David Codrea:

The same whistleblower source contacted this correspondent yesterday evening to express the opinion that questions raised in this column’s May 9 report have influenced this latest congressional inquiry. What remains to be seen now is how much stonewalling in response to the letter, which requests a response by June 2, will occur, and how much information Jones will withhold under a claim of “Privacy Act” provisions against disclosing personnel matters.

It’s always nice to see that David is making a difference with highly placed readers.  I have no indication at all that I’ve had such an effect.

David at JPFO:

“[C]ivilians are not allowed to possess machine-guns, military rifles and handguns … private possession of semi-automatic assault weapons [and] private possession of handguns (pistols and revolvers) is prohibited,” the site advises. Add to that licensing, background checks and registration for what they are allowed to own, a prohibition on concealed carry and stiff criminal penalties for gun law violations, and Nigeria is one of those places where the “law-abiding” are at extreme disadvantage.

Boko Haram, which doesn’t let such details slow them down a beat, finds such conditions enabling.

Recall also that we discussed Nigeria and gun control just a few days ago.  David prefaces his remarks by pointing out other problems associated with assistance to Niger.  I had also noted over the weekend that Nigeria is corrupt, with Army generals under investigation for providing weapons to Boko Haram.

Kurt Hofmann:

… the Bureau seems to have painted itself into something of an awkward corner when someone applies for a new machine gun on behalf of a trust.

I’ve seen that among other agencies and bureaus too when the combination of the law, regulation (which isn’t law no matter what you’ve been led to believe), interpretations of regulation, and filed federal register notices and discussions create such a confused entanglement and web of requirements that they are bound to be self contradictory somewhere.  The sad part is that this has never stopped any federal regulator from doing exactly what he wanted to do, in my experience.

Mike Vanderboegh has an interesting discussion on Wayned Hage and his battle with the BLM.  As the situation evolved between the BLM and Mr. Bundy, I also couldn’t help but think of Wayne Hage.

Jerry Miculek discusses and demonstrates a number of good pistol shooting techniques, including why he uses the isosceles stance.

As a perfect followup to Concerning The Nigerian Christian Girls (albeit coincidental), a Nigerian named Emmanuel Onwubiko weighs in on the issue of gun control in Nigeria.

Section 33[1] of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 [as amended]clearly says that every Nigerian has the inalienable right to life. How then do you safeguard this sacred constitutional right to life in a situation of near-anarchy which has exacerbated with the arrival, over four years now, of armed Islamic terrorists  known as Boko Haram? These terrorists invade towns and villages killing, maiming and destroying innocent lives and property of Nigerians and the security forces seem clearly unable to provide security for all people.

The Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, told the British Broadcasting Corpo­ration (BBC) television in an interview con­ducted on May 9, 2014 that North-East Nigeria was such a large expanse of land. This is interpreted to mean that the soldiers should not be expected to be everywhere in the three states under emergency rule in the terrorism-prone Adamawa, Yobe and Borno States. If the states that are under partial emergency are not sufficiently protected, do you expect that other states would be protected?

Little wonder then that in the North-West and North-Central, armed hoodlums suspected to be Fulani herdsmen have been on the rampage, killing people and destroying many villages.

May 8, 2014, the online version of The Guardian newspaper of the United Kingdom reported that of as many as 300 people were killed close to Nigeria’s border with Cameroon, while the Islamist group continued to hold more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.

The writer continues with an analysis of other countries which allow the ownership of guns, concluding that the crime rate is much lower than in Nigeria.  He concludes with this.

In these jurisdictions, there are evidence that crime rates are minimal but in Nigeria where government disallows people from bearing firearms except the useless hunting Dane guns for the village hunters, armed hoodlums have wasted hundreds of thou­sands of innocent lives and these lives would have been saved if Nigerians of sound men­tal state with clean criminal records were li­censed to carry firearms.

Will the Nigerian Government stand idly and watch as armed hoodlums decimate Ni­gerians in their thousands before it can do the needful to legalize individual firearms own­ership under certain regulations? My take is that the Nigerian Government must liberal­ize firearms ownership in Nigeria as one way of safeguarding right to life since the armed forces and police have proved seriously chal­lenged and unable to be everywhere to pro­tect the lives of Nigerians and the constitu­tion makes it imperative that the security and welfare of every citizen is the primary duty of government. A stitch in time saves nine.

What do Nigerian genocide and gun control have in common?  One enabled the other as a catalyst or at least a contributing cause, if not the root cause.  And thus the solution is simple.

John McCain says this concerning the kidnapped Christian girls in Nigeria.

“If they knew where they were, I certainly would send in U.S. troops to rescue them, in a New York minute I would, without permission of the host country,” McCain told The Daily Beast Tuesday. “I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan,” he added, referring to the president of Nigeria.

Of course, that’s not the solution for Christians anywhere.  U.S. special operations (McCain probably meant “operations,” not “forces”), cannot and should not be the moral conscience of the world.

Christians have been run out of Mesopotamia, killed and tortured in Egypt, and are being brutalized all over the world.  And the evil leader of this Islamic group in Nigeria claims that he has converted the girls to Islam.

He can “convert” the girls because all he has to do is force them under threat of death to say a few things and wear a few more clothes.  Islam has no Holy Spirit who moves as He will and does what he wishes, converting the hearts of His people.  Rather, it is a man-made religion, concocted by a violent and self serving seventh century warlord, child abuser, pedophile and murderer for the purpose of keeping his roving bad of hoodlums and ne’er-do-wells together.  It’s pronouncements are ad hoc groupings of ridiculous assertions, and the only thing not illogical in all it its literature was stolen from other faiths.  The seeds of violent subjugation are within the texts of Islam itself.  It isn’t a religion of peace.  It’s a religion of perverts and totalitarians.

Christians can preachy preach the gospel of pacifism if they want to.  They can conflate the Bible to mean that Christians must be a doormat for the world.  But it was preachers who supplied the moral underpinnings of the American war for independence.  There is nothing necessary in the modern  squishy Christianity we hear and see today.  It’s a choice because at the moment it’s convenient to make that choice and feel morally superior to everyone else.

But children are dying all over the world.  As long as Christians want to mouth silly platitudes to parishioners and congregants, Christian children will continue to die, and Christians will have to flee for their lives.  The solution lies in arming themselves and waging the good fight against Islamists everywhere.  A well placed .308 to the whole body, or several rounds of 5.56 to the head and chest, or a 230 grain .45 fat boy through the stomach should do just fine at stopping the Islamists in Nigeria.

Christians.  Buy guns and ammunition.  Learn to use them.  The Islamists are closer than you think, and sooner or later calls to prayer will be heard in places other than Detroit, Michigan.  Americans aren’t immune to this problem.  We’re just the final conquest.

See WRSA for some well placed ridicule of McCain.

See also Christians, The Second Amendment, And The Duty Of Self Defense.

ABC11:

VANCE COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) — A homeowner in Vance County opened fire on a man who kicked in his door Monday morning.

It happened about 9:45 a.m. as the homeowner, Jonathan Haith, was sleeping in his home in the 2200 block of Thomas Lane.

“Somebody was you know knocking on the door at 9:15, 9:30 in the morning,” said Haith. “I wanted to roll over and stay in the air conditioning, and I just ignored it.”

When the door knocks lasting 15 minutes were followed by a boom and a thud, Haith grabbed his AR-15 semi-automatic from under his bed and slowly crept into the hallway.

“I peeked around the corner, saw a tall, slender black gentleman standing over me with a pistol,” said Haith.

When the intruder shot at Haith with a 9mm and missed, he fired back. The bullet pierced the suspect’s stomach and shoulder.

“That was my round,” said Haith. “Evidently, it went through his body and struck the wall.”

Pandemonium followed, and the intruder scurried out. An apparent getaway vehicle spun out of Haith’s yard to pick up the intruder, who had collapsed outside of a day care up the street.

By that time, Haith had dialed 911.

“Once-in-a-lifetime incident that I hope doesn’t happen again,” said Haith.

The Vance County Sheriff’s Office hasn’t officially released any details of the incident.

According to Haith, both the driver and the shooter were taken into custody. He says the intruder who he shot was last listed in critical condition at the hospital.

Yea.  Once in a lifetime.  That’s may be what Mr. Stephen Bayezes thought too, but I guess it’s nice to have the accuracy of a rifle combined with the capability of repeat fire when your life is at stake – once in a lifetime or not.

And I thought those awful “military-style” weapons had no place in the home?

From David Codrea, there is this.

The 8 News NOW I-Team has learned that FBI agents have started an investigation into the events surrounding a potentially deadly showdown one month ago surrounding rancher Cliven Bundy.

It is one thing for Cliven Bundy and his supporters to square off against an assortment of Bureau of Land Management employees. It is quite another when the FBI enters the picture, and that is exactly what has happened.

The I-Team has confirmed that FBI agents have launched a formal investigation into alleged death threats, intimidation and possible weapons violations that culminated with a dangerous showdown on April 12, and the first people to be interviewed by FBI agents are Metro Police, starting with Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillispie.

Federal employees suspended their roundup of Cliven Bundy’s cattle, following a confrontation outside the BLM compound near Bunkerville. At the urging of Metro Police, Bundy’s cattle were released, but BLM’s new director announced the matter wasn’t over and would be resolved, one way or another. 

Last week, the I-Team talked with Metro officers who intervened to protect the lives of federal employees from the 400 or so Bundy supporters and armed militia members. Officers told the I-Team they feared for their lives that day because of the assembled firepower, and because many in the crowd had pointed weapons at officers, taunted them, told them they should be ready to die.

I don’t know about the details at the last of the report I cited, but it’s important that this issue be gotten right.  My readers know my views.  I believe that the federal government has two legitimate functions: (1) the common defense, and (2) building (only) the necessary roads and bridges to enable interstate commerce.  Beyond this, everything is unconstitutional and not approved by the wise founders.

But there is an audience who doesn’t think like me.  If the FBI is successful, some men may stand before a “jury of peers” for pointing weapons at BLM agents.  Since many juries are nothing more than a collection of imbeciles pooling their ignorance, discussions of the constitutional provisions or lack thereof for what the BLM did is a bridge too far.  Lives are at stake, and thus a simple and compelling argument needs to be pressed.

Fortunately, there is such an argument.  First of all, all men regardless of station in life are justified in self defense, and moreover, are duty bound to preserve life to the best of their ability.  This is a moral obligation on par with the most basic and important of God’s expectations for man.

There is also an equally simple and compelling legal argument for pointing weapons at BLM agents.  The irony is that it was given to us by the Supreme Court of the U.S., that other collection of imbeciles in Washington.  In Tennessee vesus Garner, we learned that even the Supreme Court believes that certain uses of firearms by LEOs is immoral.  Guns can only be used by law enforcement officers for the exact same reason that they may be used by civilians, i.e., for self defense.

This doesn’t mean that LEOs across America actually abide by Tennessee v. Garner, or that courts uphold the constitution.  But it does mean that right is on our side.  It is the BLM who came in pointing weapons at men, women and children.  If they are going to do this, it is not an unreasonable thing to expect that overwatch and security would point weapons back at the perpetrators to ensure their own safety.

There are those who may say that Cliven Bundy was a criminal, and some jurors might be in that very pool.  I disagree, but that’s not the point.  The men, women and children who were there were engaged in peaceful protests, and nothing more.  The objection rings hollow.

When the conversations get complicated, when the lawyers cite regulation until the faces of jurors are confused, when the media is perplexed or going along with the administration talking points, and when perhaps even your own folk become disillisioned and confused, we need to keep pressing this simple, compelling, morally upstanding position.  Weapons were pointed at BLM agents because the men there had to protect the lives of the people under their charge.  God approves, and even the stolid Supreme Court has recognized this fundamental right.

No backing up, no surrender, no losing focus on the point.  Say it again and again, indefatigable as it were, and without rest for your opponents.  The legal defense doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.  We (and the lawyers defending these men) just need to be disciplined enough to pull it off.

Like sharks feeding on chum, there has been another wrongful police raid.

David Codrea:

That’s the culmination of a series of “musical chairs” personnel moves involving Zapor that, per a whistleblower source, have been unwarranted, needlessly expensive, and ultimately, politically protective of management.

The relationship at this level of politics is incestuous.  None of this is surprising, but it’s a good read nonetheless.  And no wonder ATF morale is in the toilet.

Kurt Hofmann:

But back to the original question of bazookas. Why shouldn’t their possession by private citizens be protected? It’s not as if governments never use tanks against private citizens (see attached video), and nor can it be denied that enormous, heavily armored vehicles are becoming more and more routinely part of civilian police agencies’ equipment in the U.S.

We should.  And I should be able to own and M1A1 tank if I can afford it.

Via Mike Vanderboegh, this from The Salt Lake Tribune:

With anti-government sentiments roiling in the aftermath of Cliven Bundy’s Nevada standoff, government workers in western Utah are stripping BLM logos from their vehicles after two motorists brandished a gun and displayed a threatening sign at a federal wrangler who was driving Tuesday in Juab County.

The wrangler was driving a load of horses and burros north on Interstate 15 about 11 a.m. near Mills when a dark blue Dodge 1500 extended-cab pickup pulled up alongside the wrangler. The two occupants “told him he was No. 1 with that certain gesture,” said Eric Reid, the wrangler’s supervisor at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Fillmore Field Office.

It’s insulting to wranglers everywhere to call anyone who works for the BLM a “wrangler.”  As a former wrangler I’d kick the crap out of anyone with the BLM taking such a title.

WRSA has more on the Miami-Dade shooting frenzy by cops.  For the best analysis of what should be done about this, see my commenter Archer.

I’d charge all of them with first-degree murder (one count for each of the two people in the car) with the included lesser offenses of second-degree murder and manslaughter, conspiracy to commit the same (one count for each of the two people in the car), willful negligence/disregard for safety (one count for every bullet fired and another for the chase), endangering the public (one count for every bullet fired and another for the chase), assaulting a police officer (one count for each of the two officers hit by friendly fire), assault with a deadly weapon (one count for each of the two officers hit by friendly fire)…. I could go on. Under Florida’s “10/20/Life” statute, they’d all get 20 years, minimum, EVEN IF the shooting of the two in the car is ruled justified – which would be a stretch given the totally disproportionate amount of force present/used. Watch the media clamor to find a “Stand Your Ground” defense for the “public safety” officers.

After this event, it’s apparent once again that we need controls on assault hammers.

The Atlantic:

I’ve long proposed a simple rule: police officers who shoot unarmed innocents should have their guns taken away. They can work desk jobs or monitor meters. But if nothing else, they shouldn’t ever be in a position to put lives in danger again.

Applying that rule in Miami would have dramatic consequences.

The local CBS affiliate has investigated a police shooting that happened there last December. The results are jaw-dropping. A man who committed armed robbery and shot a police officer hours earlier was spotted in his automobile, along with a passenger who played no role in his crime. Police officers gave chase.

CBS reports what happened next:

The suspect’s blue Volvo crashed into the backyard of a townhouse.

It was later determined that neither the suspect nor the passenger was armed. Police officers nevertheless fired two barrages of bullets into the vehicle. Witnesses say that after the first volley of approximately 50 bullets, the two men were still alive. 

Anthony Vandiver, who lives in a building adjacent to the lot, saw the incident. “They were saying put your hands up, and the guys were still moving after they shot maybe 50, 60 times,” he said. “And the guy tried to put his hands up. And as soon as he put his hands up, it erupted again. And that was it for them. That guy tried his best to give up. I swear to God on everything I love, my kids, my momma, everything, I seen it all.”

Roughly two minutes passed between volleys.

After the second volley both men were dead. Said another witness: “The policemen that had on the black and white vests were out there laughing like it was so funny.”

How about a different standard than the one proposed by the writer?  How about all 23 officers stand accused of murder (with a jury composed entirely of people from the neighborhood from which the victims came), and if found guilty of first degree murder receive the death penalty.  If found guilty of second degree murder get life without the possibility of parole and live among the general prison population for the rest of their miserable existence?

Sounds reasonable to me.  Would you propose a different standard?  Why?

Politico Magazine:

It is here in the forest that you leave behind, once and for all, Ukraine’s cosmopolitan present and take a step back into its violent past—as well as glimpse what could become its bloody future. It is here, locals say, where Ukraine’s fate could be decided once again.

The training camp for Ukraine’s new generation of partisans—mostly young people who are signing up to fight the Russians in anticipation of an invasion—sits in a grassy clearing in the forest. A few dilapidated buildings given to the group by a Ukrainian non-governmental organization of mysterious origins, sitting on private land loaned to them by a local businessman, make up the “headquarters.”

An old army mobile kitchen (designed to be pulled by a jeep) is parked up outside the canteen: a long, rectangular room where the partisan trainees break for lunch to eat thick, potato-heavy vegetable soup. A hose resting on a chopped tree trunk provides the drinking water. The people here are preparing to live rough—and, they say, to die fast, if necessary.

“Many of us are here learning the basics so we don’t get killed in the first minute of the war,” says Tanya, a 38-year old graphic designer and the camp’s coordinator. “Maybe with what we’ve learned we might last one or two days.”

An advisor close to Kyiv’s security establishment told me that dozens of these camps are springing up around the country—with more opening every week—but they are all organized by private citizens working in informal groups without funding or oversight from the state, making reliable information as to their extent almost impossible to find.

What is clear is that the idea of partisan war has taken hold among the people. In the bars of Kyiv, men talk to me about going to east to fight a guerrilla war, while a senior advisor close to Kyiv’s security establishment assures me that Moscow will face widespread partisan resistance if it continues its aggression.

Forgetting for a moment about the loser Obama and how his weakness has catapulted the world in chaos, the upshot of this is watching the Ukrainian unorganized militia become organized and learn to fight and survive – or perish for their cause.

One very important point should be made here.  If they are training this hard for the purpose of lasting a few days to kill the enemy, the Russians are in for a hard time.  While it’s certainly more effective to live for your cause than to die for it, a man who is willing to lose everything is a very dangerous man.