Democrats and Gun Control

When, several years ago, I pointed out the then current FBI homicide by weapon type data and included a link to the FBI website so doubters could check for themselves, I was told I’d “probably vote for Hitler” and that I was just fantasizing about shooting people.

These people are not open to reasoned debate. I think they are fervently pro-state violence so long as they control the state, and they intend to do exactly that with no qualms about methods.

Hence gun bans and speech bans, including, in NY city, quarter million dollar fines for Bad Speak.

These are not people of good will with whom we disagree. They are extremely dangerous, physically dangerous, thugs on the verge of complete control of the federal government and many state governments.

Will the the 21st Century See The Dismantling Of Centralized Power?

“The story of the 21st Century will be the dismantling of centralized power.“ : Richard Bledsoe

I can’t think of any evidence for this. Are there any governments on earth which are smaller than they were ten years ago? Is Google’s power shrinking? Amazon’s? Big banks? Has Giant Faceless MegaCorp decided to break itself up into independent twenty employee segments?

We have seen in the last couple decades the creation of a global surveillance state of intertwined governments and private businesses which not even the Stasi could have dreamed of in their wildest drug induced fantasies.

We in the US have evolved from a nation of independent small business owners aka farmers and artisans, into a nation of employees trained to take orders. Our fundamental mindset has changed from that of owners into obedient order takers.

I see no evidence whatsoever that anyone in either major American political party would even consider overturning the foundation of the modern regulatory state -Wickard vs Filburn (look it up)- much less return our government to only those activities authorized by the Constitution.

The UN and leading politicians around the world are working openly to end national sovereignty, criminalize free speech including criticism of Islam and of immigration. Merkel may lose her office, but she has succeeded beyond the dreams of the mullahs in Islamizing Germany, and those people are not going to leave. Nor are those in France, Britain, Holland, Spain, or Italy.

Islam is hardly a force for decentralization, nor is the wave of socialism sweeping Americans who have been taught to despise individualism, capitalism, and the bourgeoisie.

Quite the contrary to decentralization: I think we are far more likely to see the complete politicization of economic activity coupled with a surveillance state like the world has never seen.

William Lloyd Garrison

Gotta love a patriotic guy who would get up on the banner-bedecked stage with flags flying proudly and burn a copy of the US Constitution at a 4th of July rally. He had his reasons.

I’m not sure of the relationship but I think his wife was my great-great-great-grandmother’s first cousin. Something along those lines. Anyway, it isn’t my fault.

His name was William Lloyd Garrison, and he published a rabble-rousing abolitionist newspaper called The Liberator. At one point some Democrats in Boston lassoed him and dragged him through the streets on the way to tar and featherdom on Boston Common, but the sheriff came to the rescue by arresting Garrison and locking in the pokey. So Democrats’ behavior has improved, if only slightly, since then. They’re working on it tho.

“On July 4, 1854, he publicly burned a copy of the Constitution, condemning it as "a Covenant with Death, an Agreement with Hell," referring to the compromise that had written slavery into the Constitution.”

Now that’s a rabble rouser for you. We could use more Republicans like William Lloyd Garrison. The Democrats took sledge hammers to his printing press, and still he soldiered on. Burned the Constitution at a 4th of July rally. Just imagine.

More here.

Putting An Anti-Undocumented Immigrant Hater In His Place

You apparently don’t understand: the US doesn’t produce enough native-born scofflaws, so we have to import foreign-born scofflaws to make up the shortage.

In order to be sure we aren’t wasting our tax dollars on law-abiding immigrants, we have to be sure we are importing actual scofflaws. The best way to do that is start with people whose very first act, crossing the border, is illegal. That way we know they have the right attitude.

The best kind of scofflaw is one who grew up in a country and culture which understands that rule of law is a scam to prevent dishonest people from getting ahead in life. They get here already understanding that government exists for the purpose of separating the poor from as much of their earnings as possible, and if we lure enough such people into the country with immediate subsidies, they will overwhelm the outdated rule of law attitudes of the local Americans and law-abiding immigrants who bothered to get green cards.

You gotta get with the program or else we will never join the poverty stricken countries which rightfully dominate the world.

Look at California: those people understand the importance of having no respect for the rule of law, and it shows up in the results.

In barely a generation they have gone from an exemplar of law-abiding Western Civilization middle class prosperity right back to noble Third World ultra-stratified poverty stricken masses with a tiny group of stunningly rich on the coast.

You need to understand that we can make the same achievement, but only if we put our minds to it, and repudiate lawful behavior. We need more scofflaws to show us the way. Almost a third of prisoners are Scofflaw-Americans. Well, actually Scofflaw-Hondurans, Scofflaw-Mexicans, Scofflaw-Guatemalans, and so forth. The real shortage today may actually be Scofflaw-Iranians and Scofflaw-Arabs, and people like you with your negative attitudes toward the Constitutional right of hostile foreigners to come here at will is a large part of the problem.

As our revered Senator Mazie Hirono said: “Just shut up.” Learn your place in society. You aren’t here to tell people like Maizie that you are dissatisfied with her policies. Your place is to ‘just shut up’. Or else.

And stop being so hide bound: pay your local legislators a few bucks under the table now and then when you need something done. Just like in Third World countries. Working together, we can do it!

18 U.S. Code § 241 - Conspiracy Against Rights

Let's see Donald Trump start vigorously enforcing "18 U.S. Code § 241 - Conspiracy against rights: If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same...

They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section...they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death." https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/241

Start with the DC City Council and Mayor for their gun control laws. Move on from there.

8 U.S. Code § 1182 - Inadmissible aliens

Yes, President Trump DOES have the legal authority to stop people coming in from other countries. Any people, all people, any country, all countries.

That pesky 8 U.S. Code § 1182 - Inadmissible aliens
"(f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President.
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. Whenever the Attorney General finds that a commercial airline has failed to comply with regulations of the Attorney General relating to requirements of airlines for the detection of fraudulent documents used by passengers traveling to the United States (including the training of personnel in such detection), the Attorney General may suspend the entry of some or all aliens transported to the United States by such airline."
This is not a new law: It was enacted in 1952. IIRC, Jimmy Carter used pesky 8 U.S. Code § 1182 (f) to prohibit the entry of certain Iranians aka "any class of aliens", and to track down some lranians aka "any class of aliens" already here legally and deport them.

Source

Will Progressives Re-think Their Struggle For Greater Federal Power?

I doubt it: Greater federal power is what progressives are for.

Several years ago -back in 2013, in fact- I started asking lovers of gun bans, particularly AR-type guns, who would contemptuously dismiss any claim for need for Americans to be armed as the ravings of the lunatic Right: "Would any sane German in 1913 have said it was even possible that within the remaining lifetime of an already middle-aged German, the German government, government of one of the most educationally, philosophically, and industrially advanced countries on Earth, would build extermination factories and run over 6,000,000 innocent people through them?"

Yet that is exactly what happened. It took only 25 years to descend from the pinnacles of European culture into the Holocaust.

I was interested to find that nearly all responded with "That cannot happen here, because THIS IS AMERICA!" Apparently the phrase "This is America" is a magic talisman against evil, even among those who like to harp on the evils that America has participated in, harped in some cases to the point that one might think they considered America the rightful predecessor and inheritor of Naziism.

Yes, chanting 'THIS IS AMERICA' will surely protect us forever from the all powerful state which has surveillance drones, satellite surveillance, GPS enabled cell phones, GPS enabled automobiles, self-driving automobiles which might someday be hacked by federal law to deliver us to the appropriate authorities, NSA recording all email and telephone calls' meta-data in the world (is it still only the meta-data? Was it ever? If so, must it remain so limited?), recording of all financial transactions involving a check, credit, or debit card -at the same time we are moving away from the financial privacy of cash, and $100 bills with less buying power than a $20 bill in 1973-, military armored vehicles distributed to police forces great and small, a political party already with a demonstrated history of claiming to the Supreme Court that the 1st Amendment allows criminalization of a movie criticizing a politician during an election campaign? And claims that the government could ban any such book as well? (If you doubt that, read about "Citizens United", for the Administration did in fact make the claim in oral arguments that they could ban a book criticizing Hillary Clinton, just as the movie criticized her.)

Will Progressives re-think their commitment to ever greater federal power? I doubt it, because ever greater federal power is exactly what Progressives want.

But of course, a Holocaust can't happen here because THIS IS AMERICA.

My Proposed Constitutional Amendment

Frankly, I think that high government officials who claim the right to simply 're-interpret' Constitutional provisions out of existence should get fair trials for treason, followed by imprisonment or swift and public hangings, but that is unlikely to happen. Don't like the Constitution as it stands: amend it. Don't think you can get that done? Tough beans.

I'd approve this proposed Constitutional Amendment, which I wrote:

"Any legislator voting into law a bill later found not constitutionally authorized, shall be imprisoned not less than one year, nor more than five. Any legislator voting in favor of a law later found to be Constitutionally prohibited shall be imprisoned for not less than five years nor more than twenty. Any executive signing into law any such bill shall suffer the same penalty. (Hi, George Bush of McCain-Feingold) Sentences for multiple offenses shall run consecutively. These penalties shall apply to federal, state, county and municipal legislators and executives. Violators shall be exempt from pardon.

A defense against the charge of assault or murder of a public official shall consist of proof the legislator or executive voted for or signed into law a Constitutionally prohibited bill."

Put THAT into the Constitution and the SOBs will pay attention to their responsibilities. No personal costs: No respect. Would it paralyze the governments at every level? I hope so: that is it's purpose. Don't worry: you know what chance of passage it has.

Donald Trump' Unredeemable Deplorables Are Getting Very, Very Angry

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong: ""The emergence of Donald Trump as a political force reflects a mood of growing discontent about immigration, globalization and the distribution of wealth," write analysts at Fathom Consulting".

Trump support is about discontent with illegal immigrants, illegal immigrants getting massive subsidies with taxpayers' tax money, illegal immigrants undercutting wages commanded by legal immigrants and low/no skilled Americans alike, a perception that our leaders sold out entire workforces with trade deals designed to pour money into the correct people's undeserving pockets, and political direction of wealth to the correct people ie big political donors at the expense of the people who have earned that money in the marketplace.

Can't sell your obviously superior product for $35 because your century old competitors sell their inferior product for 86 cents? Get the federal government to ban your competitors' products. Trump support is a result of the politicization of every aspect of life by Republicans and Democrats alike: Refuse a cake order at your baker: Face bankruptcy. Refuse a photography job? Bankruptcy. Believe that people with two X chromosomes are female and people with a Y chromosome are male? The federal government is coming for you just as they have already come for others. You will submit to the dictates of your obvious superiors or be bankrupted and jailed because you are too stupid, ignorant, and smelly to be allowed to run your own lives, peasants.

THAT is why Trump has supporters, and if "analysts" are so removed from reality that they blame racism, sexism, and xenophobia for resentment at being bullied and fleeced by sniggering elites, we shall continue seeing more of the same until some non-trivial part of the people who own 300,000,000 guns may just decide that since the elites have openly torn up the social contract, that contract no longer applies to them either.

Like the peasants or despise them, Americans have spent the last decade arming like it is 1775, and if one thing is clear, they hold both major political parties in the same contempt in which the parties hold them.

A Trump presidency would likely be disastrous, but a Clinton presidency might just bring on an armed revolt. No one in their right mind should look forward to that, but from the sounds of the blithering 'analysts' they don't understand just what thin ice they are dancing on, because they don't even understand they are on ice.

Enormous numbers of people have been screwed by Republican and Democratic Party politicians alike, and Hillary Clinton's response is to call them deplorable and unredeemable. The Republicans and Democrats alike agree with her, and that should be a scary thing indeed because the unredeemable deplorables are getting very, very angry with sniggering elites, and they are very, very heavily armed.

Hold the unredeemable deplorables in all the contempt you like, but understand that when enough of them decide that politicians are too corrupt to be removed by the peaceful political process, there are 300,000,000 guns with which to do the job, and that can only end in calamity for all of us. Piss in an armed mob's face at your own sniggering risk.

PS: Agree with this ICE official or not, you ought to be able to recognize why such information angers the peasants.

"...the Constitution bull shit."

Excerpts from a 'conversation' I had two or three weeks ago with an East Coast gun dealer & duck hunter who supported a MoveOn.org petition to ban 'assault rifles'. I had responded with FBI statistics showing a 5 year average of 306 people per year being murdered with all rifles together (there is no data on how many are murdered with assault rifles). I provided a link to the FBI data, and said that there are several million ARs in the country, virtually none are used in crime, and they have many other uses, including target shooting, plinking, home and business defense, and hunting.

Gun Store Owner: I am going to keep this simple. If you need an assault weapon to hunt, you should stop now. I collect, shoot and hunt with guns, but I'm not going to war. ...Finally, get off the Constitution bull shit. That's the grand right wing cover story for "I'll do what I want."

Me: Thanks for coming out of the closet.... 'the Constitution bull shit" : spoken like a true modern Democrat. ...Thanks again for declaring your position on constitutionally empowered and limited government.

Gun Store Owner: I've been out of the closet for a long time just waiting for people like you to show your vast ignorance. Hide behind your guns and call for your Constitutional rights. You are definitely from fairy tale land. And I'm glad you're voting for Trump (I had never mentioned Trump.); I'm sure you would have voted for Hitler and more law and order. Why don't you just start shooting now. You're clearly salivating over the use of an assault weapon.

Me:Speaking of ignorance, though, Hitler was in fact a socialist who was fervently in favor of prohibiting gun ownership by the Politically Incorrect. Apparently you missed those points in history class, as well as the results for the Politically incorrect who submitted loyally to the laws. Since Hitler was a man of the Left, his politics, genocide aside, were entirely in tune with those of today's Democrats. I am libertarian, so don't try tarring me with fondness for your ideological brothers: the German, Italian, and Spanish fascists of the 1920-1945 period were on your side of the ledger, not on the side of liberty. Since you seem to have the sense not to revere the more extreme members of your side, perhaps you would trouble to explain why you believe that their ideological descendants should have all the assault rifles, while the populace should be imprisoned for having any. If you think a President Trump would be in Hitler's camp, why do you want the Fed's and cops to be the only people with ARs? "Trump= Hitler/Only government should have ARs" is a strange pairing to me.

Gun Store Owner: You clearly don't know the difference between Socialism and Hitler's "National Socialism." You missed that class. Still salivating? Oh, and "Libertarian" means you can vote for Trump but not declare allegiance. We're done here.

So, if one disagrees with the pro-ban crowd, one is not merely a Trump supporter but a Hitler supporter who salivates at the idea of shooting people. This from a gun dealer/duck hunter.

Of course, duck hunters have something of a reputation for having no respect for other gun owners' rights. I was a bit taken aback by a gun dealer referring to the Constitution as 'bull shit', though.

The Presidential Election

I still haven't decided who to vote for.

I was planning on a syphilitic goat, but it occurred to me that drafting Nicolas Maduro might get things over sooner: No toilet paper, no refrigerators working because there is power only two days a week, but that is OK because there is no food to put in them, raids and trashing of newspaper offices, and even the fleets of 747s flying in inflationary currency from Europe have stopped because the printers don't trust Maduro to pay them with REAL money.

I grant that Hillary would make a decent stand in for either, especially now that she has actually gone on record explicitly calling for a constitutional amendment to allow prosecuting people who criticize politicians.

On the other hand, there is no reason in Hawaii to vote: The Democrat will win.

Worst political class since 1855, and we know where that took us.

I am a little surprised that even with Sanders' and Trump's popularity, the leaders in both parties seem utterly unaware of just how incredibly angry average people are with them. Given the level of political education in US high schools and colleges, I have ever less trouble believing we will eventually respond to overweening politicians and their bureaucrats with an even more totalitarian leader. No matter how incompetent, no matter how corrupt politicians and their acolytes prove themselves to be, the public response is to demand they have ever more power to abuse.

Hillary will probably win, she may get her amendment, then the incumbent politicians will set up criteria for deciding which groups are 'legitimate' news organizations exempt from the ban on criticizing incumbent politicians, and all which apply for that exemption will be scrutinized for political subservience. Those like the Tea Party will be denied news licenses, and if any accidentally receive one, it can be revoked.

Just like any proper banana republic.

Saludad a nuestro Líder Suprema!

There Was A Reason We Seceded From Britain...

...and there still is.

Pam Geller, if you don't recall, organized the Mohammed Cartoons show in Garland, TX, at which Muslim murderers arrived to slaughter the crowd, only to be gunned down by security.

It didn't get nearly the news play which was accorded far less important events.


Secretary of State Kerry believes mass murders by Muslims, such as in Paris, have a certain "legitimacy" because they are offended by cartoons. This, of course, may be extended to those who cut off Christians' heads and sell Christian girls into sex slavery. Christians who protest are anti-Muslim bigots.

But we already knew that.


http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/18/geller-the-nation-that-gave-the-world-the-magna-carta-is-dead/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+breitbart+%28Breitbart+News%29

Leftie Attack Bernie Sanders For Insufficient Authoritarianism On Gun Control

Slate's Mark Joseph Stern reveals some of the apparently drug addled attitudes which pass for profound thought amongst gun haters.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders...supported the most odious NRA–backed law in recent memory—one that may block Sandy Hook families from winning a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the gun used to massacre their children....

...As a senator, Sanders supported bills to allow firearms in checked bags on Amtrak trains...

Such utter irresponsibility of a government which allows people of a supposedly free country to put guns in their checked baggage. Just like on planes. Amazing.

Sanders’ vote for a different kind of pro-gun bill is more puzzling—and profoundly disturbing. In 2005, a Republican-dominated Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). This law doesn’t protect gun owners; it protects gun manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers. The PLCAA was the No. 1 legislative priority of the National Rifle Association for years, because it shields gun makers and dealers from most liability when their firearms are used criminally. It is one of the most noxious pieces of pro-gun legislation ever passed. And Bernie Sanders voted for it.

The Horror! This is like preventing the victims of truck bombings from suing Toyota. "But those trucks are designed specifically for carrying large loads, and it was utterly predictable that someone would fill one with explosives and use it to kill masses of people. Let's bankrupt Toyota."

Before the PLCAA, most states imposed some form of tort liability on gun makers and sellers. If a gun manufacturer made an assault rifle that could slaughter dozens of people in a few seconds, for instance, one of its victims might sue the company for negligently making a gun that could foreseeably be used for mass murder.

Just like that Toyota. Mr. Stern also studiously ignores the demonstrable fact that shooting people is not always a bad thing. Shooting the two jihadi would-be mass murderers in Texas a couple days ago was unequivocally a good thing. Shooting forcible rapists is unequivocally a good thing. There are a lot of people who engage in acts which unequivocally makes them proper targets for shooting.

Perhaps when confronted with murder by someone who dislikes him for his obvious white male privilege, Mr Stern prefers to open a dialog with the gentlemen as they bash his head in. I'd rather just shoot them.

From the comments: "Personal responsibility is a slippery slope. If you start blaming murderers for murders, next thing you know, you will start expecting people to provide their own food, shelter, and clothing. "

Did Boehner Ever Intend To Stop Obama's Amnesty For Illegals?

I doubt it: I think John Boehner's whole patter was a scam from the get-go.

I think Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) got it about right when he said of the Republican leadership's cave to Il Duce Obama on amnesty for lawbreakers:

This isn’t just an action that has passed through this body that I disagree with. This is an unlawful, unconstitutional order given by the President of the United States to his administration. This action deliberately sabotages our laws, allowing individuals who Congress has expressly mandated be expelled from our nation to stay, to live as citizens, and to hold jobs.

We don't have enough scofflaws in the US: We must attract more from other countries. Law abiding, low-skilled and unskilled American workers make too much money: We must undercut their earning power by bringing in more unskilled scofflaws.

Federal Ban On Interstate Transfers Of Firearms Unconstitutional

This may well be appealed, but if it stands, it will be a meaningful improvement for would-be handgun buyers. United States District Judge Reed O'Connor ( Northern District Of Texas, Fort Worth Division) has struck down the federal ban of transfers of handguns by Federal Firearms License holders to out of state residents, under both the 2nd Amendment and the 5th Amendment:

the Court concludes that Defendants have not shown that the federal interstate handgun transfer ban is narrowly tailored to be the least restrictive means of achieving the Government’s goals under current law. The federal interstate handgun transfer ban is therefore unconstitutional on its face.

The Court further finds, in the alternative, the federal interstate handgun transfer ban is unconstitutional when applied to the facts of this case....

... the Court finds that the federal interstate handgun transfer ban also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution...

...Accordingly, the Court DECLARES that 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(3), 18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(3), and 27 C.F.R. § 478.99(a) are UNCONSTITUTIONAL, and Defendants are ENJOINED from enforcing these provisions.

The 28 page PDF is here. As a practical matter, this will increase competition in states like Hawaii which have few gun dealers, and dramatically cut transfer costs for those who might want to buy a handgun while traveling in another state.

Obama’s Historical Legacy

Charles Kesler, editor of the Claremont Review of Books, one of 53 historians interviewed by the New York Magazine:

what...will matter...to future historians? The manner of Obamacare’s passage told the story—a party-line vote, reeking of special-interest side deals, on an unpopular, indigestible, multi-thousand-page love letter to bureaucracy, crudely packaged as a reconciliation bill to avoid filibuster, and falsely sold, in read-my-lips promises that would come back to haunt Obama, as the most conservative possible approach to health-care reform. This was liberalism à outrance—its last desperate surge to win at any cost what it could no longer even imagine winning honestly and on the merits.

Why Americans Have Weapons Instead of Guns

I just read a review of a new variant of the AR-15 rifle, which was designed to be legal in all fifty states. It sounds like an interesting response to a bewildering thicket of state level regulations, all of which I believe are prohibited by the Constitution. Big deal: my opinion won't change things.

One of the commentors objected to another's use of the term 'weapon' rather than calling it a gun.

My response:

"should NEVER ever be referred to as weapons(.) they are guns or firearms(,) weapons are what police and military use....we cause problems on ourselves by referring to our gun as weapons"

You have a legitimate point, but I do disagree with it.

My guns are weapons. Every last one of them, from a Belgian Browning 20 gauge A-5, through a Remington pump .22 Model 12A to Mini14s and S&W J-frames, and 1911s.

The Constitution protects arms. Not goose guns, not air rifles, not deer guns, not target pistols, except at they contribute to use and familiarity with military grade weapons or can substitute for them. The Constitution protects militia grade arms precisely for the purpose of killing people. That is demonstrated without any doubt by the 2nd Amendment's explicit tying of the right to keep and bear arms to a well trained militia. The writings of the Founders, published concurrently with the ratification debates and available today, make explicit the role of arms which are protected: they are explicitly for killing tyrants, foreign or domestic.

Anti-gunners freak at the idea, especially at the 'domestic' aspects as they inaccurately associate 'tyrants' with 'politicians', but weapons ownership, use, and the bearing of them should not be controversial in an age where domestic terrorists and ordinary criminals alike can strike anywhere, any time, and the police are incapable of being everywhere, all the time, to protect us.

That it is controversial is in part our fault: For decades we let the anti-gunners frame the debate. It is time to frame that debate ourselves, and force them to respond to us instead of us to them. We can do so only by using terms like 'weapons' and 'shooting people who need shooting right now', and defending those concepts as good and proper. If more people than the LEO at the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris had been armed, more might well have survived: Killing murderous assailants is exactly what weapons are for, and that is a good thing. If the observer who videod the killing of the Paris LEO on the sidewalk had had a Mini-14 or AKM at hand instead of a video camera, the LEO might well have been killed anyway, but the murderers might have been stopped right there. They are exactly the kind of domestic tyrants the unorganized militia has a chance of stopping. By shooting them with weapons.

The 2nd Amendment protects 'arms', not just guns, but arms, for the purpose of arming the militia, including the 'unorganized militia', which means us: civilians such as those brave passengers aboard United Flight 93, who gave their lives defending us against the Islamists on 9-11. That means that not only are guns protected, but so are all other militia usable weapons: knives, including bowies, bayonets, and switchblades, cudgels, including billy clubs, and metal or plastic knuckles. Laws prohibiting them are explicitly prohibited by the Constitution. That such laws exist and are widespread today is only evidence of our refusal to submit to the Constitution. Rather than submit, even by amending it, we have preferred to pretend that it does not mean what it clearly says. That is our shame.

The Constitution protects weapons which carry a single round, like the Liberator .45 of the Second World War, and it protects AKMs, AR-15s, and M-16s and their 20 & 30 round magazines. It protects sniper rifles and target rifles which may be used by the unorganized militia as sniper rifles. It protects submachine guns and full auto rifles ie actual assault rifles. The Constitution protects all of them for the explicit purpose of shooting those who would do us and our country harm.

Given that a number of the Founders owned ships with cannons, and given that the Constitution explicitly provides for issuing letters of marque and reprisal to privately owned ships, I expect that a plausible argument could be made that the Constitution also protects crew served weapons such as belt fed machine guns and at least light artillery.

We are on firm ground when we say that the Constitution protects military grade arms, and great big scary ones at that. If we refuse to make that point, the other side is on the way to victory.

Instead of allowing the anti-weapons crowd to cow us into refusing to defend weapons ownership, I prefer to make them confront our issue head on: The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to protect our ability to arm ourselves against tyrants, foreign and domestic. Those tyrants may be common criminals or politically/religiously inspired criminals such as disciples of al Qaeda, ISIS/ISIL, AQAP, and others. In any case, when they strike, the police are almost sure not to be there. The victims are always there, and only armed victims, willing to shoot them with weapons they bear, are capable of shooting people who desperately need to be shot.

The original article, "50 STATE LEGAL AR-15 – ARES DEFENSE SCR" by Sam Trisler in'Guns America', is here.

Obama and the Constitution

William A. Jacobson, clinical professor at Cornell Law School:

Obama announced executive action to extend legalization for up to 5 million more immigrants, focusing on those who were in the country illegally but whose children were U.S. citizens by virtue of their birth here. Nearly two dozen times in the past Obama had stated publicly that he could not constitutionally undertake such actions, but he did it anyway.

This immigration end-run creates a class of people who effectively are exempt from the immigration laws, without Congress ever having recognized such an exemption. It is not prosecutorial discretion but a usurpation of legislative power.

Obama's attitude seems to be "I don't need no steenkin' Constitution."

There also have been dozens of unilateral actions as to Obamacare legislative requirements, including individual and employer mandate delays, and waivers of certain fees for unions. Of particular note, the IRS passed rules allowing purchasers on the federal exchanges to obtain subsidies the legislation reserves for state exchanges.

The Constitution is soooo 18th century.

As to the environment, EPA regulatory authority has been used expansively to scale-back the coal industry and shutter coal burning power plants. Those regulations have cost Democrats politically in states like West Virginia and Kentucky, but the damage to the coal industry may be irreversible.

Well, now, that was the point, wasn't it? Obama is willing to spend political capital in order to fundamentally transform America, and he is succeeding.

What ought to scare his supporters: Once he has continued the trend to a government of men instead of laws, the Other Side can and probably will do the same thing, in ways which may be far more egregious, and far from benign to Democrats. Execute American citizens overseas? Why not here as well? Use the IRS to harass Tea Partiers? Why not ramp that up and go for wholesale prosecutions of Democratic politicians? Cyber-spying on opponents? Well, that can be used for all sorts of things.

Anyone who thinks that the Republicans will never again control all three branches of government, and that they will feel restrained by the Constitution in ways the Democrats clearly do not, is naive. Those who demand to rule by decree shall eventually find out what it is like to be ruled by decree. When the Democrats hold, as they have with great success for decades, that the 2nd Amendment's "shall not be infringed" clearly means "of course we can make it a felony", imagine what government could do by applying that attitude toward the 1st Amendment and all of the others as well.

As the saying goes, "Payback is a bitch", and the Democrats are begging with all their hearts, and minds, and souls for payback. The whole country will be the worse for it.

Obama, Refusal to Enforce the Law, and the Long Game

J. Christian Adams :

...Obama wants millions of foreigners to remain in the United States. He told us exactly why in 2008: he aims to “fundamentally transform” America.

One way to transform America is to import populations with cultural and legal traditions foreign to American traditions. Central and South America has a cultural tradition of instability in government, of graft, corruption, and civil strife. People from those countries bring an expectation that the systems are rigged against them, because oftentimes they are.

Obama wants to transform America by transforming who Americans are.

He told us what he wanted to do. Few believed he meant it.

My inclination: The first act of the next Congress should be to impeach Obama.

Impeachment is a political, not legal, act. He needs to be removed from power as surely as Richard Nixon was, and as surely as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his entire Supreme Court should have been.

"the stupidity of the American voter...was really, really critical for the thing to pass."

Thus spake Jonathan Gruber, an architect of ObamaCare.

We had to deceive the public in order to get the law enacted.



I note on Drudge today that Obama is "urging" the FCC to simply "assert" control over the Internet, no consultation with Congress, much less legislation, required. The Border Patrol appears to be disarming their agents in the guise of maikng their weapons safer, but forgetting to return them.

So tell me again: Exactly why is Obama not continuing the long standing Presidential drift toward dictatorship?

And just why shouldn't the Congress impeach him for it?

Even if they don't get a conviction, they should be making the case he is, by subverting the Constitution, committing treason. Worse case scenario is he will be tied up for the rest of his term.

Unless, of course, he sends the Secret Service to arrest his opponents. Then the Dems would have no recourse save voting for impeachment.

UPDATE: More here. We are children, who must be lied to by our Mommies and Daddies for our own good. They know what is best for us, incompetent descendants of free Americans, and we must not pretend to be able to make our own decisions, accept the consequences good and bad, and rule our own lives. We are children to be taken care of, forever.

Are we at war with Oceania today? Ah, 'tis not for us to ask, but ours to be told.