Articles by Herschel Smith

NBC News:

President Barack Obama vowed Thursday during a trip to Mexico to continue pushing for new, tighter gun control rules in the United States, saying his proposals’ recent defeat in Congress was “just the first round.”

Speaking following a meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, whose country has been ravaged by gang violence supported in part by gun trafficking into Mexico, Obama vowed to return to the issue of gun control in the United States.

“The last time we had major gun legislation, it took 6, 7, 8 tries to get passed,” Obama said at a press conference following his meeting with the Mexican president. “Things happen somewhat slowly in Washington, but this is just the first round.”

Any time you feel froggy, big boy.  We won the first round, we’ll win the next one, and the next, and the next.

On patrol through the neighborhood, that is:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WTVR) — In the wake of the attacks the country has dealt with over the past year many people are thinking of taking their safety into their own hands.

In fact, 19-year-old John Schultz has been spending his days patrolling his Charlotte, North Carolina neighborhood with a WWII rifle strapped to his back.

Schultz said his grandfather used the gun in the war and that he is ready to keep his neighborhood safe.

However, the 19-year-old patrolling the subdivision does not sit well with everyone.

Neighbor Vanessa Aidara said the rifle frightens she and her children. She also said the it is a bad image for Walnut Creek.

“He could be good without the rifle,” Aidara said. “I think the rifle is what scares everybody because why do you need a rifle to pick up trash. Get a trash bag. “

On the other hand, Schultz said many other folks in the neighborhood thank him for his service.

“I won’t brandish a firearm or anything, I won’t chase somebody around,” he promised. “I will ask them to stop.”

So far he says he has spotted peeping toms and potential burglars, who he said ran off after seeing him. But for the most part, he’s just been picking up litter.

Police said Schultz is not breaking any laws since he’s not pointing the gun at anyone or threatening anyone with it.

I’ll let you reach your own conclusions about this specific instance.  What interests me is that North Carolina is an open carry state, and as I’ve made clear before, I openly carry at certain times.  I don’t do it to make a point.  If I am openly carryng it is usually because I am doing something where I don’t want the weapon to interfere with my movements, get in the way or get lathered up with sweat (such as IWB carry while walking my dog in the middle of the summer).  And as I’ve note before, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police wave and smile as they drive by when they observe me openly carrying a weapon.  No problems, no stops, and no women or children running or screaming in fear.  In fact, this has led to more amicable discussions with neighbors than I can count.

It isn’t always this way.  Sean Sorrentino notes an instance where the 4th Circuit had to reprimand the Charlotte Police for using openly carrying a weapon as a reason to stop an individual, even someone who later turned out to have been guilty of a crime.  Even worse, I know individuals who live around the Lake Norman / Huntersville area (North of Charlotte) who openly carry, and one particular individual has been stopped by both local and state police.  Both times the law enforcement officer unholstered his weapon and pointed at my friend for doing nothing more than walking on the sidewalk.

Note to law enforcement in North Carolina.  The answer above by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police (“not breaking any laws …”) is the right one.  You cannot lawfully detain or arrest someone for openly carrying a weapon.  It is legal in North Carolina, as North Carolina is a traditional open carry state.  LEOs need to know and understand the law.  If you continue to unholster and point your weapons at someone who is behaving legally, an innocent person will eventually be harmed or killed and you will be responsible for it.  Don’t be ignorant.  Be thinking men and women.

University of Georgia:

A University of Georgia student used a rifle to chase away a burglar who kicked in his door while the student was napping Monday evening, according to a Athens-Clarke County police incident report.

The 25-year-old student told police he heard the door bell ring once, then four to five more times at his residence on Old Winterville Road at 7:50 p.m. He thought his roommate locked himself out or a neighbor needed him, so he started going downstairs when he “heard a loud bang.” He called downstairs and only heard a mumbled voice in return. The student grabbed his Marlin .270 rifle and called 911, according to the report.

When police arrived, they found the door frame torn off in the doorway.

A neighbor told police she saw a black male running from the victim’s residence to East Broad Street. She described him as wearing a white long sleeved shirt and a navy striped shirt on top. He was also wearing white pants and a white do-rag on his head. Other police units were notified, and they concluded the description matched that of a man who was suspected of other property crimes.

Later, Tolbert Lee Stanley, 44, of North Peter Street, was caught and charged with burglary. He was booked into the ACC jail Monday at 10:45 p.m. Stanley was named as a suspect on the incident report.

See the wonderful things that can be accomplished with a rifle?  It may be an AR-15, but it doesn’t have to be.  You use the tool you’ve got, and you fight government attempts to limit the tools at your disposal.  It can just as well be a bolt action .270 if this is the tool of choice for you.

The .270 is a sweet round.  You don’t want to be on the receiving end.  The point is to make your choice and then make sure that your tool is ready for your use.

See also Another Example Of AR-15s Benefiting Mankind

First, Kurt Hofmann.  Kurt gives a good summary history of the issue of gun control in Chicago / Illinois, and details how the communists there would rather prosecute an unlawful set of regulations and rules than follow the constitution.  Their scorched earth policy may backfire, but they have some options, as if an injured criminal hoping to avoid prison.

Second, read David Codrea citing a report by Gary North.

I just spoke to a good entrepreneurial friend. When he read about the ammo shortage he saw a business opportunity. He began researching what is involved in opening and operating ammo manufacturing. He found out that since he is not a felon he just needs a $30 license from the ATF. He contacted that department. He has waited over 2 weeks with no reply. In the meantime he found the manufacturing equipment in China. He contacted them. He heard back through their broker and was informed that just 3 days before, our government made it illegal to export that equipment to US citizens. I’ve not read anything about this in any news source.

I’d like to see this followed up with more reporting.  I don’t like anonymous sources, although I understand the need to prevent divulging names when no permission has been granted.  Read David’s conversation with the ATF at Examiner.

That said, I do know a little something about Gary North.  He is confidant of a large number of very smart people, and knows some wealthy ones as well.  Furthermore, he is an honest man, whether you agree with his analysis or not.  On its face, I trust this to be a truthful report, and thus it is highly disturbing.

Recall what I said about rulemaking?

I work with the federal government on at least a semi-regular basis, and when not, I am doing things that follow federal regulation, even though highly technical (the specific nature of what I do is not the subject and won’t be discussed).

For most people who never work with federal agencies and departments, ignorance is bliss.  But for those who do, they know that the nasty little secret about the federal government has to do with lawmaking by regulation.

Laws are passed by the Senate and Congress.  But after laws pass, thousands of lawyers inside the beltway go to work writing regulations based on those laws, or not, using the law as a pretext for further regulation that Congress didn’t specifically intend.  At times, Congress has even had to pass laws undoing regulations because the regulations don’t meet the intent of the law, and yet the executive branch won’t stop enforcing that regulation (or class of regulations).

Regulation is passed merely by entering them into the federal register, allowing a waiting time for public comments (which are nothing but a chance afforded to the authors of the regulations to ignore them or write sarcastic rebuttals), and then after the waiting period, it takes on the force of law including prosecution, fines and imprisonment for failure to follow them.

This happens every day, all over the nation, and in the DOT, NRC, EPA, DOJ, ATF, DHS, and other departments and agencies that the reader cannot even name and didn’t know existed.  Any law giving the executive branch the authority to further regulate firearms will be an opportunity for abuse, overreach and exploitation.

Take it from someone who has seen it.  Don’t trust the Leviathan.  It is a monster and it has monstrous intentions.

While it’s disturbing, it doesn’t surprise me in the least.  It saddens me to see our nation turning so sharply towards bureaucratic micromanagement, cronyism, political payoffs, and totalitarian control.

God help us all if our federal government doesn’t see that it has far greater things to worry over than whether we import ammunition fabricating equipment from China – things like how much of our national debt is owned by China.

From Shingleton, Michigan:

Police say an Iraq War veteran thwarted two would-be burglars at his northern Michigan gas station by kicking one of them and ordering them away with an AR-15 rifle.

State police said Shawn Schank was inside the gas station about 4:10 a.m. Sunday in Shingleton, an Upper Peninsula community in Alger County, when two people wearing ski masks forced their way into the building and approached the cash register.

Police say Schank kicked one of them, retrieved the AR-15 from his office and ordered the burglars to leave.

Police say one of the burglars took off his mask and pleaded with Schank not to shoot him before both suspects fled on foot.

Police say they arrested a 17-year-old from Shingleton and an 18-year-old from Munising. They’re jailed pending charges.

“Pleaded with Schank not to shoot him.”  “Jailed pending charges.”  Could this report get any better?  It’s yet another example of AR-15s benefiting mankind.  It makes me all warm inside.  How about you?

Prior:

No One Needs ARs for Self Defense Or Hunting

Save The Planet – Buy An AR!

AR Category

Local Connecticut News:

NEW BRITAIN, CT (WFSB) – One Connecticut gun maker said it would move out of the state if lawmakers expanded the ban on assault weapons, but now that same company is taking a look at modifying the AR-15.

Before some of the toughest gun laws in the country were passed, officials with the Stag Arms in New Britain said further modifications to the AR-15 would make it impossible to sell in Connecticut.

Eyewitness News has learned that the company is working on making a modified assault weapon to fit the ban.

“We are carefully looking at the new law and there are some things we interpret to be legal,” said Stag Arms owner Mark Malkowski. “We have gotten a lot of feedback from our customers and they have given us ideas for changes.”

Malkowski said the company is putting together a prototype, which they plan to show the weapons unit at the state police on Friday.

Officials with Stag Arms sells AR-15s, the only product it produces, all over the United States and to other countries, but less than 5 percent of its sales are made in Connecticut.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy supported the ban, but did met with the gun manufacturers because he does not want them to leave, especially since the industry creates hundreds of jobs.

“It says gun companies will do anything to sell guns,” Malloy said when recently asked about the topic. “I can’t prejudge something that I haven’t seen or analyze. People make things to sell them.”

As for leaving Connecticut, officials with Stag Arms said it is still an option. Last week, Malkowski said he met with the governor of Texas and next week, the governor of Kansas.

I’m surprised that Stag Arms got anyone in the gun owner community to contribute to this bastard firearm.  And by the way, it doesn’t comport with the notion of peaceful law breaking and smuggling to defy unconstitutional laws.

I’m not sure what will happen to Stag Arms.  If they stay in Connecticut they will waste away as a viable firearms manufacturer.  But I’m certain what will happen to this ridiculous, bastard firearm.  It will be a laughingstock, the embarrassment of the gun range.  No one who has it will be a proud owner of this long gun.  Why do it?  Why not smuggle and get real AR-15s?  Why acquiesce to the totalitarians when you can do better?

Watch.  Learn.  Think tactically.  Why would we practice a drill like this?  Spend time.  Practice.  Get good like Jerry.  Be like Jerry.

I’ll only note one thing that pops out to me. Jerry doesn’t use a forend grip. Also consider Travis Haley’s advice concerning forend grips (“Art Of The Tactical Carbine”), for guys who grip it like a broomstick. It lends itself to over-sweeping the target rather than landing on it, as well as rocking of the carbine.

Haley recommends use of the magwell-style grip, where the hand is firmly on the firearm and using the forend grip as a brace. Jerry avoids use of the forend grip altogether. I’m not recommending anything – merely observing and taking notes for my own drills to see what works best for me.

After the draconian gun laws that the Connecticut Legislature and Governor just enacted, even though firearms manufacturers are threatening to leave Connecticut, it’s still an open question what will come of the gun makers.  Only a small part of Colt has left for greener pastures in Texas.  After showing their hand on both the state and national stage, two Connecticut Democrats have put an interesting twist into gun politics.

In a move that an antigun group calls “lousy timing” and “bizarre,” Connecticut lawmakers are pushing to create a national park out of the historic former site of the Colt firearms plant in Hartford, just 50 miles from the site of the school shooting massacre in Newtown.

“If you want to glorify a gun maker, there’s other ways to do it, other than to create a new national park,” said Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a group made up of 47 organizations and associations.

Two Connecticut Democrats, Rep. John Larson and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, reintroduced the legislation this year to create the “Coltsville” National Historical Park on the site, which includes the Colt Armory and other buildings that were part of the 19th-century industrial enterprise founded by Samuel Colt. The entire congressional delegation supports the legislation.

But while some might say the effort is inappropriate in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting on Dec. 14–and perhaps out of step with gun-control efforts in Congress that both Larson and Blumenthal have supported–the lawmakers say they see nothing untoward.

“The senator does not see a connection” between his efforts to get the national historic park established and his efforts at gun control, said a Blumenthal spokeswoman.

Rather, both he and Larson argue that the Coltsville complex is a “historic treasure” that they say enshrines Colt’s role in advancing the industrial revolution and manufacturing in Connecticut and nationwide.

Indeed, there is no disputing the role that Colt played in the history of Connecticut and the United States. Samuel Colt founded his Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company in the mid-19th century. It wasn’t long before its Peacemaker six-shot revolver revolutionized personal firearms.

[ … ]

While family members of victims of the Newtown shootings have remained quiet on the park issue, Ron Pinciaro, executive director of CT Against Gun Violence, said that it has crossed his mind that one motivation for elected officials to rally behind the national park effort could be to show that Connecticut values and wants to retain major companies in the firearms industry.

This is just rich – American politics at its best, or worst.  We know that there have been untold number of Connecticut citizens who have told the political authorities that they intend to ignore the most recent Connecticut gun laws.  We know that Colt has threatened to leave Connecticut.  And we now know that gun control fizzled at the national level, so political alignments of convenience in supporting gun control don’t look like such a good plan in retrospect.  Is this Blumenthal’s attempt to stay relevant in Connecticut?  Is he simply trying to prevent manufacturing from leaving and taking jobs and revenue with them?  Does he really believe that there is a distinction between the legendary single-action revolver and an AR-15 in the recent violence in Connecticut, given that the shooter had no opposition due to schools being gun free zones?  Does he really believe that others will believe such a thing?

Ah.  The questions are so promising, the potential discussion so pregnant, textured and rich.  And I welcome the remarkable hypocrisy with open arms and a joyful heart.

David Codrea:

Citing an observation in Politico that “Immigration reform could be a bonanza for Democrats [and] cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily,” Gun Owners of America warned members and supporters yesterday against S. 744. The bill, introduced by Sen. Chuck Schumer, prompted GOA to predict that if it passes, “by 2035, the American electorate will have changed so fundamentally that California-style gun control could become a very real possibility in this country!”

Read it all at Examiner, and then return here for some additional analysis.  There are reasons why amnesty has always been pushed by the progressives and crony capitalists, and reasons why amnesty empowers the progressives in perpetuity.

Regarding the issue of crony capitalists, I have explained that before.

The use of illegal immigrants (migrant workers) is a form of price supports for the agri-industry.  The employers who “hire” them do not supply them with medical insurance or pay them enough to afford automobile insurance.  When these workers become sick or injured, they do not forgo medical care – they go to the local hospital.  Our medical bills and insurance coverage premiums pay for these services to the illegals.  Similarly, our uninsured motorist coverage pays for the insurance that the illegals should be purchasing.  These are merely two examples (a legion of examples could be given) that show that the employer is receiving a form of corporate welfare at the expense of the middle class in America.  The employer is in favor of the use of illegals to do work because it is beneficial to their purse, not because it benefits America.  The employer will always favor the reassignment of financial burden to someone else in order to help the “bottom line.”  But the bottom line for the employer and the bottom line for the taxpayer and ratepayer is not necessarily the same bottom line.  The free market argument to support the hiring of illegals is a smokescreen.  America had a free market before the advent of illegal immigrants and migrant workers.  The existence of illegals is not essential to the existence of the free market.

The reason that progressives want open borders should be clear enough, although I have also discussed this issue.  … “for historical reasons to do with the nationalisation of the land under Lázaro Cárdenas and the predominant form of peasant land tenure, which was “village cooperative” rather than based on individual plots, the demand for “land to the tiller” in Mexico does not imply an individual plot for every peasant or rural worker or family. In Mexico, collectivism among the peasantry is a strong tradition … one consequence of these factors is that the radical political forces among the rural population are on the whole explicitly anti-capitalist and socialist in their ideology. Sometimes this outlook is expressed in support for guerilla organisations; but struggle movements of the rural population are widespread, and they spontaneously ally with the most militant city-based leftist organisations.”

One of the reasons for this reflexive alignment with leftism has to do with the the mid-twentieth century and what the Sovient Union and allied ideologies accomplished.  South and Central America was the recipient or receptacle for socialism draped in religious clothing, or in other words, liberation theology.  Its purveyors were Roman Catholic priests who had been trained in Marxism, and they were very successful in giving the leftists a moral platform upon which to build.  This ideology spread North from South and Central America into Mexico, and thus the common folk in Mexico are quite steeped in collectivist ideology from battles that were fought decades ago.

GOA is correct.  Open borders would cause (and has already caused) a tilt towards collectivist ideology in America, and it is a tilt from which there is no return.  Grandparents teach it to parents, parents teach it to children, and those children grow up to teach it to their children.  Collectivist ideology is inimical to freedom and gun ownership.  Take whatever position you wish, but realize that the politics of control doesn’t want you to know the truth.

There is one other player I should mention in this debacle, and that is the American church, both Roman Catholic and Protestant.  My readers know about my lamentations over the ignorance and stupidity of the church.  The ignorance of the church doesn’t stop with pacifism, but extends as well to advocacy for broken borders in the name of compassion.  This compassion conflates personal morality with national identify and security, but don’t try to explain that to the pacifists.  Just know that this problem exists.

If you care about freedom and liberty for your family, you should care about firearms and preparing for the coming national difficulties.  In order to understand the context for the difficulties, you should assume that politics isn’t ever really about compassion.  It’s always about control.

Prior:

Texas Border Security: A Strategic Military Assessment

Mexican Cartels: Warlords

Changes In The Mexican Border Strategy

Counterinsurgency On The U.S, Southern Border

The Baltimore Sun:

Besides drinking beer, there are two other pastimes that Bavarians love: driving and sport-shooting, including hunting. Bavarians build BMW’s “Ultimate Driving Machines.” Bavarians’ national dress is hunter green. No one who visits Munich is likely to miss the German Hunting and Fishing Museum in the middle of the main shopping street. When in Munich, I saw the world’s best-known opera devoted to shooting and hunting, Carl Maria von Weber’s “Der Freischütz” (“The Marksman”), with its unforgettable Hunters’ Chorus singing, “What on earth can equal the pleasure of hunting?”

Nationwide in Germany, there are hundreds of Schützenvereins (shooting clubs) with thousands of members. At fairs and festivals, members march through village streets sporting their weapons. In the 19th century, German immigrants brought Schuetzenvereins to the United States, including one in Baltimore in the 1850s; some of the descendants of those immigrants are core supporters of shooting and hunting. At brewing beer, driving cars and shooting guns, Bavarians are world class.

When individual Bavarians want to own and operate Ultimate Driving Machines, they don’t think twice about getting licenses to drive and registrations to own these vehicles. They don’t think twice that they have to be of the legal age to drive, have to show that they know the traffic laws, have to show that they know how to operate these machines safely and have to present liability insurance in case their Ultimate Driving Machines injure anyone.

It’s no different in America. Those who want to own and operate a car are not troubled that they must show that they are of legal age, must demonstrate that they know the traffic laws, must show that they can operate cars safely and must maintain liability insurance on the cars they own. They do not think of licensing as a limitation on their freedom but as a protection for us all against potentially dangerous use of driving machines.

Just as Bavarians accept that they must be licensed to own and operate their Ultimate Driving Machines, so too do they accept, without objection, that they must be licensed to own and shoot firearms. What are these requirements? They are similar to those for cars.

Applicants must show that they are of legal age. They must show that they are “reliable,” i.e., that they have not recently been convicted of certain crimes. A background check is required. Applicants must have “personal aptitude” — they are not mentally ill or substance abusers. They must pass a test that shows that they have “specialized knowledge.” They must maintain liability insurance.

Sounds oh so reasonable, right?  Wait for the next part.