David Codrea:

“[Kennedy] said there should be a law that lets authorities punish skeptics and deniers — those who engage in ‘selling out the public trust,’” The Washington Times reported Tuesday, citing an interview the “progressive” activist gave to Climate Depot at the people’s Climate March in New York City. “I wish there were a law you could punish them with. I don’t think there is a law that you can punish these politicians under…

And while Kennedy maintains a police officer was lying when, as a teenager, he was accused of spitting ice cream in the officer’s face precipitating his arrest, he did not take the judge up on pleading not guilty, despite having the Kennedy fortune to mount a legal defense that would have allowed him to challenge the testimony. Likewise, his 1982 arrest for heroin possession resulted in probation, community service and an expunged record. Curious, that the man who would control those without addictive personalities is still described as a man who can’t – or won’t – control himself.

David goes on.  Really, read the rest of the hypocrisy here.  Kennedy is sounding crazier and crazier not only because he is an ideologically driven communist who likes being special and above everyone else, but also because he knows that AGW is a perishing science.  It is dying because there is no evidence for it.  There is no evidence for it because it’s a myth, a fairly tale of rich elitists who have nothing else to worry about.

Kurt Hofmann:

The proposal was put on the ballot by the same Republican-controlled Legislature that believes, in the absence of any evidence, that President Barack Obama is coming for your guns” … “The current state of affairs seems to reinforce Mr. Dotson’s position that the amendment’s wording was misleading. It surely didn’t tell voters that they’d be handing guns to felons, but that’s precisely what is happening right now” …

Read the rest of Kurt’s setup with St. Louis Police chief Sam Dotson and his opposition to the gun rights amendment which recently passed by a large majority.  It wouldn’t matter if the language really was unclear.  It wouldn’t matter if they really were giving guns to felons (although they aren’t).  It wouldn’t matter who dislikes the amendment.  It passed, and it passed overwhelmingly.  That closes the issues.  As far as Dotson is concerned, he can be replaced.  He sounds like an outdated dinosaur.

In other news, the Sandy Hook Commission calls for a crackdown on home schooling.  For any readers I have in Connecticut, seriously, is there any reason at all to stay there?  Think hard.  Why would anyone live there?

And this is one reason I am reluctant to ship firearms through the TSA and airline when I am flying.

The Bang Switch has a must read on gun control in France, lengthy, but well worth reading.  Some of it is highly detailed in the legalities of firearms ownership in France.  There are many salient points for gun control in America, but this quote encapsulates the spirit of the article.

This French writer is telling you what the American left is saying concerning their ultimate aim.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it.  The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them.

This lefty writer at Daily Kos couches a total gun ban in terms of safety, but even if he believes in this state sponsored utopia, most on the left know that it’s a lie.  In the end it’s all about control over people.

This is why universal background checks and a national gun registry gain no traction in the gun community.  We don’t believe the lie of public safety, and we know your ultimate aim.  We will never relent.  We will never register our guns.  We will never turn in our guns.  We will never be put on a list.  We will fight a gun registry with all of our might.

As the philosophers would say, these truths hold “positive epistemic status.”

The Montana Standard:

By my count this is at least the second life that has been saved from a bear attack after legalization of firearms in National Parks, the first instance being mid-2010 in Denali.

Of course, Mr. Murphy is now charged with a crime.  There are two problems that could be contributing, the first being that laws are now passed in broad sweeping language that apparently ignores guilty intent, or in other words, Congress is Eroding the Mens Rea Requirement in Federal Criminal Law.

The second problem that could be contributing is that the enforcement in question may be of a regulation rather than a law, which is made via federal register by armies of lawyers sitting inside the beltway who have been (unfortunately) empowered by Congress to do just that.

But the third problem is there  is obviously a prosecutor who wants to take this case to court, otherwise he wouldn’t have a scheduled court appearance and need a lawyer.

The law becomes absolute in contemporary America, regardless of the fact that a man’s life was saved because he discharged a firearm.  But it’s absurd that Congress would have passed a law allowing firearms in National Parks early in 2010, but then refused to allow people to use that firearm to defend their lives.  Since it is absurd, it clearly wasn’t the intent of Congress (or should not have been).  Therefore, the prosecutor is likely to blame for the fact that Mr. Murphy has to defend himself in court for saving his own life.

Detroit Free Press:

About 20 people, openly armed with rifles and handguns, marched along Mound Road in Detroit Sunday to show support for a man who says he was unlawfully arrested because city police officers are against open-carry laws.

Detroiter Elijah Woody, 24, said he was open carrying a pistol while walking on Hague near Beaubien on Sept. 13 when he stopped to talk with friends around 7 p.m. Police pulled up a short time later.

Woody said he was arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon, a felony, and detained five days. He said his gun, a .40-caliber Glock 40, was in plain sight in a holster on his right hip when he was taken into custody.

Here is what the police are saying.

Elijah Woody, who claims he was legally open-carrying his handgun when Detroit police arrested him, is charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a license, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

While Elijah Woody claims police exited their vehicle and arrested him within 15 seconds, Detroit Police Sgt. Michael Woody (no relation to Elijah Woody), said police reported smelling the strong odor of marijuana, which gave them probable cause to search Elijah Woody and the group he was standing on the sidewalk of Hague between Brush and Beaubian. Sgt. Woody said a marijuana blunt was found at the scene and logged into evidence and that, although Elijah Woody had his “over-sized jacket” tucked in behind his handgun, it folded over the gun and illegally concealed it.

For a number of reasons I suspect that the police report is false.  Here is Kurt Hofmann in other open carry news.

Mr. Loftus goes on to note that this event takes place in an area in which every single legislator has opposed every single pro-gun rights bill since the year 2000. In short, to attend with an openly carried firearm, and without a concealed carry permit, is to face the risk of arrest and prosecution, with no certainty that the courts will recognize Amendment 5 as invalidating all laws against permit-less open carry. Not for the faint of heart.

The implication is that open carriers will be arrested.  They’d better not be.  As we’ve noted, there is state preemption now and open carry is legal everywhere in Missouri.

Since I don’t have time for a Notes tonight, read also David Codrea’s latest with Examiner.

Just as the billionaire-funded Astroturfers pose as the grassroots, the overabundance of safe selections, guaranteed to give them a track record of victories they can them claim as proof of their political wallop, is all part of the carefully-staged illusion-making.

I’ve remarked before that the collectivists work top down, while we work bottom up.  They have to make it look like their their method works best.

Recently Mike Vanderboegh posted on Marines singing the hymn “These are the days of Elijah.”  It was meaningful for me, and I appreciate the post.  Drop by and watch it.  It’s worth the time.

But then something happened to detract from and destroy the main theme of Mike’s post.  Commenters, one named anonymous (what mother would name her son such a name as that?) and Dan III posted comments as follows.

Anonymous – I don’t understand how anyone, especially someone who considers himself a Christian, could justify joining the US military today. The US military DOES NOT defend freedom or the Constitution. The military serves the domestic enemies of the Constitution, meaning the US government — a lying, murderous, tyrannical entity that destroys freedom around the world … No, there’s no Christianity there. The US government is the Father of Lies. That’s whom these soldiers are serving, whether they know it or not.

Dan III – I ask myself why conservatives continue to worship at the altar of Allen West. This is the former US Army colonel who took an oath to defend the Constitution, and turned right around and thumbed his nose at his oath and fellow Americans, when he voted for the Patriot Act renewal. Good ol’ Allen West, the guy who helped to continue the desecration of our 4th & 5th Amendment Rights. This is the problem with those who consider themselves Patriots, conservatives, keepers of the Constitution. You continue to support the very people who throw us under the proverbial bus. Myself, I wouldn’t urinate down West’s throat if his lungs were on fire.

This caused Mike to respond as follows.

I don’t worship at AW’s altar. There are many things I disagree with him on. I don’t endorse foreign wars, especially those fought for no purpose. My son has been labeled “a storm trooper in the U.S. Army” and I have been called “psychotic” for supporting his service. I would like to point out that there were many Founders who weren’t necessarily thrilled about participating in British imperialism’s war against the French. There were also many Irishmen who took advantage of service in the British Army in World War I to get access to military training and weapons that they later put to good use in the Irish war of independence. Did the Founders “endorse” the British Empire? Did Tom Barry “endorse” the British army he served in? I posted the video because I liked to see Marines singing Christian hymns with gusto. If you don’t like it, you’re more than welcome to ignore what I post.

I have also seen a number of ridiculous comments on other gun rights / prepper / patriot web sites (which will not be named here), and it’s time to address some of them.  When I was a young man I too was consumed with ideological purity, worrying over minutia in theology when it comes to worship and church membership, as one example.  I was part of a church which took the view of “us four and no more,” so to speak.  But then I matured and grew up.  You can take things like this to the point of silliness and isolation from everyone else, rendering yourself and your views completely ineffective and your family without friends or tribe and without commitment from relatively like minded folk.

To be sure, we must all settle on unassailable absolutes from which there is no retreat and over which we will not compromise, such as gun rights, no universal background checks, no national gun registry, limited government, and so on.  But the purity reaches a point of diminishing returns, and it behooves wise men to find that point.  These commenters are no wise men.

Now to the content of their comments, and content of some of the other comments I’ve seen on other sites.  I realize that I am risking a sweeping judgment that goes too far and thus levels charges that may not be accurate towards some people.  I apologize up front for that, but I don’t know any other way to do this.  So with that said, let’s take an ugly trek through some of the more ridiculous notions that seem to be in favor in these circles.

The CIA didn’t blow up the WTC.  If you are a registered professional engineer like I am, within days of the WTC collapse your in-box was full of e-mails with attachments from professors of engineering outlining what happened, with calculations to prove it.  We know what the failures were.  We know how the structure was designed.  And within a few months I received a comprehensive study from the American Society of Civil Engineers with a complete failure analysis of the structure, with parts numbered and analyzed while sitting in their waste yard, forensic analysis, pictures and all.

When you traffic in ridiculous conspiracy theories, you embarrass yourself and your colleagues, even if you are too stupid to know it.  Stop.  No, really, I mean it.  Stop.  Just don’t do it any more.

Sandy Hook was perpetrated by an evil kid.  ISIS isn’t the CIA, and the American government didn’t create ISIS for the purpose of helping to create “greater Israel.”  Hell, Israel doesn’t even want “greater Israel” and wouldn’t abide their PM doing what’s necessary to bring such a thing into being.

The Jew bankers do plenty of evil things, but they didn’t cause the Ukraine to go to war against Russia.  That conflict isn’t a CIA plot to do whatever you think they want to do.  That conflict was caused by a homoerotic, shirtless megalomaniac named Putin who wants to recreate the Soviet Union.  Got it?

The Jew bankers do plenty of evil things just like the U.S. government, but they don’t cause all wars.  They don’t even control the world’s money like they think they do.  The uncontrollable monster of Keynesian economics and fractional reserve banking will destroy itself with our without the bankers.  When the bankers don’t have clean water, guns and ammunition, they will be no better off that anyone else who didn’t prepare.

As to Mike’s comments back to Dan III, some foreign wars are evil and to be avoided.  Not all foreign wars are evil.  Most republicans are in bed with the statists.  Not all republicans are in bed with the statists.  There are bad people in the U.S. military.  There are good people in the U.S. military.  The U.S. military has done many good things.  The U.S. military has done some bad things.  I have done some good things, and some bad things.

Folks, learn to read the signs of the times and to “rightly divide” words and ideas.  If you don’t you will forever be wildly thrown around by the winds of opinion.  Be able to form your own opinions, and don’t listen to every passerby who has another conspiracy theory.  And don’t exaggerate or use hyperbole.

Look what has happened to anonymous.  To him, the U.S. government has done nothing but destroy freedom around the world (a manifestly and demonstrably false assertion), and is the “father of lies.”  He has supplanted the title of the devil, who God calls the father of lies, with the U.S. government.  I cannot imagine a more ridiculous, outlandish, off the charts stupid assertion.  When you are rewriting Scripture for God, your ego is writing checks that your body and mind can’t cash.  You are also risking blasphemy.  I advise extreme caution.  God is not to be taken lightly.

As for Dan III, look what his “purity” has caused.  He wouldn’t “urinate down West’s throat if his lungs were on fire.”  And thus if I ever meet him I will have one hand on my weapon.  I don’t trust him, he has no ability to overlook anything with which he disagrees, and is quite literally willing to watch others perish over things that aren’t primary.

Learn to distinguish between those issues that are primary, the ones which are secondary, and those which are tertiary.  And learn to forgive.  Perhaps West would advocate differently concerning the patriot act today, but in any case, I have never heard him advocate gun control and have never heard anything from him but advocacy for small government.  I also know that he was willing to sacrifice his military career for the safety of his men.  Although my son was a Marine, I would have been honored to have my son serve with him any day.

To close, this isn’t much different than what Mike would say.

Look, for all the “Sandy Hook Conspiracy Theory” excrement clogging up my email inbox and the comments here, I can’t get anything done. Enough. Sell it to Alex Jones, he’s the disinformation artist. I will not use Sipsey Street to propagate self-discrediting crap when real issues are pressing. All emails regarding the subject, and all comments, have been and will be deleted. You can continue to shriek in all caps and call me names to your heart’s content, but you’re not hijacking this blog, or my limited time on this rock. Okay? That settles that.

And just to add to it, his commenter said this.

Here are some hard facts that some folks can’t seem to come to grips with:

If you believe the Apollo missions to the moon were staged, you are an incurable f****** dumbass.

If you believe Israel and the US Government deliberately blew up the World Trade Center on 9/11, you are an incurable f****** dumbass.

Though the current leadership of our government is undeniably sleazy and corrupt, if you believe they would deliberately stage the murder of 20 elementary school children, you are an incurable f****** dumbass.

To all incurable dumbasses everywhere – your absurd bullshit theories have been heard by all. Now, please, shut the fuck up and let the adults who don’t hear voices in their head have a serious conversation.

Yea, pretty much.  Folks, learn nuance.  In general, learn to say “yes, no and maybe, and it depends upon a whole host of things, and this requires a long conversation, and I have to render caveats and qualifications to what I’m saying.”  It wasn’t too long ago (around the time of the war between the states) that men were required to take courses in rhetoric and logic.  Sit down with a textbook in logic and read it.  Start with the schoolboy primer in logic written by Isaac Watts.  Learn verbal oratory for your conversations with others, and learn the science and art of persuasion for your commenting.  Don’t unzip your fly and whiz in people’s faces and try to piss them off.  It will go better for you, and you will be more effective.

Contribute in the comments rather than detracting from the theme.  Offer up thanks to the web site hosts for the work they do.  Do you understand how hard it is and the long hours necessary to find good, quality information and offer up decent analysis of it in a world where the MSM doesn’t care any more?  Do you understand how tiring and wearisome this is?  Do you know how hard it is to avoid typographical errors when you post every day?  Kurt Hofmann and I have had this conversation, and Kurt told me his worst was when he had an error right in the title.  I didn’t tell Kurt that I had that too, on more than one occasion.

In short, grow up.  Put your hand over your mouth (or keyboard), think, and for some, pray, and contemplate whether what you’re about to write is meaningful, helpful and a worthy contribution.  Offer up a thank you every now and again.  Don’t pollute the internet with crap, don’t exaggerate, don’t traffic in conspiracy theories, and don’t rewrite the Scriptures.  Mike is nicer than I am, and he responded in a kind fashion to Dan III.  I have long since ran Dan III off from my blog.  I’m not as nice as Mike.

News from New Jersey:

WEST MILFORD, N.J. – Authorities believe a 300-pound black bear attacked and killed a hiker in a North Jersey nature preserve.

West Milford police said five friends from Edison, N.J., were hiking in the Apshawa Preserve when they encountered the bear on Sunday. Police say the group of inexperienced hikers became frightened and ran in different directions at about 3:44 p.m. They noticed one member was missing when they regrouped.

A search team located the body of 22-year-old Darsh Patel at 5:54 p.m. West Milford Police Chief Timothy Storbeck said there was evidence of bite marks and claw marks on Patel’s body.

The bear was about 35 yards from Patel’s body, circling the area, according to West Milford Police Capt. Richard Fiorilla.

Storbeck said members of a search-and-rescue team clapped in an attempt to scare away the bear, but it stayed there as if protecting the body. The bear, which was believed to about 4 years old, Fiorilla said, was euthanized at the scene.

Take note that this isn’t a Western state where we are discussing a brown bear attack or a mountain lion attack.  This is the East, and it was a black bear attack.

I’ve said it before.  Don’t go into the wilderness without a gun.  Of course in New Jersey the problem is that it is a “may issue” state, where one must “specify in detail the urgent necessity for self protection” in order to carry a weapon.

The fact that a bear killed a man wouldn’t be considered an urgent necessity for self protection by the authorities.  They would rather see people die at the hands of animals or men than to allow their citizens to go armed.

So says Professor David Gushee of Mercer University.  He says, “That’s not Biblical reasoning; that’s cultural reasoning.”

To which I responded this way directly to Professor Gushee.

Would you care to respond this my article on this subject (it’s one of many)?  Stay orthodox, please.  No deconstruction or other oddball views.

I haven’t heard back from the professor.  I don’t expect to.

News From Florida:

Jennifer Bair is a 25-year-old resident of Belvedere Lane in Palm Coast. She owns a beagle called Daisy, which she takes on walks in her neighborhood or in her backyard, on a leash, as was the case Sunday. Bair started carrying a gun after a neighborhood pit bull charged her and her dog on a previous occasion.

On Sunday, as she was walking Daisy in her backyard, the pit bull, known as KimK, charged her again, according to a Flagler County Sheriff’s report, “barking and snarling.”

Bair took out her Bersa 38 mm handgun and fired.

You saw it right.  I’m certain that I haven’t seen this particular 38 mm handgun in any gun show or store I have visited.  On the other hand …

DelmarvaNow:

Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis’ views about how to enforce the stringent gun laws Maryland passed last year have gone viral.

In a video and print interview with a student journalist, published to YouTube on Aug. 21, Lewis says he’s no fan of government intervention in limiting the constitutionally-protected right to possess firearms.

“As long as I’m the sheriff in this county,” he says in the video, “I will not allow the federal government to come in here and strip my citizens of their right to bear arms. I can tell you this, if they attempt to do that, it would be an all-out civil war, no question about it.”

In another video on YouTube, from Delaware television station WRDE, Lewis offered a clearer critique of Maryland’s latest gun control law, the Firearms Safety Act of 2013, which was passed in the wake of the December 2012 massacre of elementary school students in Newtown, Conn.

“Who am I to tell them what they should or should not protect their families with?” Lewis asked on WRDE. “Who am I to tell them they shouldn’t have a magazine with 30 rounds behind the door when some thug is trying to break into their home? … If you start coming into people’s homes to disarm them solely because you believe they don’t have a Second Amendment right to bear arms, you better stand by. It will be, without a doubt, a civil war.”

The number of Sheriff’s deputies any county has cannot possibly wage civil war on anybody else.  As for everyone else (i.e., gun owners), that’s a different story.  And yes, gun confiscations will cause civil war.

I think the Sheriff gets it.  All county Sheriffs are advised to take a lesson from Sheriff Lewis.  It may save you and your deputies from heartache in the future.

 ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.

So says Green Bay:

A group promoting gun owner rights in Wisconsin is suing the city of Green Bay in a dispute that stems from restrictions on guns inside a popular farmers market.

Wisconsin Carry Inc. has asked a judge in Brown County Circuit Court to order Green Bay city officials to relinquish public records that might indicate whether the city has a policy on carrying guns in the open.

The same group previously sued Ashwaubenon and Madison after both municipalities arrested individuals suspected of improperly carrying guns in public.

Nik Clark, president of Wisconsin Carry Inc., said a member of the organization complained this summer after he was told he couldn’t open-carry a gun in a Green Bay downtown farmers market. Police officers told him that guns were not permitted at the Saturday morning event, Clark said.

Afterward, Wisconsin Carry asked the city police department for copies of any procedures or directives on the subject. The department declined, citing attorney-client confidentiality.

Clark said his group decided to file suit because, he said, Green Bay residents have a right to know their city government’s policy on controlling open-carry of guns.

I’m not a lawyer, but this has got to be the most oddball, peculiar application of attorney-client privilege I have ever heard.  Surely they don’t mean that laws and regulations are not subject to public knowledge and scrutiny?  That would be absurd.

More than likely they mean that the officers who stopped the gentlemen didn’t have a basis for doing so and they don’t want to divulge their vulnerability to anyone.  For the stop to have been legitimate there would have to be a specific regulation pertaining to this establishment and/or the establishment would have to post.  Wisconsin is an open carry state with complete state preemption and has only weak stop and identify laws (the one stopped need not follow the request even though an officer can ask for identification).

Perhaps someone who is more familiar with Wisconsin law can weigh in, but it appears to me that the police acted improperly and fear just the sort of lawsuit they are currently facing.