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.

What would happen if the police stopped responding?

I wonder what would happen if Chicago government refused to remove bodies from the streets, under a ‘You made the mess, you clean it up’ policy.

Just leave them. June, July, August... It would get ugly in a day or two, and stay ugly. I know, it’s a sick, dark, fantasy which won’t come about, but just what would happen?

I don’t know what can be done in the short run to reduce the violent crime rate in places like Chicago. Judging from news reports and commentary, as I don’t live in such an area, the politicians who represent those districts seem to believe the major problem is homicidally racist cops who leave home in the morning hoping for an excuse to murder some innocent minorities.

If they really believe that, then they should be calling for the police to stop servicing those area. Just stay out. Let the neighborhoods take care of their own issues. It actually would be an interesting experiment, but I think that in order to have any hope of a positive outcome (at least from a non-criminal perspective) one would have to allow non-criminals to arm themselves.

My guess is that in that scenario, the seriously bad guys wouldn’t last long. I lived in Milwaukee back during the crack wars. There was an interesting incident which kind of fits the scenario, though of course the police did intervene:

A guy complained several times to the police that crack dealers were operating on the sidewalk in front of his house. Broad daylight. Seriously degrading life for decent ie non-criminal people in the neighborhood.

Nothing happened. No arrests, no imprisonments, crack dealers just kept dealing crack in front of his house. For weeks, maybe months. It was a long time ago and I’m fuzzy on that.

So one day the guy decided he had had enough of crack dealers in front of his house and an unresponsive government. He stuck a 12 gauge shotgun out the window and ended that crack dealer’s career.

Then of course the police showed up.

So, suppose they didn’t show up anymore, and all the decent people knew they wouldn’t?

As a moral issue, the government has no legitimate powers which the People have not delegated to it. If the government refuses to exercise those powers in a responsible manner, then the People have a right to take back those powers. So, if government has a legitimate power to protect individuals and neighborhoods from violent criminals, it is only because the people, having that same right, have delegated it to government.

Now, ideally, that would mean going through the peaceful political process, but in real life that process has collapsed in places like Chicago. So, since government has clearly decided they aren’t willing to exercise their powers, maybe the decent people who have to put up with the reality of criminals openly operating could simply take back the powers delegated and do the job themselves.

I have trouble thinking that would be any bloodier or sicker or more immoral than the system we have today in parts of Chicago, Los Angeles, or Baltimore. Right now it looks to me that for practical purposes the government is on the side of the violent criminals. Government disarms all the potential victims but lets the criminals run free in the Disarmed Victim Zones the government created.

How sick a system is that?

If We Regulated Guns and Shooters Like Cars and Drivers

I replied to a fellow who thinks we should regulate guns and gun owners like cars and drivers. As in vastly increasing regulation. My response:

I'm in favor of regulating guns, ammo, and accessories like cars and drivers.

If we did, there would be no federal or state license required to manufacture or deal guns or ammo.

A simple written and practical test would get everyone 16 or over a license to operate aka carry in public, and that license would be good in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. No license or permission would be required to acquire a gun, whether one was a licensed user or not, nor would a user's license be required to operate a gun on private property.

One could transport an unloaded gun on public streets without a license, just as one can trailer or tow a car. No registration or fees would be levied on guns as long as they were kept on private property, or transported unloaded on public property.

If ammunition was for use on private property, there would be no excise tax, just as there is none on agricultural use of gasoline.

There would be no taxes or background checks or prohibitions of fully automatic weapons, just as there are none on fully automatic transmissions.

There would be no prohibition of gun types or calibers, just as there are none on engines sizes. There would be no regulation or prohibition of large capacity magazines, as there are none in gas tanks.

There would be no taxes other than standard sales taxes, nor background checks, nor prohibitions of mufflers aka sound suppressors aka silencers.

With a license to carry aka operate in public and a credit card, anyone could walk into a gun rental company and walk out with any gun she pleased and operate that gun in public.

Getting a gun operators license would be a rite of passage for the vast majority of teenagers.

People would need no licenses to make their own guns, even if they planned to sell them.

So yeah: I agree with you. We should regulate guns and gunners like cars and drivers.

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.

The Good Old Days of Carrying Guns On Airplanes

Back in the 1960s it was not all that unusual for people going hunting to carry long guns in soft cases right into a plane. Hard cases hardly existed, except for some leather ones, because no one in his right mind would put a gun in checked luggage: too big a chance of damage. While few people could get a permit to carry a handgun in those days, those who had a revolver or pistol in their briefcase would never have been challenged, either, because no one looked. Or cared.

I remember as a kid going through General Mitchell Field in Milwaukee with my Dad and a pair of Browning A-5 semi-auto shotguns in soft cases. After checking in we went up the escalator to the concourse, where a couple very polite gentlemen in grey suits buttonholed us and asked if they could speak to us. Asked when our flight left, looked at our tickets, then sent us on our way with "Have a great hunt!"

We continued through the concourse and onto the plane. The very nice stewardess, knowing they would not fit in the overhead hat racks, took them and put them in the coat closet until we got off at the destination. We then walked off the plane and through the concourse with our shotguns. Repeat on return home, with dead ducks in our luggage.

It turned out that LBJ was coming in an hour or so after our plane departed. No sweat at all, which in retrospect is interesting, given how LBJ happened to be President in the first place.

My guess is that if we went back to that there would be surprisingly few incidents.

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.

"...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.

Barack Obama: Manchurian Candidate

Once upon a time I accepted that, as Barack Obama's supporters claimed, he was exceptionally bright, highly educated, highly informed, and that I merely disagreed to a polar degree with almost everything he said.

Given that I still accept he is bright, highly educated, and well-informed, I cannot cut him any slack for being stupid or ignorant, but given his actions over more than 7 years, I now accept that he is and always has been working for the other side.

Red Diaper Baby? Yes.
Had a Communist Party of Hawaii mentor in high school? Yes.
Introduced to the political community by bomb building revolutionary communists? Yes.
Spent 20 years in the church of a man who shouts "God DAMN America"? Yes.
Describes his grandmother as "a typical white person"? Yes.
Before he has any reliable information, claims "The police acted stupidly"? Yes.
Told all American entrepreneurs: "You didn't build that"? Yes.
Suggested we would be a better country if Henry Ford through Bill Gates had quit work when they had amassed several million dollars, and devoted their lives to community organizing? Yes.
Turned Iraq over to ISIS? Yes.
Allowed ISIS to take over large swaths of Syria and Libya? Yes.
Allowed ISIS to capture enormous quantities of US military gear? Yes.
Condemns Christians for the Crusades? Yes.
Demands we allow ever more Muslims into the country? Yes.
Sent guns to the Mexican Drug Cartel, some at taxpayer expense? Yes.
Turned over $150 billion to the world's biggest sponsor of terrorism? Yes.
Looks at Muslim Supremacist slaughter across the country and demands we disarm all potential victims? Yes.

What does it take to break through our denial of what the man is: An anti-American, pro-Islamist, Manchurian Candidate?

Barack Obama is working for the other side.

Bernie Sanders' Daily News Interview

I've read several times that Bernie Sanders' Daily News interview was a disaster for Sanders. I disagree only because almost no one will read it.

Bernie Sanders' depth of ignorance on his own key issues is abyssal.

His vague responses to the questions about the banking industry are downright Trumpian: We will hire the best people to figure that out. The banks must have broken laws, I have no idea which laws they broke but they must have broken them. I know it. So we would prosecute them. And break them up. I don't know how we would do that, or what they would look like afterwards, but they are destroying America so we would break them up. It's fair.

One of Bernie Sanders' points on guns, which he should know something about since it is a major issue with Democrats:

"What we do is do away with the straw man provision, where you can buy a gun legally and then sell it to somebody who's a criminal. "

This is the kind of ignorance of existing law which is worthy of a professional gun banner. It is a felony to buy a gun for the purpose of selling it to a prohibited person. If a person who is allowed to buy a gun does so for the purpose of selling or giving it to a felon, the purchase itself is not legal: It is already a felony.

So Bernie thinks that straw man purchases are legal, when they are already a federal felony. Selling it to a felon is a separate felony. The felon taking possession is a separate felony. Providing ammunition to a felon is a separate felony The felon possessing ammunition is a separate felony. Bernie, however, apparently thinks that buying guns and ammunition for the purpose of providing them to prohibited persons is perfectly legal under "the straw man provision"...and probably because of the evil influence of The Protocols of the Elders of the NRA.

If this guy's supporters stay politically engaged, I look forward to the US achieving the economic fairness and prosperity of Venezuela: No gas, no toilet paper, shutting down all businesses for a day a week because there is no electricity, bread lines, and raids on newspaper offices.

Quite lengthy, and damning if anyone reads it: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/transcript-bernie-sanders-meets-news-editorial-board-article-1.2588306

Much shorter is the paper's commentary about the interview: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/james-kirchick-bernie-stoner-college-roommate-article-1.2591052

"But ask him a real question? Nine times out of 10, the wind-up doll has no answer. When Sanders did occasionally muster coherent answers to questions, he was usually wrong."

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. "

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.

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.

Alice In Wonderland Comes To Beloit, Wisconsin

Invite the police to search your house for guns? Gee, of course. It's the New American Way:

Police in Beloit are launching a new effort to reduce gun violence in which they're asking city residents to volunteer to have police search their homes for guns.
Police Chief Norm Jacobs said he doesn't expect the phone to be ringing off the hook with requests for police to search their homes. He nevertheless hopes the program will encourage people to think about gun violence as an infectious disease like Ebola, and a home inspection like a vaccine to help build up the city's immune system.

"Gun violence is as serious as the Ebola virus is being represented in the media, and we should fight it using the tools that we've learned from our health providers,” he said.

I wonder how Mom will feel when the cops find an unregistered full auto assault bong in the attic.

New Hampshire Democrat on Libertarians in NH

The Free State Movement seems to be alive and well in New Hampshire, and some Democrats are not amused:

...not everyone in New Hampshire is welcoming the libertarians with open arms.

Cynthia Chase, a Democrat member of the state legislature, described them as “the biggest threat the state is facing today” and “wolves in sheep’s clothing”.

In a progressive blog she wrote: “There is, legally, nothing we can do to prevent them from moving here to take over the state, which is their openly stated goal.

“In this country you can move anywhere you choose and they have that same right.

“What we can do is to make the environment here so unwelcoming that some will choose not to come, and some may actually leave.”

How's that Valuing Diversity stuff working for you, Cynthia?

Old Guy With Gun Whups Young Guys With Guns

Good for him. I suspect it will be the last time these armed criminals decide that people in an Internet cafe are safe prey.



As one of the criminals was quoted later as saying: "It doesn't feel good. It makes you think about life's decisions, and how you should live your life."

One should think about decisions to threaten innocent people with murder.

Yes, this is a couple years old, but still fresh.

Another Fast & Furious Gun Surfaces: Two Wounded In Phoenix

Fast & Furious: The gift which keeps on killing, or, at least in this instance, wounding. Two people in Phoenix have been shot with a Fast & Furious weapon, and Eric Holder et al apparently have been concealing that information since July of 2013.

Grassley and Issa say Obama’s executive privilege claim is invalid because he is asserting the lower of two forms of privilege, deliberative process privilege rather than the higher form of presidential communications privilege. If he asserted the latter higher form, Obama would be admitting that either he or his top deputies knew of details of Operation Fast and Furious of which he and his senior advisers have vigorously denied knowledge—and the lower form of privilege, Grassley and Issa have noted, is considered immediately invalid with even the suspicion of government wrongdoing. In Fast and Furious, Obama, Holder, and the rest of the Obama administration have admitted there was not only a suspicion of government wrongdoing, but that government wrongdoing actually occurred.

Holder and Obama continue to stonewall the investigation into crimes committed with Fast & Furious guns:

That rifle was purchased by the Fast and Furious straw purchaser. What’s perhaps most interesting about this is that Grassley and Issa noted in their letter to Cole that the Obama administration is continuing to withhold from Congress information about crimes in which Fast and Furious guns were used.

Jerry Ford issued a pardon to Richard Nixon to spare the country the agony of a criminal trial and the spectacle of a president incarcerated. I think in hindsight that he made a mistake: The spectacle of an imprisoned President would have served as a great example to Nixon's successors. Today, Presidents and Cabinet officials are above prosecution, and that is a very dangerous situation indeed. Far more dangerous to the country than a mere trial and prison time.

Matti Friedman on News Coverage of Israel

Matti Friedman has a long essay on news coverage of the Jewish/Muslim conflict.

The volume of press coverage that results, even when little is going on, gives this conflict a prominence compared to which its actual human toll is absurdly small. In all of 2013, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict claimed 42 lives—that is, roughly the monthly homicide rate in the city of Chicago. Jerusalem, internationally renowned as a city of conflict, had slightly fewer violent deaths per capita last year than Portland, Ore., one of America’s safer cities. In contrast, in three years the Syrian conflict has claimed an estimated 190,000 lives, or about 70,000 more than the number of people who have ever died in the Arab-Israeli conflict since it began a century ago.

News organizations have nonetheless decided that this conflict is more important than, for example, the more than 1,600 women murdered in Pakistan last year (271 after being raped and 193 of them burned alive), the ongoing erasure of Tibet by the Chinese Communist Party, the carnage in Congo (more than 5 million dead as of 2012) or the Central African Republic, and the drug wars in Mexico (death toll between 2006 and 2012: 60,000)

The numbers are odd compared to the relative amount of coverage. Maybe something else is going on.

The Hamas charter, for example, calls not just for Israel’s destruction but for the murder of Jews and blames Jews for engineering the French and Russian revolutions and both world wars; the charter was never mentioned in print when I was at the AP, though Hamas won a Palestinian national election and had become one of the region’s most important players.

Friedman is here referring to Article Seven of the Hamas Covenant, which says that the Day of Judgement shall not occur until the Muslims kill the Jews.

There has been much discussion recently of Hamas attempts to intimidate reporters....as an editor on the AP news desk. During the 2008-2009 Gaza fighting I personally erased a key detail—that Hamas fighters were dressed as civilians and being counted as civilians in the death toll—because of a threat to our reporter in Gaza. (The policy was then, and remains, not to inform readers that the story is censored unless the censorship is Israeli.

So, reporters know that Hamas is committing war crimes by dressing as civilians, but the AP and other "news" organizations refuse to report those crimes, preferring instead to describe them when killed as dead civilians. How charming.

The fact is that Hamas intimidation is largely beside the point because the actions of Palestinians are beside the point: Most reporters in Gaza believe their job is to document violence directed by Israel at Palestinian civilians. That is the essence of the Israel story.

Is that properly described as reporting, or creating propaganda for an organization openly dedicated to genocide?

White people in London and Paris whose parents not long ago had themselves fanned by dark people in the sitting rooms of Rangoon or Algiers condemn Jewish “colonialism.” Americans who live in places called “Manhattan” or “Seattle” condemn Jews for displacing the native people of Palestine. Russian reporters condemn Israel’s brutal military tactics. Belgian reporters condemn Israel’s treatment of Africans.

One must expiate one's sins by condemning others for the same ones.

Understanding what happened in Gaza this summer...requires us to understand what is clear to nearly everyone in the Middle East: The ascendant force in our part of the world is...an empowered strain of Islam that assumes different and sometimes conflicting forms, and that is willing to employ extreme violence in a quest to unite the region under its control and confront the West. Those who grasp this fact will be able to look around and connect the dots.

Islamists see themselves as on the rise, and that gives them strength. The West sees itself as failing, as it well should, and that weakens us. Those of the far left, who have worked so long and so effectively to destroy western self-confidence are still ascendent. Hence the election of an utterly un-vetted leftist hack to the presidency of the United States, and European inability to even contemplate the possibility of halting Muslim immigration lest they be called racist. Islamists have openly declared their intention of re-taking the once conquered lands of Europe, and of doing so by conquest.

When the Night of the Long Knives finally arrives, it will be the people with confidence in their own righteousness who are likely to triumph. You could not pay me enough to live in Europe when that day comes.

DC Wants More Time To Ban Carrying Guns

It is pretty clear that the Capital of the Former Land of the Free will not go gentle into the hell of Constitutional government. They need more time to dream up regulations so draconian that no one will be able to carry a weapon for self defense against their political base.

Gun Control Like Chicago and DC...By George the Third

Funny, this sounds so contemporary:

The British and the Americans agreed that the reimposition of London’s rule in the United States required the prohibition of the firearms business. In 1777, with British victory seemingly within grasp, Colonial Undersecretary William Knox drafted a plan entitled What Is Fit to Be Done with America? To prevent any future rebellions, Knox planned that the Church of England be established as the official religion throughout America; that Parliament have power to tax America domestically (although there were no Americans in Parliament); and that a hereditary aristocracy be created in America. Another part of the plan was that “the Arms of all the People should be taken away . . . nor should any Foundery or manufactuary of Arms, Gunpowder, or Warlike Stores, be ever suffered in America, nor should any Gunpowder, Lead, Arms or Ordnance be imported into it without Licence.”

Democrats: Nouveau Georgians.

More, by Dave Kopel in the Harvard Law Review.

Of course, any subtle and sophisticated Nouveau Georgian thinker understands that "shall not be infringed", properly understood, means "of course we can make it a felony."

"Guns for Yee, But not for Thee...."

PowerLine's John Hinderaker:

A popular politician who represents around one-half of San Francisco, Yee was about to run for Secretary of State when he was arrested for gun running. Specifically, he acted as an intermediary to buy shoulder-fired missiles and automatic weapons from a Muslim terrorist group in the Philippines and import them into the U.S....

...How could the networks resist a story like that?!...

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention–Leland Yee is a Democrat. So no national news organization has any interest in his story. Sorry. It’s on the back pages of the local papers. This is more proof, if it were needed, that the Democratic Party’s news media are not primarily interested in ratings or profits, but in advancing the party’s narrative.

More here, including video.