Len Savage received this document as part of his FOIA request.  He asks, “I wonder how many other members of Congress received similar letters?”

This congressman stood by mute while the ATF did an end run around the constitution concerning how laws are made.  Because overlords.  Because administrative state.

And note, Trump is as willing to use this administrative state to accomplish his ends as the democrats.

In order to prevent you from having to download a PDF, I’m showing this to you in JPEGs.

News from Texas.

KILLEEN, Texas (KWTX) A new trial date has been set for a local man accused of killing a Killeen police officer in 2014.

Judge John Gauntt’s office confirms Marvin Guy’s trial has been set for March 23, 2020. This is the third time a trial date has been set.

Jury selection is set to begin with a group session on Jan. 14 and a second session on Jan. 16. An individual voir dire will take place on Feb. 3.

Guy, 52, is charged with capital murder and three counts of attempted capital murder in connection with the May 9, 2014 shooting death of Detective Charles “Chuck” Dinwiddie.

Dinwiddie and other SWAT officers were attempting to serve a “no-knock” search warrant when Guy allegedly shot Dinwiddie.

Earlier this year, Guy told a local pastor he didn’t know who was entering his home and he fired in self-defense.

He also called on police to end no-knock raids.

“Any citizen should be concerned about these no-knock raids, even the people in Killeen should come together and say these raids do not work, they don’t have a good outcome,” he said.

No drugs were found in the home.

Guy has remained in custody in the Bell County Jail.

He’s in custody because the .gov feels it has the right to deprive him of his liberties before a trial, and in this case, the charge of capital murder is an abomination.

I’ve done some searching and cannot locate much more on this, but if this is the sum total of the case against Mr. Guy, the government of Bell County, Texas, is filled with demons, gargoyles and pit vipers, including the police, who should never have conducted the raid to begin with.

Let’s cover the raid itself before going any further.  I and my readers don’t believe in the so-called “war on drugs.”  These raids, judge’s signature or not, are a violation of second and fourth amendments to the constitution.  A judge cannot sign away a right, which in this case is merely recognized by the constitution, but granted by God.  These raids are also a violation of property rights as outlined in various state statutes and codes.

If certain illicit substances are illegal, whether law enforcement loses that evidence to prove their point in court, there are better, less dangerous ways of obtaining that evidence.  Wait until no one is in the home.  Wait to effect the arrest until the suspect is in the driveway preparing to go to work.  Send your best detectives to work the problem, but busting into a man’s castle is out of the question.

And so if that’s true, he was right to shoot the police.  He says he didn’t know they were police, and unless there is undeniable evidence to the contrary, we have no indication that he’s being untruthful.  Furthermore, even if they had announced themselves as police, no one can believe them.  We have documented instances where criminals have impersonated police officers and busted into homes.  The only solution to this problem is when someone announces that they are the police, disarm yourself, lay on the floor and beg for mercy.

One may as well never have a weapon for defense of family, home and hearth to begin with under these stipulations, and thus SWAT raids violate a man’s God-given right to self defense, recognized in the second amendment.

The ledgers are full of innocent men and women killed in their own homes by police, even being shot through the door of their home, and the most dangerous time for any man in America is when the police are around.  These are circumstances no reasonable man will abide.

And yet, a presumably innocent man, whose home contained no illicit substance, and who cannot be proven to have known who was at the door or for what reason, is on trial for capital murder.  Here is a note to police officers everywhere.  You are increasingly being seen as the enemy.  It’s your own fault.  You will suffer the consequences of being seen as the enemy, and you voluntarily brought it on yourself.  You don’t have to obey unlawful commands.  You have chosen to do that all by yourselves.

Like all good cowards, the DA has no published email address.  The county attorney can be reached here.  The Killeen police department can be reached here.

The fellow in the video above hasn’t issued fighting words.  He’s relaying them because he’s heard them.

And there are a lot of other instances this last week.  The Sheriff of Culpeper County has promised to deputize thousands in the defense of their second amendment rights.  Another country is forming a militia after having declared themselves a sanctuary county.

This subsection makes it the responsibility of counties to maintain a militia, not a National Guard or other standing army.

This is because the purpose of the militia is not just to protect the county from domestic danger, but also protect the county from any sort of tyrannical actions from the Federal government. Our constitution is designed to allow them to use an armed militia as needed. If the (Federal) government takes those arms away, it prevents the county from fulfilling their constitutional duties. But, this is not limited to just our county, but also as part of a network of sister counties showing solidarity for both Virginia’s, and the American Constitution.

The Virginia AG isn’t taking no for an answer.

“The resolutions that are being passed are being ginned up by the gun lobby to try to scare people. What we’re talking about here are laws that will make our communities and our streets safer. We’re talking about universal background checks, finally, maybe, Virginia will pass universal background checks to make sure that people who are dangerous, who are criminals and who aren’t permitted to buy guns, won’t be able to buy guns,” said Herring. “So, when Virginia passes these gun safety laws that they will be followed, they will be enforced.”

The NRA and the rest of the “gun lobby,” whatever that is, is so incompetent and compromised that it couldn’t manage an organizational effort like this if the lives of the entire board of directors depended on it.

He’s either stupid or he’s a liar and knows better.  Either way, he’s intent on sending men into harm’s way to enforce laws written out of Northern Virginia.

But these are just the preliminaries.  Sheriffs have to be willing to put state agents in jail for trying to enforce these new laws.  Militiamen have to be willing to raise rifles.  Citizens have to be willing to set up road blocks.  Things are testy now.  They may get really difficult in the near future.  Judges will have to be ignored, homes will have to be secured, and neighborhoods will have to be willing to do more than set up watch programs.

All eyes are on Virginia.

From a reader, news from California.

A woman in California made a brave attempt to fight off a mountain lion and save her dog from an attack by punching and elbowing it before trying to pry open its jaws with her hands.

The woman was eventually unsuccessful and the dog died in the attack, according to multiple reports from local news agencies. 

Officers arriving at the scene saw the lion eating the dog in the woman’s backyard, before it ran away again into the hills, according to the Ventura County Star.

[ … ]

Simi Valley police said that a second dog on a walk in the area was also attacked, according to local TV station NBCLA. 

Officers believe the attack was made by the same mountain lion.

Earlier this year in February a man in Colorado who was jogging when he was attacked by a mountain lion put up a similarly brave fight. 

These are bad animals.  So are bears.  So are Coyotes (or Coywolves), who have learned to travel in packs and related methods of predation because of wolf and dog DNA.

Trying to fist fight a mountain lion is brave.  I’d rather have a large bore handgun.

Shooting Illustrated.

Often recognized as being a success story of small-arms design and development, the .45 ACP M3 submachine gun was born of the exigent circumstances of industrial mass production during the Second World War. It had the enormous virtue of low manufacturing costs that made it cheaper to produce than all other American submachine guns.

At peak production, M3s were a bargain at $20.94 each—less than half the cost of the mass-production version of the Thompson submachine gun (which was itself cheaper than the pre-war model). Although low cost was a major factor in the M3’s success, so too was the speed of its development and adoption.

The project went from a concept on paper, to the T20 prototype, to adoption and production within just seven months—a record that no other firearm in U.S. military history has ever rivaled. When it went into production in May 1943 at GM’s Guide Lamp Division plant in Anderson, IN, the M3 was a reliable open-bolt submachine gun weighing slightly more than 8 pounds with a fully loaded, 30-round, detachable-box magazine.

Its design made extensive use of sheet-metal stampings to include the two halves of the receiver assembly, the trigger, the rear sight, and a crank handle on the right side of the gun used to retract the bolt before firing. Not only did the M3’s sheet-metal construction make it lighter and cheaper, it also gave the gun an appearance resembling one of the most-ubiquitous tools of the auto-repair shop: the mechanic’s grease gun.

On Tuesday, June 6, 1944, U.S. troops used the M3 Grease Gun in action for the first time. During the weeks that followed, it fought a vigorous campaign stretching from Normandy through to the liberation of Paris and the push to the Siegfried Line. Soldiers carried it up hills and down valleys through the adversity of dust, rain and, eventually, even snow. M3s fought the Battle of the Bulge, crossed the Rhine River by boat, parachute and glider, and they eventually even blew the locks off of the front gate of OFLAG XIII-B.

Concentration camps were liberated by men carrying them, and islands in the Pacific were captured by men fighting with them. Although Gen. Patton described the John Garand’s M1 as “the greatest battle implement ever devised,” perhaps the same can be said about George Hyde’s M3. When you consider how quickly this paragon o of rugged dependability went from drawings on paper to the gates of the prisoner of war camp at Hammelburg, it certainly seems like Patton’s endorsement fits the M3 just as nicely as it does the M1.

I wish someone would sell me an M3 for $21.  America was a better place then, yes?

This reminds me of something Tim Lynch told me one time.  Tim blogged when he was a contractor in Afghanistan, and he said when he went into villages carrying the M3, no one messed with him, including the Taliban.  One villager told him, “We’re all scared of that thing.”  Tim replied, “Yes, I understand.  I would be too.”

David Gee writing at Patheos.

A total of 26 people were killed in the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting, but the man who ultimately shot the killer – a conservative being hailed as the ultimate “good guy with a gun” – says God sent him to “stop” the attack.

When a man started firing an AR-15 into First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, he killed a total of 26 people and hurt 20 others who were worshiping there. When he left the building of his own choice, he ran into Stephen Willeford, a gun advocate who brought his own AR-15.

They exchanged fire, and the original shooter fled, but when police found him, he had died from the gunshot wounds.

That makes Willeford “the epitome of the definition of a ‘good guy with a gun,’” a phrase used to describe a gun carrier who is able to stop in progress crimes because they are armed, according to Ammoland, which interviewed the man.

Stephen Willeford, an NRA instructor and firearms enthusiast, knew he must do something to stop the killer’s deadly rampage. He couldn’t sit around and let a maniac attack his community. He grabbed his AR-15 and set out to end the murderer’s violent spree.

When Ammoland asked Willeford how he knew about the shooting and why he engaged, he said it was a combination of God and his daughter.

“My oldest daughter heard the shots and made me aware of it,” he told Ammoland. “I truly believe God had called me to go there and stop it.”

Despite the fact that 26 people did die in the attack, Willeford continued to play the same divine intervention card.

“I wasn’t scared at all. I was terrified. But the Holy Spirit was with me, telling me not to concern myself with the bullets coming my way, but to do what he sent me to do,” he said.

Interestingly enough, he also said turning to God is the answer to stopping shootings from happening, despite the fact that this one occurred in a church.

“It is easy to blame the gun for the shooting because it takes away the responsibility of each individual for their actions. It is actually a matter of the heart, good vs. evil,” he said. “That is a lot harder to fix. This country needs to go back to what God values, life. From conception to death. Until we can instill that in our society, these incidents will continue. Life matters — all lives.”

“All lives” matter, said the man who recently took a life.

Willeford is put forth as the best example of a good guy with a gun, but the fact is that he wasn’t able to stop dozens of people from dying.

Aside from the snark about a man believing that all lives matter after taking a life (a sophomoric objection we could fisk later), his main objection seems to be just this: God brought him to the church that day to stop the shooting, but “he wasn’t able to stop dozens of people from dying.”

Poor David.  He’s in way, way over his head and is completely unqualified to address this topic.

David needs to take some coursework in theology and philosophy.  He is attempting to broach the subject of “theodicy.”  How could a good God allow bad things to happen, as the philosophers object?  Or as Alvin Plantinga puts it, theodicy is “answer to the question of why God permits evil.”

Since I am a Calvinist, I won’t proffer a free will response.  I believe, as the Westminster Confession of Faith states, that God ordains “whatsoever comes to pass.”  Rather, I turn the tables on the atheist and point out that without the Scriptures (which presuppose the existence of God, and yet evidence and affirm it as well), he has no definition of evil to begin with.

If you study the debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston, while I might object that Copleston was too gracious and lenient with Russell throughout the debate, even the highly knowledgeable Russell wasn’t able to develop a coherent, consistent system of ethics based on atheism.  You can see the same struggle in the debate between Greg Bahnsen and Gordon Stein.  Stein was reduced to a blubbering idiot when pressed on this issue by Bahnsen.   Stein failed, as do all atheists.

In order for David Gee’s objection to be an effective defeater, it has to demonstrate inconsistency in my own system (David doesn’t believe in my system, but I do, so David must convince me that my views are incoherent).  David hasn’t even come close.

For a brief answer to the question of evil, one needs to go no further than reading Romans Chapter 9.  My views are entirely coherent when I say that there is a preceptive and decretive will of God, the first being His precepts or laws (what He wants us to do), the second being his decretive will (what He ordains will come to pass).  The two are not the same thing, and He uses secondary causes to bring about His decretive will (see 2 Kings 22:20-23).

God is sovereign.  See for example Isaiah 46:9-10, and Ephesians 1:11.  I have no logical problem with His having decreed the events of that day, from start to finish, including the fact that Mr. Willeford got there to stop the attack, and got there when he did, not a second sooner nor a second later.  And David Gee cannot demonstrate that there is a logical problem with any of this.

I’m glad that Mr. Willeford was armed.  It would have been better if others were armed as well and been prepared to defend their families as God has ordered.  Perhaps this event serves as a reminder to heads of households that they have a duty to God and their family, and perhaps that’s one of the good things that comes from this event.

Now to one final related point.  I ran across this commentary under a Google news search.  Note again – a Google news search.  I’m not joking.

TCJ, this very web site, provides useful and insightful commentary, with robust and educated reader responses on virtually a daily basis, and isn’t on Google news.  How does Google news decide to give juvenile, random mental meanderings like David Gee’s piece visits by categorizing them as news?

Nevermind.  I think I answered my own question.  Google news.

If you’ve read this far David, I do have one more question for you.  I think you really do believe in “good guys with guns,” don’t you?  You believe in cops, don’t you?  That means you want the state to have a monopoly on violence, which means you aren’t really an atheist.  Your god is the state.  You worship a totem pole.

David Codrea.

Wexton says she “wants banks and credit card companies to flag purchases that could signal a person is preparing to carry out a mass shooting.” You know, kind of like the Department of Pre-Crime, but this one will rely on the type of economic fascism the power zealots refer to by the euphemism “public/private partnership.” Those “partners” like Citigroup and Bank of America, who are banking on disarmament, will be glad to help.

[ … ]

The good news is this is much ado about nothing—for now. GovTrack and its Skopos Lab prognosis give Wexton’s bill a “1% chance of being enacted.”

Oh, I’d say give it a year for the controllers to wrap up complete control over the system and then get back with me.