David Codrea:

Voters chose to allow authorities to seize firearms at domestic investigations (Yes: 5,579 / No: 2,066), ban firearms from establishments that serve liquor (Yes: 5,194 / No: 2,517), and require firearms in the home to be locked up (Yes: 4,351 / No: 2,971) …

Remember when I said this?  “In order to prevent local hicks, ne’er-do-wells and criminals from acting out their Napoleon fantasies upon other men, association with the state means that – assuming robust gun rights laws already exist – local municipalities and townships shouldn’t be able to preempt state laws.”

David’s article is first of all about preemption.  It’s an odious thing when local yokels (who are usually elected in elections that aren’t well attended and who are usually unknown until they act out their Napoleon fantasies upon others) presume to tell their townships what to do about everything under the sun.  Totalitarianism doesn’t just happen inside the beltway.  The second thing I’ll observe is that if you have a gun and keep it locked up, it is nothing more than a locked up paperweight.  You certainly don’t have it for protection.

Kurt Hofmann:

“I’m not sure why people need body armor unless they are planning something untoward,” Anderson said. “And I’m not sure why an individual citizen would require a .50-caliber rifle.

And I’m not sure why someone would presume to legislate anything at all about body armor unless they were planning something untoward.  What do you have in mind, buddy?  Making sure we are defenseless against SWAT raids?

So someone is calling Mike Vanderboegh an insurrectionist.  I’ve been called far worse than that, but the really bad thing is that he didn’t link Mike and send traffic his direction.  Bad, bad form.  Sebastian has panned my stuff without linking me before.  Again, bad form.

See Mike on S&W.  It’s also because they make great stuff.  I mean really, really great stuff.  I just wished they lived down South.  Because, you know, of the North and everything.  And what they believe up there in those parts.

Pray for Mike and his health.  I have.  Mike’s got to stay healthy.  God has too much work for him to do.

Finally, Uncle links someone who is unimpressed with 1911s.  Meh.  I’m unimpressed and I would indeed choose to carry a 1911 for self defense.  I just put 150 rounds through my new S&W 1911 with no failures at all.  And Uncle is right.  I can shoot this one better than my polymer frame pistols because of its slim profile.

There is no need to rehearse the Ukrainian revolution in blow by blow fashion.  The best up-to-date coverage is happening at this reddit thread.  But there are more than a few lessons for patriots who want to be prepared for dystopia in America.  I’d like to start a conversation about this topic, with my thoughts being in “stream of consciousness” prose rather than rehearsed talking points.  This will be a breezy discussion from gasoline and guns to the redoubt and littoral regions.

First there are the immediate stages, or the follow-on to the crisis.  The first observation I would make is that each of us should find someone to love.  Or another way to say it is that we need tribe – close and extended family for whom we can care and who can care for us.  We weren’t made to be lone rangers.  We were created to work, provide for, protect, and lead our families, while we also respect the gray heads among our clan and defend and protect them (Leviticus 19:32).

Having tribe means that there are immediate concerns beyond our own safety and security.  It means planning ahead for food, potable water, communications, guns and ammunition, and even in the short term power (or a replacement for power).  As a boy scout I saw one scoutmaster use a light that burned oil on a wick with a reflecting back, almost as effective as a flashlight.  It worked for days on a single can of oil.  Our 123 batteries will soon run out.  As I said, I’ve looked in vain for this kind of light.

For some in our clan, that may make the difference between life and death for certain medical conditions.  This is why Jim Rawles expends so much effort to help others with medical issues and what may seem mundane to us.  Medicine and even rudimentary medical care can save lives, while preparation for the mundane can affect the psychology of survival.

Do you have emergency cash on hand?  My oldest son does, and I am ashamed to say that I don’t have as much as I should.  Has your gasoline supply gone past its shelf life?  Do you have firearms and ammunition, food and water for those around you who have not planned, and to whom you wish to extend grace?

If you successfully protect your tribe during the initial stages of the crisis, there is the longer term, or intermediate stage with which to contend.  The government will no doubt be a player, and they may even be now studying Dave Kilcullen’s recipe for twenty first century stability operations.

This era’s unprecedented urbanization is concentrated in the least developed areas of Asia, Latin America and Africa.  The data shows that coastal cities are about to be swamped by a human tide that will force them to absorb—in less than 40 years—almost the entire increase in population absorbed by the whole planet, in all of recorded human history up to 1960. And virtually all this urbanization will happen in the world’s least developed areas, by definition the poorest equipped to handle it—a recipe for conflict, crises in health, education and governance, and food, energy and water scarcity.

Rapid urbanization creates economic, social and governance challenges while simultaneously straining city infrastructure, making the most vulnerable cities less able to meet these challenges. The implications for future conflict are profound, with more people fighting over scarcer resources in crowded, under-serviced and under-governed urban areas.

[ … ]

The food security effects are equally severe, as pollution from coastal urbanization imperils fish stocks, and peri-urban areas surround city cores whose infrastructure is scaled for populations far smaller than they now support. This newly settled peri-urban land was once used for farms, market gardens and orchards, but as cities expand into this space, the distance between the city core and its food sources increases significantly. Food must now be produced further away and transported over ever-greater distances, increasing transportation and refrigeration costs, raising fuel usage and carbon emissions, exacerbating traffic problems, and creating “food deserts” in urban areas.

[ … ]

The three megatrends of urbanization, littoralization and connectedness suggest that conflict is increasingly likely to occur in coastal cities …

[ … ]

The implications for civilian agencies of government are equally obvious—the ability to expand social services, city administration, and rule of law into peri-urban areas are clearly important …

Kilcullen recommends that the U.S. military prepare for even more stability operations in littoral, urbanized areas rather than jettison that as a paradigm for the present century.  [Note: I appreciate the exchanges of e-mail I had about Kilcullen with Dan Morgan].  The redoubt will be more manageable for us, but the urban, littoral areas will be where hearts and minds are won.

Do you doubt the relevance of this?  Putin has played Kilcullen’s playbook like an expert.  His invasion of Crimea – which began before the Olympics were finished – does three things.  First, it focuses Russian forces in high population density, urban and littoral regions.  Second, it surrounded significant Ukrainian military assets, and third, it plays the psychology of occupation and control.

Putin now has control over troops who cannot survive without food, water and power, and who will likely be conscripted into military service with the Russian Army should they surrender.  But if they don’t, the people of the the Ukraine will possibly blame the revolution for the deaths of the sons of the Ukraine in Crimea.  Putin’s game isn’t just one of the clash of forces.  He is playing Sun Tzu with the people of the Ukraine.

The Ukrainian revolutionaries had one thing right in the initial stages of the fight.

… behind the barricades, there were thousands of people working together to support the front lines. It’s an important lesson that logistics is what ultimately wins battles.

While the demonstrators at the barricades skewed younger, older Maidan activists ferried supplies and filled sandbags.

Others staffed portable kitchens set up at the main encampment at Kiev’s Independence Square. When there was ample snow on the ground, they shoveled it into bags to bolster the barricades up to 10 feet high.

But they are now facing a master strategist in Putin, and control over water, food, roads, rural areas, transportation and power work in favor of those who have planned and armed well.  People need these things to survive.  The Ukrainians have a long, hard haul ahead fighting against attack helicopters and APCs.

In the very long term there are other concerns.  Rachel Marsden observes:

Ceding to protestors’ demands, Ukrainian parliament members voted last week to impeach President Viktor Yanukovych and hold early elections, which have been set for May 25. Online “slacktivists,” keyboard warriors and various media outlets responded by breathlessly declaring the situation a “revolution” — and in some cases even proclaiming it a successful one. Except that it isn’t at this point. Far from it.

Proponents of freedom and democracy would love nothing more than for Ukrainian citizens to fully control their own destiny. However, mere wishful thinking is no substitute for manifest reality, and semantics shouldn’t replace substance. Otherwise, there’s a danger of never actually getting anywhere. There are historical standards for revolution, and they shouldn’t be lowered just because those standards predate the advent of social media.

Some have already made that mistake in the case of Ukraine. The “Orange Revolution” of 2004 was prematurely named, then prematurely declared a successful revolution. In retrospect, it was merely a rebellion — and ultimately a misnomer. If it had been a revolution in substance, the country would not be where it is now, with parliament having to reinstate the Orange Revolution constitution that was adopted in 2004 but then gutted by a constitutional court in 2010.

There’s a reason that the French Revolution started, rather than ended, with the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. It wasn’t considered complete until 10 years later. A revolution, by definition, is the replacement of one political system by a significantly different system. In the case of an authoritarian or totalitarian status quo, it has always required many phases of rebellion over a number of years, and much bloodshed.

The only revolutions that end quickly are those that result in totalitarian or authoritarian regimes, as with the Cuban Revolution. Democratic revolutions are much messier. Moreover, they inherently require democratic legitimacy, which is why even a democratic rebellion such as the one in Ukraine needs to occur within the context of an election cycle and be ratified through a democratic process. Democracy can’t start ironically with a coup. The results of the May 25 elections will retroactively determine the democratic legitimacy of the rebellion.

Now, I think Rachel overplays her hand badly, and I’m not certain that an election is necessary to legitimize anything.  I would rather think that the best form of government is a constitutional republic rather than a democracy.

But her point presses for an answer.  Revolutions need stability operations.  There is no need for the illegitimate government to be the only ones who think of and plan for stability operations.  Stability operations can and should occur within the context of neighborhoods, townships and areas of operation.  In fact, working to this end would be a much better use of time for most people than any sort of lone wolf scenario.

From the short to the long, there are many concerns in such an endeavor as undertaken by the Ukrainians.  As one final pedestrian observation, I would say that shooting is a perishable skill.  If you and I are not doing it regularly, we have no basis on which to believe that we can protect our tribe.

WND:

Michael Rubin: “If Jimmy Carter and Dennis Rodman could somehow have a child together, it would be Obama.”

Senator Larry Martin was responsible for heading the effort to kill the legislative efforts in support of open carry in South Carolina.  During this effort, he said the following.

“If the 2nd amendment has been as you interpret it, why hasn’t SC law reflected that for the last 140 years? I’m sorry but you are describing an ‘unlimited’ right that has never been the case with the 2nd Amendment. My view of the 2nd Amendment has always been the right to own guns and keep them in our homes, business, and property and not to wear a gun whenever to wherever I pleased.”

Take careful note what Martin is saying.  Rather than just speaking to the issue of open carry, he is expanding his objection to carrying at all in public places.  This places him squarely in the same camp as politicians in New York, California and New Jersey.

Almost all of the judicial committee is to blame according to this commenter.

Martin, Larry A., Chairman, Rankin, Luke A., Hutto, C. Bradley, Malloy, Gerald, Sheheen, Vincent A., Campsen, George E. “Chip”, III, Massey, A. Shane, Bright, Lee, Coleman, Creighton B., Martin, Shane R., Scott, John L., Jr., Gregory, Chauncey K., Allen, Karl B., Bennett, Sean, Corbin, Thomas D. “Tom”, Hembree, Greg, Johnson, Kevin L., McElveen, J. Thomas, III, Shealy, Katrina Frye, Thurmond, Paul, Turner, Ross, Young, Tom, Jr., Kimpson, Marlon E.

According to an email from my SC state Senator (Tom Corbin), only he, Shane Martin , Lee Bright , and Kevin Bryant. voted in favor of SB115. If you go to that page, under “Senate Standing Committees” and select “Judiciary” it will open the above, each name with a hyperlink to that senator’s district information.  According to Corbin, there were 4 votes in favor, 17 against; there are 23 members of the Judiciary Committee, so 2 did not vote at all.

But Senator Martin is chairman of this committee and bears additional responsibility.  It’s important to know who Larry Martin is and to what he is committed.

Larry Martin is a transplant from the democratic party.

The biggest change in the Legislature and in state politics since the late 1970’s has been the rise of the Republican Party. Some Republicans today question the sincerity of party switchers like me that began their involvement in politics in the 1970s as Democrats. But, that was practically the only game in town when I began.

Martin’s goal wasn’t to bring a committed conservative world and life view into the political sphere of influence.  It was to be involved in politics, and in order to continue to do that he had to switch party affiliations.  He has brought his progressive views to bear on the proposed gun law.  He is recorded as saying “You can carry a weapon openly if this bill is adopted and I’m offended by that.”

He has also advocated the preservation of gun free zones such as schools, and he was apparently willing to lie to preserve the status quo in South Carolina.

Senator Martin says if the CWP laws are repealed in South Carolina, it will mean that citizens cannot lawfully carry weapons into other states where reciprocity laws apply.

This is demonstrably false, and Martin knows it.  First of all, if Martin is opposed to guns outside the home as his comments indicate, the entire basis for his argument (i.e., that he wants to preserve the ability of South Carolinians to carry outside the home in other states) is a smokescreen and red herring.  He wants to hide his true feelings and he is offering up a sacrificial reason to keep things as they are.

Fortunately it isn’t necessary to sacrifice anything.  South Carolina could still maintain a permitting process in order to ensure reciprocity, or alternatively citizens could obtain permits in states that do ensure reciprocity in a majority of the other states (such as Utah).

But if he has ignored his constituency, liberal blogs have given him props for his strong stand against guns.  Martin has also ensured, to the best of his ability, continued secrecy in issues of money.

State senators have rejected a proposal requiring elected officials in South Carolina to disclose on ethics forms how much their employers pay them.

The Senate swiftly killed the proposed amendment without debate. Sen. Vincent Sheheen attempted Wednesday to add it to an ethics reform bill that senators tentatively approved last week. It requires officeholders to disclose their sources of income but not the amounts.

Sheheen told colleagues voters deserve to know whether they’re being paid $100 or substantially more.

The Camden Democrat who’s making another run for governor in 2014 noted he’s released 13 years of tax returns, and it didn’t hurt.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Larry Martin said he objected because he believes private businesses would no longer employ or do business with legislators if their exact pay was exposed.

Thus has Martin made it possible for South Carolina to “remain the only state in America where lawmakers can be paid under the table by companies seeking taxpayer-funded business.

Efforts to expose these shady deals had been pushed by S.C. Rep. Kirkman Finlay (R-Columbia), who wanted lawmakers to disclose “the source, amount and type of all income received by any public official from a nonpublic source for the preceding calendar year, as indicated by any and all wage or earnings reporting documents issued to the public official.”

Every voting constituency has politicians for whom they are embarrassed and who they regret ensconcing in office.  For Pickens, South Carolina, and even for the entire upstate region, Larry Martin is surely a particularly odious presence in politics.

Martin doesn’t come up for election again until 2016.  But it’s time for Martin to feel pressure from gun owners, and it’s time that his influence and power begins to wane.  He is a holdover from establishment republicanism (actually, democrat turned republican), a crony who wants to enjoy the privileges of his rotary club membership, membership on boards of directors, and policy-making authority, without regard to the wishes of the voters.  It’s time for him to go.

Let me speak for one moment to the issue of open carry.  As I have noted before, North Carolina is a traditional open carry state.  All of the bad things that are supposed to happen when a state becomes open carry simply do not obtain.  They don’t happen.  Some people choose to open carry, some do not.  I choose to under certain conditions (e.g., when I am in the sun in summertime conditions and I would otherwise sweat my gun with IWB carry).

I was at Palmetto State Armory this weekend and one worker there with whom I discussed open carry talked about the fact that if a criminal is casing an establishment and you are openly carrying, you’re the first he goes after.  To which I said, “or he decides not to do it all all.”  “That’s a chance you take,” he said.

Actually, no it’s not.  There is no statistical evidence to demonstrate that open carriers get shot more than concealed carriers.  This is all simply a choice that people make, and that they have a right to make.  Larry Martin should have no latitude to restrict that right, and he certainly has no right to tell anyone that guns belong in the home.  That’s a bigoted, prejudiced, elitist position that has no place among the good people of South Carolina.

My daughter (Devon), daughter in law (Ashley) and oldest son (Joshua) shooting in Pickens, S.C.

Me shooting my newest addition to the family in Pickens, S.C.

My newest addition.

Daniel (former Marine) is still serving his country by killing feral hogs and helping to rid America of the blight of ecological destruction wrought by these horrible creatures.  For this one Daniel used a fixed blade Ka-Bar.  This was one of about 40 he saw down below Clemson, S.C.

David Codrea:

The attack, “one of the deadliest … in China in recent years,” resulted in several attackers, reportedly wearing uniforms, being shot by police, but not until after they’d managed to kill and injure so many defenseless people at the station.

I know someone who was once a member of the Hong Kong symphony, and he told me that when a violent crime is committed in the far east, more often than not they use something like knives, or at other times acid.  People who are disfigured in their face are usually a victim of acid attacks on the streets.  Bullets, acid, machete, whatever.  It’s all the same.  It kills, and self defense is God’s expectation.

Kurt Hofmann:

“Americans for Responsible Solutions,” the anti-gun group headlined by former U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and her husband Mark Kelly, is in a tizzy …

They are part of the offended and entitled class.  Why shouldn’t they be in a tizzy?  They’re better than everyone else, they have a right to have guns, and we don’t.

Chris Muir picks up Mike’s list of senator’s names and addresses.  Mike has done an outstanding job with this, and this is a huge feather in his cap.  He has inspired me to take on communist Senator Larry Martin from Pickens, S.C., although I suspect I will be far less successful than Mike.  Mike spent some time shooting.  So did I.  I’ll show you.  Finally, look at the results of Mike’s handiwork!

Victor Davis Hanson observes:

In short, Obama will always poll around 45 percent. That core support is his lasting legacy. In a mere five years, by the vast expansion of federal spending, by the demonizing rhetoric of his partisan bully pulpit, and by executive orders and bizarre appointments, Obama has so divided the nation that he has created a permanent constituency that will never care as much about what he does as it cares about what he says and represents.

For elite rich liberals, whose money and privilege exempt them from the consequences of Obama’s policies, and their own ideology, he will always be their totem. He is iconic of their own progressivism and proof of their racial liberalism, and thus allows them to go on enjoying their privilege, without guilt and without worrying too much about how they got it or whether they might lose it.

For the vast new millions on federal disability insurance, food stamps, and other entitlements, Obama is their lifeline to government support.

These are pregnant paragraphs indeed, but perhaps Hanson doesn’t want to consider where his own observations take us.  The problem has exacerbated under Obama to be sure, but the real problem runs far deeper than him or his cronies.

Obama is the leader du jour of the elitist collectivists, and they have specific designs for the hard workers in America (here referred to as middle class).

“The best short credo of liberalism came from the pen of the once canonical left-wing literary historian Vernon Parrington in the late 1920s. ‘Rid society of the dictatorship of the middle class,’” a motto that Sacramento has internalized to a man.

But for much of the entitlement state, the middle class is necessary for their own existence.  Corporations rely on the wealth of the middle class in order to hire illegal aliens to do work.  They don’t pay them enough to provide for their medical care, so the middle class provides it in insurance premiums thus ensuring that when the aliens show up at the emergency rooms all across America for treatment, the hospitals don’t go bankrupt.  Food stamps, welfare and other forms of government handouts rely on the wealth of the middle class.  Thus having low paid workers in America from foreign countries is a form of corporate welfare.  It enriches the executives and board members.

Members of boards of directors sit on multiple boards, voting policy into action, traveling from one board meeting to another, and ensuring that their friends receive membership on some influential board as well.  They travel in the same circles, ride on the same yachts, fly on the same chartered jets and drink the same expensive wine as the politicians.  The politicians ensure that the corporate welfare continues by implementing policy to support it at the national level.

But if there is an entitled class in the upper echelon of society who requires redistribution of middle class wealth, the inner cities of Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Houston and Atlanta grow no produce, make no product, and exist by funneling wealth from the suburbs and rural areas of America to their own coffers.  As much as one half of America pays no federal income taxes, and yet this (i.e., welfare and food stamps) is referred to as “slavery” by well intentioned people who want to see the impoverished become self supporting.

Slavery it is not, when food, medical care, housing and education is handed to you for free, while you have the opportunity to work yourself out of the inner city into a better future.  The slaves are the ones who suffer taxation – theft by the power of a badge and gun – in order to fund all of those benefits.

Finally, there are those who work to ensure that the system continues unabated – the police and all manner of federal law enforcement agencies.  While the police typically see themselves as sacrificing for the sake of the people, 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.  Oftentimes – though not always – the police do their bidding.  The ridiculous war on drugs has few supporters within the elite establishment, but it has served to militarize the police, and that’s a positive thing to them.  SWAT teams may make people think about the likeness of America to Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, but the elite don’t want any hint of rebellion among the ranks.  Better to overdo things and make sure than to honor the rights of the ordinary folk.

So it’s a collection of bastard groups that has designs on the middle class, and its allies sometimes agree on very little.  These groups (and many more I haven’t named) have only one thing in common: The wealth and subjugation of the middle class.  This is such a strong bond that it unites people who would otherwise hate each other.

Take careful note that the problem doesn’t just reside within the beltway of Washington, D.C.  The federal Leviathan would be powerless without the will of the people, without the agents and police to keep them in power, without the judges to sign their arrest and home-invasion warrants, without the money coming in from the workers like you and me, and without willing dupes in the counties and states who implement their laws.

You see, workers for the NSA, DOJ, DEA, EPA, DOE, and ATF, local, county, state and federal police, workers for all manner of state and county agencies, tax agents for the state and federal government, government accountants and lawyers, DHS workers, child welfare and other meddling agents, and on and on the list goes, all require your wealth and need for the host to stay alive.  They are empowered by the collective, and yet they need the collective to survive.  No one should be surprised over the notion that one half of the country is collectivist.

The totalitarians are among us.  That’s why after watching New York and Connecticut implode over gun confiscations and new gun laws, as strange as it may sound, Alabama has folks just like them.  So does South Carolina.  But also just like parasitical beings, the parasites are unconcerned about the potential death of the host.

With multiplication of the parasites the host cannot survive, but that doesn’t stop the parasites.  First comes the draining of resources, but usually soon comes disabling of the host defenses.  Gun control is an easy way to ensure compliance with the parasites while the middle class is drained dry.

Eventually the host becomes very sick and perishes.  Confiscations of IRAs and 401Ks (and nationalization of other forms of wealth) are inevitable.  That the parasites no longer have a host isn’t in the calculus.  Parasites have no conscience and do not plan ahead.  But we can and should plan ahead and see the current sickness for what it is.  It is an existential battle for life as we know it.  The parasites – the totalitarians and their allies – are among us, and the host has precious little time left.

UPDATE: See Senator Larry Martin, South Carolina, for one of our local totalitarians.