Articles by Herschel Smith

Meredith Bennett-Smith:

Now the Constitution, much like the Bible–another flawed text used for centuries as a tool of oppression and tyranny–has become a crutch for lazy leadership and moral ambiguity. It’s an excuse for cowards to masquerade as patriots. Today, the NRA treats personal gun ownership as an inviolable right, regardless of its function or purpose.

[ … ]

To be clear, I know plenty of responsible gun owners. I want hunters to be able to hunt—but not with semiautomatic weapons. And I would like people who enjoy a little target practice to be able to do so at to their local firing range—but not with semiautomatic weapons. If you want to fire 43 bullets a minute, join the military.

Just to be clear, ownership of weapons is indeed an inviolable right, but not because of the second amendment.  It is so because God says so in the very document you think was a tool of tyranny.  But the only tyrants here are you, Meredith, and those of your ilk who want to disarm others.  You are control freaks, every one of you.  The bible you criticize teaches me that any attempts I might make to control you are based in wickedness.  I don’t want to control you or anyone else.  I want you to have liberty.  But you have no liberty to remove mine.

Second, I understand that your acquiescence to bolt action rifles for hunting is merely baiting.  It’s ineffective baiting, to be sure, but it’s still baiting and you don’t really mean it.  I know that as soon as someone changes the calculus and does something a little different such as use a scoped bolt action rifle from a stand off distance as did Charles Whitman, you’ll come for the bolt action rifles too.

Third, I know that you’re a liar, and you know it too.  You don’t really want to disarm everyone, because you don’t advocate disarming the police.  You just believe in the same thing all communists do, i.e., a monopoly of force.

Finally, it gives me amusement and pleasure to point out the obvious.  You can never effect this outcome because we have the guns.  Understand?  You can’t take them from us because you eschew them and we don’t.  What?  You didn’t really think we’d give them up, did you?  And you didn’t really think those cops would want to be gunned down as they try to confiscate weapons, did you?

Yahoo:

When James Carville sat with Sarah Palin for a Politicon conversation on Sunday, he was polite. He praised her 2008 Republican National Convention speech. He even seemed to sympathize with her for being scapegoated in John McCain’s presidential campaign.

But then he challenged her on wanting to “take back the country,” a common Tea Party phrase that has morphed into Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” and their conversation quickly turned into a debate over gun control.

Carville, the Democratic strategist, said to the former vice presidential nominee: “When you say you want to take back the country, what is it you want to take back?”

“I want to take back the interpretation of our constitution that is being wrongly interpreted today,” Palin said.

“Where are we going haywire on the Constitution?” he asked.

Palin’s response: the Second Amendment.

“It is black and white, and we have a right, of course, to bear arms,” she said. “People who can interpret that to, ‘Oh that means not everybody has that right.’ Or to take certain things like ammo, ‘Well that doesn’t apply.’ Or we can get rid of AR-15s because AR-15s weren’t invented for hunting. I say, ‘Yeah, the Second Amendment wasn’t written in the case the moose turn on us.’ Of course it wasn’t mean for hunting.”

Carville, though, pressed her further.

“Do I have a right to possess a bazooka? Do I have the right to have a surface to air missile and live close to the Los Angeles Airport?”

“Well, that is such a stupid question,” Palin responded.

The Palin-Carville conversation was among a number of marquee events at Politicon, a gathering of political junkies with panels, standup comedy, film screenings and art displays at the Pasadena Convention Center.

Carville went on. “I was in the Marine Corps. I have guns. I grew up rural. Why do I need a 40-clip magazine?”

I’ll concede Carville’s point.  I can say with certainty that I don’t need a 40-clip magazine.  Depending upon what that beast is, it might even make my rifle too heavy and out-of-balance to shoot accurately.

But I reserve the right to have one whether I need it or not.  I might buy one just to have it – just as soon as I figure out what it is.  As for Carville, even the US Marine Corps graduates a Gomer ever now and then.

Prior:

High Magazine Clips And The Shoulder Thing That Goes Up

High Ammo Clips

Automatic Bullets In Rapid Fire Magazine Clips

Duck Hunting With Bullets

The Fully Loaded Ammunition Cartridge

The Washington Times:

Responding to that report Saturday morning, Mr. Healy said authorities should consider creating a new list that would only be used to restrict access to weapons, separate from other similar databases, such as the “no-fly” list that contains the names of people banned from commercial air travel.

“I would even offer a solution that you create a separate list and have the no-gun list,” Mr. Healy said. “And on the no-gun list of the watchlist you require the agent to provide a probable cause statement and take it to a judge and say ‘This is why I don’t think this individual should have a gun or be able to buy a gun.’ That way i think you have a balanced approach.”

“Not everyone on the no-fly list is going to be on the no gun list because they’re not going to have enough information,” he added. “But there were situations of subjects on the no-fly list that I believe, based on what I knew about them, I could provide enough information to a judge and say ‘This is why i don’t think this individual should purchase a gun.’”

Or in other words, the collectivists don’t care about your rights.  He traffics in concepts of power, probability, forecasts of crime, and having just enough information to convince a single man that you shouldn’t be allowed to exercise your God-given rights, subject of course, to review by no one.

I think it’s probable that Mr. Healy had personal problems growing up that are manifesting themselves in this kind of behavior, but I won’t traffic in probabilities to the extent that Mr. Healy.

Here’s something I know with certainty.  The desire for this kind and degree of control over other men is wicked and sinful, and Mr. Healy is a dangerous man because rather than suppress and deal with that wickedness he acts upon it to assuage those wicked desires.  So do others of his ilk.  Gun owners aren’t the concern.  Men like Mr. Healy are the concern.

My goodness.  I do love me a good wheel gun.  I do indeed.  There’s just a feel of the machinery and a tactile connection with the revolver that I don’t get with the plastic guns, and perhaps even the 1911, which is probably my favorite platform.

Advocating concealed carry of small revolvers for self defense.  He’s got a good point about all of the lint.

This is interesting.  Rob Leatham wins the USPSA revolver championship.  I’ve always thought of him as a pistol guy.  Congratulations to Rob.  I wish I was as good as he is.  But I do have a question.  Look at this grip he’s using.

It looks like he’s using a grip customary for pistols rather than revolvers, where he is putting the thumb of his left hand near the forcing cone where it could get injured.  I don’t suspect for a minute that Rob Leatham visits the pages of this blog, but could someone explain what he’s doing and why it’s okay?

Well, I guess I didn’t see this one coming.  Kydex holsters for a number of different revolver designs.

When revolvers had safeties.  Hmm … don’t think I like the idea.  No, not at all.

Ruger SP101 review.  Ruger is making very nice revolvers these days, and I would carry this gun for personal defense in a heartbeat.  It doesn’t look nearly as pretty as the Ruger GP100 Match Champion, but then again, you can’t conceal a GP100 Match Champion.  I do think they should have made the entire grip that nice looking wood rather than embedding it in the rubber grips.

I still want someone – anyone – with personal knowledge to give me a story of someone in OIF or OEF (Iraq or Afghanistan theaters) carrying a revolver rather than a pistol.

FRI:

I find myself in a unique position, given my background, training and experiences, to write about an appropriate response to the Icehole (the FRI name for ISIS) violence. I’m a retired Marine infantryman who taught at a professional firearms training academy for several years. I also spent over 8 years in Afghanistan; most of that time I was in the contested provinces and all of that time I lived outside the wire embedded inside the local community. I carried a sidearm (and often a rifle) daily and when in the south I was never without fragmentation grenades in both my vest pockets. I have spent decades studying the literature associated with gun fights and gun fighters. I met Dave Grossman before he published On Killing and used his unpublished manuscript when we remodeled the USMC Infantry Officer Course close combat package. I had the honor of meeting and listening to Col. Boyd before he passed. For those of you who do not recognize these names read on – they are the core of the Sheepdog phenomenon and Sheepdogs are about to step onto the historical stage and light the way for freedom loving peoples to follow.

Tim is not just bragging.  He’s legitimate, and here he’s being modest.  Go read what he has to say about attacks on American soil.

Free Beacon:

There are now more non-military government employees who carry guns than there are U.S. Marines, according to a new report.

Open the Books, a taxpayer watchdog group, released a study Wednesday that finds domestic government agencies continue to grow their stockpiles of military-style weapons, as Democrats sat on the House floor calling for more restrictions on what guns American citizens can buy.

The “Militarization of America” report found civilian agencies spent $1.48 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment between 2006 and 2014. Examples include IRS agents with AR-15s, and EPA bureaucrats wearing camouflage.

“Regulatory enforcement within administrative agencies now carries the might of military-style equipment and weapons,” Open the Books said. “For example, the Food and Drug Administration includes 183 armed ‘special agents,’ a 50 percent increase over the ten years from 1998-2008. At Health and Human Services (HHS), ‘Special Office of Inspector General Agents’ are now trained with sophisticated weaponry by the same contractors who train our military special forces troops.”

Open the Books found there are now over 200,000 non-military federal officers with arrest and firearm authority, surpassing the 182,100 personnel who are actively serving in the U.S. Marines Corps.

The IRS spent nearly $11 million on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment for its 2,316 special agents. The tax collecting agency has billed taxpayers for pump-action and semi-automatic shotguns, semi-automatic Smith & Wesson M&P15s, and Heckler & Koch H&K 416 rifles, which can be loaded with 30-round magazines.

The EPA spent $3.1 million on guns, ammo, and equipment, including drones, night vision, “camouflage and other deceptive equipment,” and body armor.

When asked about the spending, and EPA spokesman said the report “cherry picks information and falsely misrepresents the work of two administrations whose job is to protect public health.”

“Many purchases were mischaracterized or blown out of proportion in the report,” said spokesman Nick Conger. “EPA’s criminal enforcement program has not purchased unmanned aircraft, and the assertions that military-grade weapons are part of its work are false.”

“EPA’s criminal enforcement program investigates and prosecutes the most egregious violators of our nation’s environmental laws, and EPA criminal enforcement agents are law enforcement professionals who have undergone the same rigorous training as other federal agents,” Conger continued.

Other administration agencies that have purchased guns and ammo include the Small Business Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Education, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

I know a little something about NIST.  What on earth is the justification for allegedly needing to be armed?  NIST needs more PhDs, not armed bureaucrats.  Noteworthy in this is that the size of the Marine Corps is set by law (see 10 U.S. Code 5063), and Congress tightly controls how many active duty Marines we have.  The Marine Corps has been pressed to cut its size.

Not true of the bureaucratic executive in Washington and around the country.  Every law, every new regulation, every fine they levy, further empowers these armed bureaucrats with the Senate and House watching, while the courts further justify virtually every one of their actions, warrants or not.

And while the *.gov arms itself, the gun controlling whores in Washington seek to disarm the population at the whim of that very federal executive whom they expect to operate fully independently and in secret (h/t WoG)  This all exemplifies, by the way, just why we cannot disarm.

Finally, I’ll note that we seem to have come full circle, and I seem to recall from history that there has been something like this before.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures … He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

I’m just pondering the similarities.

You really should spend some time reading this.  You won’t be disappointed.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

NY Daily News:

Rifle-owning South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and a handful of his fellow Republicans are standing up to the biggest bully in Washington — the National Rifle Association.

Graham and a growing group of GOPers are getting behind a burgeoning bipartisan effort to keep suspected terrorists from buying guns, and they’ve vowed they won’t bow to pressure from the powerful gun lobby.

“On every issue, Senator Graham does what he thinks is right and lets the chips fall where they may,” Kevin Bishop, a spokesman for Graham, told the Daily News in a statement Wednesday.

Hey Lindsey, you fossilized piece of shit.  Yea you.  You don’t belong in South Carolina.  Don’t go home.  Send the moving trucks to pick up your things and tote them to one of the communist states like New York, California or Connecticut.

If Lindsey doesn’t cooperate, the good folks of S.C. have some work to do.

Monica Lindstrom:

This week Arizona Senator Jeff Flake introduced a bill to prohibit the sale of guns to persons on the No Fly list. This comes on the heels of the deadliest mass shooting in America that occurred June 12 at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. It’s not surprising to see a flurry of proposals and argument regarding gun control and gun rights after a tragedy involving firearms and typically nothing changes.

The legal argument against Senator Flake’s proposal, and others before it, has to do with due process. Since the right to bear arms is given to us by the Second Amendment to our Constitution and has been affirmed in case law, a person must have due process before that right can be taken away. In other words, they must have their day in court. They must be made aware they are on the list and be afforded the opportunity to fight their presence on the list. Currently this is not done. Those on the list often do not know they are on the list and there are few opportunities, if any, that allow them to fight the designation.

This huge hurdle was recognized and suggestions are contained in the bill that would give some modicum of due process. However, the bill has a long way to go before it becomes a law and, even then, it will face many challenges in court and will likely make its way to the Supreme Court. So, mark your calendar, you could be reading about this anticipated case a couple years from now in #LegallySpeaking.

Let’s be clear about one thing Monica.  The second amendment grants me absolutely nothing.  The constitution is a covenant wherein parties agree to honor commitments made to each other.  A covenant has all the blessings and curses and consequences appertaining to said covenant.  The second amendment, like all other rights outlined in the bill of rights, merely codifies the recognition of an already-existing right.

God grants me the right (and even duty) to go armed and conduct myself in a manner consistent with self defense.  Not you, and not the constitution, and not black robed tyrants.  That means that whatever the outcome of this “day in court” to which you refer, the right to self defense is still present because God said so.

It would actually be a service for you to warn others of your ilk that your designs for control over others will run afoul of God’s commandments.  The consequences of this are too numerous to detail here, and include effect both now and in eternity.  And tell Jeff Flake we never forget.

Or otherwise called, “thumb over bore” grip.  As I’ve pointed out, it started in the gaming community, and it was taken up by SpecOps, and so you see folks like Chris Costa and Travis Haley using it.

I ran across this report today of a 3-gun competitor who is also using the C-clamp grip.

The folks at Magpul explain why they like the grip.