Well, Delaware.  And well, Obama appointee.

If you live in Delaware … why?

This man is an idiot … or just dishonest.  He considers himself to be better than you.

The Throne of Grace, by Charles Spurgeon, Preached November 19, 1871

“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” – Hebrews 4:16

Excerpt:

These words are found embedded in that gracious verse, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need”; they are a gem in a golden setting. True prayer is an approach of the soul by the Spirit of God to the throne of God. It is not the utterance of words, it is not alone the feeling of desires, but it is the advance of the desires to God, the spiritual approach of our nature towards the Lord our God. True prayer is not a mere mental exercise, nor a vocal performance, but it is deeper far than that—it is spiritual commerce with the Creator of heaven and earth. God is a Spirit unseen of mortal eye, and only to be perceived by the inner man; our spirit within us, begotten by the Holy Ghost at our regeneration, discerns the Great Spirit, communes with him, prefers to him its requests, and receives from him answers of peace. It is a spiritual business from beginning to end; and its aim and object end not with man, but reach to God himself.

In order to such prayer, the work of the Holy Ghost himself is needed. If prayer were of the lips alone, we should only need breath in our nostrils to pray: if prayer were of the desires alone, many excellent desires are easily felt, even by natural men: but when it is the spiritual desire, and the spiritual fellowship of the human spirit with the Great Spirit, then the Holy Ghost himself must be present all through it, to help infirmity, and give life and power, or else true prayer will never be presented, but the thing offered to God will wear the name and have the form, but the inner life of prayer will be far from it.

Moreover, it is clear from the connection of our text, that the interposition of the Lord Jesus Christ is essential to acceptable prayer. As prayer will not be truly prayer without the Spirit of God, so it will not be prevailing prayer without the Son of God. He, the Great High Priest, must go within the veil for us; nay, through his crucified person the veil must be entirely taken away; for, until then, we are shut out from the living God. The man who, despite the teaching of Scripture, tries to pray without a Saviour insults the Deity; and he who imagines that his own natural desires, coming up before God, unsprinkled with the precious blood, will be an acceptable sacrifice before God, makes a mistake; he has not brought an offering that God can accept, any more than if he had struck off a dog’s neck, or offered an unclean sacrifice. Wrought in us by the Spirit, presented for us by the Christ of God, prayer becomes power before the Most High, but not else.

Here is a basic instruction in prayer that should be helpful for any believer.

One of the several AR-15 hit pieces today was published by The Washington Post.  It’s full of the usual blather (except for one interview I hope I get to conduct tomorrow), but this one revelation stood out to me.

Shortly after Parkland, President Donald Trump repeatedly floated the idea of supporting a new assault weapons ban.

He mentioned it on live television to one of the Senate’s most vocal gun-control backers, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and in a private meeting with Parkland families. His comments rattled NRA officials and some of his own advisers.

NRA representatives later warned Trump against taking action. “They came up here and said to him, the base is going to blow you up,” according to a former official who sat in during a series of meetings with the NRA. They, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions.

But Trump kept coming back to the idea, according to several former administration officials.

In the summer of 2019, after back-to-back mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso involving an AR-15-style pistol and an AKM-style rifle, Trump told aides that he wanted to ban AR-15s, according to people present for the statements.

“I don’t know why anyone needs an AR-15,” Trump told aides as he flew on Marine One to the White House in August 2019, according to a person who heard his comments.

As one former official put it in describing the real estate developer turned politician, “His reflexes were a New York liberal on guns. He doesn’t have knee-jerk conservative reflexes.”

But Trump was also petrified of the NRA and others taking him on, former advisers said, and heard from a number of advisers that it would be unpopular. Trump ultimately stopped entertaining the idea of working with Democrats on gun control later that year, when he was caught in a scandal over his now-infamous phone call with Ukraine’s president.

“F— it, I’m not going to work with them on anything. They’re f—ing impeaching me,” Trump said in one Oval Office meeting, according to a participant.

There’s your gun rights president.  Never forget he said that.  And never forget he supported red flag laws (with “due process” coming after the fact), and the bump stock ban, what has turned out to be an awful precedent for the current ATF shenanigans and malfeasance literally making law over pistol braces.

Never forget these things.

I should be more specific and say that those weapons are protected from bans.

“Under Bruen and Heller, the irreducible minimum of the Second Amendment is this: States may not ban arms that millions of Americans possess for lawful purposes. That most basic of principles dooms HB 5471. The Court should grant Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.”

“The Second Amendment secures “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.” U.S. Const. amend. II. And as the Supreme Court made clear last year, “when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.” N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S.Ct. 2111, 2126 (2022). The first question this Court must ask in analyzing HB 5471 is thus whether the firearms and magazines the statute bans fit within “the Second Amendment’s definition of ‘arms.’” Id. at 2132. After all, one can neither “keep” nor “bear” what one cannot acquire or possess in the first place. If the answer to that first question is yes (which it plainly is, see infra pp.1-6), the Court must then ask whether the firearms and magazines HB 5471 bans are “highly unusual in society at large” today. Id. at 2143 (quoting Heller v. Dist. of Columbia, 554 U.S. 570, 627 (2008)). If the answer to that question is no (which it plainly is, see infra pp.6-11), then the inquiry is over and the statute is invalid, because a state may not “prohibit[] … an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for [a] lawful purpose.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 628; see also Bruen, 142 S.Ct. at 2128, 2143 (“[T]he Second Amendment protects … weapons that are unquestionably in common use today.”).”

“The rifles, pistols, and shotguns that HB 5471 flatly bans, see 720 ILCS 5/24-1.9(a)(1), (b)-(c), obviously fit that bill. Indeed, if the most ubiquitous firearms in America do not even fall within the ambit of the Second Amendment, then Bruen, Heller, and the Amendment itself mean nothing. The AG nonetheless contends that the firearms HB 5471 bans are not “Arms” covered by the Second Amendment because (he says) “they are not commonly used for self-defense” today and were not “in common use at the time the Second or Fourteenth Amendments were ratified.” AG.Br.2, 16. The first argument is analytically confused; as for the second, the Supreme Court has twice “rejected” it as “‘bordering on the frivolous.’” Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U.S. 411, 414 (2016) (Alito, J., concurring) (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 582); see id. at 411-12 (per curiam).”

Read the whole brief to the court.

Everyone has seen the news reports on the school shooting at a PCA church school in Tennessee.  I won’t rehearse the facts here.  Pray for the families.  We have friends who are close to some of those who perished today.

I have a few observations to make, and then more for tomorrow.  I have a [hopeful] interview with an individual cited in one of the pieces today on AR-15s.

Observations.

First, don’t you find it just a bit odd that no less than four (4) hit pieces came out over the legacy media today, and before the morning was over, an attack on a school occurred with the woman carrying ARs?

Second, the shooter was engaged within 15 minutes after the 911 call was made and put down the shooter.  Suck on that, Uvalde police.  Cowards.

Third, something seems wrong with this account.  She was carrying two AR-15s and a pistol.  Something doesn’t add up.  No one needs or carries two rifles and a pistol.  The additional rifle would just get in her way and bang around, impeding her mobility.

Recall when I recently asked the question why anyone would work hard and put harsh solvents down his barrel to remove copper when the first shot after cleaning will simply refill the discontinuities and imperfections with copper all over again?  And I asked why it wasn’t better to leave it alone?

I can’t locate that post at the moment, but I know I posed those questions.

This experienced gunsmith is telling you not to worry about it.

That’s good enough for me.  I have never worried about copper fouling before, I don’t now, and I don’t intend to in the future.

I think his list devolves a bit into 7 rifles he either wouldn’t trust or wouldn’t choose to carry again.  Anyway, his views are always interesting, and I know he carefully tests out his equipment. I’m not sure I would choose to carry a 13 pound rifle very far on a hunt either. I’m also not sure I’ll ever have a need for 28 Nosler.

David Codrea.

“Senator Mike Rounds, R-S.D., is taking on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) with a new bill expanding full-time travelers’ gun ownership rights,” Fox News reports. “Rounds reintroduced the Traveler’s Gun Rights Act on Thursday, a bill that aims to update federal law to account for gun residency issues full-time travelers — such as people who live in recreational vehicles (RVs), individuals with multiple homes, and military personnel and spouses.”

Yawn … big deal.

Read the rest of David’s analysis.  He’s a pro-immigration pol, supporting amnesty for more than ten million illegals in America.  That means your medical bills and tax dollars go towards medical care for someone other than your family since they treat the hospital ER as their PCP and then lean on the entire medical system to finish the job and foot the bill.  Ask me how I know and I can send you to an NP who works in surgery and emergency medicine.  There are no arguments here.  These are facts, and they are not in dispute.

For pro-immigration libertarians out there, that’s one of the most un-conservative and un-libertarian things you could do to the American people system.  It’s also theft, and therefore immoral.

David ends with Mark Smith’s video (which we’ve embedded), and then this.

Bearing Arms takes exception to Smith’s video.

I take exception to Bearing Arms. So does my colleague Herschel Smith at The Captain’s Journal.

By the way, his orange attire and bird vest doesn’t impress me.  I upland bird hunt too, but whereas he’s a realtor and insurance salesman and broker, I’m a working man.  He supports legalized theft, and many big businessmen do (so they don’t have to bear the brunt of the expense of immigrants), and I support morality.

He also fails to acknowledge what I’ve pointed out so many times before from Pew research that Hispanics support gun control by some 75%.  It’s a fact, and it is not in dispute.  Comments to my linked research from others say things like ““Hispanic” is a chimera. Around here the Cubans are damn near 100% gun owners. I think what they mean by “hispanic” is Mexican.”

Interesting, and totally irrelevant.  I didn’t say anything about where this commenter was from.  I quoted Pew who told us that 75% of the immigrants being let into America do not support their RKBA.  It’s a fact, and it’s not in dispute.

This guy doesn’t get it either at The Libertarian Institute.

The principle at stake here is the same principle at stake in the gun control debate–whether peaceful, law-abiding individuals should lose their freedoms because a few bad people commit atrocities.

Nice misdirect.  That’s not the principle and he knows it.  The principle is whether we let those people here to begin with given their opposition to our RKBA.  They oppose it by 75%.  That’s a fact, and it’s not in dispute.

Source:

The military use of shotguns has always fascinated me. I love shotguns, like an absolute ton.

I shoot clays with a shotgun, I hunt with a shotgun, and I trust a shotgun for home defense. As a Marine, I was even issued a Mossberg due to my skill and experience with these firearms.

The military use of shotguns has always fascinated me. I love shotguns, like an absolute ton.

I shoot clays with a shotgun, I hunt with a shotgun, and I trust a shotgun for home defense. As a Marine, I was even issued a Mossberg due to my skill and experience with these firearms.

The Very Beginning

Firearms that fire a load of shot have been around since the earliest guns, but the most notable dedicated shotgun came in the form of the blunderbuss.

A flintlock blunderbuss, circa approximately 1780. (Photo: Catawiki)

[…]

The American Revolution

The blunderbuss was never superbly popular with Americans.

Pilgrims being armed with the blunderbuss at Plymouth rock seems to be more fiction than fact. Coming into the American Revolution, the Americans were armed with more traditional muskets.

These smoothbore long arms were not known for their accuracy. Colonial American soldiers recognized this and began using a special load called “buck and ball.” Soldiers would pack a normal musket ball but would also add a small load of buckshot pellets.

These buckshot pellets, followed by the musket round, improved the chance of scoring a hit on enemy soldiers.

In the Battle Of New Orleans, the buck and ball proved its merit. 5,700 Americans faced 8,000 British and routed them. The Americans suffered 62 casualties, and the British suffered 2,034.

Into the Civil War

The American Civil War saw the rapid rise of small arms technology, including metallic cartridges. But at the beginning of the war, the famed buck and ball loads were still being heavily used.

The South, in particular, utilized shotguns extensively, especially with their cavalry forces.

Shotguns at the time were muzzleloading designs and often featured shorter barrels to make them lighter and easier to handle, especially on horseback.

The Confederates also lacked the production capacity of the North, and this forced them to utilize common hunting implements in war.

During the Civil War, metallic cartridges, including brass-cased shotgun shells and repeating rifles, came to be. Like every other firearm, the brass-cased shells improved reliability and reloading speed.

However, the closest shotguns got to being repeaters at the time were double-barrel guns, also known as coach guns. These shorter barrel shotguns were known for being quite powerful and effective for quick engagements.

In the 1870s, paper shells were introduced.

These water-resistant paper shells lowered the price of shotgun shells significantly and were easier to manufacture than brass shells. However, they could not be easily reloaded.

Next, the article goes into the adoption of repeating shotguns, then the World Wars, and later Vietnam and the Modern Era.

A photo of the Remington 870 MCS showing the full modular kit. (Photo: Gunrunnerhell)

This is an interesting and very thorough study.

Freedom Baptist Ministries – Pastor John Weaver March 5, 2023

Has a Live Coal Touched Your Lips, Isaiah 6:1-11