The Washington Post:

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump — who said he has a concealed carry permit — called for the expansion of gun rights Friday, including making those permits applicable nationwide.

In a position paper published on his website Friday afternoon, Trump called for the elimination of gun and magazine bans, labeling them a “total failure.”

“Law-abiding people should be allowed to own the firearm of their choice. The government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own,” Trump wrote.

[ … ]

Trump said in the paper he has a concealed carry permit. The permits, which are issued by states, should be valid nationwide like a driver’s license, Trump said.

“If we can do that for driving — which is a privilege, not a right — then surely we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege,” Trump said.

[ … ]

Trump said the current background check system needs to be overhauled because “very few criminals are stupid enough to try and pass a background check” and get their guns illegally. Trump said that criminal and mental health records also must be included in background checks.

Well, health records were a feature of my CHP, but I object because (a) this is still a government permission slip, and (b) I still claim [rightly] that mental health maladies have nothing to do with propensity to violence.

But for the time being, I’ll take what I can get.  Of the possible revisions to the federal law and code on guns, I am most in favor of the following.

1. First, a national carry law.
2. Second, removal of the SBR from the NFA items list.
3. Third, removal of suppressors from the NFA items list.

In that order.  What would you like to see happen?

Guns.com:

A powerful south Florida state senator who repeatedly sidelined popular gun rights legislation lost his seat Tuesday, opening the door for campus carry and open carry in the Sunshine State.

Florida State Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee and in 2015 refused to hold hearings on a bill to allow legal concealed carry on public colleges and universities. Diaz de la Portilla was also a fly in the ointment when it came to derailing an emergency concealed carry bill the year before and in 2016 was key in killing bills on campus carry and open carry, refusing to even meet with advocates.

However, even though he was supported by a $85,000 ad campaign paid for by Everytown, state Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, a Democrat, beat Diaz de la Portilla in this week’s election.

While the loss of his seat was balanced out in the Senate by Democratic Sen. Dwight Bullard’s defeat by Republican Rep. Frank Artiles, sustaining the GOP with a 25-15 majority in the chamber, gun rights advocates argue the vanquished lawmaker simply reaped what he sowed.

“Senator Diaz de la Portilla broke is word,” Marion Hammer, executive director of the Unified Sportsmen of Florida and a former National Rifle Association president, told Guns.com Wednesday. “He betrayed gun owners and bragged about it. People know not to trust a man who not only breaks his word but then brags about being deceitful. He engineered his own defeat.”

Well good.  We had discussed this particular politician and his cocky arrogance before.  I’m glad he’s down for the count.  Remember when we issued the beat-down to S.C. State Senator Larry Martin?  Yep, he went down too.  His replacement, whomever that is, would do well to remember Larry’s fate.  We’ll do the same thing to him … and the next guy … and the next guy … until we get what we want.

Do you understand?

David Codrea:

The other thing we saw Tuesday is that Astroturf-funded state measures are the wave of the near future. The formula: Pick a “blue” state; throw in a ton of money from New York City and Silicon Valley; hire the best propagandists money can buy; rely on media allies to amplify the signal and demonize gun owners; spook the useful idiot herd; and steamroll over grassroots volunteers who enjoy neither the money, the media savvy, the contacts nor the reach.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

That’s what happened in California. Proposition 63 passed:

The initiative outlaws the possession of ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, requires background checks for people buying bullets …

I detest that terrible state for what they are doing to gun owners.  David rightly points to the need for state and local activism in addition to what we accomplished at the national level.

But I have to admit that I am of two minds on this and I welcome your thoughts on this as well. Lee made significant errors at Gettysburg.  He didn’t listen to the counsel of his own generals, he occupied the low ground, he began the battle too late, he shouldn’t have been so far from home to begin with, and he used antiquated tactics, techniques and procedures to prosecute the battle.  He should have moved his forces in the middle of the night in order to prevent hardened formations from developing and attacked at or even before dawn.  Instead, he marched his forces into a killing field after two thirds of the day was gone.

We have to be thinking men and women.  I don’t want to give the gun controllers one inch, and I know the NRA has taken up this case for California.  But at some point we have to recognize the need to retreat, reform, and ensconce in a free state.  Why do gun owners still live in California?

Is California worth saving?  I’m asking the readers.  Is it worth spending effort on that place?

These are two very instructive videos, the first one fairly well known, but the second in my opinion is much more useful (watch them both, I understand that one has to build upon the other).  I encourage them to continue this series on tips.

I do have one comment on the first video.  Remember that the thumb of the left hand (if you’re a right handed shooter) must be low enough on the frame that you avoid interaction with the slide.  Most of us have had our thumb get caught in between the slide and the frame as the slide cycles.  That’s a horrible pinch point and you have to avoid it while also stabilizing the gun mainly with the left hand.  If you get caught in that pinch point, that’s a big yeooow!!

Election night was an interesting thing, yes?  It was an enlightening thing to watch neocons George Will and Charles Krauthammer lament the passing of true conservatism, as if conservatism = corporatism.  The American worker is smart enough to know that he is competing with workers who don’t live under the same EPA and OSHA regulations as he does, and even a hit dog is smart enough to know if you accidentally or intentionally kicked him.  The workers are smarter than the neocons give them credit (another way of saying it is that Will and Krauthammer’s disdain for the intelligence level of the American worker is on full display by even suggesting that they don’t understand what true conservatism is).  It was also a wonderful thing to see the collectivists weep.

My former Marine Daniel was out and about today and was listening to liberals wail on the uneducated, mean Christians who voted for Trump.  Mean, we are.  Just mean.  Mean enough that this person has never met anybody meaner than Christians.  Daniel interrupted and said, “You know, that’s funny.  The meanest people I’ve ever met were Iraqi and Syrian Muslims.  Have you ever seen the body of a man who was literally skinned while he was still alive?”  The collectivists are smarter than we are, know more than we do, are educated beyond comprehension, want to take our money, want to redistribute it according to their own dictates, tell us where to live, how to live, what do to, where to do it, and what to think.  And Christians are the ones being mean.  In reality, Christians see the government as no more a legitimate power to enact tyrannical laws than Russia has a right to boss the Ukrainians around.

Many collectivists, and even some on the right, are too stolid to understand that as long as you don’t want to murder infants or follow my grandchildren into the bathroom, if you want the free exercise of your legitimate rights, I’m your best friend and biggest ally, because being Christian is the exact antithesis of being a statist.  If you want small government, we’re your folk.  Christians voted for Trump because of the horror of the alternative.  The MSM media couldn’t come to grips with this, and their own disdain for religious voters was on full display in their assumption that social issues exclusively define the religious right.  Trump voters of all stripes were insulted on election night, and yet the election was still a rebuke to political correctness, government run health care, meddling in the affairs of other nations, and corruption from the highest levels of government to the lowest. My son Joseph in Travis County, Texas, tells me that the progressives there are savaging Trump voters as ignorant hillbillies. Well, if it takes courses in the liberal arts to be smart, I’ll stick with my differential equations any day. As to being a hillbilly, some of the best men I know could be identified as such. I consider it an honor to be named among them.

The election of Donald J. Trump to the office of president of the U.S. is a good thing compared to the only other alternative.  I claimed that it would be, and it will be.  Let’s rehearse for a moment what we could have been facing.

First of all, I have linked and commented on the evils of The Clinton Foundation, John Podesta and his ring of pedophiles, and how the Clinton’s are at the epicenter of this abominable, wicked cabal.  But just for good measure, I’ll do it again.  This Reddit link documents the wickedness of The Clinton Foundation, this Reddit link documents the first of many such threads at Reddit on Podesta and his ring of child rapists, and this Reddit link follows up the initial thread with more details concerning the expanse of this child molestation.

It’s awful reading, and if the country had a soul left we would march on their homes, remove them and hang them all in the public square.  Another one of the many things we learned in this election is that the MSM is way past dead, and a few tens of thousands of Redditors with computers, video cameras, time and motivation, can do a better job of journalism and investigation that the MSM and the FBI put together.  They can literally take down the most powerful and corrupt political machine in world history, the Clinton Foundation.

But it isn’t just the illegalities and immoralities associated with this horrible reality that you should consider.  Take for example this talk that Hillary gave not too long ago.

Let me explain what she’s saying to the crowd in pseudo-coded language so that bored listeners won’t understand it.  She has gone on record saying she will destroy the SCOTUS decision in Citizens United in order to control the narrative.  She believes your views must change.  They must change.  It isn’t just your practices or your actions.  Your very views must change.  To wit, she will use the power of the law to force compliance with her views.

This includes churches.  She has no problem forcing churches to provide abortion coverage in health care, and presumably under the fairness doctrine she would have no problem forcing the church to hire atheists or Planned Parenthood operatives.  After all, everyone deserves equal time, even at church.  Presumably also, blogs and alternative media would face the same sort of requirements under the fairness doctrine, which the FCC has hinted at for quite some time now.  I had strongly considered simply shutting down this web site if such things came to pass.  I don’t need it.  I won’t give equal time to gun controllers.  Were preachers prepared to shut up about things with which they disagree?  Or perhaps go to prison?  Were blogs, news outlets and commenters prepared to give equal time to detractors?

Finally in this truncated list of awful things, Hillary would have backed it all up with multiple SCOTUS appointments to firmly ensconce this all into legal precedent.  The doctrine of stare decisis would have been the ammunition the progressive senators needed to keep out any justices who would reverse such awful rulings.

This isn’t all the damage she could have done.  She would have gone after semi-automatic weapons, enacted a magazine ban, required licensure for ammunition purchases, forbid person-to-person sales, and the list goes on.

But as I said before, electing Trump isn’t the end of our problems.  We are still a nation whose economic system is based entirely on debt, with unfunded liabilities large enough to sink the entire world economy, and a nation deeply divided over ideology.  Half of the nation looked at Hillary’s predation, corruption, pedophilia and vulgarity and decided to vote for her anyway.  Let that wash over you again.  Half of the country is committed to communism, and doesn’t care if that means killing a few or more people or the election of corrupt leaders.

I find my world and life view in the Scriptures, others elsewhere.  But make no mistake about it, your worldview dictates how you see things.  It colors your world like lenses change your perception.  You may think your right to own weapons emanates from the second amendment.  I do not and couldn’t possibly care less about this amendment except as it pertains to being a covenant, the violation of which is grounds for permanent separation.  The progressives think that a piece of paper defines my rights, and that they can change it as they see fit to conform to their plans for social engineering.

And as regards to the constitution, I find it somewhere between slightly amusing and pitiful that there are those who talk of a constitutional convention, or even a complete rewrite of said document, as amelioration for the tyranny of recent years – as if a new document can persuade, coerce or compel men who haven’t followed it in the past to follow it in the future.

The problem isn’t with the constitution, it isn’t with the men who wrote it, and it isn’t with the difficulty of forging a new agreement or covenant.  John Adams said “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  In the main, this is no longer a moral and religious nation.

And to quote a former friend and pastor, “The heart of the problem is the problem with the heart.”  That won’t be corrected by new documents, new agreements, or new politicians.  It needs a different remedy.  With all due respect to Donald Trump and his finely tuned political sensibilities, jobs for everyone won’t fix our problems.  Cambodians had jobs at the height of the killing fields under Pol Pot’s regime.  Until the ideological divide is repaired, there will be no peace.  America is too divided to be at peace.

But there is much to be gained from having been through this exercise.  First of all, we have more time, and will have a supreme court that to a greater degree will recognize our liberties more than if Hillary had been elected.  Second, this has been a hair-burning, gut-wrenching drill.  How did you perform?  Do you have enough guns and ammunition?  Do you have only range ammunition or do you have fighting rounds too (M855 for your long guns and PD rounds for your handguns)?  How much have you trained recently?

Do you have enough food prepared and put away, and enough water or purification capabilities?  Have you had the necessary conversations with neighbors and made plans with them yet?  How about fungible cash on hand?  I recently moved out of a larger city into a much smaller community about a year and a half ago, and I have made effort to learn the individuals, learn their likes and dislikes, and even learn something about the world and life views of each of them so that when the time comes, I know what I need to about the people around me.

It was worth doing whatever you could to prevent the demon-worshiper and her band of occultists and child rapists from becoming even more powerful, even if the new president does absolutely nothing of import and fulfills none of his promises.  But the drill itself was difficult because it was real.  It just didn’t end as badly as it could have.

I appreciate having the time to prepare better.  I intend to use it wisely.

There is a deep, dark history in the engagement at Benghazi.  I’ve covered it exhaustively, but I’ll rehearse only a few details since there are just-released revelations we must cover.

Within 24 hours, my own military readers knew precisely that this was the result of a well-planned, well-coordinated combined-arms attack with the use of crew served weapons (see Dirty Mick’s comment and others).  The administration knew that as well, but the reason they didn’t acknowledge it has now been revealed.  But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

I knew that there was a QRF that could have responded, I just couldn’t prove it, or demonstrate where they were and what happened.  Eventually it all began to drip out (secrets cannot be long hidden, the truth eventually finds a way to see the light).  Take for instance this report.

The team – at Aviano Air Base in northeastern Italy – raced to the field and was briefed, as planes were armed and prepared to launch. Hundreds of miles away, fellow Americans were under attack in Benghazi.

“There were people everywhere,” said the witness, who was on the ground that night but wished to remain anonymous. “That flight line was full of people, and we were all ready to go” to Benghazi. Only they were waiting for the order. It never came.

“The whole night we were told that we are waiting on a call,” he told Fox News. This account is from a squadron member at Aviano the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, terror attack in Benghazi. The source, the first in his squadron to speak out publicly since that attack, is going public to explain – in his view – that more could have been done to save Americans under attack that night. He asked that his identity be protected for fear of retribution. He says others in his squadron also have wanted to talk about Benghazi from the beginning, but no others have been interviewed and all are afraid of the potential backlash from speaking out.

“I’m not trying to give away any type of [information] that could ever harm the military,” the source told Fox News. “That is never my plan. I feel that some things need to come to light.”

Namely, he said, that a team was ready to go that night to help protect Americans under fire in Benghazi – an account that runs counter to multiple official reports, including from a House committee, a timeline provided by the military and the controversial State Department Accountability Review Board investigation, which concluded the interagency response to Benghazi was “timely and appropriate.”

The source said: “I definitely believe that our aircraft could have taken off and gotten there in a timely manner, maybe three hours at the most, in order to at least stop that second mortar attack … and basically save lives that day.”

Matt Bracken has also dealt with Benghazi, explaining that ultimately all the administration had to do to prevent timely support is NOT grant authority for cross-border operations.  Kris Paronto has addressed the issue of forces being turned back, and this post at Judicial Watch is clear based on a FOIA request that the Department of Defense had forces that could move to Benghazi to assist.

Judicial Watch today released a new Benghazi email from then-Department of Defense Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash to State Department leadership immediately offering “forces that could move to Benghazi” during the terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. In an email sent to top Department of State officials, at 7:19 p.m. ET, only hours after the attack had begun, Bash says, “we have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak.” The Obama administration redacted the details of the military forces available, oddly citing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemption that allows the withholding of “deliberative process” information.

Now there are revelations that the QRF was intentionally delayed.  Furthermore, the very guards that the State Department hired were terrorists.

An obscure private firm hired by the State Department over internal objections to protect U.S. diplomats in Benghazi just months before the American ambassador and three others were killed was staffed with hastily recruited locals with terror ties who helped carry out the attack, multiple sources told Fox News.

The explosive charge against Wales-based Blue Mountain Group comes from several sources, including an independent security specialist who has implemented training programs at U.S. Consulates around the world, including in Benghazi, where he trained a local militia that preceded Blue Mountain. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Blue Mountain used local newspaper ads to assemble a team of 20 guards, many of whom had terror ties, after securing a $9.2 million annual contract.

“The guards who were hired were locals who were part of the Ansar al-Sharia and Al Qaeda groups operating in Benghazi,” said the source, whose assignment in Benghazi had ended in November 2011. “Whoever approved contracts at the State Department hired Blue Mountain Group and then allowed Blue Mountain Group to hire local Libyans who were not vetted.”

[ … ]

One former guard who witnessed the attack, Weeam Mohamed, confirmed in an email sent to the Citizens Commission on Benghazi and obtained by Fox News, that at least four of the guards hired by Blue Mountain took part in the attack after opening doors to allow their confederates in.

“In the U.S. Mission, there were four people [who] belonged to the battalion February 17,” Mohamed wrote to the Commission, an independent body formed with Accuracy in Media to investigate the attack and the administration’s handling of it.

Whether they were trying to traffic more weapons or recover the more dangerous ones they had lost is irrelevant.  The fighters at Benghazi trying to save American lives were set up for failure and knowingly abandoned by this administration, who coldly calculated that they could cover up their nefarious actions, thereby hiding the gun running and weapons trafficking they were conducting to foment revolution.  That the mission as it was conceived was ill advised and unwise isn’t the point.  The point is that on Tuesday this country has a choice.  She can voluntarily choose to firmly ensconce into office the wicked woman who caused all of this, or they can turn her over to God for judgment.

So much for the whispers about the good people at the FBI and the NYPD finally speaking out for justice and upholding the law, the sanctity of their oaths, how seriously they take it, and all of that other claptrap.  You’ve heard the whispers in the great unwashed land where the metro doesn’t run, haven’t you?

Your cowardly leader, Mr. Comey, has stated that they did the impossible, reading more than half a million emails in eight days.  Nothing to see here, move along folks.  Perhaps he’s thinking that this will all go away and he can salvage some sort of life after this.  Or that you can.

He can’t, and you can’t.  You see, little children have been abused, their lives are at stake, their souls cry out for protection and justice.  These words will weigh heavily on you.

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea (Matt 18:6, KJV).

You know what’s been going on.  We all do.  Children have been kidnapped, they are held against their will, and they have been sexually abused by the forces of darkness.  You have a mountain of evidence of it, and you know it to be true.

But you won’t just continue with your lives after this is over.  Oh, I know that there is still some good will out there.

Dear FBI Employees: we know that this isn’t your fault.  You found “overwhelming evidence” of corruption, enough to press many charges, yet Obama forced your corrupt bosses to let her go.  Now is your opportunity to step up and go public with the true story.  The future of America is at stake.

But see, I think it is your fault.  You are complicit if you do nothing, and the lawyers at the DoJ are officers of the court.  They should be aggressively pursuing justice.  But justice won’t come in time for those little boys and girls who scream by day and cry by night.  And what remains of the little bit of good will out there for you will evaporate overnight.

It only gets darker from here on.  You will never forget these things.  You won’t be able to shake them.  You won’t be able to look people in the eye again, you won’t be able to trust even your own spouse, because you know oaths and vows mean nothing if yours doesn’t.  You will run from shadows, fear the night, and dread the day.

God will turn you over to the evil one, and demons will terrorize your sleep while you hear the screams and cries of the little ones during the day.  You will raise coffee to your lips trying to shake the fitful sleep, and you will forget that you have a cup in your hand.

Your family will not prosper to the third and fourth generations, and evil will be upon your world.  You may as well inscribe Ichabod on your doorposts, because you will rue the day you were born.

Oregon Faith Report:

The easy availability of guns did not make 6-year-old Jacob Hall safer. It helped make him dead.

We ought to remember this boy, who was fatally shot at his elementary school in Townville, S.C., just as we ought to remember the brilliantly applicable teaching of Jesus when he famously quipped, “Live by the sword, die by the sword.”

Swap in “gun” for “sword” and you have an apt description of what’s happening to us.

The mental and emotional problems of the teenager who shot Jacob last month turned lethal because a gun was available — probably in his household, which was known to keep firearms.

The 14-year-old shooter first used the weapon on his father, leaving him dead at the family home, before driving to Jacob’s school and resuming shooting. The teen injured another child and a teacher in addition to firing the fatal shot that struck an artery in Jacob’s leg.

When will our culture wake up to the reality that the guns we get to keep us safe only make society — and thus each of our lives — more dangerous?

It’s heartening to hear a growing chorus of activist voices, including those connected with churches, clamoring in protest against our insane proliferation of guns. Earlier this month, the venerable Riverside Church in New York hosted 100 clergy and lay people for a two-day “God and Guns” training. The assembled ministers weren’t trained how to use guns; they learned how to shoot down the lie that guns are the best way to protect ourselves from … guns.

“Our faith teaches us to support policies and programs that protect life, but instead Christians have been complicit for too long in allowing our country to be guided by the rhetoric of fear,” Riverside’s senior minister, the Rev. Amy Butler, said.

Because most of us watch movies, we can picture the scenario conjured by the Second Amendment enthusiasts: You and your family are menaced by a weapon-toting bad man. He is intent on robbing or killing you. But you whip out your gun and turn the table. He flees or, if he does not, you shoot him. You and your gun have saved the day.

Or maybe you come upon a mass shooting in its early stages. Thanks to your gun, you take down the evil shooter and keep the casualty count to, say, two, rather than two dozen.

Fair enough. In situations like these, guns can protect lives. The problem is, these are perfectly framed scenarios that are more the stuff of movies than real life.

This poor old 81 year old man unfortunately lived the movie just recently.

UNIONTOWN, Pa. – A home invasion suspect was fatally shot early Friday morning in Uniontown when the 81-year-old homeowner pulled out a gun, according to investigators.

Police said 46-year-old Franklin Schrout, of Smithfield, rode a bike to the house with tools to break in, then ransacked the home and assaulted the 81-year-old man.

“Once the actor came into his bedroom, the actor was demanding to know where money was. He told them he didn’t have any money or anything of value in the home,” Uniontown police Lt. Tom Kolencik said.

The 81-year-old was able to grab a .22-caliber gun during a struggle with Schrout and fired one shot, police said.

Schrout ran out of the house and the 81-year-old’s bedridden sister called 911, police said.

When police arrived at the home, they found Schrout dead outside.

The 81-year-old told police that he had never fired the gun before and that it had been sitting in his nightstand for 30 years. He also said he wished he had been stronger so that he could have fought off Schrout without having to shoot him.

“The only thing he told us was that he had to protect himself. He also lived with an elderly sister, who is bedridden, so he just kept referring to protecting her, protecting himself,” Kolencik said.

Although police said the shooting appears to have been in self-defense, the District Attorney’s Office will make a final determination.

Of course, since guns are more dangerous to the owner than a perpetrator, this report must be false.  Or it could be possible that the writer at Oregon Faith Report would just rather see this poor old man and his sister perish at the hands of criminals.

As for the DA, the shooting was in his home, the perpetrator was an uninvited guest, this uninvited guest attempted to do them harm.  There’s nothing to decide.  Get to something you need to be doing, like shutting down violent gangs.  Stop wasting your time and taxpayer money.

Market Watch:

Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. SWHC, +2.06% said Friday that it was buying survival and camping equipment maker Ulitmate Survival Technologies Inc. for $32.3 million in cash. The gun maker expects the acquisition, which will be made through its Battenfeld Technologies subsidiary, to close later this month. UST’s trailing 12-month revenue was about $24 million. “With its complete offering of survival gear, UST Brands is our first acquisition that is entirely focused on the outdoor market, which is a key part of our vision to become the leading provider of quality products for the shooting, hunting, and rugged outdoor enthusiast,” said Smith & Wesson Chief Executive James Debney.

Hey, I have a better idea, and I’ve told you about this before.  Get out of that communist state you’re in and relocate South where all the other gun manufacturers are coming.

I get so many wonderful comments it’s hard to pick out the best.  I honestly believe I’ve got the best patrons on the interwebz.  I don’t know if you know this or not, but a lot of my payment for what I do is getting to read your comments.

That said, I have to pick one that rises to the top.  This one comes from Ray at WRSA regarding this article.

Mr H. Smith is a rabid Jesus Nazi. Who he wants for the next Emperor is of no importance to me at all.

Hey, I didn’t say to the top of what pile this comment rises.