Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

Evening Standard:

London‘s murder rate has overtaken New York City‘s for the first time ever, according to a new report.

February marked the first month the UK capital saw more murders than New York, with 15 dead (nine aged 30 or younger).

According to the report in the Sunday Times, London also suffered 22 fatal stabbings and shootings in March, higher than the 21 in the Big Apple.

Both cities have similarly sized populations of around 8.5m people. New York City’s murder rate has decreased by around 87 per cent since the 1990s.

Meanwhile, London’s has grown by nearly 40 per cent in just three years, not including deaths caused by terrorist attacks.

On Saturday a murder probe was launched after a 36-year-old woman was killed in what is believed to be the 30th incident of fatal knife crime in the capital this year.

[ … ]

Britain’s most senior police officer recently said social media was partially to blame for the soaring rate of knife crime in the UK.

Met Commissioner Cressida Dick said websites and mobile phone applications such as YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram were partially to blame for the bloodshed.

This seems impossible.  Britain has gun control.  Britain has knife control.  How are all of these guns and knives ending up in the wrong hands?

Hmm … yea, just do away with Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube and everything will be okay.  That’ll fix the problem.  I’m sure of it.

Sheesh.  And the Brits think they’re all that and more, yes?

I had a run-in with Dave before.  It looks like the things I sense invariably come to pass.

Even gun rights advocates, who are afraid of government abuse, say it appears to be working…“We’ve seen the downside of people who are distraught or crazy taking out their problems on the general public,” said Dave Workman of the Bellevue, Wash.-based Second Amendment Foundation. “We don’t want that to happen here.”

That all depends upon whether you consider Dave Workman a “gun rights advocate.”  I don’t.  Oh, and by the way, give me a legally and logically defensible definition of the word “crazy,” Dave?  Or “distraught?”

From one thing to another, and another, and another until all the feelings about anecdotal experiences have been flushed out of his mind into the world.  Or something like that.

Two weeks before Christmas, I had a 9-millimeter pistol concealed in my waistband and a rifle with two 30-round magazines in the passenger seat beside me. I was driving down from the mountains to meet a fellow I didn’t know at a Cracker Barrel off I-40 in the North Carolina foothills. He was looking to buy a Kel-Tec Sub-2000, and I had one for sale. Other than that, I didn’t know him from Adam except for a few messages back and forth on Facebook.

We were both members of a Facebook group where people post pictures of firearms and buyers private-message to ask questions and make offers — sometimes cash, sometimes trade. I needed money to pay a buddy for an old ’70s model Lark teardrop trailer, and that rifle wasn’t doing anything but taking up space in the safe.

What I was doing was perfectly legal. In North Carolina, long-gun transfers by private sellers require no background checks. Likewise, it’s perfectly legal to sell a handgun privately so long as the buyer has a purchase permit or a concealed-carry license. But as I headed up the exit to the restaurant where we agreed to meet, I felt uneasy. I was within the law, but it didn’t feel as if I should have been.

He was backed into a space parallel to the dumpster, a black Ford F-250 with a covered bed, just as he described on Facebook Messenger. As I pulled in, he stepped out. He smiled, and I nodded.

“You can just leave it in the seat so we don’t make anybody nervous,” he said as I rolled down my window. There were families in rocking chairs in front of the restaurant. Customers were walking to their cars to get back on the road.

I climbed out of my truck so he could look the rifle over while I counted the money he’d left on his seat. He was about my age, somewhere in his early to mid-30s, white guy with a thick beard. He spoke with a heavy Southern accent not much different from my own. Said he built houses for a living, and that was about all the small talk between us. He liked the rifle. I needed the cash. We shook hands, and off we went.

If you’re wondering what the hell the point of all of that was and what he’s trying to communicate other than sharing an anecdotal experience, you’re not alone.  It’s all entirely legal as it should be.  It’s called a person-to-person transfer.  Let’s continue with his feelings for a while longer.

Where I live in the mountains of North Carolina, I am not alone. With fewer than a dozen guns in the safe, I wouldn’t even be considered a gun nut. Most of my friends have concealed-carry licenses and pistols on their person. If there are 10 of us in a room, there are most likely 10 loaded firearms, probably more, with a few of us keeping backups in ankle holsters. Rarely do we mention what we carry. We don’t touch the guns or draw them from their holsters. They are unseen and unspoken of, but always there.

I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t around guns. When I was a kid, there was a gun rack hanging on the wall in the living room. My father kept a single-shot .410 and an old bolt action .22, small-game guns, though he didn’t hunt anymore. I can remember watching older boys shoot skeet at a junkyard in the woods behind my house, my fingers plugged in my ears while orange clays turned to smoke against a backdrop of post oak and poplar. I can remember the first time my father taught me to shoot a rifle, how he had me sit on the concrete driveway and use my knee for a rest, aiming for a cardboard target in a honeysuckle thicket across the road. I think I was 8 or 9. I pulled the stock in too high on my shoulder, and craned my neck awkwardly to line up the iron sights. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew the rules: Always assume a firearm is loaded. Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction. Know your target and what’s beyond it.

Okay, so here we are in the South where guns are ubiquitous, and he is sharing an experience and his feelings about that, and we’re left wondering about the point of all of this.  So let’s continue a while longer.

The second and last time I had a gun put to my head it was by the police. After a drunken fight, I left a friend’s apartment to walk five miles and sleep on the porch of a buddy’s house across the river. I was walking down the side of Wilkinson Boulevard in Belmont.

Okay, I know right where he’s talking about.  So what happened?

I was carrying a shoe box. I saw a police cruiser pass me and make a U-turn at a stoplight up ahead. When the Crown Vic came back, the driver jumped the median and next thing I knew there were multiple cars, lights flashing, officers ordering me to the ground.

They had their guns drawn. There was a K-9 unit, and the German shepherd wouldn’t quit barking. I was lying flat on my stomach, and one officer came forward and put his knee in my back, his service weapon pushed into the base of my skull. They let the dog close enough that I could feel him barking against my ear. They said I matched the description of someone who’d burglarized some houses nearby. They asked what was in the shoe box, and I stuttered, “Papers.” They asked if they opened the box if there was anything inside that would hurt them. With my face in the grass and the officer’s weight making it hard to breathe, I was so terrified that I couldn’t mutter a single word. I just shook my head, and they opened that box to find nothing but a stack of notebook papers, a pile of half-assed stories I’d written. They told me I could get up, and I stood there trembling while they apologized. They gave me a ride across the river and dropped me off at the Mecklenburg County line, told me they were sorry but they couldn’t take me any farther.

So at least that night the cops in Belmont were a bunch of ignorant hicks roughing innocent folks up and assuming something for which they had absolutely no basis and which they could have ascertained with a little intelligent conversation.  Actually, I suspect this was the Gaston County Police, but who knows because he doesn’t say?  We’ll come back to this in a moment.  Let’s continue for a while longer.

Just before the deer strolled behind a cedar sapling, I touched the trigger, and the .308 blew apart the morning. A hundred and fifty grains of copper-jacketed lead hit just behind the shoulder and blood-shot the backside to pudding. The buck stooped forward and sprinted, back legs driving him over tangled ground. He made it 40 yards before he crashed. From my stand, I could just make out the white of his stomach through the brush. I watched his ribs rise with each breath, that breathing slowing, slowing, then gone.

There is a sadness that only hunters know, a moment when lament overshadows any desire for celebration.

Hunting isn’t for everybody, but I’m still not sure what this all has to do with anything.  For the love of God, let’s get somewhere, okay?

When the trooper had my license and registration, he went to his cruiser. In a few minutes, he came back to the window and issued me a warning for speeding. I asked if there was anything I could’ve done differently to make him more comfortable when he first approached the truck. The trooper told me what I’d said was fine. He said that some officers might have been uncomfortable with where the pistol was located, being holstered near my wallet, but that he felt we had a good rapport. Depending on the officer, some might have asked me to step out of the truck so they could remove the weapon. He smiled and told me: “But this is South Carolina. Most every car I pull over has a gun.”

Frankly, I think we should be more worried about what the cop intends to do with his weapon than what the cops think about the fact that we have one.  But let’s continue still.

Last summer I drove back to Charlotte to visit my father for his birthday. While I was there, I went into a Cabela’s store in Fort Mill, S.C., to buy him a new depth finder for his fishing boat. After I found what I was looking for, I headed across the store to see if there were any good deals on ammo.

There were floor displays of AR-15s, and probably a hundred or more other rifles and shotguns for anyone to walk up and hold. I watched a kid about 8 or 9 pick up one of those ARs and shoulder it to the center of his chest. He held the gun awkwardly, cocked his head hard to the side, squeezed one eye closed to aim and dry-fired the weapon. I watched two men, presumably his father and grandfather, smile and laugh, then break out their cellphones to snap a few pictures.

I remembered how when I was his age, I used to love going to the sporting-goods section of Walmart to look at fishing lures and camouflage clothes. I’d walk over near the register and push the manual turntable on the curio display to look at all the rifles and shotguns. There were usually a few big game guns — a gray stock Remington 783 in .30-06, maybe a Marlin 336 lever action — a couple of pump shotguns, a single shot .410 or 20-gauge. There were always Ruger 10/22s and Marlin Model 60s, the .22LRs kids unwrapped when their grandfathers gave them their first rifles for a birthday or Christmas. There were always guns, but nothing like the assault weapons that line the shelves today.

Maybe it’s how I was raised and the types of firearms my family kept, but the idea of owning a rifle designed for engaging human targets out to 600 meters just never interested me. I keep a Savage 10 in .308 to hunt whitetail and hogs. I have a CZ 920 that’s absolute hell on a dove field. I have a handful of .22 rifles that I use for plinking at the range and hunting squirrels and rabbits each winter. Then there are the weapons I keep for defense — the shotgun by the bed, the pistols — firearms whose sole purpose would be to take human life if I were left with no other choice. I’ve witnessed how quickly a moment can turn to a matter of life and death. I live in a region where 911 calls might not bring blue lights for an hour. Whether it’s preparation or paranoia, I plan for worst-case scenarios and trust no one but myself for my survival.

My friends see no difference between the guns I own and their ARs. One or two of them rationalize assault weapons the same way I justify what sits by my bed. When I ask if those rifles are really the best option for home defense, they joke about the minute hand of the doomsday clock inching closer to midnight. They post Instagram photos of Sig Sauer MCXs and tac vests loaded with extra magazines, their bug-out bags by the door as they wait for the end of the world.

But a majority defend their ARs the same way I defend the guns I use for plinking and hunting. They say they own them because they’re fun at the range and affordable to shoot. They use the rifles for punching paper, a few for shooting coyotes. Every weekend they fire hundreds of rounds from custom rifles they’ve spent thousands of dollars building. They add bump stocks and Echo Triggers to increase rates of fire and step as close to Title II of the federal Gun Control Act as legally possible without the red tape and paperwork. They fire bullets into Tannerite targets that blow pumpkins into the sky.

None of them see a connection between the weapons they own and the shootings at Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Aurora, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland. They see mug shots of James Holmes, Omar Mateen, Stephen Paddock, Nikolas Cruz — “crazier than a shithouse rat,” they say. “If it hadn’t been that rifle, he’d have done it with something else.” They fear that what starts as an assault-weapons ban will snowball into an attack on everything in the safe. I don’t believe that politicians are going to ban ordinary guns or overturn the Second Amendment, but I understand their reasoning because I understand what’s at stake. I think about that boy picking up that AR in Cabela’s, and I’m torn between the culture I grew up with and how that culture has devolved.

Aha!  We’re finally there.  A gun dude is sharing his feelings about how his culture has “devolved,” and says that he “understands” the reasoning behind politicians and their gun bans.

Would the New York Times have published anything else?  The comments are amusing if not downright ridiculous.  He is a great writer!  He has started a commonsense conversation among gun nuts and the rest of the world.  It’s a “moving and beautifully written article.”  Who needs a gun that can “spray bullets with one pull of the trigger?”  “Concealed carry is a bad idea unless you have a job that requires it.”  And this from Dara Resnik.

Thank you, David Joy, for this thoughtful piece. I wonder how many more are like you, and how we can bring them into the open. I think many of them are afraid of what you experienced when you brought up the subject of banning assault weapons to your friend — it’s taboo in gun culture to talk about curbing any gun rights at all. But I know you are not alone in your views.

I imagine given who your friends are, there will be, to use a firearm term, some kick back for having published this piece. But writing it was the right thing to do.

I hate to break it to you Dara, but most of us don’t feel this way.  We call guys like David a “Fudd.”  You can look it up, dear.  And this from Peter.

People on the other side of the divide are fearful of all those paranoid gun-toters hoping that they’re not in someone’s line of fire when things go bad, with reason or without. How have we as a society arrived at this point

I’m more worried about the cops, Peter.  And yes, “we as a society” have arrived at this point.  At one time, kids carried their guns to school with them.  No, I’m not kidding.  So point your finger of blame somewhere else.

As for the author, David Joy, he’s apparently now fulfilled his bona fides for selling more books, as well as commenting on NBC, CNN, CBS and ABC.

What he hasn’t done is crafted a commentary that’s anything but a running list of anecdotes and his feelings about them, appended by a statement of agreement with gun bans.  And he hasn’t offered any compelling reason to believe that the justification for owning weapons – self defense and the amelioration of tyranny – has changed since the beginning of time.

Burlington Free Press:

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to show that the magazines were not high-capacity.

MONTPELIER – Gun rights activists gave out free rifle magazines Saturday in Montpelier as Gov. Phil Scott is poised to sign gun-control proposals into law.

“17 senators didn’t want to hear anything about unenforceable laws like the mag ban,” Chris Bradley, president of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, said on Saturday.

Bradley introduced Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, one of 13 legislators who voted on Friday against a package of gun restrictions that passed in the Senate. Saturday’s rally on the steps of the Statehouse was a protest against restrictions on gun ownership and a lawsuit fundraiser as 2nd Amendment advocates vowed to take the fight to the court system if Scott signs the bill into law.

Last week 2,500 students and gun control advocates rallied in support of restrictions, following two weeks of school walkouts.

Benning, who was in Montpelier for another meeting last Saturday, witnessed the student rally. He took a conciliatory tone as he addressed several thousand gun rights activists.

“You guys are as passionate as the other side was,” Benning said. “I know you are going to find this difficult to believe, but some of those folks on the other side are really scared of you.”

Safety, Benning said, was the uniter, though each group had different methods of achieving that goal. Benning urged both sides to talk to each other and not yell at each other, while promising that the fight for gun rights had just begun.

“Lets use this as the beginning of the discussion not the end,” Benning said, referring to the November election.

After several more speakers Rob Curtis of Williston, the executive editor of Recoil Magazine, a “lifestyle magazine” based in Los Angeles according to its website, began handing out the promised 1,200 30-round polymer magazines that can be used for AR-15 and M4 weapons. The double line of receivers stretched out and down State Street.

The FedEx delivery tracking information shared in Recoil press statement showed a 12 package delivery of approximately 400 pounds was delivered to a residence in Williston on Saturday morning. The magazines are worth between $10 and $20 at online retailers. Curtis said that MAGPUL, a manufacturer and retailer based in Wyoming, helped organized the “Green mountain Airlift” to get ahead of the proposed restrictions.

Vermonters can keep magazines already in circulation, according to the bill.

The action was also a fundraiser with the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs taking donations high on the steps of the Capitol. Down the stairs, Keith Stern was collecting signatures for a run for governor while a few kids frolicked in the sun and collected packets of magazine with their families.

“My kids have been to the range and they know how to shoot,” Andy Roberts said standing with her son Ethan and husband Phillip. Ethan clutched his magazine and shyly admitted he was not yet a hunter.

There’s a little more at the link.  I left the correction in there because I thought it was amusing.  So I have to say several things if no one else does.

That doesn’t look like a crowd of several thousand to me.  Even if the photo was a bad one to represent all the people there, several thousand is an insignificant number of people considering what’s at stake.  Truthfully, I’m not sure if it happened in my own state we could get more than several thousand at the state capital to protest or rally.  Maybe I’m preaching to the choir, but I’ve never seen a worse group of people to protect and fight over their rights than gun owners.  They’d rather send a few dollars, compromise and get back to [whatever they do].

Next up, I have to say about the rally-goers, you missed the boat when they interviewed you.  You didn’t supply the right optics, you didn’t communicate your message very well.  I see a sea of orange and the final meaningful statement in the article had to do with a hunter who had a boy who didn’t know if he was a hunter yet.

Folks, this has nothing to do with hunting.  Nothing.  It has nothing to do with sportsman’s clubs, or hunting weapons or gear, or turning over a hunting legacy to your children.  You don’t need a Pmag to hunt.  In fact, you can turn your bolt action rifles in at a state-controlled armory and check them out prior to each hunting trip and turn over a legacy of hunting to your boys.

What you can’t turn over by doing that is a legacy of liberty and freedom.  Governor Scott says he’s changed completely on gun issues.

Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, promised that universal background checks would reach the Senate floor by the end of next week for an “up or down vote.”

Scott sent a wide-ranging memo to lawmakers asking them for immediate and long-term actions that he said would bolster school safety and keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.

Read Gov. Scott’s full memo here.

[ … ]

The Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, a gun-rights group affiliated with the National Rifle Association, prefers the extreme risk protection order bill but has requested some changes. 

“I don’t think we’ll oppose it. In fact, as best we can, we agree with it,” said Chris Bradley, the organization’s president. Bradley added that he was concerned that the bill could morph into an omnibus proposal that’s “absolutely intolerable” for his group.

Scott said he was not interested in banning the sale of certain types of guns, but would consider restrictions on high-capacity magazines. He also called for a state ban on “bump stocks.”

He said that arming teachers, as suggested by President Donald Trump, was not a viable solution to violence. 

“There are other steps we can take that are more achievable and create a safer atmosphere,” Scott said.

With the Fudds already retreating before the first salvo is fired, I’m not sure I would have shown up at the “rally” either.  The very folks picking up Pmags are part of the “Sportsmen’s Clubs” who are supporting the infringements along with the NRA.

How sad all of this is.  So go ahead and wear your orange, boys, and teach your children how to shoot.  Pick up those Pmags as a token of what was once a free country.  But take careful note.  You are a poor substitute and replacement for the inspiration for magazine handouts and smuggling, Mike Vanderboegh.

Our stolid friend James Fallows at The Atlantic has yet another dense post up mainly consisting of letters to him and a few lines in reply.  There’s not much to see, except that he does make an admission that brings a much-needed breath of fresh air.

I understand that the AR-15 is not functionally unique. Thus anyone who argues that the AR-15 should not be in civilian hands should be willing to extend the argument to similar weapons. That’s what I think about the AR-15, and and I say the same thing about functionally similar weapons.

Good.  It’s a healthy and helpful thing to speak honestly about such matters.  This whole thing began some years ago with arguments over select-fire and the definition of assault rifle, the smaller caliber cartridge and whether it is any good for deer hunting, the value of a pistol grip, the “scary looking” features of the AR-15, the standard capacity magazine, its semi-automatic design, and on and on it went.

These were merely the first steps in the dance.  We’re way past that now.  Honesty has demanded that the progressives admit their demands, and honesty has demanded that we reply.  The definition of “military” is nonsensical anyway, and we all know it.

There was an article recently about Glock making their “military-grade” pistol available to civilians.  This means that it’s a Glock with a flat dark earth finish and pretentions of being modular.  Nothing more.  And truthfully, all weapons are “military grade.”

Let’s talk 30-06 bolt action deer rifles.  Yep.  Ask those whom Carlos Hathcock killed in Vietnam to speak from the grave and tell you all about that 30-06 round that hit them from a Winchester bolt action gun.  Marines were still using Winchester bolt action rifles for DM guns at the beginning of OIF, and most sniper rifles in military use today are bolt action.  How about 30-06 semi-automatic?  Yep.  The M1 Garand.  WWII.  And how about semi-automatic or automatic carbine?  Yep.  The M1 Carbine.  WWII.

How about shotguns?  Yep.  The Marine Corps was using Benelli M4s for room clearing in Now Zad, Afghanistan, during OEF.  How about revolvers?  Yep.  They were the sidearm for many years, and today .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum wheel guns are still in use defending homes and against big predators in America.

No one who knows anything should have to ask about Browning’s best design of his life, the 1911, which is still the most expensive handgun that can be purchased.  The point is that there is no such thing as a weapon that hasn’t been used on the field of battle between countries or various actors, and it makes no sense to argue over whether something is called “military grade.”  We’ve got virtually everything the military has ever had, and vice versa (except that the professional precision rifle shooters probably have better guns than the military).

The freshness about what Fallows said is that he admits that there is no stopping point, and that’s good, because logically he’s right.  And the freshness for us is actually not all that fresh, I just don’t think Fallows is hearing it, or perhaps he’s hearing it, but he just doesn’t believe it.

No.  We won’t give them up.  Period.  Your move.

David Codrea:

 … Citibank’s unwarranted attack on gun owners and the firearms industry by requiring businesses to discriminate against gun to lawful customers under 21, and barring the sale of so-called “bump stocks” and standard capacity magazines. Further, the global banking giant signaled its intent to drag manufacturers into its citizen disarmament schemes.

There are reasons why some of us who have our firearms purchases choices denied by corporate parasites find Citibank’s promotion of Jay-Z so hypocritical …

There are two ways to look at this.  The first is that the market will handle the problems and anyway, I cannot possibly boycott all of the businesses that cause me problems.  There will be no prohibition on guns that is successful.  As commenter Fred has pointed out, “prohibition doesn’t work … Markets see regulation as damage and automatically re-routes around it.”

On the other hand David points out that Citibank is the recipient of FedGov money, or in other words, our money.  It shouldn’t be, and it’s a testimony to the evil that grips our country that corporations can both receive tax monies and then work against the very rights that founded the country.

Other than governmental actions against such corporations, and/or boycotting every corporation that does things like this, I have no solution short of civil unrest.

Every time a new contract is issued for weapons and ammunition, the typical cacophony of comments follow.  Those who think that the FedGov has too many guns and too much ammunition weigh in, and invariably (perhaps some of them are trolls or paid commenters?) some people weigh in with support.

Terrorism.  Bad people.  Every agent with a gun needs range rounds and personal defense (PD) ammunition (JHP or whatever).  Think of how many rounds you shoot per year, and multiply that times the number of agents, blah, blah, blah.

The commenters yammer and yak and go on about how we need to support law enforcement, not understanding the deeper meaning of things.  That was true of the recently released contract on behalf of the DHS.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently awarded Federal Premium a major ammunition contract. Starting delivery in 2018, the contract provides for up to 180 million rounds of .40-cal. Tactical HST duty ammunition to multiple Department of Homeland Security law enforcement components and other federal agencies for up to five years. This contract will provide the organization’s agents and officers with .40 cal. duty and training ammunition.

“Law enforcement and federal agencies put it all on the line for our safety and freedoms,” said Mike Holm, said product director at Federal Premium.” They should expect nothing less from their ammunition.”

Notice the sleight of hand?  “Multiple Department of Homeland Security law enforcement components and other federal agencies.”  While wrapped in a patriotic cloak of border security, this contract so hidden as to its real import that you have no idea what’s in it or who receives the ammunition or for what purpose.

I suspect various commenters will come to the rescue of the FedGov on this one as well (I’ve seen it every time something like this is announced), but the fact remains that 180 million rounds is a lot of PD ammunition.  Note: this isn’t range ammo – it’s duty ammo.  I have faced the usual suspects before, like “Well, the FedGov has to protect the American nuclear facilities.”

No, I reply, go back and try again.  Commercial nuclear power plants owned by utilities in America must provide their own security, and sometimes they are utility employees, while sometimes they are contract workers.  But always, the FedGov has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Next up, “Well, FedGov must supply security for our nuclear weapons facilities.”  No, try again, I reply.  The real shooting in any incident effecting our nuclear weapons facilities will be done by Marine Corps FAST teams, and if you’re stupid enough to perpetrate an incident against such a target, you’re likely to be staring down the barrel of a Mark 19, operated by men who, as the Gunny would say, are “Ministers of death, praying for war,” and just waiting on someone like you.  I know some of them (or at one time I did).

Finally, the commenters always mention our national laboratories, and I’ve visited multiple labs on multiple occasions.  Most of the security is done by contract employees, and doesn’t get counted in any of the weapons or ammo purchases made by FedGov.

It is against this backdrop that this insightful report must be read.

In the aftermath of the Orlando terrorist attack, many Washington politicians tried to shift the conversation to the Second Amendment and called for an assault weapons bans. But former U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, our Honorary Chairman, had another idea. In this interview on CNBC, Coburn said we should improve our system of background checks, but said it was IRS officials and non-military federal personnel who should be subject to an assault weapons ban, not the general public.

This week, our organization at OpenTheBooks.com released our findings in an editorial at The Wall Street Journal that quantified the growing federal arsenal. The number of non-military federal officers with arrest and firearm authority (200,000+) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000). Spending on guns, ammo and military-style equipment at 67 federal agencies – including 53 regulatory, administrative agencies amounted to $1.48 billion between 2006-2014.

The IRS gun-locker is an example  of this growing federal firepower. Nearly $11 million was spent on guns, ammo and military-style equipment for 2,316 ‘special agents’ during this period. The IRS stockpile includes pump-action and semi-automatic shotguns with buckshot and slugs; and semi-automatic AR-15 rifles (S&W M&P 15) and military-style H&K 416 rifles. (See the OpenTheBooks Oversight Report – The Militarization of America.)

The recent growth of the federal arsenal begs the questions: Just who are the feds planning to battle?

In 1996, the Bureau of Justice Statistics officially counted 74,500 federal officers who had arrest and firearm authority. By 2008, the Bureau quantified over 120,000 such officers. Newly updated counts were supposed to publish by this July but the Bureau now admits that over 80% of federal agencies ignored or stonewalled responses to their latest survey. What are they trying to hide?

Even though our organization at OpenTheBooks.com estimated the number of non-Department of Defense federal officers at 200,000+, the current number of non-military federal officers and security personnel could be much larger. Here’s why:

• The feds refuse to disclose the number of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers, claiming a national security exception.
• The growth of officers within the 53 administrative, regulatory agencies since 2008 is uncertain. Our officer count estimate used a no-growth figure of 30,000 – the same count as in 2008.
• Likewise, the count within the Department of Homeland Security is unclear. We found conflicting sources citing figures at 70,000 and 63,000. We used the more conservative figure for our analysis.

At Health and Human Services (HHS), it’s also unclear just how many ‘special agents’ are currently employed. Yet, research uncovered a multi-million-dollar program for HHS ‘Office of Inspector General Special Agents’ that used a sophisticated military-style weapons platform with Special Forces contractors training the agents on domestic special operations.

Today, HHS is operating from a brand new “National Training Operations Center” within the Washington, D.C. area they describe as “an operational readiness, emergency response, crisis room and command post for HHS headquarters and staff.” That’s serious business for an agency supposedly preoccupied with “health” matters.

The author, Adam Andrzejewski, goes on, and you can read the entire report at Forbes.  But the founders were opposed to standing armies for good reason.

So if America’s founders would be disappointed in the United States today, how much of that disappointment, if any, might be directed at the military and what has come to be known as national security affairs? It is a question especially worthy of our attention, since the American people have repeatedly said in polls that, of society’s major institutions, the military is the one they most trust.

Let us start with the Preamble to the Constitution. Whatever the framers’ intent, however aspirational the wording, and notwithstanding the fact that national security wasn’t part of the vernacular of the day, the Preamble stands as America’s enduring security credo.

Its importance is essentially threefold. It lists providing for the common defense (in lower-case letters) as merely one — not the first, not the most important — of the national aims the governing apparatus called for by the Constitution seeks to achieve. Semantically, it captures the normative essence of military affairs as self-defense (not aggression, not power projection). And it thereby implicitly cautions against purchasing defense at the expense of these other strategic priorities — national unity, justice, domestic tranquility, the general welfare, liberty.

[ … ]

Madison famously provided one of the most powerful statements ever on war:

“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

Today, we live in a state of constant, potentially endless war — always, without exception, undeclared; invariably by choice (rhetorically disguised as necessity); frequently in secret (to increase the license to act, while minimizing oversight and accountability); often labeled war (to engender fear and urgency), but just as often labeled something other than war (for reasons of expediency, convenience and legal circumvention); initiated and prosecuted by a now permanently imperial presidency, largely devoid of congressional consultation and consent before the fact, sometimes even with minimal congressional notification after the fact.

Such concentration of executive power, such abrogation of legislative authority and responsibility, such marginalization of popular consent would seem to be the ingredients of tyrannical government the founders said the people had the right and the duty to overthrow.

It’s instructive and expedient to understand the FedGov and its actions under 3P’s: [1] Protect, [2] Perpetuate, and [3] Promote.  It isn’t by accident that the FedGov wants a disarmed population and continually presses gun control (supported all the way by the court system up to and including the SCOTUS).  A disarmed population is a corollary and a couple to government control and subjugation of the people.  An armed population cannot be subjugated – and thus the population must be disarmed.  It all works together, and without each part none of it works.

But in America that’s difficult, so one answer to the difficulty is to arm the FedGov better and with more.  Note well that the rulership has created a caste system of peasants who will protect the FedGov because it’s their livelihood.  Too old and not in good enough shape to join the military, and not desirous of the decrease in income, there is nothing much else a gun toting agent can do except work for the government.  Family support is a strong motivator, and provision for wife and children can cause all sorts of word twisting and reinterpretation of oaths and vows.  The job of this peasant class is to keep the other peasants in check.  It is to protect the rulership.

The rulership by its very nature perpetuates itself by patronage and largesse to its families, friends and allies.  This is the value of high taxation and federal ownership of land.  Finally, promotion of the FedGov and rulership occurs via the public education system where willing subjects are molded, and also through the MSM where willing “journalists” parrot talking points.

There are those who say that the constitution contained in it the seeds of this despair and destruction.  And there are those who say that we need a new constitution because the last one failed.  While I am no defender of the notion that the constitution was infallible or perfect, I don’t subscribe to this being the ailment or the proposed remedy.

If I’ve tried to teach anything in these last years, it’s that men are to blame.  The constitution is a covenant, or agreement with the appurtenant blessings and cursings for obedience and disobedience, respectively.  It is nothing more, and nothing less.  We don’t get rights to ownership of weapons from the second amendment – we get them from the very fountain of rights, the Almighty Himself.

But America has broken covenant with the Almighty.  After this, everything else is duck soup.  It’s easy to break covenant with men when you have no fear of God.  Blaming the constitution for the malfeasance of men is like blaming the marriage covenant for an adulterous spouse, and demanding a new marriage covenant because the last one let your spouse engage in infidelity is demanding more of the same and expecting a promise to mean something to an adulterer.

To answer the question posed by the author, “Just who are the feds planning to battle?,” the answer is that the answer is crystal clear for those who would see it.

Prior Featured: AR-15 Ammunition And Barrel Twist Rate

The Hill:

A pair of Democratic lawmakers are introducing legislation to require a background check for all firearm ammunition sales.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said on Monday they had introduced the bill, known as the Ammunition Background Check Act of 2018, arguing it would help close a “loophole” in the current law.

“Ammunition sales should be subject to the same legal requirements as firearm sales, and that includes instant background checks. … Closing this ludicrous loophole is a common-sense component of a comprehensive strategy to reduce gun violence,” Blumenthal said.

Wasserman Schultz added that it is “common-sense legislation” that would close an “absurd loophole.”

Understand this is what they would do to you.  This doesn’t have much of a chance of passing as things stand now.  But give the House to the democrats, and things get a little more dicey.  Give the presidency to the democrats, and things go down hill fast.  If the republicans thought they could get away with it, they’d do it too.

Don’t look to the supremes to undo this if it ever happens.  They won’t even take up cases for New York State where people cannot purchase weapons without CLEO approval, and cannot carry anywhere.

You and I don’t have enough ammunition.  Not even nearly.

Reddit/r/firearms:

Toomey Introduces Bill That Would Toughen Existing Gun Laws – Requires FBI to report prohibited persons to state LEOs when denied purchase

The bill can be found here.  I would expect this kind of thing from Toomey, who is a communist.  Most disappointing though is the redditors who like it.

Having read the bill, I’m on board with this. Its a shame it isn’t policy already, but I see nothing wrong with this bill as written.

And another:

I don’t think I hate this.

Well, I do.  I loath every man and woman who sits in their offices like the cowards they are, sends boys to war to perish, lose arms and legs and eyes and brains (from TBI), and then wants to prohibit them from purchasing a gun if they have ever been diagnosed PTSD or have someone else do their finances for them.

Realize that this is what the recent Omnibus bill does.  It forces the VA to report such names of veterans to the NICS, creating a situation in which a veteran doesn’t know he is prohibited from purchasing weapons until he is rejected from doing so, now having lied on Form 4473 and become an immediate felon.

I loath all of you who voted for such a thing, or who would vote for such a thing.  I hate you with a white, burning hatred for your cowardice and malfeasance.

I hate to do it, but I must embed a video, and this one is very good.  It comes to us from the only congressman who I can trust on gun rights.

So, good job, redditors, you idiots.  You just jumped in bed with communists.  To every politician who did this to honorable veterans whom you sent war, you can ES&D.  That goes for Toomey as well.

Reuters:

The teen organizers of Saturday’s nationwide “March for Our Lives,” aimed at toughening gun laws to help stop school shootings in the United States, have won kudos and cash from dozens of celebrities, helping to raise their national profile.

The April 2 cover of Time magazine will feature five students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida who have organized rallies, walk-outs and challenged U.S. lawmakers since the February 14 mass shooting at the school that left 17 students and staff dead.

Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson, Demi Lovato and Common are due to be among performers at Saturday’s main march in Washington D.C., while “Trainwreck” actress Amy Schumer and pop star Charlie Puth are expected to headline a march in Los Angeles, organizers said.

“So inspired by the incredible students behind #MarchForOurLives. Can’t wait to join them in DC to perform and show my support,” Cyrus tweeted earlier this week.

“Proud of these kids,” Justin Bieber wrote on Twitter.

Winfrey, Clooney, director Steven Spielberg and Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg have donated an aggregate of $2 million to the “March for Our Lives” movement. Clooney and his wife Amal have said they would march with the students on Saturday.

“This is their moment,” Winfrey told Reuters Television in praising the students. “They are the new young warriors of the light.”

“Groundhog Day” actor Murray compared them to the young protesters of the 1960s who helped bring an end to the Vietnam War.

Reuters is lying.  The students didn’t organize anything.  Everytown is organizing and managing the entire process.  The students are just being used.

The lie notwithstanding, make no mistake about what’s happening here.  This is a religious quest for them.  The language (“warriors of the light”) has very direct theological import.

This is a worship service, and they wanted to have the high priests of paganism there to preach sermons to them.  Thus, the priests were made available.

I know I have readers who do not hold to my own theological views or my Christian beliefs.  But you can be sure that your gun controller enemies aren’t atheists.  Their religion is collectivism, and their god is the state.  You’re on notice that they’ve declared war on you.