Articles by Herschel Smith

WPXI.com:

A homeowner says Pittsburgh SWAT officers mistakenly broke down her door looking for a man who remains at large on charges he fatally shot a man aboard a “party bus” early Saturday.

Police have charged 22-year-old Michael Lyons with fatally shooting 21-year-old Steven Lee Jr., of McKees Rocks, about 3:40 a.m. Police haven’t said what the men were doing aboard the bus or what kind of celebration is was carrying.

But Carla Glover says she feels violated because police SWAT members burst into her home mistakenly believing Lyons was hiding there.

Police didn’t find Lyons, though they still had a warrant for his arrest Monday on charges of criminal homicide and carrying an unlicensed firearm.

Police haven’t explained why they burst into Glover’s home looking for the suspect.

And this will keep happening until the police are held accountable for their actions beyond sums of money paid to victims.  Criminal charges should ensue, as these tactics are highly dangerous for the home owners as I have pointed out.  At a minimum this SWAT raid constituted an endangerment to the home owners.

When escalation of force is used it should only be under the most serious of circumstances.  Getting the wrong home isn’t the most serious of circumstances, and an innocent person might have been shot, as has happened before.

Prior:

Chicago SWAT Raid Gone Terribly Wrong

Jack Booted SWAT Raids

Many more in the SWAT Raids category

I had previously commented on the various names we’re called, from Stone Age Vigilantes, to Tinfoil Hat Bircher NRA Peckerwood With A Long Gun, to the realm of people without much education or any sort of consistent dental care who live in trailers with 30 cats and have an NRA sticker on their $400 car, to finally gun paranoiacs.

But I think I’ve found the one I like the very best in all the world.  Crazy gun-toting insurrectionists.  Well, I’m not crazy, but if believing in the right and duty under the second amendment to prevent tyranny makes you an insurrectionist, then there are a lot of us around.

In the same spirit, panty waist Dominic Tierney thinks he has us in a logical paradox.

In the current debate over gun control, the pro-gun lobby has an ace card up its sleeve: We need weapons to prevent government tyranny, they say. These self-styled champions of liberty see guns as the ultimate insurance policy to protect the Constitution. The problem is that most of those making this argument also strongly support a massive U.S. military — exactly the behemoth we must be armed against. It’s the great gun gobbledygook.

[ … ]

Of course, the American people can always play the Red Dawn card and launch an insurgency. But guerrillas usually need external support to win. Britain could be an option as an ally, except that, last summer, Mitt Romney insulted London’s preparations for the Olympics.

Tierney has no earthly idea what an insurrection in America would look like, and I’m not going to waste time explaining it any more than I already have.  But there is nothing great, or gun, or gobbledygook about his alleged paradox.  Tierney has a small mind.

Military fathers and gun owners like me (and Mike Vanderboegh) might tell Tierney that we have no problem with arming our men in uniform to fight Islamic totalitarians overseas rather than our own soil (if only we would decide to win the campaigns), while also preventing the armed forces from ever taking up arms against the American people.

I would also point out that the Marine Corps was created 10 November 1775 by an act of the Second Continental Congress, who created the Corps before the declaration of independence and after the pattern of the British Marines as an imperial force.  These are the same fathers who gave us the constitution and its bill of rights.

They saw no paradox and neither do I.  But its important to ask the men the important questions just in case we have an evil, totalitarian dictator at the helm.

Michael Bane has canceled his show in Colorado due to the new Colorado gun law Hickenlooper signed (h/t Bob Owens), Magpul is leaving (although I still want to see plans and a schedule), and now, IDPA has canceled their planned competition in Colorado.

Organizers of a Colorado shooting competition have cancelled the event because of the state’s recently passed gun-control laws.

The International Defensive Pistol Association was scheduled to hold its Rocky Mountain regional championship July 4-6 in Montrose. Organizers said an estimated 300 shooters were expected to attend the event.

The cancellation stemmed from a combination of concern about legal liabilities under the new laws, and political opposition, said IDPA spokesman Paul Erhardt.

“The attitude toward Colorado is not very pleasant among firearm owners,” he said.

Gunmaker Ruger cancelled another event, the Ruger Rimfire Challenge World Championship, which was to be held in Byers July 19-21.

The Colorado legislature recently passed three gun-control measures. The laws restrict magazines to no more than 15 rounds, require universal background checks on sales and charge gun buyers for the checks.

Several hunting groups and individuals have said they will boycott hunting in Colorado this fall. Some Colorado-based manufacturers of magazines and their parts said they will relocate operations because of the gun laws.

Good.  As I’ve said, there is no better teacher than consequences.  Wisdom demands experience, and Colorado is getting some experience in the power of gun owners as we speak.

I hope they learn the lesson hard.

David Codrea hasn’t let this issue go, and that’s a good thing.  Like a bulldog with a bone.  First, read his predecessor article.  Next, read the followup article.  He has a DoD memorandum, and apparently without even going for a FOIA request.  At any rate, the Department of Defense claims that they will continue to make expended brass cartridges available for public sale, and then there is this (for me) money quote.

The memorandum includes an “Implementing Guidance” attachment stating “DoD will dispose of ESACC as quickly and effectively as practical, and in compliance with applicable laws, regulations and DoD guidance.”

A PAO developed this response to David, and the memorandum was developed by a JAG.  It has legalese all over it.  The problem is that this isn’t what the law says.  It doesn’t require the DoD to continue to make expended brass available.  It requires that no money be spent on its destruction.  None.

Furthermore, the bit about compliance with regulations and guidance is obfuscatory pandering.  Rehearse for a moment, shall we?  Laws are passed by Congress.  Regulations are written by armies of lawyers sitting inside the beltway who are tasked with applying the laws.  Regulations are not laws.  Regulations in fact are challenged, often successfully.  Guidance is even farther down the food chain than regulations.

Congress passed a law that requires that no monies be used for destruction of expended brass.  What regulations and guidance have to say about the law is irrelevant.

Read it all at Examiner and come to your own conclusions.  But here is the final word for me.  I don’t want to hear another damn thing about how police in America cannot find ammunition.  I don’t care if they ever have another round to carry.

In the spirit of my previous observations, where I commented “there are only two reasons for a national gun registry: taxation and confiscation,” Senator Reid has rammed through proposed legislation to do just that.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wants to tax your gun rights. His new legislation charges you a fee that is in essence a federal tax on selling or giving away your firearm, and he lets Attorney General Eric Holder decide how big that tax will be.

Senate Democrats Charles Schumer of New York, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Barbara Boxer of California have introduced a raft of gun control legislation (S. 374, S. 54, and S. 146, respectively). Senator Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, rammed the legislation through committee in record time—not even bothering to issue the customary committee reports to explain the bills—and Reid combined the bills into a single gun control bill (S. 649). Firearms owners across the country and others who care about their right to keep and bear arms should keep a close eye on the Reid legislation. Your rights are under attack.

[ … ]

Title I of the Reid gun control bill purports to “fix gun checks.” The proposed “fix” in section 122 of S. 649 is to take away an individual’s right to sell or give away a firearm to another individual unless, in most cases, the individual (1) uses a licensed importer, dealer, or manufacturer to make the transfer of the firearm and (2) pays a fee to that importer, dealer, or manufacturer to make the transfer. The individual transferring the firearm is not actually receiving a service; the federal government is receiving the service. The service the government gets is a background check on the intended recipient of the firearm, because the law requires the importer, dealer, or manufacturer to run the recipient through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Forcing the individual to pay for the government-mandated service, which is in fact a service to the government, is in essence a federal tax on the individual. And the amount the individual pays as a fee is not limited by the legislation; section 122(a)(4) of the Reid bill enacts a new section 922(t)(4)(B)(i) of title 18 of the U.S. Code to grant to Attorney General Eric Holder the power to set the maximum fee by regulation.

Thus he gets it all – a national gun registry, almost omniscient state knowledge of the whereabouts of firearms for legal owners, and taxation of our property.  And on top of that, Eric Holder gets to set the fee schedule.  Again as I have observed, so-called assault weapons are irrelevant to the progressive.  A national gun registry is the touchstone of success.

What could possibly go wrong?  Their only mistake is in assuming that gun owners will willingly acquiesce to this tyranny.  On that account, this might not turn out like Reid had hoped.

Michael Woodring at Constant Conservative sends this along.  It is a report of yet another no-basis SWAT raid, this time in Kansas.

Two former CIA employees whose Leawood home was fruitlessly searched for marijuana during a two-state drug sweep claim they were illegally targeted, possibly because they had bought indoor growing supplies to raise vegetables.

Adlynn and Robert Harte sued this week to get more information about why sheriff’s deputies searched their home last April 20 as part of Operation Constant Gardener — a sweep conducted by agencies in Kansas and Missouri that netted marijuana plants, processed marijuana, guns, growing paraphernalia and cash from several other locations.

The date of April 20 long has been used by marijuana enthusiasts to celebrate the illegal drug and more recently by law enforcement for raids and crackdowns. But the Hartes’ attorney, Cheryl Pilate, said she suspects the couple’s 1,825-square-foot split level was targeted because they had bought hydroponic equipment to grow a small number of tomatoes and squash plants in their basement.

“With little or no other evidence of any illegal activity, law enforcement officers make the assumption that shoppers at the store are potential marijuana growers, even though the stores are most commonly frequented by backyard gardeners who grow organically or start seedlings indoors,” the couple’s lawsuit says.

The couple filed the suit this week under the Kansas Open Records Act after Johnson County and Leawood denied their initial records requests, with Leawood saying it had no relevant records. The Hartes say the public has an interest in knowing whether the sheriff’s department’s participation in the raids was “based on a well-founded belief of marijuana use and cultivation at the targeted addresses, or whether the raids primarily served a publicity purpose.”

The suit filed in Johnson County District Court said the couple and their two children — a 7-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son — were “shocked and frightened” when deputies armed with assault rifles and wearing bullet proof vests pounded on the door of their home around 7:30 a.m. last April 20.

During the sweep, the court filing said, the Hartes were told they had been under surveillance for months, but the couple “know of no basis for conducting such surveillance, nor do they believe such surveillance would have produced any facts supporting the issuance of a search warrant.” The suit also said deputies “made rude comments” and implied their son was using marijuana.

A drug-sniffing dog was brought in to help, but deputies ultimately left after providing a receipt stating, “No items taken.”

Pilate said no one in the Harte family uses illegal drugs and no charges were filed. The lawsuit noted Adlynn Harte, who works for a financial planning firm, and Robert Harte, who cares for the couple’s children, each were required to pass rigorous background checks for their previous jobs working for the CIA in Washington, D.C. Pilate said she couldn’t provide any other details about their CIA employment.

Pilate said any details gleaned from the open records suit could be used in a future federal civil rights lawsuit.

“You can’t go into people’s homes and conduct searches without probable cause,” Pilate said.

No, you’re not supposed to be able to do this, but it happens every day in America with our new militarized police state.

We might be tempted to lampoon the stupidity of searching a home because of purchases of hydroponic equipment, but however stupid such an approach is, this would miss the point.  The police were also likely monitoring their electricity usage and perhaps even used drones or other aircraft with heat sensors.

There are many sad aspects to this raid, not the least of which is the fact that the SWAT team members, who made rude comments during the raid, probably aren’t suited even to shovel gravel for a living, much less wield assault rifles against citizens.

But another sad aspect of this is there was an easier and less dangerous way to keep from pointing weapons at people.  You (uniformed officers) wait until everyone is out of the house, contact the owner to meet you at the door to the house, have him open the front door with his key, and search the house with no one in it if you’re afraid of losing evidence.  The SWAT team stays home.  But that way SWAT team soldier-boys wouldn’t be able to wear their tacticool equipment and go around saying mean things to people inside their own home.  It’s not nearly as sexy, so it doesn’t appeal to the police.

Perhaps I’m wrong about the SWAT team members and there was at least one of them who said something like this: “Men, it’s dumb.  It’s the wrong thing to do.  We’ll all look like chumps if we do this.  We will end up pointing our weapons at people and we may even kill someone since we are escalating the situation with these tactics.  Let’s find a safer way to do this.”

If so, you know how to reach me.  I’ll issue an apology to the SWAT team member who told his superiors to stand down.  I await your mail.

But by far the saddest part of the whole affair is the fact that a judge signed a warrant to do this when he or she knew that there was a safer way.  So to the judge I have a question.  When did you sell your soul on the altar of convenience and desire to be loved by the prosecutors?  How long have you been signing these unconstitutional orders?

I wouldn’t otherwise link claptrap like this, but since it’s with the Washington Post it gets a nontrivial amount of traffic.  It’s important to deal with it.

Senators Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee all appear set to mount a filibuster to prevent any Obama gun control proposal of any kind from being debated on the Senate floor — on Second Amendment grounds. Senator Paul went on Fox News last night to explain his thinking.

In the process, however, Paul inadvertently made an important concession. Here’s what he said:

“I haven’t heard one proposal from him or Harry Reid that would have saved one life. And I’m all for saving lives….We plan on making them have at least 60 votes to pass any legislation that may abridge the Second Amendment. So we will fight tooth and nail, and use every parliamentary procedure to stop that from happening. We have a lot of things on the books that the president says he wants to enhance, many of these could be enhanced without any legislation. Background checks already do work. We already have rules that say mental health statistics need to come from the states to the data bank.”

I’d advise Senator Paul against claiming improving background checks would not save lives or prevent mass shootings. A better background check system very well may have prevented the Virginia Tech massacre. Data collected by the pro-gun-control Mayors Against Illegal Guns suggests that states with better background check laws show a lower murder rate of women, fewer suicides, and less gun trafficking. Now, maybe you don’t trust MAIG’s data. Shouldn’t the possibility that expanding gun background checks could save lives — which Paul himself says he wants — be enough for him to actually give the idea serious thought?

It’s also important that Paul claimed that current background checks “already do work.” Here’s why: He’s effectively allowing that the current background check law is not a threat to people’s Second Amendment rights. The current compromise on expanded background checks being negotiated would simply expand the current system to cover most private sales. It would maintain the prohibition against any national gun registry. It would maintain the current system of record keeping — in which dealers keep records of sales, and the feds destroy any record of a valid gun transfer within 24 hours. By Paul’s own lights those things, in the context of the current law, are not a threat to Americans’ constitutional rights. There is no logical way, then, that the new proposal threatens them, either. This is an important concession.

Keep that in mind as you read Senator Lee’s deeply strange and hallucinatory argument against the proposal. Lee claims it would require a national registry to work (it wouldn’t) …

Let’s deal with this is four categories.  First, Senator Lee’s argument is only deeply strange to the author because he hasn’t taken the time to study people who are smarter than he is if he lives a thousand lifetimes.  Dave Hardy has an article Mr. Sargent needs to read.

Second, Mr. Sargent does in fact point to a larger problem with the opposition that Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are mounting to gun legislation.  It troubles me that they are discussing “improved” background checks as a cure for anything, much less crime.  We have made it clear from the outset.  No new gun laws.  Not a single one, and it’s high time for the Senators to hear the message.

Third, I agree with Mr. Sargent in his demurral over “improved background checks.”  He doesn’t believe it will save lives or prevent shootings for the same reason that I don’t believe it.  It won’t, and the mental health professionals have told us so in the clearest possible terms.

But fourth and most important, while planning his logical coup against Rand Paul, Mr. Sargent has opened a logical hole in his own arguments and divulged the secrets of the gun control lobby.

While pointing out that “improved background checks” won’t have the desired effect on crime, he has informed you of his presuppositions.  Criminals don’t uniquely and solely suffer from mental health problems.

Crime is a moral choice, and there is no justified reason to claim that while “improved background checks” won’t help the situation, universal background checks will.  To assert that would require Sargent to believe the following: (a) no crimes are committed by people who suffer from mental maladies (since mental health checks won’t accomplish their desired end), or otherwise (a1) those who suffer from mental maladies obtained their firearms illegally, and (b) all criminals obtain their firearms legally.

Proposition (a) is demonstrably false, and acquiescing to (a1) would undermine his acceptance of proposition (b).  Proposition (b) also entails the acceptance of the notion that only previously convicted felons will commit felonies in the future, also a demonstrably false proposition.

Mr. Sargent has a world of logical problems, but it’s because he knows that this isn’t about crime.  Other statists have told us what a national gun registry is all about and how important it is for their world view.

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.

I have told you not to trust the Leviathan, and I have explained why.  Fortunately, while Mr. Sargent finds the weakness in Rand Paul’s argument, he divulges the secret weaknesses of his own.  Again, this isn’t about crime – it’s about a national gun registry.  There are only two reasons for a national gun registry: taxation and confiscation.  Both would be unconstitutional and immoral.

The Hill:

President Obama is quietly moving forward on gun control.

The president has used his executive powers to bolster the national background check system, jumpstart government research on the causes of gun violence and create a million-dollar ad campaign aimed at safe gun ownership.

The executive steps will give federal law enforcement officials access to more data about guns and their owners, help keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill, and lay the groundwork for future legislative efforts.

It is unclear whether the National Rifle Association (NRA) will challenge any of the executive actions in court. A spokesman for the NRA did not return a request for comment.

The moves, which have not been widely touted by the administration, come as Obama ups his pressure on Congress to take action on gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. The Senate is expected to begin floor consideration of legislation when it returns in April.

Efforts to renew a ban in semi-automatic weapons with military-style features and high-capacity magazines have stalled in Congress. Democratic senators still hope to move gun control legislation that includes tougher background checks, but conservative Republican senators have threatened to filibuster it.

If approved by the Senate, any bill would then face tough sledding in the GOP-controlled House.

Gun control groups say Obama’s piecemeal approach falls short of what could be accomplished by legislation overhauling the nation’s gun laws. Still, they argue the actions remain important and will reduce gun violence.

“They’ve taken direct aim at some of the bigger problems in the regulatory part of the issue and they’re doing it in the right way and that’s going to be very helpful,” said Mark Glaze, the director of Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns group.

“Ultimately you need to close the loopholes in the law that will continue to undermine enforcement, but what they’re doing is precisely right.”

They also illustrate the administration’s power to change gun laws despite inaction on Capitol Hill, a practice the president may need to duplicate in other policy areas amid congressional gridlock.

Because, you know, he doesn’t especially get into that concept called balance or separation of powers.  That’s for those who live in a republic.

I have heard it said that blogging is an exercise in pride.  Maybe, maybe not.  If you’re engaged in advocacy journalism and analysis, it makes no sense to do it without traffic to your site.

It is possible that this is a justified endeavor for cathartic purposes, but it seems to me that this effect would soon wear off.  If it doesn’t maybe you have deeper problems that blogging cannot fix.

At any rate, this only makes sense to me if you can engage in persuasion.  Persuading others to think like you do, and challenging those who don’t, is the reason I do this.

I won’t list all of the other web sites which have linked my articles over the last year because it’s too many to cite and I’m afraid that I would leave out some.  So I’ll just say thank you for your attention.

Most of all, thanks to my readers who faithfully keep coming back every day.  I especially enjoy the comments.  I read every one of them, even if I don’t respond.

Again, to all, thank you for your patronage.

Online Athens:

Nearly 40 law enforcement officers converged Tuesday on the property of a Franklin County man whose business partner was shot to death in January in a homicide that continues to trouble investigators.

U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents supervised the raid geared at finding explosives used by Kyle Myers, 26, because the ATF believes Myers may be violating a federal law regulating such explosives, according to ATF spokesman Richard Coes.

Federal agents, accompanied by Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents and deputies with the sheriff’s offices in Franklin and Hart counties, raided the Royston residence of Myers. Authorities also raided on Tuesday the 60-acre farm of Lamar Myers, Kyle’s father, in Lavonia.

No arrests were made, nor did Coes know if any explosives were seized.

“The idea at one of the locations was to take firearms, but they did not do that,” Coes said.

But it gets more stupid yet.

“If it ever came to doing something outside of our legal boundaries, we would then work with someone who was legally authorized to do it in an approved location,” she said about handling guns, explosives and equipment.

Under ATF regulations it is illegal to manufacture, sell, distribute, transport or even own explosives without a federal explosives license.  However, in the FPSRussia videos Myers uses Tannerite, an explosive civilians can buy, own and use without a license.

Tannerite is legal because it’s labeled as a binary compound, meaning a pre-packaged product consisting of two separate components.  This does not fit the ATF’s definition of “Explosives.”

When Guns.com talked to the ATF about this incident the ATF spokesman Richard Coes said he didn’t know why ATF agents suspected Myers of wrongdoing.  However, he told local media that “the claim is that he was using explosives and getting paid for it via YouTube.”

Wandel expanded on that concept saying, “It’s difficult for people to understand how [Myers] makes a living off of a monetized Youtube channel.”

Tannerite.  Remember WRSA reaction to tannerite?

Boo!

Tannerite!

Hold me close, Uncle Bob — I’m a-skeered.

Boo!

But sad to say, it gets even more stupid than that (I know, that’s hard to fathom).

Understanding how Youtube channels make money is a mystery to a lot of people, but in a nutshell when a channel is monetized, meaning ads run on it, money comes with popularity (i.e. a lot of views). The more views, the more ads, the more ads, the more money.

Myers is 26 years old and lives a financially comfortable life by making videos where he shoots guns and blows stuff up, or, more to the point, does stuff people want to see. The FPSRussia channel is just shy of 4 million subscribers and half a billion views.

Not only did these imbeciles issue a warrant to search the premises for “possible” violations, not only did these imbeciles use 40+ agents, but these imbeciles don’t understand how YouTube works.

Ads.  Read it, ATF.  Ads.

What a collective group of outright imbeciles.  The ATF is a bunch of worthless, meaningless, do-nothing morons who waste our tax dollars and their time.  Hand them their pink slips – each and every one of them.

I see cost savings!