It is worth noting that even previously ardent supporters of restricting the right to keep and bear arms don’t want to talk those ideas on the campaign trail in Cleveland this year. Instead, they’re talking about building up the city’s police force, focusing on violent actors, and at least in one case, encouraging residents to obtain a concealed carry license so that they don’t have to fear for their lives when they step outside their door. This is a step in the right direction, and a sign that at least some Democrats feel comfortable putting some distance between themselves and the gun control lobby that’s still eager to court their support.
Purchasing or legally making a firearms silencer is one of the most effective steps a Second Amendment supporter can take to undermine the National Firearms Act and incrementally restore Second Amendment rights. Second Amendment supporters are well on the way to removing the NFA through an unusual tool: Overwhelming compliance.
…
Once silencers become common enough so they do not draw immediate attention at the range or in the field, we have the ingredients for victory.
At that point, a law enforcement officer will not have reasonable suspicion to inspect a silencer and to demand information to prove the silencer is legal and registered. Such demands would violate the First and Fourth Amendments.
An important part of this structure is a practice I have seen on a number of Youtube videos. The manufacturer information and serial number of the silencer pictured is covered. The information is there; it is simply not available to casual inspection or to the public. Removal of the cover is a search, requiring probable cause or a warrant. Do not grant permission for law enforcement to remove the cover.
…
I have heard of numerous incidents where local law enforcement officers have contacted the ATF about mere possession of silencers, short-barreled rifles, or short-barreled shotguns, only to be told the ATF is not interested unless there is another crime involved.
This is anecdotal. It indicates enforcement of mere possession of silencers may not be a high priority for the ATF.
One of the people in my squad, Steve, runs major matches in Montana and does range officer work for other major matches. He told stories of running Christian through stages.
Christian sees the stages differently than other people. He even sees them differently than other Grand Master shooters. When Steve runs Christian on a stage he doesn’t bother to follow him. He asks, “Where are you going to end up?” He then runs to the destination (as soon as it is safe to do so) and meets Christian in time to capture the last shot on the timer.
A specific example given was a stage where there were two targets visible between two barricades. Other Grand Masters would pause and fire the four shots, two per target, then continue on to the next targets. Christian ran by at full speed, “Bang, bang, bang, bang!” This resulted in four A-Zone hits.
As Steve pointed out, Christian is in a class of his own. Here are the results of the top ten people in the match from last weekend and from looking at the Match Points and Match Percentage you can clearly see this:
Place
Name
Class
Div
Match Pts
Match %
1
Sailer, Christian
G
O
1460.8107
100.0000 %
2
Michel, Max
G
CO
1310.4572
89.7075 %
3
Ramberg, Tim
G
PCC
1275.3206
87.3022 %
4
Williams, Justine
G
PCC
1243.8811
85.1501 %
5
Conaway, Brennan
G
O
1229.281
84.1506 %
6
Tan, Loke
G
O
1228.1294
84.0718 %
7
Liu, Eric
G
O
1214.7476
83.1557 %
8
Chang, Jun
G
O
1209.7619
82.8144 %
9
Coley, Shane
G
L
1209.0808
82.7678 %
10
Steiner, Eric
M
O
1202.3446
82.3067 %
Notice how the people below him are grouped fairly tightly. There is no one within 10% of Christian.
I had hoped to watch him shoot a stage or two but he was shooting on the exact opposite times I was at the match. Here is the video of most of the stages:
In another week or so I will have my private gun range and much better access to range conditions suitable for this type of practice: I’m going to be taking practice much more seriously:
Congress is going to pass wild spending package after wild spending package, and the Fed is just going to continue to pump billions upon billions of fresh dollars into the financial system.
This is the greatest financial bubble in the history of the world, and it will be fascinating to watch how long it can last before it finally implodes.
Perhaps the anger clouded his thinking and this is why they limited the probable response to the unvaccinated. I am inclined to believe there are vaccinated people who also regard authoritarian activities as worthy of a similar response.
We woke libruls don’t need no fancy book learning.
Ted Cruz @tedcruz Tweeted on August 11, 2021 [This is in regard to this:
This sounds like the “logic’ used for a lot of the push for more people to get college degrees and why it should be free in the last few decades., “People with college degrees earn more money and have better lives. Everyone should get college degrees.”
It, perhaps deliberately, confuses cause and effect. People with certain college degrees had the aptitude to understand and apply the course material required for high paying jobs in certain fields. It wasn’t just a generic college degree that resulted in high paying jobs. The English, psychology, music, art appreciation, etc. degrees did not correlate with high paying jobs like the medical, legal, engineering, finance, and business degrees. But the political sounds bites led you to believe it was the degree and not the person able to acquire the degree that made the difference between the degreed and non-degreed.
It appears the failed (for certain definitions of “failed”, one can make the case it was deliberate deception which worked exactly as planned) college degrees for everyone project is now being implemented at the high school level.
And so now, it is clear we need to add Oregon to the list of states circling the toilet drain. The Antifa/BLM stuff in Portland is just the most visible symptom.
I recently met a group of people who could be described as Oregon refugees. They left Oregon because of the stupid and/or evil politics and took up residence in Idaho. Idaho is the fastest growing state in the union. The people I was talking to are living in travel trailers and mobile homes as they try to get their own homes built. They work in the construction industry and help fill the gap in construction workers. They own and/or rent heavy equipment and are skilled operators. I wish them well and welcome them to Idaho.—Joe]
Humanity needs to become a bigger priority in this state. This means that stricter gun control is necessary. Our government should listen to its people and make them feel safe, rather than allowing a law as dangerous as permitless carry.
Sumera Siddiqi Liberal studies freshman at University of Houston August 9, 2021 Permitless carry infringes on the right to safety [Is it truth or is it a caricature? Sometimes it is so hard to tell.—Joe]
There are lies, damned lies and gun control lies. The problem with the gun control lies is that those who continue to spout them have no shame even when they’ve been proven wrong.
Everything we know about evidence-based violence interruption says you have to interact directly with the highest-risk individuals. And that’s true for police, but that’s also true for all sorts of community services, including but not limited to street outreach. So for all of these individuals who are at the highest risk, all of a sudden, all of those services stop because of the physical distancing mandates.
Thomas Abt August 2, 2021 What Philadelphia Reveals About America’s Homicide Surge [Ahh… This can explain the rise in violent crime over the last year or so. I had not had a good hypothesis for what was going on. This sounds quite plausible.—Joe]
Why is it that back in the 1950’s, one could walk into a hardware store, gun shop or mail order all kinds of firearms with no background checks or waiting period and crime was far less than today?
James August 7, 2021 Comment to BREAKING: Mexico Blames American Guns For Their Problems, Sues U.S. [My first hypothesis is criminals were more likely to be prosecuted then. My second hypothesis is that we didn’t have a culture of entitlement and people competing for profit in the victim Olympics. Both could be true as well as false.—Joe]
While many individual preppers and prepper organizations try to remain anonymous, the number of people preparing appears to be growing. In the last year alone, roughly 45 percent of Americans, or about 116 million people, said they spent money preparing for hard times or spent money stockpiling survival goods.
I’m not going to speculate as to why people buy pickup trucks, but the reality is the vast majority aren’t doing so for work purposes.
Their choice is putting us all at risk, whether on the streets, or through damage to the climate. Reducing further destruction to the climate and harm from needlessly fatal road accidents is far more important than corporate or consumer freedom.
It’s time to ban sales of pickup trucks for non-work purposes, for all of our sakes.
The democracy beat shouldn’t be some kind of specialized innovation, but a widespread rethinking across the mainstream media.
Making this happen will call for something that Big Journalism is notoriously bad at: An open-minded, nondefensive recognition of what’s gone wrong.
Top editors, Sunday talk-show moderators and other news executives should pull together their brain trusts to grapple with this. And they should be transparent with the public about what they’re doing and why.
As a model, they might have to swallow their big-media pride and look to places like Harrisburg, Pa., public radio station WITF which has admirably explained to its audience why it continually offers reminders about the actions of those public officials who tried to overturn the 2020 election results. Or to Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn’s letter to readers about how the paper and its website, Cleveland.com, refuse to cover every reckless, attention-getting lie of Republican Josh Mandel as he runs for the U.S. Senate next year.
New York’s licensing requirements criminalize the exercise of the fundamental Second Amendment right, with rare exception. As a result, each year, we represent hundreds of indigent people whom New York criminally charges for exercising their right to keep and bear arms. For our clients, New York’s licensing regime renders the Second Amendment a legal fiction. Worse, virtually all our clients whom New York prosecutes for exercising their Second Amendment right are Black or Hispanic. And that is no accident. New York enacted its firearm licensing requirements to criminalize gun ownership by racial and ethnic minorities. That remains the effect of its enforcement by police and prosecutors today.
It is somewhat disturbing that pointing out that the demographics of the illegal prosecutions are believed to make a difference in whether the law is declared unconstitutional or not. It would seem to me the constitutionality of a law should not be decided on skin color or ethnicity.
That said, if it gets another SCOTUS justice vote (Root opines, “It’s possible that such arguments will resonate with Justice Sonia Sotomayor”) I give my thanks to the public defenders for their contribution.—Joe]
Hello, everyone! My name is Elysia, and I’m a Scout from Troop 498. I want to be the first female Scout from my Troop.
For my Eagle Project, I want to build a eagle-perching pole on Eagle Island in Eagle Lake. A previous Eagle Scout put a pole on the island for our local eagles to perch on. It was there for many years, but it was made from a fallen tree, and eventually it rotted, and it fell during a winter wind storm. The community has wanted to replace it with something better, but there are a lot of projects they want to do, and not a lot of people that want to take charge. They were very happy when I said I wanted to do this!
My plan is to get a 35-foot aluminum flagpole and mount it in a concrete foundation on the island. At the top, I will put a lightweight triangular perching structure to replace the usual ball at the top of the flagpole. I will build the perching structure out of aluminum pipe and aluminum sheets, welded together into support arms, with some hardwood dowels for the eagles to actually perch on.
The flagpole is the most expensive part of the whole project at about $3750, but we need a pole like that because:
We need to transport the flagpole to the island by rowboat, and it comes in two 75-lb pieces. Wood utility poles would be too heavy to transport, even if they float.
The island is only 20-feet in diameter, so the pole needs to be light enough for a few people to lift it into the foundation socket without heavy equipment
Wood will eventually rot away, but we’re using only aluminum pole, aluminum screws and aluminum parts for the perch, so we won’t get galvanic corrosion between different metals.
The pole is rated for 60mph winds with a flag on it, so that should stand up to windstorms even with the perch at the top
It should be strong enough for 12-lb eagles to land on, but too wobbly for them to try to build a nest on it.
I hope to build the concrete foundation for the flagpole in August while the weather is dry and the lake is low. Then I’ll get the aluminum parts together to build the perch assembly, and some of the volunteers from my troop know some Boeing engineers with the right kind of equipment to weld aluminum. (I have my Welding merit badge, but welding aluminum is not like welding steel!)
About me:
My cultural background is Peruvian, Texan, English, and Cantonese, and my dad is a US Veteran.
The Hamlin Robinson School is the best school for kids with dyslexia and language development difficulties. They really helped me! I hope they can help someone you know.
I am learning American Sign Language, and I hope I can earn my Translator patch soon.
I help my grandma at the Shelton Community Lifeline, when I can. If we raise more money than we need for this project, and my local community agrees, I want to use any extra to help the homeless shelter.
After my $50 donation she has 3,920 of her $4,500 goal. Can you guys push her over the top? Donate here.
The FBI needs to go away. It should happen in an orderly and thoughtful process, over a period of months. Congress should authorize and create an investigative division in the U.S. Marshals Service and open applications for law enforcement officer seeking to be rigorously screened, vetted and then accessed into the new organization. Similar action was taken before in the very creation of the FBI. It is now time to clean house and restore the public’s trust in the “premier investigative agency” of federal law enforcement.
Chris Farrell
July 28, 2021 Disband the FBI
[About 99% of the Federal government needs to go away to be operating with the limits set by the U.S. Constitution. So the FBI is just a tiny snowflake at the tip of the iceberg.
And if you think about it a little bit you realize the bigger issue is all the Federal laws the FBI enforces. The laws need to be eliminated first or at least concurrently with the FBI. If they didn’t have laws to enforce their “teeth” would be essentially pulled and be mostly irrelevant.
The FBI was once extremely well regarded. I remember my dad once telling me, I must have been about eight years old at the time, how great the FBI was. They trained to shoot one handed and using their weak hand only. I was amazed at this. And, “Once the FBI is on a case the case will be solved. The FBI always gets their man.”
After Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the failed coup against President Trump, to hit just a few of the low spots, many people now rightfully regarded the FBI as an enemy of the people.—Joe]
If we’ve gotten to a point where a giant tech company, or even a little company, is silencing people who are providing first-hand sourcing for major, major news stories, or reading press releases from elected officials, that’s like not America anymore.
I expressed my surprise but there were more important things to discuss and I dropped it. He is a former Secret Service agent, but I don’t see how that would give him insider knowledge about something as big as the elimination of Facebook as a company.
