Articles by Herschel Smith

According to Newsweek:

The shooting attack on May 3 at an anti-Muslim art show in Garland, Texas, sparked debates about freedom of speech versus hate speech, the rise of lone wolf terrorists and the ability of the terrorist group ISIS to strike at the U.S. homeland.

But there is another aspect of this attack that has gone largely unaddressed: the increasing use of guns by domestic terrorists and the loopholes that allow known terror suspects to legally buy them.

Researchers at Indiana State University examining incidents of lone wolf terrorism in the U.S. found that prior to the Al-Qaeda attacks on America on September 11, 2001, domestic terrorists more often used bombs to perpetuate their attacks. However, in the last 14 years, they have increasingly turned to guns as their primary weapon of choice.

Recent domestic terror attacks bear this out: the shooting at Fort Hood in November 2009 perpetrated by Major Nidal Hasan, the 2012 shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that killed six, and the KKK leader who shot and killed three people at a Jewish community center in 2014.

Data gathered by the Government Accountability Office also supports this trend. Individuals on the consolidated terrorist watch list—including notorious terrorists such as Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri—attempted to purchase guns from licensed dealers 2,233 times between February 2004 and December 2014. In nearly 10 percent of these cases, the FBI was able to find something else in their criminal history to block the sale.

But the FBI lacked the authority to block sales in 2,043 cases because of gaps in current law.

Poor play at gun control with exaggerated rhetoric.  Or outright false rhetoric.  I had to do a double-take and triple-take when I read that.  It doesn’t say that henchmen of Ayman al-Zawahiri attempted to purchase guns from American FFLs, or that on orders from Ayman al-Zawahiri, would-be American Islamists attempted to purchase guns from American FFLs.  The article specifically says “Individuals on the consolidated terrorist watch list—including notorious terrorists such as Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri—attempted to purchase guns from licensed dealers 2,233 times between February 2004 and December 2014.”

That’s right.  According to Newsweek, the bearded, robed leader of AQ himself, hopped on an airplane in Pakistan, flew to the U.S., appeared before some worker at a gun shop somewhere in the states, and attempted to go through the NICS.  There are a lot of things about which I’m not sure, but I am certain of one thing.  Ayman al-Zawahiri has never stood over the counter in an American gun shop and waited for the pronouncements of an FFL running his name through the NICS.

It never happened.  Where do they get this crap?  Do they yank it straight our of their ass?

The Washington Times:

President Obama’s administration on Wednesday claimed dominion over all of America’s streams, creeks, rills, ditches, brooks, rivulets, burns, tributaries, criks, wetlands — perhaps even puddles — in a sweeping move to assert unilateral federal authority.

The Environmental Protection Agency, along with the Army Corps of Engineers, says it has the authority to control all waterways within the United States — and will exercise that authority.

Do you recall how the terrorists think of water?

According to an article posted by Chatham House, a London-based independent policy institute, water infrastructure has been targeted by both sides in the conflict, leading to crippling disruptions in water supply over the last several months in cities such as Aleppo, Homs and Hama. The disabling of water treatment plants has led to a reported increase in waterborne diseases such as typhoid.

According to Chatham House researcher and fellow Nouar Shamout, the war has only worsened an already complicated and precarious water situation. ISIS, the Islamist rebel group that has seized control of many parts of Syria and northern Iraq, controls key parts of the water infrastructure in the regionally crucial Euphrates River system, including Al-Raqqa dam, which supplies one-fifth of Syria’s electricity and controls irrigation flows downstream.

The federal government is filled with terrorists who rival ISIS in their nefariousness and who are unrivaled in their power and influence.  They’re just more subtle about it.  What’s that I’ve heard about “enemies foreign and domestic?”

David Codrea:

Standing against politicians bought by a billionaire obsessed with controlling others are defiant gun owners, who will not comply and who will not back down.

“We will form up on the capitol steps in Salem to make sure [Gov. Brown] knows just how many people she made into criminals in one stroke of a pen,” rally organizers tell their Facebook followers. “There will be speakers there for your education and entertainment while we show our noncompliance!”

It’s the new paradigm.  And we won’t back down, we won’t forget, we won’t be persuaded differently.

David Codrea:

Per my report published Friday at The Shooter’s Log, actors were used to portray customers in a fake gun shop “public service announcement” produced by States United Against Gun Violence. That information comes from the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media in its response to a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request submitted in March. Additionally, all replica firearms used were evidently “authorized” without official documentation to ensure legality and inventory accountability.

It’s Potemkin villages all the way down.  Is there anything about which progressives are honest?

Kurt Hofmann:

The requirement for a “good reason” to carry a firearm would not be so utterly evil, except for one appalling thing: defense of one’s life and loved ones isn’t a sufficiently “good reason” to these ghouls … This reflects a sick, twisted, and depraved set of values. The gun ban zealots claim to value each and every human life above all other things, but this policy, and others like it elsewhere, show the real truth.

They may lie, but their works bear out the truth.  And they are works of evil indeed.

Concerning the USMC:

A United States Marine was convicted at a court-martial for refusing to remove a Bible verse on her computer – a verse of Scripture the military determined “could easily be seen as contrary to good order and discipline.”

The plight of Lance Corporal Monifa Sterling seems unbelievable – a member of the Armed Forces criminally prosecuted for displaying a slightly altered passage of Scripture from the Old Testament: “No weapon formed against me shall prosper.”

So is there any reason to be a part of the USMC any more?  Any reason at all?

Mike Vanderboegh sums up why we don’t want the duties of the ATF being moved to the FBI.  Speaking of Mike, he is on the road.  Pray for his success and safety.

Cleveland.com:

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland police will stop hitting people on the head with their guns and document any time they unholster them, according to a consent decree between the U.S. Justice Department and Cleveland police released today.

The Justice Department found in a 21-month investigation that began in 2013 that Cleveland police routinely bash people on the head with their guns, sometimes accidentally firing them, according to a 58-page report released in December.

Yes, I know.  Bad muzzle discipline, bad trigger discipline, bad policing tactics, bad form all around.  If we did something like that we would be in prison.  But don’t be so surprised.  This is the same DoJ report that detailed wild shooting practices by the same police department.

Cleveland police pull their guns too fast, fire at fleeing cars and people who pose no immediate threat and ignore potential danger to bystanders, the U. S. Department of Justice found.

A biting 58-page report released Thursday concluded that police violated the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, including by shooting an underwear-clad hostage victim and an unarmed driver who made an illegal turn.

The report blames several reasons for the “unreasonable” shootings. Police often lack the training and confidence necessary to  control a situation without resorting to force. They are not required to tell their supervisors when they pull their weapons. And the prevailing police culture promotes an “us-against-them” mentality.

And police nationwide wonder why ordinary people have lost confidence in them.

The Texas Tribune:

After more than six hours — and a testy debate that escalated dramatically when unusual alliances formed between a few Democrats and a group of Tea Party-backed Republicans — the Texas Senate approved a measure loosening state restrictions on handguns Friday.

The legislation allowing Texans with licenses to carry handguns openly eventually passed on a final 20 to 11 vote.

But before it did, the chamber plunged into rare unscripted territory, as Democrats and Republicans battled members of their own parties over an amendment from state Sen. Don Huffines, R-Dallas, that would prohibit police officers from stopping someone solely because they are visibly carrying a handgun.

The provision, which eventually passed, attracted support from Democrats who said it would help prevent racial profiling and conservatives who said it was necessary to protect the Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure of handgun license holders.

“This should not be complicated; it should not be controversial. This is a bipartisan issue,” Huffines said.

Opponents of the provision called it nothing more than an effort to sneak in a repeal of licensing requirements altogether.

“This is just a back door to constitutional carry because really any person could just carry a gun without a license because they know the police can’t inquire of them if they have a license,” said state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, who unsuccessfully attempted to heighten penalties for carrying handguns without a license during the debate.

The amendment, approved overwhelmingly when the House passed the open carry bill, was taken out in committee when the legislation reached the Senate.

Recall that I had said before, “licensed open carry in a state with no stop and identify statute for enforcement is a shooting-by-cop waiting to happen.  And I certainly don’t support empowering the police state any more by giving them a stop and identify statute.  That would be making something bad even worse.”

Nefarious things can happen in committee when differences in bills between the House and Senate are ironed out, but this provision appears to be part of both versions of the bill.  It should stay in.  We’ll see if the Governor keeps his word now.  As for the provision that LEOs cannot stop someone because they witness him carrying a gun, this is a very strong statement and I’m impressed that this finally passed the legislative process in Texas (after much pain and gnashing of teeth).

Someone must be reading TCJ.

NYT:

Cerberus Capital Management dodged a bullet with its recent decision to let investors sell out of one of the world’s biggest gunmakers, Remington Outdoor. It’s the company that made the assault rifle used to kill 20 children and six of their teachers in a Connecticut elementary school in December 2012.

Cerberus’s chief executive, Stephen A. Feinberg, has a clear motivation to offer the likes of gigantic pension funds like the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or Calstrs, the choice to dump their Remington shares. He hopes it will allow his private equity firm to put this bloody chapter behind it and get to work raising a new $3.5 billion buyout fund.

There’s no question this was a victory for the social activists who led a push for public pension funds to shed their holdings in the arms business after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre two and a half years ago in Newtown — my hometown. Even the rapper and former gun-toter Snoop Dogg made pleas for divestment.

But what if there was a better way to effect change by persuading investors to behave more like shareholder activists than social ones?

Calstrs and the other limited partners in the Cerberus funds that own Remington, formerly known as Freedom Group, have a month to decide whether to sell their shares to Remington or remain as investors. Most of them will probably just unload. The better, albeit more difficult, route would be to hang on and make some noise at Remington.

[ … ]

They could, for instance, insist that Remington ensure all its guns are sold through distributors who conduct more rigorous background checks, or that the company ramps up investments in developing weapons that won’t go off when a child finds them in a negligent parent’s night stand. They might even demand Remington stop supporting the National Rifle Association.

Oh this is just rich.  Mr. social action is recommending that investors crash Remington.  He knows it.  We all know it.  We all know that the job Remington started with commitment to labor unions, staying ensconced in New York, focusing on military contracts, and ignoring the Remington 700 trigger issues, the job of almost destroying Remington, would be finished with social action agitation by investors.

So let’s queue it up.  I dare you.  Hold on to your shares, agitate social action, and watch the value of your stocks evaporate before your eyes.  I don’t believe the gun grabbers have the balls to do something like this.  But if there is any putting your money where your big mouth is, this is the chance.

Do it.  I dare you.  Any takers?

David Codrea:

It’s difficult to imagine a more torturous and horrifying realization than to know those you love more than life itself are in agony and terror, and are being slain, and there is nothing you can do to prevent their deaths or your own. If there is an approximation of hell on earth, that must be as close as one can get. And that is something those who support politicians who enact citizen disarmament edicts enable.

Only very evil men, or very self righteous pricks, advocate such arrangements in interactions between men.

Kurt Hofmann:

The thing is, President Obama’s executive order is not a “ban” of police possession and use of such weapons and other gear–at least not in any usual sense of the word. Under the new policy, police departments are completely free to buy the gear in question. What has changed is that they will no longer get the equipment for free, or at rock-bottom prices, courtesy of the U.S. military and other federal government agencies.

Right.  And I’ll tell you something else about this ban.  It doesn’t speak to federal police agencies.  I would just as soon start with the ATF, go to the Federal Protection Police (you didn’t even know they existed, did you?), move to the DHS, and keep going.  Then we can focus on local cops.

From Mike Vanderboegh, anecdotes of societal collapse.

So is there any reason to be part of the Boy Scouts any more?

Police cash confiscations still on the rise.  Because they apparently don’t care that they are stealing, contrary to God’s commandment.

After ISIS’ slaughter of Christians everywhere they go, the sufferings of the Coptic Christians in Egypt under the Muslim brotherhood, and the kidnapping of young Christian girls by Boko Haram for the purposes of sexual slavery, it may be tempting to ask yourselves, “What kind of an idiot would continue to press the notion that Christ demanded that we disarm in the face of danger?”

The answer is that those idiots are everywhere.  I confess that I have not read Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology.  I have tended to stick more with Charles Hodge, R. L. Dabney, W.G.T. Shedd and the classics.  But my son Joseph has read Grudem, and highly recommends his book to me.  It really isn’t necessary to study Grudem’s details in order to do a takedown of the critique of Grudem (who is pro-self defense and in favor of gun rights) offered by Krish Kandiah at Christianity Today, entitled Should Christians Own Guns: A British Theologian’s Views.

Krish says:

Grudem argues that the reason the Second Amendment was added to the constitution was “to provide another protection against tyranny – to make it harder for any potential dictator or would-be king to take control of the entire nation against the will of the people.” This concern is probably not at the heart of the individual gun control debate at the moment as the right to bear arms against a tyrannical dictatorship is a different question as to whether Christians need to own guns now in a stable democratic environment.

He isn’t very well connected to the current American political scene, is he?  And if a stable environment is all he’s after, Adolf Hitler provided that while be deported the Jews for execution.  As writer Kurt Hofmann and I have both noted, the notion of self defense should include both individual self defense and defense against tyranny.  Only when understood in that light can the current debate in American be enveloped.  It may seem petty to focus on his misunderstanding of the American scene, but when writers show a fundamental misunderstanding of their subject it casts doubt on the value of the work.

Krish continues:

Even if we accept the premise that the there is a right to self-defence this does not necessarily mean the right to own a gun. There will always be limit to the expression of this right that would include a whole range of military hardware; even Grudem recognises that the private ownership of a “machine gun or anti-tank rocket launcher or an anti-aircraft missile launcher” are unnecessary. But still he argues that private hand gun ownership reduces crime as an attacker cannot be sure that their potential victim is unarmed. The counter argument of course is that it could make gun violence more likely as attackers could increasingly assume their victims are armed …

This is as amazing a quote as you will ever see in the gun control debate.  Seriously, read it again and let the bad logic of it wash over you.  He is proffering the argument that ownership of guns makes more likely that attackers will become violent because they will assume their victims are armed.  Thus, according to him, the best way to turn back the “gain” setting on violence is to allow attackers to attack you unmolested so that perhaps things won’t go as badly as they could if you were armed!  You simply can’t make this stuff up, you would have to read it from collectivists in order to believe that someone could actually say or think something like that.

Finally, note that Krish says:

Grudem argues that carrying weapons would help prevent “tragic mass murders in which a lone gunman can hold at bay an entire restaurant or church full of people… are much less likely to happen in states where a large number of people carry concealed weapons.”

But the counter arguments are, firstly, that if guns were more highly regulated then it would be a lot harder for potential mass murderers to get hold of guns in the first place. Secondly, Ellen Painter Dollar argues: “Police officers go through hours of specialized training to help them discern when the use of deadly force is justified. As we know from not a few front-page tragedies involving police shootings, despite such rigorous training, even the best-trained officers don’t always get it right.

Right.  The “best trained” officers.  Like the NYC LEOs who shoot blindly into the darkness, or the South Carolina cop who shot a man in the back, or the police in Buffalo who currently rule the world in dog shootings, or the wild gun play of the Cleveland Police.  The “best trained” officers, he opines.  And here you see irrational faith in LEOs and irrational fear of personal use of weapons.  Always look for the most irrational among us to claim that we are the irrational ones, projecting their fears on the rest of us.

But there is one theme that keeps coming up, and this theme recurs in another critique of Grudem’s work by someone from the Church in Toronto, Nigel Tomes.

David eluded King Saul’s spear; Paul evaded his pursuers by escaping Damascus in a basket; Jesus escaped hostile crowds (Luke 4:29-30; John 8:59). But these are examples of self-preservation, not of self-defense.

And there you have it.  A distinction without a difference – self preservation versus self defense.  Nigel wants men to be unarmed with the best of weapons, just as does Krish, so that they stand the maximum chance of being harmed or killed.  Nigel and Krish don’t care about the children.  They would rather see men, women and children suffer and perish at the hands of evil men, criminals after money, sex or something else, or criminals in the hire of the government, than to acquiesce to the notion that men are made in God’s image and thus life should be preserved.

But the willingness of professors and church leaders to beclown themselves in the name of pacifism goes on to ridiculous proportions with a professor of religion at the University of Texas, John Traphagan.

There are many law-abiding American gun owners who do not go out and kill people and who keep their guns stored safely. But as a whole, Americans do not seem to be able to handle gun ownership in a way that permits maintenance of a civil society. The reality is that the significant numbers of bad apples have spoiled it for those law-abiding gun owners, and it’s time that gun rights organizations such as the National Rifle Association recognize this and begin working with those who want realistic gun control laws, in part as a way of building trust with those who do not own gun.

As if we would pay heed to the NRA in any attempt to increase gun control laws!  No, here is what I think professor Traphagan is talking about.  Crime is highly concentrated among minorities.  Recent riots have been concentrated in minority communities and cities such as Ferguson or Baltimore.  Professor Traphagan knows this.  He is in effect saying that the black community cannot handle the responsibility of gun ownership.  I think professor Traphagan is a racist but doesn’t have the guts to admit his views.  Whites must be disarmed (as if that would be possible without a bloody civil war) in order to bring peace to the black communities.

These things are all pointers, milestones, and signals of a decaying and rotting church, both British and American (although the British church is all but dead, leading the American churches in total irrelevance to anything).  The Episcopal church that has been famously losing people for decades, decided to focus even more on progressive social programs and gun control, and is now losing even more people.  That has happened to the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and between the Presbyterian Church in America, the ARP and other smaller denominations, it cannot be said any more that the PSUSA is the “mainline” Presbyterian denomination.

Except for orthodox, conservative American churches, most American churches today are open sepulchers (and even some orthodox and conservative evangelical churches teach pacifism).

Jesus was a Bohemian, peacenik hippie to the modern American churches.  This is a testimony to how irrelevant, comfortable, self-absorbed and lard-ass the American church is, as also is the fact that hundreds of thousands of Christians can be slaughtered, sent into sexual slavery and driven out of Mesopotamia without so much as an imprecatory prayer by Christians in the West.  Shameful, disgusting, and sickening.  It causes me to turn away in revulsion from the organized American church in disrespect for most of what I see passing for orthodox Christianity today.

Christianity Today is as irrelevant as the American church, as irrelevant as a professor of religion at the University of Texas who wants to disarm law-abiding folks because of a few bad apples, and as irrelevant as the Church in Toronto.  Not a single one of them can manage to construct even a very basic analysis of Christians and self defense.  For the record, I don’t need Wayne Grudem to do that for me.  I have supplied adequate analysis of this issue.  As I’ve summarized before:

I am afraid there have been too many centuries of bad teaching endured by the church, but it makes sense to keep trying.  As I’ve explained before, the simplest and most compelling case for self defense lies in the decalogue.  Thou shall not murder means thou shall protect life.

God’s law requires [us] to be able to defend the children and helpless.  “Relying on Matthew Henry, John Calvin and the Westminster standards, we’ve observed that all Biblical law forbids the contrary of what it enjoins, and enjoins the contrary of what it forbids.”  I’ve tried to put this in the most visceral terms I can find.

God has laid the expectations at the feet of heads of families that they protect, provide for and defend their families and protect and defend their countries.  Little ones cannot do so, and rely solely on those who bore them.  God no more loves the willing neglect of their safety than He loves child abuse.  He no more appreciates the willingness to ignore the sanctity of our own lives than He approves of the abuse of our own bodies and souls.  God hasn’t called us to save the society by sacrificing our children or ourselves to robbers, home invaders, rapists or murderers. Self defense – and defense of the little ones – goes well beyond a right.  It is a duty based on the idea that man is made in God’s image.  It is His expectation that we do the utmost to preserve and defend ourselves when in danger, for it is He who is sovereign and who gives life, and He doesn’t expect us to be dismissive or cavalier about its loss.

This same sort of thinking can be applied on a larger scale to states and nations as so expertly done by professor Darrell Cole in Good Wars (First Things), relying on the theology of both Calvin and Aquinas.  But this is a bridge too far for some Christians who are just now dealing with the notion that they might be in danger.

Now a word of advice for pastor[s] and “theologians” who proffer these laughable interpretations.  It’s things like this that cause congregants to lose respect for the pulpit, and nothing screams the irrelevance of the sermon more than the Biblical impossibility of the pronouncements of the pastor (or in other words, the inconsistency of what he says with the balance of Scripture).  It’s just best to leave your own political aberrations out of the pulpit and teach the Bible.

Or as I’ve repeated elsewhere, John Calvin, commenting on commandment and prohibition, observes:

We do not need to prove that when a good thing is commanded, the evil thing that conflicts with it is forbidden.  There is no one who doesn’t concede this.  That the opposite duties are enjoined when evil things are forbidden will also be willingly admitted in common judgment.  Indeed, it is commonplace that when virtues are commended, their opposing vices are condemned.  But we demand something more than what these phrases commonly signify.  For by the virtue of contrary to the vice, men usually mean abstinence from that vice.  We say that the virtue goes beyond this to contrary duties and deeds.  Therefore in this commandment, “You shall not kill,” men’s common sense will see only that we must abstain from wronging anyone or desiring to do so.  Besides this, it contains, I say, the requirement that we give our neighbor’s life all the help we can … the purpose of the commandment always discloses to us whatever it there enjoins or forbids us to do” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, Book 2, Chapter viii, Part 9).

Consistency isn’t the Hobgoblin of small minds.  It’s the stuff of life, and even the most dense commentator knows that the Decalogue isn’t subject to the whims of dispensation.  It is a reflection of the very character of God, and thus universally and in all times and epochs, man is made in God’s image and life is to be protected rather than stoically given away to those who would usurp what must fall under the purview of the only potentate, God Himself.  He grants it, and only He can take it or tell others how and when to take it.  When stolid commentators and professors disconnect Christ from the very law He came to fulfill, it’s easy to ascertain that something is very wrong.

Man is made in God’s image.  Careless disregard for life means disregard for God’s law and hypocrisy towards the creator and His words.  Hand-wringing over guns versus knives or clubs or pepper spray or locked doors just means that you’re straining at a gnat in order to swallow a camel.  You (Krish, Nigel and John) don’t care about the women or children.  You’re a self-absorbed, self righteous, pampered product of the effete chattering class, unnecessary to and a bad fit for the very people to whom you are speaking.  No one is listening any more.

Prior:

The Second Amendment Creates A God-Given Right To Bear Arms?

No Guns In Church In Alabama?

Christian Leaders Say No To Christian Militia

Gentlemen, Prepare To Defend Yourselves!

A Desperate Cry From Iraq’s Christians

The PCUSA On Guns

Dear Christians With Guns

Concerning The Nigerian Christian Girls

Guns: Think Of The Children

Does Jesus Shoot An AR-15?

Baptist Forum Does Gun Control

Who Would Jesus Shoot?

The Golden Calf Of Gun Control

Faith And Firearms

Guns And Religion

When Christians Discuss Guns

Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense

Watertown Daily Times:

North country residents have mixed views — and strong opinions — about the value of traffic checkpoints routinely set up by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents assigned to monitor the American side of the U.S.-Canadian border.

Based on random interviews, several said they believe border checkpoints are necessary to keep illicit drugs, illegal immigrants and other unlawful activities out of the country.

However, many also said they’re concerned that too many law enforcement officials — including border patrol agents — unlawfully stretch their authority by using aggressive tactics when interrogating law-abiding citizens traveling in their own country.

Last week, Jessica A. Cooke, 21, Ogdensburg, was pulled over at a border checkpoint in Waddington by border patrol agents who wanted to search her car’s trunk. During an altercation that followed, Ms. Cooke allegedly was subdued with a stun gun.

The incident, which was captured on a cellphone video taken by Ms. Cooke, has prompted a spirited debate on social media sites. Ms. Cooke, a SUNY Canton criminal justice major who graduated Saturday, claims she was wrongfully assaulted and has threatened to file a lawsuit.

Several people said they believed both parties deserve some blame for the altercation: Ms. Cooke for provoking agents with an uncooperative attitude and the agents for using excessive force to restrain her.

Here’s a sampling of opinions of area residents and visitors:

■ William C. Hill, Edwards, said he has driven through checkpoints on several occasions and never had a problem. Usually, agents ask drivers where they’re from and where they’re going. Occasionally, they ask drivers to pull over for further questioning or to inspect their vehicle.

“I’m all for border patrol checks. Look at the drugs seized weekly by these that would otherwise go right onto the streets,” Mr. Hill said in an email. “If you have nothing to hide, why be a jerk? Just cooperate.”

■ Heather M. Wells, 29, Ogdensburg, said she and her husband pass through checkpoints occasionally on Route 37 when they’re heading to the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation to purchase cigarettes.

“I think we’re close to a border so we should have checkpoints,” Mrs. Wells said. “If you don’t give them a reason to stop you, they won’t.”

■ In Watertown, Antonio F. Gigliotti said he does not consider road checkpoints set up by the Border Patrol to be cause for concern.

“They don’t bother me,” he said.

Mr. Gigliotti said he has traveled through checkpoints before without an issue. He said since he does not have anything to hide, he never feels worried when he passes through one.

■ Tonya Fulmore, Watertown, agreed. She said road checkpoints are necessary to keep our border secure.

“I think if they are protecting the border, they have every right to be there,” she said.

■ William R. Wagstaff Jr., Massena, said he believes border patrol agents at times abuse their power by asking to inspect vehicles without having reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.

“This woman had every right to refuse to open her trunk,” Mr. Wagstaff said in an email. “I have refused several times to let them search me and put their K-9 in my vehicle.”

Mr. Wagstaff said he filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., and received a letter of apology. He also filed a complaint with border patrol officials in Swanton, Vt.

“Now I don’t get harassed anymore,” he said.

Example of reactions continue and you can read them all at Watertown Daily Times.  It isn’t necessary for views to be mixed on anything about this report.  Every stop by the U.S. Border Patrol of a U.S. citizen, unless it is a so-called “Terry Stop” with evidence of a crime, is a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

If the Border Patrol wants to catch criminals, international terrorists or other trafficking perpetrators, they should do so at the border.  The fact that the border isn’t secure is a sorry testimony to the degree the politicians want it to be open and porous.  It is an obscene pointer to crony capitalism that the only thing the border patrol believes they can do is harass American citizens.

They have become powerless to stop the cross-border flood, and they are taking it out on American citizens.  It is as much Kabuki theater as TSA checks at air ports.  Nothing the U.S. government is doing is helping to keep American citizens safe.  Every program I can think of is designed to foist more control on the American people rather than ensure their freedom and safety.

The saddest part isn’t that all of this is true.  It is that people are still conflicted over these programs.  If we wanted to secure the borders, we could shoot the invading hordes on sight, close down most of the checkpoints on the border, search every vehicle, disallow aliens from driving U.S. transport trucks, implement e-verify, and tell the LEOs to have the courage to go where the gangs are and shut them down rather than bust in doors doing SWAT raids.  Things would change overnight.

None of that will happen because the politicians don’t want to secure the border.

Okay, so The Washington Post stole a story from David Codrea.  It wasn’t the first time, it won’t be the last, but I know it’s frustrating for David.  When I was commenting on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I saw entire paragraphs from my posts lifted out and published by former Army general and colonel “expert commentators” on television.

Trump problems:

Potential GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and his daughter have donated “at least $105,000 to the Clinton Foundation,” The Hill reported Thursday. Contributions, per the Foundation website, “advance the work of any part of the Clinton Foundation, including the Clinton Global Initiative.”

That would be the same group behind the Clinton Global Citizen Award, presented to anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg by Vice President Joe Biden for being the “most fierce and most effective advocate that we have on the matter of gun sanity.”

[ … ]

As this column observed in 2012, Trump could be a great friend if his seeming enthusiasm for the Second Amendment is real. How we could go about determining that, aside from doing things backwards — trusting him and then seeing if he ends up earning it — is unclear.

Let’s clear this up.  Trump cannot be trusted.  He comes from the Northeast where the collectivist spirit runs deep and the totalitarian tendencies are strong.  He cannot be trusted any more than Chris Christie can be trusted.

David Codrea:

Far be it from me to resort to quacking noises at this point, or to discourage anyone who believes in what “Dr.” Lei Milliere preaches from following his “Emergency/Crisis” prescription to the letter, but one can’t visit his website without noting the prominent assurance that “Medicare and Medicaid is accepted!” How he is not only able to “practice” any form of medicine seems questionable enough — that what he does is considered eligible for government redistribution of wealth seems unfathomable. It would appear that his consultations and how he bills for them both present legitimate areas of professional and legal inquiry, with appropriate cautions taken should he follow the advice he dispenses to others and try to kill any investigating “snakes” as an act of “self-defense.”

Quack.  Fruitcake.  Crank.  Dingbat.  Crackpot.  See, I don’t mind at all resorting to name calling.

Kurt Hofmann:

One concern that can be dismissed immediately is that the government will succeed in suppressing this information. Regardless of what ridiculous extremes it can twist current laws into, or even what new ones it inflicts on this once free nation, the information will not be stopped, or even seriously slowed down.

Governments can never stop the flow of information, any more than they can control guns if the people want them.

If you haven’t seen all of Mike Vanderboegh’s speeches, the videos are linked here.