Via Codrea, this.

Last week, the House Appropriations Committee passed its 2019 budget for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which, if passed, will squash President Trump’s border security plan, force DACA amnesty, and give millions of illegal aliens free passes into your community.  The wall is not mentioned.  At all.

Anyone who thinks the diminution and ultimate destruction of Amerika can be ameliorated by the election of a president who wants to “build the wall” is foolish.

There are ways, of course, easy ways.  Put employers who hire illegals in prison.  That’ll fix the problem overnight.  But the House won’t do it, and neither will the Senate.  It would deprive the democrats of voters, and the corporations of cheap workers.

And we all know how Hispanics vote concerning gun rights, don’t we?  Well, don’t we?

News from California:

A former Beaumont cop who blinded a woman when he fired a pepper spray pistol inches from her face during a DUI arrest pleaded guilty today to a misdemeanor charge under an agreement negotiated with
Riverside County prosecutors.

Enoch “Jeremy” Clark, 43, entered his plea to a charge of assault by a public officer, and in exchange for his admission, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office agreed to drop a felony count of assault by a peace officer causing injury, along with a sentence-enhancing great bodily injury
allegation.

The D.A.’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reasoning behind the plea deal, which was announced during a pretrial status hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice.

Superior Court Judge John Molloy scheduled a sentencing hearing for Aug. 31. Clark is free on his own recognizance.

The defendant was first tried in May 2014, when a Riverside jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of convicting him. A retrial started in January 2017, but after less than a week of testimony, Judge Michael Donner brought a halt to proceedings because of defense allegations that the prosecution had not met its obligation to share documents produced during discovery.

Clark could have faced up to four years in state prison had he been convicted of the felony charge and enhancement.

According to Deputy District Attorney Mike Carney, the defendant discharged a pepper gun into the eyes of then-32-year-old Monique Hernandez on the night of Feb. 21, 2012, after he became “annoyed” with her because she wouldn’t comply with his commands to stop resisting arrest.

The woman’s corneas were shredded and her optic nerve irreparably damaged, according to trial testimony.

Carney said Clark was completely unjustified when he pulled the trigger on the JPX Jet Protector pepper spray gun, which discharges propellant at 400 miles per hour. The device was less than 10 inches from Hernandez’s face, and the contents penetrated her eyes, dispersing into her skull, according to the prosecutor.

He said the defendant lied to cover up his actions, telling investigators that he felt his life was threatened and he was “slipping off balance” while holding the gun, causing it to fire prematurely.

The defense blamed Clark’s superiors, inadequate training on the weapon’s use, unclear instructions on how to operate it and other factors for what transpired.

If he wasn’t an “only one,” in other words, if this were me or you, we’d be on the receiving end of felony charged, and we’d be convicted.

Be careful how you use this stuff if you have it.

Shooting Illustrated:

The simplest, yet most important, difference between the two cartridges is their respective pressure limits. The .223 Rem. cartridge is held to a lower pressure than 5.56 NATO. Some of the testing methods to determine these actual pressures can be confusing, as both cartridges have been tested by the ballistic authorities (read CIP and SAAMI) in the same 5.56 mm chamber, and the resulting data will appear to be nearly equal. However, because of the dimensional variations in the distance between the case mouth and the beginning of the rifling, trying to fire 5.56 NATO ammunition in a .223 Rem. chamber is, simply put, just a bad idea.

The reverse is not true. It is, and always will be, safe to shoot .223 Rem. ammunition in a chamber marked for 5.56 NATO. Commit that idea to memory, and you’ll never get in trouble. The pressures that a 5.56 NATO cartridge can generate are too high for the .223 Rem. chamber, and that is based primarily on the leade dimensions. If you feel that the ability to shoot 5.56 NATO ammunition out of your .223 Rem.-chambered rifle is paramount, take that rifle to a competent gunsmith to have the chamber reamed out to handle 5.56 NATO ammunition.

That chamber dimension for the 5.56 NATO is, in fact, slightly larger than the chamber for the .223 Rem.—in order to have the smoothest feeding and ejection, even with a dirty weapon, to best serve as a battlefield implement—but it is the leade dimension that makes the biggest difference. Leade is defined as the area from the bullet’s resting place before firing to the point where the rifling is engaged. The shorter the leade dimension, the faster the bullet will engage the rifling, and the faster the pressures can rise to a dangerous level.

The most interesting thing about the article is that there is a throw-down in the comments over whether the author is perpetuating the alleged “myth” that 5.56mm cases have thicker walls and therefore less volume, leading to the higher pressure.

John Farnam at Ammoland:

After decades of piously assuring us the 5.56×45 round was “adequate” for military purposes, despite mounting complaints (unsatisfactory range and penetration), dating back to Vietnam, the Pentagon has apparently finally changed its mind.

In spite of a dreary series of failed “wonder bullets” that have, every few years, come forth to “upgrade” the 5.56 round, faith that the 5.56 can ever be “adequate” is fading!

Just as the Marines are buying the HK 416 (M27), a gas-piston AR (in 5.56×45 caliber), to replace aging M4s, Congress and the Army are putting the breaks on that project.

After fifty years of pointless hope that the 5.56×45 round might really be “adequate,” a new, bigger military caliber may now be about to make its debut!

When the AR (in 5.56×45 caliber) first reared its head, and garnered the attention of then Secretary of Defense McNamara, it was slated to gradually replace only the M1 Carbine, never the M1 Garand, later the short-lived M14.

The M1 Carbine, manufactured by the millions during WWII, was originally intended only for rear-area defense and police actions. It was never intended to be a front-line, battle rifle, although it eventually found its way into every corner of the campaign during WWII and Korea.

When I was in Vietnam in 1968, M1 Carbines were still around in large numbers. I saw (and used) plenty of them.

Yet, the AR (in 5.56×45 caliber) somehow eventually became the main, battle rifle of all US Forces, and remains in that status to this day. This, despite continuous misgivings about its adequacy that have been desperately voiced since Vietnam.

Up until now, the Pentagon as assured us that these qualms about adequacy were all in our imaginations!

That is apparently about to change.

Of course, the Pentagon will never admit they’ve been wrong all this time. They’ll simply say “It’s time to move on.”

It was time to move on fifty years ago!

You can color me unimpressed with John’s analysis.  First of all, nothing is going to change because Amerika is flat broke and printing money like there’s no tomorrow.

Second, the only real need for caseless ammunition is so that women can be sent into combat.

Third, there is nothing wrong with the 5.56mmX45.  That’s the real myth here.

The 5.56mm round has killed scores of enemy fighters (hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions) in Vietnam, Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan and South America.  It doesn’t need to be replaced, and it did just fine for my son in Iraq.

There are exceptions, of course.  He once told me of a time when he had to shoot an insurgent with a nine-round burst from his SAW, only to see the fighter keep coming at him.  It took a grenade to stop him.  He also told me that he and other Marines had to continue the fight with insurgents (foreign fighters) who had lost limbs and continued to shoot or fist fight.

Those kinds of fighters are ideologically motivated and doped up on epinephrine and morphine.  They tested them and learned that information after the fact.  It would take a .50 Sasser to bring someone like that down with one shot.

The better option is to teach Soldiers to shoot, uphill and down, at distance, and supplement their ranks with a designated marksman who shoots something larger than the 5.56mm or employ a crew served weapon.  Each weapon system has its purpose, and there isn’t a do-everything gun.  If anyone tells you that, he’s lying.

On the other hand, if they do actually replace the 5.56X45, I’ll just grin and nod and say, “Good.  That’s just more for me.”

NPR:

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen in contempt of court if they fail to return to the U.S. a mother and daughter seeking asylum. The immigrants were deported ahead of a scheduled hearing with the court on Thursday.

A transcript of Thursday’s hearing shows U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan angry after being told the asylum-seekers had been deported and were on a plane out of the U.S. even while a government attorney was telling him they wouldn’t be deported before midnight.

“This is pretty outrageous,” Sullivan said, “Somebody in pursuit of justice in a United States court is just — is spirited away while her attorneys are arguing for justice for her?”

Amerika has rather turned things on its head when every petty tyrant judge can boss the executive around when he tries to secure the border.

Clarence Thomas – the only thinking man on the Supreme Court – had something to say about that.

The Washington Post, by three sociologists.

We’re now at a point when Americans are killed or injured in a mass shooting almost every month; by some definitions, almost every day. Despite this, resistance to stricter gun control in the United States remains fierce.

As researchers of religion, we know the power of religious identities and beliefs. And so we wondered: How does Christian nationalism influence Americans’ attitudes toward gun control?

In our newly published and freely available study, the connection between Christian nationalism and gun control attitudes proves stronger than we expected. It turns out that how intensely someone adheres to Christian nationalism is one of the strongest predictors of whether someone supports gun control. One’s political party, religiosity, gender, education or age doesn’t matter.

[ … ]

But what is Christian nationalism?

Christian nationalism is an ideology that argues for an inseparable bond between Christianity and American civil society. It goes beyond merely acknowledging some sincere religious commitments of the Founding Fathers.

Rather, Americans who subscribe to Christian nationalism believe that America has always been ― and should always be ― distinctively Christian in its national identity, sacred symbols and public policies. What’s more, for adherents to this ideology, America’s historic statements about human liberties (e.g., the First and Second Amendments) are imbued with sacred, literal and absolute meaning.

I happen to be trained in theology at the graduate level.  This may be the most stolid analysis I’ve ever read, and the lack of theological training of the academicians undermines and renders useless the study they have published.

There are a number of category errors in this commentary, and at the risk of sounding too much like Gordon Clark, I recommend that these folks retake their course work in logic, and specifically that they study Aristotle’s Logic and Metaphysics before tackling some more difficult texts in systematic theology like Hodge, Warfield, Calvin, Shedd and Turretin.

Seriously, this is a supremely dense run of prose and it’s almost impossible to know where to begin.  But let’s try anyway.

God is no respecter of persons or countries or tribes.  That’s over.  He is the creator of the universe and calls all men to account and all governments to His holy law.  It is equally wicked for America, Russia, China, South Africa or any other country to enact gun control schemes.  Indeed, all gun control is wicked.

The Bible does contain a few direct references to weapons control. There were many times throughout Israel’s history that it rebelled against God (in fact, it happened all the time). To mock His people back into submission to His Law, the Lord would often use wicked neighbors to punish Israel’s rebellion. Most notable were the Philistines and the Babylonians. 1 Samuel 13:19-22 relates the story: “Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, “Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears!” So all Israel went down to the Philistines to have their plowshares, mattocks, axes, and sickles sharpened…So on the day of battle not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in this hand; only Saul and his son Jonathan had them.” Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon also removed all of the craftsmen from Israel during the Babylonian captivity (2 Kings 24:14). Both of these administrations were considered exceedingly wicked including their acts of weapons control.

Defense of home and hearth is not just a duly recognized right in the Holy Scriptures, it is a solemn duty, something the Almighty expects of men because men are made in His image.  The second amendment is not given from God.  God didn’t write the constitution, the constitution is a covenant between men.  It has blessings and curses for obedience and breakage, respectively, just like any covenant.  It is the agreement under which we have concurred to live together, and that agreement includes the right and duty not only of self defense and defense of family, but the amelioration of tyranny.  It was understood that way by the founders.

Jesus, who wasn’t the Bohemian hippie flower child pacifist he’s made out to be in contemporary culture, demanded that His followers find weapons themselves.  It’s important to remember that this command involved disobedience to the state.  Jesus’ command involved civil (and if necessary, violent) disobedience, thus forcing his followers to become criminals if they followed His command.

… for some evidence, see Digest 48.6.1: collecting weapons ‘beyond those customary for hunting or for a journey by land or sea’ is forbidden; 48.6.3.1 forbids a man ‘of full age’ appearing in public with a weapon (telum) (references and translation are from Mommsen 1985). See also Mommsen 1899: 564 n. 2; 657-58 n. 1; and Linderski 2007: 102-103 (though he cites only Mommsen). Other laws from the same context of the Digest sometimes cited in this regard are not as worthwhile for my purposes because they seem to be forbidding the possession of weapons with criminal intent. But for the outright forbidding of being armed while in public in Rome, see Cicero’s letter to his brother relating an incident in Rome in which a man, who is apparently falsely accused of plotting an assassination, is nonetheless arrested merely for having confessed to having been armed with a dagger while in the city: To Atticus, Letter 44 (II.24). See also Cicero, Philippics 5.6 (§17). Finally we may cite a letter that Synesius of Cyrene wrote to his brother, probably sometime around the year 400 ce. The brother had apparently questioned the legality of Synesius having his household produce weapons to defend themselves against marauding bands. Synesius points out that there are no Roman legions anywhere near for protection, but he seems reluctantly to admit that he is engaged in an illegal act (Letter 107; for English trans., see Fitzgerald 1926).

“Christian Nationalism,” whatever that does or doesn’t mean, has no more to do with this than my dog.  Moreover, if I were a betting man, I wager that God is quite unhappy with America at the moment.

Any nation whose leaders usurp the power and throne of the Almighty by rendering the family and church powerless, which murders more than 70 million babies, which robs from men and women by the power of a badge and gun to redistribute wealth (wealth that God ordains will be redistributed by families and churches), that exists solely based on usury and debt, and which seeks omniscience through spying on its own people, cannot and will not be long blessed by God.

The researchers are counseled to learn theology so that we can keep the length of this essay to a minimum rather than attempt to repair the fault lines in their theoretical framework.

No one I know, and likely no one you know, believes that God handed down the second amendment or anything else contained in the constitution.  This dumbing down of thoroughgoing and full-orbed world and life views into jingoistic nonsense and word salads is insulting and worthless.

There are reasons that Christians believe in the ownership of weapons, and they have nothing whatsoever to do with belief in Christian nationalism.  God may decide to demolish this country on a bed of rocks with a mere breath, and if He does, we’ll have to start over.  Either way, His holy law stands forever as immutable truth because it is based on his immutable character, and the degree to which He blesses any such new country will be a direct linear function of obedience to His holy law.

To the “researchers.”  Go back to school and learn something.

NBC News:

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the group behind federal background checks for firearms purchasers, is launching a new ad campaign that is an effort to find common ground in a country divided on the issue of gun control.

The campaign launching Wednesday, finds its way to television via public service announcements facilitated by the Ad Council, and aims to make the term “family fire” a household word as it describes accidental shootings of children and other family members in homes across the nation.

“Rather than mudslinging and name calling, we’re focusing on how can we act to keep our kids alive,” said Kyleanne Hunter, a Brady Center vice president. “And that might open the door to more discussion about how to end gun violence.”

I know what you’re doing.  You want to team up with me to enact all new regulations that allow the state to subsume the proper God-ordained role of the family and church, just like all other efforts at control over other men and women.

Well, let me offer a quick response.

Blow it ou’cher ass.

I’m glad we had a chance to have this conversation.  Call me any time.

The Trace:

In the NRA’s depiction, Lockton failed the gun group, which trusted the broker not to run afoul of local laws when devising and marketing insurance. Lockton breached its contract, the NRA alleges, when it caved to New York’s bullying and ended a longstanding “mutually beneficial” relationship. In its own filings, the insurance firm puts its decision to sever ties in a different light. Lockton argues that the NRA brought the troubles on itself, by amping up its rhetoric to the point of radioactivity.

“The NRA’s own overtly political and inflammatory approach” to marketing, “as well as its provocative public stances, have resulted in a shift in the enforcement priorities of insurance regulators and heightened scrutiny,” Lockton said in a counterclaim filed in June …

I seldom defend the NRA, which I believe to be the largest, most well-funded gun control organization on earth.  But this is fascinating in that even an insurance company is now jumping on the anti-2A bandwagon, the very insurance company the NRA commissioned to supply its “Carry Guard.”

Specifically, the fascinating thing to me is that the folks in corporate America are just like the folks in Hollywood, Washington, D.C. and the other power centers.

They haven’t the slightest clue about the great unwashed masses in flyover country.  They believe the NRA’s rhetoric is inflammatory.  We believe that the NRA doesn’t represent our interests because they aren’t true supporters of the 2A.

The power brokers don’t even recognize the size of the gulf between us.  I’m willing to bet that they don’t even know anyone who owns a firearm or voted libertarian or conservative.

It’s remarkable to me how large the gulf is, how polarized the country is, and how this polarization is deepening and growing.  Frankly I don’t see how this ends except in civil war.

Politico:

A woman whose son was killed on Mexican soil by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona can sue for damages, a federal court ruled Tuesday.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz is not entitled to qualified immunity, saying that the Fourth Amendment — which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures — applies in this case.

“Based on the facts alleged in the complaint, Swartz violated the Fourth Amendment. It is inconceivable that any reasonable officer could have thought that he or she could kill J.A. for no reason,” Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld wrote in the majority opinion. “Thus, Swartz lacks qualified immunity.”

Swartz, who was found not guilty in April of second-degree murder for the 2012 shooting, has said he shot at people throwing rocks through the border fence in Nogales, Arizona. A retrial in the case will take place in October.

Okay then.  Since non-citizens get these rights under a constitution to which they are not subject, then the next step is for the Ninth Circuit to issue a cease-and-desist order for all SWAT raids where people get shot by cops in their own homes on American soil.

Right?

At Shooting Illustrated:

The AR-15 design limits the length of the cartridge, so the only way to increase the power level is by going bigger diameter. That’s good, as heavy bullets at moderate velocity are well proven in the hunting fields.

In other words as I take it, the cartridge must be short-action.  So Shooting Illustrated covers three cartridges: The .50 Beowulf, the .450 Bushmaster and the .458 SOCOM.

I see no need for this kind of cartridge unless there is a real need.  Another way of saying it is that this is no good for target shooting, plinking, fun, or mere range time.  If you need it, you need it for personal defense against very large predatory animals, and then you really need it.

We covered one such gun, the .450 Bushmaster Windham Weaponry AR pistol.  I also know that there are bolt action long guns that shoot this round.  Savage sells one.  I guess if I had to purchase a large bore AR or AR pistol I’d choose the .450 Bushmaster and make sure there was another gun in that caliber in my gun safe.

The Oregonian:

The state police SWAT officer who investigators say fired five times at refuge occupation spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum said Monday he second-guessed himself when he learned of an unaccounted-for bullet hole in the roof of Finicum’s truck.

In the days after the Jan. 26, 2016, shooting in Harney County, the officer wracked his brain trying to figure out how it could have occurred, considering that none of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team agents at the scene said they had fired any shots.

“I never thought I did it, but there were times I was thinking, ‘I don’t know. This doesn’t make any sense,”’ he said. “If that was going to be attributed to me and I had no recollection of it … could I continue in this profession?”

When he learned investigators had tracked all his shots and the magazine of his AR-15 rifle was missing five bullets, he said he told them: “The FBI has a big effing problem, and this is serious.”

The testimony from “Officer 1” – the only identification of the SWAT officer used in court because of government concerns over militia threats – is crucial to the prosecution’s case in the trial of an FBI agent at the scene that day.

Agent W. Joseph Astarita is accused of lying about having fired two disputed shots at Finicum’s truck as state police and the FBI moved to arrest leaders of armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. One struck the roof and one missed entirely.

Astarita’s lawyers have argued that other people at the scene, and most likely Officer 1, could have fired the shots.

Officer 1 said he knew he hadn’t fired the shots in question because investigators found only 24 rounds remaining in the magazine of his AR-15 rifle, which he said he loaded with 29 rounds.

He had fired three times as Finicum’s truck was speeding toward a roadblock set up on U.S. 395 as the refuge leaders left the bird sanctuary. They each struck the front of the truck. He then fired two times and struck Finicum’s back after Finicum had walked away from his truck and reached into his jacket, according to investigators.

Officer 1, now a captain who has worked for the state police for 20 years, was the lieutenant and commander of the agency’s SWAT team at the time of Finicum’s shooting.

Officer 2, the second state police officer who shot Finicum that day, also testified – the first time either of them have publicly spoken about their roles in what happened. He fired once, his bullet also hitting Finicum in the back. He’s now a sergeant with the tactical team, having worked 21 years with the agency.

Their superiors worried from the outset that they would face threats, so much so that the night of the shooting they directed investigators to take photos of each officer with a paper bag concealing their faces when documenting their clothing and equipment.

Prosecutors sought to portray the state police officers who fired their rifles that day as having acted according to state police policy while the FBI agents skirted standard protocol.

The two state police officers said they immediately alerted supervisors that they had fired and surrendered their rifles and ammunition.

In contrast, prosecutors showed that FBI agents were seen on aerial video scouring the scene for items and ducking under trucks after the shooting. The FBI agents also failed to ensure a shell casing spotted on the ground was marked as evidence and then in a highly unusual move, demanded they be interviewed as a group by detectives, prosecutors said.

Defense lawyers have painted a much different portrait of state police, suggesting Officer 1, who was supposed to be in a command role that day, instead ran aggressively to confront Finicum in a risky maneuver without any cover causing a potential cross-fire situation with another state trooper.

They pointed out that state police didn’t immediately create a crime scene log to control who entered or exited the area and allowed other police vehicles to pass through.

They suggested state police officers heightened the tension from the beginning by firing a less- lethal sponge bullet at Ryan Payne, the front seat passenger in Finicum’s truck, who was about to surrender when authorities first stopped the two-car caravan of refuge leaders earlier on the highway.

They also revealed that Officer 1 exchanged text messages about the shooting, witness officers’ statements and evidence with state SWAT officer Joey Pollard, who witnessed the shooting, and their boss, Travis Hampton, now state police superintendent. The exchanges came before his interview, held five days after the shooting.

[ … ]

Prosecutor Gary Sussman followed up, asking if that was because Pollard’s focus was elsewhere. Pollard said he was looking at Finicum’s hands when Finicum stepped out of the truck and heard a “loud bang.”

After the shooting, Pollard drove Officer 1 from Burns to the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office in Bend. Deschutes County was tasked with leading the investigation of the shooting. After Officer 1 and Officer 2 turned in their gear and were photographed, Pollard drove each officer home.

In the days that followed, testimony Monday revealed Pollard exchanged multiple text messages with Officer 1 and instructed Officer 1 on Feb. 1 about the bullet hole that forensic investigators found in the roof of Finicum’s truck.

Good Lord.  What a circle jerk.

Remember folks, this didn’t arise out of thin air.  The whole thing began as a protest against the FedGov over trumped-up charges against ranchers whose land the BLM wanted because it had been promised to Uranium One in exchange for donations to The Clinton Foundation, all approved and catalyzed by The State Department.

Never forget that.  These officers are under cross examination right now because they did the bidding of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their band of demons.