Trump, four years too late.

This.  Literally.  Christmas Eve, 27 days before inauguration.

He would have had to start in 2016 loading up the FedGov with other than beltway deep state creatures and investigating their intentions in order to stop what they intended to do in 2020.

The software is erased.  It’s over.  He was unprepared.  He trusted the deep state vipers with whom he surrounded himself.

Too bad.

Instapundit.

Every single member of the U.S. Senate deserves to be fired, vilified and run out on the proverbial rail except—alphabetically—Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.).

They were the only ones with the honor, the basic morality, not to vote for a wretched, pork-dripping from its mouth, “America-hating” (as Roger Kimball accurately called it on Parler), miserable excuse for a “COVID relief bill” that sends twenty-five million taxpayer dollars to Pakistan for something called “gender programs,” millions more for every liberal arts and humanities boondoggle imaginable (most of them shut anyway), but a miserly six hundred bucks to the terminally-masked citizens of this country who have been locked in their houses since the Paleolithic Age.

And while we’re riding people out on a rail, we should build a special one of titanium or whatever metal is most permanent for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and send them back respectively to the feces and syringe-laden streets of San Francisco and the rat-infested walk-ups of Hunt’s Point and East New York.

If only it was that simple.

I like his list of exceptions (I voted for Cruz in the primary as readers know), but to make an important point, I thing it’s a better idea to employ rope, oak trees and lynchings.

The ATF has withdrawn its pistol brace guidance.  This may have come from Trump.  We have no way of knowing.

This may have come from the fact that bloggers like me have covered this in such detail and with such derision (although it’s doubtful).  It may be from more public articles like ones written by David Codrea.  This may have been due to multiple congressmen weighing in with derision.

This may have been due to videos like Mr Guns ‘n Gear weighing in with such derision (here is his take on the withdrawal).  It may have been due to the utter derision with which reddit/firearms treated the ATF and its rule making.

I’ve seen and been involved with rule making before, and I confess that I’ve never seen such comments made to the FedGov before on a proposed rule.  The ATF should have been rightly concerned.  I predict noncompliance would have been 100%, and I frankly wouldn’t have wanted to be an ATF agent under such rules (but then I wouldn’t want to be an ATF agent anyway because I have moral scruples).

We may never know why the ATF chose to do this, and why they chose to do it now.  But I do disagree with Mr Gun ‘n Gear, who claims that “we’ve won (for now).”  No, we haven’t won.  For those relying on the pen being mightier than the sword, that will not always obtain, and it may not have this time.

One thing we can be sure of, though, is that this is not over.  Ryan Cleckner has outlined a number of gun control initiatives likely to occur in a Biden administration, and he’s right that they would love all of them.  Whether they will get them all is another story.  Another story still is whether, even if they get any of those initiatives, the public will care enough to oblige the FedGov with compliance.

But they will try for all these initiatives, and they will try this pistol brace ruling again at another time.  When they do, the boys from reddit/firearms will send them the same brutal comments they did before, and probably worse.  They were virtually daring the ATF to try something like that.

This was just a skirmish – the real battles are yet to come.

UPDATE: “TTAG has learned that the final straw that persuaded the ATF to back down and withdraw the guidance was serious pressure applied by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. A call took place over the weekend involving a number of firearms industry companies and McConnell’s office.

McConnell’s subsequent involvement in the matter, along with fast and furious (to coin a phrase) activism from the gun rights community in opposition to the ATF’s proposed move were what resulted in this evening’s win.

More details may be revealed over time, but this is an unqualified victory.”

That’s interesting detail, but no, it’s not an “unqualified victory.”  This is a strategic decision by the ATF.  This will come around again.

Here is an interesting video I stumbled across.  Yea, he’s not Jerry Miculek, but that makes it more useful.  He shoots more like I would (I’m pretty good with a pistol and a revolver, but I’m not Jerry either).

So here’s one takeaway.  Yea, there are fewer possible shots with a wheel gun unless you’re Jerry and can reload as quickly as he does.  But there are disadvantages with the auto-loading pistol as well.

FTF, FTE, stovepipe failures, light primer strike or dud ammunition requiring you to cycle the slide and hope that there are no terminal failures of the machine.  I’m sure this is just a partial list.

Furthermore, he demonstrates auto-loading pistols going out of battery, and the shirt getting caught up in between the slide and frame was something I didn’t see coming.  And duress, there’s something very nice about the simplicity of a double action revolver.

I sometimes carry an auto-loading pistol.  When I do, it’s most usually a Commander size 1911, although not necessarily so.  I sometimes carry a small revolver.  When I choose to do that, it’s most likely in a truly non-permissive carry situation, i.e., I absolutely cannot print, so I’ll carry a small revolver in an ankle holster.

I shoot 1911s well because of the narrow single stack design, but I shoot subcompacts very poorly, probably because of the severe RA in my right hand and the gnarled up joints in my fingers.  I do much better with small revolvers than I do any subcompact.  The only time I can shoot a double stack well is for medium frame pistols, so I might choose to carry one of those.

What I do depends upon a lot of considerations, and the notion that more rounds is always better misses the real complexity of this issue for a carrier.

I have two general comments on this video.  First, I think Ammoland needs to work on its videographic skills.  The person doing the video is halting, seemingly unprepared for the video, and doesn’t do a full blown review of all of the features, modes, strengths and weaknesses.

Second, I think it’s important to highlight new products like this one because (in my opinion) Surefire is the 900 pound gorilla in the room and charges way too much for its products.  I think they need some good competition, and this light seems like it.  I want one.

And by the way, Amazon has it for sale at a decent price point.

Occasionally he gets things right.

President Trump called the coronavirus stimulus bill passed by Congress a “disgrace,” saying that the checks to individuals are not big enough.

Trump also criticized the funds going to places such as Myanmar, Egypt, and Pakistan and funds for the Kennedy Center and national museums.

“Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists, and special interests while spending the bare minimum on the American people who need it,” Trump said. “It wasn’t their fault.”

Trump said he wants Congress to increase the stimulus checks to $2,000.

The more you hear about the monstrosity of the bill, the worse it seems.  It’s just awful, and pork for carbon reductions, buried largesse for other countries, and on and on.  Of course, it would have been much better for the communists not to have gutted the U.S. economy (but that was its intent).

Now for the awful judgment.  The Gateway Pundit is reporting that, based on their own research from only public domain information, FBI director Chris Wray is associated with the companies involved in Uranium One.

Don’t forget.  Uranium is essential not only for the national defense, but also for fueling nuclear reactors, the cleanest, cheapest source of energy on earth.

And yet, after discharging Comey (with a brief stint by the awful Andy McCabe), Chris Wray has been in charge of the FBI since, and will be in charge until the end of Trump’s presidency.

If the CIA wouldn’t give Trump good information on his nominees to high offices, he could have hired an independent investigative firm and done much better.

What awful, terrible judgment.

Via David Codrea, Zero Hedge (excerpts).

Beyond the raucous altercations on whether the presidential election was fraudulent, these are the key factual points.

1. A series of rules in mostly swing states were changed, through courts, bypassing state legislatures, without transparence, before the election, paving the way to facilitate fraud schemes.
2. Biden was de facto coronated by AP, Google and Twitter even before the final, official result, and weeks before the electoral college vote this past Monday.
3. Every serious, professional audit to determine whether all received and tabulated votes were valid was de facto squashed.

In any Global South latitude where the empire did “interfere” in local elections, color revolution-style, this set of facts would be regarded by scores of imperial officials, in a relentless propaganda blitz, as evidence of a coup.

On the recent Supreme Court ruling, a Deep State intel source told me, “the Supreme Court did not like to see half the country rioting against them, and preferred the decision be made by each state in the House of Representatives. That is the only way to handle this without jeopardizing the union. Even prominent Democrats I know realize that the fix took place. The error was to steal too many votes. This grand theft indicts the whole system, that has always been corrupt.”

[ … ]

A perverse form of blowback is already in effect as informed global citizens may now see, crystal clear, the astonishing depth and reach of Deep State power – the ultimate decider of what happens next in Dystopia Central.

Both options are dire.

1. The election stands, even if considered fraudulent by nearly half of U.S. public opinion. To quote that peerless existentialist, The Dude, there’s no rug tying the room together anymore.
2. Was the election to be somehow overturned before January 20, the Deep State would go Shock and Awe to finish the job.

In either case, The Deplorables will become The Ungovernables.

A serious, professional audit would have been too late the day after the election.  The deed was done, the software erased.

If the supreme court didn’t want to see half the country rioting against them, they’re going to be aghast at what civil war looks like.

As to their childish notion that the House would fix the problem, they surely are thinking about some other parallel universe where they have a spine and even a modicum of morality left.  This isn’t this universe.

And yes, the situation is bleak.  When Biden takes office, more than half the country will know that he is a fraud, an illegitimate man, and that the woman who would be president couldn’t even win her own primary.

And wait until the first gun control law comes down, or when they try to nationalize retirement by confiscating corporate plans and 401Ks.

Even the biggest squish and establishment GOP’er I know said to me, “If they did that, even I would go buy a gun.”

Well, it’s too late for that, but you get the picture.  And one final note to the deep staters and supreme court.  If you were afraid of Antifa/BLM riots, just wait until the rest of America finally decides it’s time to let loose the dogs of war on them.