Articles by Herschel Smith

Denver Post:

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The U.S. Marine Corps has selected Magpul Industries as the exclusive maker of ammunition magazines that Marines will use in combat.

Magpul is a private company that makes accessories for firearms, including magazines, grips, sights and slings. The company also recently started selling soft goods like hats, belts, shirts and gloves.

The operations, shipping and manufacturing portion of Magpul is based in Cheyenne, while its headquarters is located in Austin, Texas.

A press release from Magpul says the Marine Corps selected Magpul’s GEN M3 PMAG series of magazines after several years of testing.

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports that the company had added a second shift to handle demand for its products. Magpul started with 102 employees in Cheyenne but now employs 380.

Magpul, which used to be based in Erie, pulled out of Colorado last year in protest of a gun-control bill that Gov. John Hickenlooper signed into law in 2013 prohibiting the sale of gun magazines that hold more than 15 rounds in the aftermath of the Aurora theater shooting.

I’ve seen comments to the effect that the Marine Corps has been using these for a while.  Yea, well, not so much.

Perhaps individual Marines have had these magazines shipped to them by their families while deployed, and their commanders allowed their use rather than throwing them away, but I suspect most Lt. Colonels wouldn’t want to see pictures of their men using these things, only to have the promotion board asked if there were other instances of use of unauthorized equipment.

These guys can be rather puckered when it comes to authorized equipment, especially if some Marines have it and some don’t.  This way, everyone will have the best, and they will have the same thing.

Congratulations to Magpul.

David Codrea:

They evidently want the taxpayers to foot the bill for Democrat apparatchiks “to advocate or promote gun control” after Congress took funding away from their unmasked propaganda designed to render guns “dirty, deadly and banned.” They’ll “also seek ways to challenge state lawmakers who have invited millions of citizens to pack guns in public buildings and businesses,” go after “a crazy quilt of state and national gun laws … drawing upon public safety, antitrust and property laws,” and seek ways around the Protection in Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.

Read the rest here.  Well, this points to a number of things we’ve discussed here.  First of all, we gun owners have no right to complain if we’re not involved at the local and state level.  Liberty, just like it’s infringement, begins at home.

But if the cases ever get to the federal level, remember that Donald Trump will fill some 100 court vacancies, all of them very important, and at least one Supreme Court vacancy (and hopefully several more), which for certain things are even more important.

You have to be involved not only at the state level, but remember to conduct your activism at the federal level.  It beat George Soros once, and it can do it again.  And who knows?  Perhaps Soros will be in hell soon.  Perhaps it’s time for group imprecatory prayers against the old wicked man.

Who would like to lead off?

George tickles the issue of human trafficking as he explains that he was involved in researching the Franklin scandal, but doesn’t go too far into the details because, as he put it, many people died as a result of researching that scandal.

Very well, but given the horrible things George is managing to bring to light and explain in a manner that makes some sense, as well as connecting the dots for people who haven’t followed all of the nefarious dealings of The Clinton Foundation, I’m not sure why George feels any safer covering TCF than he would covering Pizzagate.

But here are his four installments for today.

H.R. 3799 is in the top ten most viewed bills the week of December 23, 2016.  Simply put, this bill would do as follows.

… amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) eliminate the $200 transfer tax on firearm silencers, and (2) treat any person who acquires or possesses a firearm silencer as meeting any registration or licensing requirements of the National Firearms Act with respect to such silencer. Any person who pays a tax on a silencer after October 22, 2015 may receive a refund of such tax.

The bill amends the federal criminal code to preempt state or local laws that tax or regulate firearm silencers.

The equivalent bill in the Senate is S 2236.  I assume that once voted on, a committee would be assigned to work out any details if there end up being differences.

By the way, Pat Toomey was asked about his support, and he wrote an entire letter without answering the question.  Don’t wait on that wet noodle to support any bill recognizing your just liberties.  Would someone in Pennsylvania please run for his office?  No, wait.  No offense to the ladies reading this, but if he has male plumbing, I want a man in the office rather than Pat Toomey.  Ladies who support my liberties are just fine.  I don’t want any more eunuchs.

It is encouraging, though, that the interest seems to be there, and people are asking.  Note to Senate and Congress.  We’re watching and taking names.

Tech Times:

However, Lee still didn’t pay attention to what the officers were telling him and briskly walked away. This was when Thornton took out his Taser gun and used it on the old man.

Lee fell to the floor screaming in pain as staff from the nursing home watched in shock at what was going on.

Oh, they shouldn’t have been too much in shock.  They are the ones who called the police to deal with what a nurse should have dealt with – or a qualified worker rather than the goobers who apparently work there.

The video is even worse to watch than reading the account.

Hey.  Be glad they didn’t use the SWAT team or queue up a designated marksman, who might have used .308, done “high fives” with his colleagues, and bragged about “going home safely at the end of his shift.”  Elderly folk can join the ranks of dogs now as immediately shot if they get Alzheimer’s disease and get the cops called on them.

I find that concealed appendix carry is acceptable for me while standing or even walking.  I simply cannot do it comfortably while sitting.  I must carry 3:00 or thereabout, and my carry in the small of the back advertises too much.

Of course, open carry is the most comfortable.

Charleston Gazette-Mail:

Rural law enforcement officials have complex, subtle views about gun control and frequently favor more limited access to guns, according to new research from West Virginia University.

Sociology professor Rachael Woldoff said, for her paper, published this month in the academic journal Rural Sociology, she asked more than 20 sheriff deputies in a rural county about their views on gun control.

“It goes against this narrative that people from West Virginia are just ignorant. The NRA wants you to believe that, but they don’t really have views like that,” Woldoff said. “They’re much more nuanced.”

Their lengthy responses and discussion emanating from the questions was the first type of qualitative research of its kind, according to Woldoff.

Because of the limited number of responses, she is unable to make broad claims about rural law enforcement in the report, but Woldoff said further research is needed in the area.

The paper proposes rural police officers’ views on gun control stem from two competing influences: the culture of rural places where hunting and guns are usually integral parts of community life, and an officer’s responsibility to protect people from gun violence.

Woldoff began the study expecting the law enforcement officials she interviewed would favor fewer restrictions on guns, but that wasn’t the case.

Nearly all of the officers said they were against gun control, only later to contradict themselves, Woldoff said. Several officers told Woldoff people who have been diagnosed with depression should be barred from owning a gun, even if that meant compelling doctors to release medical records to the government.

Other officers who had served in the armed forces thought people who own guns should have to be better trained on how to use them. Every officer said there should be more thorough background checks of a person before he or she is allowed to own a gun.

“Many things about place identity are symbolic,” Woldoff said. “For instance, in West Virginia, it is important, symbolically, that you say you believe in certain things and to identify with the whole state, which is unusual.”Meanwhile, officers maintained they were “pro-gun.”

“Saying you’re pro-gun is just an identity,” Woldoff said. “A lot of people who are pro-gun still think our controls are not appropriate right now. Clearly they would say they were pro-gun, then two seconds later they’re asking for insane gun control measures.”

The professor’s own narrative gives us a glimpse into her bias, which is that the NRA wants to control a narrative on guns and hopes for idiots, while people are more “nuanced” than we give them credit.  Perhaps we can believe her research, perhaps not.

But let’s assume for the sake of argument that we can.  None of this is really surprising.  LEOs perpetuate the myth that they are there to “protect people from gun violence.”  Officers aren’t there to protect anyone from anything, regardless of that bit of hyped propaganda.  It would have been much more interesting if the professor had taken a deep dive into that psychology and ascertained whether the officers really believed that or if this is simply play-acting.

If the answers are truthful, it is certainly the case that these LEOs support draconian gun control measures, from universal background checks to forcible release of medical records (while it is a demonstrable fact that mental maladies have no connection to propensity to violence).

Being pro-gun is just an identity, says the researcher.  Very well.  Remember that the next time you hear it from a LEO.  You’re educated enough to know how to drill down on this issue and find out the truth from them.

Merry Christmas to all of my readers.  I hope you have a joyous season.

We know Christmas as the celebration of the beginning of [what theologians call] “the humiliation of Christ.”  It began his time in the form of man, where God became man and lived among us (Matthew 1:23).  It is He who will save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).

It’s the scandal of the Gospel, where the only possible savior for man was Christ.  Only God could save His people, because all mankind had fallen in sin.  Many nativity scenes are lovely and bright, but the humiliation of Christ involved being born in a trough used to feed and water the livestock, wrapped in clothes that were used to clean the stalls.  The manger looked like this.

This is what we remember and celebrate.  May you and your loved ones always understand the true meaning of Christmas.  Those in Christ are saved, those who are not are lost.  Christ had to come to be the perfect lamb of God.  This is where it started, and it went throughout His life and until His death.

The Federalist:

Consider the events of the the past week. A Maryland teenager shot and killed an adult deer after it broke down the door of his house. In South Carolina, a deer smashed through the window of a Gold’s Gym and raced through the weight room as terrified humans scattered. In New York City, the beloved Harlem deer that somehow made its way into the heart of America’s largest city died after police tranquilized and captured it.

These aren’t just zany wild animal anecdotes. This is what happens when state and local governments don’t let people shoot deer. The fact is, deer populations across the country are about a hundred times what they were a century ago. The only thing that will stop the deer uprising is if Americans are allowed to kill more of them.

In his 2012 book, “Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds,” Jim Sterba chronicled a dramatic swing in the fortunes of our continent’s wild animals overt the past century. By 1900, centuries of more or less unregulated hunting and trapping had reduced wild animals populations in America to mere remnants. The conservation movement, writes Sterba, began as a response to this dire situation, and was spearheaded by public figures like then-New York governor Teddy Roosevelt. Public lands were set aside for wildlife refuges and parks, limits were set on hunting, and efforts launched nationwide to restock wildlife. It took time, but the conservationists were successful.

Too successful, it turns out. Wildlife damage to crops and infrastructure now exceeds $28 billion a year, with $1.5 billion from deer crashes alone. Chicago now has thousands of coyotes. Texas has about 3 million feral hogs (and counting), which cause an estimated half-billion dollars in damages every year.

Yes, and the cost of feral hogs in Georgia is even worse, having put entire farms out of business.  Here’s the problem.

First of all, when states began modern game management techniques, it made some sense.  This has caused herds populations to rebound to enormous sizes compared to even what they were in the days before humans and animals fought over the same land.  But as the herd size increased, the inevitable occurred.

States began to see the herds as their own property, charging for tags, huge sums of money in certain cases, and they began to put limits on the kinds of firearms that could be used, limit the hunting season, and control even what time of day or night you could hunt.  Some of this makes some sense even if it involves self policing rather than the nanny state assuming the power to themselves (i.e., caliber size to ensure an ethical kill), but the states controls are implemented for the wrong reason.

Only the king’s men may hunt in the king’s forests, they think.  The second problem is that control freaks have passed laws just about everywhere concerning if and when you can discharge a firearm.  I’ve had Coyotes coming down the road towards me, and I had to use other means besides a firearm to chase them away because, you guessed it, it’s illegal for me to discharge a firearm where I live.  Only the police can do that.  Apparently, only the police need to engage in self defense, according to the state.

Yes, we’re going to have to hunt the herds back down, but we’re going to have to be allowed to discharge firearms when we need to.  And by the way, limits on feral hogs, whether bag limit or when or how they can be shot, make no sense at all.  If your state has such a limit, then the state rulers hate you and love the money it brings in to license you to hunt and tell you how and when to do it.  They hate you because hogs are destructive to the environment and can harm you and your children, and they love money because they have no scruples.