Remember when I asked this question?

When will you be adjudicated mentally defective because you believe that being armed is the surest way to ameliorate tyranny in America?

Now we know the answer.  Via Uncle, The Washington Post:

[Plaintiffs allege that, as] of February 3, 2011, Plaintiffs possessed FOID cards, owned firearms, and kept their firearms in their home. At some point before February 3, 2011, David expressed “unpopular political views … about his support of Second Amendment rights” to “a locally elected official.” That official, somebody in that official’s office, or one of the individual defendants falsely construed David’s comments “as evidence that [he] had a mental condition that made him dangerous.” On February 3, 2011, [Illinois State Police] Lieutenant [John] Coffman wrote a letter to David revoking his FOID card under § 8(f) of the Act based on the false and unreasonable assertion that David had a “mental condition” within the meaning of that provision.

On February 5, 2011, with Lieutenant Coffman’s approval, Agents Pryor and Summers entered Plaintiffs’ home without a warrant or consent, conducted a search, and seized Plaintiffs’ firearms, which Plaintiffs used for personal protection, hunting, investment, and enjoyment …

Simply because local LEOs wanted to, the Plaintiffs had their weapons confiscated, and the LEOs ignored constitutional protections regarding illegal search and seizure.  The case has to do with residents of Illinois, but it could be anywhere.

Now someone spend the time and expend the effort to explain to me how mental health checks are going to keep guns out of the hands of “dangerous criminals.”  Go ahead.  I’m listening.

AJC.com:

The content of HB 60, the omnibus gun bill passed by the Legislature last Thursday, is finally available online and in hard copy at the state Capitol.

Two areas are likely to spark some controversy. First, there’s a requirement that holders of concealed weapons permits must have that license on their persons when they carry. Which is immediately followed by the caveat that cops aren’t allowed to stop anyone solely to check for that permit:

(a) Every license holder shall have his or her valid weapons carry license in his or her immediate possession at all times when carrying a weapon, or if such person is exempt from having a weapons carry license pursuant to Code Section 16-11-130 or subsection (c) of Code Section 16-11-127.1, he or she shall have proof of his or her exemption in his or her immediate possession at all times when carrying a weapon, and his or her failure to do so shall be prima-facie evidence of a violation of the applicable provision of Code Sections

(b) A person carrying a weapon shall not be subject to detention for the sole purpose of investigating whether such person has a weapons carry license.

Howard Sills, sheriff of Putnam County, noted the language as the bill passed last week:

“Then there is one sentence, and it destroys everything, ” Sills said.

That one sentence says police may not detain anyone to demand to see a weapons permit. That means, Sills said, that if someone is walking down the street late at night with a pistol stuck in his waistband, police may not stop him and ask to see his weapons permit.

I don’t have much to say about this except notice the sleight of hand by the CLEO.  What the proposed law says is that you must have your permit with you, and then they made it clear that there will be no “stop and identify” authority.

As it is now, Georgia is a stop and identify state (with some form of law intended for loitering).  They are undoing that.  That has no bearing on the issue of permits, and the CLEO knows it.  He knows that he told a lie when he said one sentence “destroys everything.”

Uncle discusses a judge discussing the ATF making crime their mission instead of doing their job:

The time has come to remind the Executive Branch that the Constitution charges it with law enforcement — not crime creation. A reverse-sting operation like this one transcends the bounds of due process and makes the Government the oppressor of its people.

To LEOs, I told you so.

It’s what Mike Vanderboegh calls losing the mandate of heaven.  At one time in our history, constables were respected and admired.  Children wanted to talk to them, show them respect, and even be like them.  Nowadays, with enough rifles pointed at women and children while screaming obscenities, with enough dead animals, with enough abuse and danger from cops, it may not be long before the people turn on cops.  If you’re a cop, you don’t want that to happen.  Believe me.  You don’t want that to happen.  You want to maintain the “mandate of heaven.”  If you lose it, you’ve lost everything.

Mike Vanderboegh believes that Chris Christie is playing Russian Roulette with his presidential aspirations with this potential magazine ban.  I don’t think so.  Wait until Chris Christie attempts to play his loud mouth, overbearing, schoolyard bully routine down South, say in South Carolina or Alabama, where we don’t get into meddling jerks bossing us around.  Chris Christie will never be president, regardless of what he does in New Jersey.

Mike Vanderboegh relates RI state senator Josh Miller winning friends and influencing people.  To gun owners, he says, Go fuck yourself.

Kurt Hofmann:

Perhaps surprisingly, in 2005, both chambers of the Illinois legislature introduced HB 477/SB 44, the “Gun-free Zone Criminal Conduct Liability Act,” and this legislation was far from toothless …

There’s no “perhaps.”  I’m shocked, really.  If someone would have asked me when Illinois would have a provision like this, I would have said “not in my lifetime.”  I would have been wrong.

Infowars (Alex Jones’ outfit) has to be taken with a grain of salt, or several grains of salt, and routinely ignored unless they have hard evidence for their assertions (and given that they don’t do analysis of said evidence because their analysis is routinely faulty).  But this time they have a zinger.  The Department of Homeland Security is targeting Americans.  We all knew that anyway, but this adds detail to the charges because there is a leaked DHS document

The document (PDF) was leaked by an individual affiliated with Stewart Rhodes’ Oathkeepers organization and passed on to Infowars. It is entitled National Exercise Program – Capstone Exercise 2014 – Scenario Ground Truth.

The document is intended for “U.S. Department of Homeland Security Trusted Agents Only” and is “disseminated only on a
need-to-know basis.” Even the role players involved in the exercise itself are prohibited from seeing the files.

The exercise is designed to evaluate readiness in preparation for a catastrophic incident, natural disaster or major act of terrorism. Some of the scenarios which will be in play during the exercise include a series of earthquakes, tsunamis and a nuclear weapons accident.

On page 125 of the document, a scenario is outlined whereby a group calling itself “Free Americans against Socialist Tyranny” responds to “The U.S. Northern Command mission of Defense Support to Civil Authorities” (or the imposition of martial law) by launching a protest campaign on social media and potentially engaging in cyber attacks.

The scenario goes on to suspect members of North Command of being sympathetic to the cause of opposition to socialist tyranny.  This document is remarkable for a number of reasons, but let’s rehearse just a few.

First of all, as I’ve observed before, while the DHS, Northern Command and all sorts of other armed agents in the service of the rulers think they are with the “in” crowd, they aren’t.  The effete, entitled, elitist sophisticates see them as Neanderthals.  Brutish and evil, but a necessary evil if the state is to function to maintain two classes of people.  To the rulers the gun-toting, government paid troopers are knuckle-dragging monkeys who do their bidding.  The rulers don’t love them or even like them.

Second, this is what happens when so-called “conservatives” create unnecessary and bloated government programs like the DHS.  Socialists like Obama put layer upon layer on top of those government programs to ensure power in perpetuity.  It’s best not to create those government programs – ever.

Third, notice the paranoia.  There are patriots who disagree with socialism, and they are the enemy.  Worse still, there are those in Northern Command who – gasp – might just agree with them.  The threat isn’t the Taliban, or al Qaeda, or the Muslim Brotherhood, or the Chinese, or the Russians.  The real threat is inside of America, and not only that, but inside of the DHS and military structure as well.

Fourth, notice what the disagreement is over: government control, which not coincidentally is what the original America revolution was about.  One wonders if that irony is lost on the morons who created this scenario.

Fifth, this is apparently what happens when a large, bored land army has nothing more to do, at least, one who has lost its moral bearings.  They begin to worry over things like stability operations in the homeland, about internal threats, and about ludicrous scenarios like “extremist militias” taking over the government of Darlington, South Carolina.

Finally, this is simply as creepy as I can imagine.  We pay people good wages to watch us, to investigate us, to spy on us, and to monitor our comings and goings.  Forgive an engineer’s perspective on this, but it seems to me that these folks ought to be earning a technical degree and making a better widget.  Thus would they be adding to theirs wealth and the wealth of others.  But they’re not.  They are parasites on Americans, the very ones they are supposed to watch.

Just like local LEOs who behave abusively towards the people, they are in danger of losing the “mandate of heaven.”  When they do, they will have lost everything because the respect of the people is tied to moral certitude and justification.  To folks in the DHS and Northern Command, think hard about those things.  Those ideas have visitation with you and haunt you in the future.

In what must certainly make her parents proud, Hannah Sparks recently wrote Guns are bad, m’kay?  There isn’t time enough to address all of the inconsistencies and misrepresentations in the commentary, but one egregious error stands out.

Run-of-the-mill governmental corruption aside, the gun lobby wields its power in more insidious, blatantly harmful ways. One of its worst tactics is stymieing government research into gun violence from a public health perspective. The lobby’s first target was the National Center for Injury Control and Prevention, a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which was conducting important data collection on gun violence in the mid-1990s.

Members of Congress allied with the gun lobby altered funding for the CDC in a way that explicitly prevented it from advocating for gun control. Recently, the National Institutes for Health has gotten similar treatment from Congressional Republicans for similar research. Funding for studies by public institutions like these is all but dry, and private researchers just can’t do the same kind of work as the CDC and NIH do.

Idiot Representative Keith Ellison sings the same tune in his recent interview with idiot Bill Maher.  We’ve discussed this before, the notion that the gun lobby is preventing anything from happening concerning studies.

All the gun lobby managed to do is prevent your and my tax dollars from going to such research.  The country is broke and we certainly can’t find a better way to cut wasteful spending.

As for the fact that “private researchers just can’t do the same kind of work as the CDC,” that’s just too damn bad.  If there is a market for it, private industry or private individuals will find a way to fund it.  Either way, you have a right to tax me for the common defense and building roads and bridges to enable interstate commerce.  Beyond that, I see no constitutional basis for confiscation of my wealth for any government program.

For Hannah, don’t use words like m’kay in the title line.  It evokes visions of stupid, gum-chomping girls.

As a followup to my article Note To Cops And Survivalists: The World Is Full Of Animals, Embrace It!, Mountain Guerrilla posted a piece on animals and logistics (via WRSA), although he didn’t link back to my article.

Mosby spends some time rehearsing an Army field manual on animals and logistics, with some good suggestions for the proper use of horses.  Then he poses this.

Do you know how to ride a horse? I don’t mean sit on a horse in the lesson arena either. Have you ever ridden a horse across country, through the brush? Across steep terrain. Like I said, I’m not an expert, but I’ve done both of these enough to know…and witness…untrained people fall off horses all the fucking time in rough terrain, seldom with healthy results. Have you ever actually sat on a horse ALL day long? I helped some neighbors pack a camp into the Bob Marshall Wilderness area a couple of years ago. I’d always wanted to get into the backcountry of the “Bob,” and it seemed like a much easier alternative to walking in. What would have been a two-day round trip for them turned into a four-day trip because, after sitting on a horse for 16 hours straight on the ride in? I literally, could not walk the next two days, let alone get back on the horse to ride out. It was not pretty, at all…and I’m in pretty good condition.

Check.  All of the above.  I have fallen off, been thrown off, bitten, run over, kicked, and just about anything that can happen on or around a horse.  I have ridden horses all day long, and I do mean all … day … long, and gotten on to do it again the next day.  And the next day.  And the next day.  I have fed them, herded them, doctored them, and assisted them to mate.  If you’ve never witnessed horses mating first hand (and I’m not talking about watching the Discovery Channel), it can be a violent affair.  I’ve ridden with saddles and then also (in my much younger years) bareback over mountain tops along narrow trails while running the herd).  The hardest ride was bareback and (on a dare) without a bridle, only the halter.

From the age of fourteen and beyond into my early twenties, I worked weekends and summers at a Christian camp above Marietta, South Carolina named Awanita Valley (and Awanita Ranch in Traveler’s Rest).  We trained and trail rode horses, fed them and cared for them, hiked the trails and cleared them of snakes and yellow jacket nests (have you ever been on a horse when it came up on a yellow jacket nest?).

When we weren’t doing that, we were cutting wood, hauling supplies, digging ditches, and baling hay.  My boys did the same thing, and Daniel later (before the Marine Corps) worked for Joey Macrae in Anderson, South Carolina, an extraordinary professional horseman, breaking and training horses.  I have ridden in the rain, blazing sun, and snow.  I have seen my son Joshua and his horse buried up to his thighs in snow, and watched him ride the horse up from sinking in the drift and stay on him while keeping the horse and him safe.

Why is all (or any) of this important?  Because as I tried to convey in my earlier post, it is critical to have an understanding and mastery over animals, especially if what we think will happen in America really happens.  And Mountain Guerrilla is right about logistics too.  But I’m not so sure that the Army was the first to field this idea.  See my article on Marines and Mules.  The Small Wars Journal had discussion on the importance of animals to logistics long ago.

The problem is that the Marine Corps has forgotten the lessons, and I’m afraid that the Army will never really take them to heart.  The modern U.S. military is techno-weighted down, with gadgetry, doohickeys, and reliance on constant logistics.  The so-called big dog is a symptom of this sickness, as is the huge budget for DARPA every year.  Truthfully, I think this is all related to the effete pressure for gender neutrality in the military.

But don’t you forget these lessons.  Plan ahead.  Learn how to make fire, how to purify water, how to fight, how to make your way around terrain, and how to navigate with maps and a compass (rather than using GPS like the liar Marine Corps officer candidates who were found out during officer’s school).

And learn animals.  Your life will be better for it.  This goes for cops too.  Lina Inverse makes an interesting point.

It just occurred to me that this puppycide policy is extremely unwise, because the desensitization works both ways. Every time a thug in uniform needlessly kills a family’s dog, that family in turn is that much more ready to return the favor someday….

It’s what Mike Vanderboegh calls losing the mandate of heaven.  At one time in our history, constables were respected and admired.  Children wanted to talk to them, show them respect, and even be like them.  Nowadays, with enough rifles pointed at women and children while screaming obscenities, with enough dead animals, with enough abuse and danger from cops, it may not be long before the people turn on cops.

If you’re a cop, you don’t want that to happen.  Believe me.  You don’t want that to happen.  You want to maintain the “mandate of heaven.”  If you lose it, you’ve lost everything.

Make sure to drop by Mountain Guerrilla and read his informed article.

There are two recent reports of dog shootings by cops in the news lately, one by the Nampa, Idaho Police Department, and another by the Mobile, Alabama Police Department (via David Codrea).  This behavior of reflexive, frightened shooting of dogs follows a pattern that we have observed before here and here, and just like we have observed elsewhere.

Before my children ever left home, they had been well-trained in at least rudimentary animal science.  They have been around animals of all flavor, knew how to ride, care for, train and (to some extent) doctor horses, knew how to raise dogs, and could handle themselves around most animals.  At least they knew when being around an animal required caution.  They knew how to build fire, rappel, and be at home in woodlands and mountains (although here I am diverging from the main subject).

If you are a law enforcement officer and know nothing about animals, are frightened all of the time around them, and cannot assert yourself at the proper time and in the proper way, there are options for you.  You can volunteer your time at local farms, ranches and dog breeders, and you can purchase and raise your own dogs.  You need to become accustomed to being around cattle, horses, goats, dogs and other such animals.  If you choose to ignore this gap in your training and life experiences, and you choose to run around frightened of everything that moves, but you relinquish your badge and gun, then who am I to infringe on your rights?  Do as you wish, and leave me out of it.

But if you choose to be that kind of person, where you ignore gaps in your knowledge and experience base, but you continue to carry a badge and gun, I think you’re a panty waist.  You are an irresponsible person who should feel bad about themselves, and you’re dangerous to those of us around you, and especially dangerous to animals.  You’re unqualified to have your job, and you are basically a liability to the community.  But I’m saying more than that.  I think you’re a panty waist.

There are only one or two breeds for which I would consider use of something like OC spray, and that would probably only be necessary if they were trained fighting dogs.  In any case, if you place yourself in a position where you are running from an animal while you’re on a call, then in addition to being a panty waist you’re an idiot.  You should knock on the door if you want an owner to secure his animals.  It isn’t any more complicated than that.

Now a note to survivalists.  You might spend time, money and energy on being prepared to survive in the wilderness, or perhaps being tactically competent.  But if your planning, education and preparation doesn’t include a moderate knowledge of and mastery over animals, then your preparations are incomplete and your calculus is faulty.  There are animals out there who truly can harm you, such as (in the West) brown bear, cougar and moose, and (in the East) black bear if they’re badly hungry, or feral hogs.

You need to know when you need dogs with you.  Daniel dispatched this hog with a fixed blade Ka-Bar, but he had pit bulls with him for strike dogs.  I won’t go into the mountains without a dog and gun.  A feral hog with turn on you and cut your femoral artery, and if he doesn’t respect you, a horse can turn on you and kill you.  Horses don’t love you or even like you.  Horses learn to tolerate you in what they consider to be a mutually beneficial relationship.  Know them.  Understand them.

And that’s the key, isn’t it?  An ATV will run out of fuel.  With the exception of certain necessary things such as worming medication, a horse is self feeding, and I would rather have a good Quarter Horse or Appaloosa than an ATV any day in most parts of woodland or mountain America.  You need to understand what animals can do to you, what they can do for you, and how to manage them the proper way rather than reading books or relying on the internet.  Or for LEOs, rather than shooting them because you’re scared like a little girl.

Fox Carolina:

CLEMSON, SC (FOX Carolina) – A photo of a sign that hung inside a Clemson bar telling customers guns are not allowed has sparked outrage online because of the wording on the sign.

The sign read, “No concealed weapons. If you are such a loser that you feel you need to carry a gun with you when you go out, I don’t want your business. D-bag.”

The owner of Backstreets Pub and Grill, who did not want to be identified because of the backlash, said it has all been blown out of proportion.

“I just used the wrong wording,” he said.

Since the photo was shared, he took down the bar’s Facebook page and the Yelp profile has been slammed with negative reviews because of the sign. The sign was hung up after South Carolina legalized concealed weapons in bars earlier in 2014. The law does not allow people legally carrying to drink.

“There’s no reason in a college town to bring a gun into a college bar with college kids and that’s just what I was trying to get passed,” he said.

The owner said the sign is not about taking away customers’ second amendment rights. He also has his own permit.

“I’m a gun owner, I got a right to carry permit when they first came out,” he said.

But when asked why he typed up the sign, he said he was frustrated following the law.

“I was just frustrated, I had one more thing to worry about,” the owner said.

No reason, he says.  So college students don’t have a right to self defense?  Yea, he does have something to worry about.  College kids getting killed because they can’t defend themselves in his establishment.

Prior: Do You Carry A Gun?  Are You A Douche Bag?

David Codrea:

“ATF carried out these storefront sting operations across the country, from Oregon to Florida, and utilized deplorable tactics including exploiting mentally disabled individuals to generate business and later arresting them, setting up storefronts near schools, and even losing high-powered firearms … “It is surprising that failures such as Operation Fearless in Milwaukee occurred despite this enhance oversight from ATF leadership”

I would rather have thought that it was specifically because of this enhanced leadership that these things occurred.  Of course, this feature of the system isn’t a bug.  It’s by design.

Kurt Hofmann:

There is perhaps a compromise to be found here for people living under such laws. Defy those laws, obtain the “illegal” guns–even if you have to make them yourself in order to do so. Don’t register them (obviously)–perhaps even convert the registration forms into atmospheric carbon, just to get the “progressives” still more hot under the collar. But also maintain at least one “legal” AR-15, even if doing so requires odd gadgetry like the ARMagLock and the “SAFE Act”-compliant stock–just to let the other side know that however many gun ban laws they come up with, they’re still being outsmarted, and people are still buying AR-15s (which can, after all, be quickly converted to full capability).

Kurt cites me and I appreciate the attention.  Let’s be clear.  When I referred to the silly modified AR-15 as an abomination, I did so because it mocked Eugene Stoner’s intent to prevent a couple about the firing hand when it is used by placing all of the force on the same axis as the chamber.  I do hate it so when Mr. Stoner turns in his grave.  I admire him so, and feel his pain when he hurts.

Maybe Kurt has something, and I don’t mind ways to insult silly rules and keep our freedoms.  But take note.  One compromise here, another there, and the anti-gun zealots won’t be mollified.  They’re just emboldened.

WRSA has a great quote by C.S. Lewis that is a must read.  Sometimes I don’t think commenters understand what’s being said.  One implies that Lewis was a conventional conservative, statists who “mean well” but ending up harming us.  Not so fast.  Read a little deeper man.

The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good — anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence the new name ‘leaders’ for those who were once ‘rulers’. We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals.

Lewis isn’t pitying the statists because they’re screw-ups who are trying to do good.  He is saying that their world and life view is different, leading them to different value judgments.  Their whole concept of good and bad, right and wrong, is different that yours or mine.  Or to cite Alvin Plantinga, their very of what’s logical is different than mine because of differences in world view.  This leads to different value judgments.

Go read Mike Vanderboegh’s latest letter to the legislatures of New Jersey and Rhode Island.

The firearm owners of your respective states tell me that you are busy men and women with short attention spans so I will try to make this brief …

Some things are just priceless.

As seen at Backstreets Pub and Deli, Clemson, South Carolina.