Articles by Herschel Smith

According to Todd Hubbard:

GUNS are awesome machines.

Built with great precision, advanced over generations, they are powerful tools for their purpose. Practicing with them brings the pleasure and satisfaction that comes with honing difficult skills. The enforcers of our laws use them to stop the criminals who threaten our lives and property. Our military uses them to kill and contain the violent enemies of our nation. As with any fine machine, looking at a gun, possessing one or working with one is exciting and empowering.

This is what guns are not:

In the hands of civilians, they are not protection from crime. Unless you wear a uniform with a badge or a service patch on it, the gun you carry is more likely to kill you or someone you know or love than it is to kill anyone who threatens you or your loved ones. The “good guy with a gun” who will protect us, rather than threaten us, is the man or woman who has been screened, trained, authorized and empowered by us to do the job. Anyone else, no matter how well-intentioned, is an amateur at best and a hazard to the rest of us at worst. The past 40 years in the United States has been a massive experiment in the theory that a highly armed citizenry will make us safer, and the experiment has been an abysmal failure.

In the hands of civilians, guns are not a bulwark against tyranny. If you believe that guns are a remedy against an oppressive government, then you are on the side of the black man who perceived “his” people being abused by government agents and chose to strike back with a gun. You are on the side of the troubled white man who, 52 years earlier, wanted to bring down the elected government he viewed as corrupt. Dallas is what Second Amendment remedies look like in practice: dead police officers, a dead president.

Many of you, my friends and family, own firearms. I do not want you to surrender your guns. I do not want the government to confiscate them. But I do want you to help address the problem of so many deaths caused by these awesome machines. An informed, engaged electorate is what protects us from tyranny. Stop pretending this problem does not exist or that the only solution is more guns. Do not hide behind “originalist” arguments about the Constitution’s Second Amendment.

Oh good heavens.  So let’s cover this one more time for the dense or stolid listener.  Mr. Hubbard, who apparently is an attorney, is engaging in lying, and any considered assessment of his behavior would conclude that it approaches malfeasance because he knows better.

In the 1981 decision in Warren v. District of Columbia the D.C. Court of Appeals concluded that it is a “fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”  In Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005), the Supreme Court declined to expand any requirements for protection and ruled that the police cannot be sued for failure to protect individuals, even when restraining orders were in place.

Mr. Hubbard knows these decisions, and also knows that even if it was commonly accepted that the police were required to protect individuals, it would be impossible.  They cannot be there all of the time, and they cannot even promise any particular timely response to your calls.  The police can literally eat popcorn and watch while a woman is raped, as long as they effect an arrest after the fact.  They may be fired for failure to follow a department procedure, but they will not be charged with a crime.  “To protect and serve” is a sweet campaign slogan for Sheriffs who are running for office, but it’s a lie – it’s always a lie – and Mr. Hubbard knows it.  The police are there for stability operations and security of the government.  Understand that.

You must be your own protection, and if you are a morally righteous man who cares about his own life and the lives of his loved ones, you will have means of effecting that self defense.  If you don’t you are negligent in your God-given duties.  By negligent, I mean more than that you simply don’t know better.  I mean you know better and willingly choose to neglect your duties.

We know that it’s claptrap to say that it’s impossible to effect this self defense, just like we all know that the rate of crime hasn’t gone up as a result of guns.  But we also suspect that Mr. Hubbard knows about fourth generation warfare, and that guns are indeed means of amelioration of tyranny, and that genocide is always preceded by gun confiscations.

We don’t “hide behind” the second amendment.  It doesn’t grant us the right to own weapons.  God does that Himself.  The constitution is a covenant between men for how they will live together.  Like all covenants, there are promises and curses.  Mr. Hubbard doesn’t want to endure the curses of failure to live according to the covenant to which we are all bound, including the second amendment.  Mr. Hubbard would do well to ponder that fact.

CBS News:

The video surveillance from an Albuquerque motel shows it clearly: A man paces the corridor; a woman exits her room to get something from her car, and then returns.

“And from out of nowhere this guy came back around the corner,” recalled Lynne Russell, “and this time he had a gun and he was pointing it right at my abdomen.”

At that very moment, Russell’s husband, Chuck De Caro, emerged from the shower. He recalled: “He then moved the gun from pointing at my wife to pointing at me, and he said, ‘I need your money.'”

But the gunman did not know that Russell, a former CNN anchor, and De Caro, a former CNN reporter who trained as a Special Forces soldier, habitually travel with guns that they are licensed and trained to use.

Russell was able to slip her gun from the nightstand into her purse, which she handed to De Caro, telling him “‘Take a really good look inside here; see if there’s anything you can find that we want to give the man.’ And Chuck looked and he said, ‘Yes, there is.”

And, they say, as the suspect started to shoot, De Caro fired back: “And I killed him,” he said.

“But you got shot yourself?” asked Braver.

“Well, that’s the nature of the game,” De Caro replied. “It’s called combat.”

[ … ]

But Dallas Police Chief David Brown, speaking after five officers were shot and killed, says these “good guys” actually complicate matters for police: “It’s been the presumption that a good guy with a gun is the best way to resolve some of these things. Well, we don’t know who the good guy is versus who the bad guy is if everybody starts shooting.”

The police would rather you be disarmed so that it makes their job of mopping up the remains and going home after their shift easier.  But is it actually possible to protect yourself?  We keep hearing the progressives say that it’s impossible, an argument that disproves their point since they never logically extend the argument to disarming the police.

Well, let’s see.

AZ Family reports that police arrived on scene to find 27-year-old Frank Taylor in the parking lot, suffering from a gunshot wound. He was rushed to a hospital, where he died from his injuries. Witnesses told police that Taylor held a gun to 23-year-old Carol Miracle’s head and demanded money. Miracle told police that “Taylor tried to rob her at gunpoint near the store.”

Glendale police officer Tiffany Smith indicated that investigators “learned that Taylor pointed his gun at Miracle’s head.” Smith said, “She then drew her own handgun that was holstered on her hip, and shot him one time while she was in fear for her life.”

Smith said the evidence recovered at the scene is “consistent” with eyewitness testimony that Taylor had a gun to Miracle’s head.

You mean without all of that super Ninja warrior stress control training LEOs go through she was able to defend her life?  I’m shocked.  Shocked!

She didn’t have all of that Ninja assassin training she needs.

Perhaps if the “terrorist attack” has to do with knives, or gun, or trucks, a person like her would be effective against it.  She seemed pretty cool under pressure to me.  If it involves a battalion of Ninja warriors, she may need some help.  It’s best, then, if everyone carries guns.

C. J. Chivers writing for The New York Times has an extensive piece entitled Tools of Modern Terror: How the AK-47 and AR-15 Evolved into Rifles of Choice for Mass Killers.  I recommend that you read it.

Chivers has the usual (for him) admiration for the AK-47 as a weapon that never fails.  “The Kalashnikov line was shorter and lighter than traditional rifles. It was inexpensive to manufacture, built for durability and reliable to an extraordinary degree. With few moving parts, and a design that made its disassembly and reassembly almost intuitive, its basics could be mastered by all manner of combatants — from traditionally instructed conscripts to almost wholly untrained guerrillas — in very little time.”

But fail it does.  I blogged on OIF and OEF long enough and had enough friends and acquaintances who had done combat tours in Iraq or Afghanistan that I heard some horror stories about AK-47s that wouldn’t fire more than a round or two and have a FTF / FTE, and that a shooter couldn’t hit the “broad side of a barn” with it.  I’ve shot one, as have you, and those complaints may be exaggerated, but they are about as exaggerated as the complaints against the AR-15.

Chivers focuses some of his time on the initial failure of the Stoner weapon system in Vietnam, while not spending much time on the Molly-Chrome or Stainless Steel barrels found today in AR-15s.  With upgraded buffer springs, enhanced extractor springs, etc., that make the M4/AR-15 weapons so reliable today, we really do have the professional soldier’s weapon that can be used by the masses, or in other words, the tight tolerances, accuracy and recoil-along-the-axis design (as opposed to coupling around the shooter’s hand with the angled buttstock) that makes it such an admirable carbine for shooters of any skill. We’ve had virtually every imaginable torture test, and the high end AR-15s outperform not only AKs but the Garand and Garand variants (M-14).  My Rock River Arms AR-15 could be beaten with a sledge hammer, soaked in paint, and dropped in sand and it would still eat and shoot everything I fed it.

But it’s true that the AK-47 found ready acceptance among terror-producing nations and peoples, and Chivers makes no attempt to diagnose why that is.  Take a long look at his maps of AK usage versus AR-15 usage.  Neither does Chivers make any attempt to diagnose any other element of weapons and terror, such as the possibility that use of the AK or AR for such things marks a shift to CQB versus standoff sniping as with Charles Whitman (with a bolt action rifle).  In other words, what if the problem isn’t the AK or the AR, but the heart of sinful mankind that causes these things, with the weapon of choice being a function of tactical choices the shooter makes?

Chivers disappoints me with this paragraph.

Governments have done little to stop the spread of this class of weapons. Often, as in the case of the United States, they have contributed to it. Acts of crime, terror and oppression with Kalashnikovs and AR-15 descendants, endured by civilians under withering fire, have been hard-wired into our times. There is no end in sight.

“Stop the spread of this class of weapons.”  As if stopping the spread of any class of weapons among peaceable people who need means of self defense is a bad thing.  Chivers is a legitimate military journalist who did a wonderful job on coverage of the campaign in Afghanistan and is a voice for the men in uniform.

But with this one paragraph it appears to me that he has placed his politics squarely on the side of gun controllers who believe that laws, regulations, governmental actions and policies effect behavior and catalyze moral righteousness.  Matthew 15:15-20 teach us that weapons don’t defile the man, any more than alcohol makes a drunkard.

But from the end of the gun comes self defense, and Chivers would do well to consider the millions of men, women and children who have been slaughtered as a result of not having means of self defense.

First of all, Jeff’s grip is odd since there is no thumb on the slide for his opposing hand.  I wonder if this “revolver-style” grip is normal for him (it is for some people), or if it is a function of the smallness of the gun frame?  I don’t do nearly as well shooting small frame guns as with large frame guns for this very reason.

Second, for all of my M&P-owning readers, take a simple test.  First of all, unload your M&P.  Do it.  Including the chamber.  Make sure.  Now.  Look at the end of the slide and the gap between the slide and the frame.  Take two fingers and put them on the top of the slide and the bottom of the frame near the end of the barrel.  Press together.  Why does this gap (and play) exist?  What possible engineering justification can there be for that kind of tolerance?  This is true of every M&P I have ever touched.  Every one.  There is rattling at the end of the frame because of the play between the barrel and frame.

Third, in the comments section of  YouTube, Jeff remarks that S&W is made in the USA, while Springfield Armory XD/XDm is not.  Whatever.  If you consider Massachusetts the USA.

Fourth, my son Joseph has an M&P Shield and likes it very much.  Granted I don’t shoot 9mm so I cannot make a good comparison, but Joseph is very discerning and critical.

I still think I’m in the market for another concealed carry gun, a compact 1911, probably a SA Range Officer Compact (RO Compact).  But I don’t have one yet.  So there’s that.

WKBW.com:

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) – Two separate police raids ended with pit bull dogs shot in their respective homes. Pit bull dogs were shot after police raided houses in the past week.

On the morning of Friday, July 29th, Michael Urban’s house was raided by the Buffalo Police Department, as their Narcotics Department executed 15 search warrants in the Lovejoy-Kaisertown area. Although BPD tells us a search warrant was executed for Urban’s home on Weaver Street, Urban says officers raided the wrong home, and that the description didn’t match him.

“5’11 210 white male and this is a 5’11 170 black male… I don’t look like either of those,” said Urban.

According to Urban, officers came into his home and shot his 18-month-old pit bull, Gotham, twice. A bullet hole on his kitchen floor serves as memory of that morning. The bullet made it through the floor to the home of the downstairs residents.

“What just happened?” Urban recalls what was going through his mind that morning. “As the bullet hole went through the floor through the ceiling, as the dogs blood is dripping through the downstairs apartment… who’s accountable?”

The Internal Affairs Division of the Buffalo Police Department has opened an investigation into the matter.

A similar situation occurred on Esser Street. According to resident of the home on Esser Street, Cindy Meers, her seven-year-old pit bull dog was shot by the Erie County Sheriff’s Office and Buffalo SWAT Thursday afternoon.

I saw you in the video, shit-for-brains.  You looked like this.

What a drag, huh?  Someone had you get all dressed up with no place to go except shoot a dog in the wrong house!  Here’s a hint to help you in the future.  A lot of records that y’all use, such as tax records, are out of date.  They lead to wrong-home raids.  Have a uniformed officer walk up to the front door and knock on it.  He can then ask the resident of the domicile who he is.  That will work better than what you did.

Or if you’re really scared of who might be in there, you can have a plain clothes officer watch the home until the owner comes out for work, groceries, or whatever.  He can’t stay in there forever.  Then he can do this.

Officer 1: Uh … this dude isn’t black, he’s white.  Maybe the wrong place.  How copy?

Officer 2: Uh … okay.  Copy.  Wrong place.

Officer 1: I just called his name, er … the name we think is his.  He looked at me like I was crazy.  I think we need to think about this.  Standing down.  How copy?

Officer 2: Copy that.  Standing down.  Let’s go get a doughnut.

If you are concerned about the high personnel costs of staking out the residence, you can sell off those helmets, AR-15s, EOTechs, Kevlar, Tac-lights, Comms gear and other unnecessary stuff.  We don’t really care about your war on drugs.

You went into the home of someone else, a home that wasn’t yours, onto property that wasn’t yours, and shot his dog.  You committed a home invasion, and it would have been morally justified to shoot every one of you dead.  Most of us aren’t okay with something like that unless it involves the immediate protection of someone’s life, such as in a kidnapping, and even then, I would rather you take a cold shower, find someone with brains and let them deescalate the situation.

But all of this only matters if you have a moral compass.  It doesn’t, and you don’t.  I had thought that I remembered something special about the Buffalo Police Department.  Ohhhh yes.  We have history with you.

According to use of force reports requested by WGRZ-TV under the Freedom of Information Law, Buffalo Police shot 92 dogs from Jan. 1, 2011 through Sept. 2014. Seventy-three of those dogs died. Nineteen survived.

To provide a comparison, Buffalo’s numbers more than triple the amount of dog shooting incidents involving police in Cincinnati, a municipality of similar size.

“The numbers are what the numbers are,” Buffalo Police Chief of Detectives Dennis Richards said in an interview with WGRZ. “Certainly, no officer takes any satisfaction in having to dispatch a dog.”

I don’t believe you.  I don’t believe you because there are other ways to accomplish the same mission.  I believe that you are a bunch of sadists, and I think the people of Buffalo should begin to think of you that way.  You’re a hazard to yourselves and the citizens and animals of the city.  You’re clearly incompetent, and you need to have your entire department cleaned out top to bottom, side to side, front to back, with everyone replaced, entirely new procedures, and a new perspective.

Finally, I was looking for an email address to ensure that someone in the Buffalo Police Department read this article.  I notice that you don’t supply any such contact information for any person in particular, you just give that idiotic form.

I’ve taken to avoiding linking or commenting on articles where the author gives no contact information.  I don’t consider Twitter accounts or Facebook pages contact information.  An author who doesn’t give his email address is a coward.  And a cop who shoots up the city without giving his email contact information is doubly a coward.  I find y’all despicable and loathsome.  I’m glad I don’t know you.  I pity the people of Buffalo who do have to know you.

This is another report of folks who needed to do some work to survive in the wilderness, albeit for a short time.  From this article comes this video.

Don’t listen to her advice.  What is she leaving out?  We cover this frequently here.  Also make sure to take trekking poles, a tarp (or heavy rubberized poncho) and 550 cordage (from which three items you can have virtually instant shelter).  Take a container that can be used to boil water, a knife, a tactical light, and a gun.  Oh, and don’t leave out the fire starter.

Unlike this very unwise man and his son, don’t keep on pushing in the hopes that something good will happen.

We heard waterfalls, one after another, but the mind tends to latch onto something it yearns to believe. A waterfall, Jack and I had been told, marked a faint fisherman’s trail out of the gorge, and we’d been searching for it now for the last few hours. We were no longer thinking of trout; our fly rods were broken down and tucked under our arms. We were trying to get out of the woods before dark, but each waterfall we heard turned out to be the wind coursing through the trees or the creek rushing by boulders. It was one false summit after another. And now worry began to gnaw at my gut, because I’d broken every rule when we left the truck.

We had no map, compass, or flashlight. No shelter, signaling device, or fire starter. No firsthand knowledge of where we were. No clue how to beat the dropping sun back to the trail. I had ignored 40 years of knowing better.

This situation can be dealt with by building a debris hut for protection against the rain and wind, and pine bows or straw to get your bodies off of the ground, along with finding a potable water source.  But in order to pull this off, you have to stop in time and quit hoping that civilization is just around the bend.

Breitbart:

The fifteenth issue of the magazine, titled “Break the Cross,” is dedicated to convincing Christians that Jesus was a prophet of Allah, was never crucified, and that most of the New Testament is a perversion of Jesus’s story orchestrated by St. Paul, a “criminal” “treacherous Jew” who gave up massacring Christians in order to subvert the religion from the inside. Its articles strive to depict Christianity as a pagan religion based on a false Jesus, arguing that the only true Jesus is the prophet of Islam.

The feigned compassion towards Christians in most of the volume stands in stark contrast to the actions of the Islamic State’s terrorists towards Christian communities, which includes rape, torture, crucifixion, and slavery.

In the issue’s Foreward, the editors make clear the intent of the magazine: the issue will help “Crusaders” “read into why Muslims hate and fight them, why pagan Christians should break their crosses, why liberalist secularists should return to the fitrah (natural human disposition), and why skeptical atheists should recognize their Creator and submit to Him.”

“In essence, we explain why they must abandon their infidelity and accept Islam, the religion of sincerity and submission to the Lord of the heavens and the earth,” the editors write.

Among their reasons are that Jesus himself is a “slave of Allah,” according to Ja’far, a cousin of Muhammad. “We say about him like our prophet taught us – that he is the slave of Allah, His messenger, His [chosen] spirit, and His word which He cast into the pure virgin Mary,” Ja’far is quoted as saying.

The cover story, “Break the Cross,” argues that Jesus will do precisely that upon his return: “break the cross, kill the swine, and put aside the jizyah [infidels’ tax, assuming all the infidels will have been killed].”

Here’s a note to the jihadists.  You would do well to remember Philippians 2:10-11.  As for me, you don’t scare me one bit.  You should remember Herschel’s Dictum.  “There aren’t too many human interaction problems that can’t be fixed with a .45 ACP 230-grain fat-boy.”

That is, if I don’t double-tap you with 5.56 first.

This report comes from The Daily Signal.

In early June, after Lichterman fought back and went public with his story—accusing the bank of participating in Operation Choke Point tactics by discriminating against him because he sells guns—HomeTrust Bank reversed its policy and offered Lichterman an account.

But on June 14, two days after an Islamist-inspired terrorist shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in an attack at an Orlando nightclub, the bank again reversed its policy and told Lichterman he couldn’t use their services without completing an “addendum” demanding more information about his business.

The Daily Signal sought comment about this request from HomeTrust Bank via phone and email, but it did not respond.

Among other demands, the addendum, which Lichterman provided to The Daily Signal, asks Lichterman to “submit a complete list of all firearms and ammunitions vendors and customers” that he conducts business with. In part, it reads:

After the first/initial submission subsequent lists are to include all relevant parties since the date of last report. Each list is to specify personal and business names and associated FFL [federal firearms license] numbers and should indicate whether the individual/entity is new or repeat. The list must identify all firearms and ammunitions transaction entities regardless of whether HomeTrust Treasury Management ACH [automated clearinghouse] origination services are used for the transaction.

The list is due no later than the fifth day of the first month in each quarter.

This is a blatant attempt to shut him down, if not at the transactional level, at the legal.  This kind of bullying by the federal executive is still commonplace.  Frank Miniter reports the following.

Many executives at gun manufacturers have told me in off-the-record conversations that their longtime banking relationships have been threatened, even terminated, for political reasons. They say the Obama administration’s “Operation Choke Point” was only a government-led example of a trend. Operation Choke Point is an initiative run by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ); basically, the federal government, in this case via a list sent out by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), threatens to penalize financial institutions that do business with companies or company types the government says might be violating the law—this list previously included gun manufacturers and stores that sell firearms.

Even though they were targeted by the federal government and treated as if they are selling illegal (not just politically incorrect to some) products, most of these firearms-related companies prefer not to go public with their grievances—perhaps because they don’t want to draw the wrath of the federal bureaucracy, but also because most marketing departments and corporate boards naturally prefer to keep clear of controversy.

No one wants to rock the boat, and so the outrage continues.  Now it has been expanded to knife manufacturers.  Concerning Hogue, we have this report.

We were just informed that Wells Fargo Bank would not do business with us, refusing to provide their services based on the fact that we manufacture “weapons” (aka knives). Incredibly, this refusal came after THEY initially pursued us to gain our business. Once we had decided to go with Wells Fargo, they then pulled the plug saying they could not provide their services since we manufacture weapons…Needless to say, we are shocked and confused – considering their logo is a stagecoach and driver with a shotgun too! We felt we needed to inform the firearm and knife community of this discriminatory stance Wells Fargo has taken.

The lawyers who work for the DoJ are sworn officers of the court, and are supposed to live by a very specific oath.  It wouldn’t be too much to demand that when this is all said and done, they all go public – every one of them, from the chief executive down to the lowest entry level lawyer who participated in this moral abomination – to stand in front of the world at a press conference and say, in unison, “I am a toad.  I care nothing about the law or a righteous moral compass.  I am unworthy to govern you, but I owe you my servitude.  Therefore, I will be finding each and every company and person who was affected by this and working as your slave for a decade.  Need your car washed?  I’ll do it.  Need pet-sitting?  I’m there.  Need legal paperwork done?  Well, I’m probably not really qualified, but if you’ll let me earn your trust back I’ll do my best.  Give me a small room and I’ll work for mere scraps of food.  For a decade.  Because I am a toad.”

Gazette Review has a very interesting article on what someone believes to be the world’s top ten special operations units (the article is titled special forces, but they got that part wrong).

I think that inclusion of Quds Force is insulting and laughable, and they are more of a gang or group of thugs.  Not surprisingly, SEALs top the list and the world’s best, with SAS coming in at number two and Delta Force at third place.  This is a little surprising, and I’ve always thought of Delta as being the world’s best, and I’ve also always been under the impression that Delta is entirely a tier 1 group whereas SEALs is made up of tier 1 plus others who aren’t relied upon as much as, say, SEAL Team Six.  I also may be somewhat jaded in my evaluation given the horrible arrogance, inappropriate tactics, lack of control and lack of proper planning that attended Operation Red Wings.

Then there is this paragraph.

First officially denied to have ever existed, and then the subject of countless books, movies and video games, Delta Force is now among the most recognized special forces units in the world. Despite having few officially recognized missions available for mention, Delta’s training regimen alone is enough to warrant their high placement on this list. First, nearly 70% of the recruits for Delta are experienced Rangers of the famed 75th regiment, whose training is equivalent to many of the premier special forces units in the world. Then once selected, recruits are put through a 6 month training and testing period which includes schooling from the FBI, FAA, CIA, and Secret Service. Much like their Israeli counter parts who were previously mentioned in this list, both on and off duty, Delta members lack any insignia and often do not even wear standard issue military uniforms; Likewise military style hair and facial grooming is not required. With their high level of training and low profile, operators from this unit have been seen in Afghanistan hunting Taliban members, helping Peshmerga forces in Syria fight off ISIS forces and assisting in evacuation, and even in 2016, aiding in the tracking and capture of the Mexican Cartel lord, El Chapo.

True enough, Delta has been known to send its members into countries almost in spying assignments to scout out enemies, evaluate tactics, plan operations and conduct a whole host of activities (sometimes in concert with the CIA and sometimes even with females in order to aid concealment and role playing).

But I find it odd that they are trained by the Secret Service unless it applies to protection of dignitaries (what can the secret service teach them except to party, shirk their duties and bed down with whores?).  I would think the list would have focused more on training in CQB, covert insertion and extraction, combat diver training, weapons training, communications and medical training, and dark operations.

But what do I know?

Boston Herald:

Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo says he expects the dispute over Attorney General Maura Healey’s crackdown on so-called copycat assault weapons to ultimately be decided in court.

DeLeo on Saturday ruled out any House action on the gun issue as lawmakers held their final formal sessions of the year.

The Democratic speaker also said Rep. John Fernandes, a Milford Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Healey asking her to clarify under what authority she acted when she recently sent an enforcement letter to gun dealers.

Gun rights advocates have challenged Healey’s crackdown. The Democrat says the sale of “copy” or “duplicate” weapons are illegal under the state’s assault weapons ban.

DeLeo says he’s not sure if Healey overstepped her authority and expects the courts to decide.

The House could impeach her, or they could pass a law that fired her, or they could clarify that she cannot implement the law as she plans, or better yet, they could repeal all guns laws and prove themselves on the side of liberty.  They could even pass a resolution demanding that she be tarred and feathered.

But any of these things apparently take too much courage.  John Adams famously observed that the American constitution “was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  You can add to that leading the American system requires at least a modicum of courage.

That the speaker of the house would defer to the courts is disgraceful and cowardly.  It is things like this that will ultimately end the great American experiment.