I have pinned this post to the top of my blog. It is to remind people of what many of our opponents want. Alison Aires wants a tyrannical government. They want summary execution for private possession of firearms.
This is why we have a Bill of Rights. This is why I created Boomershoot.
A distinctive mark of fascism is its conception of politics, best captured by Carl Schmitt, an early-20th-century German political theorist whose doctrines legitimized Nazism. Schmitt rejected the Madisonian view of politics as a social negotiation in which different factions, interests, and ideology come to agreement, the core idea of our Constitution. Rather, he saw politics as a state of war between enemies, neither of which can understand the other and both of which feel existentially threatened—and only one of which can win. The aim of Schmittian politics is not to share the country but to dominate or destroy the other side.
Jonathan Rauch*
January 25, 2026
Yes, It’s Fascism – The Atlantic
Via email from a reader.
Most of the body of the article is behind a paywall so I only have the part quoted in the email.
As many of you will point out, there is no compromise or coming to agreement with those who want you dead. There is no compromise with those who want a cradle to grave welfare state for everyone. But there is a better way to go about opposing them without risking a death spiral into your own purity test driven genocide of killing all the communists.
There is a fair amount of truth to what I could read in the quote above about the definition of fascism. And I prefer to use the oldest definition I can find. It is from an unabridged dictionary copyrighted in various years from 1927 through1946. In part, the Fascisti were:
… organized in connection with a repressive movement directed against the socialists and communists and the disturbances excited by them during 1919 and the years following, which regarded the government as criminally negligent in failing to deal with these disturbances, and took measure on its own account, often violent ones, to combat them…
Hence, one could say people opposed to socialists and communists meet part of the definition of Fascist. Aside from the increased ease of which the dirty label sticks there are other reasons to not defining yourself as opposed, especially violently opposed, to communists and socialists.
Remember the poem from a couple days ago: Laugh, and the World Laughs with You? If you are an unhappy, angry person you will have fewer people who wish to be around you and join your political bandwagon. Be for something good. Be for freedom. Be for liberty. Be for a booming economy. Be for a wealthy society.
Let the communists and socialist be against that.
* Rauch is not a new name to this blog:
The headlines tell you almost all you need to know:
It briefly hit a low of $60,506.99:
To offer Bitcoin holders a bit of hope, I will point out the CNN article claims there have been crashes of equal magnitude before and the crypto currency recovered within a year. However, the reasons for the crash were different then.
The market is currently navigating a ‘crisis of faith’.
Shiliang Tang
Managing partner of Monarq Asset Management.
February 4, 2026
Bitcoin falls below $72,000 as market faces a ‘crisis of faith’
I have been publicly skeptical about Bitcoin for a while now:
And, as I mentioned in several of those posts, it is a faith-based asset without the backing of a government which accepts it for payment of taxes. The government backing of an issued currency ensures a non-zero value as long as the government exists (since they will honor as payment of taxes). Bitcoin could go to zero in the span of days or weeks. Right now, you could be watching it slide into oblivion.
If this is its end, the economic ripples will be “interesting.”
Via Planet Of Memes @PlanetOfMemes
I know it would not be consistent with other memes with the same format, but if someone were to tell me this, my response would be, “Don’t make any promises you can’t keep.” Or perhaps, “Make it 90% and we have a deal.”
Laugh, and the world laughs with you,
weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it’s mirth,
but has trouble enough of its own.
Sing and the hills will answer, sigh
it is lost on the air
For the echoes bound to a joyful sound
but shrink from voicing care.Rejoice and men will seek you,
grieve and they turn and go
They want full measure of all your
pleasure but do not need your woe.
Be glad and your friends are many,
be sad and you’ll lose them all
There are none to decline your nectared wine
but alone you must drink life’s gall.Feast and your halls are crowded,
fast and the world goes by
Succeed and give and it helps you live
but no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
for a long and lordly train
But one by one we must all file on
through the narrow aisles of painElla Wheeler Wilcox
Solitude
February 25, 1883
Over 40 years ago I wrote a program to give me a random quote every time my computer booted up. I still use that program. Instead of on boot, it runs when I start up a new instance of a command prompt. The quote above appeared a few minutes ago. I don’t remember putting the quote in the collection. But like a lot of others in the collection, it resonates with me. Perhaps, in these troubled times, it will resonate with you as well and give you some direction to better days ahead.
I asked Grok for the original publish date and received a little more than what I asked for:
It was first published on February 25, 1883, in The New York Sun newspaper. (Some sources note slight variations like February 21, but February 25 is the most consistently cited date across reliable references.)
The poem later appeared in her collection Poems of Passion, released in May 1883, which became a major bestseller.
The inspiration came from an incident on a train where Wilcox observed contrasting emotions—a joyful group and a grieving widow—leading to the insight that joy is shared, but sorrow is often solitary. She reportedly earned just $5 for the initial newspaper publication.
The people who scream the loudest about government tyranny have nothing to say. The same people who fantasize about standing up to federal overreach have vanished at the precise moment federal power killed a citizen exercising a constitutional right.
This is the tell.
We have seen this movement erupt before. When Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines with an AR-15 and killed two people, he was transformed into a cause. He was fundraised for, defended relentlessly, and held up as proof that armed citizens are the last line of order in a chaotic world. The weapon was the point, and the violence was excused. The narrative was protected at all costs.
But when a man lawfully carrying a firearm is tackled, disarmed, and shot anyway, there is no mobilization from the same crowd. The difference is not the gun. It is who the gun is allowed to protect.
Because the gun-rights movement has never actually been about freedom. It is about hierarchy and about who gets to feel powerful and in charge. It is about whose fear counts, and whose death does not.
Dead children are acceptable collateral. Dead immigrants are invisible. Dead Black and brown men are routine. And now, apparently, dead armed citizens are still not enough to stir outrage unless they fit the right political story.
Cassie McClure
January 31, 2026
Thoughts and prayers for the Second Amendment
The tell is that McClure left out the part where Alex Petti, who is never named in the article, committed a crime and was in the process of being arrested when he was disarmed and erroneously shot during the scuffle. A criminal getting shot by law enforcement during an arrest is much different than Rittenhouse who successfully defended himself against multiple criminals’ intent on killing or seriously injuring him.
The two situations are not analogous. It has nothing to do with the political affiliation, skin color, or immigration status. It has to do with whether the people involved were law-abiding or not.
The only thing clear in the article is McClure does not have a good grasp of reality and/or is being deliberately deceptive.
It is my intention to assure the residents of Livingston that we are still a Second Amendment sanctuary county, and we will be paying close attention to the bills that will be coming out of Richmond. I will do my absolute best to help protect those citizens and our constitutional values here in Spotsylvania.
Jacob Lane
Livingston District Supervisor (Virginia)
January 30, 2026
Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors message to the state: ‘We are still a Second Amendment sanctuary county’ – Fredericksburg Free Press
With the flurry of gun control laws being enacted in Virginia this is at least a little bit of good news. I don’t think the whole “Second Amendment sanctuary” thing has ever been tested in the legal arena. But at least it is “a spit in their face”.
Several niche, left-leaning gun advocacy groups said that since the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis, they can hardly keep up with the surging demand for firearms training.
Harmeet Kaur
February 1, 2026
Leftist and liberal gun groups are seeing a rush of new members
Surely, everyone can see this will result in making it easier to eliminate the infringements on our 2nd Amendment rights. Some people will be concerned of increased odds for violent civil war. What they probably don’t realize is that once someone becomes a gun owner there is increased rate of those people leaving the political left.
I see this as a minor increase in risk with tremendous potential for good.
So, why escalate to violence? Because the most dedicated communist agitators have no choice. Walz desperately wants a standdown because Trump has not folded. The deportations continue, and the campaign is not getting the response the left hoped for. Sure, the usual eunuchs (Tillis cannot depart the Senate soon enough) are whining, but Trump is holding firm and forcing the state actors to refuse his reasonable requests, like turning over criminals. The Walz types won’t escalate, but the radicals very well could.
Remember, you earn cred as a leftist by going left. You lose it by moderating or compromising. The leftists have talked themselves into a box canyon: Trump is literally Hitler, so how can they stop resisting? No, there will be leftists who want to move on to direct violent action and plenty of social media supporters to cheer it on. Think of it as an opportunity; the one who goes violent first becomes their hero. They will try to do it for max marquee effect and the lowest possible risk – both in terms of the authorities fighting back and judicial accountability…
Kurt Schlichter @KurtSchlichter
Posted on X, January 28, 2026
It is in their nature. See also here.
I want my underground bunker in Idaho completed and stocked.
In related news, today a co-worker and his wife are meeting me in Idaho to look for property to aid in their escape from Washington state. Prices are outlandishly high compared to what I think they should be.
The Renee Good case was clear-cut self-defense. Objectively, she hit the accelerator when her tires were pointed directly at the officer. If the officer had complete omnipotence he would still have been justified in using deadly force.
The Pretti case is different. It still looks like lawful self-defense, but in this case, if the officers were omnipotent, they would NOT have fired. But from the perception of the individual officer in the moment, all they know is that they are dealing with an agitator who has 1) aggressively confronted a federal law enforcement officer 2) unlawfully interfered in an arrest of a third party and 3) violently resisted arrest. And then the officer hears “gun gun gun.” We don’t know exactly what that officer was seeing at the time; maybe the body cam video will be probative, maybe not. But the officer is allowed to rely on the perceptions of his colleagues combined with his own, so if he heard “gun gun gun” and saw Pretti reach for his waist that’s a lawful shoot even if the officer was mistaken.
Will Chamberlain @willchamberlain
Posted on X, January 26, 2026
He meant “omniscient”, not “omnipotent”.
There is at least one video I have seen that appears to show the officer who took Petti’s gun had an AD with it as he was walking away. This, as you might expect, appears to have initiated the shooting of Petti.
If true, it will almost certainly result in it being a lawful, tragic shooting.
Maybe. It is plausible. Especially so, since this joke has more than a little truth to it:
A man had three beautiful girlfriends but didn’t know which one to marry. As a test, he decided to give each woman $5,000 to see how they would spend it.
The first girlfriend went out and got herself a complete makeover, She told him, “I spent the money so I could look pretty for you because I love you so much.”The second went shopping and bought the man new golf clubs, an iPad and an 80-inch flatscreen television. She said, “I bought these gifts for you because I love you so much.
The third woman took the $5,000 and invested it in the stock market, doubled her investment, returned $5,000 to the man and reinvested the rest. She said,”I am investing the rest of the money for our future because I love you so much,
The man thought long and hard about how each of his girlfriends had spent the money, and then he decided to marry the one with the biggest tits.
Found in multiple places:
I don’t know that I have ever seen a comeback as short and powerful as the following. It started out with this lengthy observation and commentary. Which got this response:
Dave @snakeeatsapples
You’re a conservative cosplaying as a libertarian.
Wow. That was a short and effective. But the response was devastating:
Aella @Aella_Girl
my bodycount is 500+
I’m proud she is from Idaho.
Let’s talk Judicial Lawfare.
Over 4 years of the Biden administration, 9 district court rulings against the administration were later overturned on appeal. About 2.25 per year.
In 2025 alone, the first year of President Trump’s second term, 32 District Judges have issued 133 rulings against the Trump administration that were stayed or overturned on appeal.
Simplified, District Judges are now issuing rulings that ultimately fail on appeal at more than 50x the rate compared to the previous presidency.
And for the record, when these cases reach the Supreme Court, President Trump’s win rate is roughly 90%.
Chad Mizelle @chad_mizelle
Posted on X, January 26, 2026
Interesting statistics. What is left out that makes me wonder if they are hiding something. Why are the total number of cases are not mentioned for either administration?
Still, I do know the SCOTUS win rate is quite high.
Via The Redheaded libertarian @TRHLofficial, who wrote:
It appears MSNBC gave Alex Pretti a tan, a stronger jawline, better teeth, shorter forehead, and a nose job to make him look hotter for the AWFLs. They broadened his shoulders, thickened his neck, and gave him biceps.
Since they engaged in this deliberate deception you can be sure there are other deceptions in their reporting of their narrative.
Legacy Media Liars.
AI makes deception so much easier. The videos being produced are of amazing quality. Reality was already tough to discern. The current technology could make it nearly impossible to determine truth from falsity. It would require security certificates from source to viewer, a chain of custody, for recording devices with images and/or sound to come close having a chance of being actually true.
This is very scary stuff.
A few Trump Admin officials said some very dumb anti-2A things over the weekend. They got criticism and walked back those statements today. On the actual substantive policy and law, the Admin has generally been very good on the issue, although we do strongly disagree with them on some things.
Democrats, for their part, said some very pro-2A things over the weekend in support of Alex Pretti. But by Monday, they were already back to banning the gun and magazines he carried.
I’d love nothing more for Democrats to truly support the 2A and make the issue less partisan. But that just isn’t the reality. Trump may say things like “take the guns first.” Democrats actually do it.
Kostas Moros @MorosKostas
Posted on X, January 26, 2026
Barb and I briefly discussed this last night…
As I told Barb, “I don’t believe politicians have actual principles. They will say and do whatever they think is good for them politically.”
So, you have to either make your desires politically rewarding enough for them to obey the law or abandon all hope of them behaving in a constitutional manner. The judges at the SCOTUS level are better and where I place most of my hope of getting the gun issue straightened out. Hence, I donate money to the Second Amendment groups which appear to be most effective in the courts.
My remaining hope is in creating new gun owners and increasing the enthusiasm of existing owners. Hence, my taking new shooters to the range and Boomershoot.
Is the Hobbesian fear truly rooted in reality? If not, what happens to politics when we allow fear, not cooperation, to become foundational to our framework? Robert Nozick asked these same questions in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. These lucidly written pages extend these arguments even further—with some surprising conclusions.
Aeon J. Skoble—professor of philosophy, bestselling author, and acclaimed political theorist—makes a powerful case that the state as we understand it today is not only morally unjustifiable, but also, thankfully, unnecessary. It has only the power we mistakenly grant it. What if we didn’t?
Packed with urgent lessons, original insights, and unparalleled philosophical rigor, this book is essential reading for anyone who dares imagine a freer world.
Independent Institute
January 26, 2026
Deleting the State: Requiem for an Illusion – eBook, Paperback
I am extremely skeptical. I am of the strong opinion that governments are a necessary evil to protect the rights of the individual. Yes, when they go rogue they can be the greatest infringer of rights. But on the whole, with a well armed populus, they can be a net benefit to humanity.
That said, if the book were available in audible form, I would purchase it just to see what the author has to say.
In every clip I’ve seen of Noem today, she’s saying something she can’t know or that is a lie. She also undercuts 2A to say carrying ammo is a problem on its face. I know it’s too much to expect people to be responsible, but this is opposite of a grown-up doing the job.
Mary Katherine Ham @mkhammer
Posted on X, January 24, 2026
It is way beyond having hope of most people to be responsible. Things are more chaotic than I think I have ever seen them. Emotions are running very high. Most people cannot even determine what is reality. Part of the problem is the media lies, selective reporting, and deliberate distortion. Part of it is that many people don’t even believe in the existence of an objective reality. And part of it is that reality is a really tough problem. We are left with people blinded by emotion, without knowledge of how to determine a reality they don’t even believe exists, with deliberate lies as the basis to make decisions on how to interact with the rest of the world.
The dollar is worth less than 1/5000th of an ounce of gold and will buy less than 1/100th of an ounce of silver. The nation debt is nearly $40 trillion.
I just want my underground bunker in Idaho to be finished and stocked before things go really sour.
With the conservative majority’s Second Amendment test requiring states to justify gun measures with historical analogues, Hawaii and other states have turned to the Black Codes to justify gun control efforts.
At Tuesday’s arguments, Justice Neil Gorsuch and other conservative justices appeared reluctant to credit them given their racist origins.
Hawaii points to anti-poaching laws enacted near the nation’s founding and gun restrictions Louisiana passed in 1865 as part of its Black Codes.
“They wanted to disarm the Black population in order to help the Klan terrorize them and law enforcement officers in that period in that region. They wanted to put them at the mercy of racist law enforcement officers,” Justice Samuel Alito said.
“So is it not the height of irony,” he asked Katyal, “to cite a law that was enacted for exactly the purpose of preventing someone from exercising the Second Amendment right, to cite this as an example of what the Second Amendments protects.”
Katyal said he agreed parts of the Black Codes did exactly that.
Zach Schonfeld
January 20, 2026
Conservative justices reluctant to credit Black Codes in Hawaii gun law case
One has to be in awe of people capable of such mind warping ability that they use a racist and unconstitutional law as supporting the assertion their law is constitutional. Did they think appealing to racist laws would make it more a palatable to the conservative justices? If so, it backfired, but it did appeal to one of the justices:
“So I guess I really don’t understand your response to Justice Gorsuch on the Black Codes,” Jackson, a Biden appointee, told Harris. “I mean, I thought the Black Codes were being offered here under the Bruen test to determine the constitutionality of this regulation. And it’s because we have a test that asks us to look at the history and tradition.”
“The fact that the Black Codes were, at some later point, determined themselves to be unconstitutional doesn’t seem to me to be relevant to the assessment that Bruin is asking us to make.
I have given up trying to make sense of this argument. I have far more important things to do. I need to clip my fingernails.
The matter is simple. Hawaii passed a law that, in practice, prohibits the state’s concealed carry permit holders from exercising their right to armed self-defense in virtually any location outside of their homes. Hawaii knows well that this law violates both the spirit and letter of Bruen v. New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, the Supreme Court’s 2022 landmark case on public carry. It just does not care.
Now, the state should brace itself for a more-than-deserved judicial head-bopping.
Amy Swearer
January 23, 2026
SCOTUS likely to head-bop Hawaii over gun rights
All the reports I have heard say the oral arguments went well for the good guys.
In addition to getting their head bopped I think some other corrective measures are warranted. I would like to suggest all of the following applied as near as concurrently as is practical to each of the politicians who participated in this injustice:
If they still continue to misbehavior they should be prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to prison.
The meme that the Left uses words as spells to produce useful outcomes has the most explanatory power.
They don’t care about meanings, they just want those outcomes.
Brotherhood @DiggingInTheDi1
Posted on X, January 21, 2026
I can believe that.
* From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs – Wikipedia
** The Progressive Left’s Glossary Of Terms, 2024 Edition – Scattered Shots