New York Magazine:

The Great State of Mississippi is offering an illustration of this principle as we speak with the march toward enactment of legislation to recognize a right of concealed-carry in churches. And the Republican salons, who are promoting the cause of honoring the Prince of Peace by insisting on the right to shoot and kill people right there in His sanctuary, are preemptively concerned that the godless socialists in Washington might interfere. So once again, they’ve gone back to that fine antebellum doctrine of nullification to deny the power of the Feds — or at least the executive branch — to regulate firearms at all.  The Jackson Clarion-Ledger has the story:

The bill would allow churches to create security programs and designate and train members to carry concealed weapons. It would provide criminal and legal protections to those serving as church security.

The bill also would allow concealed carry in a holster without a permit in Mississippi, expanding a measure passed last year that allowed concealed carry without a permit in a purse, satchel or briefcase, and another recent law that allows open carry in public.

The bill also seeks to prohibit Mississippi officials from enforcing any federal agency regulations or executive orders that would violate the state constitution — an attempt to federal gun restrictions not passed by Congress.

Senators argued whether this last provision would violate the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“Where did you go to law school?” Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, asked Tindell during the debate. “Are they telling people there that the Mississippi constitution trumps federal law?

[ … ]

It’s also entirely predictable that people who think the absence of guns is more dangerous than their omnipresence would extend the principle everywhere, even to bars and, yeah, churches. Beyond that, we see the ongoing radicalization of Second Amendment ultras who think gun rights are not just part of the Constitution but fundamental to it and superior to any other provision — in effect, an object of worship. At some point, the Second Amendment could run afoul of the Bible’s Second Commandment against raising up idols.

The author, Ed Kilgore, doesn’t really believe the things he has written, any more than the Kos kids do when they write things like this.  Here’s how you know.  He doesn’t argue for a prohibition of law enforcement from killing people who are themselves trying to kill people in churches.  In fact, he argues exactly the opposite in his first paragraph, when he says “Of all the cultural divides in these allegedly “United” States, probably none is more stark than the chasm in attitudes toward possession of lethal weaponry. There used to be a general consensus that deadly force should, generally speaking, be monopolized by police officers; possession of, say, a handgun in one’s home, was an exception in recognition of exceptional circumstances. Shooting irons for hunting were another thing, but those were reserved for occasions when one was, you know, out in the woods hunting.”

There’s that notion again about the state having a monopoly of force.  Except in this context, he goes too far for his argument and betrays his plot.  Since he argues for the state having a monopoly of force generally, he has no right to connect it to being in a house of worship and attempting to argue theologically that there shouldn’t be means of self defense in worship.  In other words, the author tries to place himself inside your system, if you’re a Christian, and argue from your perspective, but he taints his argument with the broad appeal to statism and a monopoly of force by the state.  He didn’t stay disciplined.  Rarely do writers stay disciplined when they are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at you, a lazy version of the ten leaky buckets logical problem.

This is what happens when men pretend to be thinkers, try to enter systems they don’t believe, and convince others of world views outside their own when they give up before the end of their own arguments.  In the mean time, we have all been properly briefed on the theological basis for self defense, with worship being no different (man doesn’t suddenly cease being made in God’s image because he engages in worship).

On a related topic, I noticed that Reverend Franklin Graham told the Mohammedans that they would one day bow the knee to King Jesus.  True, that.  And they will confess with their mouths that their “prophet” is a sham and fraud before the Lord of Lords.  But in the mean time, Christians are being slaughtered across the globe because ignorant teachers have taught them that Jesus was a Bohemian hippie pacifist flower child who expects them to lay down and be walked on like rugs.  That’s what Kilgore believes about Christianity too.

Drink a good glass of wine tonight as a toast to a more robust and informed Christianity.  Remember Herschel’s Dictum: “There aren’t too many human interaction problems that can’t be fixed with a .45 ACP 230-grain fat-boy.”

In order to draw as much traffic away from Gawker as I can, I am using the same post title as they did.  In order to enable you to read the entire commentary, I’m reposting it here in full so you don’t have to visit their URL unless you want to.  From the depths of the sewer that is his mind, Hamilton Nolan gives us this.

We live in scary times: sharia law, foreigners, and rape gangs haunt the streets of this once great nation. Some old people believe that they must arm themselves in order to find peace and safety.

Wrong. Old people. Wrong. Want to find safety? Can you even “find [the] safety” on the handgun you’ve purchased? Probably not very quickly, with your poor eyesight and fingers ravaged by arthritis.

The Wall Street Journal reports that interest in guns among retirees is booming. In just the last five years, more old people are buying guns, training with guns, and cupping their hands over their ears to try to hear whether the instructor at their gun safety course said “Shoot” or “Stop.” In this day and age when you have Obama, ISIS, and Chief Keef, you—an elderly American—are thinking seriously about getting yourself a gun, for protection.

Might as well get yourself a dragon, or a unicorn trained to be your bodyguard. That would help you just as much.

When you’re old you’re slow as hell and decades of muscle erosion have made you weak. Pretty much any healthy young person can beat you up. Is a gun gonna even things out? Nope. In order for that gun to work you have to pull it out and aim it in a moment of crisis. While you’re fumbling to do that, all slow, a young person is just pushing you on the ground. And taking your gun out of your feeble hands.

Leave the guns to the young nuts, oldie.

Smoothly drawing a gun from a holster, aiming it quickly, and firing it accurately despite the kickback require a level of strength and dexterity that you just don’t have. I’ll lay 5-1 odds that any street criminal can kick you in the knee and chuckle as you roll around on the ground, grasping for the gun you dropped, as they rifle through your purse and then steal your gun, too. That gun you bought will end up in a pawn shop before you ever get to blow a hole in one of these disrespectful young menaces. Were you to somehow squeeze off a shot in the course of being attacked it’s as likely as not that you’d shoot yourself in the knee replacement as shoot the bad guy. It’s time to wake up and realize that though your irrational age-induced fear of the outside world may be here to stay, so is your physical inability to defend yourself. And where are you going anyhow that’s so scary? The grocery? Those teens may be delinquents but they probably aren’t a stickup gang. Please return that Beretta to the nice gun dealer before you mistake a stray rap lyric for a death threat and put a bullet in some poor C student cutting class. Yes, yes, Have Gun Will Travel was one of your favorite shows, but you’re no Paladin and there ain’t any bandits on horseback in your subdivision. Stop watching cable news so much. All it does is scare you. Failing to take your medication is the greatest threat you need to worry about now.

Your reflexes are faded as hell so you might as well just learn to get along with people. Who do you think you are, Charles Bronson? More like Charles Osgood. Stop acting crazy.

This is Hamilton Nolan.

Yes, that’s really him.  He makes this too easy, yes?

So this commentary is such sewage that it’s difficult to know where to begin, and I won’t offer a complete commentary on his evil antics.  Ignore for a moment what a steaming pile of shit Gawker is.  Ignore the falsity of this premise on guns and the elderly.  Those of us who do gun news searches every day, multiple times per day, know how much guns have helped the elderly and how they need them in an era of increased crime (especially in gang infested areas).  Getting into the details of his premise is what he wants you to do.  I want you to understand the boy, Hamilton Nolan.

How could such a monster exist, you ask?  Well, I am reminded once of a group of Deacons at a church (not mine) whom I overheard at work, and they were having to assist a divorcee woman whose husband left her because he wanted to screw around with a younger woman.  Their assistance involved moving furniture because she could no longer afford the home, repair to the home so that it could sell, and all manner of things families do when they are together.  They didn’t begrudge it, mind you, but every minute they spent doing this was a minute they couldn’t spend doing the same thing for their families.

They decided that they were going to track down this dude and whip his ass for what he did.  There are no longer consequences, they believed, and there had to be some.  No-fault divorce was for the piss ant court system.  They found fault, and they were going to enforce their punishment.  I don’t know what ended up happening.  In a way, Hamilton is like that adulterer husband.  Honoring your father and mother is one of the ten commandments too.  And recall what we’ve discussed regarding the ten commandments – it is called constitutional law, or the moral law.  All sorts of case law and other principles come from it.  So for example, we are told to “rise before the hoary head” in respect for our elders (Lev 19:32, or “stand up in the presence of the aged”).  Boy-Hamilton needs to have someone take him out behind the building and whip his ass.  It won’t happen of course, and that goes to show you how morally corrupt America has become.  In a morally upright America, Hamilton would get his ass whipped for disrespecting his elders.

The final thing I want to leave you with is just what kind of boy Hamilton is.  Hamilton lives in a very dark world, where he sees himself aging (even though apparently at his age he still has acne, he will one day grow old).  He doesn’t want to age because he probably believes that when you die, your body cools to ambient temperature and that’s the end.  Hamilton probably never had a spanking as a child.  His mommy and daddy – if he had one – let him do whatever the hell he wanted to do.  He had no boundaries.  He needed boundaries.  He probably begged for boundaries.  But his parents probably listened to the progressives on family health.

The awful public school system taught him to hate everything and everyone, including himself.  His hatred is so intense, so sweeping and so ubiquitous that he hates the very predecessors who brought him into being.  He hates his elders because he hates who he is and wishes he didn’t exist, even though he wants the monster inside him to keep on living.  He wears effete, metrosexual clothing as an act of self deprecation, and his writing consists of venom to be spewed towards anything that gets in the way.

Hamilton is a sad, sad boy.  Don’t be like Hamilton.

Newsweek:

“Your argument is pure apple sauce. Enjoy your 20 seconds of fame, you fcuktard.”

A man named Jim is reading out some of the vitriolic abuse he’s received over the past few days via the Internet. Previously known only by his Twitter handle, @Hyperationalist, Jim last week launched a Change.org petition calling for the open carry of guns at the Republican National Convention, which will be held in Cleveland in July. The petition has ganered international news coverage and prompted responses from the Secret Service and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as well as online haters.

David Codrea has some salient comments:

You have to give “The Hyperationalist” credit — his fake Change.org petition for open carry at the RNC Convention has been a highly successful exercise in both advanced trolling and in applied Alinksy Rule 5 ridicule. With over 50,000 signatures amassed at this writing, and noting all the major press coverage, a primary goal of going viral has unquestionably been achieved in a big way.

Of less certainty is how many people were actually taken in by a parody designed to embarrass and to exploit venue realities – besides all those “professional reporters” who got sucked in and treated it as real. Some of us figured we were being played from the outset. Of those who signed, how many actual gun rights supporters added their names is unknown, as many signatories are undoubtedly anti-gun/anti-Republican “progressives” gleefully piling on.

[ … ]

Carrying at the convention is a moot point anyway. Aside from it violating venue rules, the Secret Service flat-out won’t allow it. If they did allow guns, we’d have no reason to suspect the outcome would be any different than we saw play out at NRA’s Annual Meeting last year in Nashville. Almost 80,000 attendees gathered in a setting where lawful concealed carry was widespread.

David had him figured, and so did I.  The first time I saw this I was tempted to comment on it, but only for a split second.  This is the first attention I’ve given to this issue.  After blogging for ten years, I’ve become fairly skilled at spotting trolls.  Not perfect, mind you, but fairly skilled.  Look, if they want to have an intelligent conversation about guns, we do that every day around these parts.  Furthermore, I’m willing to engage smart debate with anyone over guns if they have clean motives, play fairly and are sincerely interested in learning.  Tell me the next time you see a progressive who meets those requirements.

The gun rights community is going to have to get better at spotting insincere overtures like this, trolls who want to make us look bad.  Put your thinking cap on, don’t jump at the first thing you see, and when you do engage, make it the person and venue of your choice.  That’s why, although I agree with Mike on 99.9999% of everything else, I didn’t like Mike Vanderboegh’s choice to go on the Alan Colmes show.  Colmes was never going to be anything but what he is, a dishonest and filthy rag.  As Sun Tzu teaches, pick both the battles and the time of engagement.

Says the jerk (via reader Mack):

Frankly, I don’t care if people call me an Establishment Republican. It used to bother me, but it doesn’t anymore. In fact, I’ve come to wear it as a badge of honor.

I’ve been working on my own definition of what it means to be an Establishment Republican. While my definition is still a work in progress, I would suggest that the following are some good factors to consider when deciding what kind of Republican you are:

First, an Establishment Republican is typically someone who was actively involved in the Republican Party prior to the advent of the Tea Party.

In my case, I have been a Republican since I worked on my first political campaign at the age of 15. I have been a member of the Republican Party of Virginia since 1987. And I held elected office as a Republican for more than 22 years.

Even though some of the GOP’s more recent members seem to think that they are the only ones who know what it means to be a Republican, I would remind them that there was a very successful Republican Party prior to the advent of the Tea Party. In fact, I would argue that the Republican Party was stronger, more cohesive, and more successful in days gone by than it is today.

Second, an Establishment Republican is someone who adheres to a conservative political philosophy, but understands that not everyone will agree with us on every issue; and we have respect for dissenting opinions, even if we don’t agree with them.

Or, as Ronald Reagan said, we understand that the person who agrees with us 80 percent of the time is an 80 percent friend, not a 20 percent traitor. This distinguishes us from those that take an ideologically rigid “my way or the highway” approach to politics and policy.

Third, an Establishment Republican is someone who understands that there is a difference between being conservative and being anti-government.

Okay, have you heard enough?  I’m sure Mr. Bolling and I aren’t going camping or shooting together.  I don’t think he’s my type.  Besides, I’ve grown weary of the whole tea party / establishment bifurcation and definition and advocate something much different.  Marco Rubio was a tea party candidate, and he’s a loser and liar.  In fact, Mark Levin and I think alike on this.

Mr. Bolling wants to know what you think about a “do something” republican.  I don’t think I like that idea very much.  You see, I think that the federal government has the right under the constitution to provide for the common defense, and that’s about it.  States only a little more, perhaps the construction of roads to enable commerce.  Gun control is evil in all of its forms, and I would much rather see the federal government completely shut down than anyone doing something about anything.

I want a constitutionalist, not an anti-establishment candidate.  Donald Trump is an anti-establishment candidate, and he’s blabbering about making all kinds of deals with just about everyone under the sun.  I don’t want that.  I don’t want the federal government to be empowered that way.  I don’t want somebody who pokes their thumb in the eye of the establishment, because that could very well be the devil, who happens to hate you and want to control you even more than the establishment.

I will not side with the establishment or the devil.  The Holy Scriptures contain examples of God using evil nations to judge Israel, and then turning on those evil nations and destroying them for what they did.  When God has two wicked enemies attacking each other, the best bet is to stay back rather than take sides in that dark war.  There will be no winners – only losers.

NBC:

Beginning July 1, Idaho residents age 21 or older will be allowed to carry a concealed firearm without a permit inside city limits.

Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter has signed Senate Bill 1389 into law. It will relax the state’s gun policy and remove permitting requirements for concealed carry. Prior to SB 1389, residents age 18 or older could carry concealed firearms without a permit outside of city limits. Open carry is already legal within city limits.

Beginning July 1, Idaho residents age 21 or older will be allowed to carry a concealed firearm without a permit inside city limits.

Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter has signed Senate Bill 1389 into law. It will relax the state’s gun policy and remove permitting requirements for concealed carry. Prior to SB 1389, residents age 18 or older could carry concealed firearms without a permit outside of city limits. Open carry is already legal within city limits.

“While S1389 is consistent with the U.S. Constitution, Idaho values and our commitment to upholding our constitutional protections from government overreach, I am concerned about its lack of any provision for education and training of individuals who choose to exercise the right to concealed carry,” the Republican lawmaker wrote.

“Such a safeguard would seem to be part of the Second Amendment’s ‘well-regulated’ standard. What’s more, the addition of a simple training requirement in this bill could have addressed the concerns of our valued law enforcement leaders and others who cherish both the shooting culture and the safety of shooters and non-shooters alike.”

Trying to play both ends against the middle, huh Governor?  This is just rich.  He admits that the new law is consistent with the provisions of the second amendment, but then essentially says that he doesn’t think the second amendment goes far enough because of the need for education and training.

Then he switches back and reverses his position, saying that a requirement to get training and education is consistent with the notion of “well regulated.”

“Well regulated” has nothing to do with governmental control via regulations, it has to do with accurate and effective fire control.  Furthermore, I’ve warned about the dangers of seeing the second amendment as a political treatise on the foundation of liberty.

The governor is just frightened.  He’ll be better once this has time to soak in and become the standard.  It works in other constitutional carry states, and it’ll work in Idaho too.

Politico:

If Republican establishment forces conspire to deny Donald Trump the party’s nomination, they will risk “absolute destruction” in November, Ben Carson said Monday.

“If there are shenanigans, if it’s not straightforward, all of those millions of people that Donald Trump has brought into the arena are not going to stay there, and the Republicans are going to lose and it’s going to be not only the presidency but it’s gonna be the Senate and it could even be the House,” the retired neurosurgeon who endorsed his former opponent earlier this month told “Fox and Friends,” adding, “It’s going to be absolute destruction.”

You pathetic whiner.  Is that supposed to scare me?  I’ve already pointed out that it isn’t just of Trump is not nominated.  It’s if Trump is in fact nominated too, or anything else happens, because the GOP is already dead.  So don’t come trying to engender the panic.  I’ve got a few gray hairs too.  Bring on the destruction.

David Codrea:

“‘cause in rural America, there are a lot of folks — Sen. Enzi knows this — they might be out huntin’ gophers and go in to pick up the mail, and they got the gun sittin’ in their pickup — it’s just a matter — it’s a tool to do their work with,” he explained.

You jerk off bigot!  I know your type and I loath you.  Your antics don’t amuse me.  As for the pathetic republican cowards, how about shutting down the government over shit like this?  Oh, I forgot.  Ted Cruz already tried this and you hung him out to dry.  So come to think of it, I loath all of you.

One day at the great and awful white throne judgment when the Lord of Lords sits and examines everyone, someone will answer for the thievery of Fifth generation warfare and the waste associated with the F-35.

Pat Toomey gun control ads.  Good grief.  The man cranks it up again.

Effects of universal background check laughable.  So why did you support it, Dave Workman?

In light of the murder of a security guard at a nuclear power plant allegedly by ISIS, I had a conversation with someone this weekend on that subject.  A brief synopsis of it follows.

Person A: So can ISIS do anything to a nuclear power plant?

Me: Do you really want to have this conversation?

Person A: Yes.

Me: Okay.  So be it.  No, ISIS can’t do anything.

Person A: But what about Chernobyl?

Me:  At Chernobyl, which is an RBMK-1000 design, it was neutronically a loosely couple reactor in order to allow refueling on line because it was producing weapons grade material.  It’s neutron moderator was graphite, not water.  The water was both the coolant and a neutron poison.  Thus, on lose of coolant, the neutron population rapidly increased.  That fateful night an electrical engineer was running a test on the reactor, and the reactor operators were operating under his procedure.  He put the plant in a condition in which safety systems and automatic reactor trips were bypassed, forced a plant transient, and voided the core of water.

When he did this, reactor power increased by a factor of 100 within one second.  Shortly after the accident a lot of multidimensional analysis work was performed to ascertain whether it was a nuclear explosion or a steam explosion.  The answer was pretty clear, it was a steam explosion.  Commercial nuclear reactors cannot explode like a bomb.  It’s impossible.  But it dispersed the coolant channels in such a manner that the core could no longer be cooled.  It melted.

This Russian design had what we call a positive void coefficient, leading to an overall positive power coefficient.  Reactor transients with increasing power further increase power.  In America, the code of federal regulations dictates that reactors be designed with overall negative power coefficients.  In Europe too, I believe.  The RBMK only exists in Russia and the Ukraine.

I’m sorry, I asked you if you really wanted to have this conversation.

Person A: So the plant is intrinsically safe, but can ISIS do anything with the security badge?

Me: No.  Entry into the plant requires biometric screening, like palm prints.  If someone tried to force their way into the plant, they would be shot within seconds (not to mention the fact that the turnstiles would never open).  The only real threat to safety and security would be an inside job, where engineers who had extensive knowledge of the safety analysis of the plant went into the plant to area terminal cabinets and opened sliding links, lifted leads, and so on, disabling safety systems.  In other words, malicious tampering.  Engineers are very non-fertile ground for that sort of thing, having worked their entire careers trying to baby the machine into working right to begin with.  No engineer wants to see his life’s work go away in ignominy.  Besides, engineers are boring people.

Person A: So why all the hype?

Me: Soccer moms will do anything, give over any amount of privacy, give up virtually anything, in order to maintain a level of safety and security.  ISIS and nuclear power plants is the latest incarnation of the whole ISIS thing generically.  The government gets a chance to say, “Hey, listen to us, we’ll protect you if you’ll only give us access to your iPhone, all of your records, bank accounts, medical data, tell us whether you have any guns in the home, let us listen to and record your phone calls and all of your text messages, and in short be your protector.  We’ll take care of you, we promise!  We won’t let the mean bad men make the big bad thingy go BOOM and hurt your precious little babies!  Let me have the keys to your life, sweetie!”

NYT:

Though Mr. Cruz has adjusted his public tone, calling for party harmony and appealing to “our better angels” in a moment of political discord, senior Republican officials say Mr. Cruz has made little effort to repair relationships, particularly in the Senate.

Senator John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican senator and Mr. Cruz’s fellow Texan, privately lobbied Mr. Cruz to attend a Senate Republican luncheon in the Capitol and soothe feelings, according to a Republican strategist briefed on the request. But after a CNN report in which some Republican senators suggested that Mr. Cruz apologize to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, whom Mr. Cruz called a liar on the Senate floor, Mr. Cruz’s campaign became irritated and backed off a peacemaking lunch.

Mr. Cruz and Mr. McConnell have still not spoken, according to an aide to Mr. McConnell.

“I’m not sure there’s anything to apologize for,” Jason Johnson, Mr. Cruz’s chief strategist, told reporters recently.

Hey Lindsey, you can cram your endorsement up your ass.  As for Mitch McConnell, apologizing to him would be akin to pledging fealty to a demon.  I would lose all respect for Ted.  I would rather see McConnell tarred and feathered.  Or perhaps hanged.  But a good old fashioned tarring and feathering would drag it out longer.

Don’t do this.