Survival Blog, quoting Bastiat.

Again, it is claimed that persons are nothing but raw material. It is not for them to will their own improvement; they are incapable of it. According to Saint-Just, only the legislator is capable of doing this. Persons are merely to be what the legislator wills them to be. According to Robespierre, who copies Rousseau literally, the legislator begins by decreeing the end for which the commonwealth has come into being. Once this is determined, the government has only to direct the physical and moral forces of the nation toward that end. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the nation are to remain completely passive. And according to the teachings of Billaud- Varennes, the people should have no prejudices, no affections, and no desires except those authorized by the legislator. He even goes so far as to say that the inflexible austerity of one man is the foundation of a republic.

In cases where the alleged evil is so great that ordinary governmental procedures cannot cure it, Mably recommends a dictatorship to promote virtue: “Resort,” he says, “to an extraordinary tribunal with considerable powers for a short time. The imagination of the citizens needs to be struck a hard blow.” This doctrine has not been forgotten. Listen to Robespierre:

“The principle of the republican government is virtue, and the means required to establish virtue is terror. In our country we desire to substitute morality for selfishness, honesty for honor, principles for customs, duties for manners, the empire of reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for contempt of poverty, pride for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity, love of glory for love of money, good people for good companions, merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for glitter, the charm of happiness for the boredom of pleasure, the greatness of man for the littleness of the great, a generous, strong, happy people for a good-natured, frivolous, degraded people; in short, we desire to substitute all the virtues and miracles of a republic for all the vices and absurdities of a monarchy.”

Collectivists know more than you.  They’re more virtuous than you.  They know what is best for you.  You are just the raw material for social engineering projects to achieve utopia, as defined by them, of course.

Learn your place, peasants.

There’s been a lot of serious water over the dam this week.  It’s time to unwind with one of the best young guitarists in America.  In concert at the Muddy Creek Music Hall in Winston Salem, North Carolina on June 4, 2017.

Hoplite Armor.

My name is Lyman Bishop. I’m the Founder and CEO of Hoplite Armor, as well as the engineer responsible for the design and development of all our custom armor solutions. I’m also the man responsible for posting various things online that have recently offended a lot of police officers.

First let me say I am not anti police as many would have you believe, but rather I put the the American people first in every circumstance. I believe in the United States Constitution and as such I recognize that it is We the People who are, or should be, in full control of this nation. If We the People take issue with our government or law enforcement, it is our right, even our sacred duty, to speak out boldly and without concern for the consequences brought on by would be tyrants.

Over the last few days I have been slandered, lied about, conspired against and even threatened with physical harm, by police officers, for speaking out against the events in Florida where police opened fire on 2 criminals in stand still traffic using civilian vehicles as human shields, resulting in the Deaths of 2 innocent people; UPS driver Frank Ordonez and Family Man Richard Cutshaw.

The idea that such a thing could happen on US soil is almost beyond belief, but what’s worse is the position of many of those in law enforcement who show no remorse and target those of us who speak out.

Whenever the people stand up against police misconduct we are told to mind our own business, to stay in our lane or that we are Monday Morning Quarterbacks. We are told that unless we have done the job ourselves we have no right to speak out. This is heresy! We the People have every right to speak up against anything that takes place in this country, or for that matter, anything on the planet. Make no mistake, this event will prove to be the defining moment where people take sides. Youre either a free citizen of the United States or a slave to the tyranny closing in around us.

We the People are the single most powerful and influential group of people in human history. We are better educated, and better armed than any group of people that has ever existed and the world would be wise not to stand in our way. That includes our so called authorities here at home.

For too long we have sat idly by and allowed our nation to be picked apart by vultures. Now is the time to stand up and be counted. For years I have felt called by God to run for Governor of Montana, in order to safeguard the rights of the people but I had to wait for the right time. That time has finally come, and I would encourage all of you who are like minded to do the same in your states. What office you seek is unimportant. Only that you get involved and fight for the people. Its time we take back our country and our rightful place in the world.

My position is simple, the rights of the people shall not be infringed. If I am elected we will have constitutional carry for every law abiding citizen on day one. I will also nullify the National Firearms Act. The very thought that our rights should be held hostage, subject to bureaucratic paperwork and fees is an abomination to our traditions and our culture of freedom and individual liberties.

Where we go from here is not up to me. I will leave it to you, the People, to decide our fate, but I can promise you one thing. There are NO other candidates, in Montana or anywhere else, that are willing to draw a line in the sand and put themselves in between you and tyranny like I will.

God bless America

Lyman Bishop

Mr. Bishop is the author of this, linked (embedded) by me earlier (I wish I had known who to credit, but didn’t).

That thin blue line, you know.  Those cops who would threaten this man are ensuring that the people hate them and see them as the enemy.  Those are the unintended consequences of failing to police your own people.

Remember.  These cops used citizens as human shields during this brief skirmish.  Let that sink in.

Let something else sink in if you’re one of the cops who threatened Mr. Bishop.  He isn’t your problem – we are.  His work was linked (embedded) by me.  Get angry at me.  Threaten me, so I can turn your ass in.  Make a comment below so I’ll know your IP address.

And if you want to give Mr. Bishop some of your business, here is his web site.

Via WRSA.

Necessary viewing.  I’m delighted to see Matt use our Ralph “Kill The Babies Give Me All Your Guns” meme, three times.

Matt is also concerned about a false flag event, as am I.  I’ve already told you, and have made it ready for linking and reference.

I recently said something about the benefit of a MSR that can double as a hunting firearm and a self defense gun in the bush, i.e., 0 – 150 yards.  While multipurpose tools can suffer from not doing anything well, a legitimate multipurpose tool that can do more than one thing well is a good thing.

Hunters are buying straight-wall guns 50:1 over slug guns for deer.  Here’s a quick rundown of the recoil energy associated with these new cartridges.

Designed and developed by Winchester, the 350 Legend is the first new introduction to the market aimed specifically at straight-walled hunting regulations. The company unveiled the new round at the 2019 SHOT show and currently offers it in Deer Season XP, Power Max Bonded, and many others. Winchester has also chambered their XPR line of bolt-action rifles for the cartridge, and other major gun manufacturers are producing rifles for it as well.

The plus side of this cartridge is that recoil is pretty mild, so it’s a good choice for shooters who need to take recoil into consideration. The Winchester 150-grain Deer Season XP generates 8.52 foot-pounds of recoil in a 7-pound rifle. By comparison, a 250-grain .450 Bushmaster factory load generates 22.99 foot-pounds of recoil, and a full-power 12-gauge slug generates 45 foot-pounds.

By contrast, the .223 generates around 5-6, and the 30-30 (which I recall as mild enough to enjoy shooting a lot thus lending to good practice and accuracy) is 8-10.  So the 350 Legend is around the same as the 30-30, not much more than the .223, less than half of the .450 Bushmaster, and 19% of a 12 gauge.

Any of these choices would be fine within 150 – (maybe) 200 yards for either hunting or self defense.  The 12 gauge would be less accurate than any of them.

This might be good perspective for your next selection(s).  I wouldn’t call myself “recoil sensitive,” having shot a lot of different rounds, but I like reduced recoil to ensure a pleasurable experience.  If that happens, I’ll shoot more and be better at it.

NY Post.

Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro has a new national goal: He’s going to expand his massive private army to 4 million gunmen by the end of 2020. Another triumph of socialism!

And never mind that the policies of Maduro and his late predecessor, Hugo Chávez, have brought the nation to ruin, with all but the rulers and their clients facing slow starvation and “health care” without any medicine. Well over a tenth the population has fled, with more leaving all the time.

Sadly, the opposition — including Juan Guaidó, the legitimate president recognized by most of the world’s democratic countries — is powerless, not least because the regime confiscated all private firearms back in 2012.

Exempted from the ban: the regime’s “Bolivarian Militias” — modern-day brownshirts who have done much of the work of crushing protests for years now.

The government says their ranks now number 3.3 million, so Maduro’s 4 million goal seems all too reachable.

All around the world, earnest fans of socialism insist it has never failed, as critics claim, since “true socialism has never really been tried.” Maduro is showing that the sure way to make it “succeed” is for the self-proclaimed socialists to have all the guns.

All controllers want all of the guns, all of the time, and in every situation.  It’s what they do, it’s how they survive.

What an odd thing to see this in the New York Post, in which I’ve seen anti-2A commentary before.

Via Virginia reporter Mack, this bit of interesting analysis.

This is all a pregnant bit of prose and requires some unpacking.  Richard Schragger, a law professor at the University of Virginia, has misled the reporter and the readers.  It’s all quite a bit more complicated than that, and he knows it.

His analysis is similar in import to the one today by a member of the Virginia legislature, David Toscano, written at Slate.

Conservatives have railed for years against so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, criticizing localities that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration policies they deem heartless and ineffective. In the past year, however, some conservative lawmakers have taken a page from the progressive playbook, employing sanctuary imagery in opposition to gun safety legislation they deem to be an unconstitutional restriction of their rights under the Second Amendment.

The two approaches are classic cases of false equivalency. Jurisdictions that proclaim themselves sanctuaries for immigrants do not seek to violate the law; they simply refuse to engage local law enforcement in supporting actions that are federal responsibilities. They do not block the law, but simply insist that it should be enforced by those who have the responsibility to do so. For some proponents of so-called gun sanctuaries, however, the goal is to prevent enforcement of state law that the jurisdiction (not a court) deems unconstitutional.

Oh.  Is that the way it works?  Well then.  I guess Reuters is wrong to point out that “Sanctuary cities are those where local officials decline to hand over illegal immigrants for deportation.”  Yes, in fact, that’s exactly what an illegal alien sanctuary city is.

Professor Schragger, a little digging shows, absolutely hates preemption (this link also works).  You see, he wants cities and towns to be able to levy taxes, impose regulations and do all sorts of things not granted authority by the state.  He calls preemption an “an attack on American cities.”  As long as the tilt is towards more and more regulation, he’s okay with it all.  If cities seek to ignore state law, he’s not.

So by attempting to pose a quick defeater argument for the equivalence between illegal alien sanctuary cities and 2A cities and counties, both authors have introduced more problems to deal with.  The most significant illegal alien sanctuary city case Trump has won merely allowed the FedGov to “give preferential treatment in awarding community policing grants to cities that cooperate with immigration authorities.”  That’s it.  That’s the sum total of the judicial victory.

So what Toscano and Schragger have done is pose a defeater, and hope that you didn’t dig to find the details enough to see that their argument fails, and does so miserably.  Their attempt at defeating the “false equivalence” ends up showing the similarity, and yet they still dislike state attempts at preemption on illegal alien sanctuaries, and like it for 2A sanctuaries.

They’ve done nothing more than restate their own axiomatic irreducibles, or presuppositions.  They both bias towards so-called progressive views, while denying the right of others to invoke those same tools for their own uses.  But the law is the result of these philosophic pre-commitments, not the source of them.  Philosophic pre-commitments come first, not last.  The law comes last, not first.

We do the very same thing, recognizing that our own pre-commitments are not theirs.  The fundamental divide has nothing to do with the law, per se.  It has to do with the polarization of America, which not just continues unabated, but is accelerating.  We dislike preemption when it comes to preservation of our 2A rights, and like it when it comes to illegal alien sanctuary cities.  These views have to do with preservation of certain God-given rights, tendency in the Latino voters to undermine those rights, and other issues too involved to fisk at the moment.

Again, philosophic pre-commitments govern the outcome of the debate, not the law, the law being the result of the debate.  That’s why judge-shopping is so in vogue with the progressives.  Philosophic pre-commitments can change your view of everything, not least of which is how mankind should be governed.

But that doesn’t end the issues with the analysis above.  Professor Schragger has oversimplified the issue when he discusses failing to remove weapons from a citizen and that weapon being used in a crime, leading to culpability and liability by the LEO.  Does the professor think that LEOs are going to log in weapons owners, along with the respective serial numbers of all firearms, make permanent records searchable by NICS or some other means (i.e., a registry), and make them available for future use by law enforcement?  Form 4473 isn’t a registration, and firearms can be sold to others in person-to-person transfers.  Having your information on Form 4473 proves nothing concerning present ownership of a firearm.  What tool does professor Schragger think will be used for this draconian scheme of culpability?  He posits all sorts of wet dreams for controllers, but has no idea how this all functions in real time and space.

Piling problem on top of problem, professor Schragger knows, or at least he should know, that LEOs bear no responsibility whatsoever for the protection of the public.  We’ve seen that from the doctrines established in Castle Rock versus Gonzalez and Warren versus the District of Columbia.  No LEO will stand trial for failing to confiscate a weapon because of it being used later in a crime.  That’s a preposterous notion, a sophomoric pretension suitable only for scare-tactics.

As to the extent of efficacy of these ordinances and resolutions, that’s an open question and both of the authors know it.  Sheriffs may lose their nerve, individuals may not find support among neighbors, and militias may fall apart.  My bet is against this.

Sheriffs may arrest state agents for enforcing new gun control laws.  Sheriffs can be thrown out of office and new ones elected.  Militias may end up forming road blocks and preventing state agents from enforcing any new laws.  Firearms will be purchased across state lines and from person-to-person.  Existing firearms will not go away, and most assuredly will never be registered in a state registry.  The compliance rate for these kinds of laws in New York and Connecticut was virtually non-existent, and Virginia isn’t Connecticut.

What I’m certain of, however, is that state agents and politicians of Virginia have absolutely no idea what’s coming, and presume the wrong things about the people of Virginia.  Pollyanna analyses like that from professor Schragger are misleading, and a much better gauge of what this will look like is knowing the people of Virginia.

In summary, 2A ordinances and resolutions have exactly as much teeth as the people of Virginia and their willingness to oppose new laws – not one ounce more, and not one ounce less, the professor and the politician notwithstanding.

Via David Codrea, the city of Chesapeake.

One quick comment about this article.  “One Chesapeake high school student said residents did not need to use AR-15 assault rifles to protect themselves, drawing some boos from the crowd.”

I told you before, and will reiterate here.  This isn’t about bolt action hunting rifles or the danger deer and feral hogs pose.  This meeting included robust defense of AR-15s and similar firearms.  Virginians won’t give them up, and they won’t register them.  I know the people of Virginia.

More pictures from Chesapeake.

Prince William County.

Via Ammoland, Bedford County.

As readers in Virginia gain intel, send our way as you see fit.

Looks like they do.

I like the Langdon 1301 tactical shotgun, and had never seen one before.  Is this a competitor for the Benelli M4 and Mossberg 930?