Articles by Herschel Smith

Sorry for the light posting.  I was out of town yesterday, last night and today on business, and no connectivity.  Back home now.

Talk amongst yourselves, and back to regular posting tomorrow.

I routinely publish articles outlining current gun control bills, and in these same article advocate action by lovers of liberty.  One such article was this one concerning constitutional carry being dead in Texas this term.

A few of the comments tend towards the fatalistic view, there is nothing we can do, or the notion that we just violate the laws until such time as civil war begins.

These views are shortsighted and myopic.  There will never be a time when politics isn’t considered warfare, or a time when warfare is absent or void of politics.  Warfare and politics are different manifestations of the same thing.  Conflict.

They may be different gradations of conflict and conflict resolution, different pressure points, or different avenues of force, but there has never been and never will be in world history an even, clear, demarcation or bifurcation between warfare and politics.

There isn’t now even in the U.S.  George Webb (Swiegart) who famously has the series on YouTube, made a good point on one recent video.  The State Department is an arm of the CIA.  They are the visible arm, the political arm, but an arm nonetheless.

If you don’t understand this point, you need to go back and study the Chinese thesis Unrestricted Warfare.  And if you still don’t understand my point, study it again, and again, and again until you do.

Folks, we must be thinking men.

Progressive legislators in New Mexico are threatening with new gun control laws.

Santa Fe, NM – A bill requiring background checks on all firearm sales passed the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee by a vote of 3 to 1.  House Bill 50 would close a dangerous loophole that allows guns to be sold online or at gun shows or even in parking lots without criminal background checks. It has exceptions written in to allow family members to transfer guns to their relatives and for the loaning of guns for hunting, shooting ranges or self-defense.

“We must balance public safety with convenience,” said HB 50’s sponsor Rep. Stephanie Garcia Richard (D-Los Alamos). “It’s not difficult to buy a gun from a licensed dealer. Background checks take, on average, two minutes.”

Rep. Garcia Richard told of her own experience buying a gun from an online dealer. “We met at the parking lot of a McDonald’s. No names, no IDs, and I paid cash.”

Testimony was given by members of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, Voices For Children, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense New Mexico Chapter, the National Association of Social Workers New Mexico Chapter, Everytown for Gun Safety, former law enforcement officials, and other concerned citizens who support this common sense measure. Rep. Eliseo Alcon (D-Milan), chairman of the committee, allowed any member of the public who wanted to speak for or against the bill to comment at today’s hearing.

They’re lying about what this bill does.  The truth of the matter is more stark.

• An individual loaning his or her significant other a handgun for self-protection when homes or apartments in her neighborhood have been burglarized;
• A member of the military who is deployed overseas and wants to store his or her personal firearms with a trusted friend;
• Someone borrowing their co-worker’s gun to take on a hunting trip, to the local range or to shoot on BLM land when the colleague cannot accompany him or her on the excursion.
• Working ranch employees possessing and transporting ranch-owned rifles in vehicles or on their person.
• Volunteers staging auction or raffle items for a non-profit, charitable fundraising event where a firearm is displayed.

SB 48/ HB 50 also require the return of loaned firearms to original owners be conducted through a licensed dealer, with completion of federal paperwork and payment of an undetermined fee.

I don’t have a sense of how the legislature will act, nor do I know the governor well enough to predict the outcome.  But New Mexico residents need to be flaming the Senate and House members, and telling the governor in no uncertain terms that this bill must not pass.  And that you have a very long memory.

Revolvers were in the news and commentary this weekend or recently.  Sig Sauer has a new line of revolver ammunition called Sig Elite Performance V-Crown Revolver Ammunition.  It’s nice to see manufacturers not forget about wheel guns.

Sam Hoober writing at Ammoland has a piece up advocating the .45 ACP revolver.  Given the advantages of the revolver, which are: (a) reliability, (b) if enough time is available to run the gun in single action, the trigger pull is very light, (c) double action gun if it is needed, and (d) the pressure escape through the cylinder and forcing cone allows for much hotter loads than can be used inside semi-automatic pistols, thus giving higher muzzle velocity.

I’m not so sure about the idea of a .45 ACP revolver.  I would use something like that only for inside-the-home shooting given its lower muzzle velocity.

Cheaper Than Dirt also has an interesting advocacy piece for wheel guns, where they observe the following.

A further advantage of the revolver is that the revolver can be placed against an opponent’s body and fired repeatedly as a contact weapon. The automatic pistol would jam after the first shot, tying up with blood or clothing material blown into the slide. It may also short cycle due to a less than perfect grip

I just happened to grab one of my wheel guns for shooting at the range this weekend.

I do love a good revolver.

The Austin Chronicle:

In 2015, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law two provisions expanding gun rights in Texas. With House Bill 910, Texas joined 14 other states that allow open carry of firearms in public spaces with a valid permit. Senate Bill 11 implemented campus carry. The two laws, widely praised by advocates as extensions of Texans’ liberty, also ushered in a firestorm of opposition in Austin and around the state. Groups like Texas Gun Sense cold-called local businesses to see which ones would allow open carry on their grounds, hoping that economic consequences would affect businesses’ choices – and in many cases it did. Lists, including one compiled in these pages, swelled with names of restaurants and businesses opting out.

Protests against campus carry were particularly robust at UT-Austin, where organizers were dogged in resisting a law that ultimately went into effect Aug. 1, 2016, the 50th anniversary of Charles Whitman’s Tower shooting. On the first day of classes, #CocksNotGlocks protesters set off a fresh round of outrage that reverberated internationally. Gun advocates and Lege regulars scratched their heads at the level of opposition, many of them feeling the two laws functioned as a substitute for constitutional, or permitless, carry, the ultimate goal of many gun rights groups.

Constitutional carry finds itself on the legislative agenda this year. Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, has pledged his support for such a measure via HB 375, which would eliminate the licensing requirement for carrying a handgun, essentially deregulating open carry. Stickland announced his commitment to passing the law at a Jan. 23 press conference hosted by Texans for Accountable Government and Lone Star Gun Rights. “There’s been a lot of education involved,” he said, explaining why he believes the measure faces better odds this session than two years ago, when the pro-gun caucus was more fragmented. “There are a lot of groups that are coming together and saying, ‘You know what? It’s wrong that Texans have to beg for permission for their Second Amendment rights. It’s wrong that we’re forcing people to pay a fee and take a class for their Second Amendment rights.'”

But Stickland may not have as much support as he suggests. Andrea Brauer, execu­tive director of Texas Gun Sense, suggested the conservative representative is very much in the minority on the issue. Rather, she said, the priority among Capitol Republicans remains eliminating the licensing fees for open carry enthusiasts while leaving the class requirement in place, though no lawmaker has filed a bill quite yet. “I’m not hearing people say [permitless carry] is a priority except for Jonathan Stickland,” she continued.

Where are the Texans?  Look folks.  I know it’s a lot of work to stay active in these matters.  But I noticed some gun bills in formation in Arkansas a few days ago, some good some very bad, and I spent the time to get the email addresses of every state senator and a number of pastors of high profile churches in Arkansas to send out blast emails linking articles I intend to write if this begins to go badly for Arkansas.  And I don’t even live in Arkansas.

You guys have got to spend the time to be active or we’ll always be relegated to second or third class, or lower.  Our liberties are at stake.  Fill their ear up with our demands.  They won’t hear it from anyone else, will they?

H&K hates you, or so they say.  It appears they hate America too.

German gunmaker Heckler & Koch said U.S. aerospace and defence company Orbital ATK Inc had filed a suit in the United States seeking damages in excess of $27 million.

In the complaint, filed at the U.S. District court in the district of Minnesota, Orbital said it was seeking damages for breach of contract over the XM25 semi-automatic weapon system which Orbital and Heckler & Koch started developing more than 20 years ago.

“Heckler & Koch GmbH rejects all claims, based on the information we have so far,” the company said in a statement on Thursday.

“Heckler & Koch GmbH did not receive the complaint formally from the U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota so far,” the gunmaker also said in its brief statement.

A spokesman for Heckler & Koch declined to comment on the details of the claims.

Orbital said in the filing, seen by Reuters, that Heckler & Koch had failed to deliver twenty additional prototypes of the XM25 weapon systems, as contracted, and that its failure to do so meant the U.S. Army had raised the possibility of terminating its contract with Orbital.

“Even if the Prime Contract is not terminated, Orbital ATK has incurred and will incur additional costs as a direct result of the substantial delay caused by Heckler & Koch’s non-performance and the need to re-procure the twenty weapons from an alternate manufacturer,” it stated in the filing.

Orbital is also asking in the filing that Heckler & Koch transfer certain intellectual property to enable another contractor to carry out the work.

The filing said Heckler & Koch had queried whether the weapons, which target enemies protected by walls or hidden in hard-to-reach places, would violate international laws of war.

The filing also said that after receiving legal opinions, Heckler & Koch had said it would only supply the weapons if the U.S. government provided a special certification, which the government refused to do. Informal mediation failed, and Heckler & Koch refused to engage in formal mediation, the filing stated.

Um … what?  As best as I can determine, H&K decided that the very weapon they were designing for the stated purpose of being an airburst counter defilade weapon isn’t appropriate in anyone’s hands, and decided not to fulfill contractual obligations.

David Codrea:

• What did the Founders mean by “A well regulated militia”?
• What did the Founder mean by “being necessary to the security of a free State”?
• What did the Founders mean by “the right of the people to keep and bear arms”?
• What did the Founders mean by “shall not be infringed”?
• How can past Supreme Court opinion specifying protected arms as those being “in common use at the time” not apply to the types of firearms needed for militia service?

I’ve already made my feelings know about the Gorsuch selection.  He’s got some very good points and he’s certainly not someone HRC would have picked, and thank God for that, but the liberties in the constitution are sacrosanct.  They are inviolable.  They are stipulations in a covenant that shall not be broken.

David recommends tweeting Ted Cruz and recommending these questions for Gorsuch.  I did.  You should find your own way to communicate with your elected representatives, and especially those on the judicial committee.

Oathkeepers has a very interesting, almost riveting, piece up on recent work to infiltrate violent protest organizations.  There is a lot of information on their methods and results.  My general comment is that these oathkeepers are very committed and this cost them a lot of time, money and sleep.  My hat is off to them.  I have more specific questions below.

Here is a snippet, and from this I hope you go on over to Oathkeepers to get the rest of the story.  Thanks to reader Blake for sending this my way.

The liberal socialists are primarily coming out of our higher education system. They are comprised of professors, students and under-employed graduates. They are primarily white with a roughly equal split between male/female. They are not militant. They are willing to conduct blockades, marches and sit-ins.

The communists are a much broader spectrum of society with a strong leaning towards immigration issues. The communists actively recruit from a wide pool of candidates, including liberal socialists, the LBGT community, the environmental activists and the anti-white racist groups (Black Lives Matter, La Raza, Islamic Fundamentalists, etc.). They have a significant number of minorities in their ranks and they are militant in their operations and planning. The communists encourage independent action of their members to assimilate members from groups like Black Lives Matter, La Raza and other less militant organizations like ANSWER Coalition. They have no ethical boundaries. To communists, the ends always justify the means. They will do everything that the liberal socialist do in order to protest an issue and always take it one step further. They are not inclined to conduct direct actions.

The anarchists are by far the most dangerous of these groups. They are organized like militias. They actively train and practice their operations. They have discipline and zero tolerance for weakness. They have a number of former military personnel providing expertise to enhance security, logistics and martial arts capabilities. The majority are physical fit, military age males. They are primarily white with few minority members. Their leadership tends to be either former military, a proven leader from the occupy movement or a highly educated alpha-male. They are far more capable than their recent activities would demonstrate. They have formed community defense organizations and are idolized for their willingness to take action from the other groups discussed above. They are however anarchists that despise communism as much as they despise capitalism. They see patriots and constitutionalists as their primary enemy. To them, everyone is a NAZI or a fascist unless they are an anarchist. There is no debate allowed on these issues, ever. They operate under various names, but the vast majority identify with the anti-fascist movement. With the election of President Trump, their membership has increased exponentially. There are at least 50,000 nationwide. They have been able to assimilate much of the “occupy” and “black-bloc” movements. Most of what these organizations accomplish are classified as direct actions. They will participate in a protest or a march, but they are not big fans of passive resistance.

Ideologically, I think I understand the first two groups very well.  It’s the third group that puzzles me.  I don’t understand anarchists, so maybe in the comments section someone can explain them to me.

Let’s me clear and not whitewash this.  True anarchy isn’t something this group of “anarchists” has ever seen.  No sugar coating, anarchy is going without an electrical power grid – forever.  It’s going without food delivery, it’s going without medical care, it’s having no potable sources of water.

If there is anarchy, that means that workers cannot get to the power stations to generate electricity because the roads have all been torn up and there are thieves and robbers and shooters on the roads everywhere, at least until the ammunition runs out.  If there is anarchy, petrol cannot get to stations and so there is no means to get workers to the hospitals.  You go without medical care – forever.  It means that you had better have a means to remove turbidity from the water and enough chlorine that you can decontaminate it after filtering.  And it means that you will need to ensconce near a water source.

You will need to find your own food sources, and soon enough the deer, feral hogs and black bears will have been culled or gone into hiding.  Sooner or later the survivors will be hunting dogs to eat.  So I think we’ve painted the picture well enough.

Where do these “anarchists” come from?  Is this a group of FPS gamers who think the world is really like that, but who decided that they would be inconsistent with their worldview and ride buses or aircraft to their staging location for their riots?  How will they riot when there is no more fuel for travel?  Where do they eat, the local restaurants?  Do they realize that if they are successful, there will be more places to eat like that?

Seriously.  It occurs to me that they cannot have a consistent or well-crafted world view, and they cannot have peered into the future to see an end state for their rioting.  What do they want?  What are they after?  What is the end state for them?

I do not understand the anarchists.

KTVH:

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday rejected arguments that a Kansas law can shield from federal prosecution anyone owning firearms made, sold and kept in the state — a ruling that casts doubt on the legality of similar laws passed in nine states across the nation.

The decision handed down by U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten allows federal firearms charges against Shane Cox and Jeremy Kettler to stand. The ruling clears the way for their sentencing on Monday.

Jurors in November returned eight guilty verdicts against Cox, the owner of Tough Guys gun store in Chanute, under the National Firearms Act for illegally making and marketing unregistered firearms, including a short-barreled rifle and gun silencers. Kettler was found guilty on one count of possession of an unregistered silencer.

The Kansas Second Amendment Protection Act, which passed in 2013, says firearms, accessories and ammunition manufactured and kept within the borders of Kansas are exempt from federal gun control laws. Kansas modeled its law on a Montana law that an appeals court has found to be invalid, according to court filings.

Similar firearm nullification laws have been signed into law in nine states. In addition to Montana and Kansas, other states having them include Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming, according to Everytown For Gun Safety, which advocates common-sense gun control laws.

Noting the significant interest the case against Cox and Kettler has generated in Kansas and beyond, Marten wrote in his 13-page decision that he is bound to uphold the U.S. Constitution and laws as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The judge then proceeded to cite those earlier rulings in rejecting every constitutional argument raised by the defense in the Kansas gun case.

“As a district court judge, I am not empowered to do what I think is most fair — I am bound to follow the law,” Marten wrote.

Defense attorneys argued that the National Firearms Act — a part of the Internal Revenue code enacted under Congress’ power to levy taxes — is unconstitutional because it amounts to “regulatory punishment” rather than imposition of a valid federal tax. They also contended that the federal law violated the Second Amendment as well as Tenth Amendment state rights protections of the U.S. Constitution.

But Marten was unpersuaded, noting that the nation’s highest court ruled 80 years ago that the National Firearms Act is valid exercise of Congressional taxing power. As such, it supersedes a state law, he said. Marten also rejected the Second Amendment arguments raised.

This has been a horrible disaster for not only the defendants but for the concept of nullification generally.  As we’ve discussed before, state legislators who make nullification laws for the purpose of making a statement of protest before the voters are cowards and are doing no service to anyone except themselves.

Second, the jury had their turn at the wheel as well.  Apparently, they weren’t ready to see the states put the federal government in its place.  But the ideas that this tax would have ever occurred, or that the federal government had the right to legislate anything concerning firearms would have been considered abominable 150 years ago.  Unfortunately, there are too many collectivists among us today to trust that jury nullification would be an effective remedy against federal power.  Again.  Consider this.  A jury of their peers had a shot at this and refused to do anything about it other than kowtow to the federal government.

Finally, the federal judge found that they broke federal laws.  What else do you expect a federal judge to do?  For state lawmakers to have any effect with these laws, much more needs to be done.  An education needs to take place with the people, and laws need to be enacted that essentially prevents federal agents from doing the job of arresting people like the defendants.  Throw a few fedgov agents in the state penitentiary with the general prison population for attempting to arrest the defendants, and you might have a different outcome.

Finally, the state police would have to be on board and ready to conduct whatever operations the governor needs in order to prevent federal policing in this matter, up to and including things like imprisoning federal agents (such as the IRS) if the fedgov attempted to use those employees as punitive agents.  Of course, from here it could go to withholding federal education funds, the state withholding taxes to the fedgov, and on and on it escalates.

Like I said to state lawmakers, unless you’re serious about nullification, don’t bother with the drama shows.  You’re just a preening coward.

Well, Trump has nominated Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court.  He is an apt replacement for Scalia, and as best as I can tell is more like him than not, and in fact may have exactly the same jurisprudence.  Scalia had a high view of police powers, and it appears that Neil Gorsuch does too.

I’ve made my views known about his concurrence in Rodriguez.  I don’t like that part of his jurisprudence.  But assuming that his view wins the day and LEOs are determined to have the right to disarm innocent handgun carriers because it makes the LEO “feel” safer, this raises a whole host of questions for LEOs.

When do you ask the driver to present his weapon to you?  Under what circumstances?  Do you do that, or do you put your own hand on his firearm?  If you do, what information do you need to know about the firearm?  What if he is appendix carrying?  Do you risk a negligent discharge that destroys his femoral artery and thus kills him as he bleeds out before help arrives?

Do you sustain any risk by asking the carrier to put his own hands on his weapon?  How do you know intent?  How does he know your intent?  What if the individual doesn’t want to put his hand on his weapon in the presence of a LEO?  What do you do then?  Do you cuff him?  Does that violate his rights against illegal search and seizure?

Listen to me if you’re a LEO.  You had better think about these things.  As I’ve said before, I think it’s profoundly stupid to put your hands on another man’s weapon, and I think it’s profoundly stupid to ask him to do that.  But if you’re hell bent on doing that because it feels good, you’d better think through this thing.  This has the chance to get dicey.