FRI:

I find myself in a unique position, given my background, training and experiences, to write about an appropriate response to the Icehole (the FRI name for ISIS) violence. I’m a retired Marine infantryman who taught at a professional firearms training academy for several years. I also spent over 8 years in Afghanistan; most of that time I was in the contested provinces and all of that time I lived outside the wire embedded inside the local community. I carried a sidearm (and often a rifle) daily and when in the south I was never without fragmentation grenades in both my vest pockets. I have spent decades studying the literature associated with gun fights and gun fighters. I met Dave Grossman before he published On Killing and used his unpublished manuscript when we remodeled the USMC Infantry Officer Course close combat package. I had the honor of meeting and listening to Col. Boyd before he passed. For those of you who do not recognize these names read on – they are the core of the Sheepdog phenomenon and Sheepdogs are about to step onto the historical stage and light the way for freedom loving peoples to follow.

Tim is not just bragging.  He’s legitimate, and here he’s being modest.  Go read what he has to say about attacks on American soil.

Free Beacon:

There are now more non-military government employees who carry guns than there are U.S. Marines, according to a new report.

Open the Books, a taxpayer watchdog group, released a study Wednesday that finds domestic government agencies continue to grow their stockpiles of military-style weapons, as Democrats sat on the House floor calling for more restrictions on what guns American citizens can buy.

The “Militarization of America” report found civilian agencies spent $1.48 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment between 2006 and 2014. Examples include IRS agents with AR-15s, and EPA bureaucrats wearing camouflage.

“Regulatory enforcement within administrative agencies now carries the might of military-style equipment and weapons,” Open the Books said. “For example, the Food and Drug Administration includes 183 armed ‘special agents,’ a 50 percent increase over the ten years from 1998-2008. At Health and Human Services (HHS), ‘Special Office of Inspector General Agents’ are now trained with sophisticated weaponry by the same contractors who train our military special forces troops.”

Open the Books found there are now over 200,000 non-military federal officers with arrest and firearm authority, surpassing the 182,100 personnel who are actively serving in the U.S. Marines Corps.

The IRS spent nearly $11 million on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment for its 2,316 special agents. The tax collecting agency has billed taxpayers for pump-action and semi-automatic shotguns, semi-automatic Smith & Wesson M&P15s, and Heckler & Koch H&K 416 rifles, which can be loaded with 30-round magazines.

The EPA spent $3.1 million on guns, ammo, and equipment, including drones, night vision, “camouflage and other deceptive equipment,” and body armor.

When asked about the spending, and EPA spokesman said the report “cherry picks information and falsely misrepresents the work of two administrations whose job is to protect public health.”

“Many purchases were mischaracterized or blown out of proportion in the report,” said spokesman Nick Conger. “EPA’s criminal enforcement program has not purchased unmanned aircraft, and the assertions that military-grade weapons are part of its work are false.”

“EPA’s criminal enforcement program investigates and prosecutes the most egregious violators of our nation’s environmental laws, and EPA criminal enforcement agents are law enforcement professionals who have undergone the same rigorous training as other federal agents,” Conger continued.

Other administration agencies that have purchased guns and ammo include the Small Business Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Education, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

I know a little something about NIST.  What on earth is the justification for allegedly needing to be armed?  NIST needs more PhDs, not armed bureaucrats.  Noteworthy in this is that the size of the Marine Corps is set by law (see 10 U.S. Code 5063), and Congress tightly controls how many active duty Marines we have.  The Marine Corps has been pressed to cut its size.

Not true of the bureaucratic executive in Washington and around the country.  Every law, every new regulation, every fine they levy, further empowers these armed bureaucrats with the Senate and House watching, while the courts further justify virtually every one of their actions, warrants or not.

And while the *.gov arms itself, the gun controlling whores in Washington seek to disarm the population at the whim of that very federal executive whom they expect to operate fully independently and in secret (h/t WoG)  This all exemplifies, by the way, just why we cannot disarm.

Finally, I’ll note that we seem to have come full circle, and I seem to recall from history that there has been something like this before.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures … He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

I’m just pondering the similarities.

You really should spend some time reading this.  You won’t be disappointed.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

NY Daily News:

Rifle-owning South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and a handful of his fellow Republicans are standing up to the biggest bully in Washington — the National Rifle Association.

Graham and a growing group of GOPers are getting behind a burgeoning bipartisan effort to keep suspected terrorists from buying guns, and they’ve vowed they won’t bow to pressure from the powerful gun lobby.

“On every issue, Senator Graham does what he thinks is right and lets the chips fall where they may,” Kevin Bishop, a spokesman for Graham, told the Daily News in a statement Wednesday.

Hey Lindsey, you fossilized piece of shit.  Yea you.  You don’t belong in South Carolina.  Don’t go home.  Send the moving trucks to pick up your things and tote them to one of the communist states like New York, California or Connecticut.

If Lindsey doesn’t cooperate, the good folks of S.C. have some work to do.

Monica Lindstrom:

This week Arizona Senator Jeff Flake introduced a bill to prohibit the sale of guns to persons on the No Fly list. This comes on the heels of the deadliest mass shooting in America that occurred June 12 at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. It’s not surprising to see a flurry of proposals and argument regarding gun control and gun rights after a tragedy involving firearms and typically nothing changes.

The legal argument against Senator Flake’s proposal, and others before it, has to do with due process. Since the right to bear arms is given to us by the Second Amendment to our Constitution and has been affirmed in case law, a person must have due process before that right can be taken away. In other words, they must have their day in court. They must be made aware they are on the list and be afforded the opportunity to fight their presence on the list. Currently this is not done. Those on the list often do not know they are on the list and there are few opportunities, if any, that allow them to fight the designation.

This huge hurdle was recognized and suggestions are contained in the bill that would give some modicum of due process. However, the bill has a long way to go before it becomes a law and, even then, it will face many challenges in court and will likely make its way to the Supreme Court. So, mark your calendar, you could be reading about this anticipated case a couple years from now in #LegallySpeaking.

Let’s be clear about one thing Monica.  The second amendment grants me absolutely nothing.  The constitution is a covenant wherein parties agree to honor commitments made to each other.  A covenant has all the blessings and curses and consequences appertaining to said covenant.  The second amendment, like all other rights outlined in the bill of rights, merely codifies the recognition of an already-existing right.

God grants me the right (and even duty) to go armed and conduct myself in a manner consistent with self defense.  Not you, and not the constitution, and not black robed tyrants.  That means that whatever the outcome of this “day in court” to which you refer, the right to self defense is still present because God said so.

It would actually be a service for you to warn others of your ilk that your designs for control over others will run afoul of God’s commandments.  The consequences of this are too numerous to detail here, and include effect both now and in eternity.  And tell Jeff Flake we never forget.

Or otherwise called, “thumb over bore” grip.  As I’ve pointed out, it started in the gaming community, and it was taken up by SpecOps, and so you see folks like Chris Costa and Travis Haley using it.

I ran across this report today of a 3-gun competitor who is also using the C-clamp grip.

The folks at Magpul explain why they like the grip.

Remember when we said this:

They will go after you by the terrorist watch list, the no-fly list, and any other assortment of executive powers and decisions and regulations and rulings.  They will never confiscate your guns.  They will prevent you from renewing your driver’s license, your hunting license, your fishing license, your professional license, your bank cards, your concealed handgun permits, and in short, all the framework you have built your entire life as a law abiding, peaceable citizen.  Then they will go after your wife and children and their ability to enroll in education.  They will go after what matters most to you.

Scott Shackford and Jacob Sullum reporting at Reason do some very good investigative work on this very subject.

Under Feinstein’s 2015 bill, the attorney general can stop the transfer of a firearm if he “1) determines that the transferee is known (or appropriately suspected) to be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism, or providing material support or resources for terrorism” and “(2) has a reasonable belief that the prospective transferee may use a firearm in connection with terrorism.” The amendment Feinstein introduced last Wednesday, by contrast, lets the attorney general block a sale if he “determines, based on the totality of the circumstances, that the transferee represents a threat to public safety based on a reasonable suspicion that the transferee is engaged, or has been engaged, in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism, or providing material support or resources thereof.”

In the revised version, there is no additional requirement that the attorney general have reason to believe the weapon the suspect is trying to buy will be used in a terrorist attack. Hence an old lady who cut a check to a Hamas-affiliated charity (thereby “providing material support” to terrorism and arguably threatening public safety) could be stopped from buying a handgun for self-defense even if there was no evidence that she planned any sort of attack with it. Feinstein’s amendment also expands the dragnet beyond the FBI’s so-called Terrorist Watchlist, which is believed to include more than 1 million people, to cover anyone who was under investigation for “conduct related to a federal crime of terrorism” during the previous five years. The Justice Department would be notified of attempted gun purchases by people who fit that description, giving it a chance to block the sales.

Frankly I’m not concerned about the little old lady who wrote a check to a Hamas-affiliated charity.  What concerns me much more is that there is no due process, no chance for trial by jury.  The federal executive is the only sovereign, the singular potentate behind these decisions.

That means that if you’re an NRA member, or a patriot, or you believe in the second amendment and your God-given rights to own firearms, or believe that gun ownership is the best surety against tyranny, the executive might just label you a terrorist or low-level extremist, and prevent gun purchases.  He might also garnish your wages, prevent driver’s license renewal, prevent renewal of your professional license, or remove your children from the home and place them in the custody of DSS.

Do you get the impression that someone wants you to be disarmed and controlled?

Understanding The Threat:

More precisely Mr. Higgins said, “To bring it back to the point earlier about the United States being put to work fulfilling the objectives of the Brotherhood:  the Brotherhood was killed en masse by Saddam Hussein – we removed him.  Qaddafi killed the Muslim Brotherhood – we removed him. We asked Mubarak to go. We are their instrument because they control our deliberate decision-making process.”

[ … ]

Mr. Haney reiterated what UTT has been teaching and publishing for years:  “The gravitational force of the Global Islamic Movement is not radicalization, the gravitational force of the Global Islamic Movement is the implementation of sharia Law.”

So if you sometimes ask yourself why America sucks and we’re such screw-ups, you’re asking the wrong question.  We’re very good at what we do.  Everything that has happened has occurred by design.  There is intentionality behind this design.

Your well-being isn’t part of the calculus.

Fiscal Times:

Top U.S. Air Force generals are floating the idea of buying a new warplane to support ground troops better and more cheaply than the venerable A-10 Warthog.

In addition to its utility against militants and other light-to-medium forces, Air Force leaders hope this new close air support, or CAS, plane will help them win the fight to retire the A-10. And they are even beginning to envision an aircraft beyond that, in concepts variously known as the “arsenal plane” or “flying Coke machine.”

“I’d love to build a new CAS airplane right now while we still have the A-10 [and then] transition the A-10 community into the new CAS airplane,” Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, said Wednesday at a Defense Writers Group breakfast. “We just don’t have the money to do it and we don’t have the people to keep flying the A-10 and build a new airplane and bed it down.”

Of course you don’t have money to do it.  You’re throwing away billions of dollars on the F-35, a piece of shit that can’t do anything well and does a lot of things wrong, and you’re doing it because you’re enamored by this stupid idea of fifth generation warfare.

Only the U.S. Air Force could promote such idiots.  Elsewhere in the news, here is a video of a crew getting an A-10 ready for launch.

The A-10 is the manliest, baddest aircraft ever to be invented by mankind.  Leave it to the Air Force to be in love with something else.  Look, if you’re a proponent of the F-35, except for throwing away our money (for which I want to beat you up one side of the road and down the other), you can still hang out with the boys, but we’ll have to wait in the car for you to put on your lipstick and skirt.

The Washington Post:

The Supreme Court declined Monday to review bans on a lengthy list of firearms that New York and Connecticut have classified as “assault weapons,” the latest example of the justices turning down an opportunity to elaborate on an individual’s right to gun ownership.

With an emotional debate about gun control reigniting across the street at the Capitol, the justices without comment said they would not review lower-court decisions upholding the laws.

Connecticut’s ban was expanded shortly after a gunman used one of the military-style semiautomatic weapons on the list to kill 20 students and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in 2012.

The decision Monday was not a surprise, as the justices have previously declined to review other lower-court decisions that uphold bans passed by cities and states. Maryland, California, Hawaii, Massachusetts and New, Jersey as well as many cities and towns, have similar laws. None of the legal challenges to them have been successful in lower courts.

None of the challenges have been successful (and this wouldn’t be either) because jurists today don’t believe in the constitution, and because the Heller decision gave away too much.

David French does a nice job of upbraiding people who say that the second amendment doesn’t mean what it says.

First, the history. It is simply remarkable to see liberals flood the Internet and social media with allegations that the Second Amendment either does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms or that — incredibly — that right is restricted to single-shot, flintlock muskets. All meaningful historical evidence points toward the conclusion that the Second Amendment merely recognized a pre-existing right to bear arms. This is plain from the text of the amendment, which protects the right of “the people,” and from its historical context. Indeed, writing in 1803, St. George Tucker updated Blackstone’s Commentaries to declare that the United States “may reasonably hope that the people will never cease to regard the right of keeping and bearing arms as the surest pledge of their liberty.”

This understanding is buttressed by dozens of state constitutional provisions, the vast majority of which clearly and unmistakably establish an individual right to gun ownership — not the mythical “collective” right so beloved by the Left. Alabama, for example, declares that “every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state.” New Hampshire’s constitution states that “all persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property, and the state.” These provisions aren’t part of a right-wing plot; they reflect long-defended American liberties.

But in spite of the malfeasance of jurists who deny God-given rights, I confess that I have a difficult time getting worked up over this refusal of the Supreme Court to play nice.  I know this is easy to say and much more difficult to do, but if you live in a state like Connecticut or New York where the collectivists want to control you in this way, you need to move, change the laws, or disobey the laws to arm yourself as you see fit.

Don’t expect anyone in a black robe to look out for your interests.  Interests are local, and it’s probably best that way.  You can effect change locally easier than you can nationally.