Category Archives: Politics

Quote of the day—Toni Wellen

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I have friends who own AR-15 rifles; they enjoy shooting them at target practice for sport and fervently defend their right to own them. But I cannot accept that their right to enjoy their hobby supersedes my right to send my own children to school, a movie theater, or a concert and to know that they are safe. Can the answer really be to subject our school children to active-shooter drills — to learn to hide under desks, turn off the lights, lock the door, and be silent — instead of addressing the root cause of the problem and passing legislation to take AR-15-style weapons out of the hands of civilians?

active-liberty-drill-cagle

Toni Wellen
June 18, 2021
Why AR-15 Assault Weapons Must Be Banned
[So many errors in so few words:

  • It’s not a “right to enjoy a hobby”.
  • No one has a right to “know they are safe”.
  • The “root cause of the problem” is not the existence of firearms. It is evil people with a desire and willingness to commit evil acts.
  • “Passing legislation” does not take guns out of the hands of civilians. Men with guns take guns out of the hands of civilians.

Lessons to be learned, at least in regards to the useful idiots, does not apply to all:

  • Anti-gun people are not fully connected with reality.
  • They think of gun ownership, at best, as a hobby.
  • They think gun owners value their “hobby” more than the lives of children.
  • They do not understand rights.
  • Rather than people, they believe inanimate objects are an agent of cause and crime.
  • They believe “passing legislation” can fix human problems when it is actually human action (or acts of nature/god) which fix human problems.
  • Never let anyone get away with telling you, “No one wants to take your guns.”

There are none so blind as those who will not see.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kevin Baker

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Well, poverty won the war on poverty, and terror is still thriving…

I can’t wait for the war on guns.

WarOnDrugs

Kevin Baker
Posted on Facebook June 18, 2021
[Drugs are consumables. So it should be as easy as, “Just ban them an they will all be gone in a few months.” Right?

There are, at most, a few hundred active terrorists in this country. So it should be as easy as, “Just put them on a list, watch them, then arrest them every time they do something as innocuous as littering and they get a hint and leave or flip out and the cops can shoot them?” Right?

Guns are not consumables. They can easily last 100 years if properly cared for. There are something like 80 to 100 million gun owners in the U.S. in possession of hundreds of millions of firearms.

I know I’m not the first to have said this, but people are not setting new gun buying records nearly every year for the last 10 years with the expectation they would peacefully turn them in when they were banned.

Do the numbers and provide an estimate on the probability of success of a “war on guns”.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tim Pool @Timcast

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I already have the right to bear arms wherever I choose

its the criminal state and the police that prevent me from doing so

Tim Pool @Timcast
Tweeted on April 26, 2021
[And so is in most of the world for many decades. The people, world wide, have a lot of work to do once we set the example and have the criminals in our country taken care of.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brandon Smith

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Gun control is the big line in the sand for most law abiding conservatives and moderates, and we have grown tired of the debate because it’s no longer a debate, it’s a imposition of ideology and cultism. All the facts are on the side of gun owners. All the legal protections are on the side of gun owners. All the moral dynamics are on the side of gun owners. As long as we stand our ground, there is nothing that leftists can do about it.

They can continue to lie, they can continue to threaten and they can continue exploiting emotional arguments, but they’ll NEVER get the guns.

Brandon Smith
June 11, 2021
The Real Reasons Why California Leftists Are Terrified Of The AR-15
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

The Importance of Arming Minority Groups

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I received an email from Richard Douglas a few weeks ago. We exchanged a few more emails* and then on Monday he sent me the following guest post. All links in this post are to posts of his on other sites.

The 2nd Amendment is constantly under fire in the United States, especially with firearms and their control being one of the many political platforms that politicians use to capture votes. Politics being ‘war by other means’ means that nothing is off the table when it comes to a political campaign.

So, through means of propaganda, there has come to be a particular type of image of what a 2nd amendment activist looks like, often a bigot, belligerent, uneducated, and in some locales flavored with a criminal undertone.

These are tactics used to inspire fear because fear sells and buys votes. This is a difficult position that 2nd Amendment activists find themselves in, because of the rhetoric involved and the fact we are talking about guns, which are inherently dangerous tools for a reason.

This is why it is important for 2nd amendment activists to find new ways to support their cause and doctor their public image. Politics is an ever-changing battlefield. You can lose old allies, and new ones fluctuate like the weather.

Image Therapy

Politicians often point towards criminal behavior as a reason to place restrictions on firearms. Recently mass shootings have captured the public eye and make for an easy target. These incidents and behaviors make it easy to label that guns themselves are the problem while ignoring the social and mental health of the individuals who perpetrate those crimes and atrocities.

This creates a very negative stereotype against firearm activists, and with the NRA recently being caught in a scandal, it doesn’t necessarily make it easy to rehabilitate the image of firearm activists.

So perhaps it’s time to adopt a new approach through proactive inclusivity.

Minority Groups are Common Targets of Hate

Groups like the LGBT community have long been the target of aggression and hate crimes. Historically speaking, on November 27th, 1978, an openly gay politician of San Francisco named Harvey Milk was assassinated by a political rival.

Earlier that same year on July 5th, a group of teenagers armed with baseball attacks, who admitted they were intentionally targeting homosexuals, randomly attacked people who were gathered in Central Park of New York City. A place where people of the LGBT community gathered often.

The list goes on…

Clearly, if there was a need to arm and protect a segment of the population, groups that represent the socially disadvantaged such as the LGBT, would make a strong case. By actively recruiting and offering discounts on training and firearms to this group would very much make the statement:

“Enough is enough, and we will not be idle while members of our community are being attacked and forced to live in fear.”

As far as moral and ethical statements would go, this would be a good one.

This type of action actually has historical precedent, such as the Black Panthers forming an armed patrol to protect their own communities at a time when police violence against African Americans was at an all-time high.

By exercising their 2nd Amendment rights, they made a statement that garnered national attention and brought about social action.

As is Your Right

If this message calls to you and you are a rights activist for the 2nd Amendment, then you can start your own group in your community. In the small southern towns I grew up in the gay community is highly sequestered, and growing up my gay friends lived in fear of being the target of ‘gay-bashing.’

You better believe I’d step up to bat if any of them were attacked. Educating this population on firearms safety and carry and practicing with them may give them the courage they previously wouldn’t have.

Becoming a firearms instructor is an option for the average citizen. Though licensure requires intimate knowledge of each action class and previous experience with firearms.

So knowing your equipment, the history of your selected weapons class, and showing proficiency will go a long way to obtaining a license to teach.

Here are the pistol optics I trust with my life, they are dependable and proficient.

The Importance of Action

“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” – John Stuart Mill (1867) **

This statement Mill made at his inaugural address at St. Andrews still holds just as true today as it did when he made the statement. This is why we have the second amendment, to resist oppression with force if necessary.

You have the right to bear arms, and as a 2nd Amendment activist, nothing could show your support of minority groups like educating and arming them. It would go a long way to establishing your reputation in your community and beyond as a Good Samaritan.

Author Bio
Richard Douglas writes on firearms, defense and security issues. He is the founder and editor of Scopes Field, and a columnist at The National Interest, 1945, Daily Caller and other publications.

* This is the email thread:

From: Richard Douglas
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2021 9:20 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: The National Interest contribution

Hey Joe,

Can I contribute an article to your site?

Thanks,
Richard
Columnist for The National Interest, 1945 and Cheaper Than Dirt

PS: I don’t charge a penny. I’m just trying to get my name out there 🙂

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2021 4:00 PM
To: Richard Douglas
Subject: RE: The National Interest contribution

Perhaps. What do you have in mind?

Joe Huffman
Cell: 208-301-4254

From: Richard Douglas
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2021 8:53 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: The National Interest contribution

Awesome! Here are a couple of topic ideas I could write about:

  1. Why 2nd Amendment Advocates Need to Unite with the LGBT and Minorities
  2. Protect Your Political Enemy’s Freedom of Speech

I’m also down for ANY other topic ideas 🙂
Thanks,
Richard

From: Richard Douglas
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2021 11:14 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: The National Interest contribution

You got it!

I’ll start working on it right away and will send it over within the next couple of days.

—

** There is some question who should be given credit for this.

Quote of the day—Milo Yiannopoulos@m

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What happens in America in the next 50 years matters more to the human species than the Industrial Revolution. More than the Reformation. More than both world wars. We are living through the most significant time since Jesus Christ walked the earth.

Milo Yiannopoulos@m
Posted on June 13, 2021
[I’m willing to accept the hypothesis as plausible. But I’m going to need more evidence to be convinced.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ritchie

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All these governments are law-abiding until they’re not. Then they sometimes become heavily armed mass killers.

Ritchie
June 13, 2021
Comment to Quote of the day—George Skelton
[Excellent response to those who say something similar about innocent gun owners.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Victor Davis Hanson

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Our 21st century revolutionaries are multibillionaires with flip-flops, tie-dye T-shirts and nose rings, but with the absolute power and desire to censor how half the country communicates — or cancel them entirely.

They don’t flock to campus free-speech areas; they are the campus administrators who ban free speech.

They don’t picket outside the Pentagon; they are inside the Pentagon.

They don’t chant “eat the rich”; they are the rich who eat at Napa Valley’s French Laundry.

They don’t protest “uptight” values, because they are more intolerant and puritanical than any Victorian.

They don’t believe in racial quotas based on “proportional representation,” because they are racists who demand underrepresentation of “bad” racial groups and overrepresentation of “good” groups. The color of our skin is their gospel, not the content of our character.

…

Our revolutionaries hate dissent. They destroy any who question their media-spun hoaxes.

Truth is their enemy, and fear is their weapon. Sixties paranoid revolutionaries warned about George Orwell’s “1984,” but our revolutionaries are “1984.”

Victor Davis Hanson
June 10, 2021
This Isn’t Your Father’s Left-Wing Revolution
[There are some astute observations here.—Joe]

Quote of the day—George Skelton

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All these bad guys are law-abiding until they’re not. Then they sometimes become heavily armed mass killers.

George Skelton
June 7, 2021
Column: An AR-15 is like a pocket knife? Maybe federal judges shouldn’t get lifetime appointments
[This is just one item which illustrates my point. From the same article is another item:

“The Bill of Rights prevents the tyranny of the majority from taking away the rights of a minority,” the judge wrote in his opinion.

Sure, but in a democracy, there’s also something called majority rule.

I sometimes give people such as him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they do not really understand the content and/or intent of the Bill Of Rights, right? Skelton makes it clear he understands and that he wants to do away with it.

He understands the BOR protects the rights of the minority from the will of the majority and he wants that protection eliminated. He understands innocent until proven guilty and wants to replace it with guilty until (never) proven innocent enough to own a common firearm.

Respond appropriately.—Joe]

It’s just a law—it doesn’t have to make sense

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I was reading the latest ATF FFL Newsletter and ran across something I found interesting:

an FFL/SOT (Class 2 manufacturer of firearms) who manufactures a silencer part for the sole purpose of repairing a registered silencer 1) is not required to mark the part; 2) is not required to register the part on ATF Form 2; 3) is not required to submit and receive an approved ATF Form 3 to transfer the part to FFL/SOT; and 4) is not required to maintain records of manufacture or other acquisition and records of disposition (A&D) pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 923(g), 26 U.S.C. § 5843, 27 CFR § 478.123, and 27 CFR § 479.131, provided the part is transferred to an FFL/SOT for the purpose of repairing a registered silencer.

If someone other than an FFL/SOT wants to acquire a silencer part, that part must be marked in accordance with regulations and registered by filing a Form 2. A Form 5 must be filed if the part is being acquired by a government entity. A Form 4 must be filed if the part is being acquired by an unlicensed person or FFL who is not qualified under the NFA.

So… if you don’t tighten the end cap on your suppressor, it works loose, and you spew the end cap and all the baffles all over the lake you can’t purchase new components from the manufacturer and repair it yourself. You local dealer can purchase the parts and repair it for you.

In either case you end up with a new set of serialized components. But in one case you and the manufacturer spend some quality time in Club Fed and are never again allowed to own a firearm. In the other case you go about your business as you see fit.

It’s just a law. It doesn’t have to make sense.

Quote of the day—Paul Bedard

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The Biden administration’s new push to regulate highly popular AR-style pistols could net Uncle Sam billions in new tax revenue and rub out a small industry involved in the production of the firearms.

In a newly proposed regulation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, most owners will have to pay a $200 tax per weapon or radically change it or turn the gun in to be destroyed.

And because ATF said it doesn’t expect anyone to give up their guns, the money would roll in if the rule is adopted.

Paul Bedard
June 9, 2021
New taxes under Biden gun registration push will reach billions
[At first reading I laughed at the ignorance. Apparently this knucklehead had not thought of the option which will be taken by 90% or more—non-compliance.

But it’s possible he and others have thought of that and are telling the lie to try and sell the idea. You can imagine fellow Democrats saying, “Tax the knuckle-dragging gun nuts and use the money for funding abortions or health care for illegal immigrants just for the giggles.”

And a still darker option that is just as likely is the observation made by Ayn Rand:

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them.  One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

And there darker options still. But many of those shadows are cast in the other direction.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Neo

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A brand new day has dawned, in which the ACLU is in favor of civil liberties only for those who support the left, making the “civil liberties” in the title something like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth and Ministry of Love, the opposite of what it professes to be.

Neo
June 8, 2021
The ACLU has made the name of the organization Orwellian
[Their distain for the 2nd Amendment is a concrete example.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lyle

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The criminal mind is indeed terrified of the lawful, armed citizen. No one else, of course, has the slightest thing to worry about.

Lyle
June 7, 2021
Comment to Quote of the day—Andrew Cuomo
[This explains why so many Democrats, politicians in particular, want to ban guns. Democrats, as a group, have twice as many people in prison as all other political affiliations combined. They, for all intents and purposes, are the criminal class and rightly fear being shot by their victims.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Andrew Cuomo

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The NRA’s (National Rifle Association) dream of a society where everyone is terrified of each other and armed to the teeth is abhorrent to our values.

Andrew Cuomo
Governor of New York
May 28, 2021
New Yorkers demand right to carry hidden guns as America reels from bloody week of mass shootings
[Anyone who believes an organization with five million members has a “dream of a society where everyone is terrified of each other” is delusional and/or pushing “the big lie”.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Inez Stepman

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He wants that unelected department staffed by trained academics, presumably by him, to have veto power over every municipal state and federal law in the country, if it creates, in his eyes, any kind of disparity between groups. And he wants that body to have veto power over who stands for political office.

…

I call it woke Stalinism … his position is that a group of unelected academics should have complete veto power over all laws in the United States, and kind of similar to how it works with the mullahs in Iran, to basically select the slate of candidates. The people may vote, but only on the candidates or among the candidates selected by people who think like Ibram X. Kendi.

Inez Stepman
June 4, 2021
Biden’s Proposed Funding of Critical Race Theory Puts US on a ‘Very Dark Path’: Inez Stepman
[We live in interesting times.

Complete elimination of disparity can only be achieved by death for all.

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Who could have guessed?

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Seattle police union chief fears losing 400 officers in a year as crime levels soar

As crime levels in Seattle continue to climb, more police officers are fleeing the force for jobs in police departments outside the city, where politics may play less of a role in shaping law enforcement decisions.

More than 200 officers have left the Seattle Police Department in the past year, leaving staffing levels below what department leaders say are necessary, and the head of the police union fears that number could double by next year.

“I’m fearful that we could lose up to 400 people within a year’s time, and then, where does that put us in our community?” Mike Solan, the president of the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild, told the Washington Examiner.

“It would take decades to recover,” he said.

…

In 2020, Seattle saw its highest number of murders in 26 years, and crime in the city has trended upward in keeping with a national rise in violence.

This is such an obvious result I find it necessary to believe the politicians responsible intended this outcome. They are deliberately destroying “The Emerald City”.

Quote of the day—Francisco

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All of which points directly to many Americans increasingly realizing that individual independence, sustainability, and resilience matters, and it’s not a big reach from there to deciding “if I’m taking care of myself, why do I need any of those people?” Official Washington can safely be left behind their patrolled fence, they’ll be superfluous, a theatrical performance only for each other.

We’re certainly not there yet, but I think I may be able to see parts of it from here. Don’t stop working toward the goal, and provide what assistance you can to those traveling the path with you.

Francisco
June 3, 2021
Comment to Quote of the day—Caroline Glick
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Caroline Glick

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The polarization of opinion on Israel that we are witnessing in American politics between Republicans who support Israel and Democrats who oppose Israel, is an expression of a much larger division within American society. The heartbreaking but undeniable fact is that today you can’t talk about “America” as a single political entity.

Today there are two Americas, and they cannot abide by one another. One America – traditional America – loves Israel and America. The other America – the New America – hates Israel and doesn’t think much of America, either.

Traditional America believes that the U.S. brought the promise of liberty to the world and that even though it is far from perfect, the United States is the greatest country in human history. In the eyes of the citizens of Traditional America, Israel is a kindred nation and the U.S.’s best friend and most valued ally in the Middle East.

New America, in contrast, believes that America was born in the sin of slavery. New Americans insist America will remain evil and an object of scorn at home and abroad so long it refuses to exchange its values of liberty, capitalism, equal opportunity and patriotism with the values of racialism and equity, socialism, equality of outcomes, and globalization. For New Americans, just as the U.S. was born in the sin of white supremacy so Israel was born in the sin of Zionism. In New America, Israel will have no right to exist so long as it clings to its Jewish national identity, refusing to become a “state of all its citizens.”

Caroline Glick
May 28, 2021
Dark Clouds: Google, Amazon, Israel and the New America
[Via email from Paul K.

In recent months, more so than in previous years, it has been made more and more clear the conflict of visions (no, not this conflict of visions) may be irreconcilable via peaceful means. One vision is of collective rights, planning, and responsibility. The other is of individual rights, planning, and responsibility.

This collective rights and collective responsibility inevitably lead to individual injustice. The process of achieving equality of outcomes because a moral imperative and an easy sale to many people. Today we have calls for reparations. Even if this were conceded it would not end. Distribution of property equally or according to need will follow. Some time after that would be the demands for retribution. And so it would continue until the final true equality is clearly in sight and a remaining majority, or powerful enough minority, put a stop true equality.

The bottom line is that achieving equality of outcomes becomes an unending task because:

Full equality comes with death. And it should come as no surprise the political left is well acquainted with death on a very large scale.

This is the unspoken promise of the collective vision. Today, the collective vision is making itself more visible and more insistent on making “progress”.

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Interesting times

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Gun sales: Best May ever, 2021 set to crush record, public ‘afraid of violence, tyranny’:

2021 looks to double the number of background checks and sales of 2015, when 23 million checks were conducted.

Quote of the day—Operation Blazing Sword / Pink Pistols

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We oppose David Chipman’s nomination as ATF Director with the same vigor as we would if a known homophobe were nominated to oversee hate crime investigation, and for exactly the same reasons.

Operation Blazing Sword / Pink Pistols
May 29, 2021
Chipman Appointment: “Like a Homophobe Investigating Hate Crimes”
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]