 1789, your musket would be really useful in a military conflict!”

“You want to know the first gun control law in America?” Cruz asked the audience. “The first Congress passed a law mandating that all able-bodied men must own a musket.”

“That’s an individual mandate we could live with,” Mark Levin quipped.

David Codrea:

True, both he and Ellison have long histories of oath-breaking and subversion. Both are for cultural terraforming of the Republic through “immigration” and “refugee” actions to bring in and embed or sanction existing unvetted foreign nationals. And both are hostile to the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

But Ellison is more vulnerable to exploitable suspicions over his agenda and motives …

Well, they certainly picked the least vulnerable ass-clown.  But make no mistake about it, this ass-clown will run as fast as he can down the road to cultural chaos and transformation in order to destroy liberty.

As Kurt Schlichter recently observed, “it’s reasonable to wonder how this can end peacefully.”  You haven’t stopped preparing, have you?  You haven’t stopped activism, have you?  We’re just in the skirmishes.  There is much more to come.

Nancy Rockwell:

This weekend, in a workshop on Islam, the leader illustrated the purpose of Islam’s five-times-a-day prayer practice by talking about things that are enticing and hard to resist, and things that are habitual and hard to give up.

Sugar, she said, and told about her own attempts to give up sweet things, and how, when she succeeded for a few months, she felt free. Alcohol, drugs, anger, fear, she went on to talk about these as human habits hard to break without a constant reinforcement of strength beyond what is normal for us humans.

Not, she thought, violence. I wonder about that. Americans have a hard time even contemplating giving up guns.

[ … ]

God, for whom the Temple keeps humans in prayerful connection, does not seek a servant who will keep the power to survive death as a right of survival owed to him as God’s chosen one. In fact, the Temple teaches acceptance of death

[ … ]

Jesus does not, in the wilderness of his temptations, assume a discipline of prayer. He drags up, from deep within himself, responses strong enough to send the Tempter away.

This is what passes for “scholarship” in some “churches.”  It’s really very said.  Islam is all about cleaning up the heart, is non-violent to the point that Americans who refuse to give up their guns are the ones who she worries about.

Never mind that the Crusades had to be fought as a defensive war to free Europe from the clutches of Mohammedans who had raped, killed and pillaged the people.  Never mind that Christians are – unfortunately – the most passive people on earth.

No, according to her, we should be willing to perish at the hands of whomever, whenever.  But she confuses acceptance of God’s sovereign choice with man’s responsibility to act on all sorts of things, in all sorts of situations.  No man should sit on his ass while people give him food to eat (2 Thess 3:10).  And no man should willingly give up his life to robbers or killers when he can protect the image of God within him.  Nor should he be prepared to give up the lives of others (John 15:13).

This woman obviously doesn’t understand the scriptures any more than she does Islam.  And as for Christ during the temptations, he fasted, which always includes prayer, Biblically speaking, and he cited Scripture back at the tempter.

Whomever hired this impostor to “preach” should forthwith fire her and put her to work washing dishes, or something she can actually do.  But they probably won’t, and thus does America continue to languish at the hands of false teachers.

News from Florida:

PUNTA GORDA, Florida — The police chief of a Florida Gulf Coast town and one of his officers have been charged in connection with the accidental fatal shooting of a woman last year at a citizen’s police academy.

In August, Punta Gorda police Officer Lee Coel fired the fatal shot during a drill involving civilians at the police academy facility. Mary Knowlton, a 73-year-old retired Minnesota mother of two, died at a hospital.

Coel was charged Wednesday with one count of felony manslaughter.

“I don’t see how the facts as we know it would amount to criminal negligence as opposed to simple negligence,” attorney Jerry Berry told CNN affiliate WINK. CNN reached out to Berry but didn’t get an immediate response.

Chief Tom Lewis will face one count of misdemeanor culpable negligence.

“Looking at the totality of the facts and evidence brought our office to this decision,” State Attorney Stephen Russell said.