Articles by Herschel Smith

Detroit Free Press:

About 20 people, openly armed with rifles and handguns, marched along Mound Road in Detroit Sunday to show support for a man who says he was unlawfully arrested because city police officers are against open-carry laws.

Detroiter Elijah Woody, 24, said he was open carrying a pistol while walking on Hague near Beaubien on Sept. 13 when he stopped to talk with friends around 7 p.m. Police pulled up a short time later.

Woody said he was arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon, a felony, and detained five days. He said his gun, a .40-caliber Glock 40, was in plain sight in a holster on his right hip when he was taken into custody.

Here is what the police are saying.

Elijah Woody, who claims he was legally open-carrying his handgun when Detroit police arrested him, is charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a license, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

While Elijah Woody claims police exited their vehicle and arrested him within 15 seconds, Detroit Police Sgt. Michael Woody (no relation to Elijah Woody), said police reported smelling the strong odor of marijuana, which gave them probable cause to search Elijah Woody and the group he was standing on the sidewalk of Hague between Brush and Beaubian. Sgt. Woody said a marijuana blunt was found at the scene and logged into evidence and that, although Elijah Woody had his “over-sized jacket” tucked in behind his handgun, it folded over the gun and illegally concealed it.

For a number of reasons I suspect that the police report is false.  Here is Kurt Hofmann in other open carry news.

Mr. Loftus goes on to note that this event takes place in an area in which every single legislator has opposed every single pro-gun rights bill since the year 2000. In short, to attend with an openly carried firearm, and without a concealed carry permit, is to face the risk of arrest and prosecution, with no certainty that the courts will recognize Amendment 5 as invalidating all laws against permit-less open carry. Not for the faint of heart.

The implication is that open carriers will be arrested.  They’d better not be.  As we’ve noted, there is state preemption now and open carry is legal everywhere in Missouri.

Since I don’t have time for a Notes tonight, read also David Codrea’s latest with Examiner.

Just as the billionaire-funded Astroturfers pose as the grassroots, the overabundance of safe selections, guaranteed to give them a track record of victories they can them claim as proof of their political wallop, is all part of the carefully-staged illusion-making.

I’ve remarked before that the collectivists work top down, while we work bottom up.  They have to make it look like their their method works best.

Recently Mike Vanderboegh posted on Marines singing the hymn “These are the days of Elijah.”  It was meaningful for me, and I appreciate the post.  Drop by and watch it.  It’s worth the time.

But then something happened to detract from and destroy the main theme of Mike’s post.  Commenters, one named anonymous (what mother would name her son such a name as that?) and Dan III posted comments as follows.

Anonymous – I don’t understand how anyone, especially someone who considers himself a Christian, could justify joining the US military today. The US military DOES NOT defend freedom or the Constitution. The military serves the domestic enemies of the Constitution, meaning the US government — a lying, murderous, tyrannical entity that destroys freedom around the world … No, there’s no Christianity there. The US government is the Father of Lies. That’s whom these soldiers are serving, whether they know it or not.

Dan III – I ask myself why conservatives continue to worship at the altar of Allen West. This is the former US Army colonel who took an oath to defend the Constitution, and turned right around and thumbed his nose at his oath and fellow Americans, when he voted for the Patriot Act renewal. Good ol’ Allen West, the guy who helped to continue the desecration of our 4th & 5th Amendment Rights. This is the problem with those who consider themselves Patriots, conservatives, keepers of the Constitution. You continue to support the very people who throw us under the proverbial bus. Myself, I wouldn’t urinate down West’s throat if his lungs were on fire.

This caused Mike to respond as follows.

I don’t worship at AW’s altar. There are many things I disagree with him on. I don’t endorse foreign wars, especially those fought for no purpose. My son has been labeled “a storm trooper in the U.S. Army” and I have been called “psychotic” for supporting his service. I would like to point out that there were many Founders who weren’t necessarily thrilled about participating in British imperialism’s war against the French. There were also many Irishmen who took advantage of service in the British Army in World War I to get access to military training and weapons that they later put to good use in the Irish war of independence. Did the Founders “endorse” the British Empire? Did Tom Barry “endorse” the British army he served in? I posted the video because I liked to see Marines singing Christian hymns with gusto. If you don’t like it, you’re more than welcome to ignore what I post.

I have also seen a number of ridiculous comments on other gun rights / prepper / patriot web sites (which will not be named here), and it’s time to address some of them.  When I was a young man I too was consumed with ideological purity, worrying over minutia in theology when it comes to worship and church membership, as one example.  I was part of a church which took the view of “us four and no more,” so to speak.  But then I matured and grew up.  You can take things like this to the point of silliness and isolation from everyone else, rendering yourself and your views completely ineffective and your family without friends or tribe and without commitment from relatively like minded folk.

To be sure, we must all settle on unassailable absolutes from which there is no retreat and over which we will not compromise, such as gun rights, no universal background checks, no national gun registry, limited government, and so on.  But the purity reaches a point of diminishing returns, and it behooves wise men to find that point.  These commenters are no wise men.

Now to the content of their comments, and content of some of the other comments I’ve seen on other sites.  I realize that I am risking a sweeping judgment that goes too far and thus levels charges that may not be accurate towards some people.  I apologize up front for that, but I don’t know any other way to do this.  So with that said, let’s take an ugly trek through some of the more ridiculous notions that seem to be in favor in these circles.

The CIA didn’t blow up the WTC.  If you are a registered professional engineer like I am, within days of the WTC collapse your in-box was full of e-mails with attachments from professors of engineering outlining what happened, with calculations to prove it.  We know what the failures were.  We know how the structure was designed.  And within a few months I received a comprehensive study from the American Society of Civil Engineers with a complete failure analysis of the structure, with parts numbered and analyzed while sitting in their waste yard, forensic analysis, pictures and all.

When you traffic in ridiculous conspiracy theories, you embarrass yourself and your colleagues, even if you are too stupid to know it.  Stop.  No, really, I mean it.  Stop.  Just don’t do it any more.

Sandy Hook was perpetrated by an evil kid.  ISIS isn’t the CIA, and the American government didn’t create ISIS for the purpose of helping to create “greater Israel.”  Hell, Israel doesn’t even want “greater Israel” and wouldn’t abide their PM doing what’s necessary to bring such a thing into being.

The Jew bankers do plenty of evil things, but they didn’t cause the Ukraine to go to war against Russia.  That conflict isn’t a CIA plot to do whatever you think they want to do.  That conflict was caused by a homoerotic, shirtless megalomaniac named Putin who wants to recreate the Soviet Union.  Got it?

The Jew bankers do plenty of evil things just like the U.S. government, but they don’t cause all wars.  They don’t even control the world’s money like they think they do.  The uncontrollable monster of Keynesian economics and fractional reserve banking will destroy itself with our without the bankers.  When the bankers don’t have clean water, guns and ammunition, they will be no better off that anyone else who didn’t prepare.

As to Mike’s comments back to Dan III, some foreign wars are evil and to be avoided.  Not all foreign wars are evil.  Most republicans are in bed with the statists.  Not all republicans are in bed with the statists.  There are bad people in the U.S. military.  There are good people in the U.S. military.  The U.S. military has done many good things.  The U.S. military has done some bad things.  I have done some good things, and some bad things.

Folks, learn to read the signs of the times and to “rightly divide” words and ideas.  If you don’t you will forever be wildly thrown around by the winds of opinion.  Be able to form your own opinions, and don’t listen to every passerby who has another conspiracy theory.  And don’t exaggerate or use hyperbole.

Look what has happened to anonymous.  To him, the U.S. government has done nothing but destroy freedom around the world (a manifestly and demonstrably false assertion), and is the “father of lies.”  He has supplanted the title of the devil, who God calls the father of lies, with the U.S. government.  I cannot imagine a more ridiculous, outlandish, off the charts stupid assertion.  When you are rewriting Scripture for God, your ego is writing checks that your body and mind can’t cash.  You are also risking blasphemy.  I advise extreme caution.  God is not to be taken lightly.

As for Dan III, look what his “purity” has caused.  He wouldn’t “urinate down West’s throat if his lungs were on fire.”  And thus if I ever meet him I will have one hand on my weapon.  I don’t trust him, he has no ability to overlook anything with which he disagrees, and is quite literally willing to watch others perish over things that aren’t primary.

Learn to distinguish between those issues that are primary, the ones which are secondary, and those which are tertiary.  And learn to forgive.  Perhaps West would advocate differently concerning the patriot act today, but in any case, I have never heard him advocate gun control and have never heard anything from him but advocacy for small government.  I also know that he was willing to sacrifice his military career for the safety of his men.  Although my son was a Marine, I would have been honored to have my son serve with him any day.

To close, this isn’t much different than what Mike would say.

Look, for all the “Sandy Hook Conspiracy Theory” excrement clogging up my email inbox and the comments here, I can’t get anything done. Enough. Sell it to Alex Jones, he’s the disinformation artist. I will not use Sipsey Street to propagate self-discrediting crap when real issues are pressing. All emails regarding the subject, and all comments, have been and will be deleted. You can continue to shriek in all caps and call me names to your heart’s content, but you’re not hijacking this blog, or my limited time on this rock. Okay? That settles that.

And just to add to it, his commenter said this.

Here are some hard facts that some folks can’t seem to come to grips with:

If you believe the Apollo missions to the moon were staged, you are an incurable f****** dumbass.

If you believe Israel and the US Government deliberately blew up the World Trade Center on 9/11, you are an incurable f****** dumbass.

Though the current leadership of our government is undeniably sleazy and corrupt, if you believe they would deliberately stage the murder of 20 elementary school children, you are an incurable f****** dumbass.

To all incurable dumbasses everywhere – your absurd bullshit theories have been heard by all. Now, please, shut the fuck up and let the adults who don’t hear voices in their head have a serious conversation.

Yea, pretty much.  Folks, learn nuance.  In general, learn to say “yes, no and maybe, and it depends upon a whole host of things, and this requires a long conversation, and I have to render caveats and qualifications to what I’m saying.”  It wasn’t too long ago (around the time of the war between the states) that men were required to take courses in rhetoric and logic.  Sit down with a textbook in logic and read it.  Start with the schoolboy primer in logic written by Isaac Watts.  Learn verbal oratory for your conversations with others, and learn the science and art of persuasion for your commenting.  Don’t unzip your fly and whiz in people’s faces and try to piss them off.  It will go better for you, and you will be more effective.

Contribute in the comments rather than detracting from the theme.  Offer up thanks to the web site hosts for the work they do.  Do you understand how hard it is and the long hours necessary to find good, quality information and offer up decent analysis of it in a world where the MSM doesn’t care any more?  Do you understand how tiring and wearisome this is?  Do you know how hard it is to avoid typographical errors when you post every day?  Kurt Hofmann and I have had this conversation, and Kurt told me his worst was when he had an error right in the title.  I didn’t tell Kurt that I had that too, on more than one occasion.

In short, grow up.  Put your hand over your mouth (or keyboard), think, and for some, pray, and contemplate whether what you’re about to write is meaningful, helpful and a worthy contribution.  Offer up a thank you every now and again.  Don’t pollute the internet with crap, don’t exaggerate, don’t traffic in conspiracy theories, and don’t rewrite the Scriptures.  Mike is nicer than I am, and he responded in a kind fashion to Dan III.  I have long since ran Dan III off from my blog.  I’m not as nice as Mike.

News from New Jersey:

WEST MILFORD, N.J. – Authorities believe a 300-pound black bear attacked and killed a hiker in a North Jersey nature preserve.

West Milford police said five friends from Edison, N.J., were hiking in the Apshawa Preserve when they encountered the bear on Sunday. Police say the group of inexperienced hikers became frightened and ran in different directions at about 3:44 p.m. They noticed one member was missing when they regrouped.

A search team located the body of 22-year-old Darsh Patel at 5:54 p.m. West Milford Police Chief Timothy Storbeck said there was evidence of bite marks and claw marks on Patel’s body.

The bear was about 35 yards from Patel’s body, circling the area, according to West Milford Police Capt. Richard Fiorilla.

Storbeck said members of a search-and-rescue team clapped in an attempt to scare away the bear, but it stayed there as if protecting the body. The bear, which was believed to about 4 years old, Fiorilla said, was euthanized at the scene.

Take note that this isn’t a Western state where we are discussing a brown bear attack or a mountain lion attack.  This is the East, and it was a black bear attack.

I’ve said it before.  Don’t go into the wilderness without a gun.  Of course in New Jersey the problem is that it is a “may issue” state, where one must “specify in detail the urgent necessity for self protection” in order to carry a weapon.

The fact that a bear killed a man wouldn’t be considered an urgent necessity for self protection by the authorities.  They would rather see people die at the hands of animals or men than to allow their citizens to go armed.

So says Professor David Gushee of Mercer University.  He says, “That’s not Biblical reasoning; that’s cultural reasoning.”

To which I responded this way directly to Professor Gushee.

Would you care to respond this my article on this subject (it’s one of many)?  Stay orthodox, please.  No deconstruction or other oddball views.

I haven’t heard back from the professor.  I don’t expect to.

News From Florida:

Jennifer Bair is a 25-year-old resident of Belvedere Lane in Palm Coast. She owns a beagle called Daisy, which she takes on walks in her neighborhood or in her backyard, on a leash, as was the case Sunday. Bair started carrying a gun after a neighborhood pit bull charged her and her dog on a previous occasion.

On Sunday, as she was walking Daisy in her backyard, the pit bull, known as KimK, charged her again, according to a Flagler County Sheriff’s report, “barking and snarling.”

Bair took out her Bersa 38 mm handgun and fired.

You saw it right.  I’m certain that I haven’t seen this particular 38 mm handgun in any gun show or store I have visited.  On the other hand …

DelmarvaNow:

Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis’ views about how to enforce the stringent gun laws Maryland passed last year have gone viral.

In a video and print interview with a student journalist, published to YouTube on Aug. 21, Lewis says he’s no fan of government intervention in limiting the constitutionally-protected right to possess firearms.

“As long as I’m the sheriff in this county,” he says in the video, “I will not allow the federal government to come in here and strip my citizens of their right to bear arms. I can tell you this, if they attempt to do that, it would be an all-out civil war, no question about it.”

In another video on YouTube, from Delaware television station WRDE, Lewis offered a clearer critique of Maryland’s latest gun control law, the Firearms Safety Act of 2013, which was passed in the wake of the December 2012 massacre of elementary school students in Newtown, Conn.

“Who am I to tell them what they should or should not protect their families with?” Lewis asked on WRDE. “Who am I to tell them they shouldn’t have a magazine with 30 rounds behind the door when some thug is trying to break into their home? … If you start coming into people’s homes to disarm them solely because you believe they don’t have a Second Amendment right to bear arms, you better stand by. It will be, without a doubt, a civil war.”

The number of Sheriff’s deputies any county has cannot possibly wage civil war on anybody else.  As for everyone else (i.e., gun owners), that’s a different story.  And yes, gun confiscations will cause civil war.

I think the Sheriff gets it.  All county Sheriffs are advised to take a lesson from Sheriff Lewis.  It may save you and your deputies from heartache in the future.

 ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.

So says Green Bay:

A group promoting gun owner rights in Wisconsin is suing the city of Green Bay in a dispute that stems from restrictions on guns inside a popular farmers market.

Wisconsin Carry Inc. has asked a judge in Brown County Circuit Court to order Green Bay city officials to relinquish public records that might indicate whether the city has a policy on carrying guns in the open.

The same group previously sued Ashwaubenon and Madison after both municipalities arrested individuals suspected of improperly carrying guns in public.

Nik Clark, president of Wisconsin Carry Inc., said a member of the organization complained this summer after he was told he couldn’t open-carry a gun in a Green Bay downtown farmers market. Police officers told him that guns were not permitted at the Saturday morning event, Clark said.

Afterward, Wisconsin Carry asked the city police department for copies of any procedures or directives on the subject. The department declined, citing attorney-client confidentiality.

Clark said his group decided to file suit because, he said, Green Bay residents have a right to know their city government’s policy on controlling open-carry of guns.

I’m not a lawyer, but this has got to be the most oddball, peculiar application of attorney-client privilege I have ever heard.  Surely they don’t mean that laws and regulations are not subject to public knowledge and scrutiny?  That would be absurd.

More than likely they mean that the officers who stopped the gentlemen didn’t have a basis for doing so and they don’t want to divulge their vulnerability to anyone.  For the stop to have been legitimate there would have to be a specific regulation pertaining to this establishment and/or the establishment would have to post.  Wisconsin is an open carry state with complete state preemption and has only weak stop and identify laws (the one stopped need not follow the request even though an officer can ask for identification).

Perhaps someone who is more familiar with Wisconsin law can weigh in, but it appears to me that the police acted improperly and fear just the sort of lawsuit they are currently facing.

Fox News:

Australian counterterrorism forces detained 15 people Thursday in a series of suburban raids after receiving intelligence that the Islamic State militant group was planning public beheadings in two Australian cities to demonstrate its reach.

About 800 federal and state police officers raided more than a dozen properties across 12 Sydney suburbs as part of the operation — the largest in Australian history, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Andrew Colvin told the Associated Press. A sword was removed as part of evidence at one of the homes.

Separate raids in the eastern cities of Brisbane and Logan were also conducted.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that the plan involved kidnapping randomly selected members of the public off the streets in Sydney and Brisbane, beheading them on camera, and releasing the recordings through Islamic State’s propaganda arm in the Middle East.

[ … ]

A second man was charged Thursday night in connection with the raids. The 24-year-old, who police didn’t name, was charged with possessing ammunition without license and unauthorized possession of a prohibited weapon. He was released on bail and ordered to appear in court next week.

Most readers probably pondered how ISIS was able to infiltrate a country and the awful acts they were prepared to perpetrate.  I didn’t.  My thoughts ran immediately to the fact that at least one of the individuals had a “prohibited” weapon and ammunition.  As with all gun control, law abiding citizens are unarmed and unprotected, while the criminals have their weapons.

Australia has some of the most restrictive gun control laws on earth.  We’ve discussed this before.  An Australian farmer lost his fight to obtain a handgun to shoot feral hogs because he couldn’t satisfy the woman heading the “administrative tribunal” that he really needed the gun.

The response to the ISIS members in Australia points out several important things.  First of all, gun control doesn’t apply to those in charge.  Law enforcement will always have their weapons.  Second, when law enforcement acts, they do so in order to secure the hive, or the collective.  Their concern isn’t and wasn’t for any particular individual who may have been (or will be) targeted by ISIS, because if it was, they would allow people to be armed for purposes of self defense.  But actions directed against the collective is a threat to their command and control, and will not be allowed.

So do the ordinary people feel threatened?

The Washington Times:

Doug Stockman always has had a passion for firearms, so 20 years ago he made a business out of it.

Today, his shop, SSG Tactical, is one of the largest gun dealers in Virginia, with 10 employees, training classes and concealed-carry fashion bags.

This analysis may anger some folks, but that has never stopped me before.  Let’s begin our analysis by observing that I don’t believe in the ATF.  I believe their existence is an unconstitutional abomination and that all federal gun laws run contrary to the intent of the founders.  Furthermore, even within their framework, the ATF has run amok and is completely off the chain.  Furthermore, since all of the above is true (according to me), form 4473 is equally an infringement of my rights.

Having said all of that, until such time as we can change it, it is the framework within which gun stores must operate if they want to operate at all.  I work in an industry where tens of thousands of procedures steps occur, calculations are performed, and maintenance evolutions occur every day.  We live in a glass bowl, with oversight and scrutiny by both state and federal regulators, as well as from self regulation.

It’s been difficult, but my industry has a lower human error rate than airlines, hospitals or the pharmaceutical industry.  There are means, procedures, techniques, and tools by which human errors can be reduced.  Gun shops are going to have to employ them.

That isn’t to say that one can ever achieve no errors, but constant improvement is the name of the game.  The challenge is for gun shops to do this without increasing prices.  My industry did, and it can be done.  Gun shops don’t need to fight it.  They need to be about their business in getting the training and learning to employ the techniques of human error reduction.  It needs to happen fast.  Their businesses and our access to guns will depend upon it.

Kurt Hofmann:

The Brady Campaign announced Tuesday that it is suing four online retailers of ammunition, firearm accessories, and body armor, for their ostensible culpability in the murder of 12, and injuries to scores of others, in the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre in 2012. Neither Lucky Gunner, Sportsman’s Guide, BulletProofBodyArmorHQ.com, nor BTP Arms pulled any triggers in this atrocity, of course, nor have they been charged with any criminal wrongdoing, and nor is there even any indication that any of them are or have been under investigation for any such crime.

Kurt further observes that “All four of the retailers are accused of wrongdoing for selling these items to an alleged user of illegal drugs–with exactly zero mention of how they were supposed to have been aware of that. Then again, we have seen before that the Brady Campaign believes that gun and ammunition dealers should be punished for their lack of psychic powers.”

Read the rest.  What the Brady campaign really wants is universal background checks as a prelude to confiscation.  The Brady bunch is patient and willing to acquiesce to smaller steps towards their bigger goal.  Fight them with all means necessary.

By the way, Mike Vanderboegh remarks in his post on this subject, “shoot any oddball calibers, that are unlikely to be found at any local shops?  You’re out of luck … and out of ammo.  And that is the whole idea.”  Already thought about it.  I looked in my safe the other day and saw .30 Carbine, 5.56 mm, .270, .40, .45, .38. .357 magnum, etc., and made the decision to divest myself of some of what I had.  I will focus on 5.56 mm, .308, .270, .45 and .38 / .357 magnum.  Not only am I concerned about oddball cartridges, I want to minimize my types and calibers.

David Codrea:

“Attorney General Eric Holder is again asking a federal court to delay the transfer of disputed documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious to a House committee,” Politico reported Tuesday. “In a new court filing Monday night, Justice Department lawyers asked U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson not to require Holder to turn over any of the roughly 64,000 pages of documents to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee until after her rulings can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.”

That should come as no surprise to readers of this column. It is, in fact, the only reaction experienced observers of the administration, the attorney general, and the issue should have expected …

Read David’s whole piece here.  This is what happens when people without a moral compass rule others.  Right becomes whatever the powers want it to be, whatever keeps them in power. whatever pet projects they have at the time.  It’s Machiavellian.  What is lawless and immoral for us – the shipment of weapons to criminal cartels so that they can kill other people – is right for them because it advances the anti-gun agenda by justifying their claims that American gun shops are arming the cartels.

The plight of Christians.  “The kids were crying, and [my husband and I] were praying looking for a safe place along the way.”  My goodness, my poor, dear fellow believers.  Why didn’t you arm yourselves when you could, so that you could fight now?