News from New Mexico:

ALBUQUERQUE – A nonprofit that pushes for gun-control laws nationwide sent letters Wednesday to numerous New Mexico sheriffs, asking them to provide records related to their coordinated stance against gun-control laws that they do not plan to enforce.

The Brady Center, a Washington, D.C.-based organization, said it requested emails from the sheriffs under the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act, with demands for emailed communication among sheriffs and gun-lobby representatives.

Attorney Jonathan Lowy of the Brady Center said his group is seeking the emails to learn “what possible basis” the sheriffs have for declaring they won’t enforce the laws. Brady also wants to obtain any communication the law enforcement officials had with the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups.

I’d be nice to tell them to blow it out of their collective asses, but since it comes with a requirement by law, the Sheriffs are answering.

But I can answer for them.  Concerning “what possible basis,” it violates the constitution.  There, I’m glad I could be of assistance.  Now, go back to your worship of Baal, you pagans.

Dear Cecile,

I notice that the link you provide to notify the New Zealand Police that I intend to turn in my firearms doesn’t allow me to enter any information.  That sucks.  I’m absolutely livid about this.

I’ve decided to turn in some firearms.  Actually, I need to be more precise.  I have 8616 firearms, and by my calculations this is somewhere on the order of a $10 million collection.

I’ve had a talk with God about this, and after that talk I’ve decided to turn in one, leaving me with 8615 firearms.  I know what you’re thinking?  Why would he turn in just one?

Well, the specific firearm I intend to relinquish is an XM556 Microgun.  I’m sick and fed up listening to my wife complain about all of the ammunition sitting around.  Also, the floors of my house are beginning to sag from all of the weight.  Every … single … room.  Finding a place to put it all has been a bitch.

This has turned into a $10,000 per week habit.  I know you think I need an intervention, Cecile, but you’re too late.  I’ve conducted my own intervention, and I’ve decided to break the habit.  It’ll be hard, and I need your prayers.

So please, please inform the New Zealand Police that I intend to turn in my 5.56mm Gatling gun.  In fact, please also forward this post to your contacts in the New Zealand Police.  I thought I’d drop it in UPS, and within a week or so it should show up on their doorstep.  Or if you’d like, I can send it to you for safe keeping.  Be careful, though.  It’s addictive.

Yours very truly.

ps: I decry and herewith denounce the troll who said he had nuclear weapons he wanted to turn in.  I would never do something like that.

Commenter meep:

Look at all the paid anti NRA posters. You either are with us gun owners or against us. If you cant keep your mouth shut about the NRA you are no better than the gun grabbers

Hmm … keep my mouth shut.  But wouldn’t that run contrary to having a blog in the first place?

Hey, wait.  You mean I could have been making money all of this time?  If I’m no better than a gun-grabber, at least I could get paid for it.

Reason:

Chandler, Arizona, cops broke through the door of a family’s home in the middle of the night, stormed in, pointed their guns, handcuffed the father, and watched as the state’s Department of Child Safety (DCS) took custody of the parents’ three kids—all because mom had decided her toddler’s fever was not serious enough to merit a trip to the hospital.

It was dinnertime on February 25 when the pregnant mother took her 2-year-old to the doctor with a fever of over 100. The doctor told her to take him to the emergency room, fearing that because the boy was unvaccinated, perhaps he had meningitis—a life-threatening disease.

The doctor called the hospital to alert them. But by the time the mother and child left his office, the boy was “laughing and playing with his siblings,” according to this excellent piece by Dianna M. Nanez in The Arizona Republic. Mom took his temperature again, and it was almost normal. So instead of going to the emergency room, the family went home. The mom called the doctor to say her boy’s fever had broken and she wasn’t going to the emergency room. The doctor told her she should go anyway, so she agreed she would—but then she didn’t.

That’s when the madness began.

The hospital called the doctor to tell him the toddler hadn’t arrived. The doctor called DCS. And DCS requested the cops check on the family as a caseworker headed over.

And then, according to The Arizona Republic:

It was after 1 a.m. when officers kicked down the family’s door. One officer carried a shield, while another was described as having “lethal coverage.” Officers pointing guns yelled, “Chandler Police Department,” and entered the house.

The rest of the story is equally nuts. The kids were all placed in separate foster homes.

As I’ve said before:

I can discern where you stand by asking you two questions: [1] Who owns children, and [2] To whom have they been given for governance and training?

My answers are simple: [1] God, and [2] Parents.  If you believe that parents own children, you believe in slavery and you deny God’s ownership of all of His creatures.  You own your dog, not your children.  If you believe that anyone but the parents have been given responsibility for governance and oversight, teaching, training, love, discipline, correction and rebuke, you are a communist.

Thus, the state is run by communists. They think that rather the parents being granted sole responsibility for the moral and physical well-being of their children, the state owns them.

That’s wicked.  Busting into this home was wicked.  Pointing guns at people in a home is wicked.  Separating those children and putting them into a foster home was wicked.

There is no excuse.

The Washington Post:

New Zealand’s gun lobby shares many of its goals with the United States’ National Rifle Association, the world’s biggest gun lobby organization, which supports aligned politicians financially and uses social media to attack its opponents. Some of the NRA’s frequent arguments may also apply in New Zealand, with an estimated quarter of a million gun owners in a country of only 5 million people.

[ … ]

But unlike the NRA, New Zealand’s interest groups have predominantly lobbied the government quietly, rather than threatening politicians with the scorn of their powerful voter base. The perceived silence of those lobbying organizations led to some calls from gun enthusiasts for a bolder and more vocal stance. New Zealand’s gun lobbies were probably well aware, however, that they are not the NRA and never will be, despite the aspirations of some of their members.

The country’s lobby mainly represents a core of rural supporters, whereas more than 86 percent of New Zealanders now live in urban areas and form a largely liberal majority. In the United States, the ratio of citizens living in urban areas is slightly lower. More important, however, the U.S. system of representation and the way congressional districts are drawn increase the significance of rural Republican voters disproportionately. That helps explain why the NRA can pressure politicians into following its demands, even though NRA supporters account for only a fraction of all U.S. voters.

[ … ]

“Our form of government, with a Senate that gives extraordinary power to rural states over urban states and is deferential to states’ rights, makes it difficult to advance relatively modest gun-control measures, much less more sweeping measures,” said Webster, the gun policy expert.

In contrast, New Zealand’s election system is designed in a way that the number of lawmakers a party has in Parliament is aligned with its share among all votes cast. The mixed member proportional voting system — which is also in place in countries such as Germany — is supposed to prevent small interest groups from being able to gain disproportionate influence over lawmakers. To pass legislation, only a simple majority is needed.

This is what happens when writers who have no knowledge of American culture consult with “gun experts” (i.e., progressive gun controllers) for analysis and perspective (take a quick look at their creds, they’ve likely never set foot in middle America among the “great unwashed masses”).  The entire article turns out to be a joke.  So let’s spend a few minutes fisking this, shall we?

First, we learn this from WiscoDave at Kenny’s place about what is going on in New Zealand.

My brother is a plumber in NZ he said a lot of work sites have come to a grinding halt because they can’t buy PVC pipe. ….he said NZ is basically burying their guns and gun City is running low on stock of semi autos.

It isn’t obvious whether there will be turn-ins, confiscations, or massive non-compliance.  We’ll wait and see.

Next, it’s the bad ole’ electoral system that’s at fault.  It can’t be the millions upon millions of AR-15 owners out there whom the FedGov knows will not comply with such a thing, nor the hundreds of millions of pistol owners who will do the same.  No, it’s the electoral system which is at fault.  Without it, according to the authors, we would have gun control on par with the rest of the world because that’s what people really want.

Third, notice the ubiquitous meme of the evils of the NRA, awful bullies they are, and how they can allegedly turn on their members like a light switch.  What’s not mentioned by these authors is that the NRA is losing membership, but gun owners are hardening their positions while the NRA tries to catch up.

Among educated readers here at TCJ, the NRA is known not as the largest gun rights organization on earth, but as the largest, most well-funded, most well-connected gun control organization on earth, having given cover or impetus for the National Firearms Act, The Gun Control Act of 1968, the bump stock ban and red flag laws popping up all over the nation.  It’s a game they play, you see, where they support gun control, tell their members they need money to fight it, and enrich themselves in the process.  But American gun owners, many of them, are no longer falling for it.  Thus, everyone whose address is known by the NRA is receiving ever more frantic calls for money from Chris and Wayne.  It’s sad, really.

What the authors don’t understand is that gun owners are not a top-down kind of people.  They don’t wait for “leaders” to tell them what to think like the statists do.

And that’s why New Zealand gun control won’t work in America (and may not work in New Zealand either).  It has nothing whatsoever to do with the electoral system, nor the NRA, nor any of the other bits of “wisdom” imparted to these authors by the “gun experts.”

American gun owners won’t comply.  And that’s the end of the story right there.  It’s really rather simple, and I could have boiled this all down to that single sentence.  The authors were probably paid by the word for that story.  In the future, journalism classes should force their students to go live somewhere other than Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Duke or NYU.  They need some perspective from someone other than their Marxist professors.

American gun owners won’t comply because they know the history of people who turn in their guns.  It always means loss of rights, and sometimes it means loss of life (It’s funny how someone who knows a lot more than these two authors, like Dave Kopel, can write such a clear-headed commentary for the very same news organization, The Washington Post, yes?).  Gun control always precedes utter totalitarianism.

News from the arm pit of the universe, the abode of demons, gargoyles and pit vipers.

“I think passing a federal law is probably beyond what the market will bear,” he said in his opening remarks on Tuesday. But he said the federal government could give a nod to the states that “if you do it in a certain way, the federal government will incentivize you.”

“I think that’s the best way at least initially to solve this problem,” Graham said.

Give the state some money to do the dirty work.

So I read an article a day or two ago that stated Lindsey Graham has seen his support increase in South Carolina since he decided to glom onto Trump.  Of course, he’ll be facing an election soon.

If South Carolinians fall for his opportunism, they’re idiots.  And if anyone thinks Trump is pro-second amendment, he is equally an idiot.

News from Georgia:

Haley said he sees most of the local debate over constitutional carry happening on the internet, on Facebook or gun-trading forums. Online, he says it feels like people with his stance are in the minority.

“Because they’re all gung-ho, you know? ‘I’m a Second Amendment supporter and in order to be a true Second Amendment supporter, I’ve got to support this, this has got to be the way it is,’” said Haley.

“The buzzword of ‘constitutional carry’, that sounds sexy, you know?” said Georgia House Rep. Alan Powell. “It’s a popular issue among the extreme Second Amendment supporters.”

Is there any other kind?

Small Wars Journal:

Tunnels are dark and often wet, hot, and humid. They can contain tight spaces, low overhead clearances, and present a range of explosive and toxic environmental challenges. All of these impediments are enhanced by poor visibility, darkness, impeded sight lines, and amplified noise (echoes) facilitating sensory decrements that inhibit maneuver, engagement, and situational awareness. Tunnels also degrade intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance complicating tactical and operational decision-making. In addition to tactical challenges found in all confined space operations, illicit taps bring an additional explosion hazard both within the tunnel and in proximate inhabited spaces.

It reminds me of the tunnel in Sicario, except not as well-constructed.

I think I’ve said this before, but this poses not just a tactical challenge to anyone, regardless of persuasion, but a challenge to life as well.

This is a confined space.  It has the following hazards (not an all-inclusive list): civil engineering (collapse of roofing or siding), access to breathable oxygen, lighting, noise, concentration of various bacteriological hazards (such as legionella), temperature, humidity, submergence during rain from flash flooding, concentration of explosive gases, concentration of explosive dusts, etc., etc.

Stay out of confined spaces.  They mean death to you.  I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I don’t go spelunking.

Idiots and dolts, incapable of complex thought.

Seven-year-old Samari Boswell said she was terrified the night of her younger brother TJ Boswell’s birthday party last month. She was expecting a party with cake and singing, but instead she and her family suddenly found themselves surrounded by police with guns pointed at them.

With her mother Stephanie Bures by her side, the second grader recalled the scary Sunday night of Feb. 10, when a team of Chicago police officers raided her brother’s party carrying a battering ram and a sledge hammer, and with weapons drawn.

“They were saying F words and stuff,” Samari said. “It was horrible.”

Bures called what happened “horrible” and “unnecessary,” because the suspect who police officers were looking for hadn’t lived in the building for five years.

“As long as they continue to do that, there will never be trust between citizens and the Chicago Police Department,” said Al Hofeld Jr., the attorney who represents the family.

Hofeld Jr. said it is another case of a “bad” search warrant where police did not do their homework.

“My law firm took 30 seconds to do a person search and came up with [the suspect’s] most current address, which is on 83rd street nowhere near the property,” Hofeld Jr. said.

This is the fourth search warrant case Hofeld Jr. has handled involving allegations that police raided the wrong homes and pointed guns at innocent people, including children. He said he plans to file suit against the Chicago Police involving the Boswell children and other adults at the party, including an adult relative, Kiqiana Jackson.

I’ve said it before.  When you’re dealing with American SWAT teams, you have the worst, most dangerous, stupidest people on earth.  Stay as far away from them as possible.  Someone always gets hurt when they’re around.

Good job, boys.  Do you feel proud or stupid?  Do you at least have the minimal intelligence necessary to feel stupid?

Via David Codrea.

Because when we decide constitutionality, it can only be for one person at a time.  You don’t have “standing,” which means you aren’t rich enough to afford the exorbitant legal fees associated with taking on the FedGov.  And we, the judiciary, play right along with that.  It’ll have to go person by person, unless of course we reject plaintiff’s arguments and go along with the FedGov.  Which we probably will.

Because we’re better than you.