The Bureau of Land Management is planning a truly boneheaded move, angering some conservationists over the affects to herd populations and migration routes. From Field & Stream.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently released a draft plan outlining potential solar energy development in the West. The proposal is an update of the BLM’s 2012 Western Solar Plan. It adds five new states—Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming—to a list of 11 western states already earmarked…… [read more]
You can make up your own mind on that. Here is the scoop.
And here is a reddit/Firearms discussion thread. For me it all boils down to this one thing. Sure, the if the FedGov wants into your safe, it’s going to get into your safe. They’ll turn it over and take a crowbar to it if they have to, or simply cut through the sides. There is this interesting tidbit from the thread.
… as I did some research on this yesterday. SecuRam electronic locks have a recovery code. The default is “999999”. This doesn’t open the lock, but it gives you a random string to give to Liberty. They then use that to give you a recovery code that resets the safe code to the factory default.
Now, there are several important notes here:
The code from your safe is generated upon request and only valid for 20 minutes. So having it in a database somewhere isn’t realistically a threat.
You can change the recovery code. You have to go through a process that involves calling Liberty to do it, and they’ll try to talk you out of it, but you can change it.
When I called up they explained their security process to me: they’ll only give the recovery code to a Liberty-certified locksmith. Even you, the owner, have to have a locksmith that Liberty has certified present to do it.
But for gun safe companies, there shouldn’t be any back door code for entry into the safe, and that seems to me like a selling point for gun safes. Something like this. “We know that you are buying our safe to make it as difficult as possible for people to get into your safe and touch the possessions you value. So we don’t provide a back door code for entry by anyone. Thus, warrant or no warrant, we have nothing to say to law enforcement because that feature isn’t a part of our products. Therefore, if you get locked out and forget your code, you should use the key we’ll send, or if you’ve lost that too, you may as well bring out the grinder or cutting torch, because we’re not getting into it for you. We can’t. If you’re considering out products, we know that’s what you want.”
I agree with the video from Backfire more than I do anything I’ve read or heard on this.
Stopping power, or “knockdown power,” is a projectile’s ability to incapacitate a target, whether animal or human. While almost everyone’s heard the term, understanding exactly what it means can be tough. All the confusion surrounding stopping power is mainly due to Hollywood’s unrealistic depictions of what happens when someone gets shot.
In TV and movies, one bullet will send a grown man flying backward. Depending on how over-the-top the flick is, they may do a backflip, launch off a building, or perform another acrobatic feat. On the other hand, the invincible hero shrugs off round after round until he completes the mission, saves the girl, and rides off into the sunset.
“As you will learn shortly, there are no ‘magic bullets” — there is no free lunch, and there is no substitute for marksmanship.” – Evan P. Marshall (Handgun Stopping Power: The Definitive Study)
As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Let’s dive deeper into the science of terminal ballistics to get to the bottom of stopping power. We’ll examine the five factors influencing what happens when a bullet hits something.
If you can’t hit the target, it really doesn’t matter what ammo you use. The article goes on to discuss five factors that impact stopping power; caliber, muzzle velocity, bullet mass, bullet shape and composition, and muzzle energy; chart included.
Apparently, the target of the raid is a pastor who had an FFL. The BATFE coerced him into surrendering his license. All licenses are just borrowed liberties that the issuer has no right to sell, but that’s another story. Oklahoma state Rep. Justin Humphrey (R-Lane) is about to learn what many Americans fear but won’t come to grips with. The oligarchy runs the permanent bureaucracy; state and federal legislatures have no real power anymore.
Since he surrendered his license, the ATF now has access to his 4473s. Expect more raids both of buyers and sellers.
According to a press release, Humphrey said he was contacted by Fincher after a dozen ATF SWAT team members bearing “automatic weapons” raided Fincher’s home, handcuffed him on his porch in front of his 13-year-old son and coerced him into relinquishing his Federal Firearm License.
“If this report is true, and I have every reason to believe it is, then it would appear the ATF’s actions constitute a gross misuse and abuse of their federal police powers,” Humphrey said in the press release.
“Mr. Fincher is a distinguished figure in our community, serving both as pastor and schoolteacher in the small community of Clayton, Oklahoma. He is known as a respected member of the community, and I have every reason to believe his account. If proven true, the actions of the ATF agents could be seen as a severe misuse and abuse of their federal law enforcement authority,” Humphrey wrote in the letter to the AG, Governor and Sheriff. “Mr. Fincher claimed that the intent of the raid was evidently to coerce him into terminating his license. He said agents pressured him to declare that he was willingly signing the three prepared termination papers. He explained that he felt coerced due to the armed agents and the threatening environment. He likened the agents’ actions to extortion rather than a proper law enforcement search. One agent reportedly warned, ‘Tell your firearms buddies we are coming after them.’ If true, this statement appears to be an unlawful threat by the agent.”
Humphrey, who chairs Oklahoma’s Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee, believes the ATF violated Fincher’s Second and Fourth Amendment rights.
This is classic tyranny; find the most upstanding man you can and humiliate him to intimidate the populous. BATFE agents swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. Figure that out.
The story was written by one of the Trace’s senior fabulists, Jennifer Mascia, who is “currently the lead writer of the Ask The Trace series and tracks news developments on the gun beat.” Mascia has also led the Trace’s hilarious we’re journalists, not activists, propaganda campaign on social media.
Mascia claims her story was a response to a reader’s question: “Many gun owners claim to buy assault-style rifles for defense. So how many documented cases are out there where someone actually defended themselves with an assault-style rifle?”
You can read the rest at Ammoland. Jennifer is trying to assist the controllers in changing the subject from “in common use for legal purposes” to actually having used a weapon for self defense. First of all, she doesn’t know anything about that regardless of what she claims. No one can go to news reports and find every instance they need for a comprehensive study. For example, use of the weapon might have been to flash the rifle muzzle at home invaders only for the invaders to run. With that said, I think I could come up with quite a few instances myself, but that’s not really the point of this, and we’ll get to more later on this subject when you listen to Professor Mark Smith below.
I had a rather protracted conversation with someone who writes under the nom de guerre Tommy Gnosis. Not that I care that deeply, but something sounded strange about the comments, like they had no particular bearing, were inconsistent, or feinted support for individual rights but didn’t do a good job of hiding the fact that it was all just a distraction.
So I did a little bit of research. Tommy Gnosis is someone named Jennifer Mascia, who has her own web site. In fact, she was one of the authors of the now defunct “The Gun Report” for the New York Times. Recall that report? That awful, hideous, dreary rundown of shootings every day? As if all we have to do is remove those awful guns from society and sin goes away because evil is located in things rather than the heart of man (a noted neo-Platonic and stoic view).
Anyway, I did an IP trace and found that the address was owned by Bloomberg. It makes sense, since I also found out that she works for Bloomberg via Everytown For Gun Safety. Her Disqus account is active, and features snark, misdirects, sarcasm, insults, and most of all, prose designed to demoralize and demonstrate the complete impotence of whatever group she is berating at the moment. The prose is designed to cause depression and dejection.
Here is the lesson. Bloomberg is paying her to visit web sites – particularly gun rights web sites – and spread discontent and dejection.
I am not paid to comment here, or anywhere, nor have I ever been. There is no “tactic.” I have never worked for a political organization or a nonprofit, only media companies, and before that, restaurants. No one at Everytown knows I comment here. I actually don’t work with the advocacy arm of Everytown. The news site will be staffed with journalists, not lobbyists. We have zero to do with elections or phone banks. We won’t be working with Everytown staffers.
Her Disqus account was by “Tommy Gnosis.” I outed her and she posted as “Guest.” She responded that she isn’t paid to comment anywhere. There is no “tactic.” She claimed no relationship at all to Bloomberg. Now we find out that her use of an IP address that pointed back to Bloomberg was no coincidence. She is indeed trafficking in propaganda, and she is in the employ of Bloomberg. Let’s continue with Codrea’s second article on Bloomberg’s next move.
“Tommy Gnosis is someone named Jennifer Mascia,” Herschel Smith at The Captain’s Journal posted in March. He was describing someone who, under cover of anonymity, “visits web sites — particularly gun rights web sites — and spreads discontent and dejection.”
That’s consistent with the “elaborate subterfuge” technique for “infiltrating and disrupting alternative media online” used by those with an agenda. Per Canadian research, such “Internet trolls aren’t just mean — they’re sadists and psychopaths.”
That would also seem consistent with the control-all megalomaniac who hired her, in a company-he-keeps kind of way. Mascia is one of two paid flacks “attached prominently to the Everytown news project,” an experiment in virtual Astroturf that billionaire Michael Bloomberg will be rolling out this summer.
David then goes on to explore her past as daughter of a mob hit man.
What drives Mascia is anybody’s guess, but chances are her father having been an underworld killer with multiple hits under his belt had an influence. That probably comes as a surprise to many gun rights advocates, unaware that Al Jazeera told its readers “America’s best hope for tracking gun deaths is a mob enforcer’s daughter,” and Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action gushed on social media that her story was “Amazing.”
[ … ]
As for pushing Jennifer around, I’ve made clear that if you want to come in this back yard and run with the big dogs, you’d better be prepared for some rough business. And as for Jennifer herself, you weren’t entirely honest with us, were you?
Well there you have it. She’s bought and paid for by Michael Bloomberg. She came in under a nom de guerre to spread hate and discontent. I outed her. Even then she denied it because she’s a liar.
So why is she trying to assist the controllers in this one specific issue? Listen carefully to Mark Smith below. They want the supreme court to change the test in Bruen and Heller from “in common use for lawful purposes” to something else, and they have chosen the Rahimi case for all of their hate towards gun owners. They see this as their golden opportunity.
I’ve told you what I think. I think the women on the court, including Barrett and Roberts, side with the controllers and end of changing the rules back to something the DOJ and ATF likes much better. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. There was no particularly compelling reason for them to have taken this case to begin with.
One commenter to the video below remarks, “As I recall, when the DOJ bought AR-15s a few years back, the Request for Purchase form listed them as “personal defense weapons.” Can’t have it both ways.” I’ll add to this. If the AR-15 is so bad for use in defense situations, tell me why the U.S. government agencies have so many rifles – some noted as “assault rifles” – in their inventory as personal defense weapons?
Basically, the Sierra Club and others took the U.S. Forest Service (and then the state of Arizona) to court over lead ammunition.
On the other hand, in the same provision that gives USFS control over federal forests, Congress specified that USFS’s authority “shall [not] be construed . . . to require Federal permits to hunt and fish . . . on lands in the National Forest System.” 43 U.S.C. § 1732(b). And Congress has provided in recent appropriations acts that “[n]one of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to regulate the lead content of ammunition, ammunition components, or fishing tackle under the Toxic Substances Control Act (15 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq.) or any other law.” Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, Pub. L. No. 107-103, sec. 2, div. G, tit. IV, § 438, 136 Stat. 421 (2022). The implication of this restriction is not immediately clear to us. USFS has not argued to us that this provision outright bars the relief CBD seeks.1 We do not know the scope of the appropriations restriction and whether it would prohibit USFS from, for example, conducting a rulemaking to regulate lead use in the nation’s forests, but such provisions would surely test the current limits of USFS’s general authority. See United States v. McIntosh, 833 F.3d 1163, 1172–73 (9th Cir. 2016) (holding that federal courts may enforce an appropriations rider restricting the Department of Justice from using funds to prevent states from implementing their own laws with respect to marijuana use). We do not refer to these provisions to suggest that USFS can or cannot use its existing authority to regulate the use of lead ammunition, but to demonstrate that, whatever the scope of USFS’s authority, Congress has not directed USFS to regulate hunters’ use of lead shot on federal lands.
Here is the decision. It’s a lengthy one and the read can study it for himself, but basically, the ninth circuit told the Sierra Club to go away. It’s the right decision.
I recently ordered two boxes of copper bullet cartridges at significant expense to me compared to lead bullets. First of all, I like what I see on ballistic tests of copper ammunition (i.e., the beautiful and symmetric bullet flower petal). Second, I like the weight retention inherent in the design, and the fact that the meat isn’t contaminated. That’s a big deal.
Third, I like the fact that I am helping not to adversely affect birds of prey or other animals that eat the remains of what I might have to leave behind. But that’s the third reason, not the first two.
I want to have the option to use copper ammunition, and if it’s safer for the environment, I think hunters and the shooting community should lead the way. I’m all in on that.
What I don’t want is to be told what I can and can’t do by a controller.
