Articles by Herschel Smith

News from Texas:

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The 85^th Legislative Session is just weeks away from beginning and when it comes to gun related bills so far 37 have been filed with most focusing on gun safety.

One of the big bills that passed during the last legislative session concerned concealed carry on college campuses. This year, State Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, has proposed two pieces of legislation that would allow universities to opt out of campus carry just like private universities. The second bill says cities with more than 750,000 people can pass an ordinance prohibiting open carry.

Another bill that appeared last legislative session is coming back for a second try. State Rep. Jonathan Strickland, R-Bedford wants to allow anyone to carry a legally owned firearm without having to obtain a state issued license, take a government mandated safety course, or pay a licensing fee. Strickland calls it constitutional carry because of the Second Amendment. During the 2015 legislative session it never made it to a committee hearing which is the first step in moving a bill forward.

Advocates for gun safety encourage everyone to get involved.

“It always helps to call your members and tell them you care,” said Andrea Brauer, Ex. Dir. Texas Gun Sense. “Members need to hear from their constituents throughout Texas. These issues are often framed as an us against them or an anti-gun verse pro-gun, it doesn’t have to be that way.”

Oh yes it does because that’s the truth of the matter.  You see what the progressives are doing, don’t you?  Person to person, one on one, grass roots involvement.

We gun owners have no room to complain when we don’t get involved.  Of the bills you saw above, they’re all just smoke screens and certainly anti-liberty, except one, i.e., constitutional carry.

You know what to do.  Ignore the doomsday, end of the world, panic stricken screams of law enforcement, and force this bill into committee and out of committee to the floor.   Light is the best disinfectant.  If everyone votes on it, you’ll know who to target in the next primary and election if they are haters of liberty.

David Codrea:

True gains will depend on the effectiveness of the caucus. Much of that depends on who its members are, and if gun owners make their continued expectations known. To that end, the following table lists each member along with two important grades they’ve earned: one for gun owner rights as assigned by Gun Owners of America, and the other for their immigration rating by Numbers USA.

David’s done a very good job of outlining their views on two issues that will most affect the work on the second amendment.  Go read his table for the context to the money quote.

Bottom line, it looks like a pretty good team (although team leader Massie could use some work on immigration). The task now is for them to actually do something so they continue earning those high marks. Let’s hope we don’t see preemptive true due-process surrenders on “mental health” and “no fly/no buy.” Let’s hope we see “Enforce existing gun laws” replaced with “Repeal existing gun laws.”

He took the words right out of my mouth.  We need not words, but action.  We’ve already outlined what it will take for starters: (1) national carry, (2) suppressors taken off of the NFA items list, (3) SBRs taken off of the NFA items list.  That’s just for starters.

As for grass roots advocacy, I’ll leave that to you.  While it may not seem like it, blogging like this – finding the interesting issue that doesn’t overlap with what everyone else is talking about, creating good analysis to assist the reader in understanding the context, advocating world view and framework of understanding, pushing the number of visits by pimping your articles to contacts – is all very exhausting and sometimes even embarrassing.  Not all of your contacts want to be bothered by the constant pimping of your content.

There are good men to work with.  I’ve known about Jeff Duncan and Dave Brat for a while now.  They will listen to you.  Get busy.  If you do nothing else, you can send the URL of this article to them and recommend that the read and implement the ideas.

CBS News:

LOS ANGELES (AP) – A 73-year-old man with dementia fatally shot by police had a crucifix – not a gun – as officers were led to believe, Bakersfield police said Wednesday.

A coroner found the plastic crucifix on Francisco Serna well after an officer fatally shot him near his home just after midnight Monday, Sgt. Gary Carruesco said.

So our suspicion was correct and there was no gun.  The officer reacted prematurely, and as for the caller, this sounds like the story you tell in a circle when you’re teenagers whispering mouth to ear, mouth to ear, and by the time it gets to the last person the message is so garbled it doesn’t even resemble what was said to begin with.  You’ve played that little game in church youth group, yes?

Except in this case someone died.  And I consider this no different than Swatting, which is a crime.  The caller filed a false police report giving information he didn’t really know.

So will the caller be held responsible?  Will the police officer be held responsible?

In order to ensure that you know exactly who the CIA is protecting, exactly who the democratic party wanted to elect, exactly who half of the country voted for, and to whom most large countries of the world gave millions of dollars, watch this.

Courtesy of Wynn, this:

An unarmed 73-year-old with dementia who was shot and killed by police early Monday was struck nine times, the man’s son said in a video posted to Facebook. However, police say the son is “misinformed.”

The officer was answering a report of a man brandishing a handgun around 12:30 a.m. in Bakersfield, Calif. When a witness pointed to Francisco Serna, who was standing in a neighbor’s driveway, one officer fired and killed him, Bakersfield police spokesman Sgt. Gary Carruesco told CBS Bakersfield affiliate KBAK-TV.

No gun was turned up in a search of the scene, Carruesco said.

So where is the gun?  If he was armed, then a gun was recovered.  Where is the gun?

Popular Mechanics:

This morning, President-Elect Donald Trump suggested he will attempt to significantly curb military spending by slashing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.

It’s no secret that the F-35 program has run into cost overrun after cost overrun, tied to multiple technical and design flaws including engine fires, software failures, and airframe cracks since the plane’s first flight a decade ago. But even though the F-35 has become a grossly bloated project, hacking away at the fifth-generation fighter would open up some significant holes to fill. President-elect Trump’s tweet alone initially dropped Lockheed Martin’s market share by $4 billion, though it recovered some shortly after.

Full-scale production of the F-35 was originally scheduled to begin eight years ago, but this proved to be an overly-optimistic estimate by 11 years—and that’s assuming full-scale production does, in fact, begin in 2019 as projected now. The F-35 will be the most expensive weapons system in history by a significant margin, exceeding $1 trillion in projected lifetime costs. Trump has targeted the program as an area to save money, along with the new Boeing 747s intended to serve as the new Air Force One jets.

That’s funny.  The article says that the F-35 is tied to “multiple technical and design flaws.”  I would have said it differently.

I would have said that the F-35 is a piece of shit, good for nothing at all except the ridiculous imaginations of fifth generation warfare advocates, failing at everything it does, a complete bomb at dogfighting, capable of carrying very little ordnance, incapable of defending itself, and an expensive waste of taxpayer money – where the U.S. would be better served with the F-22, refurbishment of the existing fleet of fighters, new Harriers for the USMC, and A-10s in the role of infantry support.

But that’s just me.

It’s about time.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, introduced a controversial measure Friday that would allow the more than 1.67 million Floridians with concealed-weapons licenses to openly carry handguns.

Steube’s bill (SB 140), which is filed for the 2017 legislative session, also would expand the places where people with concealed-weapons licenses are allowed to carry guns. It would allow them to be armed at legislative meetings; local government meetings; elementary and secondary schools; airport passenger terminals; and college and university campuses.

License holders would still be prohibited from carrying weapons at locations such as police stations, jails, courtrooms, polling places and most bars.

During the 2016 session, the open-carry measure was approved 80-38 in the House but failed to advance through the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was chaired by former Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami. Diaz de la Portilla lost a re-election bid in November.

Yea, I hope I helped in some small way to ensure that it was a failed re-election bid.  But what we see here is permitted open carry, with the same failings of the Texas permitted open carry law.

Police don’t know how to enforce it, given that there is no stop and identify statute in Texas (and all stops must be so-called Terry stops anyway).  Florida is a stop and identify state, specifically for loitering and prowling.

So how does this apply to open carry?  What role does the permit play in all of this?  There is an easier way to do this, and it’s to make the state constitutional carry with legal open carry.  Stop taking half way measures.

Richard A. Nascak, executive director of Florida Carry, weighs in on the coming kerfuffle.

U.S. Representative Frederica Wilson’s viewpoint, published by the Sun Sentinel on Dec. 2, is a mini-case study on irrational fears. She flatly states that the proposals to legalize open, campus, and airport carry are a “notion that sends chills down my spine.”

The reason is revealed by her own admission. “It’s almost too easy to imagine the horrific effect and consequences that such laws would have in urban communities.” And there we have the source — her imagination. Unfortunately, Rep. Wilson’s imagination does not represent the experiences of 45 other states with regards to open carry.

In recent years, several states have legalized open carry of firearms — Oklahoma in 2012, and Texas in 2016 (adding handguns to the already lawful open carry of long guns). Similar concerns were voiced by officials in those states prior to open carry becoming lawful. For example, both Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan and Oklahoma City Police Chief Bill Citty strongly opposed open carry citing a myriad of unsubstantiated reasons.

Likewise, the first vice president of the Dallas Police Association, Austin Police Chief Art Acevado, and a host of other Texas officials opposed open carry. Here in Florida, we hear the same rhetoric from the Florida Sheriffs Association and in particular Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri who, like his predecessor Jim Coats, threatened to shoot those seen openly carrying firearms.

So, what were the results of the legalization of open carry in Oklahoma and Texas? As pro-gun rights organizations predicted, much ado about nothing. Quoting from several media sources after passage:

•”We’ve not been responding to any calls, we’ve not had any complaints, we’ve not been taking reports. No, no issues here,” said Maj. Shannon Clark with the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Department. “We have not seen anything alarming or attention-grabbing at all,” said Tulsa Police Officer Leland Ashley.

•”I think it proves our point just a little bit that good, responsible people don’t get in trouble with firearms and that thugs and hoodlums get into trouble with firearms every day,” said Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton.

•”We do not have anything interesting to report,” Cpl. Tracey Knight, spokeswoman for the Fort Worth Police Department, said last week. “Two calls so far, no issues. We have no concerns and we have had no problems.”

•”I said before this became law that I thought it was going to be much ado about nothing but I didn’t know it was going to be this much nothing,” Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said.

Rep. Wilson appears to be primarily concerned with black youths in urban areas. However as cited, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and other urban centers with a black youth population belie that concern. The fears are unsubstantiated.

So we get to the meat of the objection – she’s worried about those black boys carrying guns around.  But some of them do anyway, you just can’t see them.  Furthermore, I don’t object to peaceable men carrying guns.  If they pull them and threaten anyone, then that’s considered brandishing, and you can swear out a warrant for their arrest and have them charged.  Problem solved.

Unless of course the real problem is that you’re worried about undisciplined black boys being irresponsible with those guns and going to prison for it.  In this case, your problem doesn’t have a solution in the law.  You need to speak to the families and churches about that.

Military.com:

So it doesn’t seem that the Army or the Marine Corps are in any hurry to explain to Congress why they don’t use a common 5.56mm round.

The final joint version of the Fiscal 2017 National Defense Appropriations Act includes a provision requiring the secretary of defense to submit a report to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees explaining why the two services are using different types of 5.56 mm ammunition for their M16A4 rifles and M4 carbines.

The bill has already passed the House and is expected to be voted on and approved by the Senate this week before going to President Obama’s desk for his signature.

This is not the first time Congress has gotten its dander up over this subject. Lawmakers asked both services to explain the same thing last year, but Marine Corps leaders said they need to do more testing of the Army’s M855A1 enhanced 5.56mm round.

I reached out to the Marine Corps yesterday and the Army today to ask about how they planned to deal with the request. I could almost hear the head-scratching as if neither service had heard anything about it.

According to the provision, the report must be submitted within 180 days after the bill, which includes the entire defense budget for the coming year, is enacted.

If the secretary of defense does not determine that an “emergency” requires the Army and Marine Corps to use the two different types of rifle ammo, they must begin using a common 5.56mm round within a year after the bill is passed, it states.

OK so here is the back story for those you out there who don’t know it.

The Army replaced the Cold-War era M855 5.56mm round in 2010 with its new M855A1 enhanced performance round, the end result of more than a decade of work to develop a lead-free round.

The M855A1 features a steel penetrator on top of a solid copper slug, making it is more dependable than the current M855, Army officials have maintained. It delivers consistent performance at all distances and performed better than the current-issue 7.62mm round against hardened steel targets in testing, Army officials maintain. It penetrates 3/8s-inch-thick steel at ranges approaching 400 meters, tripling the performance of the M855.

The Marine Corps had planned to field an earlier version of the Army’s M855A1 until the program suffered a major setback in August 2009, when testing revealed that the bismuth-tin slug proved to be sensitive to heat which affected the trajectory or intended flight path.

The setback prompted Marine officials to stay with the current M855 round as well as start using the MK 318 Special Operations Science and Technology round developed by U.S. Special Operations Command instead. Commonly known as SOST ammo, the bullet isn’t environmentally friendly, but it offered the Corps a better bullet after the Army’s M855A1 round failed.

Since then the Marine Corps has purchased millions of MK 318 rounds.

The MK 318 bullet weighs 62 grains and has a lead core with a solid copper shank. It uses an open-tip match round design common with sniper ammunition. It stays on target through windshields and car doors better than conventional M855 ammo.

The Army quickly replaced the bismuth-tin slug in its new round with a copper one, solving the bullet’s problems in 2010, Army officials said.

The new Army round also weighs 62 grains and has a 19-grain steel penetrator tip, 9 grains heavier than the tip on old M855 ammo. Seated behind the penetrator is a solid copper slug. The M855A1 consistently penetrates battlefield barriers such as windshields more effectively than the M855, Army officials contend.

The accuracy of the MK 318 may not be what it’s cracked up to be.  However, for any of these heavier than 55 grain rounds, there is a detriment in muzzle velocity (these rounds lose up to 200 FPS), and that can actually make a difference in penetrating capability.

Suffice it to say that creation of an environmentally friendly round for the armed forces is laughable, and the main thing to be concerned about is ballistics.  It would be interesting if someone still in the service would weigh in on this debate.

But as for Congress being briefed on the details of the ammunition being chosen by the armed forces, I agree with one of the comments.  You may as well try to teach physics to a pig.

There has been a lot found over the last week or so concerning #Pizzagate.  To begin with, watch this video, or if you don’t want to, read the transcript of what she says.  She is wife of a Mafioso, and she says that the royals and politicians are killing and raping children for “fun.”

Did you read the transcript?  Make sure you do.  This isn’t fake news, it’s just news you won’t be told by the U.S. government or the MSM.  The American MSM traffics in fake news.  I do not.  Here is another report.

Next up, the Washington Post, NYT (this link works too) and ABC News have all scrubbed the news report of Norway’s pedophile ring bust.  It was initiated by an AP report, and it’s accurate.  Norway isn’t denying it, and it won’t go away.  In all, 150 Terabytes of data and information was seized.

So what is the MSM in America is trying to cover up?  Is there a connection to TCF?  What is it that the MSM doesn’t want you to know?  How far does this go, and how widely across the isle do the fingers point?

Meanwhile, you’ve see the narrative developing all around you in dealing with all of this.  First, trot out some CIA shills to say that Russia was meddling in the affairs of America.  Unnamed people, saying things using unnamed sources, of course.  Next, claim that any porn or CP found on computers is a Russian plant.  Next, quickly and silently pass the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act.  Next, trot out Senator John McCain to say that he cannot believe that Trump doesn’t believe all of this.

Well, Trump says he doesn’t believe it, Kellyanne Conway calls it laughable and ridiculous (which it is), and apparently Trump won’t attend any briefings with the CIA.  I wouldn’t either.

As to the role of the various governmental organizations is all of this, when I read analyses weeks ago that asserted that there’s a war going on between the old guard CIA and the FBI / NSA, I initially dismissed those analyses.  I’m beginning to believe that there is something to all of that.

As to whether Russia tried to hack computer systems, of course they did.  And we do too.  And China does too.  And so does the Mossad.  Folks, I work for a large corporation, and during conversation with a corporate executive several months ago I was told that my company is the target of hundreds of thousands of hack attempts per month, some by governmental organizations.  If you work for a large corporation, your company is a target too.  Deal with it.

That’s not what’s happening here.  Look past the smoke and mirrors and understand that a narrative is being set in place to deal with the fallout of #Pizzagate, one that 90% of America will suck down in a second, and go back to wearing stupid costumes and cheering for their favorite band of criminals on Sunday.  If you can’t see the narrative developing, you’re in denial or you’re stolid.  The rest of you who understand what’s going on are in a war, whether you want to be or not.

The American MSM is kooky and unhinged.  David Seaman has it right.

Prior:

Pizzagate XI

Pizzagate X

Pizzagate IX

Pizzagate VIII

Pizzagate VII

Pizzagate VI

Pizzagate V: Pizzagate In Theological Perspective

Pizzagate IV

Pizzagate III

Pizzagate II

Pizzagate

I have to say that I am beginning to agree with Jeff.  Since I have been covering #Pizzagate, when I go out more often than not I’m now carrying two guns, not one.

Also, I’ll briefly comment on his choice of guns.  I do love the 1911, and I have the S&W E Series 1911, full size.  I shoot it better than I shoot anything else.  I have been thinking about a smaller 1911 like this one, and the fact that it’s a Performance Center gun impresses me.

But why does every gun that catches my interest cost $1500 and up?  I need a rich friend.