H.R. 3799 is in the top ten most viewed bills the week of December 23, 2016.  Simply put, this bill would do as follows.

… amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) eliminate the $200 transfer tax on firearm silencers, and (2) treat any person who acquires or possesses a firearm silencer as meeting any registration or licensing requirements of the National Firearms Act with respect to such silencer. Any person who pays a tax on a silencer after October 22, 2015 may receive a refund of such tax.

The bill amends the federal criminal code to preempt state or local laws that tax or regulate firearm silencers.

The equivalent bill in the Senate is S 2236.  I assume that once voted on, a committee would be assigned to work out any details if there end up being differences.

By the way, Pat Toomey was asked about his support, and he wrote an entire letter without answering the question.  Don’t wait on that wet noodle to support any bill recognizing your just liberties.  Would someone in Pennsylvania please run for his office?  No, wait.  No offense to the ladies reading this, but if he has male plumbing, I want a man in the office rather than Pat Toomey.  Ladies who support my liberties are just fine.  I don’t want any more eunuchs.

It is encouraging, though, that the interest seems to be there, and people are asking.  Note to Senate and Congress.  We’re watching and taking names.

Tech Times:

However, Lee still didn’t pay attention to what the officers were telling him and briskly walked away. This was when Thornton took out his Taser gun and used it on the old man.

Lee fell to the floor screaming in pain as staff from the nursing home watched in shock at what was going on.

Oh, they shouldn’t have been too much in shock.  They are the ones who called the police to deal with what a nurse should have dealt with – or a qualified worker rather than the goobers who apparently work there.

The video is even worse to watch than reading the account.

Hey.  Be glad they didn’t use the SWAT team or queue up a designated marksman, who might have used .308, done “high fives” with his colleagues, and bragged about “going home safely at the end of his shift.”  Elderly folk can join the ranks of dogs now as immediately shot if they get Alzheimer’s disease and get the cops called on them.

I find that concealed appendix carry is acceptable for me while standing or even walking.  I simply cannot do it comfortably while sitting.  I must carry 3:00 or thereabout, and my carry in the small of the back advertises too much.

Of course, open carry is the most comfortable.

Charleston Gazette-Mail:

Rural law enforcement officials have complex, subtle views about gun control and frequently favor more limited access to guns, according to new research from West Virginia University.

Sociology professor Rachael Woldoff said, for her paper, published this month in the academic journal Rural Sociology, she asked more than 20 sheriff deputies in a rural county about their views on gun control.

“It goes against this narrative that people from West Virginia are just ignorant. The NRA wants you to believe that, but they don’t really have views like that,” Woldoff said. “They’re much more nuanced.”

Their lengthy responses and discussion emanating from the questions was the first type of qualitative research of its kind, according to Woldoff.

Because of the limited number of responses, she is unable to make broad claims about rural law enforcement in the report, but Woldoff said further research is needed in the area.

The paper proposes rural police officers’ views on gun control stem from two competing influences: the culture of rural places where hunting and guns are usually integral parts of community life, and an officer’s responsibility to protect people from gun violence.

Woldoff began the study expecting the law enforcement officials she interviewed would favor fewer restrictions on guns, but that wasn’t the case.

Nearly all of the officers said they were against gun control, only later to contradict themselves, Woldoff said. Several officers told Woldoff people who have been diagnosed with depression should be barred from owning a gun, even if that meant compelling doctors to release medical records to the government.

Other officers who had served in the armed forces thought people who own guns should have to be better trained on how to use them. Every officer said there should be more thorough background checks of a person before he or she is allowed to own a gun.

“Many things about place identity are symbolic,” Woldoff said. “For instance, in West Virginia, it is important, symbolically, that you say you believe in certain things and to identify with the whole state, which is unusual.”Meanwhile, officers maintained they were “pro-gun.”

“Saying you’re pro-gun is just an identity,” Woldoff said. “A lot of people who are pro-gun still think our controls are not appropriate right now. Clearly they would say they were pro-gun, then two seconds later they’re asking for insane gun control measures.”

The professor’s own narrative gives us a glimpse into her bias, which is that the NRA wants to control a narrative on guns and hopes for idiots, while people are more “nuanced” than we give them credit.  Perhaps we can believe her research, perhaps not.

But let’s assume for the sake of argument that we can.  None of this is really surprising.  LEOs perpetuate the myth that they are there to “protect people from gun violence.”  Officers aren’t there to protect anyone from anything, regardless of that bit of hyped propaganda.  It would have been much more interesting if the professor had taken a deep dive into that psychology and ascertained whether the officers really believed that or if this is simply play-acting.

If the answers are truthful, it is certainly the case that these LEOs support draconian gun control measures, from universal background checks to forcible release of medical records (while it is a demonstrable fact that mental maladies have no connection to propensity to violence).

Being pro-gun is just an identity, says the researcher.  Very well.  Remember that the next time you hear it from a LEO.  You’re educated enough to know how to drill down on this issue and find out the truth from them.

Merry Christmas to all of my readers.  I hope you have a joyous season.

We know Christmas as the celebration of the beginning of [what theologians call] “the humiliation of Christ.”  It began his time in the form of man, where God became man and lived among us (Matthew 1:23).  It is He who will save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).

It’s the scandal of the Gospel, where the only possible savior for man was Christ.  Only God could save His people, because all mankind had fallen in sin.  Many nativity scenes are lovely and bright, but the humiliation of Christ involved being born in a trough used to feed and water the livestock, wrapped in clothes that were used to clean the stalls.  The manger looked like this.

This is what we remember and celebrate.  May you and your loved ones always understand the true meaning of Christmas.  Those in Christ are saved, those who are not are lost.  Christ had to come to be the perfect lamb of God.  This is where it started, and it went throughout His life and until His death.

The Federalist:

Consider the events of the the past week. A Maryland teenager shot and killed an adult deer after it broke down the door of his house. In South Carolina, a deer smashed through the window of a Gold’s Gym and raced through the weight room as terrified humans scattered. In New York City, the beloved Harlem deer that somehow made its way into the heart of America’s largest city died after police tranquilized and captured it.

These aren’t just zany wild animal anecdotes. This is what happens when state and local governments don’t let people shoot deer. The fact is, deer populations across the country are about a hundred times what they were a century ago. The only thing that will stop the deer uprising is if Americans are allowed to kill more of them.

In his 2012 book, “Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds,” Jim Sterba chronicled a dramatic swing in the fortunes of our continent’s wild animals overt the past century. By 1900, centuries of more or less unregulated hunting and trapping had reduced wild animals populations in America to mere remnants. The conservation movement, writes Sterba, began as a response to this dire situation, and was spearheaded by public figures like then-New York governor Teddy Roosevelt. Public lands were set aside for wildlife refuges and parks, limits were set on hunting, and efforts launched nationwide to restock wildlife. It took time, but the conservationists were successful.

Too successful, it turns out. Wildlife damage to crops and infrastructure now exceeds $28 billion a year, with $1.5 billion from deer crashes alone. Chicago now has thousands of coyotes. Texas has about 3 million feral hogs (and counting), which cause an estimated half-billion dollars in damages every year.

Yes, and the cost of feral hogs in Georgia is even worse, having put entire farms out of business.  Here’s the problem.

First of all, when states began modern game management techniques, it made some sense.  This has caused herds populations to rebound to enormous sizes compared to even what they were in the days before humans and animals fought over the same land.  But as the herd size increased, the inevitable occurred.

States began to see the herds as their own property, charging for tags, huge sums of money in certain cases, and they began to put limits on the kinds of firearms that could be used, limit the hunting season, and control even what time of day or night you could hunt.  Some of this makes some sense even if it involves self policing rather than the nanny state assuming the power to themselves (i.e., caliber size to ensure an ethical kill), but the states controls are implemented for the wrong reason.

Only the king’s men may hunt in the king’s forests, they think.  The second problem is that control freaks have passed laws just about everywhere concerning if and when you can discharge a firearm.  I’ve had Coyotes coming down the road towards me, and I had to use other means besides a firearm to chase them away because, you guessed it, it’s illegal for me to discharge a firearm where I live.  Only the police can do that.  Apparently, only the police need to engage in self defense, according to the state.

Yes, we’re going to have to hunt the herds back down, but we’re going to have to be allowed to discharge firearms when we need to.  And by the way, limits on feral hogs, whether bag limit or when or how they can be shot, make no sense at all.  If your state has such a limit, then the state rulers hate you and love the money it brings in to license you to hunt and tell you how and when to do it.  They hate you because hogs are destructive to the environment and can harm you and your children, and they love money because they have no scruples.

Washington Examiner:

A ruling from the 6th Circuit Court serves as a warning to dog owners: Teach your dog to sit still and be quiet or risk police justifiably shooting the dog.

Mark and Cheryl Brown petitioned the court to hold the city and police officers from Battle Creek, Mich., accountable for shooting and killing their dogs while executing a search warrant of their home looking for evidence of drugs. The plaintiffs said the police officers’ actions amounted to the unlawful seizure of property in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The circuit court on Monday agreed with a lower court ruling siding with the police officers.

“The standard we set out today is that a police officer’s use of deadly force against a dog while executing a warrant to search a home for illegal drug activity is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when, given the totality of the circumstances and viewed from the perspective of an objectively reasonable officer, the dog poses an imminent threat to the officer’s safety,” Judge Eric Clay wrote in the court’s opinion.

In the case of the Browns’ two pit bulls, the imminent threat came from the dogs barking and moving around. One officer shot the first pit bull after he said it “had only moved a few inches” in a movement that he considered to be a “lunge.” The injured dog retreated to the basement, where the officer shot and killed it as well as the second dog while conducting a sweep of the residence.

“Officer Klein testified that after he shot and killed the first dog, he noticed the second dog standing about halfway across the basement,” the court’s opinion explained. “The second dog was not moving towards the officers when they discovered her in the basement, but rather she was ‘just standing there,’ barking and was turned sideways to the officers. Klein then fired the first two rounds at the second dog.”

After the wounded dog ran into a back corner of the basement, another officer shot the dog rather than seeking help for it.

“Officer Case saw that ‘there was blood coming out of numerous holes in the dog, and … [Officer Case] didn’t want to see it suffer,’ so he put her out of her misery and fired the last shot,” Clay wrote.

The court decided that the plaintiffs failed to provide evidence showing the first dog did not lunge at police officers and that the second dog didn’t bark.

Judge Eric Clay, Officer Klein and Officer Case are all pussies.  To a man.  They deserve to get the shit beat out of them.  And then they deserve to spend court mandated time working on a farm around horses, dogs, goats, cows, chickens and other animals, until they have learned to work with animals without killing them.  Hand gestures, physical gate and posture, voice inflection and timbre, and body language.  It all matters, dumb ass.  Learn it.  Do it.  If you live in a city where you don’t have access to farm animals, then MOVE.  Pussy.

Within five minutes I would have been playing with those dogs in the back yard, them having earned my trust and me theirs – because I’m not a pathological brute and I have a brain and experience.  And as for that matter, if a father doesn’t take his son backpacking, doesn’t teach him to raise animals, and doesn’t teach him to live in the outdoors, he also deserves to get the shit beat out of him.

Seriously folks.  Many, many problems that appear in front of courts could be solved by good friends, deacons of the church, and co-workers who took responsibility for their colleagues and took them out behind the wood shed like their father should have done and forced them to grow up.

I’ve said before that the righteous man has regard for the life of his beast and the beasts of others.  The wicked man does not.  I would like to see the Supreme Court strike this down on any of a number of violations of the constitution.  I’m not sure they will, and in fact I would bet against it.

So here is my question for cops.  Riddle me this.  When is the last time a cop was killed by a dog in America?

I’m waiting.

We have previously discussed the Marine Corps battle with the Army and Congress over fielding a different ammunition than the Army, who spent a wad of money on an “environmentally friendly” lead-free cartridge, the M855A1.

Currently, the Marine Corps is trending towards the MK 318, which appears to be a far superior round, and it comes in right at 2900 FPS out of the M4 barrel, higher for longer barrels.  The claim is that it behaves better at longer distances and retains its ability to penetrate.

This trend towards heavier rounds has been going on for some time now, and 62 grains isn’t the top weight for the 5.56mm bullet.  One reader sends information about Sierra 77 grain, and tells me that the 1:9 twist is just fine with this ammunition.  Of course, one gives up something to get something.  In the case of heavier bullets, you give up muzzle velocity.

This velocity detriment may seem small.  TFB likes the Sierra 77 grain, and informs us that its muzzle velocity comes in somewhere between 2500 FPS and 2600 FPS.  But your choice of ammunition will depend upon your target, its distance, any interstitial shielding, potential body armor, etc.

You may do better with M193 than with either the MK 318 or the Sierra 77 grain.  Sometimes the smaller rounds with the higher muzzle velocity are what’s needed to penetrate any armor.  Do you not believe me?  Consider what we learned with the FN 5.7 and its test against bulletproof glass, which only the .454 Casull could penetrate.  The open tip 5.7 round at 22 grains penetrated the glass due to high muzzle velocity, whereas the heavier 5.7 round did not.

Do you need more evidence?  Very well.  Consider that AR500.com sells hard plates it calls Level III, and those plates are rated to stop M855 (steel core) but cannot stop M193.  They have to move up to what they call Level III+ to perform effectively against the M193 due to its higher muzzle velocity compared to the M855.  There’s nothing wrong with having a safe full of M193.