WRSA has a link on a recent North Carolina National Guard rapid reaction force training exercise.  This is par for the course concerning the use of military to police American citizens, and the theoretical underpinnings were started a while back.  It isn’t to be taken lightly.

But I think there is a little more than meets the eye here.  Let me remind you of what we discussed concerning N.G. troops on the Southern border.  From one in-line commander, there was this.

Unfortunately, I must report that “Armed does not always mean “armed” as most Americans would understand. There are various states of being “armed.” These are called “Arming Orders (AO)” which define where the weapon “is,” where the magazine “is,” where the bullets “are” and where the bayonet “is.” They start at Arming Order One which could best be described as a “show of force” or “window dressing” in the worse case.

After considerable searching, I was able to find a complete copy of the Memorundum of Understanding/Rules of Engagement pertaining to the National Guard Deployment (“Operation Jump Start”), which I could then review.

After reviewing the MOU/ROE, I contacted several senior “in the loop” National Guard Officers that I have previously served with, to determine how many soldiers would be “armed” and their Arming Order number. After confirming The El Paso Times article that “very few soldiers there would carry weapons,” I was advised that during the next 90 days, amongst the few soldiers that have weapons, no soldier will have an Arming Order greater than AO-1, which means that an M-16 will be on the shoulder, there will be no magazine in the weapon (thats where the bullets come from), and the magazines stored inside the “ammunition pouch” will in most cases have no ammunition, they will be empty.

It was also conveyed to myself that in the unlikely event that a soldier is ever harmed on the border, the Arming Order will not be raised. Every individual I spoke to envisions no circumstance where there will ever be soldiers at AO-3/4, where a magazine with ammunition would be immediately available. Instead the soldiers will simply be kept farther away from the border if needed. They will be deliberately kept out of harms way.

So the question in a case of deployment like this would be, “Are they under arming orders?”  The most likely answer is no, although it would be interesting to see the actual arming orders for the N.G. during Katrina in New Orleans (not rumor, not innuendo, but a PDF of the actual arming orders).  In the mean time, there are more pressing matters.

… in recent years, military servicemen and women — many of whom are decorated — have found themselves increasingly targeted for surveillance, censorship, threatened with incarceration or involuntary commitment, labeled as extremists and/or mentally ill, and stripped of their Second Amendment rights, all for daring to voice their concerns about the alarming state of our union and the erosion of our freedoms.

For example, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program dubbed Operation Vigilant Eagle tracks military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and characterizes them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be “disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.”

For example, Jose Guerena, a Marine who served in two tours in Iraq, was killed in 2011 after an Arizona SWAT team kicked open the door of his home during a mistaken drug raid and opened fire. Apart from his military background, Guerena had no prior criminal record, and the police found nothing illegal in his home. [Editorial Note: My link on Guerena is here].

John Edward Chesney, a 62-year-old Vietnam veteran, was killed by a SWAT team allegedly responding to a call that the Army veteran was standing in his apartment window waving what looked like a semi-automatic rifle. SWAT officers fired 12 rounds into Chesney’s apartment window. It turned out that the gun Chesney reportedly pointed was a “realistic-looking mock assault rifle.”

Ramon Hooks, a 25-year-old Iraq war veteran, was using an air rifle gun for target practice outside when a Homeland Security Agent, allegedly house shopping in the area, reported him as an active shooter. Hooks was arrested, his air rifle pellets and toy gun confiscated, and charges filed against him for “criminal mischief.”

Although no toy guns were involved in Brandon Raub’s case, his fact scenario is even more chilling, given that he was targeted for exercising his First Amendment rights on Facebook. The 26-year-old decorated Marine actually found himself interrogated by government agents about his views on government corruption, arrested with no warning, labeled mentally ill for subscribing to so-called “conspiratorial” views about the government, detained against his will in a psych ward for standing by his views, and isolated from his family, friends and attorneys.

On August 16, 2012, a swarm of local police, Secret Service and FBI agents handcuffed and transported Raub to police headquarters, then to a medical center, where he was held against his will due to alleged concerns that his Facebook posts were “terrorist in nature.” Meanwhile, in a kangaroo court hearing that turned a deaf ear to Raub’s explanations about the fact that his Facebook posts were being read out of context, Raub was sentenced to up to 30 days’ further confinement in a psychiatric ward. Thankfully, The Rutherford Institute came to Raub’s assistance and brought about his release. Even so, within days of Raub being seized and forcibly held in a VA psych ward, news reports started surfacing of other veterans having similar experiences.

A federal judge actually dismissed Raub’s lawsuit challenging the government’s Operation Vigilant Eagle campaign and its increasing view of veterans as potential domestic terrorists as “farfetched.” Yet what may sound farfetched to the courts is a grim reality to Americans who are daily being targeted for daring to exercise their constitutional rights to speak their minds, criticize the government and defend themselves and their families against overreaching government surveillance and heavy-handed police tactics.

This is even more dangerous partly because the judicial system sides comprehensively, completely, absolutely and without reserve with the police and all of their chosen tactics.  Before it’s time to worry over the N.G. or regular troops – many or most of whom likely won’t turn on American citizens anyway – let’s remember the daily and growing threat of the police.

Remember what Kurt Hofmann and I have been saying.  The easiest, fastest workaround to Posse Comitatus is the militarization of the police.

I won’t wade into the recent debate over rifle-toting folks going into stores and restaurants, except to say that I’ve never done it and don’t intend on doing it.  I don’t buy the explanation that there is no safe way to observe muzzle discipline with a rifle, but I also don’t buy the notion that a rifle is the preferred weapon (and I don’t buy other things, like the notion that I’m safe when I get on the road in an automobile).  If your state doesn’t allow open carry, then replace the legislators until they do.

But there was a moment of honesty about open carry (of any weapon) displayed in a recent dustup over the issue that deserves your ponderance.

“We’ve had a tough time over the years promoting Lake Ozark as a family area,” said Alderman Larry Buschjost, who voted for the ban. “We want you on the Strip with families, everywhere in Lake Ozark with families. We want you to bring your kids down here and let them loose. For the life of me, I don’t understand why I would have to carry any type of gun, concealed or otherwise. “

As with collectivist South Carolina Senator Larry Martin (who needs to be replaced and defanged as soon as possible), when a legislator objects to open carry, he or she is rarely objecting solely to open carry.  It’s the very idea that you would have a weapon at all that they don’t like.  The good part is that if you let them talk long enough, they’ll often tell you exactly that.

David Codrea:

I see some people don’t like it. Well gosh. Others don’t like my writing for Examiner because they refuse to learn how to navigate the internet with a reliable and easy to activate pop-up blocker. Still others don’t like my other outlet of gun magazines, because they’re perceived as beholden to their advertisers. I notice no one is providing alternative options. Most never even share my GRE links.

Well, I certainly do.  Many people hate me.  I have never let it bother me.  Go by and congratulate David on the new gig at CheaperThanDirt.  I criticize the NRA almost with out ceasing, but I’m still a member.  Listen, folks.  If you wait to find an organization that agrees fully with every one of your views, you’ve found yourself.  Not even your spouse agrees with you 100% of the time (perhaps not even 50%).  It’s similar to church attendance or membership.  You have to learn to get along and accept it when you disagree with folks, or you’ll be alone.  I have criticized Smith & Wesson repeatedly on their refusal to stop the supply of firearms to California LEOs in light of the most recent gun laws.  I am still unhappy with the response.  Yet my most recent gun purchase (no more than two weeks ago) was a S&W.  You know, because they make good stuff.  We all have to get along, I’ll just pull the plug if, say, S&W begins to flirt with gun control, for example, or compromises with the evil masters in the White House.

Mike Vanderboegh:

A new bartering economy has emerged with ammunition rather than dollar bills as the currency.

I’m buying as much as I can, as quickly as I can.  Time.  We need more time.

Kurt Hofmann:

But wait a second. Who would these people be? Technically, of course, that depends on what one judges to be “just unbelievable damage,” but if he is concerned about guns in the hands of people who can do such damage, rather than those who will do it, then he just announced that his “biggest frustration” is his inability to disarm just about everyone.

Never, ever get into a logical debate with Kurt.  And as for what Obama meant, he isn’t as good a lawyer as Kurt.  He wouldn’t for example, disarm SWAT teams (even those who shoot innocent people) because he is a collectivist.  Obama’s communication problem is that he says too little and says too much.  We all know what he really thinks.

USA Today:

President Obama said Tuesday the nation should do “some soul-searching”: over its epidemic of deadly gun violence and “should be ashamed” it has been unable to address it.

“We’re the only developed country on Earth where this happens,” Obama said during a question-and-answer session on the social media website Tumblr.

“And it happens now once a week,” Obama added. “And it’s a one-day story. There’s no place else like this.”

[ … ]

His “biggest frustration” as president, Obama said, has been that “this society has not been willing to take some basic steps” to keep guns away from people who “can do just unbelievable damage.”

The president again criticized Congress for blocking a proposal to expand background checks for gun buyers and said too many lawmakers are “terrified” of the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups.

While “our levels of gun violence are off the charts,” Obama said, the American people themselves have to demand new laws: “If public opinion does not demand change in Congress, it will not change.”

Opponents of various gun control proposals said they would be ineffective, and some threaten Second Amendment ownership rights. They also said shootings are a mental health issue, an argument that Obama disputed.

“The United States does not have a monopoly on crazy people,” Obama said.

We’ve discussed this before at length, how the mentally ill are no more prone to violence than those who are not mentally ill, and how crime is a moral choice.  Again, those killings where idiot commentators talk about how “crazy” or “mentally ill” a person is are pointers to evil, not sickness.

Obama either knows better or actually believes that there is no such thing as evil except as created by society.  He is a liar, but in purveying his lie, he managed to lump mentally ill people, most of whom are peaceable, loving folk, into the same category as mass killers.

As a reminder to all those who were in the sandbox doing the bidding of the country, do not ever allow yourself to be diagnosed as PTSD.  And this goes for any reader anywhere, not just Soldiers and Marines.  Do not be lumped into the category of mentally ill.  You’ll never get off the list.

But in spite of his stupid insult to the mentally ill, there is (in the words of C. S. Lewis), a deeper magic that we who are watchers and learners know.  The witch Obama couldn’t care less about mass shootings, or crime in Chicago, or anything of the sort.  He wants to confiscate guns because he is a totalitarian.  Totalitarians must destroy the will and ability to resist.

And God hates totalitarians.

Mike Vanderboegh:

Chicago Police and ATF Form Intelligence Center To Fight “Three Percenters”

Right.  Like the three percenters are the problem in Chicago as opposed to say, the gangs and black-on-black violence.  I’ll tell you what.  Drop by, you Chicago police officer (“Dr. Suess”) who argued with me over e-mail about how I was going to beg for your help one day to “protect me,” and tell me who commits crime in Chicago?  And tell me why you aren’t out running down the gangs, you coward?  This is all a ruse, a smokescreen to send money to Chicago, the home of criminal Eric Holder.

David Codrea:

True to form and right on cue, “progressive” pundits who feed themselves pushing citizen disarmament and other ways of subverting true egalitarian power sharing are out in force, blaming everyone outside their collectivist echo chamber for the actions of two misfit killers.

Of course they do.  And be sure to read David’s rundown of the couple’s ejection from the Bundy Ranch.  As for the “pundit,” he doesn’t bother me a bit.  Only people who don’t believe in anything need the government to tell them what to think.

Kurt Hofmann:

Sunday evening, Nia Sanchez went from being Miss Nevada to accepting the crown for Miss USA … Ms. Sanchez, who has a fourth degree black belt in taekwondo, recommended that women learn how to defend themselves.

You mean someone has been named to this position who didn’t give the answers common to a sophomore in international studies at Dartmouth or American University?

I see that Eric Cantor has lost.  It isn’t just his treason concerning immigration and amnesty that concerned the people of Virginia.  Remember is gun control schemes.  Gun owners never forget.  Never.  And watch out, Paul Ryan.  You guys are two peas in a pod.  And perhaps you will suffer the same fate one day.

The Denver Post:

Ronny Flanagan took pride in his record as a police officer in Plano, Texas. He had an incident-free career. He took safety training regularly. He was known at the range as a very good shot.

Yet he killed a man when he was simply trying to press a flashlight switch mounted beneath the trigger on his pistol.

In a deposition, Flanagan expressed his remorse and made a prediction.

“I don’t want anyone to ever sit in a chair I’m in right now,” he said. “Think about the officers that aren’t as well trained, officers that don’t take it as seriously, and you put them in a pressure situation, another accident will happen. Not if, but will.”

Here’s what’s happening.  In order to depress the pressure switch, shooters (in this case, cops) are squeezing their third finger, and because they have no control over their sympathetic muscle reflexes, they are also squeezing their trigger finger at the same time.  Suing the manufacturers of flashlights is about as nonsensical as I can imagine.  That’s like suing a hammer manufacturer because I may choose to hit someone over the head with it.

But what does this also show us?  The astute reader says, “that cops are (a) using their weapon mounted light as a tactical light to see things in the dark, violating requirements for muzzle discipline, and (b) they have their finger on the trigger of their weapon, showing that they are violating requirements for trigger discipline.

Recall what I said about this?

My son was a SAW gunner in the 2/6 infantry, Golf Company, 3rd Platoon, during the 2007 combat tour of Fallujah and the pre-deployment workup.  The senior Marines had experienced a tour of Iraq, and wanted their SAW gunners to have a round in the chamber, bolt open (the SAW is an open bolt weapon anyway), and finger on the trigger.  They had seen combat and they wanted their SAW gunners with zero steps to shooting.  Their lives depended on it.  They also did CQB drills with live rounds, along with squad rushes.

My son had an ID (if I’m not mistaken it was during training at Mohave Viper).  He tripped and had a sympathetic muscle reflex, squeezing the trigger of his SAW.  He spent an extended period of time in the “room of pain.”  They wanted him trained to overcome that sympathetic muscle reflex (which can be done, but it takes hundreds or thousands of hours of drills).  He spent the time learning to overcome that reflex, and performed well during his tour.  He also tried to teach his “boot” Marines the same way he was trained, but the Marines had begun to change and focus more on cultural sensitivity training and other COIN tools.  He got out of the Marine Corps.

Why am I discussing this?  Because no matter who you are, no matter how much time you spend, no matter how earnestly you wish it, no matter how many directives you write, if you are a SWAT team member, you will never be trained in such a manner.  Never.  You will never be trained like a U.S. Marine who has spent every day for a year and a half in pre-deployment workup to do a combat tour of Iraq.  Because you will never be trained in this manner, your tactics are dangerous, all of the time, and in all situations.  I don’t care how many times you have inexperienced Soldiers spend a week with you doing CQB drills.

As for cops, if they obey the same rules as we do, this kind of thing won’t happen.  And I don’t care how sad Ronny Flanagan is over this.  The shooting is his fault.  Period.

If you keep your booger hook off of the bang switch, the gun won’t go boom.  And for the sake of everything that is sensible, good and righteous, don’t use your weapon mounted tactical light as a flashlight so that you can see things in the dark.

David Codrea:

As I asked many years back, during the reign of another president who rivaled our current one in his fear and despising of an armed citizenry, has not despotism and mass destruction plagued every civilization that preceded ours? Is it not, in fact, still commonplace throughout the globe? By what suspension of reality, by what denial of the observable and the probable, by what art, device or magic are we sheltered few immune from catastrophe? Are we certain, from our brief and privileged vantage point, that such things will ever remain headline curiosities? Is it not just plain stupid to proclaim that our familiar way of life will forever be the norm, when everything that has gone before us shows we are, instead, the extremely lucky beneficiaries of a rare and fortunate convergence of circumstances; and one, by the way, that has only been preserved under force of arms?

This is poetic prose worthy of the best authors.  And while I don’t believe in luck, I agree with David (who is speaking tongue in cheek here).  “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  The heart of man is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).  And that’s why we should expect totalitarianism.  Because it’s the state to which evil man aspires.

Kurt Hofmann:

There cannot fail to be consequences from the discovery on the part of every parent in America that the government’s hired muscle can kick down their doors, set their children on fire, and the official response will be a shrug, and maybe an “oops.”

Inevitably, some parents will refuse to tolerate the intolerable. Some, even knowing the vanishingly small likelihood of their own survival, will fight back with every weapon they possess. Private citizens defending their homes and families will doubtless do the bulk of the dying, but they will not do all of it.

The Posse Comitatus Act is a vital law, but as the police themselves morph more and more aggressively into an occupying army, it is quickly losing relevance.

Kurt is saying what I’ve said before.  The militarization of police is a work-around of the law.  And don’t think for a minute that the founders would have any more approved of it than they did of the requirement to quarter troops.

Mike Vanderboegh:

So we know who this outdated move is pointed at, don’t we? And it has nothing to do with Jihadis, “homegrown” or otherwise. A cynic might say that given the Bergdahl swap and the unilateral disengagement from any pretense of fighting the Jihadis overseas that you are simply trying to assure full employment for armed federal bureaucrats, much as the repeal of Prohibition led to the transfer of Treasury agents to enforce the subsequent National Firearms Act. Dragon slayers need dragons to frighten the villagers into paying them for the privilege of full employment, no matter how obvious, ridiculous and hackneyed the lies are.

This is also poetic writing by Mike.  He is much more patient with his official letters than I seem to be able to pull off.  I just utter that “Holder is a servant of Satan” and leave it at that.  But you need to see just how Holder is a servant of Satan, and so visit Mike’s place and study his letter.

Via WRSA, Tyler Durden:

The masses are being plundered on a scale which is inconceivable and unmatched in history; it is the source of the middle classes dying in the developed world. The developed world has become a well-disguised plantation of serfs and slaves. They are given nothing to store and save their labor in as the currency they hold are printed endlessly and have no reserves to back them and are redeemable in NOTHING, contrary to every sound currency in history. Modern day money is nothing less than a wealth confiscation scheme run by morally and fiscally bankrupt central banks and governments against their own citizens.

And thus does God disapprove of it, and thus will it fail.  Be prepared.

CBS Houston:

Round Rock police officers shot and killed a family dog after home’s alarm system was activated.

Hope Lane tells KVUE-TV that her granddaughter forgot to shut the front door all the way after leaving for school, causing it to blow open, tripping the alarm.

Two officers arrived to Lane’s home Friday, entering the house and shouting verbal warnings. Round Rock authorities say when they came upon the 120-pound Rottweiler named Bullet, the dog became aggressive toward them and made threatening actions.

That’s when, according to KVUE, the officers shot Bullet a total of seven times.

The dog was taken away by police by the time Lane got back to her house.

“I thought my dog would still be there, I may have wanted to bury my dog in my backyard,” she told KVUE. “Who told you to take my dog away?”

Lane said 8-year-old Bullet, who suffered from hip dysplasia, is not aggressive.

“My dog is in his home, in his room, laying down chilling like he does and he takes a long time. Anybody can come in the house and be like, ‘I thought you had a dog?’ And I do, but he’s not an aggressive dog,” Lane told KVUE.

Lane added that the dog’s blood was cleaned up off the floor, but that bullet holes remain in the wall and the futon Bullet slept on.

“That tells me something is not right,” she told KVUE. “I can’t speculate what’s not right, but something is truly not right.”

They didn’t just quickly leave if the dog did indeed approach them.  Because the police don’t care about your beasts.

Breitbart:

On May 29 three people allegedly approached an East Point, Georgia, apartment posing as police officers, “intending to force their way inside” when the woman inside the apartment shot one of the would-be invaders.

According to WSB-TV 2, the renter “cracked the door to take a look outside and that’s when police say the three tried to push their way inside.”

Police say said that “one of the suspects raised a handgun but the woman fired first,” grazing one attacker “on the head and the backside.”

The suspects fled, but the wounded one was apprehended.

And this, along with bad muzzle discipline, and wrong addresses, and many more reasons, is why we can’t trust police when they assault our doors.

Reuters:

The United States is reviving a law enforcement group to investigate those it designates as domestic terrorists, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.

Following hate-motivated shootings such as the one at a Jewish Community Center in Kansas City, Missouri in April, federal prosecutors have pressed the need to coordinate intelligence about such criminals on a national level, Justice Department officials said.

The Department of Justice will reconstitute a task force that was originally formed after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing but dissolved after the Sept. 11, 2001 hijacked plane attacks as law enforcement agencies focused on threats from militants abroad.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement that the United States remains concerned about threats from Islamic extremists, but the group will focus on other motives for attacks within U.S. borders.

Events like the April 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon, in which the attackers appeared to be influenced by extremists abroad, would not fall under the jurisdiction of the group, named the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee.

“We must also concern ourselves with the continued danger we face from individuals within our own borders who may be motivated by a variety of other causes from anti-government animus to racial prejudice,” Holder said.

The official statement is here.  As usual with Holder, there is disinformation being purveyed.  See for instance this LA Times article:

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder, Jr. on Monday announced the creation of a task force within the Justice Department to combat an “escalating danger” from “homegrown” terrorists within the United States.

The Justice Department, in a news release accompanying Holder’s weekly video address, cited a Congressional Research Service report last year that said domestic terrorists were responsible for more than two dozen incidents in the U.S. since 9/11.

Holder, in the video, cited the Boston Marathon bombings last year and shootings at Fort Hood in 2009 and 2014 as examples of “the danger we face from these homegrown threats.”

The use of the phrase “domestic terrorists” and Chechen brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev is a misdirect.  Another source, The Guardian, has a report agreeing with the first one.

The group will coordinate cases that involve Americans who may be spurred to violence for political or prejudicial reasons.

It will include representatives of the FBI, the National Security Division of the Justice Department and the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, which includes representatives of federal prosecutors.

Then Attorney General Janet Reno first established such a task force following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, but it was dismantled after the September 11, 2001 hijacked-plane attacks as the agencies turned their attention toward threats from abroad.

US Attorney General Eric Holder signed a memorandum last month reconstituting the group and will announce the details on Tuesday, one official said.

Events like the April 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon, in which the attackers appeared to be influenced by extremist groups abroad, would not fall under the committee’s jurisdiction.

Islamists, terrorists, and international threats aren’t the focus of this group.  You get one guess as to Holder’s target.  Post guesses in the comments.