After ISIS’ slaughter of Christians everywhere they go, the sufferings of the Coptic Christians in Egypt under the Muslim brotherhood, and the kidnapping of young Christian girls by Boko Haram for the purposes of sexual slavery, it may be tempting to ask yourselves, “What kind of an idiot would continue to press the notion that Christ demanded that we disarm in the face of danger?”

The answer is that those idiots are everywhere.  I confess that I have not read Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology.  I have tended to stick more with Charles Hodge, R. L. Dabney, W.G.T. Shedd and the classics.  But my son Joseph has read Grudem, and highly recommends his book to me.  It really isn’t necessary to study Grudem’s details in order to do a takedown of the critique of Grudem (who is pro-self defense and in favor of gun rights) offered by Krish Kandiah at Christianity Today, entitled Should Christians Own Guns: A British Theologian’s Views.

Krish says:

Grudem argues that the reason the Second Amendment was added to the constitution was “to provide another protection against tyranny – to make it harder for any potential dictator or would-be king to take control of the entire nation against the will of the people.” This concern is probably not at the heart of the individual gun control debate at the moment as the right to bear arms against a tyrannical dictatorship is a different question as to whether Christians need to own guns now in a stable democratic environment.

He isn’t very well connected to the current American political scene, is he?  And if a stable environment is all he’s after, Adolf Hitler provided that while be deported the Jews for execution.  As writer Kurt Hofmann and I have both noted, the notion of self defense should include both individual self defense and defense against tyranny.  Only when understood in that light can the current debate in American be enveloped.  It may seem petty to focus on his misunderstanding of the American scene, but when writers show a fundamental misunderstanding of their subject it casts doubt on the value of the work.

Krish continues:

Even if we accept the premise that the there is a right to self-defence this does not necessarily mean the right to own a gun. There will always be limit to the expression of this right that would include a whole range of military hardware; even Grudem recognises that the private ownership of a “machine gun or anti-tank rocket launcher or an anti-aircraft missile launcher” are unnecessary. But still he argues that private hand gun ownership reduces crime as an attacker cannot be sure that their potential victim is unarmed. The counter argument of course is that it could make gun violence more likely as attackers could increasingly assume their victims are armed …

This is as amazing a quote as you will ever see in the gun control debate.  Seriously, read it again and let the bad logic of it wash over you.  He is proffering the argument that ownership of guns makes more likely that attackers will become violent because they will assume their victims are armed.  Thus, according to him, the best way to turn back the “gain” setting on violence is to allow attackers to attack you unmolested so that perhaps things won’t go as badly as they could if you were armed!  You simply can’t make this stuff up, you would have to read it from collectivists in order to believe that someone could actually say or think something like that.

Finally, note that Krish says:

Grudem argues that carrying weapons would help prevent “tragic mass murders in which a lone gunman can hold at bay an entire restaurant or church full of people… are much less likely to happen in states where a large number of people carry concealed weapons.”

But the counter arguments are, firstly, that if guns were more highly regulated then it would be a lot harder for potential mass murderers to get hold of guns in the first place. Secondly, Ellen Painter Dollar argues: “Police officers go through hours of specialized training to help them discern when the use of deadly force is justified. As we know from not a few front-page tragedies involving police shootings, despite such rigorous training, even the best-trained officers don’t always get it right.

Right.  The “best trained” officers.  Like the NYC LEOs who shoot blindly into the darkness, or the South Carolina cop who shot a man in the back, or the police in Buffalo who currently rule the world in dog shootings, or the wild gun play of the Cleveland Police.  The “best trained” officers, he opines.  And here you see irrational faith in LEOs and irrational fear of personal use of weapons.  Always look for the most irrational among us to claim that we are the irrational ones, projecting their fears on the rest of us.

But there is one theme that keeps coming up, and this theme recurs in another critique of Grudem’s work by someone from the Church in Toronto, Nigel Tomes.

David eluded King Saul’s spear; Paul evaded his pursuers by escaping Damascus in a basket; Jesus escaped hostile crowds (Luke 4:29-30; John 8:59). But these are examples of self-preservation, not of self-defense.

And there you have it.  A distinction without a difference – self preservation versus self defense.  Nigel wants men to be unarmed with the best of weapons, just as does Krish, so that they stand the maximum chance of being harmed or killed.  Nigel and Krish don’t care about the children.  They would rather see men, women and children suffer and perish at the hands of evil men, criminals after money, sex or something else, or criminals in the hire of the government, than to acquiesce to the notion that men are made in God’s image and thus life should be preserved.

But the willingness of professors and church leaders to beclown themselves in the name of pacifism goes on to ridiculous proportions with a professor of religion at the University of Texas, John Traphagan.

There are many law-abiding American gun owners who do not go out and kill people and who keep their guns stored safely. But as a whole, Americans do not seem to be able to handle gun ownership in a way that permits maintenance of a civil society. The reality is that the significant numbers of bad apples have spoiled it for those law-abiding gun owners, and it’s time that gun rights organizations such as the National Rifle Association recognize this and begin working with those who want realistic gun control laws, in part as a way of building trust with those who do not own gun.

As if we would pay heed to the NRA in any attempt to increase gun control laws!  No, here is what I think professor Traphagan is talking about.  Crime is highly concentrated among minorities.  Recent riots have been concentrated in minority communities and cities such as Ferguson or Baltimore.  Professor Traphagan knows this.  He is in effect saying that the black community cannot handle the responsibility of gun ownership.  I think professor Traphagan is a racist but doesn’t have the guts to admit his views.  Whites must be disarmed (as if that would be possible without a bloody civil war) in order to bring peace to the black communities.

These things are all pointers, milestones, and signals of a decaying and rotting church, both British and American (although the British church is all but dead, leading the American churches in total irrelevance to anything).  The Episcopal church that has been famously losing people for decades, decided to focus even more on progressive social programs and gun control, and is now losing even more people.  That has happened to the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and between the Presbyterian Church in America, the ARP and other smaller denominations, it cannot be said any more that the PSUSA is the “mainline” Presbyterian denomination.

Except for orthodox, conservative American churches, most American churches today are open sepulchers (and even some orthodox and conservative evangelical churches teach pacifism).

Jesus was a Bohemian, peacenik hippie to the modern American churches.  This is a testimony to how irrelevant, comfortable, self-absorbed and lard-ass the American church is, as also is the fact that hundreds of thousands of Christians can be slaughtered, sent into sexual slavery and driven out of Mesopotamia without so much as an imprecatory prayer by Christians in the West.  Shameful, disgusting, and sickening.  It causes me to turn away in revulsion from the organized American church in disrespect for most of what I see passing for orthodox Christianity today.

Christianity Today is as irrelevant as the American church, as irrelevant as a professor of religion at the University of Texas who wants to disarm law-abiding folks because of a few bad apples, and as irrelevant as the Church in Toronto.  Not a single one of them can manage to construct even a very basic analysis of Christians and self defense.  For the record, I don’t need Wayne Grudem to do that for me.  I have supplied adequate analysis of this issue.  As I’ve summarized before:

I am afraid there have been too many centuries of bad teaching endured by the church, but it makes sense to keep trying.  As I’ve explained before, the simplest and most compelling case for self defense lies in the decalogue.  Thou shall not murder means thou shall protect life.

God’s law requires [us] to be able to defend the children and helpless.  “Relying on Matthew Henry, John Calvin and the Westminster standards, we’ve observed that all Biblical law forbids the contrary of what it enjoins, and enjoins the contrary of what it forbids.”  I’ve tried to put this in the most visceral terms I can find.

God has laid the expectations at the feet of heads of families that they protect, provide for and defend their families and protect and defend their countries.  Little ones cannot do so, and rely solely on those who bore them.  God no more loves the willing neglect of their safety than He loves child abuse.  He no more appreciates the willingness to ignore the sanctity of our own lives than He approves of the abuse of our own bodies and souls.  God hasn’t called us to save the society by sacrificing our children or ourselves to robbers, home invaders, rapists or murderers. Self defense – and defense of the little ones – goes well beyond a right.  It is a duty based on the idea that man is made in God’s image.  It is His expectation that we do the utmost to preserve and defend ourselves when in danger, for it is He who is sovereign and who gives life, and He doesn’t expect us to be dismissive or cavalier about its loss.

This same sort of thinking can be applied on a larger scale to states and nations as so expertly done by professor Darrell Cole in Good Wars (First Things), relying on the theology of both Calvin and Aquinas.  But this is a bridge too far for some Christians who are just now dealing with the notion that they might be in danger.

Now a word of advice for pastor[s] and “theologians” who proffer these laughable interpretations.  It’s things like this that cause congregants to lose respect for the pulpit, and nothing screams the irrelevance of the sermon more than the Biblical impossibility of the pronouncements of the pastor (or in other words, the inconsistency of what he says with the balance of Scripture).  It’s just best to leave your own political aberrations out of the pulpit and teach the Bible.

Or as I’ve repeated elsewhere, John Calvin, commenting on commandment and prohibition, observes:

We do not need to prove that when a good thing is commanded, the evil thing that conflicts with it is forbidden.  There is no one who doesn’t concede this.  That the opposite duties are enjoined when evil things are forbidden will also be willingly admitted in common judgment.  Indeed, it is commonplace that when virtues are commended, their opposing vices are condemned.  But we demand something more than what these phrases commonly signify.  For by the virtue of contrary to the vice, men usually mean abstinence from that vice.  We say that the virtue goes beyond this to contrary duties and deeds.  Therefore in this commandment, “You shall not kill,” men’s common sense will see only that we must abstain from wronging anyone or desiring to do so.  Besides this, it contains, I say, the requirement that we give our neighbor’s life all the help we can … the purpose of the commandment always discloses to us whatever it there enjoins or forbids us to do” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, Book 2, Chapter viii, Part 9).

Consistency isn’t the Hobgoblin of small minds.  It’s the stuff of life, and even the most dense commentator knows that the Decalogue isn’t subject to the whims of dispensation.  It is a reflection of the very character of God, and thus universally and in all times and epochs, man is made in God’s image and life is to be protected rather than stoically given away to those who would usurp what must fall under the purview of the only potentate, God Himself.  He grants it, and only He can take it or tell others how and when to take it.  When stolid commentators and professors disconnect Christ from the very law He came to fulfill, it’s easy to ascertain that something is very wrong.

Man is made in God’s image.  Careless disregard for life means disregard for God’s law and hypocrisy towards the creator and His words.  Hand-wringing over guns versus knives or clubs or pepper spray or locked doors just means that you’re straining at a gnat in order to swallow a camel.  You (Krish, Nigel and John) don’t care about the women or children.  You’re a self-absorbed, self righteous, pampered product of the effete chattering class, unnecessary to and a bad fit for the very people to whom you are speaking.  No one is listening any more.

Prior:

The Second Amendment Creates A God-Given Right To Bear Arms?

No Guns In Church In Alabama?

Christian Leaders Say No To Christian Militia

Gentlemen, Prepare To Defend Yourselves!

A Desperate Cry From Iraq’s Christians

The PCUSA On Guns

Dear Christians With Guns

Concerning The Nigerian Christian Girls

Guns: Think Of The Children

Does Jesus Shoot An AR-15?

Baptist Forum Does Gun Control

Who Would Jesus Shoot?

The Golden Calf Of Gun Control

Faith And Firearms

Guns And Religion

When Christians Discuss Guns

Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense

Watertown Daily Times:

North country residents have mixed views — and strong opinions — about the value of traffic checkpoints routinely set up by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents assigned to monitor the American side of the U.S.-Canadian border.

Based on random interviews, several said they believe border checkpoints are necessary to keep illicit drugs, illegal immigrants and other unlawful activities out of the country.

However, many also said they’re concerned that too many law enforcement officials — including border patrol agents — unlawfully stretch their authority by using aggressive tactics when interrogating law-abiding citizens traveling in their own country.

Last week, Jessica A. Cooke, 21, Ogdensburg, was pulled over at a border checkpoint in Waddington by border patrol agents who wanted to search her car’s trunk. During an altercation that followed, Ms. Cooke allegedly was subdued with a stun gun.

The incident, which was captured on a cellphone video taken by Ms. Cooke, has prompted a spirited debate on social media sites. Ms. Cooke, a SUNY Canton criminal justice major who graduated Saturday, claims she was wrongfully assaulted and has threatened to file a lawsuit.

Several people said they believed both parties deserve some blame for the altercation: Ms. Cooke for provoking agents with an uncooperative attitude and the agents for using excessive force to restrain her.

Here’s a sampling of opinions of area residents and visitors:

■ William C. Hill, Edwards, said he has driven through checkpoints on several occasions and never had a problem. Usually, agents ask drivers where they’re from and where they’re going. Occasionally, they ask drivers to pull over for further questioning or to inspect their vehicle.

“I’m all for border patrol checks. Look at the drugs seized weekly by these that would otherwise go right onto the streets,” Mr. Hill said in an email. “If you have nothing to hide, why be a jerk? Just cooperate.”

■ Heather M. Wells, 29, Ogdensburg, said she and her husband pass through checkpoints occasionally on Route 37 when they’re heading to the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation to purchase cigarettes.

“I think we’re close to a border so we should have checkpoints,” Mrs. Wells said. “If you don’t give them a reason to stop you, they won’t.”

■ In Watertown, Antonio F. Gigliotti said he does not consider road checkpoints set up by the Border Patrol to be cause for concern.

“They don’t bother me,” he said.

Mr. Gigliotti said he has traveled through checkpoints before without an issue. He said since he does not have anything to hide, he never feels worried when he passes through one.

■ Tonya Fulmore, Watertown, agreed. She said road checkpoints are necessary to keep our border secure.

“I think if they are protecting the border, they have every right to be there,” she said.

■ William R. Wagstaff Jr., Massena, said he believes border patrol agents at times abuse their power by asking to inspect vehicles without having reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.

“This woman had every right to refuse to open her trunk,” Mr. Wagstaff said in an email. “I have refused several times to let them search me and put their K-9 in my vehicle.”

Mr. Wagstaff said he filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., and received a letter of apology. He also filed a complaint with border patrol officials in Swanton, Vt.

“Now I don’t get harassed anymore,” he said.

Example of reactions continue and you can read them all at Watertown Daily Times.  It isn’t necessary for views to be mixed on anything about this report.  Every stop by the U.S. Border Patrol of a U.S. citizen, unless it is a so-called “Terry Stop” with evidence of a crime, is a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

If the Border Patrol wants to catch criminals, international terrorists or other trafficking perpetrators, they should do so at the border.  The fact that the border isn’t secure is a sorry testimony to the degree the politicians want it to be open and porous.  It is an obscene pointer to crony capitalism that the only thing the border patrol believes they can do is harass American citizens.

They have become powerless to stop the cross-border flood, and they are taking it out on American citizens.  It is as much Kabuki theater as TSA checks at air ports.  Nothing the U.S. government is doing is helping to keep American citizens safe.  Every program I can think of is designed to foist more control on the American people rather than ensure their freedom and safety.

The saddest part isn’t that all of this is true.  It is that people are still conflicted over these programs.  If we wanted to secure the borders, we could shoot the invading hordes on sight, close down most of the checkpoints on the border, search every vehicle, disallow aliens from driving U.S. transport trucks, implement e-verify, and tell the LEOs to have the courage to go where the gangs are and shut them down rather than bust in doors doing SWAT raids.  Things would change overnight.

None of that will happen because the politicians don’t want to secure the border.

Okay, so The Washington Post stole a story from David Codrea.  It wasn’t the first time, it won’t be the last, but I know it’s frustrating for David.  When I was commenting on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I saw entire paragraphs from my posts lifted out and published by former Army general and colonel “expert commentators” on television.

Trump problems:

Potential GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and his daughter have donated “at least $105,000 to the Clinton Foundation,” The Hill reported Thursday. Contributions, per the Foundation website, “advance the work of any part of the Clinton Foundation, including the Clinton Global Initiative.”

That would be the same group behind the Clinton Global Citizen Award, presented to anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg by Vice President Joe Biden for being the “most fierce and most effective advocate that we have on the matter of gun sanity.”

[ … ]

As this column observed in 2012, Trump could be a great friend if his seeming enthusiasm for the Second Amendment is real. How we could go about determining that, aside from doing things backwards — trusting him and then seeing if he ends up earning it — is unclear.

Let’s clear this up.  Trump cannot be trusted.  He comes from the Northeast where the collectivist spirit runs deep and the totalitarian tendencies are strong.  He cannot be trusted any more than Chris Christie can be trusted.

David Codrea:

Far be it from me to resort to quacking noises at this point, or to discourage anyone who believes in what “Dr.” Lei Milliere preaches from following his “Emergency/Crisis” prescription to the letter, but one can’t visit his website without noting the prominent assurance that “Medicare and Medicaid is accepted!” How he is not only able to “practice” any form of medicine seems questionable enough — that what he does is considered eligible for government redistribution of wealth seems unfathomable. It would appear that his consultations and how he bills for them both present legitimate areas of professional and legal inquiry, with appropriate cautions taken should he follow the advice he dispenses to others and try to kill any investigating “snakes” as an act of “self-defense.”

Quack.  Fruitcake.  Crank.  Dingbat.  Crackpot.  See, I don’t mind at all resorting to name calling.

Kurt Hofmann:

One concern that can be dismissed immediately is that the government will succeed in suppressing this information. Regardless of what ridiculous extremes it can twist current laws into, or even what new ones it inflicts on this once free nation, the information will not be stopped, or even seriously slowed down.

Governments can never stop the flow of information, any more than they can control guns if the people want them.

If you haven’t seen all of Mike Vanderboegh’s speeches, the videos are linked here.

Bob Owens has written a piece for the LA Times on why LEOs shouldn’t use Glocks.  Something about light trigger pulls.  Go read it for yourself.  Mike McDaniel writing at TTAG has written a response.  Go read it for yourself.  To me, if cops shouldn’t be shooting Glocks because of light trigger pull, they shouldn’t be carrying a weapon at all.  But frankly, I couldn’t care less what happens to Glocks or whether LEOs carry them.  The pistol is ugly and boxy, and I don’t like the sharper frame angle.  I would rather shoot a 1911 or Springfield Armory XDm.  But this might be a flaw that I cared about if I carried a Glock.

BARDSTOWN, Ky. (WDRB) — Dangerous defects were found on the guns that Bardstown Police Officers carry with them on a daily basis.

Hairline fractures appeared on 12 guns, which were immediately taken out of commission. That’s nearly half of the weapons of the 27-man department and Captain Tom Roby says it’s a serious concern.

“At one point the gun would actually fall apart,” said Cpt. Roby.

The issue was discovered on the Glock model 23s during recent training practices. Those guns were purchased back in 2000.

“It’s a hairline crack, Roby said. “But with a little pressure you could spread it open. And .40 caliber is a high pressure handgun.”

Cpt. Roby said, over the years that pressure adds up. He said officers continually train with their weapons. Many even practice shooting on their off days.

“What people don’t understand is police weapons take a lot of abuse,” said Cpt. Roby.

After about 15 years of wear and tear, the police department will receive $12,000 from the city. That money will be used to purchase new guns after the severity of the cracks was demonstrated to council members.

If the flaw is real.  It sounds more likely that this “flaw” is a fabricated problem to convince the politicians to spend more money.  Besides, the chamber pressure of a 9 mm and .40 is about the same, and 9 mm has been in service a very long time.  On the other hand, if the weapons have been in service too long to be reliable, they should be replaced without having to demonstrate “flaws” to the politicians.

What do readers think?

David Codrea first reported on Michael Bloomberg’s next move in cyberspace:

Anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg will be expanding his influence over managed information about guns the public is exposed to when he launches a propaganda effort masked as news in June, a Friday Capital report notes. The announcement of two principals setting the tone and cranking out the propaganda is instructive on what we can expect.

James Burnett, formerly of The New Republic and New York Magazine will be bringing his established “progressive” flair to the helm as editorial director. Jennifer Mascia, who worked on the strictly one-sided Gun Report for The New York Times, is also “attached prominently to the Everytown news project.”

Ah.  The truth comes out about Jennifer.  Recall I had said the following about her credentials.

Tommy Gnosis is someone named Jennifer Mascia, who has her own web site.  In fact, she was one of the authors of the now defunct “The Gun Report” for the New York Times.  Recall that report?  That awful, hideous, dreary rundown of shootings every day?  As if all we have to do is remove those awful guns from society and sin goes away because evil is located in things rather than the heart of man (a noted neo-Platonic and stoic view).

Anyway, I did an IP trace and found that the address was owned by Bloomberg.  It makes sense, since I also found out that she works for Bloomberg via Everytown For Gun Safety.  Her Disqus account is active, and features snark, misdirects, sarcasm, insults, and most of all, prose designed to demoralize and demonstrate the complete impotence of whatever group she is berating at the moment.  The prose is designed to cause depression and dejection.

Here is the lesson.  Bloomberg is paying her to visit web sites – particularly gun rights web sites – and spread discontent and dejection.

Nope, said she in the comments.

Hi Herschel,

I am not paid to comment here, or anywhere, nor have I ever been. There is no “tactic.” I have never worked for a political organization or a nonprofit, only media companies, and before that, restaurants. No one at Everytown knows I comment here. I actually don’t work with the advocacy arm of Everytown. The news site will be staffed with journalists, not lobbyists. We have zero to do with elections or phone banks. We won’t be working with Everytown staffers.

Her Disqus account was by “Tommy Gnosis.”  I outed her and she posted as “Guest.”  She responded that she isn’t paid to comment anywhere.  There is no “tactic.”  She claimed no relationship at all to Bloomberg.  Now we find out that her use of an IP address that pointed back to Bloomberg was no coincidence.  She is indeed trafficking in propaganda, and she is in the employ of Bloomberg.  Let’s continue with Codrea’s second article on Bloomberg’s next move.

“Tommy Gnosis is someone named Jennifer Mascia,” Herschel Smith at The Captain’s Journal posted in March. He was describing someone who, under cover of anonymity, “visits web sites — particularly gun rights web sites — and spreads discontent and dejection.”

That’s consistent with the “elaborate subterfuge” technique for “infiltrating and disrupting alternative media online” used by those with an agenda. Per Canadian research, such “Internet trolls aren’t just mean — they’re sadists and psychopaths.”

That would also seem consistent with the control-all megalomaniac who hired her, in a company-he-keeps kind of way. Mascia is one of two paid flacks “attached prominently to the Everytown news project,” an experiment in virtual Astroturf that billionaire Michael Bloomberg will be rolling out this summer.

David then goes on to explore her past as daughter of a mob hit man.

What drives Mascia is anybody’s guess, but chances are her father having been an underworld killer with multiple hits under his belt had an influence. That probably comes as a surprise to many gun rights advocates, unaware that Al Jazeera told its readers “America’s best hope for tracking gun deaths is a mob enforcer’s daughter,” and Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action gushed on social media that her story was “Amazing.”

Readers who have been with me a while may recall that commenters pushed Jennifer around a bit when she visited this web site.  In fact, my readers drove her completely off of Disqus, as my oldest son Josh remarked to me.  But don’t feel sorry for her.  David notes that:

At this point, though, good people would still feel a degree of sympathy. After all, Mascia had no control over who her parents were or what they did. Their defects and failings were not her fault.

The problem is, she’s chosen to become part of an effort to make the rest of us defenseless against sociopath predators like her father, and enablers who help them kill, like her mother. She knows full well no “law” proposed by her billionaire patron would have any effect on stopping diseased animals like John Mascia from working his sick will on more victims.

David is right on target.  I said to Josh that “You absolutely must remember that she is the kind of person who would send the SWAT team to forcibly take your guns.”  And that’s the point after all.  Despite any sympathetic feelings you might have for such people, it isn’t that they want peace for all men.  Jennifer knows that we will never voluntarily give up our guns.  She knows that it will take a bloody civil war to try to disarm us.  She doesn’t care.  She supports violence if it is perpetrated by the state.  Just like Bloomberg, if it’s her folks with the guns, she’s okay.  She is only in favor of disarming certain people, and readers should realize that you are among that group of “certain people.”

As for pushing Jennifer around, I’ve made clear that if you want to come in this back yard and run with the big dogs, you’d better be prepared for some rough business.  And as for Jennifer herself, you weren’t entirely honest with us, were you?

David Codrea’s First Article

David Codrea’s Second Article

Salt Lake City:

HOLLADAY, Utah – Unified Police are looking for four suspects in a home invasion robbery overnight.

Police said four Polynesian men dressed in all black kicked the door in at a basement apartment in Holladay.

According to the two victims who were home at the time, the men said they were police officers and began searching the home and taking electronics.

One of the victims was able to run down the street and call 911.

The suspects chased him a few blocks and then ran before police arrived.

Police set up roadblocks and began searching for the men but didn’t find them.

“It’s very disturbing that someone would go out there and announce themselves as police and commit a crime like this,” Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal said.

“Very disturbing,” huh?  This certainly isn’t the first time this type of thing has occurred.  So just how disturbed are you?  Enough to stop all no-knock raids by your department because you and the criminals are using the same tactics against powerless home-owners?

In another part of the country the police are worried about SWAT raids too.

David Codrea:

The National Rifle Association last week called a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling, in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union and against Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, “a significant victory” and “a big loss for Big Brother.” The lawsuit challenged the National Security Agency’s position that collection of telephone “metadata” was authorized by the so-called “Patriot Act.”

“Your NRA had participated in the case by filing friend of the court briefs at different stages of the proceedings,” the Institute for Legislative Action report advised. “We have also supported legislation to curtail the NSA’s dragnet surveillance of American citizens.”

Why?

Aren’t we told NRA is a “single issue” organization, focused solely on promotion and protection of the Second Amendment?

Yea, I’ve heard that claptrap for years now, especially from the progressives over at reddit/guns.  It annoys me because it’s so hypocritical.  The NRA and their advocates get to say that when it’s convenient.  When it comes to something like immigration and what it portends for gun control, well, that’s entirely another story.

From Seymour Hersh, the real story of the UBL raid.  Or not.  And really not (via Mike Vanderboegh).  Listen folks.  Seymour Hersh has a reputation for padding his stories with anonymous sources and things that cannot be verified.  And no one ever comes forward later to exonerate Sy Hersh.  Take everything you hear, see and read with a grain of salt.

Trans-Pacific Parnership: Stupid Party Cedes Working Class To Democrats – Setting Up Next Defeat.  See also this.  The GOP is so in-the-pocket of corporate America they can’t see straight.  They are whores, every one of them.  And both parties are completely corrupt.

News from New York:

UNION SQUARE, N.Y. (PIX11) — Police are searching for a man wanted for bashing two women with a hammer in Union Square and who may be connected to two other attacks in Manhattan.

A photo of the alleged attacker was released midday Tuesday. Earlier in the day, police sent out a sketch of a possible culprit but later said to disregard that image, replacing it with a grainy surveillance photo.

NYPD said the man began his rampage about 7:30 p.m. Monday when he took out a hammer from inside a bag and hit a 28-year-old woman on the head. The victim was sitting on a bench in Union Square Park.

About 10 minutes later, he slammed a hammer on a 33-year-old woman, attacking her from behind near 44 West 18th St. and leaving her with a scalp wound, police said.

I don’t want to hear another damn word about how dangerous guns are until someone makes a law that controls these implements of death with universal background checks and bans all assault hammers.

We’ve only briefly touched on Operation Jade Helm and what it really means.  There are far better analyses (via Mike Vanderboegh) than any I have provided, and the reader is recommended to study those articles.  Mike Vanderboegh also has an analysis that’s worth studying in detail.

Of the claims I have seen, it is obvious that every ridiculous piece of disinformation from the 90s has been resurrected for this one, including the old hoary “rail cars with shackles” canard. Personally, were I a militia unit commander in the Jade Helm Area of Operations, I would take the advice above and have my folks — in civilian clothes — follow, watch and learn. Monitor, to the extent that it is possible, their movements. Observe their tactics. Document them. After-action analyze what you learn. I doubt very seriously if you will be able to monitor their communications, but much can be learned — especially by your friendly sources within local law enforcement in the AO — about what is happening.

Try to remember that all this disinformation-driven hysteria does is discredit your position. IT IS DESIGNED TO DO THAT. If the PTB can use things like this to convince serious people who might otherwise be our allies that we are all just a bunch of Alex Jones loons, then they have shaped the future battlefield in unseen ways that are to their advantage. Keep calm, watch and learn. Vocally (and loudly) object in local political venues about troops training amongst the population. It is dangerous. It is unnecessary. And training accidents certainly happen. One day, somebody is going to screw up and fly a Blackhawk into a crowded elementary school. Raise these very real objections with your local authorities, especially your county sheriff. BUT DON’T BUY INTO THE HYSTERIA. IT IS DESIGNED TO DIVIDE YOU FROM YOUR NATURAL ALLIES, THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO TOOK AN OATH BEFORE GOD TO DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION. Indeed, for the purposes of Leviathan, if Alex Jones didn’t exist already, they would have to invent him.

Well, perhaps.  But I take a slightly different view of things.  I think this is indicative of an evolution in military strategy.  In order to understand the way I see this operation one has to go back to Dr. David Kilcullen, the heralded “Jedi Master” of counterinsurgency who advised the now defamed General David Petraeus on COIN and stability operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom (regarding which I have some pictures of the news coverage outside the federal courthouse taken in Charlotte during a lunch time walk when Petraeus’s lawyers were plea bargaining his case – and I will share some thoughts in the future about manly discipline).

One also must remember that the tilt towards collectivist thinking isn’t just being driven from the civilian rule of the military.  The officer corps – especially that of the Air Force, Navy and Army, with the Marine Corps lagging far behind in post-modern thought – has become increasingly liberal.  Witness the teaching at the Army War College by professor Steve Metz if you doubt me.  So the officer corps has been looking for a new mission since China, Russia and other possible near-peer states are such friends and allies with us now!  David Kilcullen provides that new mission for them, even in the absence of his champion Petraeus.

Kilcullen supplies his vision for the future to us in redacted form from several years ago.

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 …

Right now I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, “Kilcullen has recommended a focus on littoral and urban stability operations, and Operation Jade Helm is anything but littoral and urban.”  Yes, but you have to see the bigger picture.  Kilcullen also recommends a strong emphasis on meeting community needs, community engagement, and coupled operations between the armed forces and constabulary forces – wherever might be the area of operation.

And that last part is important.  Kilcullen doesn’t recommend for or against any particular engagement, he is merely pointing to trends.  Those trends and recommendations involve not regular warfare and large unit operations on the field of battle, but a focus on stability operations using all means at your disposal, including civilian assets and police.

So does Operation Jade Helm include preparations for constabulary operations on American soil by the U.S. armed forces?  Of course not, at least as far as you and I know.  You will never hear anything about such a notion, and even the leaders of the operation will not have been told that.  It’s more subtle and insidious than that.  It involves an evolution in thought to that of irregular, urban, constabulary operations rather than conventional war-making.

While it might be popular to suppose that the U.S. learned the right lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan and will never be involved in such military (mis)adventures again, that’s simple childish thinking.  We will, somewhere and somehow, and it just might be on American soil.  The evolution in thought Kilcullen has pressed doesn’t need Iraq or Afghanistan.  It merely needs a willing listener, and the U.S. armed forces are willing indeed.

And so are U.S. LEOs.  The SWAT teams just love to be coupled with the CQB experts with the Army and Marines in mock exercises.  And the experts in the so-called “social sciences” love to be called upon by the military to lend a hand in community stability (witness the participation of civilian anthropologists in operations in Iraq, more frequent than most readers know).

Finally, take note that the DHS is interested in biometrics.

April 28, 2015 – The Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM) of the Department of Homeland Security has posted a request for information (RFI) to get industry information regarding current and near future technologies to store, match, and analyze biometric data.

OBIM will use this information to provide customers with important data regarding immigration violators, criminals, and known or suspected terrorists and supports immigration management and border security decision makers.

Supporting national security and public safety as well as enabling operational missions across DHS mission areas, OBIM’s biometric identification and analysis services help government and law enforcement decision makers determine whether individuals pose a risk to the United States and whether those individuals meet the requirements for a specific government benefit or credential.

Folks, listen to me.  This is right out of the Marine Corps play book for Fallujah in 2007.  Unadulterated and unmodified, straight out of the Marine Corps play book.  Biometrics.  When the U.S. government is interested in biometrics and they begin discussing “terrorists,” watch out.  That means you.

So I don’t look to the “disinformation of the 90’s” for what’s happening with the DHS.  I am looking to more recent history and trends for politics and warfare I am seeing in the military thinkers I watch.  Alex Jones is a clown who wants to make money.  But Operation Jade Helm concerns me for reasons completely unrelated to him.

World Net Daily:

In government, secrecy is the enemy of honesty and righteous rule.  That’s why this administration has been so loath to tell anyone anything about what it’s doing.

But I’ve come to the conclusion that this administration has actually been a good thing for America, albeit painful.  Heretofore, we only thought of the democrats as the gun grabbers, collectivists and advocates of socialized medicine, and big government control freaks.

But this administration has forced the GOP to tell the world what it’s all about.  So for instance, Senators like John Thune (and many others) who voted to confirm Loretta Lynch have told us that they think just like the democrats.  Anyone who enables this president to press his ill-conceived ideas on America is a traitor, and that includes GOP and democrats alike.  And they deserve to be treated as traitors.