Articles by Herschel Smith

The collective erupts.

  Bette MidlerVerified account ‏@BetteMidler

Today, the US SENATE VOTED AGAINST 91% OF THE COUNTRY THAT WANTS BACKGROUND CHECKS. WE ARE TAKING NAMES, MOTHERFUCKERS!!

The Hill:

The Senate delivered a devastating blow to President Obama’s agenda to regulate guns Wednesday by defeating a bipartisan proposal to expand background checks.

It failed by a vote of 54 to 46, with five Democrats voting against it. Only four Republicans supported it.

Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Mark Begich (Alaska) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) voted against it. Reid supported the measure but voted against it to preserve his ability to bring the measure up again.

GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Susan Collins (Maine), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Mark Kirk (Ill.) voted “yes.”

[ … ]

The failure of Manchin-Toomey means the broader bill still includes Democratic language passed by the Judiciary Committee to establish universal background checks. That language failed to attract a single Republican vote during the panel markup, and conservative Democrats such as Manchin and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) have said they cannot support the package without changes to the language on background checks.

The Senate’s failure to expand background checks means the three pillars of Obama’s gun control agenda have stalled. The chamber is expected to also reject proposals to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.

The amendment perished in an ignominious, shameful way as it should have.  But it isn’t over yet.  I’m not referring to the balance of the proposals – and that’s an issue we need to watch – but the future mass shooting.  There will be one.

Furthermore, remember that totalitarians don’t give up.  They have longevity and fortitude, but ours has to be stronger.  Let it be so.  May God help us in our endeavors for liberty.

The Hill:

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) on Wednesday pushed for lawmakers to enact expanded background checks and dismissed fears from conservatives that the bill would infringe on the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

“I support background checks, I support universal background checks,” said Giuliani on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

He said he had no concerns the government could use information from potential firearm purchasers to keep tabs on law-abiding owners.

“I have no fear as some people do that government’s going to use that,” he said.

Just another Northeast elitist advocate of the collective.  One more reason he’ll never be President.

We have noted that the Manchin-Toomey gun bill has confusing language (a setup for abuses), and that it surreptitiously allows the construction of a national gun registry even though it claims to forbid it.  Now we learn that the situation is even worse than we thought.

One begins to wonder if Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Joe Manchin (D-WV) didn’t just take whatever verbiage Attorney General Eric Holder’s staff handed to them and put it in their gun control legislation without even reading it. The Schumer-Toomey-Manchin (STM) bill facilitates undercover sting operations at gun shows to arrest people for conduct they have no reason to believe is against the law. The STM bill lets the Justice Department send people at gun shows to jail for up to five years for a crime they did not even know was a crime.

Here is the zinger buried in the bill:

Whoever makes or attempts to make a transfer of a firearm in violation of section 922(t) . . . to a law enforcement officer, or to a person acting at the direction of, or with the approval of, a law enforcement officer authorized to investigate or prosecute violations of section 922(t), shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

It is neither surprising nor inappropriate that, in accordance with applicable law enforcement guidelines, undercover FBI or ATF agents infiltrate, or send informants to infiltrate, a gun show to see if they can catch people breaking federal firearms laws. But this new law goes overboard, by eliminating any need for a federal prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury that the individual who allegedly broke the law had any kind of criminal intent.

The concept of intent is well founded in English common law (and the Bible, both of which form the basis for much of American law), and enjoys rich history and respect in American jurisprudence.  This law undercuts all of that, and thus it is evil.  Do you need any more reasons to oppose this legislative abortion?

If you’re ready for some serious reading and study, read the following, in order:

Herschel Smith, A Terrorist Attach That America Cannot Absorb

Bob Owens, Shock The System

Herschel Smith, Surviving The Apocalypse: Thinking Strategically Rather Than Tactically

Now you’re ready for your assigned reading today.

Bob Owens, Shock The System? Electrical Grid, Comms Attacked Near San Jose

There’s not much for me to add, except that this will tie up law enforcement and utility workers for some time to come, and this was a small scale attack.  Was this proof of principle?

Mr. President, I noticed that someone on your immediate staff visited my web site today.

I’m good with that, and I hope you are too.  It isn’t the first time, and I’ve also had visits from the Supreme Court and Senate.  It’s just a function of the open society and information sharing collective in which we live.  I would rather feed the collective than be fed, and while I’m sure you don’t like a lot of what I advocate, we need to talk.

You see, I know that the recent flurry of activity on gun control has nothing whatsoever to do with safety, protecting the children or keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.  Criminals get their weapons regardless of the law because, well, they are criminals.  You know this too, and you know that I know this.

I know that the very touchstone of gun control for progressives is universal background checks, because in order to control the collective, you must know where all of the guns are and who has them.  You know this too, and you know that I know this.

I know that you have almost lost the gun control battle, and that the polls are all a lie.  They depend on the specifics rather than broad outlines and ethereal platitudes common to polls.  Even your own press, the Washington Post, knows this.  So you can’t spin it with me, and you know this.  And you know that I know this.

You and I both know than an assault weapons ban would have no effect whatsoever on crime, whether person-on-person or mass shootings.  Furthermore, you and I both know that the trend in crime these days is multi-man home invasions, and for this one needs access to all of the firepower he can get.  You don’t care that the plan to prevent ownership of certain types of weapons and magazines endangers home owners for this very reason, but you don’t care.  And you know that I know that you feel this way.  But you’ve given up on this feature of the proposed rules for the collective because you know it won’t pass.

You’ve focused on universal background checks, which as we’ve discussed is the holy grail of gun control even though it won’t effect crime in the manner you have sold to the public.  But now, even this is in trouble, hence your word search involving remoteness being an exception to universal background checks.

Exceptions to universal background checks isn’t a selling point for us.  We don’t care about remoteness.  We care about our rights, and allowing you to develop a national gun registry would be intolerable to us.  I know, I know, that can’t happen according to the rules.  But it can, and I know that you have a veritable army of lawyers sitting inside the beltway at the ready for rule making via the federal register.  You know that we don’t have any control over what your lawyers do, and that no one does.  You know that I know this, and I know that you know that I know this.

So we’ve opposed your proposed new law and all of the rules that would be forthcoming from it.  And for the most part, we’ve been successful at making the Senators and Representatives believe that we really do understand this and will hold them accountable.  That’s the part that you’re just now learning.  This is news to you.

You’re losing this battle.  Even though this fact is hard for you to digest, I am here to help you along all I can.  Please visit again, and take note of the fact that you cannot possibly craft selling points sufficient to convince us to go along to get along, compromise, or worse, stand down on our God-given duties.

No retreat, no surrender, no new gun laws.

Kurt Hofmann:

… like Mr. Codrea, am not ready to believe that Gottlieb is the second coming of Vidkun Quisling. I am still convinced that Gottlieb truly believes his course offers the best chance for a net gain for gun rights advocates Heck–seeing rabidly anti-gun Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in full spittle-flecked fury is always fun.

But however good Alan Gottlieb’s intentions are, and even if events end up showing him to be a tactical genius, securing major net gains for gun rights advocates, I argue that strategically, this is a serious mistake.

It’s always nice when someone understands the difference between policy, strategy and tactics, policy leading to strategy and strategy leading to tactics.  Kurt makes an interesting point, and it is that the strategy of giving a little here to take a little there is all wrongheaded.

Furthermore, earlier in his essay Kurt makes the following point: “Taking a very quick and cursory look at some of the “tactical” objections, many point out that what is perhaps the “flagship” provision of S. Amd. 715, the 15-year prison sentence for officials who attempt to abuse S. 649’s record keeping requirements in order to build a national gun registry, depends on the Department of “Justice” prosecuting itself for wrongdoing.”

Rather like asking Napoleon the pig to watch over the other pigs and keep them accountable, no?  Read it all at Examiner.

David Codrea weighs in with an analysis of Gottlieb’s support for Manchin-Toomey, along with a number of links to reactions.  There is this:

But really, all this is just arguing over dancing angels and heads of pins — the only acceptable answer for hard core gun owners is going to be “No,” and arguments about “goodies” and “Christmas tree ornaments” are hardly going to be persuasive to men and women who take their Bill of Rights seriously, because they know it was secured with powder, lead, steel and blood.

Read it all at Examiner.  This is the reaction of most serious firearms owners.  Witness reddit/guns and one commenter:

… nothing except removing NFA regulation for SBRs, SBSs, and suppressors, repealing the post ’86 full auto ban, and full 50 state CCW reciprocity would make me even VERY BEGRUDGINGLY support this bill.

The bottom line for me is unless you’re a prophet or son of a prophet, you don’t know how all of this will be interpreted and applied by armies of lawyers, judges, law clerks and law enforcement across the states.  The mere fact that so many good minds are coming up with so many different interpretations and potential problems doesn’t bode well for the law.  I warned you about this.

Finally, here is the most serious warning.  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.

This law doesn’t deserve the support of any serious gun owner.  It empowers the Leviathan, and as I have warned you, don’t trust the Leviathan.  If you do you’re a fool.

Prior: No, There Is No Compromise On Guns

Washington Examiner:

“You know, they make fun of my saying about use a shotgun if someone’s invading your home – guess what, use a shotgun  someone invading your home and you don’t kill your kids – use an AR-15, it goes through your wall and it can kill your kid in the bedroom.”

Now I point you to Box O’ Truth concerning shotguns and rifles through drywall.  I’ll let you read the whole thing, but the bottom line is that rifle rounds and shot penetrate drywall.  To be clear, my opinion is that if this had been tissue (or ballistic gelatin), the AR-15 rounds would have begun to fragment because the drag coefficient is so much higher.  They are after all frangible rounds and they are designed to do this (except for steel core such as PMC green tip and similar rounds).  But if you miss, drywall is no protection regardless of what you’re shooting – handgun, rifle or shotgun.

Know you backstop.  Use of a gun anywhere is dangerous, and you must observe the rules of safety.  It is a gun. It is dangerous by definition. And for heaven’s sake, don’t listen to the court jester concerning anything.

Prior:

5.56 mm Ballistics

The AR Is A Legitimate Home Defense Weapon

I asked my former Marine son Daniel if the Marine Corps taught him to shoot uphill.  He has in fact shot at ranges with elevations before, but mostly there was little formal instruction, even for designated marksmen like he was (other than things like Kentucky Windage type adjustments).  I suppose that Scout Snipers go through some sort of training on shooting up or down elevations, but most Marines do not.  I have also talked with our reader Jean (who commanded troops in N2K), and there was no particular training for Soldiers to teach them how to target Taliban up a hill.

Daniel also tells me that in his opinion there are more important things for Marines to learn.  If we’re targeting enemy fighters up a hill at 300 meters and beyond, we’re doing the wrong things the wrong way.  In his opinion, even though he scored at the very top of his Battalion every year he qualified, his time at ranges all over America did little good for him.  In his opinion we ought to be training Marines more on their run and drop drills (e.g., squad rushes), their development of enfilade fires, the use of combined arms, and especially bounding drills and movement to contact for small unit maneuver warfare (and for urban combat, satellite patrols and room clearing).  If the enemy is in the mountains, it makes little sense to shoot at them from 400+ meters.  Go and fetch them out of the mountains.

But for us, planning on potential end of America scenarios, we don’t have combined arms, and we don’t have access to fire teams, squads and platoons of fighters.  It might be more important for us to know how to do things like shoot uphill or downhill.  Many good shooters already know all of this, but some do not.  I don’t propose that the Taliban, those backward, pagan, culture-less, woman abusing pedophiles, know Newton’s laws, but it’s possible that they learned their downhill shooting by trial and error.  We can do better because we understand trigonometry and Newton.

Basically, we know that if you use your BDC (bullet drop compensation) hash marks versus distance while shooting uphill, you will shoot high.  The force of gravity must be divided into its component vectors in Cartesian space (two dimensions).  Let’s say that you’re shooting uphill at a 45 degree angle, and at a target 500 meters away (up the hill, not horizontal distance).  Cos(45) X 500 = 354 meters.  So you need to use your BDC for 354 meters (or the closest mark you can find), not 500 meters.  If you’re shooting uphill at a 30 degree angle, and at a target at 500 meters, you need to use the BDC at Cos(30) X 500 = 433 meters.

My iPhone (turned sideways) has virtually all of the mathematical functions of most calculators, including the trigonometric functions.  If you happen to have a range finder and iPhone with you, you’re set.  If you need more rudimentary fixup, there are some helpful rules of thumb.  That’s all assuming that you have ammunition with which to practice.