Articles by Herschel Smith

Source.

Discover Financial Services, a provider of credit cards, told Reuters it will allow its network to track purchases at gun retailers come April, making it the first among its peers to move ahead with the initiative aimed at helping authorities probe gun-related crimes.

The decision came after the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which decides on the classification of merchant categories used by payment cards, approved in September the launch of a dedicated code for gun retailers.

Proponents of the move, including gun control activists and Democratic politicians, say it will allow financial institutions to better assist authorities in investigating crimes involving gun violence in the United States.

There has been uncertainty around the implementation, with Visa Inc, Mastercard Inc and American Express Co yet to disclose a timetable for adopting the change. Although the codes will not show specific items purchased, some Republican politicians have spoken out against the move, arguing it could violate the privacy of U.S. citizens lawfully buying guns.

Isn’t that nice?  The ISO wants to know what you’re purchasing with your wealth.  The ISO, an international organization – although I’m sure that U.S. banks were all too willing to comply and the ISO is just a straw man.

If you have a Discover Card, be aware that this change is coming and make appropriate arrangements.

At least Louisiana is fighting back in what I guess is the only way they can.  Texas, I think, has similar laws now.

David Codrea.

The citizen disarmament lobby only bellows about “home rule” for counties and municipalities when preemption blocks their attempts to infringe. At the same time, the effort continues to impose gun bans at the federal level binding on the whole country.

“What works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne,” Barack Obama feinted when trying to justify localities ignoring “the supreme Law of the Land.”  Left unsaid was exactly what the hell it is that works in Chicago.

Yeah, they only care about home rule when it comes to infringing on gun rights, killing babies and allowing illegals to cross the border and stay, consuming important medical and financial resources.

David concludes, “By posturing as their moral superior and characterizing them in his legal opinion as de facto enemies of the state, this Egan character, sounding for all the world like an Antifa street thug, has shown himself to be the bigot relying on divisiveness and hate.”

Hatred is what binds the controllers together.  It’s the darkness of heart that is the common element in their worship of the state.

Update on the pistol permit repeal in North Carolina.

A Second Amendment bill in the North Carolina State Senate has progressed through the chamber and is now headed to the State House of Representatives. The North Carolina Senate voted 29-19 across party lines on Senate Bill 41, which would repeal the state’s pistol purchase permit law on Thursday.

The bill would also allow carrying of firearms in places of worship properties that have schools as well, but it’s not going to allow guns on school property at any time.

Since 1995, anyone attending a place of worship (churches, synagogues, temples, mosques) that is legally allowed to carry a firearm could do so on that property — as long as the property owner allows it.

Things change when a place of worship also serves as a school.

Senate Bill 41 would clarify the language of state law and allow the same right to carry a firearm on a church property even if they operate a school — but there are exceptions.

“This applies only to private churches that sponsor schools and only outside the hours of the circular and extra circular activities at the school,” Paul Valone, president of Grass Roots N.C. an advocacy group that supports the bill.

Does this stand a chance of overriding a veto by goober Roy Cooper?

The bill will have to be passed through the House of Representatives and sent to Governor Roy Cooper to become law. But if he vetoes the bill, a supermajority will be required to override it. While the republicans have reached that supermajority in the Senate, they’re one seat short in the House.

What a shame it would be to lose this battle to one vote in the House.  Hopefully there’s a least one vote on the democrat side who feels the pressure from his constituency.  Then again, there are supposedly other means to override a veto.  Also hopefully, the republicans are looking for ways under the rules of order to effect this override without that vote.

Mark is certainly indignant over this trash judgment.  I always learn something when I watch his analyses.  Here is the case to which he refers.  It really is pathetic.

Oh, I can think of a lot more reasons than one.  Frankly, I wonder if LEOs know this sort of thing is reason for disdain, scorn and contempt?

The Daily Caller.

An Oregon judge ruled Wednesday that local governments can not declare themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries, further saying that the sheriffs that implemented a Second Amendment ordinance were embracing “racist and white nationalist ideologies.”

Chief Judge Jim Egan of the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that the sheriffs did not have the authority to create sanctuaries that “create a ‘patchwork quilt’ of firearms laws in Oregon,” further saying that the sheriffs‘ arguments go in the “dustbin,” according to the ruling. Sheriffs in Oregon began to introduce Second Amendment sanctuaries after Oregon passed Ballot Measure 114, which requires background checks, firearm training, fingerprint collection and a permit to purchase any firearm.

“The arguments propounding unfettered access to guns, ammunitions, and implements of destruction give rise to waging of war on government because the proponents believe that our government is infected by those they hate,” Egan wrote. “As a judge, sworn to uphold the Oregon Constitution and the United States Constitution, I cannot stand by without identifying the origins of that argument, and the origins of the Ordinance. The history of white supremacist ideology in this country is older than the United States Constitution.”

Egan accused the Sheriffs’ counsel of alluding to conspiracy theories about the United Nations (UN), saying that their belief that the UN will impose mandates that will require the state and local government to disarm the American public in violation of the Second Amendment is false, according to the ruling.

“In other words, Intervenors came before this court and referenced UN mandates, which, as explained below, is a well-documented trope meant to invoke white supremacist, antisemitic fear of a takeover of our country by outsiders and minorities who are manipulated by an elite class of supervillains,” Egan wrote.

Gun Owners of America (GOA), who backed the sanctuaries, “forcefully” denied the characterization of their argument, according to Fox News.

Fox News remarks that “The Court of Appeals ruling marks the first major legal defeat for the Second Amendment sanctuary movement.”

Oh goodness, I think this is being over-dramatized a wee bit, don’t you?  Nobody who advocated 2A sanctuary counties ever believed that this would all go peacefully into the night and go down without a fight.

Read the opinion of judge J. Egan, whomever that is and for what it’s worth.  It reads like a freshman paper for sociology 101 at a local yokel community college.  It really isn’t worthy of the time to fisk it.

Here is what you do with rulings like this.  You don’t respond because that gives the ruling publicity it doesn’t deserve.  You ignore it.  If pressed, you ask the judiciary where they’re going to get law enforcement to enforce their ruling?

The Sheriffs are elected.  They are elected to keep the peace, leave peaceable men alone to their pursuits, and honor the oaths they swore to obey the constitution and laws of God.  They don’t have to enforce any laws that break that covenant.

The judge can go pound sand.  He’s just a carnival barker.

This video is interesting for reloaders (and for me too even though I don’t reload).  I suppose an interesting question might be how much deviation from exact concentricity is there in factory ammunition between ordinary bulk supply milstandard cartridges and more expensive hunting rounds?  The immediate question, however, is how much deviation should you aim for if you’re a reloader?

Here is an article in Rifle Shooter Magazine that also bears on the subject.

Source.

The House voted 77-43 to approve the measure, which would let people with concealed weapons permits carry openly or under clothing while attending religious services at locations where private or charter schools also meet.

Six Democrats joined all Republicans in voting for it, indicating a potential override of any veto by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who blocked an identical bill in 2021.

Republican lawmakers and several clergy members testified this week that the houses of worship in question do not have an equal opportunity to protect congregants, compared with churches that do not house schools and are not affected by blanket prohibitions.

Supporters said gun-free religious sites could be easy targets for violent attacks, citing recent incidents of shooters targeting congregations.

Rep. Jeff McNeely, an Iredell County Republican and the bill’s primary sponsor, said the proposal would fix a loophole preventing some churchgoers from exercising their Second Amendment rights.

North Carolina state Rep. Allison Dahle, a Wake County Democrat, questions Nash County Republican Rep. Allen Chesser about a handgun access bill during a committee meeting at the Legislative Building in Raleigh, N.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023.

How nice.  Her hair almost matches her jacket.  She looks like she’s on drugs.  What do you expect from Wake County?

So here’s the deal with that as far as I’m concerned.  I hope it passes with enough votes to override a veto by goober Roy Cooper.  However, first of all, don’t attend a church who prohibits proper self defense.

Second, although the pastor cannot tell you this because of legal liability, if your church meets in a school and carry is prohibited because of that, then this is called “non-permissive carry.”

Don’t ever be without means of defense of your family.

Do any readers care to add to the list of mistakes to avoid, or tips for making scope mounting easier or more effective?

See the video here.

This was a meticulous and judiciously designed weapons vault.  And then the federal government had to step in and destroy all of the firearms.

An old man was minding his own business, harming no one, and simply enjoying his golden years shooting his guns in the range he designed underground, and the police captain had to bitch about stolen weapons or blather on about something or other not even noteworthy enough for me to refute.  He sounded like a little girl jealous of some other little girl’s dolls.

I said his vault was meticulous.  Indeed it was.  His choice of friends wasn’t.  It’s likely that a “friend” turned him in so that the communists could confiscate his weapons.

The second amendment is the only article in the bill of rights that includes the words “Shall not be infringed.”