David Codrea says he figured his most recent column would be controversial.

Still, if one is to credit backers of such measures with being sincere, it makes little sense to demand background checks in one case, but to not only turn a blind eye, but to attack people for advocating doing them on the intentionally undocumented.  So why haven’t the “gun safety” groups joined in demanding background checks on illegal aliens, particularly with well-documented tie-ins to increases in crimes[?]

Controversial in import, perhaps, but not in facts.  We’ve discussed it before.  The Democrats want the illegals because of votes.  The GOP wants them because they want low paid workers who must live [in part] off the backs of the middle class, thus providing corporate welfare.  The GOP is in bed with the crony capitalists.  You want to see the NRA’s alleged power evaporate into nothing?  Flood the country with another ten million illegals who are given the right to vote.

Kurt Hofmann:

If the military stumbles upon new technology to make firearms more effective, we the people are owed access to that technology, and we must take it, by whatever means necessary.

Besides, as Kurt notes in his article, this isn’t a one way street.  I have always and will continue to claim that a new firearm or design isn’t fully vetted until it is released to the civilian market.  Soldiers and Marines work with what they are issued.  We get to buy what we want because it works the best.  We are the test laboratory, not the military.

Mike Vanderboegh:

What I hear is that Malloy has issued whispered, oh-so-quiet orders not have any enforcement of the Intolerable Act until after his re-election. After that, however, he will turn KGB Lawlor loose to wreak havoc. Voters in CT should be reminded forcefully that a vote for Malloy is a vote for the arrest and possible death of their friends and neighbors. Lord willing, I intend to go to CT just before the election in the last week of October to make that point. I will be in CO the week before that to do the same thing to Hickenlooper.

Go get ’em Mike.  I’m sure glad that Mike’s on our side.  Let’s support him however we can.

Finally, Muslims declare jihad against dogs.  Sorry folks.  My dog is a non-negotiable, just like my guns and my theological views.  Now pardon me while I go smooch with my Doberman.

It’s a constant theme here, I know, but it’s just too good to pass up.  We’ve discussed:

High Magazine Clips And The Shoulder Thing That Goes Up

High Ammo Clips

Automatic Bullets In Rapid Fire Magazine Clips

Duck Hunting With Bullets

And last but not least, The Fully Loaded Ammunition Cartridge.  Today Bloomberg has an otherwise fairly decent article on arms makers leaving the Northeast for the South (which they should certainly do, including S&W). They state:

Sturm Ruger, based in Southport, Connecticut, doesn’t produce the large capacity magazines the state outlawed, the kind of ammunition that was used in the Sandy Hook shooting when 26 students and teachers were killed. But the law heralded the departure of small arms manufacturers Stag Arms LLC and PTR Industries, both of which relocated to Southern states.

Except this isn’t how it read when it was posted.  It was cached by Google with the following version:

Sturm Ruger, based in Southport, Connecticut, doesn’t produce the high magazine rounds the state outlawed, the kind of ammunition that was used in the Sandy Hook shooting when 26 students and teachers were killed. But the law heralded the departure of small arms manufacturers Stag Arms LLC and PTR Industries, both of which relocated to Southern states.

So there you have it.  The “high magazine round.”  You’re welcome.  I’m here to serve.

KRQE.com:

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – A federal appeals court has ruled that gun dealers in New Mexico and southwestern border states must tell authorities if someone buys more than two semi-automatic rifles in five days.

The decision comes after Ron Peterson Firearms of Albuquerque and two other gun shops filed a lawsuit in 2011, challenging a demand letter from the ATF to certain gun shops in New Mexico, Arizona, California and Texas.

The letter was issued as part of an ATF effort to crack down on weapons trafficking to Mexico and specifically targeted the southwest.

The courts affirmed a demand letter that has no basis in law, thus affirming that the ATF can do pretty much anything it wants to do.

Notice too that the stated reason is to target weapons trafficking, an argument I’m sure government lawyers made with a straight face in open court – and the judges let them.

Laughable, it is.  And a shame, that the federal government, being the chief weapons trafficker, bullies someone else for its crimes.

We fought that battle a couple hundred years ago, and there was no way that Lord Cornwallis was going to beat Francis Marion and his irregular warfare in South Carolina.  Marion bled them to the point of ineffectiveness, and the war for independence was essentially won.

Australia and Canada are still subjects of the Queen, so to speak, and their system still recognizes the supremacy of the centralized government rather than innate human rights, granted by God.  That’s too bad.  We see the effects of this in their gun laws.

Consider Australia:

A SOUTHERN Downs farmer has lost his fight to possess a handgun to kill the feral dogs he traps on his 604-hectare cattle property.

John James Shaxson, whose property west of Warwick borders Durikai Forest on the west, has been trapping feral dogs on his property since 2012 and trapping feral pigs since about 2000.

He grazes and breeds between 50 and 115 cattle depending on conditions on his property which he says is hilly and rough with an actual surface area more like 2000 hectares.

Mr Shaxson told the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal that he needed a handgun because he used a quad bike to get to inaccessible areas where he set traps and already had lots of equipment to carry.

He told the tribunal his rifle would catch on foliage walking through to the traps and it was dangerous shooting dogs with it because a bullet might ricochet off a steel trap.

QCAT member Michelle Howard said Mr Shaxson also wanted the 22 magnum handgun to have better aim shooting feral pigs he caught in mesh cages.

She said he admitted he had shot only six dogs in total after they were caught in the steel traps but was less forthcoming on pigs – saying he sometimes caught six to eight at a time and another time just two.

“He considered it was a requirement for the dogs, but for the pigs, it would be a bonus,” she said.

“Although a handgun may be desirable from his perspective to euthanise feral dogs in particular, I am satisfied that the other weapons licences and weapons he already holds and uses are appropriate to meet his occupational requirements.”

She’s satisfied, the report tell us.  She’s satisfied, regardless of the state of the man who needed the gun.  Now consider Canada:

Applications to carry handguns have skyrocketed in B.C. and Alberta in the past three years – likely driven by demand among people who work in the bush and want portable protection against wildlife.

Rates have held steady in the rest of Canada, according to RCMP figures show released in response to an access-to-information request.

We don’t know how many of these applications were approved because the RCMP won’t tell us.

We also don’t know how many were for concealed-carry permits for people facing “criminal threats” and how many are for openly carrying handguns in wilderness areas to defend against wildlife. RCMP Staff. Sgt. Julie Gagnon refused to break out the two categories.

The RCMP’s access-to-information office also refused to make that distinction, citing a section of the federal Access to Information Act exempting “information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to threaten the safety of individuals.”

What we do know is that more people are submitting these applications for “authorizations to carry” : The number of applications across the country rose from 386 to 564 between 2011 and 2013.

In that time period, they more than doubled in B.C.; in Alberta, they more than doubled from 2011 to 2012.

People in the territories submit far more application rates than the rest of Canada. The Yukon had 33 applications in 2013 – almost one for every 1,000 residents – while the Northwest Territories had 29. By contrast, Quebec’s 64 applications make for fewer than one for every 100,000 residents.

The number of applications and the authorizations issued are about the same, says Ontario’s chief firearms officer, OPP Supt. Chris Wyatt.

” If somebody applies for an ATC and it’s really deficient – they’re not a prospector, they don’t have a wilderness occupation, they just want it when they go camping –we just say ‘You don’t qualify,’ and they don’t pursue their application.”

We just say, “you don’t qualify.”  They just seem to give up at that point.  As for those of us who fought a war over this several hundred years ago, take note that no permission is necessary when God is the author of our rights.  And we fought a war over this once – we can do it again.

Matt Valentine writing at The Atlantic:

These new, high-capacity guns were hitting the street at the height of the crack epidemic and the era of the drive-by shooting, in a newly deregulated market—in 1986, Congress had passed the Firearms Owners Protection Act. “There was in essence a perfect storm,” Daniel Webster told me. “That legislation greatly decreased risks for people who were diverting guns to criminals. The standards for convicting someone of violating federal firearms sales laws were increased substantially, at the same time that the penalties for those gun sales violations decreased. [Congress] decreased the budget for the ATF. They decreased the number of compliance inspections that they could do. They also rewrote the criteria for needing to have a federal license to sell firearms. So all those things were at play, including the type of guns that were being made.”

Annual gun deaths peaked in 1993. The following year, Congress adopted an assault-weapons ban that capped magazines at 10 rounds. Since the ban expired in 2004, handguns with 15-round capacity or greater have been used in several mass shootings …

First of all, there is no difference between “military” weapons and “civilian” weapons.  Semiautomatics have been around for a very long time, just as have magazines that could hold more than just a few rounds.  Bolt action rifles are in common use for deer hunting, and among snipers in the Army and Marines.  Shotguns are used for turkey hunting, and for room clearing operations and CQB by the Army and Marines.  This is entirely a false distinction.

Second, I am unmoved and completely unpersuaded and unimpressed by the discussion of statistics, whatever they happen to say, whether accidents, deaths, or crime.  Statistics have nothing whatsoever to do with my rights (see also Kurt Hofmann’s wonderful article).

Finally, this is what the gun controllers do.  When the facts don’t suit them, they change the subject.  Matt moves from crime at its peak just before the so-called assault weapons ban, to removal of the ban, to [here Matt cannot say an increase in crime, so he turns the subject to] mass shootings.  Matt wanted to say that crime increased and the assault weapons ban had something to do with it.

But he couldn’t, he knew his readers would call him out on lies.  So he did the next best thing.  He changed the subject and hoped that the reader would read what Matt really wanted to say.

And that is how you lie about guns.  You make it all up when the facts don’t support your conclusions.

David Codrea:

The use of “professional” opinions in this piece amounts to journalistic bait and switch when they are presented as subject matter experts on topics outside their accredited fields. They’ve never heard, they guess and, they have no opinion. Holy cow!

Said by one commenter, menckenlite, “Control freaks love psychiatry, a means of social control with no Due Process protections. It is a system of personal opinion masquerading as science.”  Psychiatry is pseudoscience, and in this case a bunch of pseudoscientists are addressing a policy issue for which they have no training and no anecdotal bank of guesses and probable outcomes.  Why would anyone expect anything else?

David Codrea:

“Effective immediately, pursuant to the decision in Palmer … and the directive of the Attorney General of the District of Columbia, members of the Metropolitan Police Department shall not enforce D.C. Official Code … until further notice,” that directive instructed.

It also provided three sample scenarios, the first noting a D.C. resident carrying an unregistered firearm should be so charged, the second noting a Vermont resident with no criminal record would be free to leave (with the potential for further investigation) …

Hey, investigate this, bitch.  God gives people the right and duty of self defense.  You will answer one day to God for your advocacy.  In the mean time, may every assaulted man or woman in your jurisdiction shoot back without your help or presence so that you can see what an impediment you are to peace and stability.

S&W settles with the SEC.  This sounds to me like a few people within the organization went a little rogue and did some untoward things.  I’m glad for S&W that this is settled, and it doesn’t reflect on a good group of people.  Now, if we can just get them to stop selling firearms to LEOs that civilians can’t have.

Gun violence is not a public health issue.  No, and doctors have enough to worry about to spend time on policy issues as a profession.

Standing up to the people of the gun.  “Assault weapons are not home entertainment. They are engineered to kill people. If our society can’t eschew this menace, then we may as well surrender to the People of the Gun.”  Yea, well you may as well go ahead and surrender now, to use your phrase, since you will never get our guns.

Via Uncle, New York DHS will pay you $500 to rat out prepper neighbors buying legal goods.

New York’s Division of Homeland Security is posting signs on businesses to encourage people to snitch on fellow citizens who buy such things as MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat), ammunition, flash lights, match containers, gas masks and other items deemed to be ‘prepper’ in nature.

In this video a girl working at LZ Army Navy Surplus store in Auburn, NY tell us how a state trooper put up a flyer in their window which encourages customers to call the New York State Terrorism Tips Line to report this ‘suspicious activity’ under the as part of the “See Something, Say Something” campaign.

This is obviously nothing more than the beginning of the cultivation of ‘average citizen snitches’ who will rat out on their fellow citizens…

Hey, it is, after all, Amerika.

Finally, Mike Vanderboegh recommends equipment for obtaining water that, frankly, I hadn’t considered.  I think I will have to order one.

Thus far, as loyal readers, you have been blessed to partake in the following.

High Magazine Clips And The Shoulder Thing That Goes Up

High Ammo Clips

Automatic Bullets In Rapid Fire Magazine Clips

And last but certainly not least, Duck Hunting With Bullets.  I am now proud to offer you the following.

A fully loaded ammunition cartridge was left unattended on a picnic bench and would have remained there if a local resident had not brought it to the attention of the gun advocates as they were departing for home.

The “fully loaded ammunition cartridge.”  You’re welcome.

UPDATE: David Codrea has thoughts on this article as well.

The IRS is apparently unrepentant in light of the recent debacle concerning conservative groups.  Just recently, another front has been opened in the war against America.

The next time your pastor delivers a pro-life sermon or urges the congregation to stand up for pro-life values in the political or public arena, he could be taken to task by the IRS.

Alliance Defending Freedom asked the Internal Revenue Service Tuesday to release all documents related to its recent decision to settle a lawsuit with an atheist group that claims the IRS has adopted new protocols and procedures for the investigation of churches.

ADF submitted the Freedom of Information Act request after learning of the IRS’s agreement with Freedom From Religion Foundation in a press release the group issued on July 17 concerning its lawsuit Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Koskinen, which accused the agency of failing to investigate churches the way the atheist group would like.

“Secrecy breeds mistrust, and the IRS should know this in light of its recent scandals involving the investigation of conservative groups,” said ADF Litigation Counsel Christiana Holcomb. “We are asking the IRS to disclose the new protocols and procedures it apparently adopted for determining whether to investigate churches. What it intends to do to churches must be brought into the light of day.”

The IRS claims it is temporarily withholding investigations of all tax-exempt entities because of congressional scrutiny of its recent scandals, but no one knows when it will decide to restart investigations based on any new or modified rules that it develops.

So the IRS is laying low after their recent illegalities hit the news.  But there is more queued up for America, at least as long as America tolerates it.  What could possibly go wrong?

Here is the report and the video is below.  You don’t need much from the report except that the driver was found incoherent and staring blankly.  Now watch the video.

This actually isn’t all that uncommon.  I would bet a dollar to a hole in a doughnut that this man was suffering from hypoglycemic shock.  I saw it on Highway 485 near where I live.  He probably feels terrible about it, although he also probably needs to get better about heeding the warning signs and preparing a plan (like pull over).

Now for the cops.  Despite the excuse, the cop wasn’t holstering his gun, and according to what I saw on the video, he had no intentions of doing so.  It happens so often that I hate to bring it up again, but recall the sympathetic muscle reflex (by the cop) in which Mr. Eurie Stamps perished, and recall what we discussed about tactical lights on weapons.  Keep your finger off the trigger and it won’t shoot.  It’s so simple but so many shooters ignore the basic rules.

In this case, he is obviously right-handed, and placed his service weapon in his left hand to work his baton.  When finished, he exchanged his service weapon back to his right hand (which was then in the mode of clutching his baton), with no trigger discipline, and bingo, a negligent discharge.

It’s good that no one died in this encounter.  Besides, bashing in windows like they did is very dangerous for the motorist.  It would have been better if they had used something like a slim jim or window punch.  They looked like they went a little crazy to me, and the sad fact is that it wasn’t necessary and they accomplished absolutely nothing by their actions.

David Codrea:

That black gun rights activists are treated differently than white ones over the same advocacy issue is racist, pure and simple. But then again, what do I know, being what an official representative of a national gun ban group dismissed as “a white gun nut”?

Yea, it is, and you know what else is racist?  All Jim Crow laws regarding gun purchase and ownership.  So when you hear CLEOs oppose shall issue laws and talk about how they really have their finger on the pulse of the community and can tell if someone is a potential danger when the NICS can’t … blah blah blah … they’re really saying, “We don’t want those horrible black folk to have guns, do we?”  They’re bigots, pure and simple.

Kurt Hofmann:

Johnson accuses the NRA of “falsely arguing that .50 caliber weapons pose no threat to the general public,” despite there being not a single documented case of a person in the U.S. having been killed with a rifle chambered for the .50 BMG cartridge, and despite the rifles having been on the civilian market ever since Ronnie Barrett sold his first “Barrett Light Fifty” forty-two years ago.

Kurt goes on to explain the artificial use of sources – that is, making things up because you think the reader won’t actually go there and find out for himself.  I find Media Matters amusing, but note that I didn’t say interesting.  Kurt is known (by me at least) for his use of logic.  David Codrea is no mean analyst himself, but one thing you also get with David is clever post titles, clever prose, and illustrative commentary that invokes memories that most people share in common in order to explain a point.  When you read Media Matters, their title lines aren’t even interesting.  They go like this: “Someone said thus-and-such when he really should have said so-and-so, and he’s not sorry about it.”  It’s awful, really.  Media Matters is the most boring, dull, dreary, dry, and annoying site on the web, and there are a lot of dreary sites on the web.

Kurt Hofmann:

A Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual, and these people demand the power to take it away without a conviction, without an indictment, without an arrest or formal charges, and now without “concrete facts” or “irrefutable evidence.” They seem more than a little confused as to who the “terrorists” here are–perhaps a mirror would help.

And there is an increasing willingness to affect the lives of good people based on whether they might in the future pose some sort of undefined risk, as if it’s possible to prove a universal negative.

Kurt Hofmann:

… there is perhaps an even more glaring contradiction in this proposed amendment to the Missouri constitution. The language of the amendment, while providing an explicit statement that the right to keep and bear arms is “unalienable,” also contains a provision granting the state explicit permission to “alien” that right …

Well, first of all, I’m quick to say I don’t believe in the second amendment, I believe in God, and He gives me my rights, not the state.  However, it is  helpful for the state to recognize that fact and make it explicit for everyone, and in this case it sounds like they are making matters worse.  Best to leave it alone until they really believe in unalienable rights – and in God.

Via David Codrea, Liston Matthews puts some tough questions to Ben Carson.  David will be watching.  So will I.  I consider Allen West a much better man all around, although not electable.  In fact, it doesn’t appear that anyone I like is electable.  Why even vote?  If the GOP fields someone like Chris Christie or Jeb Bush, I’ll stay at home and laugh.

Sharia Law In America:

“Two leaders of a mosque tried to cut off the hand of a man they allege stole jars of money from the house of worship, Philadelphia police said … Investigators say the two males accused the victim of stealing jars of money from the Masjid … The males, police say, dragged the victim to the rear of the property and attempted to cut off his hand with a machete.”

You are buying guns and ammunition, right?

ZeroHedge: The American Economy is a Ponzi Scheme: “Financial bubbles are what economist Robert Shiller calls “naturally occurring Ponzis” because the psychology of ever-rising prices and profits fuels an inflow of greater fools that sustains the bubble until all available greater fools have sunk their cash and credit into the bubble.”  Then the ponzi paint peels away to show the rotten wood of the economy.

WRSA: The Secret Government Rulebook For Labeling You A Terrorist.

And via Mike, the comment of the week: “A system built upon debt must eventually reach a debt saturation point. We are already there as world wide assets are dwarfed by world wide debt and the inability to paythe interest. Thus central banks have already resorted to their last hope – money printing. That inevitably leads to currency destruction, chaos, and the breakdown of society.”

And speaking of honesty and clarity, Mike says it short and sweet.  As for me, I don’t care if you wear a uniform or not.  If you’re the enemy, you’re the enemy.  And anyone who tries to take my weapons is the enemy.

Finally, Guns.com gives us the ultimate home defense handgun guide.  Meh.  There’s nothing ultimate about it.  He doesn’t even discuss Springfield Armory XDms, and no 1911s in the mix.  Too much Glock love for me.  Just insufferable.  I admit I would like to have me some of that Ruger GP100.  We’ll see how it stacks up against my S&W R8.