Articles by Herschel Smith

Why is he doing this?  I cannot fathom a good reason.

I don’t do personalities.  I don’t follow “people,” I don’t engage in loyalty to “persons,” I don’t hero worship, and as for the previous disagreements between Dakota Meyer and Garand Thumb, I don’t have a dog in that fight.  Each can take care of himself, although I saw no reason for Meyer to have ever said anything to begin with.

As for this most recent kerfuffle, as I said, it makes no sense to me.  The most disturbing thing is how Dakota sees law enforcement.  Quite literally, he is berating men who have no spent time in the U.S. military, and equating law enforcement with the U.S. military.

Perhaps this is just about ensuring he makes his own people happy with him.  Perhaps he knows how his bread gets buttered and is helping the process along.

But let me make it clear to Dakota if he happens to be reading this.  I couldn’t care less about the dollars he gets from training LEOs, or the company he keeps.  A cop is not a warrior.  My son spent time on the streets of Fallujah – street cops in America have not.  Nor should they.  Nor do they have to in order to function in their jobs.

America needs peace officers, not street warriors, and no SWAT teams.  I couldn’t care less about the war on poverty, war on drugs, or war on crime.  These are not my wars.  SWAT teams shouldn’t exist, and a home break-in executed by cops is no different to me than a home invasion perpetrated by criminals.

I hate it when people equate cops with the military, and I especially hate it when military folks do this.  It does nothing but add to the problem of a military policing culture in America.

Reddit/Firearms has a post on someone who’s having issues with their new Benelli M4 jamming after addition of the mag extension tube on the gun.  Who knows – perhaps this is a gun problem, perhaps a modification problems, perhaps a gunsmithing problem.

James at TFBTV recently uploaded a 500 round test of his Benelli M4.  It seemed to work fine except for bird shot loads.  Back to the reddit post, the comments point to a need to “break in” the shotgun.  James points to a need not to run cheap ammo in the gun.

Remove cheap ammo from your own equation with firearms.  I never run cheap ammo.  All I can tell you is that the Beretta 1301, modified by Langdon Tactical, (a) runs everything, from bird shot to buck shot to slugs, (b) and needs no “break in” procedure.

Like everything else, you make up your own mind.

James is headed to Ernest Langdon to discuss the Beretta 1301 next.  I await this video – it’ll likely be good and I have a lot of respect for Ernest.

What’s the deal with Smith & Wesson?  I would have expected more devotion to a job well done and proper QC, especially in the Performance Center.  And I also wonder if the agreement they made with Hillary on the lock for wheel guns runs to perpetuity?  Why else would they still be putting that crap in guns?

This one is full lug, so I’m not sure which exact model this is – the Model 19 on their web site is not.

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BATON ROUGE—A House committee on crime advanced a bill 8-1 that would allow permitless concealed carry for individuals 18 and older.

Rep. Danny McCormick, R-Oil City, brought what he said was a “constitutional carry” bill before the committee Tuesday. McCormick’s bill would amend present law that only allows concealed carry for 21 or older who undergo the proper training to receive a permit.

Rep. McCormick told the House Committee on Administration of Criminal Justice that his bill, House Bill 131, would mimic current rules that allows individuals 18 and over to openly carry a firearm. His bill would allow individuals to carry a concealed weapon at the same age.

“So basically, what you’re doing with this bill is that you’re trying to get every law-abiding citizen in the state of Louisiana the same ability that every criminal does,” Rep. Raymond E. Garofalo Jr. R-Chalmette, said. “Every criminal right now can carry a concealed weapon with no permit, no training, no nothing.”

[ … ]

“Personally, I’ve never seen anyone open carry that was doing it carelessly,” Rep. McCormick said in response. “I trust the people with the rights, and I think the Second Amendment gives us those rights.”

Despite all the hand wringing in the gun community, neither have I.  I hope Louisiana passes the bill this year and it gets signed into law.  Permitless carry in N.C. probably won’t pass this year, but it’ll be reintroduced again in the next session.  I’m not sure about its status in S.C.

Richard Mann Field & Stream.

He doesn’t like the 6mm Remington because it does nothing for him that the .243 doesn’t.

As for the 6.8 SPC, it’s luster has faded according to him.  Delightfully, he does mention both the 6.5 Grendel and the 6mm ARC.  As you know, I’ve hunted hogs with the 6mm ARC and have wondered why it hasn’t been more widely accepted as a replacement for the 5.56 given it’s heavier bullet weight (> 100 grains), almost equivalent muzzle velocity and almost equivalent recoil.  Made by Hornady for U.S. SOC for high ballistic coefficient and heavy hits at distance, I wouldn’t hesitate to hunt white tail with it.

300 Blackout.  Too weak.  Need anyone say more?

444 Marlin – why use it when you have the 45-70?  I don’t know about that one.

30-06 – his reasons sound to me like personal problems.  Maybe he should get over them.  I know guys who hunt with 300 Win Mag because “I don’t chase a blood trail.”

This depicts absolutely awful interactions between the police and innocent people.  The first cop was bad enough, having stopped the boy for following too closely to his (as he said) “marked car,” as if being marked as a LE car is any different than any other car.

The second cop in the video is a disaster.  He ends up giving conflicting orders to the man, and then not just muzzle flagging him, but unholstering his weapon and pointing it directly at the man while emotionally yelling and screaming.

I think it’s a fair assessment to say that PDs in America are mostly filled with under-educated, overly-emotional, mentally unstable bullies, criminals and sociopaths.  It is incredibly dangerous just to be in the vicinity of cops these days.  “You’re never in more danger than when the police are around, and no situation is so bad that it cannot be made worse by the presence of the police.”  Clearly, at least one of the cops is a danger to society.

Witness this horrible interaction where a family member calls the police because they fear their son was going to commit suicide.  York County, S.C., deputies fired fifty shots at him, hitting with nine (that’s horrible shooting, by the way).  The family should never have called police.  That’s like opening the jail cells and inviting the prisoners to come help you.

Now, watch this video of the sociopath and the father.  Here is the contact page for the Las Animas County Sheriffs Department.

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A new law limiting concealed carry of guns in New Jersey suffered another defeat in federal court Tuesday as a judge ordered state officials not to enforce its tight restrictions pending a flurry of legal challenges from gun rights advocates.

The ruling means New Jerseyans with proper permits are free to concealed-carry handguns at beaches, public parks, bars and restaurants — places from where Gov. Phil Murphy and his Democratic allies in the state Legislature sought to ban firearms in an effort to curb gun violence.

The magnitude of this win should not be understated, especially given the strength of the ruling.  Based on what I heard, I find it unlikely that NJ will prevail even after discovery and arguments.

Here is the decision, all 235 pages of it.

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When the Defense Department surveyed troops in 2021 on their experiences in the workplace regarding gender, the findings revealed significant room for improvement ― particularly in the Marine Corps.

Now, the Corps is bringing on new staff members in the latest effort to address this cultural trend. The service revealed its plans in a briefing presented to the Pentagon’s Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services in March.

Because nothing says “America’s Strike Force” like spending resources and time on ensuring that equal numbers of men and women fight in war.

Honestly, the cancer has gone so deep at this point I highly doubt it can be excised, even by the best surgeon.

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In an interview with the Real America’s Voice program earlier in the year “The Water Cooler,” Trump was asked about his thoughts on why evangelical leaders expressed hesitance to support him in his bid to seek re-election.

“I don’t really care,” the former president replied during his interview with David Brody of the Trump-aligned right-wing news and opinion channel. “It’s a sign of disloyalty.”

This is all referring to Trump’s having recommended to “religious leaders” (whomever that is) that they jettison the high importance on right to life because Trump sees it as a losing issue.

We are not therefore to be governed by our parochial loyalties, nor by group dynamics, nor by peer pressure. All our churches, institutions, groups, races, nationalities, and allegiances must be subject to the prior government of the triune God and His law-word. Anything short of that is idolatry.  R. J. Rushdoony, Chalcedon Position Paper No. 62.

Men who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ should have no other loyalties than to Him, and Him alone.

I’m recently back from a business trip and professional conference in Idaho Falls.  At the end of the conference I decided to do a bit of hiking.  I headed up to the Tetons.  Here is one picture of a less snow covered area.

At least the path is worn well enough that it can be seen.  Everyone else turned around a short time after this photo was taken.  I kept going, and seemed to be the only one up there.  On up the trail I passed a really nice Asian dude who talked to me and recommended that I not move forward unless I had AllTrails on my phone.  We happened to have connectivity where we were at the time, and he assisted me in loading it up, downloading maps and getting the right trail (there were some trails with similar names).  Soon I lost connectivity.  It’s a good thing (and providential) that I ran into him.  This was the next scene a few miles further.  The trail had utterly disappeared.  Were it not for AllTrails, I would still be wandering in the Tetons.

The snow was five or six feet deep in places, and while I could make decent progress at times staying on top of the pack, I was “post holing” a lot.  A few times I fell into tree wells and had to claw my way out.  That’s an awful lot of work.  The Asian dude had not only trekking poles, but snow shoes as well.

Also, I’ll comment that with more unenlightened among us sometimes I often have wondered why a man doesn’t just “swim” out of snow (e.g., during an avalanche).  Yea, that’s impossible.  Put your leg into snow hip deep and it’s like cement.

The trail was the Taggart and Bradley Lake trail in the Tetons.  I wasn’t properly prepared for the hike.  I did make it, but not without a slog.  I didn’t pack my trekking poles because I didn’t want the additional space and weight in my luggage.  That was a profoundly stupid decision but I didn’t know at the time that the trails would be in this condition.  Going up there without snow shoes made it very difficult.

The second day I decided to do something a bit tamer and stay closer to Idaho Falls (within about an hour of the city).

The Idaho and Wyoming area is beautiful country for sure.  But the Northwest had a very deep snow pack this year.  Be prepared when you go into the bush.  I wasn’t.  I could have gotten into trouble in the Tetons.