Via reader Richard Fuher.  Watch it all.  There are real men left in America.

After discussing the S&W 686 several days ago, the thought occurred to me that there must be a newer Performance Center 686.  Sure enough, there is.  This one is a beautiful firearm, unfluted cylinders, 7-round capacity, and an interesting speed release thumbpiece for the cylinder.  Let me know if any readers happen to have this model.  I find it very interesting.  I’ll also remark that this isn’t a bad price for a Performance Center gun.

Mother Jones:

Atrios says that if lefties want to fire people up about gun control, they need to get more passionate about it:

To inspire hardcore single issue voters you have to take an absolutist stance on things. I’m not saying this is good politics….Still, there is literally no politician who goes on teevee and says, “the courts won’t allow it right now, but if it were up to me I’d put the well-regulated back in the 2nd amendment and make it extremely difficult for people to own most kinds of guns, and we should work long term to appoint judges who have a more reasonable view of what our constitution plainly says.” Is this good politics? Probably some places it is. Many places not. But lack of voter intensity on issues can be explained by lack of intensity on issues from politicians.

Actually, that still sounds too milquetoast to me. My campaign slogan is simple: Ban all automatic and semi-automatic weapons. That basically leaves revolvers, pump-action shotguns, and bolt-action rifles. I’d probably have a few regulations around those too, but not many.

So Kevin, I expect you to kick my door in tonight to grab my guns.  Oh, I see, you’re a coward and won’t show up here.  Just as I guessed, you want to send other armed men to do it.  This only proves that you don’t really believe in gun control for everybody, just some people.

As long as the right people have guns, you’re okay with that.  Just like Hitler.  As I’ve said many times before, the sons and daughters of hippies are controllers and statists.  They’ve become everything their mothers and fathers hated.  As they say, when you believe in nothing, you’ll believe in anything.

The Guardian:

Another year, another church. Another month, another mass killing. Another day, another political shrug about gun massacres across the United States.

There is still some shock left in this uniquely American series of mass killings. And with that shock, maybe a small glimmer of hope that the silent majority of Americans might demand something more than prayers from their lawmakers.

Prayers, sadly, did not save 26 churchgoers in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Just as they didn’t save nine lives at the Bible study group in Charleston, South Carolina, two years ago.

There’s still some shock left from the faces of the Texas death toll, which included a pregnant woman, a five-year-old child, and the pastor’s teenage daughter. But there was also shock at the toll inside Charleston’s Emanuel AME church, which included the pastor himself. And we have yet to process the shock of the carnage in Las Vegas, that left 58 country music fans dead just last month.

There’s also some shock left from the pathetic excuses for inaction that tumble out at times like this. This isn’t just a failure of leadership at the very top: members of Congress and statehouses on both sides of the aisle and across the country have proved themselves to be delusional cowards. Either they act like nothing can be done to stop gun violence, or they pretend guns make America safer.

Then there’s the special podium of delusional cowardice occupied by Donald Trump. “I think that mental health is your problem here,” he told reporters at a press conference in Tokyo on Monday. “This was a very – based on preliminary reports – very deranged individual. A lot of problems over a long period of time. We have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries. But this isn’t a guns situation.”

Let us all sigh for the souls whom we have yet to lose, in part because of this stupidity. Of course these are mental health issues. Of course we need to treat mental health like any other health challenge. Of course other countries have the same issues.

But other countries are not awash with guns. So it’s that much harder for people suffering from mental health issues to gun down large numbers of their fellow citizens in church, or at school, or at an open-air concert. Or take their own lives, which is by far the bigger killer with guns.

“Fortunately somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction,” continued Trump, speaking without any factual basis, “otherwise it would have been – as bad as it was, it would have been much worse. But this is a mental health problem at the highest level.”

Yes, this is a mental health problem at the highest level. Just not the one you think it is, Mr President.

According to the local sheriff, the gunman was only confronted by an armed civilian once he emerged from the church, after the massacre was completed. The mass murderer died by killing himself.

So along with the victims, let’s please bury once and for all the storyline pushed so hard by the National Rifle Association, and echoed by Donald Trump. The only thing that stopped the bad guy with a gun was the bad guy with his own gun. The good guys were shot dead in their church pews.

So Mr. Wolffe, the only thing you manage to argue is for more armed congregants in the pews of American churches, and I am in wholehearted agreement with you.  It took a man with an AR-15 to stop the killer, and had congregants been armed like they should have been, he may not have even been successful at all.

As for your preening superiority, I’m not impressed.  This is said from the perch of a man who undoubtedly knew that a scandal was going on, and didn’t say anything at all.  And your own government – as well as the only armed people in your lousy country, the police – helped to cover it all up.  You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?

My readers do, so you may as well admit it.  You let Pakistani nationals hold child slaves for their ring of prostitution under your own nose, and said and did nothing.  I’m talking about the Rotherham scandal, and you know it.  So spare me the morality play.  Go fix your own problems and leave us alone.

By now you’ve heard of the horrible shooting at the small church in Texas.  Take careful note that the perpetrator was done in by an armed citizen.

Another local resident, Johnnie Langendorff, who had witnessed the gun battle, said both he and the unnamed neighbor had jumped in his truck and gave chase.

In a Facebook post, Langendorff’s girlfriend Summer Caddel described how the pair had ‘jumped in my boyfriend’s truck and they chased that sick b*****d down in pursuit until the cops could catch up. He was able to run the shooter off of the road on 539!’

Langendorff told ABC 12 that he’d been speeding at 95mph, while on the phone to dispatch, while the neighbor kept his rifle trained on the gunman’s car.

As they approached a sharp curve in the road, near the 307 and 539, he said Kelley appeared to lose control and his car swerved off the road.

‘That’s when I put the truck in park,’ he said. ‘The other gentleman jumped out, and had his rifle on him. He didn’t move after that.’

Within minutes of the reports of this hitting the air, I had two questions: (1) Why are the FBI and ATF involved, and (2) Why haven’t we heard of a motive?

There is this report discussing the shooter being a member of Antifa, and how according to his own words he intended to start a civil war by “targeting white conservative churches.”  If this report is true – and you likely won’t ever hear that in the MSM nor will the FBI or even local law enforcement ever tell you this – it would answer both of my questions.

But let’s assume for the moment that it’s not true.  It doesn’t matter why he did it for purposes of my point.  It could have been Antifa, Muslim fascists or a belligerent worker who had been fired.

I heard over the national news how some churches had even gotten “permission” to allow a concealed carrier into the facilities.  What?  Permission?  To carry a weapon for self defense?  Permission?

Listen to me, Christians everywhere.  I’ve harped on this and will continue to until Christians wake up.  If you don’t emerge from your slumber, you’ll be run over like a train hit you.  You’d better arm up and prepared to defend yourselves.  No matter what you have been taught, you are not safe in your places of worship.  Make it so.  Make it safe for yourselves, your families and your congregants.  God expects you to.  He demands it.

It was a beautiful day to mountain bike Big Rock at Dupont last Friday.

The Denver Post:

When a gunman opened fire inside a Walmart in Thornton Wednesday night, shoppers screamed and ran for cover — and others pulled out their own handguns.

But those who drew weapons during the shootings ultimately delayed the investigation as authorities pored over surveillance videotape trying to identify the assailant who killed three people, police said Thursday.

Although authorities said “a few” individuals drew handguns, they posed no physical hazard to officers. But their presence “absolutely” slowed the process of determining who, and how many, suspects were involved in the shootings, said Thornton police spokesman Victor Avila.

It took more than five hours to identify the suspect, 47-year-old Scott Ostrem, who is accused in the seemingly random shootings. The problem for investigators came when they reviewed the surveillance footage and had to follow each individual with a firearm until they could eliminate them as a suspect.

“Once the building was safe enough to get into it, we started reviewing that (surveillance video) as quickly as we could,” Avila said. “That’s when we started noticing” that a number of individuals had pulled weapons. “At that point, as soon as you see that, that’s the one you try to trace through the store, only to maybe find out that’s not him, and we’re back to ground zero again, starting to look again. That’s what led to the extended time.”

Well, just go cry me a river, why don’t you?  This “journalist” should be notified that he wins the aware for the stupidest article of the month.  Read this again and let it wash over you.  Armed citizens were prepared to protect themselves and perhaps others in a good Samaritan defense, and the police are bitching because it took them several hours to do what they’re paid to do, which is to conduct investigations.

And say, what the hell do you mean “once the building was safe to get into?”  You mean that it isn’t the job of the police to enter active shooter zones to protect citizens?  You mean that the only real function of the police is to conduct investigations, write reports and ensure continued state power and viability?

And after knowing the answer to all of that, you want me to sympathize with the cops over having to do the only job they have?  What happened?  Didn’t they make doughnut time with their buddies?

David Codrea:

Some of us would argue the edicts she demands makes things a lot more dangerous, and just ceding to Delatorre or Becker their own characterizations without at least addng qualifiers like “self-professed” gives credence to their side. Because what they’re claiming to be is debatable.

And more to the point, “Just because gun-grabbers call themselves “Second Amendment supporters” and “safety advocates” doesn’t mean the media should just take them at their word.”

I prefer to call them “The Controllers.”  It’s what they are in their heart of hearts.  Besides, they hate hearing the truth and they’ve tried to change the narrative by focusing on words other than controller.  Don’t let them.

Music Row:

Prominent Nashville attorney Orville Almon, Jr. has died.

He practiced entertainment and music law, IP law and business law for over 35 years, representing numerous prominent recording artists, music producers and songwriters, as well as record company executives, music publishers, record companies, television production companies, managers and other clients affiliated with the entertainment industry.

What they’re not saying in this article is more important than what they say.

Describing meetings with MGM, Las Vegas police, and the FBI as “incredibly strange and complex” to one of his friends on recently made private Facebook threads, the attorney was privy to inside information that the FBI, by announcing they are no longer holding press conferences and the investigation is closed, have chosen to withhold from the public.

Orville Almon, known as a straight shooting attorney to the many Nashville musicians he represented, has become the latest in a very long line of suspicious deaths and disappearances surrounding the Las Vegas shooting.

Almon’s death, described by local Nashville media as “seizure during sleep”, mirrors that of Kymberley Suchomel of Apple Valley, California, a shooting survivor who was found dead in her home, hours after her husband left for work.

I agree with him.  The case is incredibly strange and complex.  Or at least it is given that we’re not being told anything but lies about it by FedGov.

Science Daily:

“It’s been known for some time that gun violence, like many other forms of crime and other social problems, can be clustered within certain neighborhoods,” says Charles Loeffler, the Jerry Lee Assistant Professor of Criminology in the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts & Sciences. “So when we observe that a particular part of the city has an elevated risk, how do we understand what that phenomenon actually is?”

Loeffler and Oxford statistician Seth Flaxman, who published their findings in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, turned to data from Washington, D.C., firearm-related 9-1-1 calls and acoustical sensors around the city that listen for and record the latitude and longitude of every shot fired.

Starting from the baseline that gun violence doesn’t occur randomly, the researchers ran the numbers for two hypotheses. First, they asked whether such behavior could be an epidemic, something that spreads quickly and diffuses into the surrounding environment. One incident begets the next, such as a victim retaliating against a former perpetrator.

“The alternative hypothesis,” Loeffler says, “is that you have clustering of gun violence in certain neighborhoods at certain times, but it may not actually be spreading in any real sense.” The researchers call this an endemic pattern.

As an example, consider an encounter in a bar: Two individuals bump into each other. One takes offense at being accidentally shoved and pulls out or quickly gains access to a gun. The same scenario might happen during a drug deal, where one party feels slighted by another. In either case, the resulting action is not retaliation, but rather an aggressive response to a commonly reoccurring stimulus.

“It may not last more than a couple minutes and may not lead to further acts of violence,” Loeffler says. “It could be self-extinguishing.”

For Washington, D.C., the data were compelling.

“We found that a substantial fraction of the gun violence was better characterized as this endemic, non-random clustering rather than as an epidemic, contagious, diffusing process,” he says.

But then you knew that already, didn’t you.  That is, if you have a lick of common sense, which doesn’t seem to be so common these day.

There is L.A., Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Houston, Atlanta, New Orleans, Washington D.C. and Baltimore, and then there’s everywhere else.