Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

The Washington Post editorial board droned on about a recent ruling concerning the District of Columbia “assault weapons” ban.

Last week, the judges — or, more precisely, two of them — delivered a pleasant surprise. Chief Judge Douglas Ginsburg and Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson upheld the District’s ban on “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines — defined by the District as those holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition. Also upheld were certain provisions that require gun owners to register handguns. The decision was, in our view, correct in its conclusions and methodology.

The judges, as is common with constitutional issues, asked a series of questions: Are semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines in “common use” or are they the type of weapon — think, sawed-off shotguns — that the Supreme Court has said is not covered by the Second Amendment because they are “not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes”? Do the regulations infringe on the fundamental right to keep and bear arms for self-defense? How does any infringement of the individual right balance against the government’s interest in protecting public safety?

Gun registration, the judges ruled, is “deeply enough rooted in our history to support the presumption” that it is constitutional. The ban on semiautomatic long guns is permissible, they concluded, because it does not prohibit possession of “the quintessential self-defense weapon” — the handgun. Those who wish to keep a long gun for hunting or self-defense may legally own a non-automatic rifle or shotgun. The judges also rightly deferred to the District’s concerns over safety in banning high-capacity ammunition clips that “pose a danger to innocent people and particularly to police officers.”

The third panel member, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, would have struck down regulations banning semi-automatic long guns and requiring gun registration, but he would have asked a lower court to conduct more fact-finding on whether a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips passed constitutional muster. The right to keep and bear arms, he argued, should not be subject to the balancing test adopted by the majority. Because semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines have been in common use, he argued, they should presumptively be deemed constitutional. But “common use” in this approach spells the end of common sense and quashes the ability of diverse jurisdictions to fashion laws that address specific safety concerns. As the majority opinion shows, Second Amendment rights can be respected without thwarting legitimate public safety goals.

The editorial board is referring to the case of Dick Anthony Heller, et. al., versus D.C. before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, decided October 4, 2011.  This case follows on from the Supreme Court ruling in D.C. v Heller, decided June 26, 2008.  Dick Heller and others decided to appeal a D.C. court ruling that prohibited them from owning so-called “assault weapons” in D.C. due to local ordinances.  The SCOTUS decision in Heller, they claimed, made D.C.’s ban of these weapons unconstitutional.

The phrase “assault weapons” is, of course, deplorable because of its misleading connotations (weapons with rails for attachments such as tactical lights, forend grips, a pistol grip, collapsible stock, etc., are classified as “assault weapons due to these features).  More deplorable is the complete ignorance of the subject in the MSM, especially when they decide to weigh in on the issue.  But more deplorable still is when judges make life-altering decisions based on factually incorrect information, in total isolation from any personal knowledge of the subject upon which they are supposed to adjudicate.  Such is the case with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in its latest foray into the unknown.

Much of the decision is occupied with the two judges arguing for intermediate scrutiny as opposed to strict scrutiny as to whether second amendment rights are implicated by the D.C. ban.  But it doesn’t take long for the decision to become muddled.  On page 30 they state:

We think it clear enough in the record that semi-automatic rifles and magazines holding more than ten rounds are indeed in “common use,” as the plaintiffs contend. Approximately 1.6 million AR-15s alone have been manufactured since 1986, and in 2007 this one popular model accounted for 5.5 percent of all firearms, and 14.4 percent of all rifles, produced in the U.S. for the domestic market. As for magazines, fully 18 percent of all firearms owned by civilians in 1994 were equipped with magazines holding more than ten rounds, and approximately 4.7 million more such magazines were imported into the United States between 1995 and 2000. There may well be some capacity above which magazines are not in common use but, if so, the record is devoid of evidence as to what that capacity is; in any event, that capacity surely is not ten.

Here is the perhaps the only correct set of assertions contained in the ruling, and the Washington Post has gotten it exactly backwards.  The judges didn’t base the ruling on whether assault weapons are in “common use.”  They clearly are.  But the rejection of this framework contained within Heller isn’t comprehensive or final, as we’ll see in a moment.

On page 33 of the decision, the judges begin to construct their own framework for rejection of assault weapons and exoneration of D.C.’s ban.    They turn their focus on D.C.’s “Committee on Public Safety,” the findings in their report, and whether the ban has a reasonable “fit,” tailored to the goals of public safety and reducing violent crime.  The committee relied upon An Updated Assessment of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban:Impact on Gun Markets and Gun Violence, 1994-2003.  The report does make the claim that “AWs and other guns equipped with LCMs tend to account for a higher share of guns used in murders of police and mass public shootings, though such incidents are very rare.”  But no evidence is offered to substantiate the claim (as we’ll see in a moment, there is none).

But there is sleight of hand.  By lumping police murders and mass shootings together, along with “assault weapons” and high capacity magazines (what they termed “large” capacity magazines, which I take to be rather outdated and not in colloquial usage), the authors get to make claims that are sweeping in nature while misleading in the details.  It only takes a single shot to murder anyone, including a police officer.  No one needs a high capacity magazine to pull off a murder.  But the ugly specter of “mass shootings” introduces the emotional element that the committee needs to make their case.

Then the judges return to the framework of Heller, after jettisoning it earlier, by referring to whether assault weapons are “dangerous and unusual” (see page 34).  After quoting Brian Siebel of the Brady Center as an expert witness, the judges conclude “In short, the evidence demonstrates a ban on assault weapons is likely to promote the Government’s interest in crime control in the densely populated urban area that is the District of Columbia.”  On page 35, the judges jump into bed with Siebel when they parrot his own words.

The Siebel testimony moreover supports the District’s claim that high-capacity magazines are dangerous in self-defense situations because “the tendency is for defenders to keep firing until all bullets have been expended, which poses grave risks to others in the household, passersby, and bystanders.” Moreover, the Chief of Police testified the “2 or 3 second pause” during which a criminal reloads his firearm “can be of critical benefit to law enforcement.” Overall the evidence demonstrates that large-capacity magazines tend to pose a danger to innocent people and particularly to police officers, which supports the District’s claim that a ban on such magazines is likely to promote its important governmental interests.

This is highly problematic prose, not only for the facts it claims to exist (“dangerous in self-defense situations”), but also for the light that it casts on the decision process.  The judges have earlier jettisoned Heller’s framework for weapons that are unusual by observing that the AR style weapons are not at all unusual, then reintroduced Heller’s framework in their decision by arguing that these weapons are “unusual and dangerous,” changed the framework again by arguing that the basis for the decision is public (police) safety, and then modified their argument again to introduce their concern for people involved in self-defense and those around them.

The rest of the decision is just as muddled as the foregoing was, and it is appropriate at this point to make several observations concerning some of the alleged facts upon which the court has based its decision.

It can be argued that not only is the 5.56 mm round and the AR style weapons a legitimate home defense weapon, it is in some circumstances the optimal one to use.  The District of Columbia and the judges find themselves in the uncomfortable position of saying that it is acceptable for citizens to possess a long gun shooting the 7.62 mm round, as long as it doesn’t have a collapsible stock, forend grip, or rails for lasers or lights (after all, we wouldn’t want individuals to be precise in their self defense, or perhaps we do because of the safety of others around them).  Or, substitute here a shotgun, even shooting slugs for self defense.  Yet one feature of the 5.56 mm round shot from any AR is that brick (and in fact multiple layers of drywall) shatter the round, turning it into shrapnel due to its tendency to yaw upon impact (and even during flight).  Thus, people in adjacent homes are at least as safe with the AR as they are with any shotgun, and they may be more safe.  The same holds true for rounds fired from pistols (from 9 mm and above in caliber).  Pistol rounds penetrate more layers of drywall than 5.56 mm rounds.

As for the testimony of law enforcement officials, it’s always easy to find a police chief or sheriff who wants to rid his area of all weapons.  Concerning the recent ban on open carry in California, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said “For law enforcement officers and community members, any type of weapon being carried, openly or concealed, could appear as a threat to their well-being and is regarded as a public safety threat.”

Note what was said.  The subject was open carry, and not only does the Sheriff not like open carry, he doesn’t approve of concealed carry either.  It is regarded as a “safety risk.”  But risk in this context is defined by him, as a policy matter, representing police officers, rather than innocent citizens looking to do nothing more than defend their person in the case of peril.

But if assault weapons aren’t really dangerous in self defense situations as the Brady Center (and the court) claims, what about this notion that they (whether long guns or high capacity magazines used for handguns) represent a danger to public safety because of the threat of mass shootings?  This is the real bogey man lurking behind the curtain after all of the other reasons are given, reasons that appear to be like so many leaky buckets slammed together, and it makes sense to assess the history of mass shootings in America.  I have provided some of the details in Mass Shootings in the U.S. (HPS).

Disclaimer and stipulations: (1) I have tried to include all known mass shootings in recent history, but the list may not be comprehensive, (2) Number of deaths excludes suicide by the shooter, (3) Some information is marked unknown, (4) the list is in no particular order, and finally, (5) I have followed no specific definition of “mass shooting,” except that no attempt has been made to capture individual murders or even double-murders.

As Robert Farago observes, there is no single, equivalent definition of high capacity magazine.

California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Oak Park, Illinois – 10 cartridge limit
Chicago, Illinois – 12
New Jersey, Aurora, Illinois; – 15
Franklin Park, Illinois – 16
Maryland – 20
Denver, Colorado: – 21
Riverdale, Illinois – 35

Thus the Violence Policy Center has used a gratuitous definition that improves their chances of making compelling literature.  The definitions are not particularly useful, however, since I have tried to provide what is publicly available.  Moreover, analysis of the data provided in Mass Shootings in the U.S. (HPS) gives some insights that call into question the usefulness of generalizations and categories.

First, there simply haven’t been that many mass shootings in the U.S.  There aren’t enough to be statistically significant, but anecdotal wisdom can nonetheless be gleaned from the data.  Second, the charge that assault weapons are somehow the weapon of choice, or are involved in increasing proportions in mass shootings, is simply false.  The data shows that handguns are involved at a rate of 4:1 compared to either shotguns or rifles of any kind.

Third, the most frequent choice for such shooters in order to achieve effectiveness seems not to rely on magazine capacity, but having multiple weapons and magazines.  Fourth, the highest number of deaths occurs in instances of handgun use, not AR or AK use.  Fifth, determined and well-prepared shooters, e.g., the Texas tower murders, can use bolt action rifles to wreak carnage without the accouterments of the “assault weapon” label.  Sixth, most shooters carried multiple magazines, and seemed to be capable of fairly rapid magazine changeout.  In fact, given the ability to perform this action quickly, it isn’t obvious that use of magazines of different capacity would have substantially changed the calculus for any of the incidents.  The Fort Hood shooter used a high capacity magazine for his FN Five-Seven, but he also performed magazine changeout.  He didn’t stop shooting until he was himself shot.  It isn’t apparent that more magazine changeouts would have changed the outcome of the incident.

While correlation isn’t causation and no conclusive judgments may be made from this data due to the limited quantity of the set, this is true in the superlative for those who would try to use it to demonstrate in the legal system that so-called assault weapons are more dangerous than any other type of weapon or are involved in more crimes.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling continues to amuse at it goes on.  Eventually the court parrots the words of the ATF concerning the lack of a sporting purpose for assault weapons, a cultural framework that is dated by at least twenty five years.  I pointed this out in Analysis of the ATF Study on the Importability of Certain Shotguns.  Mentioning the Saiga-12 competitions or the local 3-Gun competitions should be enough to cause the authors to go back to the drawing board and craft up-to-date language and regulations (or better yet, simply reverse the regulatory trend of micromanagement).  The ATF language is simply outmoded, incorrect and useless.

But hysteria over assault weapons causing bad judicial outcomes isn’t the only problem.  In the Southern district of New York, Judge Cathy Seibel has ruled that possession of a firearm of any kind outside of the home is a privilege rather than a right.  Continuing with this theme, Sean Masciandaro fell asleep in his car while resting from a long drive, and this happened to occur on National Park land.  He was arrested for failing to remove the ammunition from the proximity of his weapon and place it in a remote location such as the trunk of his car (as if the weapon would have been any protection for him unloaded).

The attorneys for Sean argue thusly.

Heller and McDonald left open important questions regarding the scope of the self-defense right beyond the home and the appropriate method for evaluating government regulations affecting it. The lower courts have struggled mightily with these issues. See, e.g., Masciandaro, 638 F.3d at 467 (“But a considerable degree of uncertainty remains as to the scope of that right beyond the home and the standards for determining whether and how the right can be burdened by governmental regulation.”); United States v. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638, 640 (7th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (“Skoien II”) (Heller creates an individual right that includes keeping operable handguns at home for self-defense but “[w]hat other entitlements the Second Amendment creates, and what regulations legislatures may establish, were left open.”), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 1674 (2011).

The highest state courts that have considered the issue unanimously decided that the Second Amendment right is limited to the home. Maryland, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Kansas have all limited Heller to its holding. 9 For example, the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld Maryland’s firearm permitting statute, concluding that the right is unavailable outside the home. Williams v. State, 417 Md. 479, 496 (Md. 2011) (stating that “[i]f the Supreme Court, in this [Heller] dicta, meant its holding to extend beyond home possession, it will need to say so more plainly”), petition for cert. filed, 79 U.S.L.W. 3594 (Apr. 5, 2011). That court noted that Illinois, the District of Columbia, and California also limited the right in similar cases. Id. at 496-99. Given this trend, state courts that confront Second Amendment issues in the future will likely limit its protection to the home.

Other state and federal courts have held that even if the right might exist outside the home, it is substantially weaker than the right enjoyed in the home.

Heller was a muddled decision and at least placed language in effect that justified the micromanagement of weapons types (with the statement that the “handgun is the quintessential self-defense weapon,” it sounds as if Antonin Scalia has been watching too much television).  But if Heller was muddled, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (and other courts throughout the nation) have made the problem an order of magnitude larger, with incoherent arguments, factually incorrect statements, lack of personal knowledge of firearms, and reliance on “experts” who are known to be duplicitous and ignorant of the subject.  We can forgive editorial boards.  After all, they wax eloquent in ignorance all the time on all kinds of things.  Courts cannot be forgiven.

According to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the D.C. assault weapons ban is based on something other than those weapons being unusual since there are hundreds of thousands of them in circulation.  But not really, because they are unusual and dangerous weapons, and the real concern has to do with the safety of police officers, until the public is mentioned, because their protection is paramount.  And if all of that doesn’t work, the big bad bogeyman of “mass shootings” should be enough to convince the reader that they should be banned.  It’s just a horrible decision that wouldn’t make the grade in any college writing class.

And worse?  The Supreme Court bought all of that and refused to hear Heller’s appeal.  The Supreme Court has one more chance to get it right this term with the case of Sean Masciandaro.  If they don’t, Heller will be nothing more than a right to possess a weapon inside the home, and the second amendment will have been eviscerated.

UPDATE: I appreciate the links give to this article by Say Uncle and David Hardy at Of Arms & the Law.

From CBS News:

There’s a new twist in the government’s “gunwalking” scandal involving an even more dangerous weapon: grenades.

CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, who has reported on this story from the beginning, said on “The Early Show” that the investigation into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)’s so-called “Fast and Furious” operation branches out to a case involving grenades. Sources tell her a suspect was left to traffic and manufacture them for Mexican drug cartels.

Police say Jean Baptiste Kingery, a U.S. citizen, was a veritable grenade machine. He’s accused of smuggling parts for as many as 2,000 grenades into Mexico for killer drug cartels — sometimes under the direct watch of U.S. law enforcement.

Law enforcement sources say Kingery could have been prosecuted in the U.S. twice for violating export control laws, but that, each time, prosecutors in Arizona refused to make a case.

Grenades are weapons-of-choice for the cartels. An attack on Aug. 25 in a Monterrey, Mexico casino killed 53 people.

Sources tell CBS News that, in January 2010, ATF had Kingery under surveillance after he bought about 50 grenade bodies and headed to Mexico. But they say prosecutors wouldn’t agree to make a case. So, as ATF agents looked on, Kingery and the grenade parts crossed the border — and simply disappeared.

Six months later, Kingery allegedly got caught leaving the U.S. for Mexico with 114 disassembled grenades in a tire. One ATF agent told investigators he literally begged prosecutors to keep Kingery in custody this time, fearing he was supplying narco-terrorists, but was again ordered to let Kingery go.

The prosecutors — already the target of controversy for overseeing “Fast and Furious,” wouldn’t comment on the grenades case. U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke recently resigned and his assistant, Emory Hurley, has been transferred. Sources say Hurley is the one who let Kingery go, saying grenade parts are “novelty items” and the case “lacked jury appeal.”

Attkisson added on “The Early Show” that, in August, Mexican authorities raided Kingery’s stash house and factory, finding materials for 1,000 grenades. He was charged with trafficking and allegedly admitted not only to making grenades, but also to teaching cartels how to make them, as well as helping cartel members convert semi-automatic rifles to fully-automatic. As one source put it: There’s no telling how much damage Kingery did in the year-and-a-half since he was first let go. The Justice Department inspector general is now investigating this, along with “Fast and Furious.”

 Sharyl Attkisson has indeed been on this story from the beginning, as have the folks at Sipsey Street Irregulars and David Codrea with Examiner.  This isn’t the first mention of explosive ordnance in the context of Fast and Furious, but the magnitude of the scandal in this report is important.

It’s also important to note that, unlike the characterizations in the MSM (other than CBS) and even sometimes at one of my favorite hangouts (reddit guns), this scandal has nothing whatsoever to do with incompetence or negligence.  Even the term malfeasance isn’t quite appropriate.  All of these terms imply that the ATF was simply too stupid to pull off a sting that was ill-conceived from the beginning and should never have been tried.  Folks at the ATF aren’t stupid.  The real story, as so aptly pointout out by Bob Owens, is that the ATF knew that they could never track these weapons across the border, as they have no jurisdiction in Mexico, no intelligence, no ability to follow the firearms themselves, and no confidence in the ability of the Mexican authorities to do any of this either.

This operation wasn’t an instance of stolid neglect or incompetence.  What we’re witnessing isn’t a bug in the operation.  It is a feature.  And now we see that one aspect includes knowingly allowing the trafficking of explosive ordnance.  It isn’t just the coverup that is the problem here.  This is clearly a violation of Arms Export Control Act, and many other statutes.

California has recently prohibited open carry.

Sunday night, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law two bills affecting gun owners and dealers.

Brown signed AB 144 by Assemblymsn (sic) Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada-Flintridge) to ban the open carry of handguns in California; and AB 809 by Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) to close a loophole in state law that required the destruction of long gun sales and transfer records.

“The Governor has shown common sense and real courage by standing with law enforcement and victims of gun violence to make our communities safer,” said Dr. Dallas Stout, President of the California Brady Campaign Chapters.

AB 809 will require the preservation of records for long guns sold or transferred in the state after Jan. 1, 2014. Currently, only handgun purchases and transfer records are retained by the state Department of Justice.

“The retention of long gun records will enable the tracing of long guns used in crime and help law enforcement expose traffickers and sources of illegal guns,” continued Stout. Data from the state Department of Justice shows more th an half the guns recovered from armed and prohibited persons are long guns.

AB 144 will prohibit carrying in public openly displayed handguns. Last January, the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign announced their Demand Gun-free Dining – California project in response to a political movement of gun enthusiasts testing an old law — which allows the open carry of semi-automatic weapons with live ammunition magazines readily available — by holding gun gatherings in local restaurants and on public property.

“By prohibiting the open carry of guns, we can now take our families to the park or out to eat without the worry of getting shot by some untrained, unscreened, self-appointed vigilante,” Stout continued.

A gun registry is one of the stepping stones to the holy grail for the Brady Campaign, the total absence of guns in the hands of law abiding citizens.  But don’t be deceived.  The Brady Campaign is lying about being able to “take families to the park or eat without the worry of getting shot by some untrained, unscreened, self-appointed vigilante.”  It isn’t really concealed carry that the Brady Campaign wants.  Not at all.  The Brady Campaign puts out so much silly propaganda that it cannot keep its own story straight.  As reported by Rock River Times (apparently reporting not too far, ironically, from Rock River Arms in Colona Illinois), the Brady Campaign is arguing for something different in Illinois.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence intends to file two amicus briefs in federal courts this week in Illinois urging dismissal of two gun lobby lawsuits challenging the validity of Illinois law restricting the public carrying of firearms.

Illinois is the only state in the nation that has yet to legalize a form of concealed carry of firearms.

“The people of Illinois have made the reasonable decision to keep deadly semi-automatic weapons off the streets,” said Brady Center Acting President Dennis Henigan. “Courts have wisely rejected the gun lobby’s argument that the Constitution provides a right to carry loaded handguns in public, and the Second Amendment does not require people to be subjected to the grave risks of more loaded guns in our communities.”

You see, the Brady Campaign doesn’t want concealed carry either.  Their faux praise for the new California law prohibiting open carry is for appearances.  They must keep up the facade of reasonableness and legitimacy on their way to their holy grail.  In reality, they want the total disarmament of the population (which can never succeed with the criminals).  In shouldn’t be able to succeed with law-abiding citizens either, which is one reason we mustn’t give one inch to the anti-firearms zealots and bigots.

I’ve discussed my open carry practices in my home state of North Carolina before, and this is another fine time to mention that my sister state of South Carolina still needs a progressive and forward-thinking congressman to carry them out of the dark ages and allow open carry.  South Carolina still agrees with California, as odd as that may sound.  They both prohibit open carry now.

Chris Brown at Media Matters gives us an amusing take on so-called “assault rifles.”

Chris wrongly assumes that the firearms community must be ashamed and embarrassed at the debate.  With Robert Farago, I think that this alleged takedown is much ado about nothing.  This is just the firearms community talking to each other.  Frankly, it doesn’t much matter to me whether one calls it an AR, a home defense weapon, a rifle, a long gun, or a modern sporting rifle.  It’s all of those things, and more.  But there is one particular myth that I want to take down once and for all, and it is given to us by someone calling himself “progressive” at Media Matters.

I’d personally consider an ‘assault rifle’ to be a weapon other than a handgun (ex: semi-automatic or revolver) or submachine gun (ex: FN Herstal P90, Tec-DC9, H&K MP5) that can fire high-powered rounds such as .223cal, .308cal, or 7.62mm with a selective fire capability. Many tend to have a lever built into the trigger assembly for selecting single-shot, multi-round burst, or safety-on.

The category especially includes military-derived rifles like the AR-15/M4 family used by many US and NATO forces, Kalashnikov-style rifles (AK-47, AKM, AK-74) that originated from the former USSR, and newer high-tech weapons from Europe like the FN Herstal SCAR, H&K G36, or SIG-Sauer 556.

I think ‘assault rifle’ is a perfectly accurate term. These rifles were all designed and mass-produced to be (quite literally) anti-personnel weapons in a combat situation. They were NOT designed with residential protection, competitive shooting, or hunting in mind- otherwise there would be no need to sell a modified version of any of the above rifles to the general public. For example, you cannot wisely use an AR-15 rifle to protect your home from a burglar who is inside- the penetration properties of a high-powered weapon would make the risk to your family in an adjacent room a serious concern. There’s a reason that police SWAT units rarely use assault rifles for operations inside an occupied building.

Oh my.  There are so many errors in this one post that it’s difficult to know where to begin, but I want to cover this notion that the AR isn’t a legitimate home defense weapon.  The acronym AR, as we all know, stands for Armalite.  My own rifle is a Rock River Arms Elite CAR A4, an M4-style variant that has a long enough barrel to be legal (the M4 does not for civilian use).  I have put many rounds through it, and never had a failure to feed or failure to eject.  Until you have shot the 5.56 round, you simply don’t get a feel for how high the muzzle velocity is (viewing through scopes at 100+ yards shows no discernible time delay between firing and observing impact on target) compared to the extremely low recoil.

The 5.56 mm is a high velocity round with superior terminal ballistics, yawing upon impact and leaving an enlarged trail of tissue damage.  Yet this idea that it will kill people one or two houses away or that it is more dangerous to people in adjacent rooms than other rounds, even pistol caliber rounds, is entirely wrong.  Tests have demonstrated that the 5.56 mm penetrates less drywall than most of the pistol caliber rounds (depending upon the specific brand and type).

My AR is fabricated (with its quad rail) to hold attachments such as a forend grip and a tactical light, and upon meeting a home intruder in the dark, without a tactical light you may as well be blind.  Sending the wife to the movies for the night lends a wonderful chance to darken the home and practice clearing tactics from room to room.  The light weight of the rifle along with its collapsible stock make it a great weapon for maneuverability around doorways, and so it makes a great CQB firearm.  Finally, while the round does yaw and tend to fragment (causing tissue damage or conversely beginning the process of disintegration if it misses), it does well if the home intruder is wearing soft body armor, a trend in the more violent home invasions in urban areas.  While there are those who disagree, I believe that Eugene Stoner was a genius.

Tiger McKee sums it up it well.

When people ask, “What do you keep beside your bed at night,” I tell them it’s an AR. Usually their first response is, “Yeah, but you live in the middle of Alafrickinbama.” Which is true, but that doesn’t mean the .223/5.56 carbine isn’t an excellent weapon for home defense, even in urban environments.

When it comes to terminal ballistics high velocity rifle rounds perform much better than pistol rounds. Another advantage of the .223/5.56 round is its limited penetration, unless you’re firing steel core rounds specifically designed for penetration. Numerous tests show the .223/5.56 round penetrating through less interior walls than 9mm, .40 and .45 ACP rounds. This is even true for hollow-point pistol rounds, which fill up with sheetrock and such and never expand the way they are supposed to, and buckshot. If you’re shooting, the possibility of missing shots exists. Limited penetration of errant rounds is a good thing.

The carbine allows you to place one bullet exactly where you want it to go, as opposed to a shotgun. Even though great advances have occurred in shotgun rounds, you still have to be concerned with distance and pattern, and wads and spacers, which at close distances can injure or kill. In a hostage situation, an AR and the proper skills allow you to place one round with surgical precision. The AR is accurate from three yards to three hundred. Not that you could justify to a grand jury shooting someone at an extended distance, but this means it’s no problem to hit at thirty yards, which could be necessary.

The AR is lightweight, has limited recoil, and simple to operate. Anyone in the family of age can learn how to use it, effectively, in a short amount of time. A lot of people, even hard-core operators, will flinch when pressing off a magnum round of twelve-gauge buck. After firing the shotgun you have to pump it, which a lot of people forget or fumble under stress. When firing a semi-auto without getting a good aggressive position there’s a chance the shooter will be clearing a malfunction. With an AR you slip off the safety, get a good sight picture, press the trigger, follow through, and repeat as necessary.

While most self-defense problems only require a few rounds to solve, the AR’s high capacity magazine does allow you to stay in an extended fight for longer periods of time without having to reload. Just keep in mind Clint Smith’s saying that a higher capacity magazine isn’t a license to shoot more, it just means you have to manipulate the weapon less.

We also can’t ignore the psychological advantages of the carbine. I’ve seen people with pistols pointed at them who really didn’t seem to care. A carbine normally commands much respect.

The AR may not be the weapon for your home defense, but don’t discount it without serious consideration. When attacked, your task is to stop the threat as efficiently as possible. With the proper training and practice the .223/5.56 carbine is an excellent tool for this task.

Lastly, there is always the threat of bear in Pennsylvania, bear in Idaho, mountain lions in Sierra Madre, feral hogs in South Carolina, Georgia, or frankly anywhere in the Southeast running children indoors (if they don’t harm or kill them first), or rabid  Coyotes in suburban Charlotte (McAlpine Greenway near where I live and  walk my dog).  Even if you want something more hefty for bear, you may not have ready access to it.  The AR platform provides a ready and reliable means of defense against nearly all threats (confession: I don’t carry my AR while I walk my dog, I open carry my XDm .45).

Where else can you get 3100 fps muzzle velocity, rounds yawing upon impact, almost non-existent recoil, light weight, rails for needed attachments, ability to penetrate soft body armor during home invasions, relative safety for adjacent rooms compared to large shotgun shot, relatively short barrel and rapid ability to attain a viable sight picture?

It may not be the weapon for everyone, but while it isn’t the only weapon I use, it sits under my bed at night.  Media Matters can supply us with laughs, chuckles and snortles, but a serious assessment of the matter shows that the AR is not only a legitimate home defense weapon, it is a superior one.  Enough with the notion that this weapon is around only so that psychopathic kooks can “kill large numbers of innocent people.”  It’s high capacity magazine has turned out useful in defensive engagements before and will so in the future.  Besides, as I’ve said before, a high capacity magazine is an aluminum parallelepiped with a spring and follower.  Anyone with a little ambition can build one in his garage.  Prohibiting them from sale is both silly and deceiving.

I withhold my counsel on use of the AR for Chris Brown and Progressive at Media Matters.  I strongly advise that upon sensing a threat of any kind they call and wait for the police to arrive.  That should happen on the order of 8 – 20 minutes from placement of the call.

Katie Pavlich writing at Townhall has the report.

Multiple sources, including sources from ATF, DOJ  and Congressional offices have said there is a white paper circulating within the Department of Justice, outlining the essential elimination of ATF. According to sources, the paper outlines the firing of at least 450 ATF agents in an effort to conduct damage control as Operation Fast and Furious gets uglier and as election day 2012 gets closer.  ATF agents wouldn’t be reassigned to other positions, just simply let go. Current duties of ATF, including the enforcement of explosives and gun laws, would be transferred to other agencies, possibly the FBI and the DEA.  According to a congressional source, there have been rumblings about the elimination of ATF for quite sometime, but the move would require major political capital to actually happen.

“It’s a serious white paper being circulated, how far they’d get with it I don’t know,” a confidential source said.

After a town hall meeting about Operation Fast and Furious in Tucson, Ariz. on Monday, ATF Whistleblower Vince Cefalu, who has been key in exposing details about Operation Fast and Furious, confirmed the elimination of ATF has been circulating as a serious idea for sometime now and that a white paper outlining the plan does exist.

So does this report exaggerate the situation?  Turning to Examiner reporter David Codrea, there at least seems to be a serious shakeup in the works.

“Word is leaking out of HQ this week, to us plain old agents in the field that our new Acting Director is in fact planning on making some personnel moves very shortly,” a thread on the CleanUpATF website titled “Sweeping Out the 5th Floor” begins.

CleanUpATF is the website co-founded by whistleblowing ATF Special Agent Vince Cefalu to expose bureau waste, abuse, corruption and fraud, and has been the source for many tips that have been proven by investigation, including the initial allegations of gunwalking and the association of walked guns with the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry—something which the Chief Counsel’s Office and top management were acutely aware of early on—including this correspondent’s reporting on it.

Per comment poster “Plain Old ATF Agent”:

The Acting Director has told the 5th floor jerk off’s that the management of ATF will look entirely different by January 1 and has said in so many words that most will be gone. Mr. Jones is not too impressed with what he has seen and been told thus far by the 5th floor executives. Jones is telling people close to him at DOJ and at the OUSA in Minnesota that he can’t believe some of the people are in the positions they are in and that the agency is in worse shape than he was led to believe.

This assessment has also been shared with this correspondent by other sources, some hearing scuttlebutt that a partial realignment of senior executive staff may happen as early as today.

Whether the end result is termination or reorganization of a large number of ATF agents and analysts or complete breakup of the organization, there are a few things things that are obvious to the astute observer.

First, it isn’t clear how much of victory it is for those of us who oppose the existence of the ATF as an overly-bureaucratic, hyper-regulatory obstruction of firearms freedom and rights in America.  What happens going forward isn’t planned or considered because none of this is very well planned or considered.

And that leads to the second point.  This is a function of the political machinations of the Obama administration.  This has nothing to do with making the ATF better, or ending the ATF as we know it, or any other predetermined altruistic end.

It’s all reactionary and it has to do with political cover.  This has to do with making the problem go away in the headwinds of the coming election, because the election is all that matters.  The sad fact is that the good ATF agents – those ones who want to lock up criminals and assist law abiding citizens in gun ownership and publicly bearing arms – end up being collateral damage in Obama’s cover.

The entire nation deserves better.

From David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh writing at Examiner and Sipsey Street Irregulars we learn how Operation Gunwalker (or Fast and Furious) was no botched sting operation.

In a letter dated June 1, 2010, then Phoenix ATF Group VII supervisor David Voth instructed a Federal Firearms Licensee in Arizona as follows:

Dear Sir,

Per Section 925(a)(1) of the Gun Control Act (GCA) exempts law enforcement agencies from the transportation, shipment, receipt, or importation controls of the GCA when firearms are to be used for the official business of the agency.

Please accept this letter in lieu of completing an ATF Form 4473 for the purchase of four (4) CAI, Model Draco, 7.62×39 mm pistols, by Special Agent John Dodson. These aforementioned pistols will be used by Special Agent Dodson in furtherance of the performance of his official duties. In addition, Special Agent Dodson has not been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. If you have any questions, you may contact me at telephone number 602-605-6501.

Sincerely,

(Signature)
David Voth
ATF Group Supervisor
Phoenix Group VII

In the lower left-hand margin of the one-page letter is the hand-written notation:

“Picked guns
up 6/10/10
Paid Cash”

“Paid Cash” is underlined.

The existence of this letter provided to these reporters by a previously reliable source familiar with the Fast and Furious investigation, coupled with interviews of other sources across the country which put it into context, provides startling proof that the Federal government did not merely “lose track” of weapons purchased by “straw buyers” under surveillance by the ATF and destined for the Mexican drug cartels. In an undercover operation ordered by Fast and Furious supervisor David Voth, the U.S. government purchased firearms with taxpayer money from licensed firearms dealers, instructed them to conduct the sales “off the books,” and used an ATF agent, John Dodson, to deliver them directly to people that Dodson believed were conducting them across the border.

They go further to discuss how Dodson was almost surely set up to keep him from becoming a whistle-blower for the illegal operation.  This isn’t news.  But what is certainly news is how the news treated this revelation.  Bob Owens followed up this story with analysis of his own, and then remarks concerning a Fox News article on the same subject in one of the comments:

Fox News pretty much lifted their article part and parcel from Codrea and Vanderboegh, and should be considered plagiarists. No link to either of their sites, and Sispsey Street was only mentioned in passing; the Examiner not at all.

David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh have been out front on this scandal ever since it broke.  In fact, they helped to break it.  Their contacts beat any other in the main stream media.  Yet as Owens notes, there isn’t even a single link to Sipsey Street Irregulars or Examiner.  The failure properly to source simply propagates, with The Daily Mail sourcing Fox News.

For a period of time Matt Drudge had a link to the Fox News article as his headline.  This, my friends, is stolen traffic.  Fox News stole the content investigated and written by Codrea and Vanderboegh and posted it as their own.

This is shameful in professional journalism.  Fox News owes David and Mike an apology and explanation.

One final note concerns the explanation by Voth of how the Gun Control Act allowed exemption from its stipulations for LEOs.  One commenter remarks at Owens’ post:

Using agency funds (taxpayers’ money) to buy the weapons to be transferred to the cartels means that the operation has, prima facie, violated U.S. Code Title 18, Part 1, chap. 96, section 1960-61, defining the use of federal funds to illegally obtain and/or transfer controlled substances and/or items to unauthorized third parties.

To do this within the law (as in a drug transaction) requires a bench warrant from a state or federal court. The buying or selling has to be done in a controlled manner, the item(s) must never be out of law enforcement control (meaning they at least must be tracked), and they cannot cross state lines or national boundaries without proper notification of authorities on the “receiving end”.

“Fast & Furious” and “Gunwalker” have, on the face of it, violated all of the above provisions.

The argument that the exemptions were intended to allow the trafficking of weapons across national borders is ridiculous in the superlative.  Of course, this won’t fly anywhere, not in court or even with the court of public opinion.  Also note how Voth failed to mention the Arms Export Control Act.

Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell has a post up on Presbyterianism and gun rights concerning “Presbyterian” leadership and anti-gun advocacy.  I like the spirit of his post, but there are two very problematic aspects to his post.

First, he conflates the PCUSA with Presbyterians.  Not so.  Not at all.  There is the PCA, the OPC, the RPCNA, the ARP, and so on.  Presbyterianism isn’t a monolith, and the PCUSA is noted as the very left wing of Presbyterianism.

Second, and most important, Sebastian argues thusly:

I really don’t like it when churches insert themselves into political matters under the guise that these are really spiritual matters. Murder, rage, and vengeance — these are all matters of the spirit. Gun control is a matter of politics

And that, my friends, is exactly how to lose the gun rights argument.  Make it a political debate where, with enough pressure, votes and power, a man can take away what God has granted.  There is more background in Let Him Who Has No Gun Sell His Robe and Buy One, and Dr. Greg Bahnsen has much more.  But the short version is that the right to self defense is a right seen by our forefathers as inalienable.  That  means that it isn’t subject to the ebb and flow of politics.

My right to firearms ownership is granted by God, no  matter what the PCUSA says.  They’re just wrong.  But the way to defeat wrongheaded arguments is not to remove our rights from the framework of righteousness and morality.  It is to prove our opponents wrong on this very basis.

The problem is that while Sebastian claims that gun control is a matter of politics rather than religion (“spirit”), it really is a matter of religion and righteousness and morality rather than politics.  He has it exactly backwards.  I’m not being critical.  I’m trying to ground our rights in something other than the machinations of the political animal.

The Police Department of the City of Warren, Michigan, behaved badly towards a citizen engaged in open carry.

A Warren man who is an advocate for firearm “open carry” practices is suing the city and its police department, claiming officers violated his Second Amendment  right to bear arms.

Jeffery Haman, 54, seeks a $100,000 judgment and $500,000 in punitive or exemplary damages, as part of the lawsuit he filed recently in U.S. District Court.

With a semi-automatic pistol holstered at his waist, Haman, a former firearms dealer, was walking home from a local drug store at 12 Mile and Hoover roads in August 2009 when a patrolman quickly drove up to him.

“At the first instant where I could see through the open passenger window, he had a gun pointed at me,” he said. “Then he came to a stop. As soon as I saw the gun, I put my hands up.”

Haman was ordered to lie on his stomach, with his hands outstretched. The officer handcuffed him and three additional officers in two patrol cars arrived.

“I asked him what his reason was for stopping me. He said, ‘You’re walking down the street with a gun.’ I said, ‘That’s perfectly legal, I’m open carrying.’”

Police took the .45 caliber handgun and his ammunition, and asked if he had documentation for the weapon. Haman said he showed a purchase receipt and a concealed-weapon permit although it’s not required for open carry.

In a police video of the incident, an officer is heard telling Haman: “You should at least call us and tell us what you’re doing. Walking around like this is just going to get you hurt somehow.

“You’re just asking for trouble, brother.”

[ … ]

Warren Police Commissioner Jere Green, who along with former commissioner William Dwyer are defendants in the lawsuit, said Friday he had just received a copy but had not read it yet …

“We have to train and educate our troops when things like this happen,” said Green, “and we certainly do.”

Emphasizing that he was not commenting on the Haman case, the city’s top police administrator said any officer who sees a person carrying a firearm must quickly assess any potential threat.

“I don’t think a citizen would just want us to drive by and assume it’s an open carry situation,” Green said.

“Safety’s first.”

Haman explained the two-year lapse between the incident and the lawsuit was due to finding the right lawyer and unsuccessful efforts to try to meet with the city attorney in the hope of convincing the legal department to issue a memorandum to police on how to address open carry situations in public.

There are some very telling quotes in the article – gems that get to the heart of the problem.  “You should at least call us and tell us what you’re doing” … “Walking around like this is just going to get you hurt somehow” … “You’re just asking for trouble, brother” … “any officer who sees a person carrying a firearm must quickly assess any potential threat” … “I don’t think a citizen would just want us to drive by and assume it’s an open carry situation” … “Safety’s first.”

“Safety’s first.”  Right.  So lets’ examine some of these positions in a little more detail after a few questions.  Before we exercise our right to free speech or religion, must we contact law enforcement to inform them?  Has the police commissioner polled the citizens to see what they expect concerning open carry, or has he just assumed that he knows?  How will walking around with a weapon get someone hurt?  Who will hurt them and for what purpose?  Why didn’t the police commissioner educate his officers (not “troops”) to understand that Michigan is a traditional open carry state?  Why didn’t the police commissioner educate his officers to understand that Michigan has no stop and identify statute?  Do his officers routinely unholster and aim their weapons at people who are not violating any law?

A bit more background before I make several observations.  I open carry, and it’s not because I am trying to make some sort of political point.  I walk my dog, and in the afternoons here in Charlotte, N.C., it can reach 100 degrees F in the summer, even late in the afternoon.  I got tired of sweating all over my weapon when I concealed it.  I suppose I could use something that lifted my weapon off of my body like a super-tuck holster, but the last thing I want on a 100 F day is to put a slab of leather next to my body to get wet and salty and make me more hot than I already am.

So I have been open carrying for a number of  months now.  Women and children don’t go running home and screaming in fear for their lives.  People don’t scatter when they see me.  On the contrary, many people stop to talk and pet my dog.  The Charlotte-Mecklenburg police (Baker 2) drive by often, smile, and wave – or simply ignore me.  My time open carrying has been completely uneventful.  No one has been harmed, no one has sought to harm me, and most importantly, no out-of-control police officer has unholstered his weapon and aimed it at me.

In fact, I use extreme discipline when I carry my weapon.  I have never unholstered it when I am in public.  If I did, someone could charge me with brandishing a weapon, and properly so.  Not so for the Warren Police, apparently.  If safety is first for the Warren Police, then why did this officer unholster his weapon and aim it at someone who wasn’t violating any statue or law?

There are two cardinal sins for any firearm owner.  Lack of muzzle discipline, and lack of trigger discipline.  Sweeping someone with a muzzle is forbidden in the superlative, and this officer pointed his at an innocent citizen.  If he had been lacking trigger discipline – like other incompetent LEOs – he might just have killed someone with a negligent discharge.

So the salient question is this.  Who is the one who supplied the safety in the situation; Mr. Haman who held up his hands, or the police officer?  I think that the answer is clear to any thinking man.  And with a little more thought, it isn’t hard to ascertain the cultural basis for this kind of behavior.

It’s okay if an officer has a negligent discharge and kills an innocent man (we’ll just find “analysts” who say that it was something procedural).  It’s okay if police officers fire off 71 stray bullets in a shootout and kill an innocent bystander (whereas I would have been charged with second degree murder if I attempted to defend myself and ended up shooting a bystander).  It’s okay if a SWAT team terrorizes the Guerena family, killing former Marine Jose Guerena, and fail to recover a single shred of incriminating evidence for the raid.  And it’s okay if a Warren police officer unholsters his weapon on an innocent citizen who is obeying all laws.  We shouldn’t expect him to know or understand the law, whereas I would be jailed for brandishing a weapon if I did something like that.

You see, they are sworn law enforcement officers, and they are entitled to these things.  I, on the other hand, cannot be trusted with a firearm, any more than Mr. Haman.  How disciplined I am with a firearm has nothing to do with it.  I’m not a sworn LEO.

So there you have it.  Prejudice and bigotry on display.  It is the intellectual edifice they have built for so many years.  This officer overreacted during the incident by unholstering his weapon and losing his muzzle discipline.  I could never get away with that.  But the real problem is manifest by the refusal properly to educate the officers on the open carry tradition and (lack of) stop and identify statutes.  Did you catch that?  The police commission refuses to issue a memorandum.

A memorandum to educate his officers.  Good grief.  A memorandum could have made this whole ugly scene go away, and they are too proud to do it.  Prejudice and bigotry.

And speaking of prejudice and bigotry, I notice that my sister state, South Carolina, forbids open carry (causing me some moderate inconveniences).  It’s about time for some thoughtful congressman to put forward a bill to bring S.C. into the 21st century.  Michigan is already there, even if their police aren’t.

Gilbert, Arizona Police Sergeant Bill Campbell advocates an interesting way to train police.

OK, my fellow Firearms Instructor… You’ve been tasked with creating a short block of in-service training for the department, but budget and time constraints have dictated that each officer will only get to shoot 50 rounds of handgun ammo and you have only one hour of training time. Your goal for this training session is to work some shooting drills from the patrol car doors in a dimly-light environment, maybe even incorporating some cover. You want to make the training as fun and interesting as possible so the officers will enjoy it, and of course, you’d like to make it memorable so they will look forward to returning to training at their next available opportunity.  What should you do?

Okay, but who doesn’t like putting 230 grain slugs down range at any time and under any circumstances?  It’s fun and interesting and memorable any time.  Why does he have to make it fun?  It’s already fun.  But continuing with his recommendation, he gives us the situation he’s set up for his trainees.

The drill briefing itself is rather simple, and our instructions went like this:

When the lights go out, you will be attacked by a group of four Zombies. Using the car doors for cover, draw and engage the Zombies with a couple of rounds as they show themselves. Whenever a light is shining on the Zombie, he is considered a threat to you and will remain so until the light shining on the Zombie goes out. Occasionally, you will see a Zombie attacking an innocent person. In this case you must hit the Zombie but avoid hitting the innocent person. Reload when you can or must — using teamwork to avoid reloading at the same time. At some point, the Zombies will retreat. That is your cue to move tactically to the ground cover and be prepared to use a kneeling position to continue the drill from behind the ground cover. When the Zombies reappear, continue to fight them from behind the ground cover as you had from behind the car doors, fighting until there are no further Zombie threats.

You can read the entire article, including the use of Zombie targets.  I’m okay with Zombie targets.  In fact, I’m good to go with the great Zombie apocalypse.  Bring it.

But here is the problem.  During engagements, a very low percentage of shots fired from police hand guns actually hits their intended target.  It might be as high as 25%-30%.  But it’s probably no higher than 20%.  In one recent engagement, the New York City Police discharged 71 stray bullets, one of which killed a bystander.

Does Sergeant Bill Campbell really want his officers to learn the behavior to shoot at assailants and victims entangled together in an attempt to hit the assailant?  Really?  Is this good training?

Let me go on record right now with the following.  If I am ever attacked by Zombies, I’ll be armed.  Let me do the fighting.  I don’t want anyone shooting into the crowd.

Do you recall our having discussed the issue of Jeremy M. Hill having shot the grizzly bear on his property defending his family, only subsequently to be charged with a crime by genius federal prosecutor Wendy Olson?  Well, there are developments in this case.

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday dropped a misdemeanor charge filed against a northern Idaho man accused of illegally shooting and killing a male grizzly bear at his home in May, U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson said.

Jeremy Hill, 33, pleaded not guilty last month to unlawfully taking a federally protected species. His case has generated public and political backlash against federal officials.

As part of a deal, Hill agreed his actions violated a regulation of the Endangered Species Act against removing nuisance bears and paid a $1,000 fine. The act classifies the grizzly bear as a threatened species in the lower 48 states, and the animals are protected by federal law.

Hill claimed he was protecting his children when three bears walked on to his property near Porthill, near the Canadian border, on May 8.

Olson said investigators were unable to determine the location of Hill’s children at the time the bears were first seen in Hill’s yard near the pig pen. But by the time Hill fired his final shot, he was aware that his wife and children were inside their home, Olson said.

“The United States Attorney’s Office well understands Mr. Hill is a concerned husband and father who wants to protect his family,” Olson said in a press release.

[ … ]

Olson said anyone who sees a grizzly near their home or campsite should immediately contact wildlife officials, who will take steps to remove the animal.

“These regulations are designed to ensure citizen safety and protect the grizzly bear,” Olson said.

So consider.  This case warranted “investigators” to ascertain where the children were when the shots were taken.  Mr. Hill ultimately had to agree to a crime in defending his family and be fined by the federal government.

In addition to the things I said earlier concerning the God-given right of Mr. Hill to defend his family, let me add (as I had to in the comments section to my original post) that this right was a proactive one.  To have waited until later to either shoot the bear or contact wildlife officials would have been the height of irresponsibility.  The bear wouldn’t be there later, and the worst possible situation would obtain, i.e., Mr. Hill would have helped the bear to learn the behavior of coming onto or in the proximity of his property unmolested.  That learned behavior would have caused mortal danger to his family.

Ms. Olson is not only a juvenile, she is a liar.  The purpose of the regulation is not for the safety of people.  Guns provide safety to people.  The purpose is the protection of bears.  And she no more believes what she said concerning understanding the need Mr. Hill had to protect his family than she does that justice has been done.  She is only dropping the case because of the attention this has gotten.  Otherwise, she would have had her day in court defending bears.  Ms. Olson also isn’t willing to live where Mr. Hill does, but she is willing to criticize Mr. Hill’s choices.  Proud day for Ms. Olson.  Proud day.

This is simply a disgusting, sophomoric display of the sad state of affairs of the regulatory bureaucracy.  Instead of sending investigators to determine where Mr. Hill’s children were (it’s none of their business), they should be working on identifying and targeting members of MS-13.  In other words, they should get a real job, along with Ms. Olson.  Defend people instead of bears.