From a pastor in the UMC (where else?).

Consider for a moment a nightmare scenario: A person walks into your worship service and brandishes or, worse still, actually fires, a weapon.

Now, because your church has opted into our state legislature’s new law allowing licensed gun owners to bring weapons to church, several folks in the congregation are able to draw their guns and return fire.

Now, look into that scene and tell me truthfully: Does the second half of that scenario make you feel safer? In the chaos of such a moment, are worshipers in LESS peril because MORE people are shooting?

I’ll admit, however, that my perspective, like any personal view, isn’t simply practical. My opinion is shaped by my Christian faith and beliefs.

[ … ]

I’m not saying there is no place for power or weapons in the protection of the innocent (my own son is a police officer, and people I love and respect are in the military). I AM saying that guns in the church are:

• a danger to the very people we would protect,

• one more barrier between us and Christ, and

• no more than the illusion of security.

And then there is this from Patheos.

My views on our gun culture are fairly simple.  It can be boiled down to this: the human tradition of the second amendment does not trump the divine revelation of the fifth commandment. That’s because, to repeat, the single most important fact of our gun culture is 30,000 corpses each year.

Notice that our UMC pastor tips his hat to the necessary evil of having to use violence by pointing to police (while not mentioning a man’s own protection of his family), but says that it is a “barrier between us and Christ.”

Also take note how he paints the picture.  It is one of a perpetrator firing wildly, and a would-be self defender, rather than shooting in a controlled manner to end the violence and thus save innocent lives, firing wildly in return.  It’s a painting of two whirl tops shooting indiscriminately rather than with purpose.

He does this to bias his ignorant readers into thinking that folk who carry guns are going to go wild and whirl top on their families.  But the pastor knows that something is wrong with his argument.  He knows that there is no stopping a gunman unless someone else has a gun.

His solution?  “The way of the cross is true and good. Be not afraid.”  But here his powers of Biblical exegesis (if he ever had any) fail him.  Christ never promised that his propitiatory sacrifice on the cross would stop gunmen.  The ignorant pastor conflates different subjects in the Bible.

We’ve discussed this before.  Relying on Matthew Henry, John Calvin and the Westminster standards, we’ve observed that all Biblical law forbids the contrary of what it enjoins, and enjoins the contrary of what it forbids.  Thus have I said:

God has laid the expectations at the feet of heads of families that they protect, provide for and defend their families and protect and defend their countries.  Little ones cannot do so, and rely solely on those who bore them.  God no more loves the willing neglect of their safety than He loves child abuse.  He no more appreciates the willingness to ignore the sanctity of our own lives than He approves of the abuse of our own bodies and souls.  God hasn’t called us to save the society by sacrificing our children or ourselves to robbers, home invaders, rapists or murderers. Self defense – and defense of the little ones – goes well beyond a right.  It is a duty based on the idea that man is made in God’s image.  It is His expectation that we do the utmost to preserve and defend ourselves when in danger, for it is He who is sovereign and who gives life, and He doesn’t expect us to be dismissive or cavalier about its loss.

So our writer at Patheos and the UMC pastor are both equally theologically shallow and childlike.  We can only hope that their influence is commensurate with their poor knowledge of the Scriptures.

As for guns in churches (and anywhere else for that matter), think of the children and the mandate by God to protect them.  If you cannot do that you are guilty of violating God’s law.  Think of the children.

David Codrea:

Titled “Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed eCollection eComments Requested; Report of Multiple Sale or Other Disposition of Certain Rifles,” and assigned OMB Number 1140–0100, the 60-day notice abstract declares “The purpose of this information collection is to require Federal Firearms Licensees to report multiple sales or other dispositions whenever the licensee sells or otherwise disposes of two or more rifles within any five consecutive business days with the following characteristics: (a) Semi automatic; (b) a caliber greater than .22; and (c) the ability to accept a detachable magazine.

In the updates and comments, there is still some question as to just how far this goes.  Does this codify the requirement only for border states or does it expand it to all FFLs?  Either way, the ATF is overreaching, a feature of every agency in the Obama administration and a symptom of a larger more pernicious illness.

Kurt Hofmann:

The reporting requirement was imposed by raw executive fiat. A similar requirement for multiple handgun purchases, in contrast, is mandated by federal law. A blatantly unconstitutional law, to be sure, but at least that requirement has the thin veneer of legitimacy of having received the blessing of Congress.

At least when the communists in Congress have been involved, part of the constitution has been followed (albeit neglecting the most important part – our protections in the Bill of Rights).  But the ATF knows that there is no constitutional provision for what it is doing.

WRSA has a must read piece on more police piggishness, oddly enough by Mark Steyn.  Read every word of Mark’s article.  And there is this.

The District Court found for the coppers, and so did the Fifth Circuit, ruling that “Get your fucking hands off my mom” constituted a “verbal threat” and, from a guy on his knees 15-20 feet away, “an immediate threat to the safety of the officers” – rather than (as we approach Mother’s Day) what ought to be the sentiment of any self-respecting young man seeing somebody physically assault his mom.

The district court and the officer who perpetrated this evil had better watch their six should they ever do this to my wife of mother.

I had to miss Mike on Alan Colmes, but there is this.

Acrimonious, but fun. My favorite line: “You know, I’ve been warning about the possibility of civil war caused by government bad conduct for the past 20 years, but it wasn’t until I started mentioning that collectivist senators were putting their own testicles at risk that people started paying attention. I think I must have accidentally put my finger on where you fellers worship — if you can stand THAT mental picture.”

Alan Colmes and his radio show?  Worthless.  The telephone call in?  Pennies.  Mike’s line: Priceless.

Finally, if you want some pure gun porn, look here and here (be warned, it will take you a while).

Hillary “What difference at this point does it make” Clinton, has spoken on guns.

Hillary Clinton told an audience of mental health professionals on Tuesday that the United States needs to rein in its gun culture or risk a world where insignificant disagreements could lead to shootings.

Asked about the mental health aspects of guns, Clinton said “I think we’ve got to rein in what has become a almost article faith that anybody can have a gun, anywhere, anytime. I don’t believe that is in the best interest of the vast majority of people.”

“We really have got to get our arms around it because at the rate we are going, we are going to have so many people with guns everywhere fully licensed, fully validated,” Clinton said, painting a picture of a country where small annoyances could lead to shootings.

Clinton, whose comments came during the question and answer portion at the end of her appearance, said because “we are living at a time when there is so much external stimulation and some much internal confusion in certain people,” it would be a bad idea to let people “go to bars with guns, let them go to schools with guns, let them go to church with guns.”

But Clinton also gave an olive branch to gun owners, adding “I think you can say that and still support the right of people to own guns.”

The witch knows this isn’t true.  She knows that many people carry guns to church.  I have, others have, and do all of the time.  She knows that we don’t let disagreements with the sermon devolve into shooting sprees.

And the witch knows that you can’t say the things she said and believe what she believes and “still support the right of people to own guns.”  A gun at home in a safe is the equivalent of a paperweight.

So there you have it.  Collectivist, liar, witch.  But you knew that all along.

Fox News:

CONGAREE NATIONAL PARK, S.C. –  Search crews have found a father and his two children who had been missing for more than two days in the vast woods and swamps of the Congaree National Park in South Carolina, officials said Tuesday.

In a news release, the National Park Service said rangers had located J.R. Kimbler, his 10-year-old son, Dakota, and his 6-year-old daughter, Jade.

The three did not appear to be seriously hurt and were being taken to a local hospital for observation, officials said. Authorities planned to release more information later in the day.

Crews traveling by airplane, boat and on foot had been looking for the family in the 27,000-acre site since the father sent a text message late Saturday saying they were lost.

Officials closed the park Monday afternoon during the search. An investigative team from the National Park Service had also checked on leads outside the park in case the family members had not been lost while hiking.

There had been no indication Kimbler, 43, took any camping gear or other items for an overnight stay. The taxi driver left his cigarettes in his cab that was still parked near the visitor’s center Monday, and his daughter’s inhaler and other medicine were in the hotel room where he lived, according to his family.

The park has marked trails, but beyond the paths are tangles of old growth trees, swamps and underbrush. The land has become even more rugged since an ice storm in February knocked down thousands of trees and limbs.

“Many of the trails you can’t see to navigate right now,” said Sana Sohen, a park service spokeswoman.

ABC News reports that “Kimbler and his two children – Dakota, 10, and Jade, 6 – set out for a nature hike Saturday in Congaree National Park. They soon found themselves lost in the 27,000-acre park with no food, water or supplies … During the ordeal, the family drank dirty rain water collected in puddle, and even tried unsuccessfully eating wild turkey eggs.”

The Congaree National Park is more than 40 square miles of old growth forest and swamp, the original stomping grounds of General Francis Marion, legendary Swamp Fox of the war for independence.  It’s no place to go out unprepared and without a knowledge of the area.

We’ve covered this many times before.  I don’t even go on day hikes without a day pack or patrol bag, water, energy bars, tactical light, poncho, fire starting equipment, compass, 550 cord and a gun.

With the gun you can defend yourself and perhaps obtain food, even with a handgun.  With the poncho and 550 cord you have instant shelter in the rain and can avoid hypothermia.    With the fire you have heat and light along with water purification, with the water you pack in you have temporary hydration and a container for collecting more water (it’s best to pack a water container that can be put into the fire).

With the compass you have navigation, and with energy bars you have relief from food gathering in the initial stages of survival.  With pack, water, bars, heavy rubberized poncho, 550 cord and a gun (with several magazines) you can get by with less than 15-20 pounds.

If you can’t pack in 15-20 pounds, you shouldn’t be going into 27,000 acre old growth forest and swamp that managed to destroy the morale of troops commanded by General Charles Cornwallis.

It’s a well worn category here, and that itself is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in Amerika.  Here is the first report we discussed just recently.

HENRICO, Va. (WTVR) –Ruth Hunter, a 75-year-old woman, said she was tied up while State Police invaded her Henrico apartment.

She said officers told her during the raid what they were looking for, and court documents also show the information. She said she had nothing to do with the investigation.

Virginia State Police said a drug investigation is what prompted a Henrico County magistrate to issue a warrant for an apartment in the 5600 block of Crenshaw road.

The woman claims that officers ultimately arrested a man who lives two doors down from her.

“I thought someone was breaking in to rob or kill me,” Hunter said.

Seconds after her front door flies open Hunter said she heard a voice yell “Police!”

“…Took my hands with a tie-thing and said ‘You’re under arrest’ and started asking questions,” she recalled. “The more I told them I didn’t know these people, the more he continued.”

Hunter said that police left her apartment and went two doors down, while she was left handcuffed with a zip tie.

The fiancé of the man arrested says she was there at the time, and asked CBS 6 to hide her identity

“Just so happened they came to the apartment and they got it mixed up,’ she said.

The team left her zip tied because as you know, seventy five year old women are such an ever-present danger to law enforcement.  She could have thrown down with the best of them while they were busy doing other things, like going to the right house rather than grandmother’s place.

Next up, police in Miami-Dade badly beat a young man with Down Syndrome for packing a Colostomy bag.

Gilberto Powell says the police were following him in their cruiser as he was walking home. The police report says the officers decided to stop Gilberto after they noticed a “bulge” in Gilberto’s pants. After an officer tried to conduct a patdown, the report claims Gilberto attempted to flee.

Gilberto denies trying to run away and says he did everything the officer asked him to do. What happened next resulted in the photograph above.

After Powell was finally handcuffed and questioned, the officers realized he was “mentally challenged, was not capable of understanding our commands, and that the bulge in his waistband was a colostomy bag,” the report said.

By that time, Gilberto had been hit, knocked to the ground and the bag had reportedly been ripped from his body. The father says by the time he and Gilberto’s mother ran outside to their son, the cops had removed Gilberto’s pants and had him out there in his boxer shorts.

The mother asked the officer, “Didn’t you know he was a Down Syndrome kid?” to which the cop responded, “I’m not a doctor, I didn’t know.”

The family’s attorney Philip Gold said that it should’ve been immediately obvious that Gilberto has special needs.

If you just look at Gilberto, he 5-foot-3, 130 pounds with Down Syndrome, it’s 100 percent obvious he has Down Syndrome,” he said. It’s impossible to believe [the police’s story] if you hear one word out of Gilberto’s mouth.”

Because even though Florida’s stop and identify statute applies only to prowling and loitering, 5 foot tall boys with Down syndrome and colostomy bags are such a danger to society.

Next up, news from Framingham.

A Boston television station reported Thursday night,  Framingham Police and members of the Massachusetts State Police raided the wrong apartment Thursday morning, when conducting a drug raid.

The police meant to raid 78A at 6 a.m. Thursday morning but instead raided 78B, which was occupied by a mom and her five children, ranging in age from 4 to 18.

Oh, what’s the difference, 78A and 78B?  The alpha-numeric characters are, after all, so similar.  I’m sure that officers pointed rifles at women and children just in case, you know, so they could be assured of going home safely at the end of their shift.  But don’t forget that we have history with the Framingham Police Department when innocent Mr. Eurie Stamps was shot to death by their SWAT team.

Finally, no door is safe with a SWAT team on the prowl.

Midland-A Midland family says they don’t feel safe in their own home after the Midland Police Department’s SWAT team kicked in their front door during last Friday’s tragic standoff.

The family is asking that the city fix the damages that were made to their door, but it could take several weeks before the city takes any action.

For the past four nights, Cesar Reyna and his girlfriend have not been able to sleep in peace knowing that at anytime someone could walk right through their front door.

“I worry for the safety of my son, anything can happen whenever,” said Reyna. “Anybody can just walk into my house, it’s just uncomfortable.”

When Reyna got home from work last Friday night, his front door was wide open and police officers covered his front lawn.

“I came out and talked to them [police officers] and they said they had kicked it in, but they wouldn’t tell me why,” said Reyna.

According to Sarah Higgins,  the Public Information Officer for Midland, the SWAT team knocked on the door several times before kicking it in. She said the team had to evacuate the home being that it was right across the street from were the standoff took place.

Reyna and his family were told to call the City’s Safety and Risk Management department to file a claim for the damages that were made to their door, but when they did make the call they were told their case wouldn’t be reviewed until May 13.

These folks weren’t just on some correct or incorrect raid party list.  They lived across the street from the raid party.  They had the misfortune of living in the wrong place, and the SWAT team decided to bust in their door, and are now guilty of breaking and entering, trespassing, violation of due process rights, violation of rights against illegal search and seizure, destruction of property, vandalism, and so on the list could go.  But hey, they got to go home safely at the end of their shift.

The saddest part about all of this is that no judge in America, local, state or federal, so much as gives a damn about any of this.  They all play for the same team.  And in anticipation of comments concerning the root cause of this sorry state of affairs, it isn’t either police or judges (or politicians, for that matter).  It’s not either-or.  It’s both-and.  All participating parties are culpable for the moral obscenity and the grotesque, twisted monster that has become our system of justice.  Let the fan boys from PoliceOne.com chew on these things for a while.

Mike Vanderboegh:

As an aside, weapons handling in Jerry’s camp was terrible and I observed numerous unsafe practices about muzzle discipline with loaded rifles. It was a wonder that no one was killed or injured by a negligent discharge during my stay. As they say, if I may paraphrase, God takes care of drunks, little children and the American militia. I counseled some of these safety scofflaws personally and privately. Eventually I gave it up as wasted effort and just tried to stay out of the line of potential fire. The sight of a newbie clerk sitting at the check-in table in the CP wearing a loaded FAL on a sling in front of his body muzzle-up while he filled out new arrival cards was as comical as it was appalling. That this was apparently with the tacit approval of Jerry, whose life was also endangered thereby, can only be excused by extreme sleep deprivation, which as I have mentioned is itself a command failure.

This is a very serious issue.  Negligent discharges happen, and if trigger discipline doesn’t do the job to keep people safe, muzzle discipline is supposed to fill the gap.  The concept is “defense in depth.”  This is why we learn, practice, correct each other, discipline ourselves at the range and at home, and in general think of the rules of gun safety in nearly religious dimensions and proportions.  People can be maimed and die as a result of our lack of discipline.

For those who haven’t been trained in the discipline of firearms ownership and use, they should not put themselves in a position to harm other people.  Untrained people should have been sent home, and this should have been done without remorse and without prejudice.  There is no room for emotion or hurt feelings.  For those who have been trained in the discipline of firearms use and still refuse to practice safe handling practices, this is a moral issue.  The weapon owner is in effect saying, “I don’t care about you or even your life.  I am willing to disobey worldwide respected firearms safety practices for the sake of my own convenience, or just because I am an ass – or who knows why.  Maybe I’m just too lazy to to care.  For whatever reason, I’ve decided that my life matters, and yours does not.”

Those people are even more dangerous than the first kind.  The Marine Corps makes it clear that it won’t be tolerated.  They go to what my friend Tim Lynch calls the “room of pain.”  And extended stay in such a place changes things, and if not, discharge is the next step.  Since no one at the Bundy ranch could be taken to the room of pain, sending them home was the best option.  I don’t know who should have taken the responsibility to do that.  Perhaps Bundy’s sons should have taken a larger role in the control of people on their property.

But perhaps they weren’t in a position to do that.  In either case, for the folks at the ranch to be called “militia” and behave this way is a sad commentary on the state of militia.  Apparently, folks need to go back to the basics before they are assigned to larger jobs.

And for us, the mission is clear.  Practice, read, stay at the range, train, and imbibe the rules of gun safety and proper behavior protocol for gun owners until they are so second-nature that it comes before everything else.  The kind of behavior Mike observed at the Bundy ranch is totally unacceptable.  Muzzle flagging individuals and muzzle sweeping crowds is for losers.  If this offends your sensibilities, and even if you were there at the Bundy ranch, that’s just too bad.  I don’t care.  We’ve got to do better than this.

Last 3-shot group of the day.

Shooting at the range in Pickens, S.C., with the Tikka T3 Hunter, 0.270, Walnut stock, Weaver scope.  Yes, that’s a double-punch at 100 yards.  Between the three shots, 1 MOA.

David Codrea:

“Establishment press has virtually ignored DOJ’s pernicious ‘Operation Choke Point’ for over a year,” financial writer Tom Blumer shows in a Friday Newsbusters analysis of the program, its timeline, and its overreaching tentacles into 30 ostensibly “high risk industries” the government is now targeting. Blumer lists those industries, linking to the FDIC’s “Managing Risks in Third-Party Payment Processor Relationships.”

Hmmm.  Suddenly the BoA abuse of gun manufacturers and companies makes better sense.  David also gives us a good article at JPFO:

“In reality, most police departments only train about two times a year, averaging less than 15 hours annually,” a Tactics & Training article on Police One admits.

This is similar to what a Captain of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department told me once: “Most of our officers pull their weapons out and qualify once a year.  Beyond that, they don’t train with them.  I had to join the Charlotte Rifle and Pistol Club to learn gun safety.”

Kurt Hofmann quotes Dr. Ben Carson:

On the other side of the argument, there are reasonable people who look at the tens of thousands of people who are killed each year in this country by guns, and they do not feel that we are doing enough to stop the carnage.

Many of them want to see significant restrictions on the distribution of firearms in our nation, and others want to restrict types and quantities of ammunition. Some would be happy just to make sure that all guns and gun owners are registered, and most reasonable people certainly are not in favor of allowing criminals and mentally unstable individuals to purchase firearms.

Oh, I don’t think they’re reasonable at all.  I disagree with his premise, and so I’ll disagree with his conclusions.  That’s logic for you.  Kurt does a good job of laying out the time line and details of Dr. Ben Carson’s position on guns.  Another thing I’ll observe is that this points once again to the difference between the collectivist tendencies in the Northern states versus the Southern states.

I smile every time I see some outlet pick up the Wolverine speech by Mike Vanderboegh.  Mike links to a WND and Huffington Post piece.  Make sure you pick up Mike’s speeches here, here and here.

What’s that concerning a Mongolian Goat Rodeo?

WTVR.com:

HENRICO, Va. (WTVR) –Ruth Hunter, a 75-year-old woman, said she was tied up while State Police invaded her Henrico apartment.

She said officers told her during the raid what they were looking for, and court documents also show the information. She said she had nothing to do with the investigation.

Virginia State Police said a drug investigation is what prompted a Henrico County magistrate to issue a warrant for an apartment in the 5600 block of Crenshaw road.

The woman claims that officers ultimately arrested a man who lives two doors down from her.

“I thought someone was breaking in to rob or kill me,” Hunter said.

Seconds after her front door flies open Hunter said she heard a voice yell “Police!”

“…Took my hands with a tie-thing and said ‘You’re under arrest’ and started asking questions,” she recalled. “The more I told them I didn’t know these people, the more he continued.”

Hunter said that police left her apartment and went two doors down, while she was left handcuffed with a zip tie.

The fiancé of the man arrested says she was there at the time, and asked CBS 6 to hide her identity

“Just so happened they came to the apartment and they got it mixed up,’ she said.

State Police cite an ongoing drug investigation as why they can’t comment any further.

Ms. Hunter doesn’t say, but I suspect the LEOs pointed rifles at her head.  They can’t comment any further because they screwed up, and we wouldn’t want the public to get wind of things like this, would we now?  They may start to question why we have to do raids like this in the first place.

At 75 years old, it’s seriously in doubt that she posed any threat to anyone, much less the police, and the fact that she was zip tied is obscene.  Hey, but at least the LEOs got to go home safely at the end of their shift, and that’s what’s really important, right?

The Washington Post:

BOB SCHIEFFER: “Does it bother you or does it worry you that we may be going backwards, that we’re going back to the day of the OK Corral and the old West where everybody carried a gun? Is that where we’re headed here?”

FORMER SENATOR RICK SANTORUM (R-Pa.): “You know, everybody romanticizes the OK Corral and all of the things that happened. But gun crimes were not very prevalent back then. Why? Because people carry guns.”

– exchange on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” April 27, 2014

The Hollywood version of the Wild West is at the core of this exchange on Face the Nation, so perhaps it’s time for a history lesson. One-time presidential candidate Rick Santorum asserted that gun crimes were low back then because people had the right to carry guns. But he actually has the story backward.

The 1881 gunfight in Tombstone, Ariz., was actually sparked by an effort to enforce the town’s Ordinance No. 9:  “It is hereby declared unlawful to carry in the hand or upon the person or otherwise any deadly weapon within the limits of said city of Tombstone, without first obtaining a permit in writing.”

That’s right, City Marshal Virgil Earp and his brother Wyatt were attempting to enforce a gun-control law that cowboys were evading — a law that was rather common in the West, according to historians.

Notice that the writer didn’t link scholarly reference for the notion that this was “a law that was rather common in the West.”  That’s because he can’t, and that’s because it wasn’t.

Notice how the writer’s prose drips with indignation at what he thinks he knows.  This is amusing, but you aren’t left as educated about the facts as he claims after reading his prose.

The real story is much more complicated, involving the intrigue of a woman, corrupt deals between alleged bad guys and alleged good guys, threats, innuendo, goading, and the desire for power as an elected official wrapped up into a surreptitious plan that ultimately led to the shootout.

Yes, gun control was a part of the issue, but take note that Americans won’t give up their guns, especially in the face of abusive law enforcement.  This is one good takeaway for us all, as well as the fact that snide commentaries from the main stream media aren’t as educated as they think they are.