Articles by Herschel Smith

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?

Is D.C. finally finished fighting the supreme and appeals courts and the constitution of the United States?

Within weeks, civilian gun owners could be free to apply to carry a concealed weapon in the nation’s capital for the first time in decades, after a federal judge’s ruling prompted city leaders to create new firearms law.

The proposed law, set to be unveiled at a Wednesday afternoon news conference, was drafted by city officials after the city’s long-standing ban on carrying firearms in public was declared unconstitutional in July.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who played a lead role in developing the gun-carry proposal and spoke about it ahead of the news conference, said the emergency legislation put together in recent weeks will be scheduled for a council vote on Tuesday.

The bill, Mendelson said, will permit city residents who own duly registered handguns and non-residents who hold state carrying licenses to apply to the D.C. police for a concealed carry permit. So-called open carry, such as the wearing of a weapon in a holster, will not be allowed under the proposed law, he said.

D.C. carry permits will be issued on a “may carry” basis, giving great discretion to D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier on who will be allowed to carry firearms in the city. Applicants will have to state a reason for seeking a permit, Mendelson said.

So things are not so well in D.C. after all.  “May issue” states become no issue states in practice unless they are forced by law to be otherwise.  The wealthy, politically connected and powerful get their permits, while others have to demonstrate why they need one to the approval of the top cop, as if self defense isn’t good enough and the constitution doesn’t speak loudly enough on the issue.

There is more from The Washington Times: “People who have a “good reason” to feel threatened — for example, stalking victims — would be able to seek a concealed carry permit for a legally owned handgun under a new D.C. law proposed Thursday. But those with generalized fears, such as apprehension about living in a neighborhood with high crime, would not be considered eligible for such a permit, officials say.”

I sense yet another court case – or cases – coming for D.C.  Apparently they haven’t given up being totalitarians.  They like their control and aren’t ready to share it yet.

Someone named Amanda Gailey drones on and on and on about all sorts of unrelated anti-gun propaganda at Salon (does anyone really still read Salon?), and I became rather bored rather quickly with the profuse gushing.  But something wonderful happened in the comments.  This is the summary.

Xanthro:

So, if you have a firearm in your pocket, and 100 people decide to randomly attack you in the Kroger’s parking lot, you being scared in that situation is a sign of mental issue in your mind?

GrantS:

You effin moron. We call that a civilized society. If you are afraid of society, use your gun and take yourself out of it.

Some people!! Do you think up of fantastically unrealistic scenarios on a daily basis?

If one person had the gun, and nobody else did, the one with the gun will scare everyone else. They are usually the nutjob.

But this collectivist piling on commenter Xanthro wasn’t enough.  There had to be another.

RationalGuy:

Thinking that it might happen is a sign of mental illness.

RationalGuy wasn’t being too rational at the time of his reply.  Xanthro responded this way.

It didn’t might happen, it actually happened in early September.

You must feel pretty foolish right about now.

I’m sure they didn’t feel foolish at all.  They just probably went on to the next shouting match.  Of course, Xanthro was talking about the recent mob attack in the parking lot of a Kroger in Memphis.

I read the anti-gunners so you don’t have to.  I read Salon so you don’t have to.  But just occasionally this job ain’t so bad.  Just occasionally something rich and wonderful happens.  When collectivists humiliate themselves in front of others, it’s always nice to watch.  Salon gives us plenty of opportunity to do so – which is the only reason to read Salon that I can find.

Utica Observer-Dispatch:

Jennifer Brown is scared, and with good reason.

When Remington Arms laid off 105 people Aug. 22, they were chosen strictly based on seniority. Now, 26-year-old Jennifer, who was hired in January 2013, is No. 9 on the list.

“I have my family to support,” the mother of two said. “A house, a car payment.”

“The morale in (the Ilion factory) is really low and people are waiting for more,” said her father, Frank “Rusty” Brown, chairman of the UMWA Local 717 Compac Committee.

For a family such as the Browns, more layoffs could be detrimental.

Rusty’s mother, Barbara, 71, joined Remington in the 1970s on the bottom floor, slowly working her way upward in the million-square-foot facility before retiring in 2005. Her husband, Steve, worked there, too.

Rusty and his wife, Lisha, followed in their footsteps in the mid-1990s — Rusty a furnace technician and Lisha working in inventory control.

Now, Jennifer and her sister Jessica have carried on the tradition.

Jessica, 27, was hired in 2009 when Remington Arms was bringing in new product lines, such as Marlin brand firearms.

“I was working at Kmart before there,” she said. “Trying to support a kid off minimum wage is not easy.”

The Brown family epitomizes the Ilion-Remington Arms relationship.

“You’re looking at three generations of people who have the experience, who’ve gone into that factory and have learned from Day One and have advanced through the machinery changes,” Rusty said.

“(Remington Arms is) going to find a big difference in employees when they go to Alabama,” Barbara added.

Rusty doesn’t think the move has anything to do with politics, though.

“I’m tired of hearing everybody say, ‘It’s the SAFE Act and it’s Gov. Cuomo,’” Rusty said. “The company’s not telling anyone that.”

Instead, he said, it’s because business has slowed down.

“The biggest thing with the upsurge that we had in hiring was that we were supposed to be the facility of choice,” Lisha said. “They brought everything to us.”

At its height, Rusty said, the Ilion facility was producing almost 2,000 Bushmasters a day — and that’s just one Remington Arms product.

“We overproduced,” he said. “We did what was demanded, or asked, of us. We met every challenge we had. Now, we see product lines going away.”

And with those lines went the jobs.

So exactly what difference will Remington find in employees when they move to Alabama, except for non-union wages and the corollary company loyalty?  Is he suggesting that the “hicks” in Alabama can’t do what he can do?  There are good mechanics in Alabama too, sir.

To him, it has nothing to do with politics.  It has everything to do with the fact that they did everything demanded of them, they met all obligations and expectations, and so they overproduced and are now in a pickle.

Sour grapes much?  Does he think the union should have held back some on the production line?  Perhaps they would still have a job if the union had just done their job.

And there you have it, folks.  Unions.  Nothing more needs to be said.  Just watching and listening explains everything.

Herald Tribune:

You’re at the range.

A longtime friend comes over and asks if he could try your handgun, as he’s contemplating buying one.

Of course you agree. That’s what gun owners do.

If this scenario occurs in Washington State after the passage of Initiative 594, both of you have broken the law.

Initiative 594 would classify this as a transfer — something that would require paperwork, fees, a waiting period and if it involves a handgun, government registration.

The proposed legislation doesn’t even recognize a loan among family members.

A dad couldn’t loan a shotgun to his son on opening day without the proper paperwork.

I am not kidding.

It’s a registration scheme disguised as  “Universal background check” legislation.

I-594 is perhaps the most ill-conceived ballot initiative I’ve ever seen. Sure, there are gun laws that have been more harmful, such as those with “ban” in the title. Few, however, are so poorly thought out.

As you can imagine, there is a lot of money rolling in to support the ballot initiative. Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates have donated millions.

NRA and other gun groups are getting involved.

Washington gun owners are pushing back hard.  They have created a must-read website, and are getting the word out via social media.

Their handy “pocket guide” explains the bill very clearly.

Well, there are many bad gun laws, and it’s hard to pick out the worst one.  But it’s seems true that the recent surrender on the assault weapons ban by the anti-gunners is a misdirect.  It isn’t what they’re really interested in.  This is what they really want.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it.  The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them.

All gun control is wicked, but perhaps the most wicked is the government desire to catalog all gun owners and their weapons.  Fight it, never surrender.  Never give one inch.  Never compromise.  Never.  Don’t even consider it.  Ever.

David Codrea:

Rejecting calls for more federal gun laws by the Rabbinical Council of America and the Orthodox Union, a dozen rabbis have issued a joint statement rebuking the position of those groups, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership announced Monday in a member alert and press release.

Offering their statement “in support of Jewish law, Jewish life and Jewish self-defense,” the dissenting rabbis refuted justifications given by the religious groups for promoting disarmament edicts … “Jewish history supports self-defense,” the rabbis declared. “It is remarkable that the RCA and OU have ignored the long Jewish history of persecution.

Of course it does.  My Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense relies on Biblical law – including O.T. law – for the case for self defense.  Jews are like “Christians” (I use quotes), in that some folks who call themselves Christians are not (perhaps a lot of folks), and while being Jewish is an ethnic thing, believing Biblical law isn’t.  There are many Jews who would sell out their own people.  Jews they are not.  Remember, I’ve talked to one.

Mike Vanderboegh on the hidden hazards of MRAPs.  Yea, that’s not all.  Watch over time and see just how many police forces will give them back or let them rot and rust in the fields or parking lots, unable to pay the thousands of dollars to buy a new tire when one goes flat, or send them back for maintenance because no one around them knows how to work on them.  This is especially true given the unfunded liabilities America faces, helping along the process of telling police that their retirements are in jeopardy (like Memphis had to do), or telling the Miami-Dade police they may no longer have jobs.

Shreveport Times:

Many assume police officers are rigorously trained before being allowed to patrol the streets.

But drive through rural Louisiana and it’s possible to be stopped by a law enforcement officer who’s never experienced a day of police academy and instruction on use of force, stressful scenarios and physical fitness that comes with it. Sometimes, an eight-hour firearms training and on-the-job guidance is all an officer gets before starting work as a salaried, gun-toting, arrest-making officer.

Due to a permissive aspect of state law, a hodgepodge of different standards can crop up from one small agency to the next. It’s a pattern experts say puts police departments, and the public, at risk.

You mean that cops aren’t trained as much as I am, and as much as I pursue on a regular basis for requalification with my firearm?  Actually, I’m not so much convinced that the problem is with training.  The problem stems from seeing themselves as something other than peace officers who are servants of the people.

The U.S. Army is worried about too few black officers and thus is making plans to increase said minority in the officer corps.  And the diminution of the armed forces continues unabated.

Daily Mail:

Islamist police in Saudi Arabia have stormed a Christian prayer meeting and arrested its entire congregation, including women and children, and confiscated their bibles, it has been reported.

The raid was the latest incident of a swingeing crackdown on religious minorities in Saudi Arabia by the country’s hard-line Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. 

The 28 Christians were said to be worshipping at the home of an Indian national in the eastern city of Khafji, when the police entered the building and took them into custody. They have not been seen or heard from since, raising concerns among human rights groups as to their whereabouts.

To all such Islamists: May God bring your plans to naught.  May your families revile you, may you lose your women and children, may you become sick and perish in ignominy.  Before you perish, may you watch as your country diminishes to ashes, may you see your belongings stolen from under your nose, may your children curse and strike you, and may your weeping be loud so that your countrymen can hear your lamentations.

And if you ever try that here, I will shoot your ass off and your intestines out of your stomach and leave your body for the vultures to consume, right after pouring swine innards over your open wounds.

Reno Gazette-Journal:

Background checks for all handgun sales make women and police safer: The group cites a different report by Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

In this one, the group uses FBI data to come up with its own conclusions. It does this by compiling data from states with mandatory handgun background checks and those without to arrive at the claim that women and police are about 40 percent less likely to be killed with a handgun in states with mandatory checks.

Fact Checker started re-creating the finding about women but soon stopped after the first four states examined. New Hampshire and Vermont, which have no background check at shows, had much lower rates of women being killed by men than New York and New Jersey, which do require background checks on handguns at gun shows.

But that wasn’t the reason Fact Checker stopped this line of inquiry. The homicide statistics come from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports — and the FBI cautions against people comparing places based on the statistics because not all law enforcement agencies submit their data and there are other factors that can also comparisons, such as more densely populated areas vs. more rural places.

Further, the Mayors Against Illegal Guns report was not peer reviewed, it doesn’t share the numbers used to reach its conclusions, and it treats correlation as causation, strongly implying that lower rates of violence against women and police was caused by handgun background checks without even attempting to deal with all of the factors that would make the statistics less valid. One could just as easily come to the opposite conclusion by pointing to the surge in gun sales with a corresponding drop in murders of women over the past 20 years nationwide.

There has been a peer-reviewed study on this topic worth noting. A 2000 study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association examined data to see if the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act made a difference. The law was implemented in 1994 and instituted background checks and waiting periods for handgun sales. The study concluded that it was not associated with “reductions in homicide rates or overall suicide rates.”

Mark Robison does a very good job with his analysis.  He begins by addressing the charge that 40% of the firearms sold in the U.S. are sold without a background check, finding it false.  Frankly, I couldn’t care less if it was 100%, since I believe that the federal laws and regulations concerning such sales are an infringement of the Second Amendment.

However, it’s good to see honesty in the media, with the result that the claims of the anti-gunners are proven to be without merit.  Furthermore, the whole issue of peer review is important to me for reasons that I have pointed out before.

Note to the collectivists.  If you want your “studies” to hold any merit at all, analyze it, get a report written and a professional engineer’s seal on it, send it to me and let me analyze it, and then we’ll talk.  Until then, you’re just a nagging old woman making stuff up.