See also Boots on the ground.
Category Archives: Politics
Dark times ahead
Via Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras:
Changes at a QFC store — apparently for security reasons — have some customers say the store is going too far. Some are worried about safety and exiting in an emergency.
Two Seattle QFC stores now have extensive plexiglass inside, directing traffic for shoppers and limiting how people can exit. The grocery chain told KIRO 7 the changes are “to maintain a safe shopping environment,” but customers believe the goal is to thwart shoplifting.
“It’s like shopping in a dystopian novel or something, it’s really bizarre,” said Chris Mobley, a shopper at the store. “Seems to be a way to annoy customers — it’s really hard to navigate the store,” he said.
A few days ago Barb was at a store (not QFC) not far from our home in Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle, and the clerk commented, “There goes one of our regulars. He comes in every day.” It was a shoplifter.
Also, The police aren’t coming, but now in Seattle, they have a name for that:
It’s well known that Seattle police are struggling to respond to 911 calls in a speedy manner. But the notion that “the cops aren’t coming” has become such a routine of city life that they’ve created a new way of tracking their nonresponsiveness.
It’s called the “Z protocol.”
I have to wonder how much of inflation is the result of “defund the police” and related nonsense.
My greatest concern is that at some point many people will to conclude they are stupid for not stealing whatever they want. That will bring some very dark times.
Red flag law memes
Quote of the day—THE Red-Headed libertarian™ @TRHLofficial
The left are throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks before they lose their stranglehold in November. Their behavior is reactionary and it’s going to get more insane, more sinister, and more hysterical.
THE Red-Headed libertarian™ @TRHLofficial
Tweeted on June 6, 2022
[This is my expectation too.—Joe]
Indicator of not trustworthy
Of course, as Gideon J. Tucker said:
No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
Therefore, untrustworthy should be your default view of politicians until conclusively proven otherwise, or they are dead, which ever comes last.
Quote of the day—Burgess Everett
The group is also planning to bundle $1 million each to a handful of gubernatorial candidates and secretary of state hopefuls, a reflection of the increased focus on top election officials after the still-unfolding fight against false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Burgess Everett
May 17, 2022
MoveOn plows $30 million into ‘Us vs. MAGA’ campaign
[If there was no fraud, then why do they need increased focus on these election officials who gave us fair and open elections?—Joe]
Quote of the day—sacrebleu14 / SA Hinchcliffe @sacrebleu141
your history in assaulting women, can see why you demand women to be defenseless
sacrebleu14 / SA Hinchcliffe @sacrebleu141
Tweeted on June 6, 2022
[This was in response to a tweet by Andrew Cuomo about supporting gun control.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Danny Westneat
More than 400 officers have left while crime has soared. This past week The Seattle Times and KUOW reported new sex assault cases aren’t being investigated because of understaffing. Meanwhile, the softer approaches envisioned for community safety still are in the pilot stages.
This past week the city announced it is refunding 100,000 parking tickets and voiding another 100,000 because of an oversight — namely that the parking enforcement officers, who are civilians, were not regranted the authority to write tickets after they were switched out of the Police Department last fall.
Danny Westneat
June 4, 2022
Seattle’s botched experiment with defund the police keeps getting worse
[Emphasis added. I cannot believe these people are this stupid. It has to be intentional. These people are verifiably evil.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Firearms Policy Coalition @gunpolicy
We will stop you.
We will repeal your laws.
We will restore natural rights.
We are winning.
You will cope and seethe.
Firearms Policy Coalition @gunpolicy
Tweeted on June 6, 2022
[Donate to the Firearms Policy Coalition here. I donate nearly $1700/year to the Firearms Policy Foundation and get a tax deduction.—Joe]
Implications
Quote of the day—NRA-ILA
Economics has a concept called “revealed preference.” The gist is that a person’s observed actions reveal more about their preferences than what a person might profess to prefer. As applied to anti-gun politicians, despite all the noise they might make about stopping the criminal misuse of guns, their actions reveal that their policies are designed to attack the rights of law-abiding Americans.
…
For FY 2017 there were a grand total of 12 prosecutions out of 112,000 denials. When, all else being equal, there is a 1 in 10,000 chance of being prosecuted for a crime in which the perpetrator necessarily offers himself up to the government, the goal isn’t public safety, it’s to control the law-abiding.
NRA-ILA
June 6, 2022
Gun Control is About Stripping Rights NOT Stopping Crime
[They are, of course, referring to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)..—Joe]
Getting a clue?
The words and concepts are all there. But I’m not sure he is putting it all together to arrive at the obvious conclusion:
Nobody talks tougher on guns than the left. We want to regulate them, seize them, control them, even ban them.
The uncomfortable part of this stance is: Who is going to carry all this out, though, if not the police? Police who are stopping, searching, interfering — all the things various city actors have understandably said they are most skeptical police can do safely and without racial bias.
Recently, I wrote about how Washington state’s aggressive gun control laws, which ban AR-15 gun sales to people under age 21 and also institute a 10-day waiting period, would likely have prevented the recent Buffalo and Texas mass shootings (because both were committed by 18-year-olds who legally bought their guns).
What they don’t prevent are the types of gun crime that Seattle is awash in right now — where drug dealers, gang members or others steal guns or pick them up on an ample black market.
He needs to ask himself, and then his entire readership, just one question.
Quote of the day—Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays
We have reached the point at which Democrats have to literally pretend Republicans don’t have better solutions.
Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays
Tweeted on June 8, 2022
[I am inclined to dismiss “pretend”. All appearances are they are very serious. There are other hypothesis which match the available evidence better:
- They are delusional.
- They are deliberately lying (evil).
Of those two I’m inclined to go with the second option. They have been informed so many times by so many people for so many decades and there is so much evidence that must be overlooked by so many people that I have to rule out a mass delusion that infectious and lasting this long.—Joe]
Wolves outside the door
Via a tweet from NRA @NRA:
Quote of the day—Amanda Marcotte
Mass shootings are effective for Republicans at demoralizing their opposition and training their base to unlearn any lingering sense of empathy. Historian Ruth Ben-Shiat argued in October in the Washington Post, that gun violence “fosters political, social and psychological conditions that are propitious for autocracy.” A major GOP campaign message going into the midterms is that “woke” Democrats are letting criminals run amok in the cities. Dramatic gun violence really helps sell this message, which is why Republicans are guaranteed to block any bill that would make it even slightly harder for violent and unhinged people to get guns.
Amanda Marcotte
June 6, 2022
U.S. gun laws are causing mayhem and mass murder — and Republicans couldn’t be more thrilled
[This is what they think of you.
The way I remember the history of gun rights in this country over the last 30 years is that (mostly) Republicans celebrated the reduction in violent crime as it became easier to carry guns to protect yourself in public. Another contributor to that decreasing violent crime rates was the increased incarceration of repeat criminals. But, as numerous people have pointed out in the comments, the political left doesn’t know their history.—Joe]
Winning
Support for ‘assault weapons’ ban hits all-time low following Uvalde shooting: Poll
New polling shows that support for an “assault weapons” ban in the United States has hit an all-time low despite calls from Democrats to implement a ban following a deadly mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
In a Quinnipiac University poll, conducted last week and published on Tuesday, 50 percent of registered voters support a nationwide ban on semi-automatic long guns compared to 45% who oppose which represents the lowest level of support since February 2013 when Quinnipiac began asking that question.
The highest level of support for the ban was 67% in February 2018, days after the Parkland school shooting that left 17 people dead.
From a legal and philosophical standpoint it doesn’t really matter if 99% of the population disagrees with you. And of course just because 99% of the population is totally convinced the earth is flat does not mean that it is flat.
But from a practical standpoint it sure helps if the number of people in opposition are relatively low. That only 50% of the population is in favor of violating our right to keep and bear modern sporting rifles and the trend is in our favor is good news. It will make it easier to get court decisions in our favor and to get legislators and politicians in the executive branch to stand up to the criminals. And ultimately, with enough support, to prosecute the criminals who have infringed upon our specific enumerated rights.
We are winning.
Quote of the day—House Democrats @HouseDemocrats
Semiautomatic rifles are weapons of war. Refusing to act and save lives in this moment is an immoral abandonment of your constitutional duty.
House Democrats @HouseDemocrats
Tweeted on June 8, 2022
[I hope they enjoy their trial.—Joe]
AR-15 magazines for court battles
SAF and Aero Precision have teamed up to sell specially marked Magpul PMAG® magazines:
In addition to getting a high quality magazine SAF and Aero Precision share this:
With the passing of SB 5078 we have partnered with the Second Amendment Foundation to help in the legal battle against this unconstitutional law. The net proceeds from each of these magazines sold will go directly to the Second Amendment Foundation to help fund legal action to defeat this unconstitutional bill.
I bought a few. You should consider doing the same.
Quote of the day—Matthew Yglesias
Continuing to insist on new rules while shying away from enforcing existing ones, meanwhile, burns credibility with conservative voters, who see a left that’s eager to penalize their hobby and reluctant to punish criminals.
Matthew Yglesias
June 3, 2022
The flaw in the progressive stance on guns
[Via email from Chet.
Reading the entire opinion piece you can see he has a glimmer of self awareness about the weakness of the gun control position. But if he actually believes the 2nd Amendment, the specific enumeration of a basic human right, is just a hobby then he has no clue why so many people are opposed to restrictions on personal arms.
The mindset of the opposition is much closer to “people that wish to disarm me must be intending to inflect violence upon me and/or innocent people I care about.” This completely changes any attempts to get even minor concessions
Why would anyone grant someone they believe to be intent on murdering them to tie one hand behind their back? If, after saying “No!”, the person attempts to forcibly tie the hand it seems entirely justified to use lethal force to stop them.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Carl "Bear" Bussjaeger
Perhaps the Constitution has only been an illusory paper restraint on government. But it has been a potent symbolic restraint on the people, preventing them from eliminating abusive politicians and government agents out of hand. I do not truly comprehend the willingness — nay, the eagerness of the Left to go there, to surrender that protection, given the likely consequences.
We’d be starting from scratch, with new rules written by the survivors.
Carl “Bear” Bussjaeger
May 29, 2022
SO YOU WANT TO REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT
[Interesting observation.-Joe]