Articles by Herschel Smith

This is a massively confused rant from a massively confused politician, a very incoherent rant indeed.

She begins by asserting that her cop husband puts on a uniform each and every day to protect and serve, and then posing the rhetorical question she doesn’t very much like, “If the police don’t arrive in time, what is a person supposed to do?”

She then goes on to rehearse a crime in her neighborhood where children perished, saying that the police arrived within two minutes and that didn’t save the children’s lives.

You heard that right.  The police are there to “protect and serve.”  I would remark that they only protect and serve to the extent that they follow the constitution, but that as I have remarked so many times before, cases like Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, Warren v. D.C., and DeShaney v. Winnebago County prove without question or caveat that it’s not the job of police to protect anyone.

It’s your job to protect yourself and your family.  This politician demonstrates again why that must be the case.  Police cannot arrive in time to prevent crime from being committed.  The time frame is too compressed.

And then after asserting that it’s the job of police to protect, against evidence to the contrary, she then asserts that it can’t ultimately be successful.

She goes on with this incoherence.  “Why should anyone be allowed to have a higher caliber, more powerful weapon, than my husband …”

So according to her, (1) police are there to protect.  (2) Police can’t protect you, therefore:  (3) You shouldn’t be allowed to have weapons that match his (I suppose for example a .40S&W, .45ACP, or .44 Magnum, assuming he carries a 9mm like most cops do these days).

Those presuppositions don’t support the conclusion.  There is no coherent syllogism there.  There isn’t even an immediate inference.

I’m surprised that the Virginia House Democrats have left this video on Twitter.  It should be embarrassing to them.

Delegate @CandiMundonKing: “Why should anyone be allowed to have a higher caliber, more powerful weapon than my husband who goes out every day in uniform who has trained and served his community with pride for years?” pic.twitter.com/dnH8AHmJlj

— VA House Democrats (@VAHouseDems) January 27, 2023

Outdoor Life.

Hunting wild hogs is great fun, and it’s a popular pursuit in many places around the country. But wild pigs themselves are a real problem for native flora and fauna. This is precisely why hogs have become a nationwide concern as they reproduce in astounding numbers and find ways to thrive in new environments.

According to a report from the Cowboy State Daily, Wyoming and Montana are currently free of wild swine. However, wildlife managers in these states are receiving reports of pigs in Colorado, North Dakota, and Utah. Landowners and hunters, meanwhile, are worried about hordes moving into Montana and Wyoming from Canada.

Alberta and Saskatchewan are already infested, which shows that cold weather and snow have little impact on the prolific pigs. If they can survive in Canada, so the thinking goes, wild hogs marching into Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming is entirely possible.

As wild hogs continue to spread throughout central Alberta, Ryan Brook, a University of Saskatchewan professor studying the pigs, says they could cause an “ecological train wreck” and bring “absolute destruction” to the native ecosystem.

We warned you and have commented before about this problem.

They reproduce faster than lethal removal can take them out, they’ll adapt to their surroundings, they’ll dig up the ecosystem to the point it looks like a rototiller came through, they’ll kill indigenous game, and they’ll come after humans too.

If you live up there, get your rifles ready.  Oh, Canada won’t let you have those.  Too bad.  If you live in the rest of the U.S., get your rifles ready.

That goes for Alaska too.  There aren’t enough bears to kill them all.

I’ve also commented on the hog problem in the South before they began to move North.

Woman Killed by Feral Hogs Outside Texas Home

Houston-Area Suburbs Now Suffering from Feral Hogs

Hog Apocalypse in Texas

Save the Planet – Buy an AR!

As I suspected, mostly, with military and LE getting the lion’s share of the ammunition and primers.  As for supply chain problems with Covid, I don’t buy that excuse any more.  That dog won’t hunt.  The ships are moving, they’re just moving into ports at Savannah and Charleston (rather than California), with the inland port being in Greenville, S.C., and the transport corridor being I-85 and connected roads (such as I-40).  The trucks are still moving too.  So I don’t buy the logistics excuse.

One commenter to the video makes this remark.

I work for one of the largest manufacturers of ammunition and primers and as far as I know we haven’t had big issues with getting supplies but have had challenges with getting them at a reasonable cost, our primer department has always been and still is the busiest department and runs full speed 24/7 I can buy directly from the plant at our company store and have trouble getting primers because they are still running behind for the very reasons mentioned in the video, and there is a labor problem, the primer department is the most dangerous department due to the highly explosive nature, its quite common for a charging table to blow, these people are under a constant stress not only for fear of explosion but the bosses are very hard on them because they are responsible for the explosions when they do occur, so this leads to high turnover rates in the department.

I have no evidence that this commenter actually works for an ammunition manufacturer, but let’s assume he does for the sake of argument.

Let’s tackle the first alleged problem.  If they’re having trouble with the charging tables, that’s a safety issue and they need safety engineers to come in and set things right, or OSHA will eventually shut them down and there will be no business to tend to.  No worker should be exposed to hazardous work conditions in industry today since there is a sufficient body of engineering practices and principles that can make things better.  It’s more expensive, but in the end, it will save your industry.

As for the second problem, worker morale and turnover, that’s a management problem.  Let me be more blunt.  I’ve worked in industry for 43 years.  Low morale is ALWAYS management’s fault.  If management cannot retain employees, the industry doesn’t deserve to exist.  These problems are fixable.

Via reddit/Firearms, the ATF has updated their guidelines on imported pistols with braces here.

The ATF is watching comments, remarks, complaints and questions on their upcoming rule making.  This is the result.  They probably saw that it was unworkable.  That’s why the final rule hasn’t been published yet.

Nonetheless, I don’t trust them.  They have changed their opinion so many times that nothing they say can be relied on tomorrow.  And this answer doesn’t seem to comport with the proposed rule.

I’d also have to review the proposed rule again, along with (and in light of) this answer.  I don’t have time to do that, and I have neither braced pistols nor imported braced pistols (a subset of braced pistols subject to 922r).

If you do, it behooves you to step carefully.

Field & Stream.

• Ruger Scout Rifle 350 Legend
• Marlin 1895 Trapper 45-70 Government
• Wilson Combat Recon Tactical 450 Bushmaster
• Mossberg Patriot Predator 7mm PRC
• Kimber 84M Hunter Pro Desolve Blak 280 Ackley Improved
• Bergara B14 HMR 300 Winchester Magnum
• Winchester XPR Stealth Suppressor Ready 308 Winchester
• Franchi Momentum All-Terrain Elite 308 Winchester
• Stag Arms Pursuit Stag10 308 Winchester

Visit his reasons as the link.

What do you notice about these choices?  They are all large bore guns.  The 7mm PRC is just simply too much for a hog unless it’s 400 pounds.

With many of these rounds you won’t have ribs left.  I wouldn’t have a problem shooting hogs with any of these rounds, but take note that if you want to preserve meat and not tear it to pieces, you need a somewhat smaller round (like the 6mm ARC) and you need to aim carefully, be a good shot, and hit them right behind the ear.  They’ll go down instantly.

Outdoor Life.

Steele left his phone number and asked for the hunter to contact him. The unnamed hunter also discovered that Steele had deleted the pictures from his trail camera. The hunter called Steele and apologized, only to have Steele insist that he must stay away from the area, which the hunter eventually agreed to.

Weeks went by. Eventually, the hunter returned to his stand, pulled the memory card from his camera, and started climbing the stand. The stand looked normal and the climbing sticks were sturdy. But as soon as the hunter climbed onto the platform, it collapsed underneath him. He fell 20 feet to the ground, where he injured his back and ankle after landing on his feet.

The hunter worried that Steele was watching him on camera and left the area, limping. Upon returning home, he dialed 911 to report the incident. While at home, the hunter discovered his SD card had been wiped of images again. DNR conservation officer Josh Boudreaux responded, and opened a hunter harassment investigation.

Weeks later, the hunter returned to the same spot again with new straps. The next day, he received a text from Steele.

“Are we going to work something out for this spot or what?” the text read. “I got a picture of you yesterday going in there with climbing sticks. Just not gonna respect I was there first?”

Investigating officers paid close attention to the hunter’s treestand after learning Steele was “using a camera to spy on the hunter.” They soon discovered that Steele had gone out to cut the hunter’s straps a second time.

Good Lord.  He was ready to sacrifice the life of a man for the sake of a chance to kill an animal.  What a jerk.

He should have been charged with attempted murder and prohibited from hunting ever again in the state.  A hunter harassment investigation should have been a criminal investigation.

What do you want to bet – he wasn’t trying to feed his family.  He wanted to kill a trophy buck to brag to his buddies and show pictures around.

What a jerk.

Here are the precedents he cites.

Staples v United States.

Caetano v Massachusetts.

Concerning the last supreme court case, Mark is making the same remarks and observations we cited here.  Common use and dangerous and unusual are mutually exclusive.  Something can’t be dangerous and unusual if it’s in common use.

We should all dislike and disapprove of the Heller court including machine guns in the list of “dangerous and unusual” weapons.  I’ll repeat what I’ve said before concerning my youngest son’s experience in Fallujah.

After the city was barricaded off and locked down from the flow of insurgents through the main points of ingress and egress (and that includes terminating the flow of insurgents across the Euphrates River by deploying airborne assault with helicopter, of which my son took part), every family was allowed to own fully automatic AKs for home defense against the insurgents flowing in from Ramadi.

I ask my son if he ever felt danger from those weapons.  He gave me an unequivocal ‘no’ and stated that the danger came from insurgents, not men protecting their families, and he could always tell the difference.

Having said that, in this case the dangerous and unusual test may be our friend.  I suspect the ATF has written the very prose that will kill the pistol brace rule, and maybe other parts of the NFA if the supreme court is honest about this.

Prior:

Common Use Excludes Dangerous and Unusual

New ATF Brace Rule Forces Destruction of Imported Pistols

Gun Owners of American Discovers Fatal Trap in Pistol Brace Rule

ATF: Byzantine, Arbitrary and Ridiculous Rules to Live By

The Hunting and Conservation Nexus of the National Firearms Act

A friend sends this along (“Dangerous and Unusual: How an Expanding National Firearms Act Will Spell its Own Demise”), written almost as if prescient concerning the ATF circus on braced weapons.

In what must have been an allusion to the NFA, the Court found support for this common-use formulation by recognizing the “historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.'”  Removing the double negative, the Heller rule provides that the Second Amendment protects weapons in “common use” and those “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” but not those that are traditionally thought to be “dangerous and unusual.” What could follow from this formulation is concerning – if the legislature or an executive agency can make a certain type of firearm sufficiently rare to the point that the citizens do not typically possess it for lawful purposes, the firearm presumably loses Second Amendment protection. Using this exception, the Heller Court carved the NFA out of its common-use formulation, granting deference to historical prohibitions and a presumption of constitutionality therefrom. In short, the prevailing [*288] understanding of 2008 was that weapons that are “dangerous and unusual” are antithetical to being in “common use” or even “typical,” at the very least. However, “dangerous and unusual” must be treated as a rebuttable presumption, as it is possible for weapons that once fell into this category to gain such popularity through legal acquisition so as to become quite typical – and indeed common.

I think it’s obvious that the ATF has an uphill battle in court.  Doubtless there will be some lower and appellate courts who side with the administrative state, but in the end, this will all have to be rectified at the supreme court.  If they are true to their previous rulings, this brace ruling will be overturned.

The case against the ATF is clear enough just from the Heller court.  After Bruen, it’s really difficult to imagine why the ATF would be doing this if it were not for political pressure (and the existence of crackpot nutcase Merrick Garland).

Source.

The draft legislation has already sparked conservative backlash and lawsuit preparation from the local branch of the National Rifle Association, and while Democratic leadership has given it tentative support, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis has been noncommittal about the legislation. It has yet to get a hearing in Colorado’s statehouse, which kicked off its session earlier this month.

One of the bill’s sponsors, Democrat Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, said there remains a long runway before the legislation’s introduction, with more stakeholder input to hear and potential concerns to accommodate. Boesenecker remains confident in its support, adding, “I always count my votes.”

To Boesenecker, an Evangelical Lutheran pastor and former music teacher and who represents a district north of Denver that includes the city of Fort Collins, the bill’s details will take time, but the argument is simple.

“I drop off my kids at school,” he said, “I could no longer continue to live … not knowing what might happen to them between that time I dropped them off and was able to pick them up.”

That’s a lie.  He’s not a real pastor.  He’s a fake.  And if he’s so worried about having his children in public schools, he should be for reasons other than weapons.  Homeschool them.

Anyway, I see where this is going.  Now.  Do cops.

His draft of the bill prohibits the sale, transfer, importation and manufacture of semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines that also have one or more of a list of seven characteristics that include a pistol grip, flash suppressor, folding stock or threaded barrel. The ban would also extend to certain semiautomatic shotguns and handguns but allow some exemptions including for military personnel and police officers.

Well then!  Tell us why you want cops armed with “dangerous weapons?”  Do you think they protect you?  Contrary to what was decided in Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, Warren v. District of Columbia, and DeShaney v. Winnebago County?  Why do you believe that myth?  Who taught you that?  Do you also believe in the tooth fairy?

Another one to be struck down, or otherwise, state from which to depart if you still live there.

Hey, let me know how it goes with all of those big cats, bears and moose in the area.  You have your choice in whether to get eaten or stomped to death.  Or maybe you really don’t.

Have fun on the trail, y’all.

We’re beginning to see the effects of the pistol brace rule.  Per reddit/Firearms, this report.

Range USA is refusing to transfer a pistol with a brace. They stated it comes up as a class 3 item in the system when they file with the ATF, so taking off the brace will not make the firearm eligible for transfer.

They stated the rule was effective 1/13/23, but it’s not in the federal register as of this moment.

Since the rule isn’t in effect yet it’s not apparent to me why anyone is “filing anything with the ATF.”  This should be a routine transfer.

Nonetheless, assuming the veracity of this report, the ATF is already interfering with interstate commerce and having averse effects on businesses.  They are also managing to choke an entire industry and errect roadblocks to an entire category of weapons in America.

All by design, of course.