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Quick Updates

10/13/24: Still here, tomorrow gets a new post, one that I didn't want to write. Many things going on, not enough time in the day. I have a dozen articles that I need to finish. I am working on them. I promise.

My new video channels

I know haven't been posting, thanks to personal and professional pressures. Not that I haven't been writing, just never got to finish and actually post them.

Anyway, I have managed to carve out some time to make videos for both Rumble and YouTube. They come out on Wednesdays right now, if I start picking up subscribers on my Buy Me A Coffee I will make the Rumble videos available two days earlier on Monday. Both channels have the same videos for now, that may change. These channels are called The Armed Citizen, where I explain things that no one else talks about concerning the various esoteric and finer points of being an armed citizen. The kind of stuff I wish someone had told me when I started carrying.

I am explaining things on such a level for those new gun owners who have no idea, and for those experienced gun owners who haven't thought about how to explain this stuff.

I am doing this because I think it's critical knowledge for these times. I am not expecting to make a living off these videos, since it takes me 8+ hours to think about, script, practice (while I'm driving), then record (several times) and edit before posting.

Here's a YouTube video, I can't (right now) embed Rumble videos. I do ask you watch the Rumble videos, as there I have a better chance at monetization. Because, you know, YouTube doesn't like guns and will demonetize me in a heartbeat.

Irony, let me count the ways.

So here is a group on X, called the New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, and these guys messed up, but that’s okay, they are blessed by DOJ.

This group a while back managed to get passed into a state law NM law 30-7-7.1, requiring a background check to transfer a firearm from one private citizen to another. This is part of what you have to do when you buy a gun from a gun store. At the gun store, you fill out the BATFE Form 4473, while the store/current owner goes to a website or calls a state 800 number, giving to the operator the buyer’s name, drivers’ license number and maybe an SSN. Once the background check is completed and the buyer passes the check, the transfer may proceed.

So back on December 16th, they apparently received three bolt-action rifles and two shotguns from a family. No paperwork was performed during this transfer. So, they’re in violation of the law they helped pass.

NMPGV rifles

Then, as you see in this image, they sawed them in half. There are specific ATF approved rules on how to destroy a firearm, and this isn’t on the list. These are still firearms as long as the action works and it can chamber a round. It doesn’t matter if the round is sticking out of the weapon. What they have done in this instance is created a “Short Barreled Rifle” (SBR) and this is now a Class III weapon, and is treated just like a machine gun. You actually have to apply to the ATF and receive approval from them before you can alter the firearm to the SBR condition. Not being properly registered and not having received the appropriate paperwork, this is federal felonies #1 and #2.

THEN, according to a Tweet from them on 12/14, this group takes these Class III weapons onto a school campus, and performs a second transfer, to underage young adults, who properly destroy them by forging them into gardening tools. Felonies #2 (taking a gun into a federal gun-free zone), #3 (unapproved transfer of an unregistered Class III weapon), #4 and 5 (transfer of a weapon to a minor, transfer of an unregistered Class III weapon to a minor) and a second state transfer violation.

Here’s where the irony really kicks in. A Tweet from a person who the NMPGV “helped”, Kat’s family are ardently anti-gun. Including the dad. Yet, the anti-gun dad, apparently experienced some fear over the neighbors, or maybe the “Summer of Love” in general. There is no mention as to when he bought them, so that is all conjecture. However, he bought these weapons to protect himself and his family.

I find it typically hypocritical of a Liberal/Leftist to decry the possession and/or use of firearms, yet that’s the first thing they buy when they feel they are in danger.

NMPGV tweet

Thankfully, the local Sheriff is investigating the matter. San Juan sheriff probes advocacy group's gun buybacks in Farmington.

I do not wish any ill on any person. That being said, I sincerely hope they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of all appropriate laws, local, state and federal that they have broken. Because, as Ulysses S. Grant said:

I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.Ulysses S. Grant

Liberty/Liberal safe

In the news, Liberty safes, one of the biggest gun safe manufacturers has just put themselves in some very deep and very hot water. A federal search warrant was issued for a suspected 1/6 participant, and handed to Liberty safes, who then provided a "secret override code" to the feds to open said safe. Except the warrant was for the property the safe is on, not the safe itself.

That secret code right there is why I will never purchase one of their safes. THE FACT THAT IT EXISTS IN THE FIRST PLACE is terrifying to me.

Then it comes out that the CEO of Liberty, who is also a founding partner of Monomoy Capital Partners that bought Liberty in 2021, Justin Hillenbrand, it has been discovered through FEC filings that both Hillenbrand and Monomoy have a long and consistent history of donating to Leftists.

All I can say is, I would not be surprised if their sales drop to zero in the next week, and any ordered but not delivered safes are cancelled.

Backdoor code, roll over on command by the feds, donating to the people who want to take guns away... Three strikes and you're out.

The tragedy in Nashville

We had a tragedy in Nashville the other day. Three children and three adults were killed in a mass shooting at a Christian school. I wanted to analyze everything that went right, because this could have been so much worse.

Before I start with anything, I need to make this very clear:

EVIL WILL ALWAYS WAIT AND STRIKE WHEN THEY ARE STRONGEST AND THE TARGET IS WEAKEST. A person who is committed to accomplishing their evil task and are willing to trade their lives to complete it are nigh impossible to stop. Good can only train and be ready to react when evil strikes. Good cannot do everything they need to deter all evildoers, they can only scare off the less committed.

THE SHOOTER

The shooter was a trans person, a FtoM transsexual, who, by their final texts to friends was evidently intending to suicide by cop. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. The shooter deserves to be erased by history. May their name never be mentioned or their story receive media coverage, as it can only inspire others to likewise go out in a blaze of glory.

All of the weapons purchased were done so legally. Let me make this clear: THERE WAS NO GUN CONTROL LAW CURRENTLY IN PLACE OR PROPOSED AS I WRITE THIS THAT WOULD HAVE STOPPED THE SHOOTER. The shooter was 28, had no criminal or mental health history (other than the gender dysphoria), or anything that would have disqualified her on an BATF Form 4473.

The shooter carried three weapons, a handgun, an AR-15 Pistol and a Pistol Caliber Carbine. None of these would have been banned by any current or proposed gun-control law in any state. The “AR-Pistol” is for all intents and purposes, is an AR-15, just with a short barrel and no butt stock. It's basically a "rifle caliber pistol." Because of the short barrel and only one point of contact with the operator (the handgrip), it is inaccurate beyond a few yards, and has a significantly lower muzzle velocity and bullet spin stabilization due to the short barrel. A carbine is a firearm that has a barrel length longer than a pistol, and shorter than a rifle. It is meant for shorter-ranged engagements, generally < 100 yards. Because a carbine is shorter than a rifle, it is more effective in CQB, or Close Quarter Battle, which is indoors.  A pistol caliber carbine is a carbine that fires a cartridge usually meant for a handgun. The PCC in this case was a Kel-Tec Sub 2000, which is known as a “truck gun” and fires 9mm ammunition.  It is designed to fold the barrel back to shrink the entire package, made to fit under or behind a vehicle seat and can be quickly deployed if needed. It can fit into a backpack, and takes only a few seconds to open and make ready. A 9mm round fired from this PCC has more hitting power, less felt recoil and accuracy at longer distances than from a pistol, due to the physics of barrel, powder, rifling and sight radius, which is germain to this discussion.

In my opinion, these were not an incorrect mix of weapons for such an assault. I DO NOT IN ANY WAY CONDONE THE ACTIONS OF THE SHOOTER. That being said, the tactical choices the shooter made for their weapon choices regarding the shooter's physical strength and physical capability was not unreasonable. The AR-pistol took care of the glass in the doors, the PCC would have been very accurate and could have been rapid-fired indoors, and the pistol would have been the last-ditch defence if it came to that.

THE EVENTS

Right now, we know that this school was the “secondary” target, as the primary target had visibly armed security personnel. So, a good guy with a gun prevented the shooting from happening there. We also know that the building was hardened enough that the shooter had to actually shoot out the glass of a door to gain entry. The gunfire alerted the school staff to immediately activate the “active shooter” alarm and call 911. The school staff and students quickly closed doors and took cover. In all of the school shootings to date, no student or staff has died when they were on the opposite side of a locked door from the shooter. It looks like the shooter spent most of the time between entry and death looking for victims. The bad news is, the six who died seems to have been caught out at that particular moment. The police were on site within 10 minutes of the 911 call. The officers who arrived first immediately got together and charged into the building. They did the opposite of Uvalde, where those cowards waited until they had maximum firepower and defensive armor, which took an hour.

It took 4 minutes from the time the police opened the door until the shooter was terminated. The police quickly and systematically swept each room they encountered, until they heard the gunfire of the shooter firing on the police in the parking lot. The police immediately converged on the sound of the gunfire and engaged without hesitation until the shooter was dead.

THE CONCLUSION

I don’t know why those in anguish and want to die actively choose to end innocent lives before they themselves are put down like a rabid dog. Visibly armed security, “Good guys with guns,” saved one school from this tragedy. The lack those Good Guys at the second school allowed the tragedy to happen there. The defensive measures worked. The locked doors forced the shooter into revealing themselves early and a trained response to gunfire and the lockdown alarm locked the school down within seconds. No defensive measure can stop a determined attacker. The measures can only cost the shooter time, which allows the staff and students to go to ground, and the police to arrive. Or the onsite security/staff to armor up and take the threat on. The police did their job, in accordance with the terrible lessons taught them before. Immediate, rapid, aggressive force to locate, engage and terminate the shooter.

The only assessment question left would be about the shooter’s potential actions if they had seen visibly armed security at their secondary target. Would there have been a tertiary target? Or would the shooter have just ended themselves without hurting others? I doubt that the shooter would have lived out the day anyway considering the decisions that they made.

EPILOGUE

Like I said at the beginning, Evil will strike at a time of its’ choosing, when it has all of what it thinks it will need, and it is patient enough to not attack until it perceives its’ chances of success to be the best it can be. Good can only train, practice and remain vigilant against Evil. Good will always respond, so Good must always be ready. You cannot “burglar-proof” your home or business. You can only make it “burglar-resistant,” so it’s easier to go after your neighbor’s house than to break into your house. When the Evil is willing to surrender their life to accomplish their goal, you cannot “scare them off.” The goal of the shooter was to kill innocents before being killed. They did not attack the first school because, in their assessment, the shooter would not have achieved their goal.

What Uvalde could have been

The event last month that put Uvalde, Texas on the map was horrific in more ways than one. While Uvalde will join names like Columbine, Parkland and Sandy Hook, it will stand on its own for what I’m going to discuss, and I sincerely hope the failings there will outlast the terror and heal the pain caused by those events.

I try to be consistent in my moral application of events, and this is no different. I explained this in a previous article, “The Why of the 2nd Amendment Part 1”,

“…what is the extent of their [Broward County Deputies] moral, ethical and human duties to those in the school? Undoubtedly to rush in, singly or as a team, find, engage and stop the shooter, even at the expense of their own lives. Those duties apply to LEO and legally armed citizen alike.”

The fact that the police waited an hour to charge in and engage the shooter is not what I’m wanting to talk about. The officers met their legal obligation and secured the scene to prevent the killer from leaving the scene. The officers failed in their human duty, and that’s still not what I’m talking about.

What I do want to talk about is the legal aftermath. While the police are immune from prosecution for not going into the school to engage the shooter in a timely manner, they may be open to civil and criminal prosecution for preventing private citizens from trying to rescue their children from said shooter. I’m no legal eagle, however I have heard this aspect talked about from a couple different sources. Again, I’m not a lawyer, I don’t play one on TV and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so I don’t know the validity of such a claim either way. The fact that at least one of those parents is being harassed by the police seems to lend credence to this position: Police Are Harassing Mom Who Pulled Kids From Uvalde School Shooting, Lawyer Says.

What I do know is every officer involved in that debacle, from the chief to the officers on the scene doesn’t deserve to ever wear a badge again, even if it’s from a box of cereal. There must exist a certain level of trust from the citizens toward the police, in order for the police to perform their duties effectively. I see that trust has evaporated for that community.

Now we come to the title of this article. This happened on June 13th, 2022: Police in Texas kill a man who fired his weapon inside a gym hosting a children's summer camp. I’m going to guess this was a “gun-free zone” as no staff returned fire. That being said, the police were on scene in two minutes and ended the threat. There’s really nothing more to say about that, which is why when everything goes right, it’s a short local story that never goes national.

I am not saying “this is how it should be” either. Someone somewhere should pay attention to events like these, investigate into the “why” it happened, then figure out how they might be prevented from happening at all, so these people don’t start rampaging in the first place. The mechanism for that is way above my pay grade however. I’m smart enough to know I don’t know how to go about it, only that it needs to be done.

Stop mass shootings

With the recent events in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX, we have people on both side of the gun-control issue lining up for their moment in front of the microphone to shout their outrage and cry for their solution to be enacted. And, like the true politicians they are, it’s a “vote for me and I’ll fix this” kind of thing, but it never does get fixed, they just get reelected.

I will say this plainly, NO GOVERNMENT CAN FIX THIS. There is evil in this world and all each of us can do is be ready to meet it head on when it surfaces. No law can stop evil, it can only punish the actor after the fact. We are the only ones who can stop evil. We do something about it when we see it.

For you IDIOTS who think "If we take away the guns, this won't happen," I have two words (since I don't mention the killers' names), "Oklahoma City."

Here’s my suggestions.

1. Deny the shooter their fame. I understand a mass killing is news. I am saying don’t show their picture, don’t say their name. Don’t interview their mother or family member about how they were “a good, sweet kid.” The president says nothing at all or names the victims.

2. End gun free zones. All they do is become magnets for events like this. Every active shooter rampage is stopped when they meet resistance. Either the police/armed citizen shoots them right then and there, or cause the shooter to retreat and end their own life. Allow parents with CCWs “known to the school staff” on campus. Allow staff who have a CCW to also carry on campus.

3. Harden soft targets. These will slow or stop the shooter, giving time for the staff and police to react and counter the shooter, trading speed for time. Make “airlocks” for schools. You get buzzed through one door, then after you’re in there, a second door must be buzzed to get you all the way in, or back out. Keep classroom doors closed and locked while occupied. No child has died in a school shooting if they were on the other side of a locked door from the shooter. We have kids practice fire drills, we need to have them practice active shooter drills.

4. Bring back the nuclear family. That means a mother and father in the home. Kids with adult males in their lives as positive role models, especially the biological dad, do way better in every measurable aspect of their lives than those without dads.

5. Return morals to kids’ lives. In church, in school, I don’t care. Instill the last six of the Ten Commandments into them. Honor your elders, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t murder and the rest. Give them guard rails when they’re young. Think the gutter bumpers we use at a bowling alley for young kids that are put away when they’re older.

No one thing will fix this. Well, changing the heart of the shooter so they don't want to kill innocents is the one thing that will end all shootings, however we haven't figured out how to so that yet. Until then, we need to do the five things above.

It's the heart, not the tool

The United States and Norway have a lot of distinct differences. Racial and social demographics, work ethic, the role of government in people's lives and more. Because there is virtually zero strife of any kind in Norway, it makes the world news when a man takes a perfectly legal-to-own bow and arrows and starts killing other people with it.

Which only proves the point that every pro-gun advocate has made for decades: The heart of the killer caused this to happen, not the tool.

Think of it this way: If you believe that "guns are evil," then the rifle used to kill JFK, or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is especially evil, because they were used to bring about the untimely demise of men who were making a distinct positive change in the world.

Now, let's say I obtained one of those rifles and took it back in time to Germany 1923, before Hitler could carry out his "Beer Hall Putsch" that started his rise within the NAZI party ranks.

As an aside, you don't want to kill "baby Adolf," because the Universe would just put someone else on the track to run the NAZI's when he was there. It's best to disrupt it when you know he's the one.

If you kill Hitler in 1923, you stand a chance that WWII never happens. So, you have just saved the lives of over 100 million people who would have died if Hitler had come to power. So is that rifle still evil, or is it somehow good now, because it saved millions of lives?

My answer is, NEITHER. It is a tool, with no ability to operate on its' own. It has no consciousness or ability to reason so intent can be formed. A tool can only perform the function its' designed to do. For that function to be applied for good or evil depends on the wielder of the tool.

If you insist on taking away the power of men to perform evil, as a consequence you also destroy their power to perform good as well. When that ability, that choice, is destroyed, you remove the je ne sais quoi that separates men from ants.

Back to the story. Because this place is so peaceful, even the police weren't armed. In response to this horrific event, the police get to arm themselves with guns. The citizens don't. But whose asses are on the line until the police get there? You guessed it. The police won't be there until minutes after they're called, if they're called and if they decide to respond at all. Put yourself in that position, you're being attacked, people are dying around you. You manage to call 911 and the dispatcher says, "No police for you!" What are you going to do other than bleed and die? Having the proper tools to defend yourself and end the threat sounds pretty good in that case, don't they?

The mess in Virginia

If you'll recall, In January 2020, a new Virginia Legislature was seated, with both Houses of the legislature and the governorship firmly in Democrat control. One of their first legislative actions was to introduce a massive anti-gun agenda. Just in the transition period after election day, because those Democrats were so loud in their anti-gun campaigns, eighty-six out of 95 counties in Virginia (90%) along with over one hundred municipalities declared themselves as "Second Amendment Sanctuaries." Thousands of protesters showed up (armed) to the state capitol on January 20th to protest these laws. In February, the Legislature passed most of them and on April 10th Governor Northam signed these points of that agenda into law:

  • Requiring background checks on all gun sales in Virginia
  • Re-instituting a limit on handgun sales to one a month
  • Increasing penalties for recklessly leaving firearms near children or failing to report a lost or stolen firearm within two days
  • Allowing localities to set their own rules on the presence of firearms in public
  • Prohibiting those subject to a protective order from possessing firearms
  • Creating a "red flag" law that allows law enforcement to temporarily seize a gun from a person deemed to pose a danger to themselves or others

Now let's break these out:

Background checks. Federal law requires Federal Firearm License (FFL) holders, which are gun stores, pawn shops, gunsmiths and individuals who buy and sell 20+ weapons a month, to perform a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) using the information a buyer/seller writes on a BATF Form 4473. Private sales did not require any kind of state or federal involvement in the firearm transfer. Now, private sales must also be done at a gun store, et.al., because citizens do not have access to NICS, only entities like law enforcement and FFL holders.

One-a-month: One of the ways I illustrate how stupid or hypocritical something is is to switch gender roles or the item in question. So if you replace "handgun" with "roll of toilet paper," it sounds beyond ludicrous, right? There you go.

Penalties for being reckless. I have to ask, who would define "reckless"? The government. If I left an (unloaded) firearm near an infant, or near a teenager who is mature about the handling of firearms, I could fall under that "reckless" definition if the prosecutor wanted me in prison. This is also one of those "after the fact" kind of penalties, like where a drunk driver who mows down a group of people is given a speeding ticket, on top of the DUI and counts of vehicular manslaughter.

Reporting stolen firearms. Let's say I'm out of town for a month and my residence is unoccupied during that time. During the second week, someone breaks in, steals my firearms and the next day kills someone with at least one of them. I'm not going to report my guns as stolen until I return in a couple of weeks because I don't know they're gone until I get home. I would be guilty of that "crime" because I didn't report it fast enough. Frankly, if I did report it in their (arbitrary) time frame, that wouldn't have stopped any of the crimes committed with my firearms, so what's the sense of this?

Local control of laws. The state government controls the issuance of things like concealed carry permits, even if they are done on the county level. This is a very stupid idea because if I have a STATE carry permit and I travel from Town A to Town B through Town C and the Town C police arrest me because they have more restrictive laws than A, B or the state, that's just not right.

Protective orders and red-flag laws. This is a total abandonment of due process of law and the concept of "innocent until proven guilty," and the level of abuse will be (and has been) epic. Swatting is similar. If I didn't like someone I knew that owned a firearm, I could take out a restraining order on them, or just called the police and say "Bob is standing outside in his front lawn, naked, with a beer in one hand and a rifle in the other, screaming at the moon." Under this law, the police would come and confiscate Bob's firearms and hold onto them until Bob proves a negative (he wasn't doing what I claimed).

And what's coming will be even worse. This, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, is exactly what an overbearing government looks like and the exact reason why the Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment to prevent government from doing garbage like this. And now because of COVID-19 and the heightened potential for a general breakdown of civilized society when the supply chain is disrupted or runs dry, the need for citizens to have the ability to defend themselves has never been greater. The best possible tool a person can have in a situation like this is a firearm and the will to use it.

A firearm (and the mental will to use it) is the only effective way a person can defend themselves in SHTF situations. Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee might be able to take on three gang-bangers armed with 2x4's, but I promise without a firearm you can't, especially if you're protecting children or other innocents.

Please, if you have, or intend on acquiring a firearm with the intent of self-defense, please get the training necessary to quickly and accurately operate that weapon, and you know in the deepest parts of your soul that you could kill another person. If you know you can't "drop the hammer," to defend yourself or others, don't buy it. You will not shoot at that critical second, you'll end up dead and the bad guys will have another weapon.

Gun Safety Liberal vs Conservative

I've been hearing a lot of PSA's from a website known as End Family Fire [https://endfamilyfire.org/] and I went to take a look at it the other day. The radio PSA’s are a (simulated?) 911 call where the parent is screaming about “the gun was loaded.” I am sure this is meant to stimulate a parent’s worst fears, that of their child being seriously injured or dead. Looking at the site, I am amazed by several things, first of all it actually sounds reasonable. But if you excuse the pun that's a little disarming and that's probably intentional. They have three main points.

Their points are,

  • Eight children are wounded or killed every day in unintentional shootings.
  • You should lock your firearm with a trigger or breach lock, keeping the ammunition separate from the weapon, and;
  • Talk to your children about gun safety.

I will now address these point by point.

Eight Children a Day.

My stats, provided by WISQARS (from the CDC) shows in 2017, the last year for data, for the 0-17 age range (because 18 and 19 year-old people are ADULTS and not children) there were 6,634 injuries by “Unintentional BB/Pellet or gunshot” (0.1% of all unintentional injuries and #20 on the list) and 69 deaths, (1.6% of all deaths and #10 on the list).

According to my math, this works out to 18.3 per day. To cut it to the 8 a day, they would have to only count 2,851 of those non-fatal injuries. To put that into perspective, for every child which received a non-fatal shooting injury, there’s 9 who were injured in an “unintentional pedestrian” event, or 41 for getting hurt on a bicycle.

I will stipulate their stats are accurate because I could not separate the BB gun and firearm injuries. Are they preventable? I can agree to that. My problem with them, as detailed below, actually goes to fixing the problem, not a nebulous “raising awareness.”

Storing the weapon.

Let me specify that I am talking only about weapons meant for immediate use in a home invasion or other such event. Most weapons in the home will be stored unloaded. Ammunition may or may not be near by. The military term for immediate use is “Ready Five,” meaning an aircraft sits on the tarmac (or carrier deck) fully fueled, armed, with crew nearby and can launch in five minutes or less from the order to launch.

In 99% of the cases and reasons for having a loaded firearm easily accessible in the first place is to return fire in case of a home invasion. For as long as I have been a member of the NRA (30 years now) every month I got a magazine (until I went digital) and one page was called The Armed Citizen. The page had about a dozen synopsis' of local news stories where people used their firearm to defend friends and family from Bad People. That means I've been sent about 4,300 of these news articles. The chance of you having your home broken into while you're home is going to be very small. If it does happen, there is a very high chance of serious injury or death happening to you.

End Family Fire suggests that you store your firearm and your ammunition separately. The weapon should also have a trigger or breech lock. For those who are interested in home self-defense this seriously hampers the ability of the homeowner to quickly respond. It would take a significant amount of time (1-2 minutes) to bring the weapon to a usable condition when you only have 10-15 seconds to grab the weapon and engage the invaders. In situations like this, seconds literally do count and 1-2 minutes is too long. You’re dead.

Now, a pin-coded safe I would consider to be superior to a trigger/breech lock, as the weapon could be stored in Condition Two (loaded magazine in the weapon, no round in the chamber), quickly retrieved, brought to ready and used. Not to mention that in a stressful situation, the first thing to go is fine motor skills. Locating and inserting the correct key in a lock, or spinning small tumblers to the correct combination would be a lot harder and time consuming.

Talk with your kids.

This is where End Family Fire totally fails. Okay, “talk with the kids.” What should you say? I’m sure this kind of talk would be up there with “the birds and the bees” discussion. It would have been great if there was a tip sheet with points for the parent to consider, research and discuss with their kids. But there’s nothing to be found.

When my son was a preschooler, he would come and visit me in the garage when I was re-loading ammunition or maintaining my weapons. I had printed a sign that was at his eye level and these were the first words he learned to read. Those words were the four firearm safety laws. He had to recite them every time he came out to see me.

  • A firearm is always loaded.
  • Never point a firearm at something that you do not want to destroy.
  • Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire.
  • Always be sure of your target and what is behind it.

The only materials End Family Fire has are PSA’s and brochures that “raise awareness” but do nothing to address the issue.

If you really want to stop incidents like this, there are two simple and easy things to do. Defang the serpent and teach them age appropriate things to do when they find a firearm.

Defang the serpent.

This one requires some of your time. During your talk with your kids, let them know you will tell them anything they want to know about firearms, within their ability to comprehend of course. If they can inspect (unloaded) firearms under your direct supervision, pretty much any time they want, those firearms lose their allure and the kids lose their curiosity about them.

Age appropriate training.

The Eddie Eagle program, developed by the NRA 30 years ago teaches pre-school and elementary kids four simple steps on what to do when they find a firearm.

  • STOP!
  • DON’T TOUCH!
  • LEAVE THE AREA!
  • TELL AN ADULT!

It doesn’t confuse kids about firearms being “bad,” or they might “go off” or anything like that. Don’t touch it, get away from it (and the person holding it) and tell an adult. This program gives children clear and simple actions that they can easily remember, articulate and perform. It really can’t be any simpler than that. This is what you should talk about with your kids.

As I alluded to in the title of this post, the Liberal way to address this issue is to “raise awareness” among adults by inducing panic and fear, then abandon the parents after telling them they need to "talk with their kids," but not knowing what to say or cover. Which, unfortunately, will most likely be the wrong thing.

The Conservative way to address this issue is to defang the serpent by satisfying the kid’s curiosity so they don’t go behind your back to find and handle the firearms unsupervised, then give them clear and simple actions to do if they find a gun, like when playing at a friend’s house who then pulls out their parents gun.

Instill fear and panic in parents, or teach the children to almost eliminate the problem in the first place. Which do you think you would (or should) choose?

Making the case for us

I am all for personal choice and personal responsibility. When it comes to the self-defense of yourself and your family, you should have access to the tools you deem necessary to perform said self-defense.

Because I do not support causes or people who do not believe I should be able to defend myself and family as I see fit, I make it a point to not purchase movies with actors who promote gun control. BTW, their definition of "gun control" is, "the government and our bodyguards have guns, you don't."

So, any movie where pro-gun control actors like Chris Evans, Matt Damon, or Liam Neeson appear in a movie where their character uses violence or a firearm, I will not buy the DVD, I will not rent it, I will not watch it in a theater and I will not stream it. They have the freedom to make their point, I have the right to not purchase their work product.

So I find it screamingly ironic that another gun-control advocate Jamie Lee Curtis, who is starring in the latest chapter in the Halloween movie franchise, makes my point for me against gun control. In the trailer for the film, viewers can hear Curtis' character mention the need to protect her family and they see her with numerous guns, including a revolver and a lever action rifle, the latter of which she fires multiple times.

A citizen always has the obligation to protect themselves and their family. Government has zero obligation to protect you. This is why 911 is also known as "Dial-A-Prayer" because when seconds matter, the police are minutes away if they come at all.

The brutal force of government

If you followed my Facebook link here because you are outraged that "The Governor of Oklahoma is forcing banks and insurance agencies to not do business with Planned Parenthood," Good. Let's see if your outrage is selective or not. Please replace "Oklahoma" with "New York", "Planned Parenthood" with "NRA" and read it again. If your outrage dissipated, or worse, turned into smug satisfaction, congratulations, you're a hypocrite! Why? Because the business shouldn't matter.

To set the record straight, New York Governor Cuomo is persecuting the National Rifle Association by pressuring banks and insurance agencies to not do business with the them. The clear intent of this is to force the NRA out of New York State or out of business entirely. Here's what's going on. Worse than taking away guns, New York threatens to take away NRA's insurance.

Just to be clear, here is the definition of persecuted:

  1. to pursue with harassing or oppressive treatment, especially because of religious or political beliefs, ethnic or racial origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
  2. to annoy or trouble persistently.

This happened to many businesses and individuals deemed "marginal" by Obama's government under Operation Choke Point. I wrote about it here.

Because I'm ideologically consistent, I don't care what the business or organization does. I would be speaking out if this was the ACLU, Planned Parenthood or even the Southern Policy Law Center. As long as the good or service produced by a company or organization is legal, I will stand up for them.

This started with an insurance product offered by the National Rifle Association called Carry Guard, an insurance policy for those citizens who lawfully carry a firearm in public. If that armed citizen should ever have to (God forbid) use their weapon to protect themselves, the policy will pay the legal fees for their defense. Because the truth of the matter is, even if a self-defense shooting is ruled justifiable by the police and there is no criminal prosecution, the family of the criminal often sues. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has since decided to declare the selling of this legal product as illegal. Not the actual insurance, mind you, but Cuomo is using the pretext of "The NRA is selling it and they are not licensed to sell insurance." Which is absurd on it's face and anyone with a minimum level of intelligence (and no agenda) can easily see what's going on.

Now it has gone beyond that. It has been made clear to the Insurance and Banking industries (both heavily regulated by the State) in New York in no uncertain terms that "Things will be difficult for you if you offer services to the NRA." No large organization can operate today without liability insurance or the ability to process electronic payments or bank accounts, so this is hurting the NRA.

This is a clear case of persecution. This act defines the "weaponization of government," meaning the full regulatory force of the government (federal, state or local) is being brought to bear on an organization that is engaged in legal business that is compliant with the law, with the intent to cause it to fail. If you are neutral or even in favor of this persecution, then all I can say is KEEP YOUR PIEHOLE SHUT IF THIS HAPPENS TO AN ORGANIZATION YOU LIKE. You started this dance, you like it when this happens to the NRA, expect it to happen to a Leftist organization. If you don't want it to happen to Planned Parenthood, et.al., then don't let it happen to the NRA.

This is why I argue for a smaller and less-intrusive government so it can't do things like this. Government is a brute-force weapon, if it goes after something, expect collateral damage.

Bait and Switch

So, even more in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, the anti-gun press cannot get nor tell a story straight.

In the below video, a "child actor" is sent into to various convenience stores and attempts to buy tobacco, alcohol and lottery tickets, which the sale of all of these items are highly regulated and tightly controlled by the states. A clerk can get fired for selling those products to a minor because the store can get into heavy fines or even be forced to close by the revocation of their business license. That's the bait, the paradigm that's set in your mind and you're still thinking about when the switch hits.

The switch happens when he goes to a gun show and buys a rifle. Because the purchase took place at a gun show, the reporter want's you to think "Ah, that must be that 'gun show loophole' that they're always talking about." I admit, they did use the words "private sale" to make the legal team happy, you're still left with the impression that "those stores can't sell alcohol/tobacco/lottery tickets and yet this kid can buy a gun???" However, unless you have some knowledge or experience with gun shows, you don't know about the difference between a purchase of a rifle from an FFL (Federal Firearms License holder) sale from a private sale.

To give an equal example as to what happened in the gun show, let's say the kid waits in the store until he sees someone buy a pack of cigarettes. The kid then walks up to the adult, still in the store and the kid says, "Hey, can I buy that pack of cigarettes from you?" The private sale that happened in the C-store is conceptually and legally the same as the firearms transaction in the video at a gun show.

Now I'll bet you're left with the impression he purchased one of those AR-15 style semi-automatic assault rifles, right? BZZZZZZT!! Wrong! In the below image, the action of the rifle comes into view of the hidden camera, and we have... most likely an older model Marlin XT-22, bolt-action .22 rimfire rifle. It probably only has a 7 or 10-round magazine. Don't quote me on the manufacturer or the model, all I see is what you see. I can say for sure it is a bolt-action .22 rimfire, suitable only for shooting cans and hunting squirrels.

As a bolt-action, you have to manually load each round by lifting the bolt handle, pulling it back (ejecting the empty casing or the bullet already in the chamber), then pushing the bolt forward which loads a new round and pushing the handle back into firing position by moving it down. This takes your hand off the trigger and for aimed shots you can get a shot off about once every three seconds..

bolt action

Again, to give those who aren't in the know about firearms, this is the rifle that a 12- or 13-year-old boy would find under the Christmas tree when I was that age. Back when, you know, we could go out after the homework and chores were done and do what we wanted until dinner time or the streetlights came on. They're called "free-range kids" today. Before he got that rifle, he had to show a certain level of maturity and be able to articulate and demonstrate the four laws of firearm safety. Said rifle would also be quickly taken away and extra chores assigned upon an inappropriate use of the rifle.

And if you watch the presenter at the end, again he is correct in the facts, but does not specify that a private sale does not have to take place at a gun show, it can happen anywhere.

More gun control lies

I do not write these words lightly. I hold every man and woman who has served in the armed forces with more regard and esteem than I will any civilian. Zero exceptions. This is why this PSA burns me up.

I do not know if the words they spoke are theirs, if they believe the words they speak, or if they are paid to say them. I don't know and I won't speculate. That being said, this "PSA" is 90% lies and I will take it apart piece-by-piece.

1) The M-16/M-4 rifle is a true assault rifle. The M-4 is actually a carbine which is primarily distinguished from a rifle by the length of the barrel. These weapons are capable of firing semi-automatic (one trigger pull = one round fired), or depending on the model burst fire on the M-4 (one trigger pull = 3 rounds fired) and fully-automatic fire with the M-4A1 and M-16 (one trigger pull and the weapon continuously fires until you release the trigger or the ammunition is depleted). The rounds fired from these weapons are military-grade intermediate-power cartridges.

2) The AR-15 is a semi-automatic only version of the M-16 and was actually developed before the M-16. The inside mechanism is totally different from an M-16/M-4, the parts cannot be swapped to make the AR-15 capable to fire fully-automatic. While it is physically possible to compromise the AR-15 workings to get it to fire fully-automatic, the mechanism will likely quickly fail (as in explode during the first magazine firing full-auto).

3) To compare an AR-15 style rifle (semi-automatic operation only) to an M-16/M-4 would be like trying to compare the 0-60 acceleration times of a 1987 Yugo that has a 54 horsepower engine with a 1963 Mustang with a 354 Cleveland that produces 266 horsepower. The Yugo makes it 0-60 in 16.8 seconds, the Mustang/354 Cleveland team does 0-60 in 8.5 seconds. They are both automobiles, however in comparison they are in vastly different classes of performance.

4) The ballistic performance of the .223 civilian round and the 5.56mm M855 armor-piercing military round are also vastly different, the same Yugo vs. Mustang comparison also applies for the ammunition. If you were to attempt to fire a 5.56mm M855 round through an AR-15, the rifle would explode in your face. I promise you, that would ruin your whole day.

In conclusion of these four points, these two breeds may look the same, but they are totally different in every other aspect but looks and caliber.

Now, why in the world would someone want a weapon like that? I can answer that question in two words: Tiananmen Square.

For those of you who weren't born or able to remember 1989, it was a time of great change. Poland was breaking free of the Soviet Bloc, the USSR was going through Perestroika and Glasnost and there were calls by the Germans to reunite East and West Germany. In late 1989 (after Tiananmen Square), the wall that separated West Berlin from the rest of East Germany was torn down. Needless to say, the young Chinese heard about these things and wanted to get in on the action.

So, to protest multiple things, they did an #occupyTiananmenSquare in the capitol of Beijing. Except there wasn't Twitter, or hashtags back then. For about 6 weeks, they did what Occupy Wall Street did, without the yuppie tents and cups of Starbucks. There was great discord in the Chinese government about what to do about these protestors. The protests quickly spread to 400 cities throughout China.

Well, the Chinese government finally decided how to handle the protestors. They mobilized 300,000 troops, who went into to each of these protesting enclaves with tanks and fully-automatic weapons and killed the protestors. According to the article linked to above, over 10,000 protestors were killed just in Tiananmen Square. Those not killed by the bullets were bayoneted. If you don't know what a bayonet is, it's a long knife that is attached to the muzzle of a rifle and turns the rifle into a spear for when the trooper doesn't want to shoot you or has run out of ammunition, he runs you through the chest with the bayonet. It's a painful way to die and a common practice on how to handle enemy combatants left on the field after a battle is over.

In the aftermath of the bloodbath, those protestors who survived but did not escape China were either executed or sent to prison for years. Tiananmen Square is why you will never see another protest of the Chinese government. The slaves of the Chinese State know all too well the price to be paid for speaking out and saying unapproved things.

It is precisely this, a massacre of tens of thousands of people who were exercising something we don't even think about here, because being able to say whatever we want, especially when people protest against something the government did that they didn't like, we don't have to fear that we will be mowed down with automatic weapons. Because we have the Second Amendment and so vigorously defend the right to keep and bear arms, arms of a kind and type WE CHOOSE, not what the government thinks we should or should not have.

Do not believe for a second that if the citizens of this country are stripped of the Right to protect themselves from an oppressive government, that "Tiananmen Square will never happen here." It has happened too many times in the past 100 years for it not to happen again. In the 20th Century, upwards of 200 MILLION PEOPLE died at the hands of oppressive governments. Do you seriously want even a chance of that happening here?

During the Revolutionary War, the Militia (sometimes known as "Minutemen" because they could be ready to fight in a minute) who fought with the Continental Army had the same equipment as the professional soldiers they stood beside and against. That's all we, as citizens ask for today. Don't hit me with strawmen about crew-served weapons, anti-tank rockets and grenades. Those do not have a civilian purpose and are legitimate weapons of war. Besides, we can scavenge those from the bodies of the soldiers we kill. ;-)

The myth of the 10 round magazine

Liberals think 30 round magazines are E-V-I-L, and 10 round magazines are much safer, less E-V-I-L and thus more tolerable because a "bad guy with a gun" has to reload more often and thus able to be captured while reloading.

Of course, when it comes to firearms, pro-gun-control advocates are talking out their ass.

In the below video, Sheriff Ken Campbell of Boone Country, Indiana has a professional competition shooter and a lady novice fire various timed drills with aimed shots. The first 2:00 is text clearly explaining the terms used.

Here are the numbers:

Pistol Drills Professional Novice     Rifle Drills Professional Novice
2x 15 round 20.6 22.9     1x 20 round 12.2 12.26
3x 10 round 18.0 25.5     2x 10 round 10.7 14.63
5x 6 round 21.5 26.9                

As you can see, the numbers are not significantly different either the total time between the shooters or the time increase to reload. The best-to-worst time spread for 30 rounds is only nine seconds, which isn't a lot of time.

For an additional reality check at 9:35 of the video a man was crouched "concealed" 25 feet away, who started running when he saw the reload taking place and stopped when the next round was fired. the guy got to within about 8-10 feet from the novice shooter, he barely made it out of concealment for the professional. Neither of these would have ended well for the other person. Also, if you notice throughout the video, the shooter's weapon is never "empty," meaning it always had a round in the chamber during reloading so the shooter could shoot anyone who attempted to intervene while they were reloading.

Before you get all excited and try to tell me about Gabby Gifford's shooter (I by policy do not mention their names) who was subdued during the reload, that happened because he basically flubbed the reload in the middle of a crowd of people, basically an arm's length away.

In closing, remember that anything that someone who is "pro-gun-control" is selling you a bill of goods. They don't want to ban all guns because they like the military, police and their private security teams to be armed, just not you.

Mixing politics and business

Businesses have one purpose: to generate a profit. Not to "make jobs," not to "help people" or anything like that. They offer a good or service to fill a demand in the market place, making more money for the owners/shareholders than they spend providing their good/service. Delta Airlines, for example, offers a service to transport you long distances faster than you could walk, run, swim or drive there.

Advertising is a way to increase awareness of your good or service. Television shows, radio shows, newspapers, podcasts and websites (I will collectively call them sites) sell advertising space to these companies because that site can show a certain number of people engage with the site every day. The more engagements, the more the sites can charge the advertisers. The rates and metrics are not important. Leave it at Rush Limbaugh can charge way more for ad space on his website than I could here, if I chose to, which I don't. Business can also partner with other businesses and organizations to offer discounts on their goods and services to the members of the organization, employees of the company and so on.

All that being said, advertising and discounts should be neutral and politics-free. The politics of the site or the advertiser should never be an issue in the decision on whether to advertise there or not. Advertisers wisely analyze the number of visitors and the demographic makeup of those visitors to a site and determine if they want to reach that group of people or not.

As consumers, we want to choose the goods and services we consume in such a way as to maximize value and minimize cost. I really do not care one way or the other about the views on marriage the CEO of Starbucks has, as long as the hot flavored liquid that company sells is what I'm looking for at a price I'm willing to pay, unless they start actively crusading for something I don't believe in, whatever that my be.

In the wake of the Parkland School Shooting, multiple businesses have decided to cut their business relationships with the National Rifle Association because a couple dozen people, appearing to be tens of thousands have deluged these companies, sweating "never to do business with you again!" unless the business acquiesces to their demands, and drop any relationship with the NRA.

There are a couple of problems with this model. First, the hatred and anger constantly demonstrated by Liberals burns white hot, but it burns out quickly. Next week their anger will be directed at something else. They have to constantly switch targets to keep the anger up. If they focus on one task too long, the anger fades. The rest of the country does slow burns. Not very hot, but we burn for a very, very long time.

If Liberals had wailed against the NFL and stopped watching over the kneeling during the National Anthem issue, most of them would have been back watching their teams play well before the end of the season. Us regular folk stopped watching football and never went back. The result is NFL viewership is off by significant numbers, bad enough that the networks had to do "paybacks." When a site promises a certain number of visits, and the visitor logs show that the stipulated number has not been reached, the advertiser gets credit or cash back to reflect the difference between anticipated and actual numbers. Since the whole kneeling kerfuffle started, NFL viewership is down over 20%.

When Delta and the other companies ended their relationship with the NRA because their politics interfered with their business sense, these companies pissed off 5,000,000 NRA members. Five million people who have a very long collective memory when it comes to who helped them and who abandoned them. As an unintended consequence of Delta's decision, the State Legislature voted to end Delta's exemption for a state sales tax on jet fuel in Georgia (the location of their hub). That means their expenses are going to go up and their pool of customers will likely experience a decline. In contrast, Fred Smith, CEO of FedEx, told these Liberals to go pound sand and would not cut ties with the NRA.

A business should never be active in politics, as in granting or denying discounts to groups based on their political ideology. The only question should be, "Can we increase our profits if we offer discounts or special services to a particular group of people?" If the answer is "Yes," then the business should. If "No," then not. Any other criteria will alienate current and potential customers of all groups.

Just in case you didn't know, the political power of the NRA does not come from making campaign contributions and lobbying to politicians. According to Open Secrets, The NRA in the 2016 elections cycle spent just a bit over $1 Million in campaign donations, which is #489 on Open Secret's list. #1 on that list is Fahr, LLC., an organization dedicated to stopping global climate change. That organization donated over $90 Million, exclusively to Democrats. The political power of the NRA comes from its 5 Million members. When properly (or even improperly) pissed off, NRA members can change elections. That block of voters in a district can swing an election either way. They can elect a pro-RKBA Democrat over an anti-RKBA RINO (Republican In Name Only) or make sure that anti-RKBA Democrat never has a chance in getting elected.

I personally would prefer "buycotts" as opposed to "boycotts" because that's where you preferentially engage with businesses (like FedEx) who keep their political nose out of their business, even if they may be a little more expensive than the politically active businesses.

Quite frankly, that political power just jumped with both feet into the economic area with this "pissing off." Watch for these companies to have a noticeable decline in sales over the next year:

  • First National Bank of Omaha 
  • Enterprise/Alamo/National Rent-A-Car
  • Hertz Rent-A-Car
  • Symantec
  • Simplisafe
  • Avis/Budget Rent-A-Car
  • Allied/North American Moving
  • Truecar
  • Delta Airlines
  • United Airlines
  • Paramount RX
  • Starkey

The best way to hurt a business is not to purchase its goods or services. So, I plan for a very long time to not use any of these companies unless they are the absolute and unavoidable last resort. I thought about sending them a nice email letting them know I will no longer do business with them, however my (and my wallets') absence will be way more effective in communicating my displeasure than any email.

The AWB of 2018

I think Trump is playing the Democrats again. I am waiting to see how this plays out. The last time Trump did this was with the DREAMers. He offered the Democrats everything they wanted and more, and they walked away. He offered again with gun control, and the Democrats are now going whole hog on this. Here are the current House Bill (hr5087) and Senate Bill (s2095) about the Assault Weapons Ban of 2018.

I hate to quote Nancy Pelosi and admit she's right, but "they have to pass the bill to see what's in it." If you know anything about Parliamentary procedure (I keep a copy of Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised, 11th Edition on my desk). A Congressman can stand up and say, "Mr. Speaker, I move that concerning hr5087, the lines starting at page 18, line 7 and proceeding to page 19, line 4, inclusive, be stricken from the bill." If that motion is seconded and voted on in the majority, then the exemption for federal, state and local government entities to purchase any of the weapons in the ban is removed. That might change things a bit. It would be simple, would it be easy? Of course not. However this is the method one party puts "poison pill" riders in a major bill from the other side of the aisle to make the bill fail.

Like the Affordable Care Act, I cannot see a single Republican changing the bill or voting for it. They want the Democrats to vote for this, in unanimity because that will show the American People how the Democrats regard the citizens of this country. These bills have less than a 5% chance of reaching Trump and I am sure he would never sign the bill, because he knows his approval rating and his base would dwindle to almost zero within minutes of the ink being dry. What it has done is clearly shown that every sponsor and co-sponsor of these bills and everyone who votes for them, unless they are in the super-blue districts or states, are going to have a very tough time retaining their seat in the midterm elections in November, regardless of party.

If this issue is properly played by Trump and the Republicans, the midterms should be beyond devastating to the Democrat party.

The 'why' of the Second Amendment, part 2

In the last post, I plainly explained why you must have the freedom to acquire tools you deem necessary to protect yourself, because the police can’t, won’t and don’t protect you. Here I will reinforce that with current events.

First of all, I am not taking a position on either side of the arguments for these two examples. I am not saying who is right and who is wrong, either last week or 300 years ago. This situation just is. Back in 2000, the government of Zimbabwe confiscated White-owned farms and gave the land to Blacks that did not own land. There was one small problem, the Blacks who now owned the land did not know how to farm, so the country known then as “the breadbasket of Africa” today cannot feed itself. Twenty-five percent of their population is fed by foreign aid.

The point here is, the government let by Robert Mugabe didn’t like Whites owning land, so the law was changed and these farmers were rounded up and forced off their land. If white settlers just took the land from us without paying for it,” Mugabe said, “we can, in a similar way, just take it from them without paying for it.”

Today, right now, the same thing is happening in South Africa. Jacob Zuma calls for confiscation of white land without compensation. The situation same exact situation that happened in Zimbabwe 18 years ago is repeating itself right now in South Africa. The government “just decided” that this was going to happen, so the laws were/are being changed to let it happen. The military and police will carry the confiscation out and there isn’t a damn thing the Whites can do about it.

And just in case you don’t think that’s serious, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters Julius Malema is quoted as saying,

“We are not calling for the slaughter of white people‚ at least for now. The rightful owners of the land are black people. No white person is a rightful owner of the land here in SA and the whole of the African continent." [emphasis mine]

What does that have to do with the US? Very simply. If the government, any government wants something, they can make a law and take it, without your consent. What stops them? Nothing but every armed citizen. Let’s give you some perspective. There are a total of 1.3 million men and women currently serving in the US military. Realistically, there about 250,000 men who are capable of squad-level combat between the Army and Marines. The rest are either other forces not trained for insurgent warfare (Like the Navy. The Navy’s only ground combat forces are the Marines) or are support personnel. A good part of the Army are support personnel. You can expect a supply clerk to be reasonably proficient in how to use an M-4, however he probably hasn't practiced infantry maneuvers since Basic Training.

The other side of the equation is the citizens of the US. On the opening day of deer season in Pennsylvania alone, over 1 million men and women are in the field with a rifle. They are versed in fieldcraft (hiding in the woods) and are able to consistently put a bullet into a dinner plate-sized target at 100 yards. Think about that. One State can field a pool of armed citizens four times the military’s entire combat ready troop force. And there’s 48 more states behind them (I’m not counting Hawaii because it’s a gun-controller’s wet dream). I am not expecting Joe Suburban to be a Rambo and mow down companies of troops. If every armed citizen takes out one trooper, he's done his job. The citizens may rarely win, if at all for any stand-up fights. However we can make the effort so difficult and unpalatable that the government gives up. After all, it’s how we won against George III.

The Jewish people who survived the Holocaust had two words to say about it: "NEVER AGAIN." I believe with all of my heart that if each Jewish family had armed themselves and killed one SS trooper when they were rounded up, the Holocaust would have been far less than the devastating six million dead.

So the lesson is this: If you have the means to protect yourself from criminals or government (or even the criminals in the government), then you can resist their demands. If you have been disarmed, no significant resistance is possible. When we surrender part of a right (a type of weapon, a certain size of magazine, etc.) it just makes it easier for those who took that away from us to come back next week and ask for more. This is why pro-Second Amendment people refuse to compromise. Once we start down that road, it becomes increasingly difficult to do a U-turn and get back to where we were.

The 'why' of the Second Amendment, part 1

I am going to say something you won’t believe, yet is 100% factual. I am also almost sure it will piss you off.

Concerning the shooting at the Parkland School shooting on February 14th, the Broward County Deputies did everything they were legally required to do.

I can see your brow furrow and the confusion run rampant across your face. “How can you say that? They stood outside while people were being killed!!!”

Before I address that, I need to ask you, what is the root term to describe police officers, sheriff’s deputies and so on? Law Enforcement Officers. What do LEO’s do by their very job description? (Hint: it’s in the term we just used) They enforce the law. Upon the complaint of a citizen or their own observation that a crime has been committed, they investigate the event, gather evidence, arrest those they believe committed the act and present the suspect and the evidence to the prosecutors. That is the legal limits of their job.

So when someone called in, “There’s a man with a gun at Parkland High School, he’s shooting everybody! HELP!!” The police/deputies arrive at the scene and found that a person who was not authorized to have a weapon on the school campus had gotten onto the campus with a firearm. That person then repeatedly discharged said weapon which resulted in the death of 27 people and the wounding of 15 more. The LEO’s then conducted an investigation, gathered evidence, then conducted a search which resulted in the capture of the suspect. That person is now in confinement awaiting the conclusion of the investigation and the preferment of criminal charges.

In other words, when they were told someone broke the law, determined that the law had indeed been broken, gathered evidence to determine who that person is and what exactly they had done, and lastly they found the person and brought him to justice.

“But they stood outside while people were being killed!!!” And.......? As I have repeatedly stated, the job of the police is not to protect individual people, it is to enforce the law. You and you alone are responsible for your personal safety. I fully expect for you not to believe me, so here is the SCOTUS ruling: South V. Maryland (1856). The sad news will come hard to any family who attempts to sue the Broward County Sheriff’s Office for failure to engage the shooter. Every lawyer will sadly inform them they don’t have a legal leg to stand on.

Now that I have described the legal extent of their duties, what is the extent of their moral, ethical and human duties to those in the school? Undoubtedly to rush in, singly or as a team, find, engage and stop the shooter, even at the expense of their own lives. Those duties apply to LEO and legally armed citizen alike.

As I write this, the fact has been released that over 60 tips were given to the FBI and local law enforcement agencies that, “This guy is going to shoot up a school, and soon.” Frankly, it doesn’t matter if the police had received 600 or even 6,000 tips, they all would have ended the same: The police will say, “He didn’t break a law, there is nothing we can do until he does.”

Bob can tell Joe, “I’m going to be the next school shooter.” Joe tells the police what Bob said. This is called hearsay and is not admissible in court. Joe can’t go into court, and testify that’s what Bob said. If the police go to Bob and say, “I heard Joe said you told him you are going to be the next school shooter” and Bob agrees to that statement, then the police can arrest him for something like “making terrorist threats.” If Bob posted a video of him saying that or wrote about it online, the police can see it and use that to arrest Bob. If Bob says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about” or doesn’t answer at all, the police can do nothing.

You really, really, really want this system in place. Because if the police can take away Bob’s firearms, put him in jail or a mental institution indefinitely “for evaluation” just because Joe told the police Bob said that without other evidence, guess what you have? That’s right! A POLICE STATE. In the former Soviet Union, dissidents (anyone who spoke out against Communism or the government) were declared to be mentally ill (by the law and doctors employed by the government) and ended up in mental hospitals or “reeducation camps” for however long as the government wanted to hold them. After all, the Soviet Union was paradise on Earth! You must be crazy to not want to live there, right?

This is why you don’t want any agency of the government to summarily confiscate you or your possessions without first going through an extended and well-documented process involving neutral third parties (i.e., Judges). If you allow the police on scene to immediately take your guns (or anything else) because of whatever conditions or reasons, no matter how strict that list is, it won’t be long before those conditions will be relaxed and/or expanded until they can do it anytime, anywhere.

You do not want that, trust me.

Being sensible and reasonable

For all of the people who wonder why some people are so adamant about being able to own weapons for self-protection, I can describe why in two words: bee stings.

I am over 55 years old. I have been stung by a bee in my life once, when I was about 8 years old. It hurt, I ran home to my mom who got the stinger out and that was that. In the end, it was no big deal to me.

But what if I was allergic to bee stings? What if I knew I could go into anaphylactic shock and possibly die if I got stung? Would it not be sensible and reasonable for me to carry an epi-pen everywhere I go on the slight off chance I got stung? Even though I have only been stung once and not again in over 20,000 days? Oh, sure, I can hope that a) someone sees me get stung and hears me say I need a paramedic, then b) wait for paramedics to show up to give me that shot and hope I don't die in the meantime. Or, I can attain the knowledge and skills, then carry the necessary implements to solve the problem myself. I have been driving motor vehicles for 40+ years. For the past 35 of them, I have always mounted a fire extinguisher in every vehicle I own or use regularly, such as company-issued vehicles. I have had to use them three times. I consider it to be sensible and reasonable for me to carry a fire extinguisher.

Owning and carrying weapons is exactly the same thing. We possess and carry the appropriate tools to appropriately handle a very-low probability event that has a high chance of a fatal outcome for ourselves or those we are responsible for because we have determined it is a sensible and reasonable thing to do. Who provides the threat (criminal or government) is not important. The fact that a situation could develop, no matter how unlikely, is important. In situations like that, we can't hope that the police are called and they respond in time to save us. BTW, the police have no duty or obligation to protect individual citizens. To Protect and Serve is nothing more than marketing bullshit.

 

Free State to Police State

As Nancy Pelosi Dianne Feinstein (they're both ugly California Liberals, I can't tell them apart) said, “Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in.”

I am going to explain in a very detailed way what will happen if Congress engages in a gun-controller’s wet dream of banning and confiscating firearms, it doesn’t matter if we are talking about all firearms or just a single type.

Step 1: Repeal the Second Amendment. You know, that pesky Constitutional limitation, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” part. So now you have the Twenty-Eighth Amendment, “Section. 1. The second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hearby repealed.”

We can get the guns now, right? No, not yet. Calm down Skippy.

Step 2: Like in Australia, enact a “mandatory gun buy back program.” Which I am sure a few people will partake in such a system. Let’s just say the government will pay you $100 per weapon. Hm, with an estimated 300 million firearms in the US, that would work out to be $30 Billion. I’m sure the government has that kind of cash just laying around.

Now? How about now?? Skippy, not yet.

When the buyback fails (believe me, it will fail), the government will have to move to the next step.

Step 3: Nationalization of the police force. There are not enough federal law-enforcement officers to perform the confiscation on a national level within any reasonable length of time. You could add in the military and it won’t make a dent. The result is your local Chief of Police or Sheriff will no longer answer to your city or county government, they will answer to Washington.

Now? Now?? Now??? Almost there, Skippy. Just one more step.

Step 4: Repeal of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. There might not be an actual Amendment to repeal these Amendments, it might be just a functional ignoring, like those in power are want to do so often. Why? Because to enforce such a ban judges would have to either issue a warrant without cause for every property, or the police would be granted the power to just go door-to-door and search every building, every piece of furniture and run a metal detector over every square foot of grass. Because, you know, us Americans are an inventive and sneaky lot in hiding stuff we don’t want found. Plus, to confiscate life, liberty or property without due process is a tenet of the Fifth. Of course, considering the current scale of “asset forfeiture” we have today, that part of the Fifth is already annulled.

The gun buyback program would most likely not apply in cases where the National Police forcefully come into your home and smash your home looking for firearms. They would, however, most likely follow the Russian execution method of shooting you in the back of the head, then billing your family for the cost of the bullet. Instead of leaving a $100 bill for every firearm they found on your bed like you’re a prostitute after they raid your home, they will leave a bill for the time and materials it took to kick down your door, ransack your house and leave your family in shambles, no matter if they found anything or not.

Now comes the bloody part. The first time a gun owner kills a police officer come to take their firearms, it will quickly escalate, maybe to the point where any resistance, any cross word or cross look will result in a maximum response by the police.

Yay! We have a police state now!!! Yes we do Skippy, yes we do.

So now you have a national police force, able to enter any building at any time for any reason. This means no property rights. A secret police will probably also be formed to entrap those who manage to evade the confiscation, as well as the “home machinists” who can manufacture weapons out of any machine shop.

The police will also brook no resistance. Brutal beatings and street executions by the police to any kind of resistance will become the norm. This kind of public example cows the populace into submission.

You say, “This can’t happen here.” I don’t have enough fingers to point at examples where exactly this very thing has happened, and I don’t have to go very far back in history to do so either. After all, Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot and their ilk stand upon the summit of 140 million bodies of their own people whom they killed in the prior century alone. All those dead were made that way because basically our killers didn’t like them for one reason or the other.

In fact, we only have to go back to the hours before the Mandalay Bay Massacre. In case you didn’t hear about this because of the coverage of Las Vegas, a small, independent section of Spain called Catalan held a referendum on if they should separate from Spain or not. The response of the Spain government (who is a big fan of severely restricting civilian ownership of firearms) mobilized their police force to fire tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds, then wading in with truncheons to beat the crap out of people and seized ballot boxes in an attempt to disrupt the referendum. NY Times, LA Times.

If those in power believe that they can disarm the citizens of this country, this is exactly what will happen. All of this is human nature, which the Founding Fathers understood and sought to fight by how they structured the Constitution.

Governments (and the people whom comprise them) universally seek to expand their power and scope of control. This should be a given that is just as universal that the sun comes up in the East and water is wet. This is why the Constitution was written the way it was, with clear delineations on which branch has what power and that if it isn’t in the Constitution, the government doesn’t have that authority.

Just remember things like this when you clamor to surrender Rights in the name of safety.

 

Reasonable restrictions

So, those I have spoken with about “preventing the next mass shooting” after the Mandalay Bay Massacre speak in very open-ended terms about “more licensing” and “better storage requirements” to help cut down on mass shootings.

It won’t help, and will hurt. Let me tell you why. First of all, there is that “[T]he right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” part of the Constitution. But all of these people have spoken about “reasonable government restrictions.” That is an oxymoron if I ever heard one.

It is an extremely subjective term, as what one person would consider “reasonable” another could easily consider the same criteria as “restrictive enough to choke a person.”

For the first example of “reasonable government restrictions” we only have to look as far as the Department of Education. In October 2010, Russlynn Ali, the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, without authority, approval from her superiors or using proper channels, in her “Dear Colleague” letter (read it, please) she used Title IX to set up in Universities, for lack of a better term, “Sexual Assault Star Chambers” where hundreds of men have been accused and convicted of sexual assault. These are not courts of law, but rather chambers where guilt is presupposed and exculpatory evidence is laughed at. The standards of evidence and testimony held by these star chambers that would be laughed out of a criminal or civil court. These convictions often come without any evidence or witnesses other than the accuser and her word. In fact, in one case the young woman supposedly assaulted, loudly and vigorously defended her boyfriend. She was shushed and threatened with expulsion from the school. These “convictions” ruin a young mans’ future and it happens dozens of times a year. Here is one example. When the Huffington Post weighs in on the guys’ side, you know something is up. Part 1 and Part 2.

While I lived in California back in the 80's, I rode a motorcycle as my primary transportation. One day, someone made an off-hand semi-sarcastic remark to the head of CDOT (California Department of Transportation) that, "Motorcycles need to have seat belts, because the riders keep falling off." If you ever have ridden (and/or went down) on a motorcycle, you know you want to get as far away as possible from that machine if it (and you) go down. Well, the head of CDOT took that remark seriously and came within a gnat's ass of requiring seat belts on motorcycles.

In my own experience, the BATF as part of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, decided to regulate a material known as Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant, or APCP. This is basically rubber infused with a salt of Ammonia. Like the DOE above, the BATF just decided one day APCP was an explosive (more precisely, a "low explosive") and claimed jurisdiction over its storage and use. They never followed their own testing procedures to determine if it was an explosive or not. By the way, this is the fuel used in the Solid Rocket Boosters on the Space Shuttle. This material is so safe, it is the only solid rocket fuel that is "man-rated," meaning it is safe and reliable enough to use with humans in the payload. To tell you the truth, typing paper burns faster than this stuff in the tests used when you are assessing if something is an explosive or not.

In the 80’s, model rocketeers discovered the handy aspects of this as high-powered rocket fuel for launching large rockets. But, in order to purchase, store and use APCP, you had to have a “Low Explosives Users Permit.” This meant you could only have so much of APCP, stored in a box with specific requirements, surrender your 4th Amendment rights because a BATF agent could make “unannounced inspections” and on, and on, and on. And on some more, and more, and more still.

It took the two national model rocketry organizations (National Association of Rocketry and Tripoli Rocketry Association) over 20 years and $3-4 Million in lawyers’ fees to get a judge to vacate this rule.

Shall I go on?

Now I am sure you and I and a few of our friends could come up with reasonable restrictions. But you see, we don't get to decide, as I have illustrated in the three above instances, the bureaucrats are the ones to decide what the "reasonable restrictions" are going to be. All it takes is one bureaucrat who doesn’t believe in civilian ownership of firearms to set regulations like in the video and below (or worse). WARNING, Graphic violence:

We would also see a bureaucratic maze like gun ownership in Japan, coupled with storage requirements like “[T]he safe weight shall be in excess of 1,000 pounds empty, to be secured to a concrete foundation with four (4) 1.5” diameter threaded bolts extending through 14” of concrete. Access to the contents shall require three different combinations, of which no one person can hold more than one combination.”

Now, I’m sure you can see the absurdness of these requirements, which would prevent anybody living in an apartment from having such a safe, plus if you did own your home, the cost of tearing up your foundation to mount those bolts would be extraordinarily expensive, on top of the cost of the safe, the weapons, the permits and so on.

This is why pro-RKBA people fight so hard against any regulation, because once the nose of this camel gets into the tent, his big ass is not too far behind.

 

Goose, meet gander

I am constantly amazed at the scale of the mental gymnastics and hypocrisy of Liberals.

Classic case in point: The gun control debate.

Liberal organizations like The Brady Campaign to prevent Gun Violence, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the like do not want to get rid of firearms.

They want to get rid of civilian ownership of firearms. They are all for the military, police and their security details having guns, just not you.

The children of the powerful go to schools that are protected by armed guards, right there and ready to go with advanced weaponry. The children who attend public schools are "protected" by gun-free zones and lightly-armed police who are usually minutes away when seconds count.

You really have to ask yourself, why is what's good for the goose is not good for the gander?

While I cannot speak to their thoughts, I am sure their motivations are quite clear. They are "in charge" and they would like to stay that way.

They realize there are more men armed with scoped rifles who can hit a dinner plate at 200 yards in the woods of Pennsylvania on the first morning of deer hunting season than any army in the world (including ours!). Those "in-charge" people fear these people.

A citizenry that does not have tools for self-defense similar to the weapons possessed by the police and military, lacks the ability to resist any action that the police or military wants to visit upon them. When that happens, the citizenry exists entirely at the whim of the government. You can just ask the over 20,000,000 who were killed by Stalin, Mao, the Khmer Rouge and other Socialist governments during the 20th century who disarmed their citizens. Oh, wait, you can't because they're dead.

These pro-gun control people know the bloodbath and civil war that would ensue if they tried to confiscate all the firearms. So, until they are sure that they can go door-to-door and just take them, they are trying to "convince" you. They don't orchestrate mass shootings, they create the conditions where such mass murders possible, then loudly proclaiming them from the rooftops, while ignoring or stifling incidents that were cut short or prevented by a legally armed-citizen.

 

Oh, the irony

For all of my Liberal readers who want to suddenly rebel against a Trump administration, when Obama has spent the past eight years weaponizing the government (because the EPA needs SWAT teams), when they suddenly realize that the government has lots of guns, and they don't have any.

So, if you're Liberal and have suddenly come to appreciate the wonderful advantages of the Second Amendment and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, this article is for you: A Handy Guide For Liberals Who Are Suddenly Interested In Gun Ownership.

I will say that all of the information and suggestions contained in the article are good and true. How the author delivers the information in a wonderfully biting and ironic commentary is well past epic. Here is an example:

Now it gets really complicated. And that’s entirely your fault. See, traditionally Democrats don’t like the 2nd Amendment and historically have done everything in their power to screw with it. Your gun laws are going to vary dramatically based upon where you live. It might be really difficult and expensive for you to exercise your 2nd Amendment rights, or it might be relatively easy.

     

But you’re scared right now! Well, that’s too bad. Because for the most part Democrats have tried to make it so that citizens have to abdicate their responsibilities and instead entrust that only state can defend everyone… That doesn’t seem like such a bright idea now that you don’t trust who is running the state, huh?

If you think you need to be armed, either against Trump's government or the local gangbangers, I actively encourage you to learn all you can, purchase what you believe is necessary to protect yourself and your family and use said weapons in a responsible and judicious manner.

Why there is an RKBA

If you have been paying attention to the events going down in the Dakotas, this is the primary reason why the Second Amendment exists. This is why the RKBA (Right to Keep and Bear Arms) is an integral part of the American world view, our culture and our fundamental Rights bestowed upon us by our Creator. It is why the unarmed man is a Subject (as in Subject to the Crown) and the armed man is a Citizen. 

Recently, Citizens have had three major clashes with the government. The first two protests, the Bundy Standoff in Nevada and the Oregon Standoff, where a government building was captured, were performed by well-armed Citizens who protested unwarranted government excesses. These armed Citizens stood up to the government. As a result of their being armed, they were treated with respect by government agents, no one was hurt and the government ultimately backed down. The Citizens involved in the Oregon event were arrested, charged, tried and acquitted of all charges brought against them by the government.

Currently, we have peaceful, unarmed protesters in the Dakotas trying to prevent an unwanted pipeline from passing through their lands and over sacred burial grounds. These unarmed citizens are being tear-gassed, shot at and the riot police push them around like children. There are reports of snipers picking off protesters and animals, with agent provocateurs trying to provide the reason for the government to move in on the protesters. 

This is an unattributed quote, possibly from George Washington. However variants of this has shown up throughout history:

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

A fire properly contained in the fireplace provides light, heat and the ability to cook. When a candle is lit from that fire, if not properly attended it can set the entire house on fire.

When the government is moral and has a conscience, peaceful protest can work. I have no problem with peaceful protests. This is why Gandhi was able to win Indian Independence from the British. If Gandhi had tried that against the Nazis when they occupied India, they would have simply shot him and any supporters in the head and that would have been the end of it.

The last eight years has shown a great increase in the excesses of governmental power. Agencies make up regulations with the force of law, which relentlessly encroach on freedoms. The speed and scale of encroachments with continue to accelerate when not opposed by armed Citizens.

Stand up. Arm yourselves. Be a Citizen, not a Subject.

Matt & Liam

Like Matt Damon cares, but I for one will never, ever again patronize a movie he makes where his character is armed. Why? Because he seems to be a typical Hypocritical Liberal Elite like Liam Neeson. ‘Jason Bourne’ star Matt Damon calls for U.S. to ban guns ‘in one fell swoop.’

These people insist that citizens not have the right to defend themselves, yet think it's perfectly acceptable to have armed security to protect them.

And just so all y'all know how the Australians regard personal security, I present this section of an ad from their buy back program after the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996:

 

Australian view of firearms

 

"Under the latest gun laws, personal and property protection are not longer considered acceptable reasons to possess any type of firearm..."

So, in Australia and Great Britain, you do not have the right or legal ability to defend yourself against any kind of aggressor. I don't think that concept will fly too well in the United States.

 
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