Articles by Herschel Smith

Via Townhall, this sad tale:

A San Francisco sheriff’s deputy accidentally discharged a non-duty weapon, a “baby Glock,” inside the Hall of Justice on Wednesday morning, apparently while trying to demonstrate the proper use of the weapon to a colleague.

The round narrowly missed the fellow deputy, but no one was injured.

San Francisco Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Eileen Hirst said the discharge occurred before court started and was under investigation. She was not able to provide details, pending the outcome of the probe.

“An accidental discharge of a firearm is a very serious matter,” she said. “We are all very grateful that no one was injured.”

Sources say that Rhonda Gaines, a 20-plus year veteran, brought the gun to work and that Sotero Santos accidentally fired it. Hirst would not confirm either identities but said that the person who fired the weapon is receiving a one-on-one refresher on firearm training, as is the deputy who brought the weapon to the courthouse.

[…]

Sources told NBC Bay Area that Gaines brought the handgun, a 22-caliber “baby” Glock, to work and was apparently not familiar with how it operated. She handed it to Santos and asked him about its use, sources said. The second deputy pointed the weapon at the first deputy and – apparently unaware the weapon was loaded – pulled the trigger. The round missed her, piercing an equipment storage cabinet, before lodging in the office wall.

I don’t do Glocks, but even so, I know that unless it’s had the conversion kit applied to it, there is no .22 Glock.  The department may have been referring to a Glock 22, which is a .40.  Either way, it’s a good thing this happened among people so well trained in the science of firearms use and tactical applications (unlike us ignorant civilians).  Otherwise, someone might have been hurt and the other sent to prison.

It looks like Mike is coming down towards the end.  This is very sad news for me.  I have a deep regret, namely, not ever having personally met Mike.  But we will meet in the new heavens and the new earth.  Keep him in your prayers.

It looks like there is a change of command at SSI, and while it’s nice to see his son taking on his legacy, I’ll tell you what.  You’ve got big shoes to fill, son.  I’ll be watching.

David Codrea:

“[T]he documents reveal how senior Justice Department officials—including Attorney General Eric Holder—intensely followed and managed an effort to carefully limit and obstruct the information produced to Congress,” the memo notes, adding further cause for curiosity. “Justice Department officials in Washington impeded the congressional investigation in several ways…”

Well, he’s a criminal, but he worked for a criminal too.  So it all started at the top and worked its way down, one gigantic criminal enterprise.

Ben Carson: “You know, during the Jim Crow era, those were the rules, too,” Ben Carson told MSNBC today, while discussing the caucus rules of the Colorado Republican Party. “They were written. Everybody knew about them. Didn’t make them right.”

I like how he has begun to speak in pseudo-sentences just like Trump.  But hey, we did indeed learn something!  Who knew you could be so stupid and still be a neurosurgeon?

Nate with Haley Strategic gives us his version of unique carry options.

Hartford Courant:

Superior Court judge has denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit accusing gun makers and sellers of liability in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, saying the broad immunity granted to the firearms industry does not strip the court of jurisdiction to hear the claim.

While the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act generally insulates gun companies from liability, Judge Barbara Bellis said the law could be used to attack the legal sufficiency of the plaintiffs’ claims, but not to have the case thrown out at this early stage.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs – nine victims’ families and an administrator who was shot and survived – declared the ruling a major win, as victories against firearms companies are extremely rare. But the ruling does not preclude the defendants from reasserting their claims of immunity under federal law in a future motion.

The lawsuit accuses the Remington Arms Co. and other defendants of negligently selling to civilians a weapon the plaintiffs claim is suitable only for the military and law enforcement. At a hearing in February, Bridgeport lawyer Josh Koskoff argued against dismissing the case, saying the lawsuit’s claim of “negligent entrustment” is an exception to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.

But Bellis ruled on a narrower issue, agreeing with the plaintiffs that she has jurisdiction to continue with the case, but not ruling on whether the federal law blocks the plaintiffs from pursuing their claim.

“At this juncture,” Bellis wrote, “the court need not and will not consider the merits of the plaintiffs’ negligent entrustment theory.”

Well, there may be a little more to what the judge concluded than that.  According to the AP, she concluded that the law “does not prevent lawyers for the families of Sandy Hook victims from arguing that the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle is a military weapon and should not have been sold to civilians.”  Selling an AR-15 to civilians is their equivalent of “negligent entrustment.”  The judge found that the lawyers may indeed argue that, and that she shouldn’t rule at the present on the appropriateness of said argument.  But since this is all covered by a law, let’s see what the law says.

(5) Businesses in the United States that are engaged in interstate and foreign commerce through the lawful design, manufacture, marketing, distribution, importation, or sale to the public of firearms or ammunition products that have been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce are not, and should not, be liable for the harm caused by those who criminally or unlawfully misuse firearm products or ammunition products that function as designed and intended.

(6) The possibility of imposing liability on an entire industry for harm that is solely caused by others is an abuse of the legal system, erodes public confidence in our Nation’s laws, threatens the diminution of a basic constitutional right and civil liberty, invites the disassembly and destabilization of other industries and economic sectors lawfully competing in the free enterprise system of the United States, and constitutes an unreasonable burden on interstate and foreign commerce of the United States.

(7) The liability actions commenced or contemplated by the Federal Government, States, municipalities, and private interest groups and others are based on theories without foundation in hundreds of years of the common law and jurisprudence of the United States and do not represent a bona fide expansion of the common law. The possible sustaining of these actions by a maverick judicial officer or petit jury would expand civil liability in a manner never contemplated by the framers of the Constitution, by Congress, or by the legislatures of the several States. Such an expansion of liability would constitute a deprivation of the rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed to a citizen of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

(8) The liability actions commenced or contemplated by the Federal Government, States, municipalities, private interest groups and others attempt to use the judicial branch to circumvent the Legislative branch of government to regulate interstate and foreign commerce through judgments and judicial decrees thereby threatening the Separation of Powers doctrine and weakening and undermining important principles of federalism, State sovereignty and comity between the sister States.

It’s difficult to imagine a clearer statement than that.  The Congress intended for all judicial actions against firearms manufacturers to fail, excepting what they called “negligent entrustment.”  Further into the law, one reads just what that means, and it is obviously intended only to apply to known cases of sales to criminals who intended to perpetrate crimes with those weapons, instances where the seller knew or should have known the intent (presumably because he heard it directly from the buyer).

It doesn’t include all sales of certain categories of firearms to certain categories of the population, such as AR-15s sold to civilians.  Additionally, the notion that because one wants to purchase an AR-15 means that he wants to perpetrate some sort of crime is prima facie absurd.  We’ve discussed the fact that there is virtually no distinction between civilian and military firearms.  AR-15s are currently ubiquitous in America, and rarely are they used to perpetrate crimes.  Pistols on the battlefield and in the homes of America look the same because they are the same, unless one wants to point out that most of the time civilians own better weapons.

The U.S. Marine Corps took Benelli shotguns into Now Zad for house clearing, and the same Marine Corps took Remington 700s and Winchester bolt action guns into Iraq as designated marksman and sniper rifles.  Excluding fully automatic crew served weapons (along with the fact that M4s are selective fire), the only firearms I can find still in considerable use among the civilian population that isn’t in use in the military is the revolver, which is a shame given the beautiful wheel guns being made at the Smith & Wesson performance center.

The case is absurd, and the judge should certainly have dismissed it with prejudice.  And take note of one of the very reasons stated by the Congress for protection of firearms manufacturers, i.e., maverick judicial officer[s].  Judge Barbara Bellis is a maverick judicial officer (which I take to include both prosecutors and judges).  She is allowing her political views to cloud her judgment.

Uncle thinks this argument is a losing argument.  I guess I have to disagree.  In a dysfunctional judicial system, anything can happen.  It should be a losing argument.  David French thinks we should watch this one carefully.  I agree.  Right along with impeaching the judge (or if you wish, tar and feathers is a good approach too).

This video comes via KTRK.  Watch it all.

No he didn’t point a gun at the cop.  It’s as simple as that.  No he didn’t.  The video clearly shows that he pulled in, he got out of the truck and knocked his gun out of the floorboard of the vehicle (I’ve never done that with a gun but I have with my iPhone and wallet), reached down to pick it up, turned back towards the truck with it, placed it in the truck, and closed the door.  Then he was surprised by an off-duty cop who unholstered his firearm and didn’t observed muzzle or trigger discipline.  He pointed a deadly weapon at the man.  There was no excuse for this.  None.

The comments here are interesting.

“Overreaction on the part of the cop. Period. No harm, no foul,” and “Yep, shake hands and walk away.

So the cop should be able to do what I can’t without it being a felony, otherwise called assault with a deadly weapon, because you know, he’s a cop and all that.  And cops are different.

David Codrea gives a thorough fisking to the folks at Politifact.  Sorry, but I almost can’t type or say the word “Politifact” without belly laughing.  I put them in the same category as Snopes.  Ignore all of it.

Alabama Senate on guns in cars.  Well, it’s a start.  Let’s see what the governor does with this.

Nice review of the Springfield Armory Range Officer.  It’s affinity for light ammunition and occasional FTF/FTE is troubling, but then again, the notion of a 9mm 1911 is troubling too.  If I ever got one, it would certainly be .45 ACP like God and John Moses Browning intended them to be.  I’ve been thinking about getting a RO compact for IWB carry.  Then again, Sig makes a nice desert tan Cerakote small/medium 1911 that’s on display at Gander Mountain right down the road.  Oh, life is filled with such hard choices.  What to do, what to do?

Why the U.S. Navy didn’t shoot down that Russian fighter that buzzed our ship.  I rather think it has to do with being pussies.

Only a bigot would be offended by the sight of another woman’s penis.

Beaten for being white.  This is partially why public schooling sucks.  Home school.  Your children will be better off, and so will you.

Remember just eight short months ago Senator John Cornyn tried to get his bipartisan guns and mental health bill passed?  Well, the worm is at it again.

The Hill:

The fight over gun control is threatening to scuttle a bipartisan mental health reform effort in the Senate as lawmakers rush to get the issue to the floor.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is in talks with leaders of the Senate health committee to combine his mental health bill with one that passed the committee last month.

But Democrats object to certain sections of Cornyn’s bill that they say would make it easier for mentally ill people to acquire guns, and the controversial provisions could shatter Democratic support for the bill.

Provisions in Cornyn’s bill would require a full judicial hearing to ban someone from buying guns due to mental illness and would allow people previously committed for mental illness to purchase a gun as soon as a judge’s commitment order expires.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), one of the sponsors of the health committee’s bill, said such provisions would prevent him from supporting the bill.

“We’re still talking to [Cornyn] about whether we can move forward without those provisions,” Murphy said. “Obviously I can’t support a bill on the floor that has those provisions in it.”

Cornyn disagrees with Democrats’ argument, calling the position “unrealistic.” But he said he is open to discussing changes.

“I’m certainly open to discussing it, but I mean this whole idea that we’re not going to have a fulsome discussion about mental health and [the] problems it creates with the criminal justice system, housing and the healthcare field seems kind of unrealistic to me,” Cornyn said.

Still, he added: “I’m more interested in getting a solution and advancing the ball than I am trying to make a point.”

Murphy is one of the Senate’s strongest proponents of gun control, representing the state where the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting took place in 2012.

Asked if Cornyn has been open to dropping the problematic provisions, Murphy indicated the talks are still in an early stage.

“We haven’t gotten there yet,” he said.

Also involved in the talks are Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and health committee leaders Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

Both sides are still hopeful that some agreement can be reached. Mental health reform is seen as one of the few issues on which a meaningful bipartisan bill could pass this year.

About one in five adults, or 44 million people, experience a mental illness per year, but the number of available psychiatric beds has declined 14 percent in recent years, and families are often prevented by privacy laws from accessing crucial information to help care for family members with mental illness.

But gun politics has long been an obstacle for mental health reform.

Republicans argue for mental health reform as a response to mass shootings, while Democrats contend that mental health reform, while important in its own right, is no substitute for new gun control laws.

“The two work in tandem, not one as a substitute for the other,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a hearing in February in which he denounced the gun-related sections of Cornyn’s bill. “If we did gun legislation, we’d need mental health legislation with real dollars. If we did mental health legislation with real dollars, we’d need gun legislation.”

One fear is that if Cornyn’s gun-related provisions made it into the final bill, it could spark a back and forth with Democrats putting forward their own gun-control amendments, disintegrating the bipartisan calm that would be crucial to passing the bill in an election year.

Murphy is trying to convince other Democrats not to introduce gun-related amendments of their own.

Even so, a Senate Democratic aide said that moving forward with a clean mental health bill is more likely now than it seemed a few weeks ago.

Murray said in a statement she is proud of the bipartisan bill that passed committee last month.

“I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to move our bill to the floor and continue building on that bipartisan foundation as soon as possible,” she said.

Will the GOP ever learn?  We don’t want any of this.  I don’t care what kind of protections Cornyn has in the bill, or what he claims are protections.  The court system is corrupt, and appeal to mental health professionals is the twenty first century equivalent of appeal to the village witch doctor.  I don’t want bipartisan cooperation.  I don’t want kindness and collegiality.  I don’t want both sides to come to agreement.  And I really, really don’t care if the NRA supports this bill or not.  I want war.  Not one more gun law, not a single one, not even a hint of one.  The only gun legislation that should be passed should be to undo the past obscenities such as the Hughes amendment.

And remember what reader Menckenlite said about psychiatry?

Control freaks love psychiatry, a means of social control with no Due Process protections. It is a system of personal opinion masquerading as science. See, e.g., Boston University Psychology Professor Margaret Hagan’s book, Whores of the Court, to see how arbitrary psychiatric illnesses are. Peter Breggin, Fred Baughman and Thomas Szasz wrote extensively about abuses of psychiatry. Liberals blame guns for violence. Conservatives blame mental illness. Neither have any causal connection to violence. The issue is criminal conduct, crime. Suggesting that persons with legal disabilities are criminals shows the nonsensical argument of this politician and his fellow control freaks. Shame on them.

Mental health, if it can be consistently defined by the village witchdoctor, has no causal bearing on or connection to the perpetration of evil.  The perpetration of evil is done by those with mental maladies and those without alike.  It has to do with federal headship in Adam, the first man, and whether that fallen nature has been redeemed.  Leave the issues of morality and the soul to the doctors of the church, Johnny boy.  Your doctors aren’t good enough and don’t really understand.

NYT:

In a matter of months, the offices, libraries and classrooms where I work, study and teach at the University of Texas at Austin will become “concealed carry zones” — areas in which people with concealed handgun licenses may carry their weapons. The “campus carry” bill that brought about this situation represents a 50th anniversary gift of sorts from Texas state legislators. For when the law comes into effect on August 1, it will be 50 years to the day since a heavily armed young man ascended the clock tower on campus and shot 45 people, killing 14 of them, in the first mass shooting at an American college.

Following the signing of the bill into law last June, university administrators began to carve my daily environment into armed and unarmed zones: Guns in classrooms? Yes. Guns at sporting events? No. Appalled by this spectacle, I proceeded to do the two things that I have been trained to do as a philosopher: I debated with my colleagues and I wrote a critical essay. Then, having had my little scream into the abyss, I experienced a period of peace.

But now, as August 1 approaches, I find myself drawn back to the problems, both practical and philosophical, that are posed by campus carry. It seems to me that if we care about the future of American education, we must inquire after those things of value that stand at risk on armed campuses. The campus carry bill is, after all, not a peculiarly Texan piece of legislation. It has precedent in other states and, given the political climate, may be emulated elsewhere.

Much of the debate around campus carry has focused on physical risk — on the enhanced likelihood of suicide, domestic violence, assault or accidental discharge. Indeed, it was advice concerning the risk of accidental discharge that persuaded university administrators that it would be better to have students wear their guns into classrooms than to have them deposit them in lockers outside. The working group assigned by the president of our university with the task of providing recommendations about the implementation of campus carry determined that: “A policy that increases the number of instances in which a handgun must be stored multiplies the danger of an accidental discharge.” So now, people who cannot be trusted to safely transfer their weapons to lockers will instead carry them into spaces of learning.

In order to assess the physical risks of campus carry, we must rely on quantitative studies. But as philosophers, my colleagues and I can speak to some of the less explicit threats that campus carry poses by turning to our own long tradition of the qualitative study of violence and its role in human affairs. Consider the classroom, for example. What happens to it when its occupants suspect that someone has brought a gun inside? Campus carry poses a threat to the classroom as a space of discourse and learning even if no concealed carrier ever discharges their gun.

In general, we do not feel apprehension about the presence of strong people in spaces reserved for intellectual debate (although we might in other contexts — a boxing ring, say, or a darkened alley), but we do feel apprehension about the presence of a gun. This is because the gun is not there to contribute to the debate. It exists primarily as a tool for killing and maiming. Its presence tacitly relates the threat of physical harm.

But the gun in the classroom also communicates the dehumanizing attitude to other human beings that belongs to the use of violence …

[ … ]

In addition to these relatively abstract considerations, there remains a need for more concrete philosophical work concerning campus carry — situated work that draws on gender, race and labor theory. We need to ask: What bodies are at greatest risk? What disproportionate harms might the law visit on people of color? What sorts of psychological and physical threats can employees be subjected to in the workplace? And what is the significance of this law for academic freedom?

Finally, those of us who teach on armed campuses will need to confront pedagogical problems. As a philosopher, I work with questions that are challenging, controversial and even upsetting. As a teacher of philosophy, I try to animate these questions for students, and to provide them with the critical tools to pursue independent inquiry.

And see, based on my own philosophy and apologetics course work, I thought philosophizing was supposed to be about epistemology, cosmology, logic and questions of world view.  When I think of philosophy, I think of men like Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff and Gordon Clark, and before them Frederick Copleston (you know, people who actually think and write about philosophy).

I see that the author’s criticism eventually devolves into issues of race and gender.  How sad.  The most helpless among her colleagues are women who are under threat of assault and rape.  Yet according to Ms. Gubler the mere policy against guns in the classroom (and by extension, a woman cannot carry from her class to her car because she cannot have one in the classroom) will prevent guns from being in the classroom.  Criminals will read and follow the policy – or perhaps she really does think about things, and knows that she cannot effect behavior with policies, and doesn’t care about her female colleagues after all.  Perhaps her tribute to issues of feminism are merely for academic credibility.  Same with race.

Well, we’ve dealt with the notion of man being made in God’s image, and that itself being not just justification for self defense but connoting duty to self preservation.  I seriously doubt that the author’s appeal to the dehumanizing attitude towards other humans will be an impressive argument for would-be criminals.  I recall a conversation I had one time with Dr. Richard Pratt on the issue of cognitive rest.  I doubt the author’s lectures will wake a criminal from his cognitive rest in the necessity of doing what he intends to do.  On the other hand, if you follow my advice, the criminal will be much more impressed.

As for Ms. Gubler, who is currently writing a dissertation on the role of forgiveness in secular ethics and public life, good luck with that.  Better philosophers (e.g., Bertrand Russell) were unsuccessful at developing ethics without God.  Russell is in hell now so he can’t tell her to adjust her thinking, and I don’t really believe in luck since I’m a Calvinist.  But readers already knew that.

USA Today:

Donald Trump is taking on CIA Director John Brennan on torture, saying Brennan’s pledge not to allow waterboarding is “ridiculous.”

Brennan said on NBC News Sunday that he would not allow enhanced interrogation tactics, including waterboarding, even if a future president ordered it.

“I think his comments are ridiculous,” Trump said on Fox News Monday. “I mean, they chop off heads and they drown people in cages with 50 in a cage, in big, steel heavy cages, drop them right into the water drown people, and we can’t water-board and we can’t do anything,” Trump said.

“And you know we’re playing on different fields,’ he continued. “And we have a huge problem with ISIS, which we can’t beat, and the reason we can’t beat them is we won’t use strong tactics, whether it’s this or other things.”

So let me tell you how this really works, and this little note is to you, Trump, and any other presidential candidate who thinks he or she is going to bring back waterboarding.

It will never get to the level of having to have the director of the CIA tell anyone anything.  The president will give the order, and no one will carry it out.  It’s not that they won’t carry it out for reasons of morality, although some refusals will fall into that category.  It has to do with other, more pragmatic issues.

The things I am going to say to you can be found with research, so I’m not going to waste my time linking to things you should already know.  The original guys who did this for the CIA, working directly under the employ of the CIA or as contractors, are now retired, and some of them live in the Northern Virginia area.  Others live elsewhere, but the CIA knows where all of them are.  They want to be left alone, and some of them fear a knock at the door, with federal marshals waiting at the door to take them off to federal prison, never to be seen again.  I know these things because of my war and counterinsurgency coverage and commentary for so many years.  Again, go research it yourself if you want proof – I’m not going to waste my time proving this for you and your advisers should already know all of these things anyway.  For you to bring this up causes me to wonder about your advisers.

You see, even when a president tells them to do things, when another president comes into office and appoints his own attorney general, and the mood goes sour on what those men did, things change, and they can be held accountable not for what they did, but for what the people who came after them thought they should or shouldn’t have done.

This isn’t a commentary on waterboarding, per se.  I have no opinion since I’ve never been waterboarded.  The only man I know who has, a former Navy pilot who was waterboarded as part of his SERE training, says to me that it’s not torture.  I don’t know.  I don’t care.  That’s not the point.  The point is that in order for it to happen, you have to find people to make it happen.  And outsourcing this to other countries isn’t an option, because they can still retroactively charge you with war crimes for enabling it to happen.  So Mr. Trump, it isn’t ridiculous, and it isn’t going to happen, ever again.  Ever.  The only people Americans will ever waterboard from now on will be SERE training participants.