Archive for the 'Guns' Category

My9NJ.com:

So let’s forget about the nuances of “assault rifles” having three features (intermediate cartridge, mild recoil and selective fire).  And let’s remember that the phrase “assault weapon” is a fabricated bastard created by the gun control lobby for guns that are supposed to look scary.

How, pray tell, does a Japanese bolt action rifle become an assault weapon?  Well, I went ahead and did something I had vowed not to do ever since the AP forbid this practice (just out of protest) – I copied the text including the fact that the AP wrote this story.

That’s how.  You let the idiots at the AP write the report.  And by the way, how do I purchase this Japanese bolt action rifle?  It would be a shame to let it go to waste being owned by the collectivists, or just as bad, destroyed.

We’ve seen how the Department of Homeland Security has pressed for biometric identification of American citizens, and how American police have adopted COIN tactics, techniques and procedures in the policing of America, including more than seventy federal agencies.  These are cogs in a larger machine.  In an event that went completed ignored in the Main Stream Media (ignored, not missed), Wikileaks recently released 249 important documents on global intelligence contractors.

Today, Wednesday 4 September 2013 at 1600 UTC, WikiLeaks released ‘Spy Files #3′ – 249 documents from 92 global intelligence contractors. These documents reveal how, as the intelligence world has privatised, US, EU and developing world intelligence agencies have rushed into spending millions on next-generation mass surveillance technology to target communities, groups and whole populations.

WikiLeaks’ publisher Julian Assange stated: “WikiLeaks’ Spy Files #3 is part of our ongoing commitment to shining a light on the secretive mass surveillance industry. This publication doubles the WikiLeaks Spy Files database. The WikiLeaks Spy Files form a valuable resource for journalists and citizens alike, detailing and explaining how secretive state intelligence agencies are merging with the corporate world in their bid to harvest all human electronic communication.”

WikiLeaks’ Counter Intelligence Unit has been tracking the trackers. The WLCIU has collected data on the movements of key players in the surveillance contractor industry, including senior employees of Gamma, Hacking Team and others as they travel through Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brazil, Spain, Mexico and other countries.

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks’ publisher, stated: “The WikiLeaks Counter Intelligence Unit operates to defend WikiLeaks’ assets, staff and sources, and, more broadly, to counter threats against investigative journalism and the public’s right to know.”

Documents in Spy Files #3 include sensitive sales brochures and presentations used to woo state intelligence agencies into buying mass surveillance services and technologies. Spy Files #3 also includes contracts and deployment documents, detailing specifics on how certain systems are installed and operated.

Internet spying technologies now being sold on the intelligence market include detecting encrypted and obfuscated internet usage such as Skype, BitTorrent, VPN, SSH and SSL. The documents reveal how contractors work with intelligence and policing agencies to obtain decryption keys.

The documents also detail bulk interception methods for voice, SMS, MMS, email, fax and satellite phone communications. The released documents also show intelligence contractors selling the ability to analyse web and mobile interceptions in real-time.

Analysis & Commentary

An important reddit comment follows this up.

Would you like to know more?

Revolution in Military Affairs

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_in_Military_Affairs

Former DoD analyst Franklin Spinney

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_C._Spinney

“At the core of the RMA is a radical hypothesis that would cause Sun Tzu, Clausewitz and George Patton to roll over in their graves. That is, that technology will transform the fog and friction of combat – the uncertainty, fear, chaos, imperfect information which is a natural product of a clash between opposing wills – into clear, friction-free, predictable, mechanistic interaction.”

Project for the New American Century

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

In its “Preface”, in highlighted boxes, Rebuilding America’s Defenses states that it aims to:

ESTABLISH FOUR CORE MISSIONS for the U.S. military:

1. Defend the American homeland;
2. Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
3. Perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions;
4. Transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs”;

CONTROL THE NEW “INTERNATIONAL COMMONS” OF SPACE AND “CYBERSPACE”

Section V of Rebuilding America’s Defenses, entitled “Creating Tomorrow’s Dominant Force”, includes the sentence: “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor” (51).[15]

“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities. ”

-Zbigniew Brzezinski, geopolitician, former US National Security Advisor, and member of the Bilderberg Group. Quote lifted from his book “Between Two Ages”

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski

It’s a brave new world that the rulers envision, no doubt.  No more conventional warfare, not even fourth generation warfare since the rulers know what we’re doing, who we are, where we are, what assets we have, to whom we’re connected, and how to stop “trouble-making” before it gets started.  Iraq was a laboratory for stability operations, and the story about the “snake-eaters” using a synthesis of organic intelligence, signals intelligence and smart analysis and finding the bad guys in order to end the insurgency only plays into the hands of the collectivists.  But can it really work like this?

The narrative about the “snake eaters” bringing an end to the campaign in Iraq is greatly overblown.  It was primarily the U.S. Marines who brought stability to the Anbar Province, and it was the hard work of thousands of Soldiers in the balance of Iraq that brought the modicum of success that we had in Iraq, for what end I don’t really know.

The Chicago police department cannot even stop gang violence in their own city, and the Governor is considering the use of National Guard troops to quell the violence.  It won’t work, and I seriously doubt that such troops would even be under arming orders, any more than the National Guard sent to the Southern border were under arming orders.

There is another intersection of this paradigm with collectivist intentions.  In order to find money for redistribution to the masses, they need to gut the military.  Notwithstanding the ongoing debate in our community over a standing army, the point is that the collectivists are going after money, and before they target 401Ks and IRAs, they willl use defense dollars in their designs for control.  It’s easier for them that way.

But this is all well and good for the rulers until the bullets start flying.  Obamacare was and continues to be a big deal.  Confiscation of 401Ks and IRAs might be the event that pushes typical Americans over the edge.  Watching the death of loved ones due to decisions by government death panels (while their wealth goes to funding the medical care of illegal aliens) might be another.

In the end, the hives the government has created (like Chicago) don’t work because they undermine values and the organic family unit.  Whatever the final straw, if the government cannot control violence in the very hives that they’ve created, they certainly can’t accomplish that in suburbia America, where fences, yard dogs and guns every fifty yards would make the hedgerows in Normany look like inviting terrain.

To be sure, the degree of electronic control over Americans makes the situation hard, and the government knows almost everything about us.  But for the Bilderberg group and the elitist rulers, I have a suggestion.  Try a test case in which you announce gun and wealth confiscations, and send one of the many federal policing agencies up Highway 276 in South Carolina, through Marietta, and turn left on Highway 11.  Within a few minutes make a turn to the right towards Jocassee Gorges, and start your confiscations up in those hills.  My bet is that the your vehicles will be blown to smithereens.  If you do make it up the road, it’s likely that they boys with scoped, bolt action hunting rifles will make life very difficult for you.  With all due respect to the tactical trainers (which training is very good and necessary, I’m sure), there won’t be small unit maneuver warfare.  No one will ever see the boys hiding behind the trees.  They won’t go on the run as a lone wolf because you won’t ever know they were involved in anything.  The best planning, the best troops and the best equipment couldn’t handle an insurgency in America – if one ever develops.

Or try to do confiscations in Murphy, North Carolina, or any one of a multitude of places in Idaho or Montana.  To be reminded of the value of a good rifleman, I strongly recommend an article in the most recent American Rifleman magazine (October 2013).  Sometimes this publication becomes annoying with its advertizing and product reviews.  But occasionally the magazine crafts a winner, and this one is meets the criteria.

The article is entitled “Where will we bury them all?,” and in my paper copy it begins on page 95.  It’s the story about the communist invasion of Finnland in 1939, and the value of basic combat rifles and good fieldcraft.  It summarizes:

The winter war proved a costly victory for the Soviets.  The Red Army lost approximately 126,875 dead or missing, 264,908 wounded and appriximately 5,600 captured.  In addition, they lost about 2,268 armored vehicles.  The Finns suffered greatly to preserve their freedom.  In the four months of combat, Finnish losses numbered approximately 26,662 dead and more than 39,000 wounded.  A tiny nation of riflemen had held off the communist Red giant.

It would be easy to conclude that the 50% of America which is still working is on a direct collision course with the elitist rulers.  It would be just as easy for the collectivists to conclude that biometrics, numbers, cards, decryption, cameras and aggressive policing will enable their designs.  The former conclusion seems more likely every day.  The later conclusion seems dangerous for the collectivists.

Of course, everything in this article is for educational purposes only.

Concerning the recent shooting in Chicago:

The perpetrators of a late-night attack in a southwest Chicago park in which 13 people were wounded, including a three-year-old, used an assault-style weapon to spray the crowd with bullets, making it “a miracle” no one was killed, the city’s police superintendent said on Friday.

Ballistics evidence shows that those behind Thursday night’s attack used a 7.62mm rifle fed by a high-capacity magazine, police superintendent Garry McCarthy told reporters. That type of weapon, McCarthy said, belongs on a “battlefield, not on the street or a corner or a park in the Back of the Yards”, the neighborhood where the shooting took place.

“It’s a miracle in this instance that there have been no fatalities based upon the lethality of the weapon used at the scene,” McCarthy said, calling on lawmakers to restrict the sale of such weapons and choke off the flow of illegal guns into the city.

Bah.  Ballistics evidence can’t demonstrate one way or another whether the gun had a high-capacity magazine, and a .308 shot from distance using a high powered scope and bolt action rifle would have proven to be more lethal.

But the chief of police has some words of wisdom for us.

“Illegal guns, illegal guns. Illegal guns drive violence.”

Strange, that.  I thought they said it was gang related violence?  The mere fact that there are guns around “drives” violence, we are led to believe.  I have a physician friend who went on a mission trip to Haiti a couple of years ago, and other than Scabies (which he was unprepared to treat because he didn’t carry the medications for it), the most common injury or sickness with which he dealt was machete wounds – deep wounds.  The gangs walk around taking things from people and swinging machetes.

Machetes, hammers, baseball bats, and in the Far East, acid thrown in the eyes of victims (according to one close friend who spent several years in Hong Kong).  Things don’t drive violence.  Evil in the heart of mankind drives violence.  You can’t ameliorate evil by banning guns.  You can only be prepared to deal with it when it happens.

I wondered how long it would take for a progressive company like Starbucks to worry enough over branding that they caved on open carry of weapons inside their business establishments that they reverse their policy.

For three years, Starbucks (SBUX) has felt the ardent love of gun-rights activists as the coffee chain tolerated customers who openly packed heat. No more.

Starbucks Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz tells Bloomberg Businessweek that firearms and cappuccino don’t mix. Beginning today, the ubiquitous caffeine bars “respectfully request” that gun owners leave their weapons in their cars or at home, Schultz says. “We’re not pro-gun or anti-gun,” he explains. The chain simply wants no part of the escalating debate over the Second Amendment and the place of firearms in American society.

In an open letter released today, Schultz wrote:

“Pro-gun activists have used our stores as a political stage for media events misleadingly called ‘Starbucks Appreciation Days’ that disingenuously portray Starbucks as a champion of ‘open carry.’ … To be clear: we do not want these events in our stores. Some anti-gun activists have also played a role in ratcheting up the rhetoric and friction, including soliciting and confronting our customers and partners. For these reasons, today we are respectfully requesting that customers no longer bring firearms into our stores or outdoor seating areas—even in states where ‘open carry’ is permitted—unless they are identified law enforcement personnel.”

Since 2010, gun owners in California and other states have shown up en masse and conspicuously armed for Starbucks Appreciation Days meant to promote the open carrying of firearms in the majority of states where the practice is legal. Acrimony over the guns-and-coffee demonstrations peaked in August in Newtown, the Connecticut community that was the site of the December 2012 elementary school massacre. Some residents of the town were so upset by the prospect of a pro-gun rally that the Seattle-based coffee company closed its Newtown store early on the afternoon of Aug. 9.

Under assault from gun-control proponents last month, the chain defended its previous policy. “Our longstanding approach to the open-carry debate has been to comply with local laws and statutes in the communities we serve,” a spokesman said at the time. “We continue to encourage customers and advocacy groups from all sides of the debate to share their input with their elected officials, who make the open-carry laws that our company follows.”

I see.  So “the only ones” can still carry weapons and can be trusted to be safe with them.  It’s just everyone else – like you and me – that mustn’t exercise our rights.  Frankly, this is a very, very bad idea.  Starbucks has a right to make the decisions they want, and we must respect their decisions.  Their places of business are private property.  But gun owners are very loyal, and we will make sure that Starbucks doesn’t have the luxury of “staying out of the debate.”  Just ask Smith & Wesson.  If we’ll put the beloved Smith & Wesson out of business, Starbucks is an easy decision for us.  This move is the wrong one, and Starbucks will regret it.

UPDATE: Codrea has a different perspective.

I recently heard an interview with the base commander at the Navy Yard in Washington speak to the issue of how it feels to be defenseless in the face of an active shooter.  What bothered me most was the cavalier way in which he approached the subject.  Twelve people perished today, not including the shooter, and the sad part is that it didn’t have to happen.  David Codrea gives us his initial thoughts on one of the root causes.

… one fact is indisputable. The killer(s) took advantage of a “gun free zone” at not only the facility, but one that extends throughout Washington. D.C.

Security at the center utterly failed at stopping a murderer bent on killing defenseless personnel. And even acknowledging special security conditions at a military installation, in the absence of a special legal relationship the government has no duty to provide protection to people it prevents from protecting themselves, meaning there is no attendant liability should they fail to do so.

“Special security conditions” will never stop a determined shooter, and it didn’t in this case.  The folks are defenseless, and they have been made that way intentionally and with malice of forethought.  It’s the same way in church worship services.

HOLYOKE, Mass. (AP) — Holyoke police are looking for a man they say interrupted a church service and robbed several members of the congregation at gunpoint.

Lt. James Albert says the masked suspect entered the Pentecostal church at about 2 p.m. Sunday, announced the robbery, and took personal items, including cellphones, from several of the roughly 20 worshippers.

The fact that he stole from them rather than killed them is a blessing and a second chance.  They should never voluntarily be in a gun free zone (or a gun free state) if they have any other choice.

But leave it to the progressives to learn the wrong lessons.

Gun enthusiasts say it is inappropriate to talk about gun violence at the time it occurs. Better to wait … and wait … and wait … until time has passed, and the weeping next of kin have vanished from TV, and it’s safe to return to business as usual. The idea of the gun enthusiasts is that the way to show respect for the victims of gun violence is to do everything possible to multiply their number … better mental-health provision would contribute to the reduction of gun massacres. But America’s uniquely grisly record of gun death cannot be addressed without addressing guns.

I don’t know his state of mind, and thus I don’t know if David Frum really believes his propaganda that making guns illegal will stop the perpetration of crimes, or if he’s just too invested in his idiotic notions to turn back now, or if he is a full-orbed totalitarian.  But Frum wants to discuss guns, and wants to do it right now.

Very well.  I’m okay with that.  Here’s a note to Frum.  If you or your ilk ever try to take away my guns, I’ll use them to ensure that you don’t.  There.  I’m glad we had that conversation.  Tell me if you want to talk again.

Fox News:

The recent uproar over armed EPA agents descending on a tiny Alaska mining town is shedding light on the fact that 40 federal agencies – including nearly a dozen typically not associated with law enforcement — have armed divisions.

The agencies employ about 120,000 full-time officers authorized to carry guns and make arrests, according to a June 2012 Justice Department report.

[ … ]

The Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and Park Service are among 24 federal agencies employing more than 250 full-time armed officers with arrest authority, according the federal report, which is based on the 2008 Census of Federal Law Enforcement Officers.

The other 16 agencies have less than 250 officers and include NOAA as well as the Library of Congress, the Federal Reserve Board and the National Institutes of Health.

The number of federal department with armed personnel climbs to 73 when adding in the 33 offices of inspector general, the government watchdogs for agencies as large as the Postal Service to the Government Printing Office, whose IG has only five full-time officers.

The EPA defended its use of armed officers, after the Alaska incident.

“Environmental law enforcement, like other forms of law enforcement, always involves the potential for physical, even armed, confrontation,” the agency said.

It wouldn’t be a problem if the EPA didn’t exist, and most of these federal agencies lack justification for their existence.  Many of them are simply jobs programs for incompetent and inept stooges who cannot find gainful employment any other way.

So do you want to know where this comes from and who started it all, this idea of federal agents being armed?

The assertion of federal power over guns and crime fit perfectly with Franklin D. Rossevelt’s philosophy of using the government to protect ordinary American’s from the hazards of modern society. . . the New Deal was nothing less than a radical retructuring of American government . . . Roosevelt portrayed gun control and crime fighting as simply one more element of the Neweal — indeed, of the new America. . . “As a component part of that larger objective we include our constant struggle against the attacks of the lawless and criminal elements of our own populations.” Because crime drained the economy, federal crime control, we argued, was essential for national recovery.

Roosevelt understood that, like many of his other New Deal reforms, a federal push in the field of guns and crime would face opposition from traditionalists committed to states’ rights. . . The situation required a “New Deal for Crime.” Just as Rossevelt sought to expand the power and reach of the federal government over the economy, he determined to expand its power and reach over criminals and their weapons. The man Roosevelt tapped to to lead the push was his attorney general, Homer Cummings. A bald man with a round face and piercing blue eyes, Cummings was a close confidant of the president. He wasn’t the first person you’d expect to lead a revolution. One of Roosevelt’s speechwriters called Cummings “the least dramatic man in the whole world.” A a three-time former mayor and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, however, Cummings was well versed in politics, and Roosevelt knew he wouldn’t back down in the face of public or political opposition. . .

Cummings realized that he needed troops to wage war — in this case, a truly effective federal police force. The Justice Department aqlready had what passed for law enforcement agents in the Bureau of Prohibition and the Bureau of Investigation. Yet the former was being disbanded in the wake of the legalization of liquor and the latter was an underfunded agency devoted mainly to information gathering. The agencies were also hamstrung by the states’ rights tradition. Because policing was a state function, federal agents didn’t have the power to arrest people and weren’t allowed to carry guns. Soldiers in a war on crime couldn’t be effective armed with only notepads. . . Cummings lobbied for a significant reorganization of the Bureau of Investigation . . . Two years later, Cummings had the agency itself renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to emphasize the new role of the federal government in fighting crime . . .

Thanks to Mike Vanderboegh for the education on Roosevelt.  A progressive isn’t just a statist and totalitarian concerning your money.  He wants you guns too.  And as for starting all of this, Roosevelt was one in a long line of wicked rulers.

The Bible does contain a few direct references to weapons control. There were many times throughout Israel’s history that it rebelled against God (in fact, it happened all the time). To mock His people back into submission to His Law, the Lord would often use wicked neighbors to punish Israel’s rebellion. Most notable were the Philistines and the Babylonians. 1 Samuel 13:19-22 relates the story: “Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, “Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears!” So all Israel went down to the Philistines to have their plowshares, mattocks, axes, and sickles sharpened…So on the day of battle not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in this hand; only Saul and his son Jonathan had them.” Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon also removed all of the craftsmen from Israel during the Babylonian captivity (2 Kings 24:14). Both of these administrations were considered exceedingly wicked including their acts of weapons control.

There is nothing new under the sun, and totalitarianism is always wicked at all times in history, regardless of the particular administration or form of it, and in spite of the claims to good will by the rulers.

Eugene Volokh has a post up entitled Illinois Supreme Court: Second Amendment Protects Carrying Outside The Home, where he discusses the recent subject ruling.

From today’s unanimous decision in People v. Aguilar (Ill. Sept. 12, 2013):

As the Seventh Circuit correctly noted, neither Heller nor McDonald expressly limits the second amendment’s protections to the home. On the contrary, both decisions contain language strongly suggesting if not outright confirming that the second amendment right to keep and bear arms extends beyond the home. Moreover, if Heller means what it says, and “individual self-defense” is indeed “the central component” of the second amendment right to keep and bear arms, then it would make little sense to restrict that right to the home, as “[c]onfrontations are not limited to the home.” Indeed, Heller itself recognizes as much when it states that “the right to have arms *** was by the time of the founding understood to be an individual right protecting against both public and private violence.”

I think the result is correct, because Heller‘s reasoning does indeed apply to carrying for self-defense in most public places, and not just in the home. Indeed, Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago had no occasion to squarely confront this question, because they dealt with total handgun bans, including on home possession. Heller does speak of “the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home,” and stresses that the D.C. handgun ban extends “to the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 635, 629. And Heller also holds that bans on concealed carry in public are constitutional, because of the long tradition (dating back to the early 1800s) of such prohibitions.

Eugene goes on to discuss what he sees as a technical error in the ruling, albeit not determinative, i.e., he still believes it’s the correct result.

I have exchanged e-mail with him on Georgia case concerning guns in churches / schools.  Eugene is a very smart guy.  But on this issue I disagree.  No, not that the Illinois Supreme Court ruled rightly, but how they got to it.

Read again.  And read Eugene’s analysis again.  They both presuppose that to answer the question of whether carrying outside the home should be legal, they must turn to a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

We’ve discussed this before.  The Bill of Rights doesn’t grant us rights.  It circumscribes the power of the federal government so that they cannot infringe in those specific areas.  If you want to learn whether carry is protected in Illinois, turn to the Illinois state constitution, article 1 section 22.

It is a late addition to the constitution, but better late than never.  Folks, the notion that the founding fathers would have turned to a federal document to understand or delineate their rights is preposterous.  We have given the centralized government too much authority, too much legitimacy, and too much power.

We needn’t turn to the federal government, even when we get the answer we like.  We have rights because those rights were granted by God and recognized by our local and state covenants, not because the U.S. constitution says so.  And it should be embarrassing that the Illinois Supreme Court had to turn to Heller to make their decision.  Embarrassing.  Do they have a mind of their own, and aren’t they supposed to be deciding cases concerning Illinois?

Concerning the Colorado recall:

In an emotional concession speech, Mr. Morse called the loss of his seat “purely symbolic” and defended the record of the last legislative session as “phenomenal.”

“We made Colorado safer from gun violence,” he said afterward, as his supporters trickled away from a hotel ballroom here in his district. “If it cost me my political  career, that’s a small price to pay.”

[ … ]

Mr. Morse’s hand was on the tiller during much of that debate. A former police chief, he said he found himself in a position of not just rounding up votes, but actually explaining the mechanics of guns to fellow Democrats. He brought a magazine to show his colleagues how it worked. In an emotional speech in March, as the debate reached its peak, Mr. Morse stood on the Senate floor and spoke of gun violence and “cleansing a sickness from our souls.”

I had followed the Colorado recall elections for the simple reason that some of my readers forced me to.  But this is the first time that I have seen the theological undertones in the debates.  Now, take note how people like me, conservative Christians, are repeatedly mocked in the national discourse.  Trotting out our religion, we always are.  Forcing it on other people.  It’s incorrigible – they cannot help but mock us.

While it’s true that I do see theological issues surrounding the right and duty of self defense, it is Morse who forced his views into the law-making proces.  I never demanded the freedom to do such a thing.  For instance, while I see the historical and interpretive value of knowing that colonial citizens were required to own weapons, I do not support such a thing today.

Note his language.  He believes that his actions were “cleansing a sickness from our souls,” and he is willing to sacrifice himself in a vicarious sort of way in order to effect this redemption.  Good grief.  Morse thinks he is Jesus.

I thank God that I have been spared such theological confusion (does that make me sound like a Pharisee?).  If I ever declare myself to be Jesus, I think my astute readers will hold me accountable.

UPDATE: David Codrea doubts that anyone else wants to be Jesus.

While the successful recall will not be enough to shift the legislative balance of power in Colorado, it will no doubt show activists there and elsewhere what is possible when they apply themselves, and give a boost of confidence to retry recalls in efforts where not enough signatures were gathered, or to start new efforts where success seems possible. And it will no doubt energize gun owners to participate in the next election … Fear of that unpleasantness may be enough to rein in legislators seeing gun owners realizing a newly-discovered power. At the very least, recall actions can cause anti-gun politicians and their patrons to use up their resources defensively, as opposed to launching new aggressive campaigns against gun ownership …

Yes.  This is a battlefield victory.  But there are more battles to fight.  We’re just beginning.

Or so they say:

A study by the U.S. Forest Service has concluded rifle ammunition may be to blame for wildfires across the west.

The Forest Service commissioned a research team based in Montana to investigate the link between fires and rifle ammunition, after several reports cited Utah wildfires caused by bullets during 2012.

The study started last year with the first test run in September. Scientists tested 16 different bullets composed of steel, copper and lead, totaling 469 rounds fired.

“We designed an apparatus that consisted of a steel deflector plate and a box at the bottom called a ‘collector box’ that we could fill with various materials that could be tested for ignition,” said research forester Mark Finney.

They found once certain bullets fragmented, they would ignite the moss in the collector box.

“The bullet by itself isn’t very hot until it strikes something very solid,” Finney said. “The process of deforming it….is what heats it up.”

Finney said this test is the first to provide proof rifle ammunition could be the cause of fires. So far, the team has only tested bullets in a controlled environment, which emulated dry conditions.

7NEWS Reporter Lindsey Sablan asked Finney if the research being done may one day have an affect on shooters on federal land. Finney said he was not responsible for policy change but said “I would hope people would just consider ignitions from target shootings as one possibility to watch out for.”

In June of this summer, the Bureau of Land Management in Utah banned “steel-core or steel-jacketed bullets” along with exploding targets and tracer bullets. Colorado BLM Director of Communications Steven Hall said they “certainly took a look at it.” He went on to say they chose not to impose an outright ban this summer because, “we have different situation and conditions in Colorado.”

The full report is found here.  It seems to me that they focused very heavily on steel core ammunition, which most shooters don’t shoot down the barrels of finer weapons (I understand the Eastern Bloc ammunition shot from Mosin Nagants is different, and I also know that we can purchase green tip ammunition for AR-15s, which I wouldn’t shoot for target practice anyway).

Nonetheless, I read some of the report, but I noticed that of the four authors, not a single one is a registered professional engineer, and so the work lacks a PE seal.  Thus, I see no reason whatsoever to read any further or lend any credibility to the report.

You can do with it what you want.

Lily Tang Williams writing at National Review has a must read column entitled Guns Against Tyranny.  It has become almost amusing to watch as the collectivists hyperventilate over claims that we make about right to guns having nothing to do with hunting, and everything to do with ameliorating tyranny.  But what Ms. Williams has to say is sobering and gives existential and emotional import to what is for us sometimes all about doctrine.

I was born in Chengdu, China. When I was growing up, the Communist Party controlled everything. There were no choices of any sort. We were all poor except the elite. The local government rationed everything from pork to rice, sugar, and flour because there were not enough supplies. We were allowed only a kilogram of pork per month for our family of five. We lived in two rooms, without heat in the winter. I got impetigo during the cold, humid winters. There were eight families living around our courtyard, and we all had to share one bathroom (a hole in the ground) for males, one for females. We had only government-run medical clinics, where the conditions were filthy and services were horrible. I was afraid of going there because I might get some other infectious diseases.

As children, we were brainwashed in school every day. We chanted daily: “Long Live Chairman Mao, Long Live the Communist Party.” I loved Chairman Mao. I was so brainwashed that I could see Chairman Mao in the clouds and fire. He was like a god to me. The powerful government watched us very closely, from the Beijing central government to our Communist block committees and local police stations. We had no rights, even though our constitution said we did.

It was frightening that local police could stop by our home to pound on the doors at night and search us for no good reason. People were arrested without court papers and locked up for months without trials.

Citizens were not allowed to have any guns or they would be put into prison, or worse. Chinese people were helpless when they needed to defend themselves. I grew up with fear, like millions of other children — fear that the police would pound on our doors at night and take my loved ones away, fear that bad guys would come to rob us. Sometimes I could not sleep from hearing the screaming people outside.

There were many stories of local people defending themselves with kitchen knives and sticks. Women were even more helpless when they were attacked and raped. I was molested as a college student once while walking home at night. It was common then.

When it came to dealing with the Chinese government and police brutality, there was nothing we could do. They had guns, while law-abiding citizens did not.

And thus does it go in collectivist hives where the government controls even your right to self defense.  The power brokers couldn’t care less whether the people can ensure their safety – they care merely about subjugation of the common people under the yoke of bondage.  Ms. Williams eventually made it to the U.S., and has this important observation.

I tried so hard to come to the U.S. for personal freedom, including the freedom guaranteed by the Second Amendment: the right to keep and bear arms, which makes me feel like a free person, not a slave. I felt empowered when I finally held my own gun. For the first time in my life, I truly knew I was free.

I think the Founding Fathers of this country were very wise. They put that in the Constitution because they knew that a government could become either powerful or weak and that the citizens’ last defense is the ability to bear arms to protect themselves against tyranny and criminals. The guns are not just for sports, hunting, and collecting; it is our fundamental right to bear arms and use them for our self-defense.

Having previously lived under a tyranny, it seems clear to me that the U.S. government is going to try to infringe my Second Amendment right. What happened in China could happen in America. If the government can tell us what arms to bear, where to bear them, and how many shots you need to use to defend yourself, we might just become slaves.

It’s already happened, Ms. Williams.  And if you haven’t noticed, at any time your local police department – or any of a multitude of federal departments – could send in a SWAT team on a misguided mission, destroy your home, kill your beasts in front of you, endanger your family and even kill members of your family, and no court in the land will hold them accountable for so much as the misdemeanor of littering.  We are already headed down the path about which you warn because they don’t care about the Fourth Amendment.

And that’s what makes the Second Amendment so important, no?  And it means that eventually we must be willing to act on our own behalves because they won’t.