Articles by Herschel Smith

Thomas Massie writing at Red State on Red Flag Laws and Unintended Consequences.

But red flag laws remove all these due process protections. Based only on a written complaint, which could come from a relative, friend, neighbor, or police officer, a judge decides whether to take away a person’s guns. There is no ability to challenge claims or to offer testimony from a mental health care expert. Gun control advocates argue that the person should not even know that the judge may be deciding to take his or her guns. When a hearing finally takes place up to a month later, if the person in question cannot afford an attorney, they will not be provided with one.

When faced with the costs for a hearing, which may be up to $10,000, few people find that fighting red flag laws to keep their guns makes sense. Few defendants obtain legal representation, but the courts still overturn a third of the initial orders. The actual error rate is undoubtedly much higher, because many of those wrongly prosecuted don’t have a lawyer.

Oh, I don’t think these are “unintended consequences” at all.  I think it’s all by design.

I’ll let you watch the video to see what Tim says, and I agree with them all.

But I’ll also tell you very quickly what I think.

Tim Kennedy’s remarks were stupid.  These remarks were stupid.  Dakota Meyer’s remarks were stupid.  And by the way, when I pass by a fat guy in the gym, I don’t think a single bad thought about him.  I give him an approving nod, and under my breath I’ll say, “You keep it up, you’ll get there if you persist.”  If he looks like he wants to talk, I’ll say something encouraging.  For all the overweight men in the gym, I take the position that “At least you’re there and trying.”

No one is experienced with warfare until warfare happens, and besides, a man may have body armor because his plan to defend his home includes sending his wife into a closet wearing body armor with the children and a shotgun, while he goes to confront the intruder.

So for all you detractors, shut up about LARP’ing.  It’s none of your business.

I’ve seen a lot on the 6mm ARC lately, all of it good.

All my buddies have to get fed too.

In the post, which has so far had 57.7k likes and generated almost 1700 comments, “Bennett the Hound” can be seen carrying his stuffed animal toys to his feeding and drinking bowls, and a caption that says: “Anybody else’s dog make sure their toys are fed and watered or is it just mine…?”

Who’s the good boy?

Hey, can I get a hand here?

Guard Donkey.  And guard donkeys were sent to protect a Northern Colorado herd from wolves.  I predict the wolves won’t be a problem as long as the donkeys are around.

Sometimes animals are violent.

Yellowstone National Park tourists witnessed a heart-breaking scene Sunday involving a subadult male grizzly bear that was savagely attacked by an adult male bear that was courting his mother.

Moments beforehand, the mother bear also attacked the subadult, perhaps in an attempt to scare him away from the boar.

During the subsequent attack by the male grizzly, estimated to weigh more than 500 pounds, the 148-pound, 3-year-old subadult sustained severe injuries and was later euthanized by park staff.

The incident has been discussed widely via social media. Park aficionados have expressed sorrow and struggled to grasp why this occurred. Some blamed tourists for crowding the roadside bears, perhaps altering their behavior.

Anger also stemmed from an incident the previous week, during which tourists illegally tossed food to the subadult bear.

But the presence of tourists does not appear to have been a factor in causing the attack. Adult male grizzly bears hoping to mate with female bears will attack and sometimes kill nearby cubs or young bears, even in the deepest wilderness.

“The subadult is confirmed to be a male, which is not going to be tolerated by another male in the territory,” Trent Sizemore, a veteran wildlife photographer from West Yellowstone, Montana, told FTW Outdoors. “No humans pushed any of these bears to cause this specific incident.”

What sort of dummy has to be told this?  What sort of dummy thinks this is somehow not representative of how wild animals behave?

This lady has Sandhill Cranes knocking at her door all day every day.  Hey, if there’s food there, they’ll come.

Raccoon visits.  WiscoDave, you out there?

This dog went for a very long swim.

This goat walks again.

This dog can perform tricks.

Lifelong cowboy gets his final wish of being with a horse again.  I miss riding myself.

I WILL NOT leave my friend.

News.

A blue-ribbon commission has recommended new names for nine Army bases named after Confederate leaders, including Fort Bragg, which will be recommended to be renamed Fort Liberty, the panel disclosed Tuesday.

The panel has recommended that another eight Army bases be renamed for a diverse group of individuals with ties to the Army.

ABC News was first to report the full list of recommended names by the Congressional Naming Commission created by Congress to suggest name changes by 2023 for U.S. military installations named after Confederate generals and leaders.

While Fort Bragg is the only base suggested as being renamed after a concept the other suggestions for the other eight Army bases include a diverse group of individuals with ties to Army history.

If approved, the nine bases will include the first to be ever named for women or African Americans, a National Guard facility in Puerto Rico already had the distinction of being the first ever named for a Latino.

The other bases to be renamed are Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Rucker in Alabama, Fort Polk in Louisiana, Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia and Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia.

The panel has recommended that Fort Hood, Texas, be renamed after Richard E. Cavazos, the first Latino to reach the rank of a four-star general in the Army.

Fort Gordon, Georgia, will be renamed after Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Army general who led all allied forces in Europe during World War II and later became president.

Fort Lee, Virginia, will be named after two individuals: Arthur Gregg, a former three-star general involved in logistics — the only living individual for whom a base will be named — and Charity Adams, the first African-American woman to be an officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.

Good Lord.

I ask again, if you’re still in the U.S. military, why?

Via Ken, news on what rising prices mean to logistics.

It’s a problem many have been hearing about for months now: the high price of gas. But what many who aren’t in the industry might not realize is how the skyrocketing cost of diesel fuel, in particular, is hurting truckers.

While the Energy Information Administration said gas prices are down by one penny in the last week, that’s not giving any relief to drivers, who say some companies are being forced to lay off employees.

That’s the case for Omar Edwards of North Carolina, a truck driver who owns and operates his own company. He’s had to let some employees go, and is looking for other ways to maximize profit.

“I’m heading over to Atlanta to actually pick up one of my drivers,” Edwards said. “We’re going to be team driving right now.”

Speaking to NewsNation local affiliate WJZY, Edwards said this could lead to less trucks on the road.

“A lot of these trucks you see now are not going to be here anymore. A lot of these trucks are a small company like myself that just can’t afford to pay these high prices,” Edwards said.

AAA on Tuesday recorded a record national average of $5.57 for a gallon of diesel fuel.

Preventing pipelines and refusal to issue drilling permits has consequences.  In this case fewer trucks on the road, less goods delivered to market, and empty grocery shelves.

In related news North of the border, Canadian farmers will continue to suffer under the yoke of tyranny.

CALGARY, AB: The Western Canadian Wheat Growers are shocked by the depth of the impact of the federal government’s proposed 30% reduction in fertilizer emissions. Fertilizer Canada has had an independent analysis of the effects of the proposed emissions reduction.

The analysis by Meyers Norris Penny (MNP) calculates that “If Canada adopt(s) the EU model, the potential economic impact of reduced fertilizer use would be devastating to Canadian farmers”. The calculations show that by 2030, the prairie provinces will have the following losses:

• Alberta – $2.95B loss in their Canola and Spring Wheat crops
• Saskatchewan – $4.61B loss in their Canola and Spring Wheat crops
• Manitoba – $1.58B loss in their Canola, Corn and Spring Wheat crops

Droughts are natural.  Famines are man-made.

Report from Dallas, Texas.

Lots and lots of Coyote attacks, lots of pets killed, lots of stalking.  This quote nearly floored me.

At the meeting, many of the residents wanted to know why the city didn’t already have a plan for managing coyote behavior. They have been a part of the ecosystem for decades, and are often spotted in residential areas throughout the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area.

“Where the city is on its response is in the exact same place where every other community that has a wildlife problem starts out,” Henry said. “That’s how government works, any government. We’re always behind the curve.”

“So White Rock Valley is the first community in Dallas to ever have this problem?” asked Kristy Feil, who has lived in the neighborhood for 19 years. “I mean, we’re the first?”

The truth is, yes. The city officials couldn’t say definitively that in all of Dallas’s history there hasn’t been an attack, but violent coyote interactions are so incredibly rare that it’s not surprising it took so long for them to form a plan. Urban coyotes are, the vast majority of the time, out of sight and out of mind.

“I’m starting to understand why we’re having more of an issue recently,” Feil said after the meeting. “There’s no one to blame. We’ve just got to figure out how to handle it.”

Sure there’s someone to blame.  Society is to blame.

You don’t manage Coyote behavior.  They will do what they do.  They are pests.  They are a nuisance.  There isn’t a school of rehabilitation to send them to.  What a silly and childish notion.  Manage Coyote behavior.

Ridiculous.

You shoot them.  If discharging firearms within the city limits is illegal, then they need to look at changing the law, or begin to carry crossbows, hunt them down, and kill them all.

Dean Weingarten.

According to the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office, authorities received a report of a bear attack at a home on Castle Road in the Township of Medford Friday around 11 p.m.

In a press release, authorities report a husband and wife noticed the bear eating from their bird feeder, opened the window and yelled at the bear to scare it off. The bear then turned and charged at the home, breaking through the window and began attacking the couple, while their kids were asleep in their bedrooms.

This correspondent was able to talk with Larry Woebbeking, Sheriff of Taylor County.  While Sheriff Woebbeking was not at the scene of the attack, he had talked to an investigating officer who was. Larry had interesting information to add. He was sure of his facts.

The bottom of the window was about three to four feet above the ground. The bear had to jump up to get through the window. The window appears to be a typical northern Wisconsin type which slides vertically up and down, with an insect screen on the outside. The screen is gone on the picture from the sheriffs office, so the bear probably clawed the screen out as it came inside.

After the wife yelled at the bear, the bear forced its way through the window and attacked the wife. The husband came to the aid of his wife, interjecting his body between them. The bear attacked him. He suffered severe bites to the neck and may have had an arm broken.

The wife, freed from the bear attack, accessed a knife and attacked the bear mauling her husband. The bear turned its attention back to the wife, which allowed the husband to escape momentarily. He was able to access a 9mm Sig handgun. He quickly returned and killed the bear.

Dean goes on to make interesting points about female black bears not displaying strong maternal instincts, and that 9 out of 10 times a female black bear will abandon cubs rather than face danger.

This bear had something else in mind.  Perhaps food.

I would never have allowed my wife to open the window and scream without having a firearm nearby.  And this is yet another instance of the need to carry inside the home.

From a reader, this report on new weaponry for SOCOM.

It has a 5.5″ barrel.  The propaganda at the link says, “One was to roughly match the ballistic performance of the Soviet-developed 7.62x39mm round, retaining accuracy and power when fired from a weapon with an extremely short barrel. The other includes a heavier bullet that is subsonic and ideal for suppression and close-quarters combat.”  It will “blast out of tight spots with a wallop similar to a full-size assault rifle.”

No it won’t.  It shoots the 5.56X45 and the 300 BO rounds.  The 5.5″ barrel will cause a tremendous loss of bullet velocity.

SOCOM released a statement: “After years of continuous market research, USSOCOM HQ has concluded that Sig Sauer is the only vendor that can fulfill USSOCOM’s need for the commercial PDW requirement.”

The only vendor.  Sig is the only vendor who could fabricate a PDW that shoots a bullet.  Any kind of bullet.  Pistol caliber or rifle caliber that behaves like a pistol round because of reduced muzzle velocity.

The only vendor.

My question is this.  Who at Sig has what on SOCOM?  What is this love affair with Sig and why does it exist?

I wouldn’t want to go into a gun fight with that thing.  Guys, make your rifles rifles, and your pistols pistols.  Stop trying to marry the two.