David Codrea:

Putting aside reader opposition to or support for the Bundy claims, and ignoring allegations of Reid’s (and his son Rory’s) personal interests in the disposition of the land in question, what must be examined is what the senator must mean if he seriously believes his accusation.

Just another means to do what the collectivists have wanted to do all along.  Disarm us.  Bhaa.  Come and take them.

Don’t miss Mike Vanderboegh’s speech in Nevada.  Mike reminds us that he’s a Yankee by birth, but given his current station in life, we’ll forgive him for that.

So we discussed that “missing M-16” didn’t we?  It’s been found.

How many of you would “forget” about an M-16 you put in your gun safe?  Yea, that’s what I thought.

And here is the comment of the day from WRSA from Tom in Ohio.

Tea party politicians.  Officially UA.

UA cannot be an excuse for this load of crap from Charles C.W. Cooke, spoken like a true Brit, a subject of the Queen.

See the new featured article The Admixture Of Military And Law Enforcement.

Newsmax:

Ron Paul is happy that the standoff between a Nevada rancher and the Bureau of Land Management ended peacefully last week, but he fears the federal government may return in larger force.

“Governments don’t give up their power easily, and they may well come back with a lot more force like they did at Waco with the Davidians,” the former Republican congressman and presidential candidate said Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto.”

If it happens, that’s not the way it will happen.  It will be in the dead of night, 0200 hours or 0300 hours, with SWAT team members wearing hoods so that they can’t be identified – cowards that they are.

The doors to the home will be smashed in, rifles will be pointed at men, women and children, obscenities will be screamed by SWAT team members, and the helicopters used will be brought in without a filed flight plan.  Cliven Bundy will be sent off to debtors prison, and the land he is on will then be used by the Chinese communists to build “green” projects using American stimulus dollars while Rory Reid gets rich from it all.

That’s how it will go down.

Bob Lonsberry:

Well, Andy, with a handful of minutes to spare, I have complied with your law.

Your hateful, unconstitutional affront to my rights.

After a year of thinking it over, of going back and forth, of deciding where duty and honor called me to be, this is where I am.

I am ashamed to say that fear was one of the factors in my decision. I am a public person, it is well known that I own an AR-15. I wrote a newspaper column about it when I bought it 20 years ago. I have talked about it on the radio, on television and in web broadcasts ever since.

Further, I’ve got a Democrat district attorney – whose election I opposed – and half the cops in town hate me. So if I don’t register today, there’s a good chance I get arrested tomorrow.

And with five kids still at home, I can’t afford to be the test case.

I’d be a felon, I’d lose my job, I’d lose my house, I’d lose my right to vote and own guns.

And you’d win.

But it wasn’t just fear.

It was also something Abraham Lincoln said once, and something I said once.

Not that you would know, care or understand, but long ago Abraham Lincoln said that obedience to law was the American religion, that it should be taught to babies on their mothers’ knees, that it was the duty of every free man.

He said that unjust and immoral laws should be fought but obeyed. He said that citizens of a Republic cannot pick and choose the laws to which they are obedient. He said they must never tolerate unjust and immoral law, but they must tear them down through constitutional and lawful means.

That’s what Lincoln said.

What I said was that I would uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic – and that I would “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

I swore a lifetime oath when I enlisted in the armed forces of the United States to defend the Constitution and to live it.

And part of the dilemma of your hateful Safe Act is that it is on both sides of the constitutional line. It violates the Second Amendment, but operates within the structure of legislation and judicial review. I reject it, but I do not yet want to reject the system which produced it and which has yet to nullify it.

So conscience has me here.

But conscience will let me go no further.

You may be emboldened by your victory in this matter, you may be confident of taking control of the state Senate in the fall, but you should be aware you have pushed things as far as they can be pushed.

If you back a dog into a corner, at some point it bites, and if you listen carefully across this state you can hear a growl.

There were alternatives to registering my AR-15, but none of them were acceptable to me. I could sell it, but then I wouldn’t have it. I could modify it, but then I would lose the functionality I sought when I bought the gun. I could give it to relatives out of state, but then it wouldn’t be very useful to me when I needed it in a fight.

Which is why I bought my AR-15.

It is a fighting gun. It is, in fact, an assault rifle. I bought it for its intended purpose – near- and medium-range combat.

It is not for hunting, I have guns that do that better. It is not for target shooting, again, I have guns that do that better. It is a not a hobby implement or a status symbol, it is a tool of battle.

And though it’s been a long time since the Army qualified me Expert on this weapon, I think I still get the general idea. And I still want it close at hand.

And if I have to tell you the serial number to do that, at this stage I’m willing to comply. You’ve had the serial numbers of my pistols for a quarter century – another unconstitutional intrusion – and I’ve gotten by. Until freedom truly rings in this country, and a real civil rights movement advances all freedoms, I’ll bow to your power.

But recognize that this is the end.

The fear is that registration leads to confiscation. We shouldn’t fear the consequences of that, Andy, you should. Because when you come for the guns it won’t be the Capitol in the dark of the night, it will be Lexington green in the full light of day. We won’t think of Abraham Lincoln, we’ll think of Charlton Heston.

So we’re clear, Andy, the next step is cold, dead hands.

You ought to pull your head out of your arse long enough to recognize that if you turn up the heat under the pressure cooker it’s apt to blow.

Your arrogance and ignorance have left you blind to the culture and values of the vast majority of your state. You have no idea who we are or what we believe in. All you know to do is to mock us and demean us. Across most of upstate, we don’t have a governor, we have an overseer. You don’t give a damn about us, and the feeling has turned out mutual.

Simply put, we hate you back, Andy.

Me more than most.

My family had been in upstate more than a hundred years when your folks got to Ellis Island, and we’d been downstate some 200 years before that. It doesn’t seem plausible you’re in a position to tell us what New Yorkers value, feel or believe, or to force chains on us our ancestors fought to remove.

And, to be honest, your privileged life doesn’t quite qualify you to expound on American freedoms. I don’t believe you are a veteran, and I don’t believe any blood member of your family has ever served in the U.S. military.

That doesn’t mean anything, of course, unless you happen to be a veteran, in which case it means everything.

You are a tyrant, sir, and you have lost the affection and confidence of people like me.

Which I’m sure means nothing to you.

But you whipped us down on this one. I’ve registered my AR-15. The dog is cowering.

But if you listen you can hear the growl.

And you may yet feel the fang.

I apologize for pasting the entire article, but occasionally my readers don’t go to the links I provide.  In this case you need to read his entire justification for registering his rifle, and I figure that I’ll give him more traffic than he would get at this forum anyway.  Visit his web site and comment using Facebook.

This is an odd commentary, and Bob is clearly conflicted.  He draws his line in the sand, but one gets the feeling that another line has already been crossed, and he backed away from the line.

Bob calls the law an unconstitutional intrusion, which means both that the laws are immoral and lack any compelling justification.  But listen to his reason for acquiescing.

Abraham Lincoln said that obedience to law was the American religion, that it should be taught to babies on their mothers’ knees, that it was the duty of every free man.

He said that unjust and immoral laws should be fought but obeyed. He said that citizens of a Republic cannot pick and choose the laws to which they are obedient. He said they must never tolerate unjust and immoral law, but they must tear them down through constitutional and lawful means.

This is presumably the same Abraham Lincoln who suspended writ of habeas corpus and violated other civil rights, but at any rate, Bob has at the same time called the law immoral and an unconstitutional intrusion (meaning that the law-makers had no legal right to do what they did), and also implied that the recent SAFE act of New York was moral, since Lincoln himself said that we must never tolerate immoral law and Bob is willing to tolerate the SAFE act.

If obedience to the law regardless of its moral justification is the American religion, then the war for independence never really happened.  But we know that it did, and we know that a nation which has such a public religion is doomed.  And a man who can utter such things is in similar jeopardy.

And it will be a cold day in hell before I register my AR-15.

NRO Corner:

Like Rich, I deeply respect the rule of law. As an attorney who practices in federal courts across the nation, I respect the rulings of those courts (indeed, much of my career is spent securing rulings from federal courts to protect individual liberties) and — having reviewed the pleadings in Bundy’s case — I do not fault the courts’ orders. John Hinderaker is right, “Legally, Bundy doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

While rural America literally sustains life for urban America, many urbanites dislike large-scale farming (this parody is worth seeing), would like to see the rest of the country essentially transformed into a nature preserve, and argue that to the extent land is “used,” it should be used for selectively-defined “renewable” purposes, like solar energy or wind farms. The result — when urban regions become dominant — has been amply chronicled by Victor Davis Hanson and many others: rural regions increasingly serve urban ones and do so under comprehensive urban regulatory schemes that disrupt lives, destroy livelihoods, and lead to widespread frustration and despair.

And all of it is legal.

With few options left within conventional politics, rural Americans are beginning to contemplate more dramatic measures, such as the state secession movements building in Colorado, Maryland, California, and elsewhere. The more viable state secession movements aim to limit urban control by literally removing rural counties from their states and forming new states around geographic regions of common interests.

But until there’s a long-term solution, we may very well see more Bundy Ranch moments, where individual Americans (and their allies) simply refuse to consent to laws that destroy their way of life for the sake of regulations that provide no perceivable benefit to others. (I can only imagine my frustration if I had to end a more-than-century-old family lifestyle, arguably for the sake of a turtle that no one will see).

The long-term solution is simple to conceptualize but difficult to accomplish: de-escalate the stakes of our political disputes by limiting the power of government over American lives. Americans have always had profound differences, and we live together with those differences when victory for one side doesn’t mean inflicting real harm on the losers. But when victory for one side means the end of a way of life for the losers, instability can and will result.

I hope and pray that the dangerous standoff at Bundy Ranch was an aberration and not a harbinger, but until we can limit government’s power, I fear that respect for law will increasingly give way to contempt for the lawmakers.

French has missed the mark, attributing the event to differences in way of life to urban versus rural paradigms, instability due to the intransigence of the courts, and so on.  The reality is far bleaker than that.

The notion that federal agents should be armed is only a recent phenomenon in American history, and the idea would have been anathema to our wise founders, who would have considered them to be a standing army of occupiers.

But with Bundy we had agents dressed as “tactical operators,” who were prepared to raid the Bundy ranch for the sake of a corrupt deal between Harry Reid, his son Rory, and the Chinese communists, all funded by the taxpayer in the form of stimulus money.  Let’s consider that one more time.  Agents of the federal government were preparing to shoot civilians for the sake of crony interests and enrichment of communists.

And David French is concerned about the “rule of law.”  The comments to David’s article show how out of touch he is from readers, but this isn’t the main point.  French has elevated the law to a social religion, even if it’s majority vote or crony, corrupt judges in bed with the politicians.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such hand wringing and gutless commentary from an alleged “conservative” publication, but it does go to show that the divide between progressive and conservative isn’t that large after all.  Both sides want to game the system for what they see as the right beliefs, while the founders want to prevent gaming the system altogether.

As to the issue of an aberration and not a harbinger, as I’ve said before, this wasn’t even the first shot of the first volley of the first engagement of what is to come.  Gird your loins, because most people, despite your best efforts, don’t even understand what this is all about.  There is much more to come, and it’s all just getting started.

Prior:

Rory Reid: Liar And Traitor

Bureau Of Land Management Followup: It’s Not Over

Bureau Of Land Management Versus Cliven Bundy Post-Mortem

Real Clear Politics:

RORY REID, SON OF SEN. HARRY REID: We believe in a country in which we are subject to laws and you can’t just ignore the laws we don’t like. I think clearly if state and local prosecutors look at this more closely, they’re going to find that he broke the law and he should be prosecuted.

REID: He is not a victim and he’s not a hero. He’s been using that he doesn’t own for over 20 years and he didn’t pay. He broke the law. There are hundreds of ranchers throughout Nevada that conduct their profession honorably. There’s thousands of them throughout the country and when they have a dispute with the BLM they try to work it out. (source: KSVN-TV)

You’d like to make this about “the rule of law,” wouldn’t you?  Anything but your own immoral behavior.  It’s called a misdirect, and we have discussed this before.  This all has nothing to do with Mr. Bundy.

It’s about you, your own greed, your own theft, your own corruption, and your own ugliness.  It’s about your taking my tax money by the power of a badge and gun, and using it for your own enrichment and pleasure.  You don’t want him prosecuted, and you don’t want to reach an agreement.  You want his land, and to top it all off, the largesse you have taken from me and my people will go to Chinese communists.

You are a liar and traitor, and you deserve a traitor’s fate.

Prior: Bureau Of Land Management Versus Cliven Bundy Post Mortem

I had previously said that it isn’t over.  Harry Reid says the same thing.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid hasn’t been very vocal about the cattle battle showdown in recent days, but says “it’s not over.”

Reid tells News4’s Samantha Boatman his take on the so-called cattle battle in southern Las Vegas. “Well, it’s not over. We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over,” Reid said.

He spoke truth.  Then again, even Balaam’s ass managed to do that, and here I am probably insulting the ass by comparing him to Harry Reid.

The empire will strike back.  We didn’t witness even the first shot of the first volley of the first skirmish of the coming events.  It was merely a sign of things to come.  Posturing, if you will.

In other news, we learn that there is favoritism and cronyism at the BLM:

The Bureau of Land Management is headed by former longtime Reid aide Neil Kornze, who was confirmed by the Senate as BLM director on Tuesday, just as federal authorities descended on the cattle ranch outside Mesquite, Nevada.  Mr. Kornze issued a statement Saturday saying that the bureau would return the cattle and withdraw its agents from the ranch as a result of safety concerns after clashes between law enforcement and the Bundy family’s growing legion of supporters.

As with all tyranny and totalitarianism, this gets darker the longer you look at it.  But let’s examine for a moment what Reid said regarding what people can and can’t do.

“Violate the law and then just walk away from it.”  Here Reid is indignant that there was resistance, but it is resistance to the very agency that he funds, the very agency that his crony leads, and justified by decisions from judges that are often in bed with the politicians and police.  So in other words, he is saying that you can’t violate his will and then just walk away, or said more simply, “I am god and there is no other like me.”  I make the law, decide how it will be enforced, and ensure that the laws are best suited for my family and friends.

Is it any wonder that the BLM met resistance from hard working Americans?  As for future engagements of this or any other sort, some commenters have ridiculed by advocacy for nullification of federal statutes, saying that it cannot be done.  Who’s laughing now?  Of course it can be done, and it will be done.

Cliven Bundy was just interviewed on Fox News, where he said that he apparently has lost cattle since he has around 27 calves that have no cow, and they are trying to nurse them and keep them alive.  He further said that he is placing his faith in his local Sheriff that the BLM will be disarmed and kept away from the Bundy ranch.

The order of things should be as follows for any future presence of BLM personnel in Arizona if the Sheriffs there have any balls.  First, I have no problem with killing cattle just like I have no problem killing deer, although I like venison a little less than beef, and always like beef fat mixed with my venison.  But the killing must be done humanely and quickly, which is why shots while hunting must be ethical shots.

BLM personnel should be forced to stand in court on charges of cruelty to animals because of the lack of necessity of starving the calves.  They didn’t have to do it.  It was a choice.  Next, BLM should be forced to surrender their weapons at the state line, and arrested and thrown in with the general prison population for failure to comply.

Cliven Bundy said that the Sheriffs boys should get up from behind their desks next time and protect him.  Local LEOs may or may be be reliable allies in the coming struggles.  But every LEO must make a choice.  It is unavoidable, it is coming to their doorsteps – each and every one of them, individually.  Eternity hangs in the balance.  Here’s an important note to LEOs: choose wisely.

David Codrea:

Corroboration could cause allegations against anti-gun California State Senator Leland Yee, for attempting to broker illegal arms deals, to pale in comparison, particularly since Sharpton is a national figure with the ear of the administration and a national voice via his opinion show on MSNBC.

Well, when you bed down with criminals, you lose moral authority.  And this administration lost it a long time ago with sundry things, like Fast and Furious, the Gibson Guitar scandal, Solyndra, and the list could go on a long time.

Mike Vanderboegh:

One of them (also probably in diapers when the FBI was immolating those innocents that he figured had it coming) said that I was a “crazy old douchebag,” or words to that effect. I indicated that when they got ahold of the guy who had invited me to come up from Alabama to speak that he should get in touch with me and let me know if it had been a waste of time. Then I left.

So, having learned nothing that I needed to know and as ignorant as before I drove back to where I am staying. My speech, it would seem, is entirely up in the air. In truth, they had not invited me to their meeting and it was well within their rights to ask me to leave, so I really bear them no rancor. But some of them sure don’t know shit from shinola about Waco.

What a strange meeting.  David Koresh was a rapist and child abuser and I have no connection to him, ideologically or in any other way.  But there were other ways to handle this than the way the ATF chose.  Burning an entire township down and harming innocent folk is the mark of rapists, and so the ATF became (or already were) the very man they sought to arrest.

Mike Vanderboegh:

I congratulated Ammon and told him that this was perhaps a pivotal moment in American history. He also agreed with me that it is impossible not to see the hand of God in all of this. I told him that it was my opinion that the empire would surely strike back, but that they would likely come at the Bundys and their supporters sideways next time. Still, it was a great victory, a pivotal moment, in the relationship between the federal government and the American people. Nothing will be quite the same after this, mostly because it has demonstrated to those whom the government would victimize that they only require someone with the guts to stand up to leviathan — and the armed friends to back them up in the argument.

Read the entire communication.  It is indeed a great victory, but the empire will indeed strike back.

WRSA:

Enjoy this #bundyranch thread at PoliceOne.

Go at it, boys.

In public.

Please.

LMAO.

Must read.  You’d better figure it out, boys.  Each and every one of you, individually, after talking with your wives and loved ones, after much prayer.  Your souls are at stake, and it will come to your doorstep.  You can’t avoid it.  Ponder the deep thoughts now.  Pick your sides soon and be faithful.

I had previously mentioned that I would not weigh in on Cliven Bundy.  I usually like to read my homework very carefully.  I don’t know Cliven Bundy and he doesn’t know me.  I know little about his family and his history, but fortunately for us, this has all been made very easy.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with tortoises or grazing fees.  Dana Loesch has done a good job of explaining it, and by now it has made its way to several other venues.  It has to do with evil, greed, cronyism, nepotism, and malfeasance in office.

There are several takeaways from this affair.  First of all, the main stream media is dead.  The reports of conditions on the ground were given to us by blogs, alternative media, email and social media like Facebook and Twitter.  The main stream media still hasn’t caught up.  Perhaps in a month of two some large news publication like The New York Times or The Chicago Tribune will come out with an expose on Harry Reid’s evil in this affair, but don’t bet on it, and even if they do, it will be a month too late.

This death has been a long time coming, but it is finally here.  The only thing anyone needs the main stream media for now is to cite their ridiculous editorials for the purpose of ridicule.  The collectivists and the press have been like two ticks and no dog – both of them parasites.  Eventually parasites have to perish.  Unfortunately for us, many more parasites are in cahoots with the collectivists, but that’s for another time.  Right now, don’t lament the death of the main stream media.  They deserve it.  Good riddance.  You can write their obituary and bid them farewell.  They’re done.

Next, Mike Vanderboegh has harped on a theme, that being “We won’t fire the first shot.  We will shoot in self defense.”  Sure enough, it almost came to that, but not quite.  The militia who did show up held their composure and did remarkably well.  No one took wild shots, no one escalated the situation, but a strong message was sent.

That said, this is far from over.  The BLM is still very active, and for those who are of like mind, i.e., the notion that the federal government owns land is morally abominable, there are many miles to go before we rest.  In fact, this wasn’t even a skirmish.  It was a prelude to coming attractions if the federal government doesn’t check its own power (something not likely to happen).  There are many federal agencies (DOJ, ATF, EPA, BLM, DHS, DEA, etc.), and together they can successfully trample rights just about anywhere over just about anything they wish.

Next, while I do like my AR-15, for the men who were providing overwatch and security for the protesters, I wondered if I was in that position which weapon I would want?  My answer?  My scoped, bolt action rifle.  Leave the squad rushes and advance through fields of fire to the U.S. Marines on base at Camps Lejeune and Pendleton.  Such would have been folly in a situation like this.  One commenter remarked concerning a previous article that a sniper is anyone firing from a clandestine position.  I don’t buy it.  If that’s true, I can arm my mother and stick here in a hole and call her a sniper.  Skilled shooting would have been at a premium if this had escalated to an engagement.

Finally (and there will be many more observations we will be able to make as this all sinks in), since the roots of this are so easily explained, the judgment is just as simple.  Tyrants wish to usurp God’s authority.  Thus their lusts and desires for rule over others runs antithetical to the economy and administration of the Almighty.

The halls of tyranny are the abode of demons and haters of God.  But God will not be mocked.  Tyrants and those who enable them will lose their souls, but even before that, time isn’t on their side.  Tyrants will be held accountable both in time and eternity.

Every high thing must come down
Every stronghold shall be broken
He wears the Victor’s crown
He shall overcome
He shall overcome

Be of strong heart and good cheer.  You are not on the losing side.

From Alabama.com comes an article worth reading on gun valley moving South.  This figures is taken from that article.

So where is Smith & Wesson, and Rock River Arms, and Kimber?  Still in the land of labor unions rather than right-to-work states?

David Codrea:

Adding to the FAA “mystery” is a helicopter photo from The Las Vegas Review Journal showing a helicopter at the scene with numbers that some speculate have been altered, and that do not appear on the FAA registry. Combined with documentation of FBI helicopters being masked by private entity front group registrations, the situation cries for further oversight and scrutiny, including close monitoring of all aerial operations.

Oh, there’s a whole lot of things about this that bear more scrutiny.  You can bet that the main stream media will get right on it.

Kurt Hofmann:

For now, though, what they have fixated on is EP Armory’s manufacturing process. Specifically, they seem to be under the impression (or are at least claiming to be under the impression) that EP Armory first casts the frame of the receiver–the part that the builder will keep, and which becomes the lower receiver of the firearm, and then adds the differently colored plastic in the cavity of the receiver, and plugging the holes that will then have to be drilled out for the pins used in assembling the gun.

If this were true, then technically speaking, the receiver would have been a complete receiver for a brief time, and by law, once a receiver is completed, it cannot, legally speaking, ever revert back to “80%” status. It is, from then on, a firearm in the eyes of the law.

The problem for the BATFE is that the receivers are apparently not made that way.

Read Kurt’s entire piece.  I’ve read the articles before on this, and perhaps I’m a slow learner (and of course I just don’t have the time to do the research I would like).  But this is the first time I think I have really understood what this whole issue is about.

Mike Vanderboegh has some excellent pictures of the Bundy ranch standoff here and here.

Here is an example of how police are as dangerous as criminal gangs who might invade your home.  In fact, speaking of criminal gangs, I sent this to my family and said, “If a gang ever invades your home and you call the police, then you have two gangs warring inside your home.  Some innocent victim is likely to get killed.”