Category Archives: Current News

This is about stuff in the mass media that generally has a short interest life span. Speculation about an election outcome a few days before the election is an example.

The Mind of the Left

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North Carolina Democrat Governor Beverly Perdue gave us a rare moment of honesty as she called for a suspension of elections in order to Get Things Done.

Hat tip to the guy filling in for Michael Savage today.

This confirms, once again, my definition of “Divisiveness” in the language of the left– “Speaking ill of or disagreeing with socialists or socialism.”  She didn’t use the “D” word, but used “partisan bickering” instead, which is the same thing.  When they win an election, it is the beauty of democracy in action– the will of the people expressing itself in the best of ways.  When they lose, democracy itself is under attack.  Things can’t get done due to political posturing and gridlock, the American People are throwing a temper tantrum, etc., etc.

The assumption is always the same with communists– the stupid little people don’t know what’s good for them.  They don’t appreciate all the great things we smarter and better people could do if only they’d stop asserting their will and submit to ours.  In its naked form, it is a cult of mass destruction.

The mindset is nothing new of course.  What’s unique is the blatant honesty in Governor Perdue’s statement.  It’s very, very rare for a socialist to say something so direct in public in an official capacity  They very much love hiding in complexity and have said exactly so.  This only shows us that they’re beginning to feel comfortable, and that tells us something.  It means things are getting more dangerous, but I suppose that anyone who’s been paying attention already knew that.

We’re now being told it was all a little joke.  Reading the quote I don’t see it as a joke.  I see it as a trial balloon.  Leftists can get away with that.

If it were teenage drinking instead of guns

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Ry and I were talking about operation “Fast and Furious” on the drive back from the range yesterday. The synopsis is, suppose operation “Fast and Furious” were about teenage drinking instead of guns. Law enforcement would have given $70,000 to several underage people and told them to go buy alcohol at particular stores where law enforcement would tell the stores to not check the IDs of the people they gave the money too.

Law enforcement would then find receipts from those purchases at drunk driving accidents. The executive branch would then claim more laws are required to register people who want to buy more than one six pack of beer or one bottle of hard liquor at a time. The news media would enthusiastically support this proposal until it was discovered that a law enforcement officer was killed by one of the drunk teenagers. Then both the news media and the government officials would say they aren’t going to admit any wrong doing and the proposed laws are a good idea even if enforcement of the existing laws would have prevented the problems they used as justification for the new laws.

As Kevin and I discussed last night the entire scandal was only exposed when people who stomp kittens to death as part of their regular job found it too immoral to continue with the operation.

Seldom Do I LOL…

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…even when I’m watching good comedy.  Maybe it comes from growing up in a large family.  If you LOL, shut up already.  I’m trying to listen, and anyway, how can you listen while you’re cackling?  (In a live social situation, at least the deliverer of the comedy usually has the sense to wait for some degree of quiet, so that’s different)  Stuff like that.  But I LOL’d at this, from Tam;

Meanwhile, I’d like to offer my services to moderate the next GOP debate:

“Now, if you will all look down at your podiums, you will notice that you’ve all been provided with a short document. A few of you might even be vaguely familiar with it. If you don’t mind, could you each just look in the part headed ‘Article II’ and point out to me the sentence or phrase that indicates that ‘job creation’ or ‘the economy’ is within the presidential purview?

We’ll start with you, on the end, with the hair. No, not you… the other one on the end, with the hair…”

It’s absurd in its truth.  Funny and sad.

When thinking of the most recent, absurd rationalizations and excuses for government meddling, and the obvious expectation from politicians that we revere them (why is never explained) I find, more and more frequently, the phrase, “None of your filthy, stinking, rotten business, you sniveling, made-up, hairsprayed, lying piece of shit with the painted-on smile” comes to mind, followed by the thought that if you actually told them to mind their own business they wouldn’t understand– they actually believe that your business IS their business.  Tam made it funny is all.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I should clean my guns.

Gunwakler Guns Not ‘Allowed’

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If you believe the BATFE merely “allowed” criminals to buy the guns,  you have to believe that there were regular, on-going attempts, by Mexican gangsters, to make huge purchases at U.S. gun stores, that these huge purchases were being regularly denied, and that the Mexican gangsters simply kept trying, failing, trying, failing, and then one day, all of a sudden, the gigantic sales start being approved, one and another and another, simply because our local dufi started pushing the green button instead of the red button.  And nothing else.

Sorry; I can’t believe it.  I say those purchases were engineered.  Someone had to be in contact with known criminals, asking them, or ordering them, to come here and make those purchases and take delivery down south.  Can we please stop using “allowed” or “let” when talking about this?  It defies logic.

Let’s also be very careful about getting indignant, saying in essence, “Allowing guns to be sold in the U.S. resulted in crime.”  No, Little Grasshopper.  Criminals result in crime (and the sons of bitches who work with them at our expense).  I cannot be convinced, in any case, that said criminals couldn’t have gotten, wouldn’t rather have gotten, their guns from any of multiple sources in their own country including U.S. government arms supplied ostensibly as aid, from other Central and South American countries, and from the black market.

Criminals and tyrants will always be armed.  The only question is whether the good guys will also be armed, and Gunwalker was an attempt to engineer a crisis so as to help answer this question in the negative.

From the Horse’s (Jihadist’s) Mouth

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Here we go again I suppose.  I posted a few days ago that I wanted clarification of Ron Paul’s military and foreign policy.  No one offered any, but it sure provoked a storm of comments.  I asked in a comment on RP’s own web site, what he would suggest we do about small, rogue states that want to kill us, don’t yet have the means to do it, but are very active in working to attain the means and the allies to eventually kill us.  Not only did Ron Paul or his web site managers attempt an answer, none of his supporters offered any answers, AND there was an instant troll patrol mobilization that buried the discussion in an argument over the definition of Zion.

Strike One; No coherent position on his own web site.

Strike Two; No answers to a serious and level-headed series of questions.

Strike Three; He seems to have a troll patrol that can be dispatched on demand on short notice, to provide a smoke screen.  Whether they operate at his behest, or totally on their own, someone clearly sees a need to cover for Ron Paul’s foreign policy ideas, or lack thereof.

The primary response I get from those willing to talk, i.e. not Ron Paul, is; “Pfffft!  That little fly spec is no threat!” followed by a litany of sins committed by the U.S.

As for the first part– the “pfffft” part, it doesn’t take a super power to do a lot of serious damage.  As for the second part– it’s hard to square with the first part, unless I translate it as, “we don’t deserve to survive” or “we don’t deserve to take action against any but the most cataclysmic of threats, because that would be meddling and meddling is evil”.  Without that translation, the litany-of-sins part of argument is nothing but a change of subject in that it does not address the question of what we should do about specific current threats, or future threats as they might emerge.

There are plenty of threats in the world, and a few that wander in from the outer solar system once in a while, but jihad seems to be a popular one for discussion.  I’ve heard quite a few words from the jihadist’s mouths before, and Joe, years ago, posted a list of demands from Bin Laden.  From what I’ve actually seen and heard, The Reasons for jihadists hating us center around the basics of our culture and not our foreign policies of the past or present, except for our support of Israel, which is only sometimes mentioned.  Whole jihadist diatribes exist that don’t mention it at all.  You will also remember that Israel was not created by the U.S. and that the Soviets, the Germans and more recently the Chinese, have had their long and sometimes brutal fingers in the Mid East, and THEY are not “The Great Satan”.  We are.  The facts, as I understand them then, do not support, do not even suggest other than in the most ethereal way, the idea that they hate us enough to want to wipe us off the map simply because of our meddling foreign policy.

This recent explanation, from an actual “Sharia Shall be the Law of the World” jihadist, is right along the lines of everything else I’ve heard;

Aside from railing against democracy, he goes on to unabashedly claim that sharia is his ultimate goal. Further showcasing his view that “rule by the people” is completely unacceptable, he continues with the following:

“once Allah’s law is applied, the role of the people will end and Allah will reign supreme.”

I’ve heard that many times– “The Koran, God’s law, is the only law.  Man-made laws have no place in the world.  Rule by the People is rule by Satan.  Stuff like that.  Very common theme. And from the same report;

Shehato said that if the mujahideen came to power in Egypt, they would launch a campaign of Islamic conquests aimed at subjecting the entire world to Islamic rule. Muslim ambassadors would be appointed to each country, charged with calling upon them to join Islam willingly, but if the countries refused, war would be waged against them.

The Islamic state he’d like to see Egypt become is an equally concerning picture — a nation that would have no trade or cultural ties with non-Muslims. And because tourists “drink alcohol and fornicate,” all of the sites that have made Egypt a popular destination for foreign vacationers. will be shut down. Art, dancing, singing and other exercises of talent and self-expression will also be prohibited.

We “Drink alcohol and fornicate”.  I believe Bin Laden said the same thing, along with demanding an end to trading money with interest.  Exercises of art and other forms of self-expression have also been mentioned before, by other radical Islamists.  That’s what I’m seeing, supposedly in their own words.  Now you could argue that all the translators and/or reporters, from any and all walks of life, are mistranslating and/or misreporting the messages, but I’ll have a very hard time believing that.  If that were the case, there’d be people here, who speak the language, raising a fit– “That’s not what he said…!“

So far as I can tell, Ron Paul says “no sanctions” while at the same time saying that we should “put (undefined) pressure” on certain, undefined, entities but absolutely avoid them by staying out of their business while the jihadists ally with Russia, China and Venezuela, etc. and we should totally mind our own business because anything else whatsoever is “Imperialist”.  That is, so far as I can tell.  I’ve given up on my attempt to get clarification from Ron Paul.  I now know I’ll never get it.  There’s something seriously f’d up with him, that people close to him want very much to hide.  I don’t know what it is, but I can smell its horrible stench wafting out through my monitor.

So.  Again.  Please.  Focus like a laser beam this time.  Forget our litany of past and present sins for the moment.  Forget Ron Paul.  That’s a different subject from “what should we do now that the house seems to be smoking?”  I don’t want a sermon on why I shouldn’t play with matches while the house seems to be on fire.  OK?  There are possibly some rather more important matters that need our immediate attention.  Or do you believe we should just forget the smoke and argue amongst ourselves until we see naked flames?  How high do the flames have to be then?  Should we be at all concerned about these jihad jackwagons, who seem to be making progress while we’re losing liberty in our own house, and if so, what should we do about it?  Or do they even exist?  I’ve heard that argument– “There is no terrorist threat”.  Exactly what would your dream candidate say?  Please be clear and to the point. (assuming your dream candidate would be clear and to the point).  If you’re for Ron Paul I don’t waht to hear from you.  I already read his own words and they make no sense, and since he can’t speak for himself I don’t care what you have to say about him because you clearly don’t know any better than I.

Ron Paul Web Site Melt-Down

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I’ve been met with pure emotion every time I question a Ron Paul supporter on RP’s foreign policy positions.  The aggregate response is; “What are you, stupid??!!!  Ron Paul is great!!!!” but in comments on his web site it is mostly smoke screen– pure distraction– Ignore and Redirect.

I went to the obvious source of Ron Paul positions– Ron Paul’s own web site, for clarification, and found none.  The best I could ascertain was that RP’s position on hostile enemies is; “Stop, or I’ll say Stop again!” or “Stop, or you’ll get a letter of condemnation on official letterhead!”

There are two ten minute videos there.  I got through one, with only more questions.  At one stage, where he’s making the point, “America negotiated with the Soviet Union and so therefore we can negotiate with Iran” he wraps it up saying that, after all, Iran is no bigger a threat than was the Soviet Union.  (oh boy)  No, see; the Soviet Union was a massively greater threat than Iran is today.  See.  Mutually Assured Destruction was well in place.  His reasoning is backwards.

In another segment of the same vid, he says he’s totally opposed to sanctions, on the notion that they’re an act of war.  OK.  I could agree with that, but then he slips in the idea of “putting pressure” on hostiles without giving any clue as what that could mean. Let’s see, maybe 12 years, seventeen UN resolutions against the Saddam regime in Iraq, followed by Saddam kicking out the UN inspectors?  “Pressure”, with nothing to back it up, will be met with laughter by our enemies.

As it went, we had not one, but two U.S. Congressional authorizations of force (official declarations of war) with Congresscritters falling all over each other to get in front of the cameras and make sure we all knew they favored military action.  A few weeks later and it was “Bush Lied, People Died!” and “9/11 Was An Inside Job!” and “No War For Oil!” and as far as I can tell Ron Paul agrees with the later attitudes, saying we’re illegally doing this and illegally doing that, and no wonder people hate us because we suck (no explanation of why the Russians and Chinese, among others, aren’t as hated as the U.S., after they’ve been ten times as “Imperialist” as anything the U.S. ever did).

My best assessment of Ron Paul’s foreign/military position is that it’s a conflation of Jane Fonda’s, John Kerry’s and Cindy Sheehan’s, i.e. pure emotion mixed with the belief that the U.S. is on balance a force of evil in the world, with some shameless pandering to the “Make Love, Not War!” constituency (which he must see as an important voting block) mixed in.  That and he apparently can’t afford a moderator for his web site.  Other than that, I like Ron Paul a lot.

Quote of the day—Dallas Morning News

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Finding someone to stand up and take responsibility for the feds’ ill-advised gun-walk-to-Mexico program has been anything but fast. Only the denying, obfuscating and bus-throwing-under has been furious.

Dallas Morning News
August 19, 2011
Editorial: Details only get worse from ATF’s Fast and Furious fiasco
[That seems to capture the situation so far pretty well.

H/T to NRA-ILA.—Joe]

Current news from Israel

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From our friend Howard Linett, Dateline Aug. 19/11, 4:12 AM PDT;

Friends:

I am speechless that the Washington Post On-Line Headlines do not include mention of the extensive attacks in southern Israel carried-out by as many as 20 terrorists between noon and 6 pm yesterday.  The terrorists infiltrated from the Sinai and used AKs, RPGs, IEDs and mortars to attack civilian vehicles and to ambush the military and police units responding to the attacks.  We have 8 dead – 6 civilians, 2 security personnel and more than 30 wounded.  In addition there have been over a dozen missiles and rockets fired at Israeli cities since last evening – 6 more wounded.   For more information check out YNET.com.

Anyway nothing like an attack to focus one’s concentration.  Up at 05:00 for Israeli Riflemen Association rifle (7.62×51 caliber ArmaLite with Black Hills Match) practice, I can report 100, 200 and 300 meters – damn I’m good!  I may be old, but I’m ready.  Quiet confidence now exudes from my pours.

Today is the 3rd Friday of Ramadan.  After yesterday’s attacks and Israel’s response and today’s incoming Kassam and Grad missiles and Israel’s continuing response, no surprise that there is rioting in East Jerusalem now that prayers have let-out.

Finally, I really do not know if it is for real or a joke, but on the way home from practice I pointed to the metal skeleton of the palace King Hussein was building in June of 1967.  You can see it from the road and I like saying that my home in 300 yards down from the hilltop on which the palace’s construction stopped when Israel recaptured Pisgot Ze’ev from the Jordanians.  One of the guys in the car, a senior contractor, exclaimed that the palace was undergoing “restoration” in anticipation of the present King of Jordan needing somewhere to go – soon.  The current King lacks his father’s resolve and will not institute another Black September.  The King now also knows US backing is an illusion.  Personally, I think he would be better-off in LA.

Howard

I don’t want King Whatshisname here.  We’re Americans.  We don’t recognise royalty.  I’d let him in only if he promises to be polite if we call him by his first name and don’t genuflect or any of that garbage, that he go through the regular immigration process, pay all his own expenses without expecting protection or special treatment of any kind, and not bring in any of the loot his government extorted from the Jordanian people.

Anyway; why report these attacks?  They aren’t news (“news” being any story, true or otherwise, that bolsters the leftist cause).

Twenty attackers and eight dead.  Good thing the attackers were run-of-the-mill jihadists then.  When the Americans go in somewhere, there are more like eight attackers and at least twenty dead.

The War Got Us Out of the Depression?

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That’s the claim.  World War Two got us out of the Great Depression.  It’s become an almost Pavlovian response.  Mention the end of the Great Depression, and the pre-programmed, rapid-fire response is “The-War-got-us-out-of-it!”  Ring the bell and the socialist dogs drool.  No thought about how such a thing could be– Just blind faith that it was so.

I heard one of the talk shows hosts (I think it was Limbaugh) bring this up recently.  The very same people who claim that W.W. II “got-us-out-of-the-Depression” are now the ones claiming that the current “Bush Lied, People Died/Inside Job” wars are dragging down the economy.  I don’t think the socialists can have it both ways.  We have troops in active fighting in what, four countries now?  I lost count, and it’s not “fighting” anymore, but “Kinetic Somethingorother” anyway.  We should be doing great about now if their Keynesian economic theories are correct.

Sure.  Just try this experiment with your own business or family; apply all your best efforts, using all your best resources, to build all your best products, for four years, go deeply into debt doing it, and then package up all of that best stuff, along with all your best workers, and send them overseas to be expended with no compensation.  Then build new houses for a German family and a Japanese family, going further into debt to do that, while you engage in years of litigation and appeals with a Russian family with no clear outcome.  See how rich you are at the end of it.

You can’t advocate two opposite ideologies at the same time.  One negates the other.  Either Keynesian theory is spot on, or it’s crazy.  Your perpetual motion machine either works or it doesn’t work.  Don’t claim both or you’ll look even more blitheringly stupid than you looked when you only said your perpetual motion machine generated a net energy output (oops; I’m assuming you know what “net energy output” means, which, if you believe in Keynesian economics, you don’t. Sorry).

PS.  I read several years ago that we don’t have “Infantry” anymore.  Oh no.  That would be much too.. “yesterday”.  Now we have a “Soldier-centric Force Structure” so it’s all new and shiny, you see.  Makes all the difference in the world.  To a moron.

Since having a “War Department” to fight real enemies sounded too unfriendly, and we now have the “Defense Department” and “Peace-Keeping Forces” instead, I figure it won’t be long before we have the “Department of Peace” that will bomb the shit out of you if you advocate liberty.  You’d better hope that the Peace Squad never shows up in your neighborhood.  It’ll be a bunch of government hippies shooting up your private flower pots.  Or something.

What caliber for riots?

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Like a lot of other people I’ve been thinking about what would be the best defense against the riots like are being experience in the U.K. and the flash mobs in some U.S. cities.

Recently someplace, which I can’t find right now, I proposed a couple of fully loaded USPSA Grandmasters could rapidly educate a crowd on the downside of violence against innocent people.

Yesterday Phil advocated 9mm because of the greater capacity.

While I think those ideas have potential the rioters in the U.K. have been dispersing at the first sign of law enforcement then regrouping at another location (apparently many of these “poor” people have cellphones). Plus no matter how many rounds in whatever caliber you have when you are facing off against hundreds of people the odds of getting hurt yourself is significantly greater than zero. This calls for a different weapons platform.

I think the right caliber for the task is a couple of AC-130s.

Violent Socialists

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But I repeat myself.  Spending most of the article sarching in vain for a coherent thought, the author eventually slips in her take on the UK riots;

The failure of the markets goes hand in hand with human blight. Meanwhile, the view is gaining ground that social democracy, with its safety nets, its costly education and health care for all, is unsustainable in the bleak times ahead. The reality is that it is the only solution. After the Great Crash, Britain recalibrated, for a time. Income differentials fell, the welfare state was born and skills and growth increased.

Damn those pesky income differentials– they did it!  She had to hide her editorial in ~1,000 words of mish-mash.  That one paragraph would have sufficed.  See; that their socialist democracy failed to crush productivity overnight in the first half of the 20th century is proof that it is good and that we need much more.

This demonstrates a couple of my old catch phrases;
The socialists are angry because the socialists in power aren’t socialist enough.
When socialism fails, freedom is to blame, and the answer is more socialism.

When the Teaparty holds a peaceful rally, advocating liberty and denouncing tyranny, leaving the rally site cleaner than they found it, they are guilty of inciting violence.  When socialists riot, loot and burn, calling for revolution, it is because of the income differential– we should listen to them because they represent our future.

Meanwhile in the U.S., our Republican Party leaders, thinking themselves the oh-so-much-more-clever-than-thou pragmatists, are busy trying to figure out what it is they should pretend to believe during the upcoming election season, figuring out how to please this group, gingerly, without overly offending that group, taking polls, doing market analysis, organizing think tanks and hiring image consultants (in other words; there isn’t a shred of seriousness or principle amongst the whole lot of them).

Ten years and $1,000,000 fine

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I wonder if this is why President Obama is ramping up his fundraising machine (H/T to Cam Edwards).

I still think BoomershootWife has the better idea about what to do with him.

Another violent liberal

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Via email from Donald W. we have this report:

A former Democratic political operative has been indicted by federal authorities for allegedly planting a bomb in a Clayton parking garage in 2008. The bomb went off, seriously injuring a Clayton attorney.

…

Milton Ohlsen iii nicknamed “Skip” is well known to law enforcement. He’s also well known in Democratic political circles. The feds now say he’s the one who planted a bomb in a garage at 190 Carondolet plaza in Clayton on October 15, 2008.

…

Starting in 2004 Ohlsen was used as a consultant by the Missouri Democratic party. He even had lunch at the governor’s mansion with then-governor Bob Holden.

It’s nothing new and is to be expected of their type.

Quote of the day—John Lott

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This case can almost be viewed as if the Obama administration wanted to increase the number of American guns used in crimes in Mexico.

The timing of the “Gunwalker” case is even more troubling since the program got going at about the same time that the Obama administration was trying to claim (falsely) that American guns were showing up in a significant number of Mexican crime scenes.

Is it possible that the Obama administration pushed this program to help gin up more support for gun control in the United States?

John Lott
July 8, 2011
|he Puzzle of ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ — When Will Team Obama Come Clean About Failed Gun Program?
[Is it possible? Of course. The people in this administration are the most anti-gun set of people in the history of our country. But they could also be classified as some of the most incompetent.

I’m still undecided on whether “Gunwalker” was a method to justify support for more gun control or massive incompetence. If it wasn’t intended to justify more gun control then it was a mighty strange coincidence that we had all the “Mexican gunrunner” noise for years at the same time. Can we determine which came first? If Gunwalker started before the “OMG drug cartels have guns” meme started then I’m convinced it was a deliberate attempt to advance gun control. But if the other way around it’s still possible but less likely.

In any case I fully support the Mexicans request that we extradite the ATF, FBI, DOJ, DEA, and any other (BoomershootWife is hoping Obama was involved) criminals to Mexico for trial there on one condition. That condition is that once they get a fair trail and have served their sentences they must ship the bodies back so we can mount their heads on poles on the Whitehouse lawn as a reminder and a warning for others.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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Yesterday’s win was a wake-up call to Chicago. Today’s motion is a signal to the Illinois Legislature that the state’s total ban on carrying of firearms for personal protection is counter to both Supreme Court rulings on the Second Amendment, and yesterday’s ruling by the Seventh Circuit appeals panel that shredded Chicago’s gun ordinance. Our victory Wednesday and today’s motion are key components of SAF’s overall mission to win back firearms freedoms one lawsuit at a time.

Alan Gottlieb
SAF Executive Vice President
July 7, 2011
SAF FILES FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION AGAINST ILLINOIS CARRY BAN
[They are winning and winning big. Don’t let money be a bottleneck for SAF. Donate and help them win everywhere and every time.

I’m a Life (Defenders Club) member and donate addition money monthly. And remember that donations to SAF are tax deductible.—Joe]

In the endzone

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Sebastian defined what he calls “our opponent’s endzone” in regards to Second Amendment activism as, “Basically, they no longer have any real relevance in the public debate.”


We might be there because if this poll is correct it should mean that we can “score at will”:



A poll unveiled Wednesday by Rasmussen Reports offers a glimpse into the mind of American voters. The poll found a majority of Americans like the National Rifle Association (NRA) but have a harsher view of the National Education Association (NEA).


The poll found that 54 percent of those surveyed have a favorable view of the NRA — with 29 percent holding a very favorable view of the organization which defends the Second Amendment and promotes gun safety; 41 percent of those surveyed view the NRA as unfavorable. The poll found a partisan divide, with 80 percent of Republicans seeing the NRA in a favorable light, 63 percent of Democrats viewing it as unfavorable. A majority of independents — 53 percent — hold the NRA in favorable regard.


Defenders of the Second Amendment could cheer another part of the poll, which found that 56 percent of those surveyed oppose stricter gun control, while only 36 percent back harsher restrictions on the right to carry arms.


I find it telling that no mention of any anti-gun organization is made. When 54 percent of those surveyed have a favorable view of the NRA what percentage could possibly have a favorable view of the Brady Campaign? And what percentage has even heard of the Violence Policy Center or Coalition to Stop Gun Violence?


If we can keep their coffers full SAF can run play (today–SAF FILES FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION AGAINST ILLINOIS CARRY BAN) after play (yesterday–SAF WINS INJUNCTION V. CHICAGO GUN RANGE BAN) with our undefeated superstar Alan Gura. The more we run up the score with these court victories while the opposition is in disarray the better off we will be in the long run.

One round of 9mm equals 15 years in prison

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From the ATF:

Steven L. Roberts, 43, of Kansas City, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple to 15 years in federal prison without parole. Roberts was sentenced as an armed career criminal due to his prior felony convictions for crimes of violence.

On Feb. 8, 2011, Roberts pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of ammunition. Roberts admitted that he was in possession of one round of 9mm ammunition. Roberts was arrested on Aug. 8, 2009, after a short foot chase by Kansas City police officers. When Roberts was searched, officers found the ammunition in his pants pocket. Officers also found a Makarov 9mm semi–automatic pistol, a small amount of methamphetamine and some marijuana when they canvassed the area through which Roberts ran.

That seems a bit harsh to me. Where is the victim?

But that’s the point isn’t it? To make gun ownership extremely risky.

Quote of the day—Bob Owens

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Gunwalker’s objective was never intended to be a “legitimate law enforcement interest.” Instead, it appears that ATF Acting Director Ken Melson and Department of Justice senior executives specifically created an operation that was designed from the outset to arm Mexican narco-terrorists and increase violence substantially along both sides of the Southwest border.

Success was measured not by the number of criminals being incarcerated, but by the number of weapons transiting the border and the violence those weapons caused. An ATF manager was “delighted” when Gunwalker guns started showing up at drug busts. It would be entirely consistent with this theory if DOJ communications reflected the approval of the ATF senior officials they were colluding with — but as we know, Holder’s Department of Justice refuses to cooperate.

Bob Owens
June 20, 2011
Mega-Scandal: Was ‘Gunwalker’ a PR Op for Gun Control?
[This claim falls into the category, “Too Good To Be True” for me. I really want to believe it but it’s going to take a lot more data for me to be really convinced.

I hope investigators continue to dig and find the truth. If the claim above is true then I hope the perpetrators can and will be prosecuted.—Joe]

Language

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It was hard to fit this into one of Joe’s categories, so I put in “Current News”.  I currently hear this sort of thing in the news.  Does anyone else twitch a little bit when hearing that someone or other “taped” or “video taped” this or that, or that we’re about to be shown video “footage” of something that happened long after the 1990s?


Where do you buy the little videotape cassettes that fit into your mobile phone?  How often do you change reels in your digital camera?  Where do you get them developed?


What’s to be the replacement term for “footage”?  Bitage?  Bytage?  How about “video”?  “I got this or that on camera (or on video)” certainly works.  I didn’t tape it– but I did record it and it’s on my flash drive.  If the cops come after you for videotaping them, maybe it’s because they hate outdated technology.  Ever thought of that?


Do we need some different terms, do we need simply to think about what we’re saying, or should we forget and submit?  There are terms and sayings that linger well past the time when their original meanings were widely understood.  “Flash in the pan” comes to mind.  We still might say that someone is “letting off steam” but how many today understand that a steam engine might sometimes need to let off steam to avoid over-pressuring the boiler, so as to avoid a boiler explosion?  It used to be that boiler explosions were a much more common problem, so when someone was said to be letting off steam it was understood to be the more preferable among possible outcomes.

Project ‘Fast And Furious Gun Restrictions’

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The more I see on this scandal with the BATFE, the more it stinks.  Here are several issues I have, in no particular order.  To me they’re obvious quirks in the story that aren’t being discussed.  If someone knows of these being brought up and addressed, please do share;


The Old Media are actually covering this to some extent.  They don’t cover anything unless it in some way promotes the leftist cause.  They’re actually being critical of the BATFE, but wait.  The “problem” is being spun as one of too few restrictions.  BATFE is bad, not because they’re idiots or self-serving thugs looking for more funding, or outright criminals or tyrants, but because they didn’t stop gun purchases.  Keep an eye on this.


Very large purchases of guns were supposedly “allowed” to take place.  We’re being asked to believe that Mexican criminals purchased up to dozens of guns at a time, on several occasions.  First; if these were real straw purchases wherein there was a genuine worry about secrecy, they’d take place in dibs and dabs, so as not to attract attention.  Second; why would powerful Mexican cartels with international influence be interested in paying hundreds of dollars more, per gun, in the U.S. compared to getting them at global street prices?  Even the cartels would know about our background check system at gun stores, yet these purchases supposedly took place at gun dealerships, where they would know that such large purchases would attract immediate attention.  But they did it anyway?  Too many stinky points.  I say the purchases were engineered, either by, or in close cooperation with, BATFE, and not simply “allowed”, as we’re being asked to believe.


We’re told that hundreds of these guns were found at crime scenes (I think I heard the number 800 dropped the other night).  What?  Really?  Hundreds?  That’s an awful lot of clumsy, absent-minded, criminals, isn’t it?  Leaving their guns, so painstakingly straw-purchased at inflated prices at U.S. retail dealerships, behind at crime scenes to be found in very short order by our super heroes?  Stinky, stinky, stinky.


A big government operation, not to shut down Mexican cartels, not to investigate corruption in Mexico that’s threatening people in the U.S., not to revisit the effects of our War On Drugs, but instead to draw attention to how our evil gun rights in the U.S. lead to death and destruction in other countries.


These issues aren’t being brought up in the press or by the Congressional “investigations”.  Nope.  Instead it’s all about; “You bastards! Why didn’t you guys stop gun sales?”  All this after Obama promised anti gun rights groups he’d be doing something for them “…under the radar“.


I think the indignation we’re hearing from the press and from Congress is all feigned.  Good Cop, Bad Cop.


My younger brother and I put together a list of socialist tenets many years ago.  It’s been lost to computer upgrades and internet evolution, but one of those tenets was; “When restrictions on freedom produce disastrous results, freedom is to blame and the solution is more restrictions.”  Look for it in this case.  It’ll happen, I guarantee.  It’s in the DNA of it.