David Codrea:

“Establishment press has virtually ignored DOJ’s pernicious ‘Operation Choke Point’ for over a year,” financial writer Tom Blumer shows in a Friday Newsbusters analysis of the program, its timeline, and its overreaching tentacles into 30 ostensibly “high risk industries” the government is now targeting. Blumer lists those industries, linking to the FDIC’s “Managing Risks in Third-Party Payment Processor Relationships.”

Hmmm.  Suddenly the BoA abuse of gun manufacturers and companies makes better sense.  David also gives us a good article at JPFO:

“In reality, most police departments only train about two times a year, averaging less than 15 hours annually,” a Tactics & Training article on Police One admits.

This is similar to what a Captain of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department told me once: “Most of our officers pull their weapons out and qualify once a year.  Beyond that, they don’t train with them.  I had to join the Charlotte Rifle and Pistol Club to learn gun safety.”

Kurt Hofmann quotes Dr. Ben Carson:

On the other side of the argument, there are reasonable people who look at the tens of thousands of people who are killed each year in this country by guns, and they do not feel that we are doing enough to stop the carnage.

Many of them want to see significant restrictions on the distribution of firearms in our nation, and others want to restrict types and quantities of ammunition. Some would be happy just to make sure that all guns and gun owners are registered, and most reasonable people certainly are not in favor of allowing criminals and mentally unstable individuals to purchase firearms.

Oh, I don’t think they’re reasonable at all.  I disagree with his premise, and so I’ll disagree with his conclusions.  That’s logic for you.  Kurt does a good job of laying out the time line and details of Dr. Ben Carson’s position on guns.  Another thing I’ll observe is that this points once again to the difference between the collectivist tendencies in the Northern states versus the Southern states.

I smile every time I see some outlet pick up the Wolverine speech by Mike Vanderboegh.  Mike links to a WND and Huffington Post piece.  Make sure you pick up Mike’s speeches here, here and here.

What’s that concerning a Mongolian Goat Rodeo?

David Codrea:

Putting aside reader opposition to or support for the Bundy claims, and ignoring allegations of Reid’s (and his son Rory’s) personal interests in the disposition of the land in question, what must be examined is what the senator must mean if he seriously believes his accusation.

Just another means to do what the collectivists have wanted to do all along.  Disarm us.  Bhaa.  Come and take them.

Don’t miss Mike Vanderboegh’s speech in Nevada.  Mike reminds us that he’s a Yankee by birth, but given his current station in life, we’ll forgive him for that.

So we discussed that “missing M-16” didn’t we?  It’s been found.

How many of you would “forget” about an M-16 you put in your gun safe?  Yea, that’s what I thought.

And here is the comment of the day from WRSA from Tom in Ohio.

Tea party politicians.  Officially UA.

UA cannot be an excuse for this load of crap from Charles C.W. Cooke, spoken like a true Brit, a subject of the Queen.

See the new featured article The Admixture Of Military And Law Enforcement.

David Codrea:

Corroboration could cause allegations against anti-gun California State Senator Leland Yee, for attempting to broker illegal arms deals, to pale in comparison, particularly since Sharpton is a national figure with the ear of the administration and a national voice via his opinion show on MSNBC.

Well, when you bed down with criminals, you lose moral authority.  And this administration lost it a long time ago with sundry things, like Fast and Furious, the Gibson Guitar scandal, Solyndra, and the list could go on a long time.

Mike Vanderboegh:

One of them (also probably in diapers when the FBI was immolating those innocents that he figured had it coming) said that I was a “crazy old douchebag,” or words to that effect. I indicated that when they got ahold of the guy who had invited me to come up from Alabama to speak that he should get in touch with me and let me know if it had been a waste of time. Then I left.

So, having learned nothing that I needed to know and as ignorant as before I drove back to where I am staying. My speech, it would seem, is entirely up in the air. In truth, they had not invited me to their meeting and it was well within their rights to ask me to leave, so I really bear them no rancor. But some of them sure don’t know shit from shinola about Waco.

What a strange meeting.  David Koresh was a rapist and child abuser and I have no connection to him, ideologically or in any other way.  But there were other ways to handle this than the way the ATF chose.  Burning an entire township down and harming innocent folk is the mark of rapists, and so the ATF became (or already were) the very man they sought to arrest.

Mike Vanderboegh:

I congratulated Ammon and told him that this was perhaps a pivotal moment in American history. He also agreed with me that it is impossible not to see the hand of God in all of this. I told him that it was my opinion that the empire would surely strike back, but that they would likely come at the Bundys and their supporters sideways next time. Still, it was a great victory, a pivotal moment, in the relationship between the federal government and the American people. Nothing will be quite the same after this, mostly because it has demonstrated to those whom the government would victimize that they only require someone with the guts to stand up to leviathan — and the armed friends to back them up in the argument.

Read the entire communication.  It is indeed a great victory, but the empire will indeed strike back.

WRSA:

Enjoy this #bundyranch thread at PoliceOne.

Go at it, boys.

In public.

Please.

LMAO.

Must read.  You’d better figure it out, boys.  Each and every one of you, individually, after talking with your wives and loved ones, after much prayer.  Your souls are at stake, and it will come to your doorstep.  You can’t avoid it.  Ponder the deep thoughts now.  Pick your sides soon and be faithful.

David Codrea:

Adding to the FAA “mystery” is a helicopter photo from The Las Vegas Review Journal showing a helicopter at the scene with numbers that some speculate have been altered, and that do not appear on the FAA registry. Combined with documentation of FBI helicopters being masked by private entity front group registrations, the situation cries for further oversight and scrutiny, including close monitoring of all aerial operations.

Oh, there’s a whole lot of things about this that bear more scrutiny.  You can bet that the main stream media will get right on it.

Kurt Hofmann:

For now, though, what they have fixated on is EP Armory’s manufacturing process. Specifically, they seem to be under the impression (or are at least claiming to be under the impression) that EP Armory first casts the frame of the receiver–the part that the builder will keep, and which becomes the lower receiver of the firearm, and then adds the differently colored plastic in the cavity of the receiver, and plugging the holes that will then have to be drilled out for the pins used in assembling the gun.

If this were true, then technically speaking, the receiver would have been a complete receiver for a brief time, and by law, once a receiver is completed, it cannot, legally speaking, ever revert back to “80%” status. It is, from then on, a firearm in the eyes of the law.

The problem for the BATFE is that the receivers are apparently not made that way.

Read Kurt’s entire piece.  I’ve read the articles before on this, and perhaps I’m a slow learner (and of course I just don’t have the time to do the research I would like).  But this is the first time I think I have really understood what this whole issue is about.

Mike Vanderboegh has some excellent pictures of the Bundy ranch standoff here and here.

Here is an example of how police are as dangerous as criminal gangs who might invade your home.  In fact, speaking of criminal gangs, I sent this to my family and said, “If a gang ever invades your home and you call the police, then you have two gangs warring inside your home.  Some innocent victim is likely to get killed.”

David Codrea:

Thousands of gun owners, many lawfully armed, rallied at the State Capitol in Hartford on Saturday to protest gun laws enacted in Connecticut. Organized by the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, the rally served to introduce activists to legal measures being taken in the courts to repeal those edicts, to promote support for politicians pledging to support the right to keep and bear arms, and to give fed up gun owners a public forum to voice their defiance of orders to surrender their firearms.

David was the keynote speaker and his speech (embedded at Examiner) is well worth the listening time.  Part 2 of the speech is on YouTube.  I appreciate David going and representing all of us, especially with a very good speech.  I must say that although I consider him to be a friend, I have never met him in person (a fact which I must remedy one day).  I find him to be persuasive, a good speaker, and well-presented, even if he isn’t as good looking as I am.

Kurt Hofmann:

Rabidly anti-gun Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA), though, has another idea. She suggests that the Obama administration exploit Yee’s alleged crimes as justification for more restrictive gun regulation.

Of course.  What else would a good collectivist do except argue for more government control?  Kurt uses his powers of logic to upbraid the whole notion raised by this hag.

Mike Vanderboegh has a very interesting take on the recent racially motivated beating in Detroit.  I recall seeing this, and I sent myself a link with the subject line if you’re white you don’t belong in Detroit.  Mike invokes the memory of the Rwandan genocide, pointing out that the victims didn’t have guns.  And I recall thinking about these fellows in Detroit that a gun might have saved them from this beating.  Also we shouldn’t forget that the folks who perished under the evil Idi Amin in Uganda weren’t armed.

Rob Pincus recently did an interesting video concerning use of the AR pistol.  I found myself wondering why anyone would worry about the legal use of the weapons when you are under threat (is it legal to use three points of contact?) just because of what lawyers inside the beltway say.  Of course, Rob points out that the ATF weighed in on this issue, stipulating that use doesn’t matter.  I still wonder why, under threat, anyone would stop to worry over whether you shouldered the weapon.  I understand that it has to do with whether Rob trains folks to do that, but I would train to do whatever saved my life.

David Codrea:

Acknowledging a necessary self-imposed silence as they marshal their legal resources following a March raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives in which polymer precursor receivers were seized, EP Armory (the manufacturer that supplied Ares Armor, itself the subject of ATF raids) issued a statement Monday updating customers and supporters on the status of their legal plight.

Drop by David’s place to read what they said.  They are in a fight against the forces of darkness, and I’m sure that the privacy rights of their customers has already been violated.  Copies have been made and filed, you can be sure.

Kurt Hofmann:

There’s a reason that the anti-self-defense zealots refuse to make a distinction between the concepts of “guns everywhere,” and “guns everywhere except where there is no potential need for them.” It’s because even they lack the audacity to try to dispute the fact that no such distinction exists.

Kurt’s love of logic is a wonderful thing.  Truly it is.

Does the new WV gun law cause confusion?

“I think the intent of that was to say that if the rec center has a place that would enable the person with a concealed carry permit to lock it away so there’s no way anyone else could get to it, then they can do that,” Palumbo said.  “Otherwise the gun would have to be locked in a vehicle.”

[ … ]

However, the National Rifle Association has an entirely different interpretation.  The NRA’s legal division said, “It is clear that a person with a concealed carry license can (emphasis added) carry a firearm concealed in a ‘municipally owned recreation facility’ even if the facility does provide for secure storage (emphasis added).”

Why is this so hard for everyone?  It isn’t hard for me.  Here’s the deal.  They are talking about recreational facilities.  Folks come in to play sports.  They cannot do that with a carry gun.  They need a storage location in order to secure their weapon.  For the folks who come in to manage, watch and score the games, if they have a permit they can carry on their person.  Again, what’s so hard to understand about this?  See also the emotional meltdown by anti-gunner Danny Jones.  It’s still good for a laugh.

Kurt Hofmann:

It’s more than plausible that of the portion that would not be shipped overseas, at least some would end up in killers’ hands here in the U.S., available for appalling mayhem. Why, after all, would an arms smuggler just sit on the weapons, which would thus not be making him any money, and would instead just expose him to the risk of arrest and prosecution?

Does anyone think that had that indeed happened, Yee would not attempt to exploit the ensuing carnage as justification for more “gun control”?

Well, it seems to be the collectivist’s modus operandi.

David Codrea:

Case in point, since OSHA is mentioned as a possible catalyst in Thursday’s Bozeman raid by other agencies, this column warned back in 2009 that Obama’s pick to head the agency, David Michaels, was strongly anti-gun and committed to using regulatory schemes to get his way. At the time of his nomination, this column advocated organized opposition, including scoring confirmation votes against gun group ratings and contacting the appropriate Senate committee, even reminding readers of Michaels’ organizational connections with George Soros (himself a backer of draconian international citizen disarmament efforts).

I’ve warned you about the executive branch of the government and legislating by federal register notice.  This is a corollary.  They send the regulators in and fine you, shut you down, and make it impossible to do business.  They may even send an armed team after you for breaking the rules they wrote without the consent of the Congress.

Visit Mike Vanderboegh’s Crisis City for a view of where we’ve been, and where we’re going.

PTR makes its first rifles in South Carolina.  If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times.  Smith & Wesson, Rock River Arms, Remington, Mossberg … what are you waiting for?

Some genius named Rachel Stella is asking about Georgia’s new law, and whether it’s okay to have guns on God’s property.  I’m in favor of guns on God’s property, and oh, by the way, the posing of the question assumes a chasm between the sacred and secular.  The Psalmist says that the “cattle on a thousand hills belong to God” (Psalm 50:10), or in other words, we’re just stewards.  He owns everything.  So that about covers it for me.  Guns everywhere.

Uncle discusses a judge discussing the ATF making crime their mission instead of doing their job:

The time has come to remind the Executive Branch that the Constitution charges it with law enforcement — not crime creation. A reverse-sting operation like this one transcends the bounds of due process and makes the Government the oppressor of its people.

To LEOs, I told you so.

It’s what Mike Vanderboegh calls losing the mandate of heaven.  At one time in our history, constables were respected and admired.  Children wanted to talk to them, show them respect, and even be like them.  Nowadays, with enough rifles pointed at women and children while screaming obscenities, with enough dead animals, with enough abuse and danger from cops, it may not be long before the people turn on cops.  If you’re a cop, you don’t want that to happen.  Believe me.  You don’t want that to happen.  You want to maintain the “mandate of heaven.”  If you lose it, you’ve lost everything.

Mike Vanderboegh believes that Chris Christie is playing Russian Roulette with his presidential aspirations with this potential magazine ban.  I don’t think so.  Wait until Chris Christie attempts to play his loud mouth, overbearing, schoolyard bully routine down South, say in South Carolina or Alabama, where we don’t get into meddling jerks bossing us around.  Chris Christie will never be president, regardless of what he does in New Jersey.

Mike Vanderboegh relates RI state senator Josh Miller winning friends and influencing people.  To gun owners, he says, Go fuck yourself.

Kurt Hofmann:

Perhaps surprisingly, in 2005, both chambers of the Illinois legislature introduced HB 477/SB 44, the “Gun-free Zone Criminal Conduct Liability Act,” and this legislation was far from toothless …

There’s no “perhaps.”  I’m shocked, really.  If someone would have asked me when Illinois would have a provision like this, I would have said “not in my lifetime.”  I would have been wrong.

David Codrea:

“ATF carried out these storefront sting operations across the country, from Oregon to Florida, and utilized deplorable tactics including exploiting mentally disabled individuals to generate business and later arresting them, setting up storefronts near schools, and even losing high-powered firearms … “It is surprising that failures such as Operation Fearless in Milwaukee occurred despite this enhance oversight from ATF leadership”

I would rather have thought that it was specifically because of this enhanced leadership that these things occurred.  Of course, this feature of the system isn’t a bug.  It’s by design.

Kurt Hofmann:

There is perhaps a compromise to be found here for people living under such laws. Defy those laws, obtain the “illegal” guns–even if you have to make them yourself in order to do so. Don’t register them (obviously)–perhaps even convert the registration forms into atmospheric carbon, just to get the “progressives” still more hot under the collar. But also maintain at least one “legal” AR-15, even if doing so requires odd gadgetry like the ARMagLock and the “SAFE Act”-compliant stock–just to let the other side know that however many gun ban laws they come up with, they’re still being outsmarted, and people are still buying AR-15s (which can, after all, be quickly converted to full capability).

Kurt cites me and I appreciate the attention.  Let’s be clear.  When I referred to the silly modified AR-15 as an abomination, I did so because it mocked Eugene Stoner’s intent to prevent a couple about the firing hand when it is used by placing all of the force on the same axis as the chamber.  I do hate it so when Mr. Stoner turns in his grave.  I admire him so, and feel his pain when he hurts.

Maybe Kurt has something, and I don’t mind ways to insult silly rules and keep our freedoms.  But take note.  One compromise here, another there, and the anti-gun zealots won’t be mollified.  They’re just emboldened.

WRSA has a great quote by C.S. Lewis that is a must read.  Sometimes I don’t think commenters understand what’s being said.  One implies that Lewis was a conventional conservative, statists who “mean well” but ending up harming us.  Not so fast.  Read a little deeper man.

The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good — anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence the new name ‘leaders’ for those who were once ‘rulers’. We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals.

Lewis isn’t pitying the statists because they’re screw-ups who are trying to do good.  He is saying that their world and life view is different, leading them to different value judgments.  Their whole concept of good and bad, right and wrong, is different that yours or mine.  Or to cite Alvin Plantinga, their very of what’s logical is different than mine because of differences in world view.  This leads to different value judgments.

Go read Mike Vanderboegh’s latest letter to the legislatures of New Jersey and Rhode Island.

The firearm owners of your respective states tell me that you are busy men and women with short attention spans so I will try to make this brief …

Some things are just priceless.

Kurt Hofmann:

I literally asked him if a law was passed to put Jews in the Ghettos, would you? He literally said “Now you are being silly…but if its the law, I enforce it; I don’t make them.”

It’s difficult to imagine a more Machiavellian statement than that.  This is the sign of a man who’s lost his way, one who has lost any sense of morality and has replaced the concept of right and wrong with dictates by the state.  There you have it.  The framework for values of some LEOs in America today.

David Codrea:

“Ares Armor is under immediate threat of having their customers’ personal information and its legal goods being seized by the ATF …”

So it doesn’t end with just overreach by the ATF into areas where they have no business, confiscating parts that legally meet the stipulations set out by the government.  It goes to the personal information of customers.  Because, you know, the ATF has a compelling interest in knowing the personal information of people doing things legally.

And in that same vein, Mike Vandeboegh reports on the case of James Kaleda.

I seen random reports of New Jersey Firearms Purchaser Identification card applicants being advised that one or more of their answers to the ten specific questions asked on the Firearms Purchaser Identification card application were “wrong” ( also known as false). The applicants were permitted to come in and make the necessary correction with no reprisals.  Other applicants reported having their New Jersey Firearms Purchaser Identification card application denied, forcing the applicant to appeal that denial to the County Superior Court and having the denial overturned. I have found no other instance where the New Jersey State Police has detained an Individual Firearms Purchaser Identification card applicant for a clerical error.

They don’t like to be criticized.  Ever.  At all.  It’s called retribution.

Uncle sends us to this.

So it is that the days of the great gun writers are gone. There will never be another Cooper, Keith, O’Connor, Aagaard, Sitton, Skelton or Jordon. The world of communication has changed. The Internet and the plethora of gun blogs, gun magazines, gun television, gun DVDs and those who write about guns (including me) have, in a way, polluted the water.

The good thing is that now, no matter how you believe or what you think, you can find a writer who reflects your sentiments. That bad thing is that, no matter how you believe or what you think, you can find a writer that reflects your sentiments. With the modern world of outdoor communication its no longer about the message it’s more about the character the communicator plays. Good actors always seem to draw a crowd which is why no one is standing in line at my front gate.

Yea, that’s the problem.  That’s exactly the way I feel when I watch a Travis Haley instructional video.  I lament the loss of prominence of folks like Jerry Tsai, David Petzal and Jim Zumbo.

Look, I don’t need them.  There are plenty of good magazines where guns are reviewed for hunting prowess, and online forums are sometimes great, sometimes not, when it comes to gun reviews.  But I’d rather read a review of a real gun buyer than not before I spend my hard earned money.

You can find good and bad over the internet.  You just have to be able to sort it out.  Do your homework guys.  We still have great gun writers around.