Kurt Hofmann:

Earlier this month, an accused white supremacist in Florida named Marcus Faella was sentenced for two counts of the “crime” of “paramilitary training.” … The “white supremacist” accusation, if true (and there appears to be some question about that, according to witnesses called by the defense) paints Faella as an unsavory, and indeed reprehensible, individual. But it does not–cannot, in a free society–make him a criminal … Prosecutors told jurors that they didn’t have to prove a specific plan, just show the group was doing the training for some sort of civil disorder.

Kurt explores the circular reasoning inherent in the law of training for some sort of civil disorder.  You do understand that this presupposes the consequent, don’t you?  It’s a formal logical fallacy, meaning that you make a list of things involved in “training for some sort of civil disorder,” and then you prosecute someone for doing something on the list of things you crafted.  And let’s be clear.  If you aren’t currently training for some sort of civil disorder, you’re an idiot (or at least, highly irresponsible).

Mike Vanderboegh does AGW.  I told you that AGW was bad science, didn’t I?

Vanderboegh notes Rand Paul’s continued surrender to the forces of political totalitarianism.  I don’t like Rand Paul because, just like his father, he is in favor of open borders.  I will never spend one penny of gas money driving to the polls to vote for an open borders lunatic.  I don’t care what else he believes.

Finally, Vanderboegh takes on gun-prag Sebastian.  I don’t get along with Sebastian ever since he commented on one of my posts (I didn’t find out until several days later) without even giving me the courtesy of linking and sending traffic my way.  Bad, bad form, that is.  And I didn’t forward my post.  He just singled me out for criticism.

David Codrea:

That was all part of a well-planned and funded effort to expand “action group” efforts to the states reported in this column, initially in July of 2013, and warned of again in December of last year because no one else seemed to be noticing. It’s hard to organize against developing threats if the existence of where they are and how they’re structured is unknown.  Significantly, the KTNV “legitimate news media / real reporter” story mentioned none of this.

Of course not.  The main stream media is owned and operated, at least ideologically, by the DNC.  And notice how the collectivists work.  As I’ve remarked before, they work from the top down.  They need Gates’ and Bloomberg’s money, “leaders” like Mr. Obama, and propagandists to tell them what to think and how to speak (the MSM).  It represents a stark difference with patriots, and it’s why the collectivists always think the NRA tells us what to think and what to do.  But the nefarious plots from high up will continue until good men decide to act.

Kurt Hofmann:

Interestingly, the reporting requirement expansion request was worded subtly differently from the language of the initial requirement. This time, nothing was said about the two or more sales being made to the same buyer. This is in marked contrast to the language of the initial request, which explicitly stated that the reporting requirement is operative only if the same buyer purchases two or more of the firearms in the five business day time frame. In other words, the BATFE seems to have been seeking the power to demand the details of every sale of so-called “assault weapons” from any store that sold more than one of them in a five day period.

This is indeed interesting, and it’s a good analysis by Kurt.  So the expansion of power sought via federal register as opposed to law-making was even more extensive than previously thought.  As for the temporary retreat by the BATFE, Kurt is right.  “Can a leopard change its spots?”

The Seattle Times:

Now, a Washington State Patrol spokesman says people won’t be arrested for exchanging guns.  “We don’t think that we could prove that that’s a transfer,” said Bob Calkins, spokesman for the patrol.

Right.  And so what does this make of the idiotic rule that was just passed by voters (as opposed to representatives voting on laws)?

In Dayton, SWAT was called on an earlobe biter.  And no, this isn’t a joke headline.

David Codrea:

“The law did prohibit Jews and other persecuted classes from owning guns, but this should not be an indictment of gun control in general,” Alexander Seitz-Wald wrote unbelievably in a Salon hit piece, as if that made it all OK then, because non-threats to the regime could still have them. And it wasn’t just guns forbidden to “persecuted classes,” as a JPFO analysis of the November 11, 1938 (the day after Kristallnacht) law reveals.

[ … ]

To those who would “whistle past the graveyard of history,” deny that brutal tyranny could ever happen here, and call talk of armed defense against it unsupportable and even treasonous, where in history is any civilization guaranteed stasis? Has not despotism and mass destruction plagued every civilization that preceded ours? Is it not, in fact, still commonplace throughout the globe? By what suspension of reality, by what denial of the observable and the probable, by what art, device or magic are we sheltered few immune from catastrophe?

Yea, I’ve discussed the silly notion too that gun control wasn’t part of the stock and trade of the Nazis since they allowed their supporters to have guns.  The salient point is that gun control isn’t gun control if it forbids every one from having guns.  Someone always has guns.  The point of gun control is to make sure that only certain people have guns.  You understand that, don’t you?  By arguing like they do, the collectivists fall into our trap and stipulate to our definitions.

As for the final paragraph I’ve lifted, this is David at his best, waxing philosophical.  This prose is just that good.  If you don’t read anything else today, go over to David’s place and read this piece.

Kurt Hofmann:

In other words, the heat and pressure that previously had to be contained by the plastic barrel and breech of a printed gun is now instead contained in a thick steel cartridge case. Moreover, although, as the article acknowledges, the cartridge cases require some painstaking machining, they can be used over and over. Crumling is not manufacturing ammunition for sale, as doing so would require a federal license, although he has said that he would be willing to obtain such a license if there is sufficient interest in the rounds. If he sold only the steel cases themselves, without loading them with a bullet, the propellant powder, and the primer, the license would be unnecessary.

I had wondered what they were going to do about the high chamber pressures for such a firearm (approaching 55,000 – 60,000 psi).  Now you know.  Kurt is doing a great job of watching this issue.  I sense frustration with the ATF, like there is someone or something somewhere they don’t control.

Via Mike Vanderboegh:

Or in other words, the federal government stole the property of a peaceable and law abiding businessman.

David Codrea:

The point I was trying to make is the Bill of Rights gives and grants no rights. It merely defines some, but not all rights, which the Founders correctly viewed as preexisting to the government they were establishing. That understanding was further solidified in the 1875 Cruikshank decision (and repeated in the 2008 Heller decision), when the Supreme Court noted, “The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.

For having the cheek to point that out, along with citing the debate between the Federalists and anti-Federalists on the need for a Bill of Rights in the first place, I was called “a Trojan horse” a “clown” and an “idiot.” I “sound[ed] like an anti-gunner.” Even if I was right, I shouldn’t have written what I did, because it might somehow tip off the anti-gunners to use the information against us, and “if this kind of article or information appears again, refund my money and cancel my subscription.”

Sorry, but I’ve got to do it once more, and this time risk being labeled a Begala puppet, to boot.

The Second Amendment does not “give” us the right to rebel against civil and military authorities. Focus on the word “give”.

Well, if people are too stupid to read with their brains in gear, then ignore their dumb ass comments.  David’s point is important.  Yes, I believe that the second amendment stipulates certain things, and that it speaks to the states as well.  But in focusing on the second amendment I believe that we ignore the important things to our peril.

I have always said my rights are granted by God.  I believe in God, not the second amendment.  My beliefs are not subject to the vicissitudes of judicial interpretation or the latest trends in literary deconstruction.  Read all of David’s piece – with your brain in gear.  I’ll mention one semi-related thing about Ms. Joni Ernst.  I have heard twice now that she endured and commanded a “combat deployment” in Iraq.  Her political opponent may have been a putz, but according to the record, she commanded a logistics group who moved supplies from Kuwait to Baghdad.  I’m sorry, but there’s a huge difference between what my son did in Fallujah and what Ms. Earnst did in wherever she was at the time.  For me to believe that she had a “combat” deployment I need to see the Army equivalent of the Marine Corps Combat Action Ribbon.

Kurt Hofmann:

These developments have prompted AWR Hawkins, writing for Ammo Land, to ask, “Are Millionaire-Funded State-Level Initiatives the Next Phase of Gun Control?”  If so, it’s a very dangerous new phase for gun rights advocates, because it would take the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms, and hold it hostage to the popularity contest of the vote. We live not in a “democracy,” as we’re so often told, but in a republic, in large part because the Founding Fathers had the wisdom to take certain policy options off the table–off limits no matter how popular they are. As John Adams reminds us …

And you have to go visit Kurt to see what the great John Adams said.  Good on Kurt.  No innate right – and I claim my rights are granted by God whether they are recognized by the state or not – should be left for a vote.  See my take on holding rights hostage to favorable statistical outcomes, and also see Kurt on that same subject.

David Codrea: “Just a chest full of ammo makes the medicine go down … medicine go doowwwnnn …, but David doesn’t sing it for us.  I don’t know about you, but I have a problem with that.

David asks, is Facebook deleting gun pages?  Could be, but I wouldn’t know for sure.  I deleted my Facebook account.  When they asked me why, I told them Mark Zuckerberg is a horrible person.  I haven’t heard back from them.

Mike Vanderboegh posts concerning Fast and Furious.  We all knew it – that the program wasn’t a “botched operation” as the talking heads and pampered class likes to say – that it was designed all along to justify a demand letter on long gun sales, or better yet, what I really think, more laws from a Congress too damn stupid to know what was really going on.

Charles C. W. Cooke passes on the fact that recently elected Greg Abbot in Texas said he will approve a Texas open carry bill when it crosses his desk.  So what are you waiting for, Texans?

By the way, in the same Cooke article linked above, Charles says concerning I-594, “This will presumably be touted as a great victory. But it’s really not. For a start, universal background checks represent the most modest of all the Left’s aims in this area. This was not a ban on “assault” weapons, which remain legal in Washington. It was not a reduction in magazine sizes. It was not a ban on open carry. Instead, it was a law that requires residents of the state to involve a gun dealer when they transfer a weapon to another resident within the state. (Transfers between immediate family members and between spouses or domestic partners are exempt.) I’m against these rules because I think that they are pointless and because they seem invariably to ensnare innocent and unaware people. Nevertheless, the significance of Washington’s having adopted the measure should not be overstated.”

Ahem … um.  Charles.  Dude.  What the hell is wrong with you?  As recently as October 2, you thought differently.

I think there are two big threats at the moment. One is the continuing attempt to criminalize firearms that look a certain way, these so-called assault weapons. I have an AR-15. It looks like a machine gun, but it’s not. It’s no different than my hunting rifle. It’s just lighter. It’s more customizable, and it’s easier for my wife to shoot because of that. That gun has, in some states, been banned for those reasons. There’s no material difference whatsoever. The second threat is, I think, from these universal background checks.

I disagree with the November 5 Charles C. W. Cooke, but I agree with the October 2 Charles C. W. Cooke.  I too think that universal background checks pose an extreme threat to our liberty.

So now.  Would the real Charles C. W. Cooke please stand up?

Kurt Hofmann:

An interesting new concept in “smart guns” is now reaching technological maturity, according to All Outdoor. This device, made by Yardarm Technology, has a purpose significantly different from previous “smart guns,” and the idea (for now, at least) is to apply it only to cops’ duty weapons … Still, though, if cops can be forced to adopt this technology, laws mandating it for the rest of us are possible, too …

Yea.  Don’t think for a second that the control freaks will stop at law enforcement.  If it actually gives us proof of principle (and I’ll believe it when I see it), they will want to mandate it for all of us.  This I cannot abide.  Besides, the better option for cops that abuse their rights to self defense with people and animals (and even more animal abuse) should have their weapons confiscated, not re-engineered.

David Codrea:

The guy has proven time and again, oath to the Constitution be damned, his true allegiance is to unrestrained government. As presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, BuzzFeed noted, Walton “dramatically expanded the ability of the federal government to use controversial techniques to gather intelligence on Americans both at home and abroad that have outraged civil libertarians.”  Walton was appointed to that position by Chief Justice John Roberts (the guy who betrayed his backers on Obamacare).

I’ve run across this guy in my reading, and he is an enemy of the constitution and thus an enemy of America.  And Chief Justice Roberts is equally a traitor to the country.  But the damage that Walton has done on the FISA court is untold and will have to play out over decades, if not longer.

Also read David’s latest on the political terrain in Connecticut.

Via Uncle, free survival books.

Why are anti-gunners so violent?

Mike Vanderboegh has a sneak picture of a new facility Malloy and Lawlor have built for us.

David Codrea:

The Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are appealing a settlement in the case of Dobyns v United States, a post by retired agent Jay Dobyns on the Clean Up ATF member forum announced Friday. In September, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Francis M. Allegra awarded Dobyns $173,000 and denied government royalty claims against Dobyns for his book, “No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels.”

Apparently this isn’t over yet.  And it could get good.  Via Mike Vanderboegh, Dobyns speaks thusly:

I’m coming with all of it.  With all the information that they thought slipped through the cracks.  All the dirt that they thought the Judge would never see or know about.  I told you to trust me and that the trial opinion was going to be brutal.  It was.  Now trust me again.  The behind-the-scenes story of what took place and that I was choking down is going to get let out and it is very bad.  Disgusting bad …

I’m saying here and in the open. Obama, Holder, DOJ Attorneys, ATF leadership – you are punks and bitches.

You’re not going to look good in orange jumpsuits with “DOC” on the backs.  Don’t drop the soap, sleep with your backs to walls and make sure your pod doesn’t allow broom handles to be present after lights out …

I’m gunna see to it that you are braiding cornrows wearing halter tops and lipstick before this is over.

Outstanding.  I look forward to the coming festivities.

Mike Vanderboegh is waxing lovingly about the “grease gun.”

Cheap, easy to make, great for shooting bad guys

It is no secret to my friends that the M-3A1 “Grease Gun” has long been my favorite submachine gun. (It is also no secret to the ATF, apparently, since three times in the 90s snitches tried to offer me one for sale in a “can’t miss” deal. Each time I picked up the phone and called the state police and the snitch went away. The devil, it must be said, knows your temptations better than you do so be prepared to resist them.)

And of course, because of the ungodly abomination that is the Hughes Amendment, we can’t have one.  I’ll add that such a device would have been close to useless to my son in Iraq.  Marines today are trained to use their carbines with such short time between trigger pulls that they can discharge three rounds in about the same amount time that it would take a fully automatic weapons to do the same, even without the gun in select fire mode.  And this conserves ammunition.

Of course, he shot both the carbine and the SAW, and went through DM (designated marksman) school, and not many of us can afford to shoot half a million rounds in a 1.5 year workup for combat.  But assuming that we can always get better than we are with more time and practice, there is one thing I would like to duplicate from the grease gun.  Caliber.

I just can find a good pistol caliber carbine in .45 ACP.  There are plenty of 9 mm (RRA has a 9 mm carbine and I like RRA guns), some .40, but no .45 that I can find (and I don’t want a gun that is based on MAC-10 design unless I can be assured that it functions far better than the MAC-10 which is total crap).

Uncle: “The .gov spent $1B to destroy $16B worth of ammo. They could have sold it. Or given it to me and I’d have destroyed it absolutely free. And there’d have been a party.”  Yea, a lot of us feel that way about the government and ammunition.

David Codrea:

Noting that the Obama administration will “open the door to as many as 100,000 Haitians, who will now move into the United States without a visa,” The Washington Times warned Monday of a new dimension in that fundamental transformation of America President Barack Obama promised supporters. The revelation was in addition to news that a solicitation from the government seeks a printer for up to 34 million green cards …

The thought strikes, especially in light of letting in foreign nationals from places where all kinds of nasty bugs run rampant in the population, that for those who donate blood, a disqualifier on the required questionnaire is if they’ve been to certain countries. By bringing people from those countries here, especially in large numbers that are then dispersed throughout the land, are conditions not being created that can mirror many of those in their homelands?

Yes.  Conditions are being created in which the wealth ownership and liquidity, gun ownership, level of medical care, health, education and welfare will be decreased to its lowest common denominator.  This is what happens, and it’s exactly what Obama intends.  He is an anti-colonialist, and he bemoans the colonial history of America.  He aimed to change that, and change it he will, and already has.

Kurt Hofmann:

Japan has for decades imposed iron-fisted controls on not only private possession of guns, but on swords, and even long knives, preserving the “government monopoly on force” so beloved of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. That monopoly is now crumbling. Imura was caught because he made no effort to hide his gun making (and indeed actively publicized it). Others will be more circumspect.

And there is very little a government can do about them, in Japan, in the U.S., or anywhere else.

The far East, Japan included, answered the philosophical question of the one and the many in favor of the one millennia ago.  In the end, though, totalitarian regimes collapse under their own weight.  Let’s pray that happens to all such regimes, including here in America.

If you live in the Yukon, you’d better have your sidearm strapped to you at all times, even in your own house.

A begrudging ‘yes’ on open carry in Missouri.  It’s a good day when you get to watch progressives admit defeat.

In South Carolina, Larry Martin is opposed to recall elections.  Of course he is.  He is a totalitarian.  Remember Larry Martin?

Will H&K USA stop hating their customers and everybody else?  Doubtful.  Besides, I don’t like them, so the feeling is mutual.

Via Mike Vanderboegh, this from USA Today:

Now, factor the Islamists — the usual default terrorist suspects — out of this list, and a striking pattern emerges. Contrary to the popular opinion that radical Islam is the primary threat to homeland security, Christianity provides the other four groups with their extremist rationale. All are in one way or another affiliated with the Christian Identity movement, a hodgepodge of anarchist and white supremacist politics dedicated to white Christian activism. It’s all about God vs. government, and shoring up the rights of Anglo-Saxon Americans …

The Bundy standoff — initially presented as prairie populism by popular media well beyond Fox News — reflects violent currents far deeper and older in American, and Christian, history. It needs to be seen for what it is — religious extremism taken to potentially lethal ends. To the extent that we as a society fail to grapple with the religious element in extremist violence, the blood is on all of our hands.

Good grief.  Just good grief.

David Codrea:

That’s a different contention than the one reporter Hartocollis began the report with, having used the specific word “carry.” Purchasing a gun, as opposed to obtaining a carry permit, are quite different things in New York, which follows the “may issue” discretion of authorities. The process is even more exclusive in New York City, where permissions are extremely rare, as exemplified by high-profile ones enjoyed by the rich, famous and connected like actor Robert De Niro, “shock jock” Howard Stern, and developer Donald Trump.

Read David’s column for two reasons.  First, he is discussing the issue of New York placing more than 30,000 persons on the no-purchase list for guns.  Make no mistake about it.  If you are former military and have ever been diagnosed with PTSD, you will be on the list.  If you have ever taken any anti-anxiety drugs, you will be on the list.  This list is an obscene intrusion into the personal affairs of people by the state, and goes to God given rights to defend oneself.

The second reason you should read David’s column is for the conflation the author makes of purchase versus carry.  And this is a pet peeve of mine.  May issue states that turn gun ownership and carry on its head by favoring big donors to campaigns, those who can afford to hire expensive lawyers and well connected individuals as opposed to common folk, are perhaps the worst kind of gun control because it feigns second amendment rights while it mocks them.

David Codrea:

So on the one hand, Ashford supports letting loose raging monsters to stalk among us, and on the other, he wants to make it more difficult for their victims to defend themselves. Not that such laws slow down demonic killers like Nikko Jenkins, who, despite his “prohibited person” status, still never missed a beat getting the guns he used to slay his four victims.

Disgusting.  In my world his victims would have been able to defend themselves, while Mr. Jenkins would have been executed and thus unable to perpetrate those crimes.

Via Mike Vanderboegh, much of the economy is a mirage.

NSSF goes after Malloy.  I wish I could feel that they’re doing it for some other reason than the economic well being of manufacturers.  You know, like second amendment rights.

One of the deputies involved in destroying baby Bou-Bou’s life has resigned.

David Codrea:

Those are fine words. They ring true, like something gun owners can believe in. Or at least they would were NRA not helping Reid, Schumer and Durbin hold on to power by declining to endorse AQ-rated Republican Dan Sullivan in one of the key races needed to flip the Senate. They would were NRA not giving an inflated grade to Democrat Mark Begich that fails to hold him fully accountable for two Supreme Court betrayals and a host of other bad votes on gun-related issues.

David is referring to a recent NRA mailing.  Go read it for yourself.  I got it too, and it’s a crying shame when the very stated goals of the NRA are ignored in their nuts and bolts grading of candidates.  It’s like their incompetent, or dishonest, or something.

Federal Appeals Court strikes down ban on possessing guns for self defense on Army Corps of Engineers property.  The take away from all of this is that regulation of guns evolving to outright bans violates the very rights enshrined in the second amendment.  So the court says (United States Court for the District of Idaho).  I’d like to see this ruling addressed in “may issue” states where corrupt law enforcement officials turn a right into a privilege by use of discretion.

Kurt Hofmann:

Much of the video focuses on the claim that “forty percent of gun sales happen just like this [without a background check].” Right away, the Brady Campaign is counting on an audience of dummies. They need an audience incapable of discovering that the “forty percent” claim is so hyper-inflated that even the reliably, rabidly anti-gun, pro-Obama Washington Post “awarded” the president “three Pinocchios” for the clearly fraudulent claim.

It also pretends that in the presence of universal background checks criminals won’t find other avenues to obtain whatever too they wish to use to perpetrate their crimes.  I know someone who spent a number of years in Hong Kong, and he found it interesting that he would meet a number of people on the street whose faces were disfigured.  When I asked him why, he stated that a common practice of criminals was to obtain sulfuric acid and throw it in the faces of victims.

Here is a current assessment of Marine Corps attempts to test women for combat.  Not so good.  And you know my views.

Mother Jones claims that the rate of mass shootings has tripled since 2011.  Is that true?  My take – ignore all of this.  The data isn’t statistically significant.  I’m not being dismissive or coy.  I mean exactly what I said.  It doesn’t meet the Central Limit Theorem and thus proves nothing.  It would have a very high standard deviation, probably higher than the mean, thus indicating that the mean can go negative (an impossible and physically absurd conclusion).

Via Mike Vanderboegh: “GOA’s brief defends the Fourth Amendment property right to the security of one’s person. If no law has been violated, then the government has no superior interest in detaining a person or seizing property, and thus the search and seizure was unconstitutional no matter how “reasonable” the police may have acted.”

I thought all of this had already been dealt with before, leading to the necessity for all stops to be “Terry Stops”?  What’s the matter with the N.C. Supreme Court, except for being stupid collectivists?

David Codrea:

While the National Rifle Association will not be endorsing an Alaskan candidate in the Senate race, the gun group still provided reasons for gun owners to support incumbent Democrat Mark Begich. NRA assigned him an “A-” grade, compared to an “A” grade for Republican challenger Dan Sullivan based on his answering the political questionnaire. That lack of distinction between the two candidates may now be all the edge Begich needs to retain his seat and deny a majority to the GOP.

Well, I suppose the moral of the story is that NRA endorsement means absolutely nothing and the NRA is throwing their power around like pearls after swine.  In this case, you should completely ignore what the NRA is telling you.

Is Beretta and Winchester throwing gun owners (and potential gun owners) in Australia under the bus for the sake of sales?

I-594 bleeds support.  Yea, well, we’ll see won’t we.  If you really want to see the collectivists lose big, do your best to send good information around to combat their propaganda.  I’m serious about this.  I have great readers who do a great job of activism and research.  I simply do not have the time to find all Facebook pages, gun shop e-mail addresses, personal contacts and other potential avenues.  We need the help of readers like you to kill the Bloomberg/Gates bill in Washington.

Begging Remington to stay in N.Y.  I think Remington wants to, but in the end I think it’s the wrong move for them.