During a recent trip.

Tenth Amendment Center:

AUSTIN, Texas (December 1, 2014) – Today, two bills were filed in the Texas state house that would have the effect of nullifying virtually all federal gun control measures in the state. Sources close to the Tenth Amendment Center say that the bills have a good chance of passage, but only with strong grassroots support.

Introduced by Rep.Matthew Krause, (R-Ft. Worth) House Bill 422 (HB422) would require that the state refuse to enforce almost all federal gun control measures enacted at anytime – past, present or future.    It reads, in part:

An agency of this state or a political subdivision of this state, and a law enforcement officer or other person employed by an agency of this state or a political subdivision of this state, may not contract with or in any other manner provide assistance to a federal agency or official with respect to the enforcement of a federal statute, order, rule, or regulation purporting to regulate a firearm, a firearm accessory, or firearm ammunition if the statute, order, rule, or regulation imposes a prohibition, restriction, or other regulation, such as a capacity or size limitation or a registration requirement, that does not exist under the laws of this state.

This would make a huge dent in any new federal effort to further restrict the right to keep and bear arms in Texas. As Judge Andrew Napolitano has said recently, such widespread noncompliance can make a federal law “nearly impossible to enforce” (video here). Quite simply, the federal government absolutely cannot enforce gun control in Texas without the help of Texas.

A similar bill introduced by Krause in 2013 (HB928) passed out of the state house by a vote of 102-31, but since it was held to late in the session, the Senate never had the opportunity to concur.

Also introduced today is a bill known as the 2nd Amendment Preservation Act. Filed by Rep. Craig Goldman (R-Ft. Worth), House Bill 413 (HB413) is an exact duplicate of HB176 filed last month by outgoing Rep. Tim Kleinschmidt (R-Lexington). Since Kleinschmidt is retiring from the state house to accept a new position with the state, HB176 is considered “dead” and HB413 is the active bill in its place.

HB413 declares all federal restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms to be “invalid” and “not enforceable” within the state of Texas. It reads, in part:

A federal law, including a statute, an executive, administrative, or court order, or a rule, that infringes on a law-abiding citizen’s right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution or Section 23, Article I, Texas Constitution, is invalid and not enforceable in this state.

If passed into law, all government agencies and employees within Texas would be banned from enforcing any federal law in violation of the act.

Read the Tenth Amendment Center for the rest of the details, one of which is a nice restriction on universal background checks and gun registration.  Of course as readers know, this one is near and dear to my heart.

And true enough, lack of participation by state and local law enforcement would make, let’s say, a ban on standard capacity magazines, completely unenforceable.  There is nothing wrong with the bills as constituted.  But they don’t go nearly far enough.

For instance, what if a federal requirement is enacted for FFLS to do something or other that most Texans believe infringes on their rights under the Texas constitution?  The ATF can then threaten the FFL with revocation of their license, or perhaps even worse, fines and prison time, if he does not comply.  The federal government wins – unless, that is, the authorities in Texas are willing to send Texas law enforcement to arrest agents of the DoJ and ATF who reside in or enter the boundaries of Texas, with mandatory prison time as a consequence.

Just how free do Texans consider themselves?  The same question goes for the rest of us.

Delivered recently, a Voodoo 42″ tactical padded rifle case, which holds two rifles and other weapons (two handguns).  There is also room for magazines, tools, and other kit that you might want to take to the range or into the field.  If you’re like me, you probably cannot even name or catalog the equipment and other miscellaneous stuff you have in your dope bag (or range bag).  This clears it up.  When you head out the door, you put in what you need for the day, weekend or longer.

 Here is a picture of the case unopened, plenty of Molle and cinch straps.  And I like the OD green.

Here is a picture of the back, with padded shoulder straps and D-rings.

One aspect of the bag I like is the presence of zippers amenable to locking.  No, it won’t stop someone from picking up your entire bag.  But it will stop someone from going into your rifle bag and coming out with something that you don’t miss until much later.  Here is a picture closed.

And unclosed.

I wanted to see how it would handle longer rifles (since it is, after all, a 42″ case), so I put in my Tikka T3 Hunter, with scope, on one side of the dedicated two-rifle bag.

Nice fit.  Now on the other side, my RRA AR-15 with EOTech.

See how the top of the EOTech goes to the top of the bag?  The forend grip was given to me straight from a Marine in my son’s MC Battalion.  It saw combat action.  It holds sentimental value for me.  I figure there’s no reason I should have to remove my forend grip in order to get my rifle into a tactical bag.  More on that in a minute.  

One more item worthy of mention is that I didn’t notice any stress on the zippers when the bag was fully opened.  If the zippers were stressed when folded open, I would say so and dock points for that in my review.  This bag passes with flying colors.  Below are the storage compartments opened up.

Plenty of snaps, velcro and tension cords.  And more on the internal storage compartments.

Now back to the height of the bag.  Take a close look at the tape measure below.  It reads 11″ seam to seam.

Another bag I have reads 10.5″ seam to seam.

The difference is actually about 0.75″ when I get down close to the seams and tape (a picture cannot do it justice).  Does that 0.75″ matter?  Well, it does if you have an EOTech on your rifle plus a forend grip.

The Voodoo 42″ tactical padded rifle case is a worthy way to spend your money if you need a rifle case.  In fact, I highly recommend it if you have a rifle longer than the AR-15 carbine (16″ barrel) that needs to be protected during transport.  And by the way.  I decry the notion of abusing your weapons to the maximum just to ascertain the point at which they will stop working.  You don’t do that with your own body, do you?  Protect your weapons like your life.

The Blaze:

Everytown for Gun Safety, the organization funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, issued a set of five talking points for gun control advocates to follow when trying to persuade their pro-gun friends and relatives of their error in thinking on Thanksgiving.

“This Thanksgiving when talk around he table turns to politics and current events, you can help set the record straight on some of the most common myths about guns,” the talking points titled, “Talking Turkey About Guns,” says.

The “myths” and “facts” infographics included Thanksgiving imagery such as turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie.

That this was intended for Thanksgiving is irrelevant.  What’s more germane to the conversation is what Bloomberg’s group did and why they did it.  It’s not likely to happen exactly like Bloomberg presents it.  My position on mental health and gun ownership is well established.  As my reader menckenlite has said of psychiatry.

Control freaks love psychiatry, a means of social control with no Due Process protections. It is a system of personal opinion masquerading as science. See, e.g., Boston University Psychology Professor Margaret Hagan’s book, Whores of the Court,he to see how arbitrary psychiatric illnesses are. Peter Breggin, Fred Baughman and Thomas Szasz wrote extensively about abuses of psychiatry. Liberals blame guns for violence. Conservatives blame mental illness. Neither have any causal connection to violence.

There may be end of life issues in which collection of guns may take same path as collection of cars or anything else that can harm someone.  We are dealing with a 91-year old grandmother who has clinical dementia.  We won’t let her drive.  We took her guns.  Guns are no different than anything else, but we are caring for her.

The point is that in the absence of clinical medical issues like dementia, you are not entitled to the guns owned by loved ones.  But totalitarians have always been quick to intercept and interdict the communications, care, money, love and every other aspect of the life of the family.  The state taxes the most helpless among us, the widow and orphan, merely because a loved one perished.  God holds a special place in hell for men who make such laws.

The Nazis did it, the Soviets did it, the communists in Southeast Asia did it, the Chinese communists do it with their one child policy and other laws.  The family is subservient to the state, rather than being one of the sovereign institutions in God’s economy.  The family owes fealty to the state rather than itself and God, and the philosophical question of the one and the many has been settled long ago in favor of the one.

The state knows that the family members love each other, and they use that against the family.  If they can split the family or use one of the members against another to report on their activities or convince them of their duty to the state, the love of the family can engender pacifism within the family.  In order to ensure peace within the family, members can go along to get along.  Worse, they might actually fear another family member, which is exactly what the state wants.

You won’t find another more important venue or object of your lobby efforts or target of your teaching and instruction than family, even extended family.  If you cannot persuade your family of your world view, then it makes no sense to turn your attentions to others.  Go back to the beginning and work on your family again, and again, and again, and again.  Never let the state win.  It’s been said that socialized medicine is the holy grail of the collectivists.  That is wrong.  Their end game is the end of the family.

But after all is said and done, if you have extended family that simply cannot be convinced and will not acquiesce to your God-given rights, make it clear to them that if they align themselves with the collectivists, they have aligned with the enemy.  It’s just that serious.  Use those words.  They have become the enemy, or at least, workers for the enemy.  You cannot and will not ever relinquish your right to weapons, regardless of the close nature of those who would beseech you to do so.

When you read reports like the one from Bloomberg above, realize the deeper, more nefarious nature of their designs.  This isn’t about turkey, pie, Christmas presents, or any of the other trappings, and certainly not about the deeper religious meaning in the holidays.

David Codrea:

The thing is, transporting these children, sheltering them, feeding them, clothing them, bathing them and dealing with the waste they generate will all have an environmental impact, and while seemingly negligible compared to the totality of things, that’s added to the millions of heretofore illegal aliens already in the country now empowered to stay, and to those on their way, attracted by seeing “migrants” who came before them rewarded for lawbreaking. Their long-term impact as an aggregate on the environment and on the resources needed to provide energy, sustenance and disposal, can hardly be considered negligible. Nor can the immediate and continuing impact of environmental destruction left in their wake …

How much more of an impact will the president’s immigration directives have on the environment than the off-chance a person defending their life may (or may not) need to fire off rounds of ammunition that may (or may not) leave traces within national park boundaries? … Why not figure out the best jurisdiction to get an injunction halting Obama’s action until an environmental impact study can be completed.

Progressives are liars.  They pretend to care about the environement but don’t.  If they did, they would lobby for the startup of nuclear power plants.  Rather, progressives use their pretensions as a cudgel for their other causes.  As for the environmental impacts of immigration and lack of border security, we’ve discussed that here.  They don’t care.  Perhaps a judge can be found who would pay attention only to the law, but s/he wouldn’t care about the morality of the situation.

David Codrea:

 Obviously both of these individuals were not part of what the citizen disarmament cult disparages as “the gun culture,” as the lack of respect for even the most basic of safety rules indicated by the report points to people absolutely unfamiliar with basic rational gun-handling. The obvious ridiculous and senselessly dangerous way this woman evidently ended her own life unsurprisingly brought out ridicule-based comments, including predictable “Darwin Award” references.

“She deserved to die,” a gay Huffington Post reader from Yale weighed in. “Trailer lady deserved it.” Talk about tolerance and concern for “different” people of perceived lower economic status!

Progressives only pretend to care about the lower class.

From Uncle, here is a list of top handgun manufacturers.  I’m kind of surprised that Springfield Armory isn’t on the list.

Don Surber: Do not rebuild in Ferguson.  Yea, but when I said the same thing, I was somehow the devil.