Category Archives: Freedom

Quote of the day—Brandon Smith

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The communists were very careful and deliberate in ensuring that the actions of the internal police were made valid through law and rationalized as a part of “class struggle.” Such laws were left so open to interpretation that literally any evil committed could later be vindicated. Man-made law is often a more powerful weapon than any gun, tank, plane or missile, because it triggers apathy within the masses. For some strange reason, when corrupt governments legalize their criminality through legislation or executive decree, the citizenry suddenly treats that criminality as legitimate and excusable.

Incremental prosecution and oppression is effective when the establishment wishes to avoid outright confrontation with a population. Attempt to snatch up a million people at one time, and you will have an immediate rebellion on your hands. Snatch up a million people one man at a time, or small groups at a time, and people do not know what to think or how to respond. They determine to hope that the authorities never get to them, that it will stop after a few initial arrests, or they hope that if they censor themselves completely, they will never be noticed.

Brandon Smith
February 24, 2016
A Warning To The Feds On Incremental Prosecutions Of The Liberty Movement
[I believe Smith is correct about human nature. In Washington State and some others it’s against the law, I-594, to loan your hunting rifle to your life-long friend for the weekend. If you were to assume the claimed motivation for the law is to reduce violence crime is true then it’s an incredibly stupid law. But I suspect many people avoid breaking that law and if they were prosecuted would blame themselves rather than the law and those who voted for it.

As you follow your nature please remember what Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn said:

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?

It’s entirely natural to follow the law. But sometimes that which is natural is not what is best for you or society as a whole.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Chris Hsu

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Like it or not, guns are a necessary evil for maintaining a free and democratic society in which we live. However, when the gun falls in the hands of some problem people, it becomes a weapon to kill. That is the difficult challenge we have to face in an imperfect world in which we live. Of course, some people today tend to think that gun rights are for hunting, recreation and self-defense. Perhaps, but that was the last thing in the framers’ minds when they drafted the Bill of Rights.

Chris Hsu
January 28, 2016
Letters: Gun rights are essential to the freedoms we enjoy in America
[I don’t get the “necessary evil” part but Hsu does reasonably well in the rest of his letter.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Bubblehead Les

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Do you realize that Obama has more time at the White Board diagraming Saul Alinsky’s “Rule for Radicals” than he has Trigger Time?

Bubblehead Les
February 2, 2013
Comment to Quote of the day—Sebastian
[After spending 20+ hours (about 2000 rounds in the Intensive Handgun Skills class) of “trigger time” this last weekend my mind is stuck on “trigger time”. I’m constantly amazed at how fast, and accurately, people can put lead downrange.

At Boomershoot people can and do put bullets into seven inch square targets at 700 yards on nearly every shot. I know people who can hit eight inch steel plates 25 feet away at a rate of six to seven rounds a second—with a 12 gauge shotgun! With a pistol (concealable, as opposed to a long gun) people put bullets into different eight and 12 inch circular targets from 25 feet away at the rate of two to three rounds per second. At conversation distances it’s eight to 10 rounds per second.

Every day of the week during normal wake time hours you can go to the local range here in the Seattle area and see people practicing. On the weekends and many week days you can find competitions where people hone and display their skills to levels that are mind bogglingly sharp even by my standards of being a competition shooter for over 20 years.

There are roughly 80 to 100 million gun owners in this country. That “extremist organization”, the NRA, has “more than five million members”.

People “White Board diagraming Saul Alinsky’s ‘Rule for Radicals’” as they plot to destroy our freedom don’t realize just how dangerous a fire they are playing with. As I pointed out in this post about the number of Al Qaeda members:

According to intelligence estimates reported by the New York Times in 2010 the answer is “fewer than 500” in Afghanistan and “more than 300” in Pakistan. A 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal put the number in the range of 200 to 1000 with “affiliated fighters or funders” making up thousands or tens of thousands.

Since allied forces in Afghanistan haven’t “finished the job” after more than a decade against less than 1000 poorly trained and funded fighters which side do you bet on if they were fighting a few million well trained and well funded fighters? If the would-be tyrants push us too far, just how much trigger time do each of five or 10 million people, skilled with the tools of freedom, need to put an end to the threat? Do the arithmetic.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Matthew Green (@matthew_d_green)

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If the US government dictating iPhone encryption design sounds ok to you, ask yourself how you’ll feel when China demands the same.

Matthew Green (@matthew_d_green)
Tweeted on February 17, 2016
[H/T to Tyler Durden.

Of course, as I posted before, Lyndon Johnson once said:

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

The problem being that it is difficult for many people to see the “unintended consequences” in foresight. If there is the possibility of a good outcome they will focus on that. In a lot of ways it’s like gun control. “People might be safer if guns are banned because the bad guys won’t have guns to commit crimes with.” Overlooking that the good guys won’t have guns to defend against the bad guys with.

The gun control analogy is an even a better fit when you remember that at one time the U.S. government insisted encryption was a “munition” and was mostly banned from export. It would seem to me that if the Second Amendment were well respected by Congress and the courts then a good lawyer could make the case government resistant encryption is protected by the Second Amendment as much or more so than it is by the First Amendment.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tim Cook

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The U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.

Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.

Tim Cook
February 16, 2016
A Message to Our Customers
[Such a concession to the government would fail The Jews In The Attic Test. No further discussion is required.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Professor Ruth Wisse

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If history has taught anything. When someone says he is going to murder the Jews, believe him.

Professor Ruth Wisse
February 6, 2016
Professor Ruth Wisse Explains the Worst Case Scenario
[There was another gem in the same post:

Professor Wisse explained why she is a political conservative. “When I look at any policy, I ask myself: What is the worst outcome that can happen?” Liberals, she said, are fixated on the best outcome. The liberal outlook ignores history and reality.

I can’t recall where I read it, and it was very recent too, but someone explained progressive thinking in a very similar manner. Their observation was something to the effect that if a good outcome was possible from government involvement then that was sufficient justification for government action. Examples abound but the most obvious are Obamacare and the popularity of an admitted socialist running for U.S President.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Louis Pasteur

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The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so.

Louis Pasteur
[I can’t disagree with the conclusion. But I fear that particular derangement of the mind is so common that one would be hard pressed to prove it was abnormal. Hence my placing it in such a wide variety of blog post categories.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Denning and Reynolds

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Political scientists and law professors alike have written extensively on signaling and agenda-setting by the Supreme Court. Despite being dicta—the issues mentioned were not before the Court and were not necessary to resolve those that were before it—the Heller safe harbor seems to us to have been a clear signal, clearer perhaps than any sent in Lopez, that lower courts should not declare open season on any and all federal gun laws. It seems to us that the lower courts have certainly heeded this signal.

If the Heller safe harbor was indeed intended as a signal to lower courts (and litigants, perhaps), then it tends to confirm an earlier observation we made about Heller: that it is another example of the Court’s tendency to constitutionalize the national consensus on certain hot button issues and then enforce it against outliers.

Brannon P. Denning
Glenn H. Reynolds
August 1, 2009
Heller, High Water(mark)? Lower Courts and the New Right to Keep and Bear Arms
[Via Glenn Reynolds.

This conclusion would appear to be true and signals to gun rights activists the incredible importance of changing the culture prior to pushing our luck in the courts. We need to make restrictive laws appear to be nonsensical outliers then, if we cannot get legislative action to our satisfaction, press the issue in the courts.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jasim Mohammed Atti’ya

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What I did were terror acts. It was my duty. There are infidels and there is instruction in Koran to stop this and fight all infidels.

Jasim Mohammed Atti’ya
February 3, 2016
EXCLUSIVE: Jailed ISIS bomb maker says he would quit before donning one of his deadly vests
[The options they give to us are become Muslim and follow Sharia Law, pay a heavy tax, or die. I am of the opinion we should create alternate options not to their liking.—Joe]

OSHA is going after ammo manufacturers

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I received a call today from someone who works for a major ammunition manufacturer. They required anonymity but want the following information to get out to the public.

NSSF is also involved in the fight but doesn’t want to speak out about it either.

It turns out my blog post about OSHA considering a requirement of “no guns at work” policy got their attention.

They referred me to this letter from OSHA as background and proceeded to tell me:

For about two years we’ve been BITTERLY fighting, and ultimately losing, a battle with OSHA over warning labels on ammunition.

They have repeatedly asked something to the effect, “Are you doing this due to pressure from above?” They haven’t been able to get an answer. Everything just seems a little odd about it. My blog post dialed the paranoia up another notch.

It’s a little obscure so you may not be aware that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is prohibited, by law, from regulating firearms and ammunition. This means that, by law, ammunition is not considered a “consumer product”. And some other agencies don’t have authority to regulate them for other reasons.

Ammunition manufacturers have long recognized they could be a target of repressive regulation if the government were given a plausible excuse and hence have been very careful to “police their own”. With no major events attributable to poor quality, indifference to safety, or newsworthy events attributable to ammunition they have managed to avoid undue attention for many decades. The only thing I can recall in my lifetime that put them at serious risk was the big fuss about Black Talon ammo back in the mid-90s. Winchester nipped that in the bud by taking it off the market faster than the tyrants in congress could pass a bill to ban it.

So for decades the ammunition manufacturers have been avoiding undue scrutiny and everyone has been getting along pretty well. Then a couple years ago OSHA approached them and said, in essence, “You need to put warnings on all your products because indoor range employees are at risk from exposure to lead.”

What?

Sure, some indoor ranges have had severe problems with air quality. And some employees and customers have been exposed to too much lead. So one shouldn’t have a problem understanding how OSHA could find a way to poke their nose into the business of indoor ranges. They have never had oversight over ammunition before so how do they imagine they have authority to regulate it now? Well, from reading the letter OSHA sent to SAAMI lawyers ammunition it appears their claim is that ammunition is a “chemical container”. And hence manufacturers much comply with all the nuances of proper labeling of chemicals in their use at the place of business. They can sort of explain this away because ammunition is not, legally, a “consumer product”.

Okay. Fine. Using the proper weasel words the power hungry regulators think they have an angle to harass the ammunition manufacturers. Why not just comply with the labeling requirements and get them off their backs? They are. But it’s not all that easy.

It turns out this is non-trivial for a number of reasons. One reason is that some of the larger manufacturers have many thousands of different packaging configurations. It can cost over a million dollars to change the packaging on everything. Another reason is that the labeling requirements are such that it can’t fit on some of the current packages. A fifty round box of .22 LR ammo is just too small to have the required warnings and still be readable. Another reason it’s a problem is that the environment where the ammo is used varies so much. The same ammo that is perfectly safe for the shooter in a hunting environment can be toxic at an indoor range with inadequate ventilation due to plugged air filters. There are just so many things out of the ammo manufacturers control that the valid safety issues need to be addressed at the location where it is being used.

There are a couple of things that are kind of strange about this whole thing. One is that this person talked to several importers at SHOT show this year. None of them had been contacted by OSHA. Also, there have not been any sanctions or direct threats of sanctions over this. OSHA is providing guidelines and “suggestions” but doesn’t actually claim they have the authority to tell them what to do.

They suspect this may be due to politics rather than a semi-legitimate concern of regulators for the health of range employees. But, they don’t have any hard evidence to support that hypothesis. Do you?

Socialism

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We have an admitted socialist running for president and making a “good” (for certain definitions of “good”) showing. People don’t really seem to get what socialism means. Recently I had a college student tell me that, “A little socialism is good.” Rather than hammer them into the ground and destroy a friendship I mildly disagreed with their claim and changed the subject.

Unless you are of the opinion that we need to destroy our country before we can save it we need to destroy the idea that socialism in any form is “good”. Socialism and communism have been attempted and failed more times than any other political system. While many of the failures have only resulted in general malaise, economic stagnation, and lower standard of living the most extraordinary political failures in history occurred under socialist systems. National Socialism of Germany, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Peoples Republic of China being the most well know of those with their approximately 100 million dead.

I’ve talked to people that have lived under socialism. They know better than the naïve people in this country who have lived all their lives in a somewhat free market economy. I’m not the only one who has talked to the survivors of these regimes. One of my children’s high school teachers, Don Kaag, posted this on Facebook a couple days ago:

My old VW mechanic Dieter in Pullman, WA, is in
his 80’s, retired now, and has turned his shop over to his son Georg. In the late 1950’s, Dieter, as a young East German, “came over the wire”. He escaped from the German Democratic Republic’s “Socialist Paradise” with nothing but the clothes on his back and some mechanical skills he could use to earn a living in the West.

He worked as a car mechanic in West Germany, in Scandinavia, and then immigrated to South Africa, where he met his wife, and where they started their family. Finally he relocated to Canada and then at last to the U.S., earning his way with his talented mechanic’s hands and his brain.

He hates what Socialism did to his homeland.

I was stationed in southern Germany—in Bavaria—in the early to mid-80’s, an Armor officer and tank company commander guarding the inter-German border against a possible invasion by the USSR…and for those of you who were not there and privy to the secret briefings, you have no idea what a very near thing it was. Our tanks had their war-load of ammo on-board 24/7/365.

The border was a sobering sight. Twenty-foot-high barbed wire fence on concrete posts topped with concertina wire. On the fence, pointed back into East Germany, were command-detonated claymore mines. Past that, 100 yards of ground was defoliated, plowed and planted with pressure-sensitive anti-personnel mines. Then further into the GDR there was yet another barbed wire fence with a gravel patrol road behind it, and with hexagonal concrete guard towers every quarter-mile. They had powerful searchlights mounted on them, and machine guns, both pointed into “no-man’s land”.

There’s a point to all of this, I promise. All of this was built TO KEEP EAST GERMANS IN, not to keep West Germans and Americans out.

My friend Dieter was one of the lucky ones—thousands of East Germans died on that wire, or lost their lives to the minefields or machine guns, or to the killer guard dogs trained to attack would-be escapees—Dieter made it, he got out.

Dieter and I have seen the ugly face of “true Socialism” firsthand. He suffered under it and risked his life to escape from it, I only watched it slowly destroy a people through my binoculars and tank sights.

When the Wall in Berlin came down in November 1989 such was their hate for that wall that Germans from both sides attacked the ugly barrier by hand with sledge hammers and picks.

The moral to this little tale of obscure Cold War history is this: America, be very, very careful about electing an avowed Socialist as President of the United States.

Bernie Sanders seems a harmless old duffer, and he promises free goodies for everyone, but in the final analysis he represents those who still think, despite all historical evidence to the contrary, that Socialism is the “wave of the future”. (Look at the U.K. before Lady Thatcher, or at Cuba and Venezuela right now… “Iron Maggie” once said, “Socialism works great until you run out of other people’s money.”)

Socialism and communism needs to be swept into the dustbin of history and given as much respect as witch burning—which it closely resembles.

Quote of the day—Claire Wolfe

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We should be using email encryption even for sharing our chocolate chip cookie recipes.

Claire Wolfe
January 30, 2016
Weekend links
[I enthusiastically agree because of this:

Given that the NSA has taps on almost all of the internet’s major trunk routes, the PGP records can be incredibly useful. It’s a simple matter to build a script that can identify one PGP user and then track all their contacts to build a journal of their activities.

Even better is the Mujahedeen Secrets encryption system, which was released by the Global Islamic Media Front to allow Al Qaeda supporters to communicate in private. Weaver said that not only was it even harder to use than PGP, but it was a boon for metadata – since almost anyone using it identified themselves as a potential terrorist.

“It’s brilliant!” enthused Weaver. “Whoever it was at the NSA or GCHQ who invented it give them a big Christmas bonus.”

Given all the tools available to the intelligence agencies there’s really no need for an encryption backdoor, he explained. With the NSA’s toolkit of zero-day exploits, and old-day exploits, it’s much easier to root a target’s computer after identifying them from metadata traffic.

The problem is that encryption is a hassle. Until the hassle factor is significantly reduced it’s not going to happen.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Azathoth @ArkhamRealty

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The 20th C Left had to shoot people en masse to get them to obey.

The 21st C Left plans on using dick jokes.

Azathoth ‏@ArkhamRealty
Tweeted on January 13, 2016
[This is only true because it’s the best the Left has available at this time. If they had the power to murder people en masse they would.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kurt Schlichter

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I’m not advocating violence – I am warning liberals that they are setting the conditions for violence.

And that better worry them, for the coastal elites are uniquely unsuited to a world where force rules instead of law. The Serbs were, at least, a warrior people. The soft boys and girls who brought us helicopter parenting, “trigger warnings” and coffee cups with diversity slogans are not.

I know the endgame of discarding the rule of law for short-term advantage because I stood in its ruins. Liberals think this free society just sort of happened, that they can poke and tear at its fabric and things will just go on as before. But they won’t. So at the end of the day, if you want a society governed by the rule of force, you better pray that you’re on the side with the guns and those who know how to use them.

Kurt Schlichter
April 5, 2015
Liberals May Regret Their New Rules
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Michael Z. Williamson

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It is essential that we stop this sort of rampant assininity, and it proves the point that the neurotic gun haters will never be satisifed. Bans on full auto are not enough, bans on self-loading sporting rifles don’t sate them, bans on 1930s military collectibles are only a waystop.  We’ve reached the point where a 19TH CENTURY RELIC is an “assault weapon.”

DC has already ruled that a lead muzzle loader projectile, with neither rifle nor powder, is a felonious weapon.

We must fight the war with reason, rhetoric and the law now, or we will most certainly have to fight it later in the streets.

Michael Z. Williamson
December 15, 2015
The Slippery Slope of Definitions
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Bob

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All this talk of theirs has gotten really tiring. These guys need to start kicking down doors or STFU.

Bob
December 9, 2015
Comment to Bring it.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Here’s their plan

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If anyone ever tells you “no one wants to take your guns” you can just point them at the NYT or any number of other people that have some vague thought of “ban guns” without any thought given to how that might actually be carried out. And we, rightly so, claim they don’t understand what would be involved in such an effort.

Here is someone who as thought it through a bit more. And note that they envisioned Act II Step 1 as happening today, December 11, 2015:

What has to go?
All magazine fed, self-loading firearms.
Yes, that means handguns too.
Yes, that includes your 4 shot Remington hunting rifle.

…

Act I Step 1:
The POTUS issues a EO, commanding the BATFE to “audit dealer records” – ie, look for “strawman sales” by reviewing each of the dealers Form 4473 records.
This is actually easier if the dealer has adopted the eForm 4473

For handwritten forms, an OCR scanner would be carried, the form scanned, and information corrected on a laptop prior to the next scan.

What can’t be done? Is hold a news conference.
It can’t be done by BATFE Agents alone, as this demands too many bodies in too many locations, at the very same time.

We as a nation, will have to let a few things slide, while various agencies supply personnel to work with BATFE Agents.
Yes, a same day, nationwide “I’m here to review your records”.  Close every single gun seller that day, days, or week(s) until the audit is complete.  Sold a hundred guns in your entire existence? We’ll be gone by 4pm today.  Sell a hundred per day?  You can re-open after the end of the year.
It’ll put you out of business?  Impact hunting season and holiday sales? (Which next to DiFi’s failed AWB II is the most money you make in a year?)  That’s sad.
CLOSED… can read GONE OUT OF BUSINESS.
We score that as a win… you and your fellow death merchants can retrain as Baristas.

So, now we have ALL the records scanned… and a comprehensive list of who purchased what gun where.  Those are sorted for make and model.

Shotguns.
Semi-auto shotguns.

Rifles.
Semi-auto rifles.

Rimfire rifles.
Semi-auto rimfire rifles.

Handguns.
Semi-auto handguns.

(save ALL of this data for later)

Step 2: permit the dealers to reopen – however, now the eForm 4473 is 100% required,
and in a slight tweak, batch processing is done once a week, where the forms are uploaded “to the cloud”.
(as-if ‘the cloud’ isn’t on those servers already)

Step 3: Prioritize you list.

Act II Step 1:

Strike a deal with the Republicans.  For public consumption, word it as ambiguously as possible… as was the ACA (just pass it and we’ll find out what’s in it) and stuff it into the next Continuing Resolution.

On this 11th day of December, 2015 this 114th Congress does hereby resolve to instruct the Department of Justice to audit all Federally Licensed Firearm retailers for compliance with 18 USC as condition of their license, and direct all necessary resources to do same.  The Director of the BATFE, the Attorney General of the United States, and the Director of Homeland Security may adopt policies and procedures necessary to effect this Congressional mandate.

About those Republicans:
First, they’re really not that happy with massive civilian gun ownership, they just like the cash from the pro-gun crowd.
BREAKING NEWS!!
They like the cash from Wall Street, and Corporate America better.

Give Congress the choice between:
a) massive controls on financial transactions, killing their benefactor’s proven-risk derivative market
– or –
b) massive (armed) civil unrest when we pull a Greece and shove a total economic collapse onto the American taxpayer?
Rationed water, electric, heat, food and fuel and a 65% tax on your income.

Everyone other than a Tea Party Republican will choose to eliminate the risk of option b.
The motion will pass.

There’s going to be a political quid pro quo. I’d hang my hat on “illegal immigrants” taking it in the neck. How and why, is below.

Step 2:
Federalize (“second”) the National Guard of the respective states.  Just as we could send them to war in Iraq, we can deploy them as deputized federal agents. One BATFE agent to 3 or 4 guardsmen.

Step 3:
Go door-to-door with your list of gun purchasers, and get access to the guns.  A massive VIPR-like sweep.
No gun? Where is it?
Who has it? Where’s the paperwork?  No gun, no paperwork?
You’re coming with us… the weather in Cuba is fine.
Sadly, it appears the nationwide cell phone network is down, unless you’re using a government contract cell phone.
Yes, surprise is key.
Oh, by the way… you have ID don’t you?  Born here?  Let’s run that ID.
So… you’re here on a visa, that expired in 2003.
You’re coming with us, the weather in Minot, North Dakota is fine.
There’s your required quid pro quo to the Republicans.

Step 4:
Anticipate the Federal Court Injunctions.
Injunctions which are enforced by… the DOJ and US Marshals.
Who are preoccupied in carrying out the mandate of Congress.
You’ve reached the DOJ, leave a message at the beep.

Step 5:
Mistakes happen.
Somewhere in the process, an “honest mistake” happened.

Knock, view, verify and record the presence of the named firearm in the possession of the named owner – or find out who has that firearm – was misinterpreted.

Knock, bash-in the door, verify the presence of, and confiscate the named firearm – became the process.

Rules of Engagement were defined as: “take no incoming fire – lethal means authorized”.
A few “rogue operators” decided that if it looked sketchy, breach the door after the flash-bang grenades, and engage anyone seen with a firearm in proximity using lethal force.

Step 6:
The number of confiscated firearms becomes a problem.  National Guard units are directed to turn the contraband over to Active Duty Military Police.  Certain weapons may be re-purposed by the government, exported to allies, used by agencies, or stripped for parts.

Light alloys are put into a grinder, steel and stainless steel are cut with a plasma torch to render  non-salvageable (prevents theft in transit), then taken to a smelter to be melted down.

Step 7:
The higher Federal Courts, and perhaps the SCOTUS weigh in.

Answer A: “It’s gotten out of hand, and we can’t reach all of the field units… your order to cease is understood and complied with at the Executive Level.  The logistical issues however, preclude prompt compliance in the field. The majority of units are out of contact, operating independently beyond range of communications.”

Answer B:
Arrest those Judges.  What part of Congressional Mandate didn’t you understand?

There’s going to be some issue, with a few mouthy Governors complaining about “…patent misuse of the Guard, violation of the Constit…” Yep.
We’re sorry, the Governor’s new conference has encountered technical difficulties.
To Jamie, and Sports!

It’s amazing what a FBI Agent can do for video production: “Cut the feed, NOW. Otherwise? You’re coming with me, the weather in Cuba is fine.”

The prevention of an armed civil insurrection requires a total lockdown on the ability to communicate.  The NSA knows this. Anyone studying the Arab Spring knows this.

The email servers of the various pro-gun groups “appear to have sustained a prolonged DoS attack by some overseas entity in Asia“.

Facebook decided that a new version of their photo and written content filter was worth Beta testing, and all gun-related images and commentary ceased to be shown.
Yes, the “nipple filter” took down the gun fetishists.

There is a lot more. But the bottom line is this is not someone who has some vague vision of rainbow farting unicorns carrying away all the guns being turned in for destruction and everyone living happily ever after.This is someone envisioning bypassing legal restraints, separation of powers, and with the complete disregard for the Bill of Rights imprisons or murders whoever stands in their way.

Of course they are still totally delusional about how that would turn out. They didn’t look at the numbers. I have. Out of nearly 11,000 posts here it’s the post popular post ever.

Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that people wanting to take your guns are just spouting off or political grandstanding.

Quote of the day—Ken White

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Republicans! Don’t get me started. You can’t sneer at constitutional rights for a decade and a half and then expect them to be a credible shield when you abruptly decide they matter again. With few exceptions, Republicans arguing about Second Amendment rights resemble a kid becoming a sudden rules-lawyer halfway through a game of Calvinball.

Ken White
December 7, 2015
Talking Productively About Guns
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

When will they come for the guns?

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Via email Mac asks:

Joe,

If those on the no fly list are to be prohibited from buying guns, what about those they already own?  When will the government come for them?

Good question.

I don’t know the answer. I suspect that is a constitutional infringement the government doesn’t want to cross right now.

Something of a side note is that while researching this I learned there are two lists which I had merged into one in my mind. One is the the “No Fly List”. The other is “Terrorist Watch List.”

From the WSJ:

The National Counterterrorism Center runs a central repository of more than 1 million people called Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE. The TIDE database, which includes about 25,000 Americans as of 2013…

An unclassified subset of the TIDE database is made available to law enforcement as part of the Terrorist Screening Database. That database contains biographical and biometric information about potential terrorists and can be accessed by local, state and federal law enforcement officials who don’t have security clearances. As of 2011, that database was said to contain about 420,000 names, according to the FBI.

The Transportation Security Administration receives an even smaller list of people subject to travel restrictions drawn from the Terrorist Screening Database. In addition to the 16,000 names on the no-fly list in 2011, another 16,000 were on the selectee list. The selectee list doesn’t prevent individuals from flying but subjects them to extra scrutiny.

About 25,000 Americans on the terrorist watch list. According to the US Census Bureau in 2012 there were about 220 million people in the U.S. 21 and over. This means they suspect about one out of 9,000 people of being terrorists. And about one out of every 7,000 people on the lists associated with commercial flight. That isn’t as big a list as what some people have been saying.

The practical problem I see with the government attempting to “come for the guns” which the people on the lists already have is that how do they know which of the people on the list possess guns? If they don’t know which people actually have guns they would have to search their homes and any other place those people might have stored the gun(s). They can’t get a search warrant unless they have probable cause of a crime being committed, a description what it is they are looking for, and where they believe to find the object. “Guns in the home or car or storage unit because they are on this list” probably is going to have the judge frowning at you rather than signing it.

But the issue of blocking sales to people on this list is a different issue because it doesn’t involve the 4th Amendment. The 2nd Amendment is considered by many people to be a second class (if it is recognized at all) right. The 4th Amendment has a process in place which attempts to protect people from having this right infringed.

A comparable process to that proposed to the purchase of a gun being subject to a background check which involves one or more secret government lists would be to subject sales of religious and political books to the same background checks. Of course most people would claim it’s not the same thing at all. My response is, “You are absolutely correct. Ideas are far more dangerous than guns. Haven’t you hear of all the people murdered by those inspired by The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, as well as the The Holy Qur’an and The Holy Bible?”

But to answer Mac’s question I think it will be quite a while before they start collecting those guns already in the hands of people on the lists. But I think it is a great question to ask of those advocating for restricting sales to such people. If they don’t bring up the 4th Amendment issues themselves then you bring them up. And then follow up with the 1st Amendment issues if such a background check were required for reading materials or church attendance.

Gun cartoon of the day

Posted on by

IsisAndGunControl

Note the shoes.

Via Tyler Durden, How Gun Laws ‘Work’ In Reality.

This message in this is so obvious and we have been saying this sort of thing for so long that it would be difficult for me to be convinced those pushing gun control don’t also know this. For nearly 20 years I’ve been asking, “What is the real reason they push gun control?” Examples:

I probably should make that a category on my blog.